#i don't think i've ever been to that street

[geekgirl101]

More 8x06 thoughts. Still processing

I've been trying to express my feelings about 8x06 on paper, and there's still so much swirling in my head. So apologies if this is too long and ranty.

The GA isn't happy for a lot of reasons. One was that Tommy did fit with the 118, he was friends with Eddie and Chim. Two: they were happy Buck was in a relationship, and it seemed like (at least in season 7) that he was finally off the hamster wheel. And they like Eddie and Buck's friendship and don't want to see them together. After all the BS takes I've seen from you-know-whos, I can't say I disagree at all.

It's like neither Buck nor the writers have learned anything from past love interests. Tommy is the one with the most potential because of how well he fits, and he clearly has a lot of abandonment issues. Hey, so does Buck. That could have been a great point to explore.

I don't think Buck needs to sleep around to explore himself. But I do think Buck never fully processed anything.

It's wild that Buck and Tommy dated for six months and NEVER had any real conversations about exes? Tommy does strike me as the kind of person who keeps people at arm's length, who maybe doesn't say much about his past unless he has to. He could have also held back because he was letting Buck set the pace. I know Tommy isn't a main character. But they could have done so much more with this and with him. Hopefully its not the end.

The show also did nothing to show Buck's growth in a relationship, aside from the fact that he kissed a boy and liked it.

8x01 showed us that Buck was competent, professional, and mature, and stupidly I was hoping that would extend to his relationship too.

I think Buck has to figure out what he wants out of a relationship, I hope we see more of Buck talking to Josh or Hen and then he and Tommy work on making a relationship that's lasting, honest, and full of love (if we're grudging up Abby, we can continue the red string here and make that nod too)

What also bothers me is they took 3 episodes to build Buck and Tommy and show us that they have chemistry and that Tommy shows up for Buck, they had two more moments where it was clear they were getting to know each other and were solid in season 7.

And then it took them 1 episode to tear it all down without ever showing Buck showing up for Tommy. They were supposed to be getting to know each other. But six months in, it's like they didn't even know each other at all... or actually. It's like Buck didn't know Tommy at all.

I find it frustrating that we got to see so little of them, and most of it was Tommy doing things for Buck, showing up for Buck, complementing Buck, and taking care of Buck. A relationship has to be a two-way street. You show up for me, I show up for you.

And I'm glad Tommy showed up for Buck. Buck deserves love. But so does Tommy. Tommy was clearly looking for love, IDk if he was looking for a family or anything long term. Maybe he was dealing with a bad breakup and Buck was adorable, and he thought, maybe this could be a thing for now, but he ended up falling for him, clearly, and panicked. But I think on some level he was looking for someone to show up for him too, even when things got hard. And maybe this is foreshadowing. I hope it is. But I refuse to get my hopes up about it, or about Buck's love life ever again.

[burningcheese-merchant]

"I'm Sorry" - BurningCheese Short #9

Gonna be traveling somewhere soon, probably won't be back here for a few days. Wanted to leave you all with a story before I go. (I wrote it sometime ago, I've just been waiting for a good time to drop it. I guess now will do haha)

Plan on answering asks and posting BurningCheese kids when I get back (I have almost 100 asks in my inbox and I feel really bad for leaving them there. I'm genuinely sorry to you all, I actually am reading what you send me, I promise I won't leave you hanging forever. I answered a couple today and I'll keep it up soon). In the meantime, eat this short story where we see our favorite couple take an important step together, and Burning Spice take an important step himself

"I'm sorry."

Golden Cheese blinked. "I... Pardon?"

"I'm sorry," Burning Spice said again.

"You're sorry?" she echoed. "Sorry for... what?"

He paused for a long while before he answered. "For Beast-Yeast."

"For Beast-Yeast?" Slowly, she turned to face him, eyeing him critically. "And where is this coming from, exactly?"

"Why does it matter?" Burning Spice asked, keeping his gaze trained on the bustling city far below. "I am sorry. That is all I have to say."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And... what? You think that means anything? You think one, single apology will change the past? You think it's enough to atone for all of your heinous crimes?"

"No."

"Then what audacity is this? Why even say it?"

"Because I want to," he said. "It's as simple as that."

Another long pause, longer than the last, came and went before Golden Cheese spoke up again. "Why should I even believe you when you say such words?" she asked. "What reason do I have to think you're being sincere?"

"Someone such as I saying it at all ought to be reason enough. You think I'd ever utter something so soft and pathetic to anyone else, for any reason? Even under penalty of death?"

"...Hmph."

A third pause came - shorter than the first two, because Golden Cheese couldn't bring herself to wait any longer than that.

"And what makes you think I forgive you? Or that I would ever even consider doing so?"

"You allowed me into your kingdom," he said, still refusing to look at her. "Into your palace, even. Here we stand together, watching your subjects from afar. You snuck me in so no one would see or notice me. Perhaps you don't forgive me at all... but you've let go enough that you've allowed yourself to do this much. Haven't you?"

"I..."

The fourth pause made itself known, hanging over the two of them as they stared down into the busy streets of the Golden Cheese Kingdom. It showed itself out when, at last, Burning Spice turned to look at Golden Cheese.

"I'm sorry," he told her one more time. His voice was soft. Quiet. In his eyes and on his face were emotions that only he himself would know how to read.

Golden Cheese looked right back at him, her eyebrows knit and mouth set in a slight frown. She said nothing, instead only nodding slowly, tentatively - unsure of how to acknowledge him, but willing to do so nevertheless.

When the fifth pause came, it weighed down on them both terribly, though who felt its burden worse was hard to tell. The silence was thick, tense, awkward. Granting cover to all the words Golden Cheese couldn't bring herself to say. Making up for all the words Burning Spice didn't have left to give.

Everlasting, like the city bathed in gold and neon lights waiting beyond the balcony railing and stretching on endlessly into the horizon.

--------------------------------

I will let you all decide for yourselves what led to this moment, and what happened afterwards.

[autistic-beanmonster2]

well i'm about to have an interesting day

[xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx]

pascal and nervous in bert and ernie's sweaters

this was supposed to be a joke post but the demons took hold of me and now it's a fully finished drawing

[heros-shade-fanclub]

actually i'm not done talking about termina. do you think that even years after majora's mask link wakes up to rain and instinctively thinks "2 days left"

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[ibetittering]

Fuck all of y'all in Florida how dare you misrepresent my liberal king that man loves women (not in that way) and he would not STAND for this smh

[memento-morri-writes]

It's been well over a week now (maybe two??) but I'm still plugging away (ever-so-slowly) at this vignette about Zara and Rook. Zara's POV is a lot of fun to write, now that I have a better sense of her character. Writing this has really solidified in my mind the kind of person she is and how she acted when she was Rook's captain and mentor. She's very calm and collected in comparison to Rook, even when under a lot of stress.

Anyways, have a little snippet that I'm proud of from today, featuring the origins of the coin trick!

Pacing back and forth across her cabin floor, she rolled the coin back and forth over her knuckles again and again. The motion was easy, almost mindless, more muscle memory than real intent. The coin trick had been her favorite way to soothe her nerves for years now. She’d picked it up out of idle curiosity after watching a street performer dining in a tavern in Bon Largo, who had chatted with her for over an hour as she fretted about something mundane, never once dropping the coin from their fingers. The same performer had later tried to steal her coin purse and ended up with nothing but a new scar for their trouble, but Zara had learned two important things from the encounter: Not to trust a warm smile and a pretty face, and that keeping her hands moving kept her mind from dwelling too much on worrisome things.

one-time tagging @space-writes because they commented on my tags about Rook learning the coin trick from Zara in one of my other snippets from this piece.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have found a beautiful perfect humble rock specimen that is light yellow with a weird dark yellowy brown lining, somewhat resembling a chunk of smoked gouda cheese... effervescent

[nexus-nebulae]

got myself a little pocket radio bc you never know when severe weather might knock out the power or cell towers but apparently there aren't any weather radio stations i can pick up :/

[obstinatecondolement]

Having a random panic attack about my stupid Work Trauma from this year. It never fucking ends.

[giantkillerjack]

As time goes by, I find I am less likely to wake up in the middle of the night to needlessly hate on myself for some random awkward harmless thing I did 10 years ago.

I'm still up in the middle of the night feeling a deep primal urge to needlessly hate on things from years ago, but now it's more just things like

MAN I SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE ANOTHER POST ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATED BLY MANOR HUH

[redemption-lies-plainly-in-truth]

I read the post on your sorcerous blog. I've tried typing a lot of things, but always back peddled. I know you're scared. I know you're worried and there's a lot going on. The most I can do is type this out.

You're a good person. You're a fun person and an interesting one. You've provided many things on this site for people who have taken an interest in your work. You've also made friends with some of those interested in your work.

You let them see a portion of yourself and some welcomed it. Some engaged with you. Learning a bit about you and invited you into their hearts. They've shared a piece of themselves with you and you grew.

Trying to type this out, I want you to be safe. I want your family to be safe. I want you to have more time with your family and go on with what you love to do. What you like to eat. What you want to try. What you want to drink, read, watch, listen to. So much more.

Some have left comments on your post. Each one hoping for the best for you. I presume some more familiar with you have typed in your dms to convey more personal conversations. How they cherish meeting you. Reading your work and talking with you.

Often, in our conversations you try to thank me for talking to you. I wish to thank you for responding to them and feeling comfortable to continue them and confide in me at times. Thank you for being you. Thank you for taking chances with writing and reading. I thank your parents and siblings for helping you become the person you are today. I thank the kids of your siblings for helping you.

Sol, I hope for things to go well for you. I hope for things to allow you and your family to remain safe. I hope I get to talk to you again.

i love you too

[neverendingford]

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[1007xf]

Hm? Is it last week of August?? Looks like it's be depressed about how you've not done anything the entire summer and are still the same stunted loser time. Again.

[yoharrysaidshe]

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