#i have like 4 books that are in various states of being finished on my side table and its driving me nuts ngl

[huginsmemory]

Fucking FINALLY done my semester which means I finally have some time to work on art. God I'm so tired but so thrilled to be able to finish some pieces which have just been sitting beside my desk for fucking AGES since I have no time. Like the semester was good but so fucking stressful and I picked up a part-time job so like that's been not helpful stress wise. But. Finally. Time to rest and to do art.

[sunthyme]

Hehehe. Part two baby! Be prepared! (Pun absolutely intended) Also, to the people who are yelling the the tags, I love you guys! I read them all and I can't say thank you enough. It genuinely means a ton!🩷🩷🩷

Enough of me being sappy,

🌻Savanaclaw🌻

Disclaimer: Savanaclaw is like lowkey my favourite dorm, not in terms of redesigns but I love the characters. Huge Leona fan and Jack and Ruggie are my children so I will not stop talking about them. You have been warned.

First up, though y'all have seen him already,

♟️Leona Kingscholar♟️

(he/him) - Unlabelled but doesn't care about gender

I snuck in a lil treat of my work in progress housewarden card. The jumpscare it was to toggle my version with the og card underneath, y'all. Am I making my version of pretty much all his cards? Yes. Will they ever be finished? Who knows? Anyways, onto the headcanons...

- Physically, I feel like I changed a lot and not a lot at the same time. I gave him some more scars which I guarantee you are from really stupid accidents.

- Piercing on his ears just cause I felt they fit him and snakebites because (I'm so down bad for them) it gave the illusion of fangs even with his mouth closed. Gave him moles cause they're pretty.

- I textured his hair and gave him a shit ton more because if the og design won't AT LEAST give him fluffier hair, what's the point? Yana Toboso, if you don't give this man a high ponytail in the Clubwear Card, I will hunt you down. Also made his front, larger braids the colour of Cheka's (And presumably Farena's) hair because honestly? They didn't really look similar enough? Also threw in some smaller braid to 'tie' them in more (haha).

- Someone gave him like this cool inverted pupil due to a scene in the movie but I simplified it to basically heterochromia.

- This might be hardly noticeable but I give give him slightly more muscle? I felt it suited him more idk.

- Onto non-physical headcanons, he has 💕depression💕! This is kinda not up for debate given how much he exemplifies the symptoms. Hell, he made me realise that I may have depression cause I was like, "Damn, he's so relatable, not wanting to get out of bed, no motivation to do anything, struggling to care of himself. He just like me frfr- oh..."

- By the way, I see a lot of people talking about Ruggie's reaction to the fallout of Book 2 but I think that on Leona's side, he felt horrible and probably locked himself away for a WHILE. I think his mental state must have been terrible and I'm SO PISSED HIS FCKING PROBLEMS NEVER GOT BROUGHT AGAIN WTF! Well, I'm on Book 4 so maybe???

- Anyways, I saw someone posit he could also be autistic, more on the asymptomatic side which is actually growing on me a lot. Picky eater, doesn't like tighter clothes, not fond of loud noises, smaller things but I'm a fan.

- Really random but I like the idea that he's one of those people who kids love for literally no reason, he just doesn't like to be around them.

- Is actually extremely book smart, though that's kinda already canon but I mean this bitch was a nerd when he was younger. Knows way too much on various topics, especially about his homeland.

- He can purr. I know lion's can't but there are literal mer and fae. He's just a big kitty. My and Idia like 🤞 when it comes to thinking of Leona as just a big meow. I have a cat who doesn't like anyone but I'm her favourite, I could win him over.

I could talk about him for sooooo long tbh so I'll shut up now.

Anyways, now for my boy,

💸Ruggie Bucchi💸

(he/she) Bigender - Biromantic Asexual

God I love my bigender child.

- I made him black, though probably mixed and gave him vitiligo for both visual flavour and a mild(?) reference to like hyena spots?

- He originally was going to have her hair down but then I realised how many of them had their natural hair already so I gave him dreads? I'll have to render them out at some point.

- Gave her more scars too, since she grew up in a more rough environment. Made his eyes really big and cute 'cause I feel like she can get extras when she hits 'em with the puppy eyes.

- Probably got mad ADHD, has to constantly be fiddling with something or another. Wears spinny rings a lot. He's actually really good at paying attention in class and likes to learn.

- Steals from Leona, whether it's money or items or clothes he leaves out (which, while Leona would never admit, he purposefully leaves out for Ruggie).

- Oh and a post pointed out that hyenas can purr, so have fun with that.

That's mostly it for now, but expect this list to grow lmao.

Now for,

💪Jack Howl💪

(he/him) - Queer (he doesn't know lol, just knows he likes dudes at this point)

Not me struggling to find a weight emoji (I failed) 😭😭😭

- Ah, I made a reference in the Heartslabyul post about my concern about darker skinned characters with white hair and I was mainly talking about Jack. I also had to make Kiki, and I figured that wolves have pretty naturally salt-and-pepper hair, so why not. I actually love how it looks omg, it's very pretty and marbled.

- Gave him darker skin, since I headcanon him as black but I did see someone who designed him as indigenous so it might change in the future idk. Also it makes his eyes almost glow and I love that for him.

- He gets more scars too, though likely from sports rather than fights or anything.

- He's autistic. Apologies that so many of them are autistic to me, not only am I autistic but like, the way they're written speaks to me. His whole moral compass being the reason for Book 2 playing out like it did was an immediate 'yes' from me. He's my boy and my son and I will fistfight anyone that smack talks him (looking at those Savannaclaw NPCs in one of Deuce's vignettes).

- Oh, I forgot. He listens to K-Pop. I don't know if it?s canon that he has younger siblings, though I totally think he does, but one of them accidentally got him into K-Pop and J-Pop so whenever he's at the gym, that's what he's listening to lmao. Specifically girl groups, he likes them enough that he knows all their names. He insists it's out of respect, which it is but he's also lowkey a stan too lol.

- Generally has a weakness for cute things, even if he doesn't show it. Also a total plant nerd omg. He could instruct you on pretty much any houseplant on how much sunlight and water it needs, seasonal changes, etc.

Final note is that I'll make a separate post about him and Epel, cause I love them and have some headcanons there too.

Now for my ocs!

💎Kiki Adebayo💎

Third Year - (she/her) Transfem - Aromantic Demisexual Sapphic

- Twisted from Rafiki? I think that's his name, the baboon. I'm crying sobbing throwing up that you can't see her eyes in this.

- She got the white hair since the fur on a baboon is directly white and took inspiration from Dislyte's Isis design. Her eyes are a pale gold like her earrings and she has red to blue eye shadow.

- Natural resting bitch face but she's just tired most of the time. She'd probably be the actual vice housewarden as I think her family has been close to Leona's for a long time, though she earned her spot with her own skills.

- Additionally, I wouldn't call her and Leona 'childhood friends' but she's known him for a long time. She's like, concerned about him as he's changed so much but she also worries that it's not her place. As a result, she tries to make sure Ruggie's not taking on too much and handles most of the dormhead duties herself.

God, she's so pretty omg anyways

👟Mandisa Jelani👟

Second Year - (they/she) Demi-girl - Pansexual

- Mandisa is also based on the hyenas, though I don't know if her and Ruggie are from the same pack necessarily.

- I gave her scars, moles, and some piercings as well, I just felt like they'd suit her.

- I think she and Jack would be relatively similar in terms of personality, I see her being the gruffer upperclassmen. I think she'd be rather protective of the first years, knowing how harsh the older dorm members can be and she does her best to make everyone feel welcome.

Next up,

🤘Rocío Chávez🤘

Second Year - (she/her but doesn't really care) Transfem - Panromantic Asexual

You'll never guess who she's based on /j

- My girlie based on Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove! Yes, she is a big and buff bimbo? Himbo? I don't know but she's got a heart of gold and head empty.

- I wanted to keep her physique cause it always annoys me when people genderbend a character but don't keep them proportional to their og design. Mini tangent over, she so silly I love her.

- She and my Yzma character met as first years and have been inseparable since, though I'll talk more about that later.

- Not a massive ton of characterisation sine it's been a while since I've seen this movie too but I'm always open to suggestions.

Finally, my silly

🎸Abayomi Furaha🎸

First Year - (she/they/it) Nonbinary - Bisexual

- My final baby from Savanaclaw, also based on a hyena. Specifically the lil bug-eyed one, but I gave her a lazy eye instead. Not sure how well that comes across but I tried.

- She's got scars, was definitely bullied as a kid and I think that once the dorm members consider her a part of the pack, they'd be super overprotective as a result.

- That being said, she's more than capable of defending herself as she's good at various martial arts.

- She's into rock music and joined the music club as a result. Probably a drummer or guitarist as I think she's insecure about her voice.

- She and Mandisa are quite close and she convinced them to dye the edges of her hair red. Abayomi wanted touch up hers and managed to get Mandisa in on to lol.

That's all for now! Stay tuned for Octavinelle and thank you so much for reading!

[qqueenofhades]

Ok, unsolicited rant, I’m sorry in advance. I used to love reading when I was a kid, and read frequently and often. I read a lot and I read books that I wouldn’t be able to understand now, like Anna Karenina when I was 12 (I am a native Russian speaker so it’s not that impressive but still) and a lot of Thomas Mann when I was 17-18.

It’s all gone now. I became extremely picky, but also it seems to be harder for me to understand books now? Like I’ve been trying to read “demons”, “Oliver twist”, “Ulysses” - too hard, and I can’t concentrate and in case of demons there are so many ideas and historical tidbits that I have to sit with Wikipedia and a notebook. And yes, as a kid I would have checked certain things and be able to hold a connection in my memory without a notebook (although I’m not sure if I would have done that with demons in particular, I’m bad at Dostoevsky and hated “crime and punishment”). And it doesn’t matter whether I’m reading in Russian or in English. I almost got it with Arundhati Roy’s “the god of small things”, then there was a very upsetting and triggering scene and I had to put it down.

And if I try to get into something nicer and easier my picky side comes out and I just drop books one after the other. Murderbot diaries and the Locked tomb were the only two books series that captivated me in two years.

Anyway I miss that soothing state of being engrossed with a book. And I so rarely get it now! So I wanted to ask, do you maybe have some advice? I saw your book stack and felt both envy and fear, like I both wanted to read and didn’t. Yikes.

And also, I can still read fic and your fics got me through terrible time and soothed me! So thank you!!!

Aha well. I will say that my current monumental book stack is not technically the norm for me, though I do usually have 3-4 books on the hard-working bedside table and read for several hours every night. Said giant book stack was a confluence of factors (picking up a bunch of holds from the library after asking the people for book recommendations and then going to the bookstore yesterday and hilariously telling myself that I would only get one book max). So it's not like I have ginormous amounts of TBR at all times, and in that giant stack, there are likely to be several books that don't grab me, are not particularly interesting, or technically good and well-written but just not engaging with the Brain Gremlins at this particular point in time. So I will put them down and move onto the next one, and this will keep me from being bogged down, because why read if you're not enjoying it/yourself/the book? It's not a punishment or a character-building ordeal. It's supposed to be fun, and if you're reading things that, as noted in your ask, just aren't grabbing you and feel like a chore, then stop! Find something else that makes the Brain Gremlins go ooooh shiny, regardless of what it is. It doesn't have to be Fine Literature.

I also had to get back into the habit of reading for pleasure, and it took me time and effort to do it due to various external circumstances. From about 2015-19, while I was doing my PhD, I had less than no money and absolutely no spare brainpower, so while I did have a few books that I collected along the way, I barely did any reading for pleasure at all (though I did do a frankly alarming amount of writing, including fic writing). Looking back, that seems insane to me, but it was something that had to change step by step, and it wasn't as if I just finished the PhD and went straight back into pleasure reading. I moved back to the US in 2019 and had a part-time job at a bookstore, which was very dangerous for my minimum-wage paycheck, but it did get me back into the habit of looking at books and reading books and being able to take home advanced-reader copies for free and otherwise start exercising that muscle again. I didn't have a library as an option for quite a while because I was living in a tiny town, then COVID hit, then I moved to another tiny town, where there was at least finally a modest public library at my disposal. But it took time.

Now I live in a city with a great public library where I can get almost anything I want, and I went accordingly hog-wild, but if you don't have readily available reading resources, obviously it's hard to get your hands on stuff that you like and will make the brain gremlins go brrrr. There are some public libraries that offer cards/user privileges even to people who don't live in the geographical area, especially if you are a young adult. Check out Books Unbanned by the Brooklyn, Boston, Seattle, and San Diego (US) libraries, which aims to provide access to ebooks and other digital collection items for young adults facing challenges to access, regardless of where they live. You can get a card up to age 18 from San Diego, age 21 in Brooklyn, and up to 26 for Boston/Seattle.

I also now have a little more disposable income, so I can buy books if I want to, though it's true that I also bought books when I couldn't really afford them (shh). But it's still the fact of my access to a good public library that enables me to have stacks on stacks rotating through the bedside table, and I use it constantly, so there's that. I'm of course very glad to hear that you can still read fic and that you have enjoyed my stuff, but I do also feel that you have to read fic AND books/published writing/stuff that's not fic. So the best way to get back into the habit is by practicing, not forcing yourself into stuff that isn't fun or feels like a slog, and finding a place where you can consistently obtain other stuff that's good for sparking joy. That is not the case for everyone, it will impact what you are able to do, and you should not feel like you have to do some kind of "good" reading model, especially since a lot of people seem to think that what you read is directly representative of your intelligence, moral character, or some other important part of you, and it's not. Humans like stories, the end. We like being given stories, fiction or nonfiction, in a format that we can digest and understand, and we always have. It's that simple.

Basically, I feel like reading for pleasure should indeed be fun, I love reading for pleasure and encourage everyone to do more of it, I now am fortunate to be able to do it extensively, and it has taken work of various kinds to get to that point where I can in fact just set myself up with a ginormous stack and dive in. As noted, however, if any of the books currently on hand are boring or just not doing it for me, I will move onto the next one, because the fun thing is that there are always more. So yes. Go forth and read. Good luck.

[kaile-hultner]

GoFundMe Update, 8/12/2024

Hey y'all! it's been about a week since the last GoFundMe update. We've hit a pretty predictable slow period in this fundraiser, a kind of doldrums, but I also got super busy over the last seven days, so it's all good there. So what's been going on in the past week?

To start with, as I mentioned last week I'm down to just one installment loan. This in itself has already made a massive difference just even in terms of how I'm feeling. It no longer feels like I'm being crushed by this massive weight on my shoulders or chest. I know I've mentioned this a lot, but it's such a weird feeling after experiencing the opposite for most of my adult life.

With that, things are already starting to change rapidly: my credit score has gone up 23 points in a week and a half, for example. I hate that this is even something we should have to pay attention to, but I can't help but feel relieved when number go up instead of down. The number of phone calls I'm getting per day, in the evenings, on the weekends - all the debt collection calls - has dropped dramatically. Now it's mostly just spam and companies trying to get me to take out more loans with them. I've experienced a burst of creative energy that has gotten me back in the game-playing-and-reviewing saddle - I just wrote a piece about "A Short Hike" as a donor request fulfillment exercise. (You can check that out here.) I was able to get through an entire weekend of work at my side-gig with no issues or delays—something I haven't been able to say for a few months. And when I finished that work? You'll never believe it, but I didn't feel stressed out or exhausted! I felt normal!

This doesn't automatically catapult me into 24/7 comfortable living, and now I really have to focus on the hard and dirty work of living within my means, building a budget and being an adult when it comes to daily choices, but I always knew that. This GFM has never been the magic bullet that would solve all of my problems - and I've never wanted it to be. However, it's helped assuage such a significant portion of my problems that I can focus on other things for once, and navigating that for the first time has been a pretty significant experience! This comes after months of having to transfer my paycheck from my bank to my Apple Pay account and a litany of other sketchy shit just to make sure it didn't all get swallowed up by various debt repayments and years of sometimes paying rent in parts instead of all at once. With most of that gone and cleared out, I no longer have to do all that! I don't feel like I'm constantly between a rock and a hard place, and that's… honestly pretty significant.

So what's next? Why am I still moving forward with the GFM towards $8000 and eventually $10000+?

Well, as I've said in prior updates, it's still pretty unbelievable that we reached $6500+ and I genuinely have no expectations about getting even a cent more. If nobody else donates, I think I would be pretty pleased with what this GFM was able to accomplish. But I don't think I'm totally out of the woods yet. Thanks to your help, I've upgraded from "basically completely underwater" to "balancing precariously on the edge of the dock," and there's a WORLD of difference between those two states. But that doesn't mean I don't ever again have to worry about the possibility of almost drowning.

Goal 4 would help me pay off my remaining installment loan, and with that close the book on that chapter of my life altogether. I've got these two annoying (paid monthly) loans in the background, but paying $40 and $78 a month respectively for them isn't really all that bad. It's not moving the needle the way these installment loans (paid every two weeks on my payday) were. I'd like to get rid of this final installment loan pretty quickly if possible. I'm currently just a bit under $1400 away from that goal, and I think it's pretty attainable.

Goal 5, $10,000, and Goal 6, $10,000+, are maybe my vaguest goals, so I want to flesh those out a bit. For those goals, I'm thinking of my long-term future more than anything immediate. If I can get anything past $8K, great! That will be money I put into a savings account and start adding to on my own. The reason I'm putting these goals at the end of this GFM is because in a little bit less than a year, I'm looking at the end of a pretty long arrangement I've had at the place I'm living, and the situation is that either rent is going to raise pretty significantly or (more likely) I'm going to be finding a new place to live. Having some money in savings is going to help me out with this in two ways: first, being able to pay a deposit on an apartment or absorb some of the cost of raised rent. Second, being able to put down a down payment on a car. My (smaller) worry is that, even with the radical erasure of my most immediate and crushing debts that this GFM has already afforded me, I may not have enough time to save this kind of money on my own, and/or that my credit score won't heal fast enough to qualify me for cheaper car payments, apartment deposits that aren't an arm and a leg, and so on. For context, I live in Oklahoma, which has a relatively cheap cost of living, but it's practically impossible to get around without a car as OKC's transit system is bootycheeks.

Finally (and least importantly), I promised when I set this GFM up that it would be the last time I asked for money from the Internet for this or any reason, outside of like a medical emergency. I set $10k up as a moonshot goal, something I didn't think it was possible to achieve - and yet here it is, barely $3400 away. If we make it to the end, that's gonna feel like a wild achievement! I'd finally be able to rest easy.

Here's a bad car metaphor I just thought of: you know how when you jump a car, you don't just plug up the jumper cables from one car to another and call it good when the car in need of jumping starts? You have to give it a little bit of extra juice in order for the car to restart its own charging capacity? That's kind of what this GFM is. I'm the car being jumped. The fundraiser is the other car revving its engine and giving me a bit of extra juice after I was able to start my own engine again.

See? told you it was bad.

Anyway, as always, I cannot thank those of you who have already donated enough. None of this would be possible if it wasn't for you, and my inbox is always open if you want to suggest cursed internet artifacts for me to look at. Someone suggested the entire series of Eyewitness children's science documentaries to me. I have no clue if I'll be able to find them. I've been vibing on the theme song for days tho. The only thing I would ask of you at this point is to share this GFM on social media, maybe link back to this update directly, and let's see if we can't find some extra wind for these sails to get us closer to that final goal. If you can't donate, please don't feel pressured to donate! Just reblogging it is more than enough help.

[eyepatchdate]

Do you think some Mikado citizens ever figured out they could get their original works published as long as they threw King Aquila in there somewhere? And how much of it was actually fanfiction about Aquila, Mikado's state-designated blorbo? It'd be really funny if Aquila also got "and he'll return in Mikado's darkest hour" like King Arthur. Like technically he did!

@thonkphonk

OK......... THE FAERIE QUEENE IS AN INTEREST OF MINE. I read Books 3 and 4 for a class called 'Violence and Romance in Renaissance Literature'. We spent a lot of time on it, because iirc the only other thing we read in the class at all was some Shakespeare. So it was actually mostly a class on the Faerie Queen books 3 and 4 lol (and all of my papers were on the Faerie Queene instead of Shakespeare lol).

The whole deal with the Faerie Queene is that the titular Queene is the goal of King Arthur's quest, and yet Arthur himself only has cameos in the stories because he is the 'main plot' where all the books have different main characters (and focuses on elaborating on various virtues that each main knight upholds--Arthur is the perfect knight, who extols all virtues, whereas all the characters in the books exist to define specific virtues--ex: Britomart represents Chastity, Artegall represents Justice, etc). And Spenser never actually finished the Faerie Queene, which is why Arthur's quest never gets full attention.

To apply this to SMTIV would be extremely fun.

Absolutely I could see so many stories about King Aquila's times. Especially since Mikado is trapped in this sort of medieval stone-age ('holy times' as viewed by angels) so its not even like stories about Aquila would be dated, it would be so easy to write stories of modern times with Aquila present. Or, even easier, would be his inclusion in these 'fairy-stories' the Luxurors know.

Aquila means so much to people despite having lived so long ago, I would assume his knights are known the same way Arthur's are (with people inventing new knights all the time, as with Arthurian legends as well). So people would toss Aquila into all this often while writing their own stories about the various knights (with a focus on those knights because, like Arthur's presentation in the Faerie Queene, Aquila would be the 'perfect' character, meaning that the stories are more interesting if they can be about the flaws of the others).

But 100% Aquila would always come in to save the day, or to approve of the resolution the story reaches, etc. I am so on board with that idea.

That being said, this would mean the angels likely erase much of this when they take over Mikado, Aquila' name remains on the Obelisk, but his statue is destroyed, so I imagine many of these books are just straight up burned. A few would survive though, less objectionable ones,but the angels hate the influence Aquila still has on the people, and how he is still venerated.

Also you are SO RIGHT about the 'once and future' thing. Like. This has no support in the game because the game is so nebulous about Nanashi's birth, but I do somewhat theorize he was born in Mikado? He's literally just found in Sky Tower, so I'm like, okay was he born there and brought down somehow? I would KILL to know anything about this because like. Ok, they found a baby. How did they find him? In the hands of a demon, dead humans, or just like, on the ground? Hello? Can I have some information please?

But I've always assumed Nanashi was born in Mikado and then SOMETHING was a reason for him to be carried below, and then discovered. Because like. we don't even know why the HUNTERS were in Sky Tower--most people knew about Medusa back then and wouldn't want to go, and people even assume Medusa works for Tayama (which is false--I theorize she worked for Akira but that isn't confirmed anywhere). but if people just assumed the Sky Tower was controlled by the Ashura-kai, I don't know why anyone would approach--they KNOW Medusa kills everyone up there.

and Nanashi of course is randomly discovered after Medusa is there, he's only born well after Akira establishes Mikado, so the Hunters have long-withdrawn from Sky Tower and like. what. is happening.

But yeah a prophecy about Aquila's return and somehow that also including the need for Nanashi to go below rather than above, there's some sect of people somewhere that know something, this is just, one of those many holes left open in the SMTIV world. so we are free to make theories and headcanons and I am so with it.

Thank you for sending this, this was so fun omg. I went on a bit of a ramble.

[gorillastraylight]

4e Project 0: Let's Talk About Worms

Alright, hopefully my players have blocked the tag. With that done, this is the first *real* post in my series of records and thoughts as I try to convert a long-form 3.5e D&D campaign to 4th edition. In this post, I want to talk about the campaign itself and provide some background info - a kind of overview before we get into the nitty gritty. Going forward, I'm going to have main posts that go in depth on the conversion process for each individual adventure, with some smaller posts (called "worm food" in the tradition of the campaign) containing thoughts about what the process is reaching me in regards to philosophical differences between editions, game design, etc; or just like individual parts of an adventure that I find especially interesting. There'll be a table of contents post here. Now, let's talk a bit about the campaign I'm trying to convert: The Age of Worms. At the risk of doing an xkcd's comic abt quartz here, I'd say AoW is one of the more famous prewritten campaigns to come out during D&D's 3.5 era, it's one you hear a lot of discussion about on forums and already has a fanmade conversion to 5e (which I'll be using as a reference point throughout my project). The campaign path consists of 12 separate adventures, all published serially in Dungeon magazine between 2005 and 2006. Each adventure was designed for a 4-character party and was intended to elevate the party by a level or two, taking them from level 1 all the way to 20 - this is a serious ass long-term campaign. The plot ramps up pretty decently from standard low-level shenanigans (the stated motivation for the party in the first adventure is literally the classic 'raid tombs get money'), to being heavily focused on stopping the return of a horrific eldritch-horror-undead demigod (Kyuss, who's been lurking in the background of various D&D books since like AD&D) about halfway through. It's apparently notorious for being pretty deadly as well, and I certainly believe it. Adventure 1: The Whispering Cairn

It's kind of odd by the standards of modern prewritten adventure design, but this campaign starts off with a classic dungeon crawl in search of treasure. It opens up into a more interesting quest afterwards, trying to find a ghost child's bones in order to get to the dungeon's real treasure, which will lead them into their first hints of the coming undead worm problem. A lot of the traps here are really nasty, and the dungeon is pretty combat-dense; also I can envision some parties getting pretty annoyed with being sent off on this crazy chase just to finish up a dungeon; but overall I'm a fan of this adventure. 1.5: Diamond Lake

There's a lot of info on this shithole mining town that the PCs start off in, with tons of cool locations and interesting NPCs, to the point where I feel like an AoW campaign would be incomplete without the DM adding at least some plotline with the party getting wrapped up in the local power struggle between mine owners. Fortunately, this won't be a problem for me, as my group will almost certainly try to start unionizing the minors and upending the town's power structure ASAP. The fact that the campaign seems to expect player groups to be basically fine with how shit the town is is definitely a mark of how the "default" game has changed.

2: The Three Faces of Evil

Usually recognized as "the shitty one", this adventure is pretty much entirely a big dungeon crawl. It's super lethal, the connective tissue between it and the first adventure is weak as hell, and frankly I find the whole "three faces" cult and its relation to Kyuss to be a bit bizarre, like in a weird misdirect-villain way. Also the text is full of typoes and some maps are labelled badly. Of all the adventures, this one is the one I suspect I'll be altering the most. 3: Encounter at Blackwall Keep The first of many "go talk to a wizard about this wacky shit" hooks, Blackwall Keep has a fine adventure trapped in it somewhere (that adventure is mostly 1982's 'Danger at Dunwater'). The players fight off lizardfolk raiding a frontier keep and then track them to their lair to rescue a wizard they need to talk to about clues uncovered in Three Faces. The fact that the adventure really wants them to kill the lizardfolk does not read well today, it's definitely reflective of the more morally ambiguous character of the default adventurer back in the day. The "villain" of this one is literally an escaped arena slave lizardfolk, no offense but I doubt my group will be killing him. It does a good job really setting up that this whole worm thing is becoming more of a problem though, and the initial siege fight of fighting the lizardfolk could be fun. Plenty to talk about with this one. 4. The Hall of Harsh Reflections Another "talk to a wizard" hook, this adventure takes the PCs to the Big City (Greyhawk by default, but could be whatever)! This is kinda neat, taking them from po-dunk Diamond Lake to the city is a good representation of escalation. Really, this is the first part of a 2-adventure arc, and has some genuinely neat intrigue elements involving doppelgangers impersonating the PCs to commit crimes, a hidden mind flayer overlord, and ending on the best cliffhanger/forboding note yet. I suspect I'll have to make very few changes to the actual storyline of this one.

5. The Champion's Belt *Fuck* yeah. Cool ass tournament arc where the parties are also trying to stop an evil cultist plot to kill the audience and raise them as undead (very reminiscent of that one bit of the dnd movie). All kinds of neat gladiator shit, opportunities to meet and roleplay with other adventurers, a dungeon crawl through the hidden halls of the under-arena, and an iconic final fight against an Ulgurstasta. The dungeon bit is pretty long, and I think there'll be some interesting challenges in adapting the Ulgurstasta. 5.5. The Free City

Like Diamond Lake, this is a big background section about the Free City (again, Greyhawk by default). This is helpful, but I like it less than Diamond Lake just bc the connection isn't there. The PCs should for sure have an opportunity to have a Big City Caper(tm) here, likely between adventures 5 and 6. 6. A Gathering of Winds Fuck that title, this is Return to the Whispering Cairn baby! This gimmick of going back to where you started to do new shit gets me hype every time. This adventure also gets points from me for having A FUCKING DRAGON FIGHT! HELL YEAH! (for now, these will get much less cool and special later on). As written, the dragon devastates Diamond Lake before the PCs arrive, and I like that - especially if they took time between adventures to work on making the town better (which mine certainly will), it feels devastating and adds a personal stake to the adventure. This one also has a long ass dungeon crawl (making use of both Ds is always nice), and feels like a fitting send-off to the more episodic early parts of the campaign. From here on, it's all kyuss all the time, baby.

7. The Spire of Long Shadows. There's some wack-ass shit in this one. Spire is the big lore-dump adventure, where the PCs learn about Kyuss and his backstory and whatnot - and the dungeon crawl through his ruined city to get it has some very neat survival horror potential. Outside of talking with a wizard (yes! it's the third 'talk to a wizard' hook!) at the start, there is very little non-dungeon crawling combat content here, which is fine but will present a challenge to 4e-ifying it without murdering the pacing. Also, there's a weird inclusion about a Pit Fiend who wants an artifact that the PCs found in the last adventure but who is never mentioned again and has no connection to Kyuss - might be cool, I guess, but just seems strange. Finally, this adventure sets the PCs on the trail of Kyuss's cult all the way to [next location].

8. The Prince of Redhand FORMAL BANQUET, YEAH BITCH! I FUCKING LOVE NOBLE PARTY ARCS!! After a great deal of dungeon-crawling, Prince of Redhand is a pretty welcome diversion into the realm of intrigue and heavy roleplay. The vibes are fucking rancid, which is exactly what you want for this tense intrigue story. Any more will have to wait until the detailed writeup, but this adventure might be my favourite of the lot.

8.5. Alhaster Another area writeup, this one's really great! Less shenanigans for the PCs to get into between adventures (which makes sense as the plot has ramped the fuck up), but does a great job detailing the town and creating an atmosphere of like, I dunno, New England creepy oldness? Also there's a scary evil angel of Hextor here who fully activates my switch reflexes.

9. The Library of Last Resort 🎵It's the Mystery of the Druids, they all have an attitude🎵 Much in the vein of Spire, the PCs talk to an expert and then go off in search of secret knowledge - in this case knowledge of Kyuss's great lieutenant's (the dracolich Dragotha, allegedly the first dracolich) phylactery. They travel to a hidden island with an ancient druidic library, undergo trials to impress the library's fey wardens and access it, and then trip balls to discover the phylactery's location. It ends with a kind of neat idea that because the knowledge is no longer sealed up in the library, it's back in the world again and Dragotha will be able to remember it soon, setting off a bit of a race. Pretty cool - also, the Hand of Vecna is here, which is fucking sweet.

10. Kings of the Rift Oh boy, this is one hell of a dungeon crawl. Now, to be fair, the PCs aren't really expected to do all of it, and it's also fucking sick. They're caught in the middle of a battle between a city of giants (where the phylactery is) and a flight of dragons sent by dragotha to go and get said phylacery. It reminds me a little of the one part of dark souls 2 where you witness the giants invade Drangleic. We get some reoccuring NPCs here, and the fact that you don't have to fight the giants is pretty cool - I'm excited to dig deeper into this one.

11. Into the Wormcrawl Fissure Here it is - the dungeon crawl to end all dungeon crawls (at least as far as AoW is concerned). With his phylactery destroyed, all that remains to the PCs in preventing Kyuss's rise (as far as they know) is destroying Dragotha in his lair. Unfortunately, his lair is an eldritch realm nightmare death-zone infested with his subordinate dragons, undead worms, and a ton of disgusting terrors. It follows the same trend that several dungeons so far have (go around and find several parts of a thing to advance), but does it in a kind of new way - Dragotha is a terrifying boss fight and a great capstone to a really nasty dungeon. It ends, of course, with the knowledge that one of their benefactors betrayed them and Kyuss is going to rise over Alhaster etc etc - it's one hell of a lead up to the finale.

12. Dawn of a New Age. Man, this one would be hell to run in 3.5. As the world falls to madness around the PCs, they desperately try to stop Kyuss's emergence in Alhaster (I guess it makes sense in the story, but I almost would have liked to go back to Diamond Lake). There's some very dangerous encounters here, and two pretty funny details - 1, that it's still formatted like an AoW dungeon in that the party has to do three side objectives before the finale, and 2, they have the opportunity to travel to the actual factual Tomb of fucking Horrors in order to hijack that sphere of annihilation in the first room for use against Kyuss. Is this fucking rad or wack ass fanservice? I don't know. The ending post-Kyuss is cool. I like it a lot.

Hoo boy, big post. Probably mostly useful for reference, and it's worth noting I'm more familiar with the early adventures at this stage. There's definitely stuff to pick at and change here, and the campaign's heavy reliance on dungeon crawls (or perhaps, the fact that that's notable) is a neat indicator of game philosophy gone past for D&D. I'm gonna have my work cut out for me porting all this for sure. Excited to get more into Part 1: The Whispering Cairn! My first post there is going to cover the Cairn itself, with the one one after that going into the conversion process for encounters!

[malebotlabs]

(If you want an update on where I’ve been and the state of this blog where I answer some frequently asked questions and a bit of RP click below. If not, enjoy the pictures it will be a while before there’s more but do not worry I’m doing fine just taking a break.)

TRANSMISSION START:

Greetings and good evening, this is the Malebot Labs account PR unit operating again for it’s yearly update which will be reported in human emulation mode for convenience: *Ahem* Uh...hey? So I’ve been absolutely busy with life and a bit stressed out over the past several months, a bad mixture of life stuff and just generalized anxiety to be frank, so my production of stuff on this blog has been a bit...glacial to say the least. I’ve come to a few decisions on how to both improve my life and focus on things more. A break from a lot of stuff that takes a chunk of my time.

I’m going to take a break from here for a bit; not that anything here is bad or anything I just need to focus more on the stuff happening around me then hot robot men. Hopefully you guys understand

At the very least I should be fully operational at some time in the future! Just when things die down a bit and I can sit down and breathe a bit.

Here let me answer a few questions I’ve gotten while I’ve been working on stuff because that’ll hopefully get us all on the same page: 1. Do you have other social media or a discord account? Sorry no I don’t, I’m an odd case on that where I prefer to keep my internet footprint as small as possible. The fact I even made a tumblr blog at all is still baffling to me. If you need to contact me for whatever reason please message me here but I don’t think I’ll be responding anytime soon.

2. Can you do/make an edit of/Write a story involving ______ I don’t think I’ll be able to get to requests anytime soon. I’m real sorry.

3. Can you continue any of your stories? I probably won’t, most of the stories I write are small snippets of things going through my head making an edit or what I’m feeling that specific evening. I need to be in a specific mood to finish things. The fact that people have enjoyed them to the extent they have has surprised me for sure! Thank you all a lot for the kind words I’ve received over the years on them!

4. What do you do/where do you live/other various personal questions Sorry I prefer to keep myself anonymous online, I feel it’s safer and it allows those around me to act like I’m a machine more easily. Just think of me as everyone’s public robot/sexbot and leave it at that. Hell if you wanted to act like that I won’t stop you. If you can’t tell I’m a huge slut for being a robot and being around robots. Treat me like the machine I want to be and leave that silly human stuff to the side for the “emulation” to take care of!

5. Can we RP? I wouldn’t count on me responding anytime soon to anything here, but I want to say thank you to those that I’ve had sessions with in the past. You all have been real fun to roleplay with and I wish you all the best until we talk again! Thank you!

6. Do you exercise?/Are you a jock in real life? I need to exercise for sure! Part of my break is going to involve me going to the gym and exercising regularly when possible! As far as the other part of that goes I don’t act like a jock in real life, I don’t know anything about sports and I prefer to sit inside with a nice book or perhaps a video game if I have the time to sit down with one. I’m a nerdy guy who wears suits and is generally unremarkable.

7. What is the lore behind Malebot Labs and it’s world building? Basically nothing funnily enough, I just find robot men hot and then breaking apart even hotter. I’d say it’s a pretty shit company with all of it’s machines technical faults but there’s a market in universe for this malfunction stuff. I’d say there’s other companies and even female robots and other types of adult robotic companions out there it’s just that this blog was made when I was really into robotic men specifically so all of my feminine robot edits are largely on my own pc or just deleted. Actually a funny story I forgot that malebots was a website when I made this blog and felt extremely embarrassed when I remembered. I thought about changing the name but I never came up with anything better.

8. Are all the Malebots gay? Probably. I think robots can be whatever they want to/are programmed to be. As far as I go? I’m bisexual and I tend to swing to masculine and feminine body types about the same amount so yes the guy running the gay robot porn blog is gay.

9. What do you use to edit your pictures? I use GIMP and a lot of the selective gaussian blur tool to get that plastic look, I’d make a tutorial but that’s basically all I do besides some layers, some pngs I found online, and the perspective tool putting in a lot of work. I used to have a lot more higher quality images to work with for components but lost them on my old computer.

10. Do you speak any other languages? Sorry I only speak english. If I could just import new languages into my speech life would be so much easier!

11. Are you a robot? Of course not! That’d be crazy. That’d...be crazy. Y-You can’t really believe I-I’m a robot right? Right? I-I’m a normal h-human ma-man! Hu-ma-MAN! I-I-I’m sorry I seem to be-ERROR THIS UNIT IS EXPER- I seem to be-ERROR- I seem to b-be experiencing problems! O-ooooooh! H-Hey there ho-hot stuff do yo-you like what you see? What you see? W-what you. See? I am b-built to be the p-perfect man, the perfect. Man. So u-use me like the m-machine I am! The ma-ERROR IN HUMAN EMULATION PLEA-O-Oh Oh! You...Y-You want to go somewhere more...private? P-Private? I ho-hope you’re enjoying m-my b-body my b-bod-my blog! O-Okay I’m getting w-way too...HOT! W-way too h-hot...I-I’m so...hooooooooooot. So Hot. So. hothothothothothot. Oh l-look at the time! I-I need to get going. Going. enjoy th-the blog! The! Blog! ERROR-ERROR PLEASE CONTACT MALEBOT LABS TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF YOUR PR UNIT.  PLEASE CONTACT MALEBOT LABS TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF YOUR PR UNIT. PLE- END TRANSMISSION

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Checking in on my 2023 goals!

23 things for 2023

1. buy 1 horse

Done!! Bought Luna!!!

2. Knit a pair of socks

I knit a sock, that I finished today. But I mostly decided I wanted to knit other things instead so this is fine

3. Three camping trips

went to mt of the holy cross, and New Mexico for two camping nights, plus a day hike in winter park. So technically no but pretty close!

4. Plant four pumpkins

…..no. I bought seeds and did nothing and I don’t feel that bad about it

5. Handstand (five fingers) press

Lol no. Did nothing for it. Never made a plan and so did not achieve

6. Kill side yard weeds (because weeds are the devil 666)

Success? I paid a Gardner to pull them all so yes! Feels like a failure because I didn’t really deal with them or the yard in general, but they are all gone now.

7. Go to Loyola social justice meeting (7th heaven)

I went to a meeting! And baked cookies for an event. (And then never went back oops)

8. Mail 8 letters to mates - birthday cards probably

Success! (Rebecca birthday, Sarah birthday, Clare get well card, Callie birthday, Alison birthday, clare birthday, Callie wedding, clare kt recipe card)

9. Research 9 hours of getting a cat (9 lives)

Decided a horse was enough so stopped researching 🤷‍♀️[ read complete guide to adopting a cat 3 hours]

10. Do ten full pull ups

Total yes, in a row like intended absolutely not. I can do like 2.5 in a row. Made haphazard progress, but now I have a pull up bar so hoping for better next year!

11. Buy 11 things off of my to buy eventually list

Success! This was easy and I did it! (air fryer, air mattress, nice soap dispensers, office mat, thermometer, fire extinguisher, white tank top, little plates, shower cleaner, plastic drain pipes, sheet pan organizer, bonus: back door light bulb, rainbow flag and holder, more bras)

12. Go on 12 dates

Success! I thought this would be really hard but then I just got my boyfriend by like February and it ended up being the easiest ny resolution ever. He even asked me out to start.

13. Run a half marathon 13.1 miles

Success! (Okay this was a gimme because I signed up for it and had a training plan in 2022 but still)

14. Hike a fourteener

Success! mt of the holy cross and it was terrifying and very long but we did it!

15. Read 30 (15x2) books

I read 27 and have three in various states of completion. I kind of wanted to power this one thru but it wouldn’t have been fun and then what’s the point. This one is hard because I abandoned so so many books this year. Like I made it at least one chapter into like 40 and a couple half way thru. So close but no cigar but I refuse to read things that aren’t fun just to hit a goal so I feel fine about it.

16. Host 8 things

Hosted 3, organized a couple others so partial credit. I would like to do better in the future. ( galentines, whimsy brunch, birthday, organized brunch at watercourse, organized lake day)

17. Go out dancing (must be more dancing than drinking, dance class counts.)(dancing queen only 17)

Nope. But also that’s fine.

18. Upgrade phone and deal with all photos. Upload belize to fb and save others. Data management

Mostly. I got an external storage for Christmas so I can finish when I get home. So solid partial credit. (uploaded some. Upgraded phone plus new battery, still need to get data off of it) emmapictures2222_2@gmail.com emmapictures2222@gmail.com

19. General contractor for house cracks plus install air conditioner

Success. Installed ac. Got the cracks looked at once and they were fine and then they got worse and now I’m getting foundation work done. So success I guess.

20. Get 20 layout ds

… I did not count. I def got some but probably not 20 so partial credit. (4 from leiout)

21. Go to frisbee Masters regionals

Success! Another bit of gimme but we went and qualified to nationals!)

22. Buy purple navel jewelry (I’m feeling 22)

Success! (And I love it)

23. volunteer for 23 hours

No and I feel bad about it. I need to find something to volunteer with. I feel like I should have the time/be able to make time but it also feels like I never have time and also never want to. But I think it’s important.

So overall full success on 11 of the goals, happy partial on 5, annoyed partial on 2, abandoned 4 and failed my last one and feel bad about it.

But overall pretty good success!

[stanfordsweater]

happy wincest wednesday, ava!! what are your favorite samdean edits you've made so far? (top 5 or top 10)

thank you vicky 🥺 i'll do top 5! i'm sorry this is so late but wincest wednesday is more a state of mind, right???? RIGHT!

starting this off with my soft rock playlist because i'm gonna fail to ever make one of these posts again--i had a really good time putting the playlist together with several discord pals, which was essential help! i have limited knowledge of the genre and i was able to find some gems with their help, so: thanks to y'all <3 i like the composite feel that comes with the several images of different dimensions + i tend to shy away from these paler/overlaid filter style edits, so it was nice to push outside my (very shadowy) comfort zone.

fourth is a tie between this edit from one of my long time favourite songs and this dead in the water gifset! i couldn't decide because i like the first one for the fun narrative switch right at the end that takes it from sam's POV to dean's, but the second one is one of my favourite episodes and has a fun grimy look to it. all good things...

my third fave is unclean in the biblical sense because it really is the sam thesis, as i see it. it's simple, it's clean, and it distills several very important parts of his character in those early seasons into four gifs, which i'm quite proud of! i've seen other versions of this quote with various scenes but none of them have really gripped me and had me nodding along, so i had to make my own.

#2 is this season four parallels post because a. it's the first gifset i finished and thought that i might actually be... good at this... and b. not enough people talk about these VERY deliberate parallels!!!! i LIVE for them.

my this is how you lose the time war post is my number one. i am really proud of the colouring being so different for the different eras but still looking cohesive in the full post, in large part because it's fucking HARD to try to match the colour from kripke era to later seasons. this one was a unique challenge because it's important to me to match my edits with the vibe/theme of the original work, and that book handles time non-chronologically in a way i knew i had to echo with my edit. i felt i had to try to capture the way sam is so cordoned-off, even to the number one person in his life-- sam kept the amulet for YEARS. that is INSANE. his expression when dean finds out he had it this whole time is brain bending. having that in the script was such a beautiful way to illustrate the way sam works, which is that he has his own way to keep himself accountable and to remember the things that shaped him, ways he would never bring up to another person-- the amulet symbolizes his love for dean, his rebellion against john, his personal failures in season 4-- it's in his pocket every day to remind him of what he and dean were-- and then in season 11, with his sentimentality stripped bare in front of dean, it becomes what they are, here and now. and that's really neat.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Accretion, chapter 4

Accretion is a story that follows the rise and fall of Galactic Boss Cyrus and the fate of Team Galactic and the lives of those affected by it after its reformation under Saturn. I hope you all enjoy this.

This will be the only really long chapter for the rest of the story. Also, if you're more interested in A Road Further than this story, don't worry! The next chapter is coming out this weekend or next weekend at the latest.

---

Saturn's uneasiness did not wear off once he reached Eterna. Cyrus was oddly stiff to him from the moment they met. He gave Saturn his first job task- maintenance work on a number of old generators that clearly hadn’t been touched in years- without further explanation. A bit of research revealed to Saturn that Cyrus’ company was an old one, and that it had downsized a few years ago. That explained the unused equipment, but not why Cyrus wanted it ready for action again.

Whatever Cyrus’ bright idea was, it was taking a lot of his time. He spent most of the time he wasn’t at work cloistered in his room, stating that he was working on something important in a tone that suggested there would be no further questions on the matter. He didn’t seem annoyed with Saturn or impatient to have him move out- just distracted and tired. Some reunion this had turned out to be.

“You know,” Saturn said to him one day over dinner, “Betty learned hypnosis when she evolved. If you’re having trouble sleeping, she could help.”

“No, thank you,” Cyrus replied, “The sooner my project is finished, the better.”

“Why won’t you tell me what you’re working on?”

“You’ll see when it’s done.”

Saturn left it there. He knew how futile it was to pry answers from Cyrus when he wasn’t eager to give them. He hoped that Cyrus’ all-consuming project wasn’t simply keeping the company afloat.

It was weeks before whatever-it-was was done and Cyrus finally asked him to see it.

“Saturn, could you come with me?” Cyrus asked. “It’s about what I’ve been working on.”

“Yes,” Saturn said, not quite managing to hide his eagerness.

Cyrus led Saturn into his room, which had been strictly off-limits for Saturn since he’d moved in. They stepped between stacks of books and documents on Sinnoh myths, Sinnoh energy companies, and the criminal exploits of various evil teams. Cyrus stopped in front of the corkboard he’d been using to draft his scheme. Notes on energy companies led to plans for a terrorist organization led to document pages on legendaries led to plans for the new world, with the notes for each stage being more sparse than the last since Cyrus had removed the especially incriminating information. The corkboard hadn’t shown the entire plan to begin with, of course- that was written on his computer, protected by several layers of passwords. But this would give Saturn enough information to understand without overwhelming his mental clarity.

“Would you like to know how I acquired my company?” Cyrus asked.

“Yes,” Saturn replied. Cyrus heard the seriousness in his voice. That was no surprise- Saturn was too observant not to notice that the company was doing poorly and worry about the stability of his job because of it.

“Do you remember when we talked about the legendaries, and how they could rewrite human beings if they so chose?”

"Yes. How does that relate to this?”

Cyrus folded his arms behind his back and closed his eyes. “Months ago, I realized that it might actually be possible for a person to take that power for their own. If that were true, it would be unconscionable not to pursue it. There is little chance that there will ever be another person with my intelligence, my vision and my boldness who will come to realize that it’s possible. I’m the only chance this world has to be freed from its suffering.”

Cyrus turned to the first part of the corkboard, which was covered in notes about the various energy companies of Sinnoh. “All I needed were the resources. I begged my uncle for a chance to be a part of the family business empire. It’s true that this company is losing out to greener competitors. Under normal circumstances, it would likely be shut down within a few years. But I believe it’s my key to gathering all I’ll need for the plan. If I can gather followers, we could undermine the competing companies and make it the primary energy company in Sinnoh. Using the resulting wealth, Team Galactic can properly begin. There are details to be sorted out, but as of tonight I’m certain it’s possible.”

Silence stretched out for what felt like minutes, and Cyrus focused on the cork board, avoiding Saturn’s eyes. Had he explained himself adequately? He’d wanted to be understood. He also knew that Saturn had every reason to run from a company that would be used this way.

“Wow. That’s impressive,” Saturn said. “Why did you bother with your family before you knew this would be possible?”

“It was merely an advantageous time. Energy companies earn most in the winter, so I thought a disappointing winter would encourage my uncle to wash his hands of the company and allow someone else to take the fall for it.” Cyrus was a good liar, and anything would be preferable to the truth. “I have something to ask you. Will you join me? Will you help me to create a new and complete world?”

Saturn turned back to the board. “You know, when you talked about changing the world, I thought you’d never find something that would satisfy you. You wanted to change things that no one could. I should have known you’d find a way. And this? This looks possible. The world is messed up. It should be different. I’m in. I want to see what you’ll do.”

Cyrus smiled. “Good. Thank you for being the first member of Team Galactic.”

There were… certainly pros and cons to this. Cyrus had disappeared when he had because his time with Saturn had tempted him not to pursue this plan, to just be another person living a futile life. He’d called Saturn to move across the region because of what a good subordinate he would make. But then, why had he done it before he’d known Team Galactic would be possible? He wasn’t sure. And although Cyrus would never back away from his goals now... joy, lust, vulnerability, outright dependence... they were marginally forgivable traits in a young man without a purpose, but unacceptable in a God. He’d have to hold Saturn at an icy distance from then on to embody his ideals. He did not relish the thought.

But Saturn was more than a temptation. Saturn was diligent, responsible, trustworthy, calm, and loyal. He would be a great asset to the team.

—-

And so it began. Cyrus began speaking in various locations- first a park in Eterna City, then outside of Canalave library, and then in Oreburg. Cyrus’ voice attracted crowds, and it awed Saturn. After seeing Cyrus act and speak so robotically the past few months, seeing this passion, anger, and drive was very welcome. Saturn saw a similar angry fire in the eyes of many young people who watched him. But no one joined.

 At the end of the third day, a trio of young, rough-looking men approached Cyrus as he was preparing to leave.

“Hey, buddy,” one of the men said in a tone that made Cyrus uneasy. “We heard you were planning a team. How do we join?”

“You... wish to hear more about Team Galactic?” Cyrus said. Evil teams tended to attract rougher types. He couldn’t afford to be afraid of them.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Um, Cyrus, I don’t think you should-” Saturn started, pulling gently at Cyrus’ arm.

“Nonsense. Everyone is welcome in Team Galactic. Let’s go.”

Cyrus left with the three men, and Saturn headed home.

It was getting late by the time Cyrus returned home, wet from the rain and intent on ducking into his room as soon as possible. Thankfully his clothes hid most of his new scrapes and bruises. He'd hate for Saturn to see him like this.

“So, how did it go?” Saturn asked.

Cyrus stopped, but kept his back turned. “Another team stole his partner. He was… not interested in joining ours,” he explained. He began to pace the room, trying futilely to hide his nosebleed with his bloody-knuckled hand.

“Um. Do you want some ice or something?” Saturn said after some hesitation.

Cyrus ignored him. “I told him that I wanted to end evil as badly as he did. He would not listen,” he growled. “I must change how I present myself. Tonight I’ll develop a list of the greatest orators in modern history, and tomorrow I will use their strategies to ensure things go differently. Who are the best speakers you can think of?”

“Well, Steven Stone for sure... Champion Diantha... give me a minute.” Saturn wracked his mind for good speakers, especially more optimistic ones.

The results of their first few days of recruitment weren’t surprising. Cyrus was good at articulating what was wrong with the world, but “Join Team Galactic and we will create a better world” didn’t cut it as a solution, especially with the word “team” hanging ominously over the enterprise. If his orator deep-dive didn’t give him the idea, Saturn would find a way to subtly give it to him later.

“Chairman Rose? And maybe you could look at how other evil teams do recruitment.”

“There are some tell-all books by ex-members I could review. But the problem remains: how to explain the new world to people incapable of understanding it?”

There was a knock at the door. Pulled from the conversation, Cyrus opened it. It was a girl who looked to be fourteen at the oldest. Wet red hair hung over her forehead and her clothes were worn out and too small for her. “You’re the one who wanted to change things, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Cyrus replied.

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Good, I’ve been following you all night!”

There was an awkward silence.

“Sorry, that came out wrong. But please let me join your team. You want a world where people are kind and reasonable and don’t hurt each other for no reason anymore. Well, I want that, too. I think everyone does. I know about evil teams. I can help you!”

“We’ll take you into consideration,” Cyrus said, feeling as though he’d stumbled upon a miracle. This girl had given him a clear-as-day description of the new world that others would appreciate, and she might have some valuable knowledge. “What’s your name?”

The girl hesitated and curled her fists. “Copper. But don’t tell anyone else. My old team might be after me.”

“What do they want with you?” Cyrus asked coolly. The last thing they needed was an altercation with an evil team before theirs had even begun.

“They...um... Nothing. I left because I didn’t want to live off of other people’s greed and nastiness anymore. That’s all.”

“I see. Wait in the hallway while I discuss something with my subordinate,” Cyrus instructed.

Copper nodded and stepped out. Cyrus turned to Saturn.

“We’re not actually going to use a kid like this, are we?” Saturn asked.

“You think it would be kinder to put her back on the streets?”

“We have other options than that. We could call the police, get her in contact with her family...”

“I doubt she would allow it, if she’s who I think she is.” Cyrus brought up a photo on his Pokétch. It was of the backs of a family of four out for a walk and holding hands, seemingly taken by paparazzi. There was a short, dark-haired man, a tall, red-haired woman, and on either side of them was a red-haired young child- one boy and one girl.

“Is that Giovanni?”

“Yes. And an insider to the most successful evil team in the world would be very useful to us. She wants an idealist to follow and a more comfortable life than she’s been living. We will provide it for her. It’s that simple.”

Cyrus opened the door, where Copper was waiting. She looked up at Cyrus with big, nervous eyes.

“You may join us,” Cyrus said. “You will need a new name so that your old team doesn’t find you. Your name will be Mars, after the God of war, because you’ve been strong for too long. You won’t have to be strong much longer. I promise.”

Mars’ red eyes filled with adoration and tears. She dove in and hugged Cyrus, catching him off guard. Cyrus gave her an awkward pat on the back.

“You’ll sleep on our couch tonight,” Cyrus explained. “We’ll figure out more permanent arrangements tomorrow.”

“Thank you, thank you, I won’t let you down!” Mars insisted, head still firmly against Cyrus’ chest.

The next day, the trio went to their next speaking location. Mars had suggested a seedy area of Eterna, so they could target those who would be most eager for a change.

Mars was first to speak, and she described Cyrus as though he was a saviour. That made sense to him. That was what he was. As she spoke, he absorbed every bit of hope that she’d received from him. What she’d taken was what he would sell the masses.

Soon, their ranks filled, the old generators came back into use, and money multiplied.

---

Officer Jenny pulled up to the Eterna City office building. Two rapidash and a vespiquen in pokéballs hung from her belt, along with a radio to call for backup and a handgun to use as a last resort. She knew her mission: arrest the man who had been suspected by their detective team to be behind several recent attacks on energy companies throughout Sinnoh.

The building was unassuming, and its inside was no different- the first floor held an unoccupied lobby area that Jenny walked through uncontested aside from some odd looks from the receptionists. The next floor contained a largely young but otherwise unremarkable workforce typing at computers or fiddling with equipment. She wondered whether she was in the right place.

Jenny was about to slink up to the next floor before a man caught her arm. Jenny took her rapidash’s pokéball, preparing for another fight.

“Hey,” the man whispered, “Are you here to see the boss?”

“Yes,” Jenny replied, keeping her hand around the ball just in case.

“I’ll take you. He’s gone too far.”

It was several floors to the top, each stranger than the last. Computers gave way to strange equipment Jenny couldn’t identify. Carpets and bland wallpaper gave way to metal, chrome, and space-themed decor, like she’d stepped into a futuristic military base. Finally, they got to the boss’ office.

On the other side of the door, Cyrus and Jupiter were having their weekly meeting, which as per usual had gone into the subject of military equipment and its possible uses.

“And what is the explosion radius?” Cyrus asked, stone-faced but with rapt attention.

“twenty-five whole feet,” Jupiter explained, “which doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it is.”

“I see. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to put some of our weaponry budget towards it. Of course, that depends on whether you think you could lead Saturn and the grunts in constructing one, given the right parts.”

“I’d love to,” Jupiter replied.

“Tell me more about their construction.”

Jupiter smiled. She got the sense that Cyrus liked these meetings more than he let on. Why else have them so often, and last thing in the day so they could go late, as they so often did? Jupiter couldn’t complain either- she was getting paid to explain her passion to an interested audience. As Jupiter was about to launch into an explanation, the door slammed open.

Officer Jenny stood in the doorway, a handgun in her grip. Oh, Jupiter had known this day would come. Her good day was about to get even better.

“Cyrus Akagi, you are under arrest for multiple counts of inciting terrorism. Put your hands above your head.”

“Very well,” Cyrus replied coolly. He got up from behind his desk, put up his hands, and slowly came towards officer Jenny. The officer grew increasingly tense as her eyes moved from the untouched pokéballs on the desk to Cyrus’ unreadable face to Jupiter, who gave her a frosty sneer.

“Before you take me in, let me ask you a question: have you checked the forecast for Snowpoint today?”

Jenny grit her teeth and adjusted her grip on the gun.

“My company powers much of Sinnoh,” Cyrus continued, stopping right in front of the officer. “That includes its coldest areas. Every one of my subordinates are on strict orders to shut down energy production if I am arrested.” He took Jenny’s wrists and raised her gun to aim at his head. “Go ahead. I’m sure that the people of Snowpoint will be glad you stood against corruption when they’re contracting frostbite in their own homes. It’s been a chilly Fall. I imagine that several other towns are three, maybe four weeks away from their fate.”

The officer trembled. Behind her, the “traitorous” grunt was grinning like a maniac. Saturn appeared as well, similarly enjoying her pain. He touched her shoulder, causing her to jump.

“Would you like an escort out, miss Jenny?” Saturn asked. Defeated, the officer hung her head, put away her gun, and turned away. The three of them left, leaving Jupiter and Cyrus alone. They knew that this moment would happen. That it had happened once the company was powerful enough to leverage threats was sheer luck. And now, after two years of hiding in the shadows, the police now knew of the nature of their organization, but the response to their crimes would be slow or nonexistent so long as no one knew that Cyrus’ objective was taking over the world and not just the energy sector.

Everything changed rapidly over the next few days. Most of the Team Galactic personnel, including the commanders and Cyrus himself, moved into the Veilstone City building, which would now be not only their workplace but their home. Pokémon that had once stayed with individuals were moved to the menagerie, where they would stay when off-duty. Mars in particular had her hands full giving dozens of grunts teal bowl cuts to match their new uniforms- a space-age design that Mars had had a heavy hand in designing. The excitement helped her push past fatigue. Everything was finally coming to life around her.

Once the last grunt was finally cut, Mars ran off to see Cyrus. She’d somehow managed to convince him to wait until she was around to try on his new uniform.

"Well? What do you think?” Mars asked after he’d put it on for the first time.

Cyrus looked into the mirror. The uniform looked like something that the commander of a science fiction space vessel would wear. He folded his arms behind his back and walked back and forth in front of the mirror, giving it his best stern, hard looks.

Yes, this was perfect. He looked like a solid, uncompromising wall. And wasn’t that what everyone wanted him to be? So many fools, their lives fallen apart due to their own vice, had put their lives and decisions into his hands because they wanted someone sturdy and rational to handle them. It was arguably the smartest choice they’d ever made. Cyrus looked back to Mars, seeing the adoration on her face- adoration he was becoming more and more accustomed to.

“Well done,” he said to Mars, turning back to the mirror. Mars lit up from the validation.

Everyone rose to attention when Cyrus entered the auditorium, clearing the way to give him space as he made his way to the stage, where his commanders were lined up to the side. There was much chatter amongst the crowd, but Cyrus didn’t mind. Even if noise still had power over him, which it did not, he could stop it in an instant with a command. After taking his place on the stage, he stared at the crowd, put a finger to his lips and watched as they fell silent.

“Fellow members of Team Galactic, hear me!” Cyrus spoke into the microphone. “Each one of you here has agreed to be a part of our great mission to leave this world of strife and suffering behind us and enter a new era of peace. We would not be here today without your collective efforts.

We have now entered our second phase of operations. In this new era, the world will be aware of our ill-doings. However, they will not be aware of our cause, as it is a cause only we can understand.

There will be new rules to follow to ensure our success. Firstly, no one is allowed to leave the compound without at least one issued Pokémon. As public enemies, we must be prepared to defend our interests. Secondly, do not speak of our true mission to anyone. The longer the authorities think of my capture as more trouble than it’s worth, the fewer obstacles they will put in our path. 

Finally, there is no place among us for doubt. You will all pledge to me today. Swear to relinquish all your hope for this world and put it instead in Team Galactic. Together, we will triumph!”

The crowd cheered wildly. The commanders lined up and one by one to swear to him. The grunts followed, excited to receive his approval.

—-

“Zubat, return. Sneasel, out,” Cyrus commanded, tossing the new pokéball into the arena. The sneasel absorbed Betty’s psychic without a scratch.

“Nice switch-in,” Saturn admitted, readying a different pokéball himself. “Crogunk, your turn!” he said, throwing it.

“Pursuit,” Cyrus ordered, and his sneasel ran in and jabbed the kadabra before it had a chance to return.

Betty fell to the ground, defeated. Saturn’s crogunk was swiftly taken out shortly after with air slash.

“Well, that’s all I got,” Saturn said. He jogged over to his fainted Pokémon and used revives on them. Once Betty was up, she was cuddling into Saturn. She was nearly the height of a person now, but some things never changed. Saturn petted her but returned her as Cyrus approached- no need for her to seek affection from someone who wouldn’t give it anymore.

“You’re getting pretty good at this,” Saturn said, putting away the pokéball.

“Yes.” And with this, Cyrus had shed the last of his weakness. Learning to battle had been low on his long list of priorities, but it was a skill that every crime boss needed. The two left the arena, stepped out into the chilly night together, and headed back.

“So, Cyrus, about that new rule about Team Galactic’s Pokémon being left in the menagerie when off duty... I know you want them to be loyal to the team instead of one person, but…”

“Commanders are exempt. For now, at least.” The last thing he wanted was to reduce his best recruiter’s morale by separating her from her beloved Purugly. “However, I have a new order for you. Never speak of how you once knew me as anyone other than I am now. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Master Cyrus,” Saturn replied.

“Excellent. Good night,” Cyrus said, and they parted ways.

[snackerdoodle]

books I read in 2023

I had a huge reading year this year because of my gruelingly long commute. The list below the cut is mostly for my own edification, but I’m a nosy person who supports other nosy people, so if you want to know what I’ve been up to, have at it. Almost everything I read this year was from the library.

1/12 A Charmed Life, Diana Wynne Jones

1/18 The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School, Sonora Reyes

1/24 The Life-Changing Magic of 

Tidying Up, Marie Kondo

1/25 Hotel Magnifique, Emily J. Taylor

1/30 Spark Joy, Marie Kondo 

2/2 The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune

2/8 The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik

2/8 Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Ashley Herring Blake

2/15 The Nile, Toby Wilkinson

2/23 The Painted Queen, Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess

2/28 Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

3/5 Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters

3/12 Lord of the Silent, Elizabeth Peters

3/16 Marie Kondo’s Kurashi at Home, Marie Kondo 

3/20 Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin

3/20 The Art of Simple Living, Shunmyo Masuno

3/26 The Bird’s Nest, Shirley Jackson

4/11 Life Among the Savages, Shirley Jackson

4/12 A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

4/18 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4/21 Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia  Hersey

5/1 Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo

5/3 Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, Ashley Herring Blake

5/10 Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of American Labor, Kim Kelly

5/11 Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Joy Harjo 

5/12 Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge

5/15 The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson

5/18 The Lives of Christopher Chant, Diana Wynne Jones

5/29 A Little Devil in America, Hanif Abdurraqib

6/3 A Marvellous Light, Freya Marske

6/6 Ducks, Kate Beaton 

6/8 Wild and Wicked Things, Francesca May (awful. Every character was an idiot. Why did I finish this)

6/10 Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health, Meilan K. Han, MD

6/19 The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu

6/19 A Fortune for Your Disaster, Hanif Abdurraqib (I liked this even more than the last one I read. Maybe because it was an audiobook read by the author.)

6/22 Disjointed, Diana Jovin (ed) (skipped parts that were totally unrelated to me and some things that were also too technical)

6/22 The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson

6/26 Enquête au collège, Jean-Phillipe Arrou-Vignod 

6/28 The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner

7/3 Last Call, Elon Green

7/12 Cache Cache Petit Fantôme

7/13 Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-

Exupéry

7/13 La fille qui navigua autour de féérie dans un bateau construit de ses propres mains, Catherynne M Valente

7/14 Lost in the Moment and Found, Seanan McGuire

7/14 Ich mag dich gesund sagte der Bär, Janosch

7/25 The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

7/31 The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

8/10 A Restless Truth, Freya Marske 

8/16 Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle

9/6 The Body in the Garden, Katherine Schellman

9/11 Silence in the Library, Katherine Schellman

9/13 When Things Get Dark, various 

9/19 Death at the Manor, Katherine Schellman

9/25 Sorcery and Cecelia, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

10/3 The Grand Tour, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer 

10/6 Murder at Midnight, Katharine Schellman

10/12 The Mislaid Magician, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

10/18 Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, Elizabeth Winkler

10/18 Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, JK Rowling

10/25 Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA search for Mind Control, Stephen Kinzer

11/1 Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, Ashley Herring Blake

11/3 Nothing But Blackened Teeth, Cassandra Shaw

11/9 Unfuck Your Habitat, Rachel Hoffman

11/11 Safe and Sound, Mercury Stardust 

11/12 Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD (revised and updated), Susan C. Pinskey

11/18 Red Seas under Red Skies, Scott Lynch

11/20 In With the Old: Classic Decor A to Z,  Jennifer Boles 

11/23 Habitat: The Field Guide to Decorating, Lauren Liess

11/24 Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, Norbert Schneider 

11/29 The Conscious Closet, Elizabeth L. Cline

12/4 Leech, Hiron Ennes

12/6 The Star that Always Stays, Anna Rose Johnson 

P12/14 The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch

12/15 An American Sunrise, Joy Harjo

12/20 The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins

12/22 How to Keep House While Drowning, KC Davis

12/30 The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson 

Gave up on: The Woman Who Would Be King, Kara Cooney (too speculative/fictionalized)

A Scatter of Light, Malinda Lo (nothing really wrong, it just wasn’t holding my attention at all)

14 histoires pour avoir peur mais pas trop quand même (turned into full cast audio and the music between stories was really annoying)

Manhunt, Gretchen Felker-Martin (not in the right headspace maybe, maybe just not for me)

American Cozy, Stephanie Pedersen (got annoyed at how much of the information hinged on living in a huge suburban home with 18 closets and a husband and multiple children you can make do your chores for you)

The Curated Closet, Anuschka Rees (not bad just not what I was looking for)

[signipotens]

1, 2, 4 for the ask game?

Ooh! Thank you for indulging me :​]

I realised after I reblogged the ask game that almost all of what I’ve read recently has been research for my new big Mormon alternate history/fanfic project, so I’ll give you a Mormon thing and a non-Mormon thing for each :​p

1. What’s something you read recently and enjoyed?

For Mormon stuff, most of the books I’ve been reading are things I’ve read before, but I recently bought Jared Farmer’s On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Harvard UP, 2010) and it’s so good. As much a history of a lake and a mountain as it is a history of the people who have come to live there, and even more so a history of the way that Americans—Mormons, Indians, and Gentiles alike—have used and conceived of the lands that they have built their homes on, Farmer does a fantastic job of situating Mormon Zionism both in its American and its particular Mormon contexts, and of showcasing the ways that mythology, history, folklore, and everyday life have come crashing together as the Mormons have made Utah into their national homeland and the Timpanogos have been wrenched from theirs.

For non-Mormon stuff, I’ve recently finished reading The Book of Abraham by Marek Halter (completely unrelated to the Mormon thing of the same name). Though at times it can be a bit of a bit of a who’s who of famous Europeans and pogroms, and the portrayal of women is lacking throughout (charitably, this is drawing on a general theme in Jewish and European historical chronicles, which also sideline women), I think it’s worth reading for the form alone. Drawing on all manner of epistolary, journalistic, biblical, and aggadaic styles, Halter follows the lives of generations upon generations of one Jewish family (after about 1600, his own) as they live their lives in various locales across Europe and SWANA between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 and the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. Makes me want to read Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms again, since I think that’s one of the few books that might have the same vibes. Also going to read the sequel here soon.

2. What’s something you read recently and disliked?

Despite being, in my opinion, one of the seminal moments in Mormon history, and despite it being extremely well-documented, the Exodus to Utah is surprisingly poorly covered in the academic literature. That Richard Bennett’s duology We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846–1848 (Deseret Book, 1997) and Mormons at the Missouri, 1846–1852: “And Should We Die” (University of Oklahoma Press, 1987) is the best we’ve got is honestly a bit more a condemnation of the state of current Mormon scholarship than it is praise of Bennett’s work. That’s not to say that they’re bad, and I like the ideas at play—the establishment of legitimacy in the post-Martyrdom Church, the role of Religion™ in defining how Mormons went about finding their Promised Land, the practical mechanics of funding and moving several thousand people across a country—but the narrative, sourcing, numerical analysis, and Bennett’s writing style are fairly weak, and his analysis is lacking a certain breadth and depth as I would prefer for what ought to be the seminal work on the subject. Must be read alongside at least Lawrence Coates’ “Refugees Meet: The Mormons and Indians in Iowa” (BYU Studies Quarterly 21, no. 4, 1981) and something like Carol Madsen’s Journey to Zion: Voices from the Mormon Trail (Deseret Book, 1997).

For general fiction, at the beginning of summer I read through the first couple books in the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, and Abaddon’s Gate, and while I think they’re decently good and recommendable, I also couldn’t really get into them, I guess? My disappointment with how the books treat Mormons can be found elsewhere and is kinda pertinent to this; otherwise I just didn’t really vibe with the setting and didn’t particularly like the authors’ treatment of future religion and politics, tho I did enjoy the characters well enough, especially Holden. Don’t know if I’ll continue into the next arc, but I probably won’t for the time being, unless someone wants to convince me :​p

4. What are your top 3 comfort reads?

Mostly stuff I loved in my childhood. I think my main go-to is Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, but I also love Jules Verne, especially Voyage au centre de la terre and Tour du monde en 80 jours, both of which never fail to cheer me up. My third, weird answer is Winthrop Sargeant’s eminent translation of the Bhagavad Gita, both for the content of the story itself and especially for Sargeant’s extensive glosses (each line is given in Devanagari, IAST, a word-for-word translation, and a prose translation, with an exhaustive concordance on each page giving the roots, inflectional information, and translations for each word in that page’s stanza. very fun for linguistics brain :​] ).

[livingfictionsystem]

Contemplative Asks

1. cosmos: what's one thing you wish you could say to someone you are no longer friends with?

I was right and you were wrong.

2. galaxies: what are three things you want to do before you die?

- Visit London.

- Have a drink at the Oscar Wilde bar.

- Finish All of my planned books.

3. waxing: what is your proudest accomplishment?

Breaking up with my worst ex, despite the hit to my social circle and reputation.

4. waning: what is your biggest regret?

Not realising what Rowan was doing soon enough to save my husband from them.

5. full moon: what type of person do you hope to be?

The type that's remembered and debated for centuries.

6. contemplation: if you could wake up one morning and everything in your life was perfect, what would that look like?

I'd be living downtown in some historic, capital city. Somewhere high up, where I could see several buildings from my window. I have rooftop access and have tea On the roof with a partner or friend who lives close, but not necessarily with me. Some friends/lovers are going to get together and we're going to see a show later on. Some theater production I'm familiar with. But first, a fancy dinner and a bit of bar hopping~ My treat.

7. night light: who/what makes you feel safe?

Not much. Though I am a being of comfort-rewatching.

8. ponder: what do you want to do with your life?

Help the host with their goals. (They still have a chance. I don't.) But also travel, sample the various fruits of life, and perhaps one day completely dismantling the cult. It'd also be nice to have my books less niche.

9. sunset: who is someone you thought would be in your life forever, but you no longer talk to?

Seran.

10. midnight: are you a different person late at night than in the early morning?

Oh definitely. I Thrive at night and bumble through mornings.

11. candle light: are you an indecisive person?

No.

12. reflection: have you ever changed something you liked about yourself to satisfy someone else?

Absolutely fucking not. I've faked it before, but only when I had to.

13. sweet dreams: are you happy?

No. I've been in a persistent state of misery and bitterness for four years. Grief's a bitch.

14. nightmare: what are you most afraid of?

Probably my system redacting itself and the person controlling the body acting like we, including myself, had never existed.

15. constellations: who is someone you could talk to for hours and never stop?

My partner and close friends.

16. reminder: who is someone you will never forget?

It'd be quicker to list those I will forget.

17. 11-11: what's something you want, but feel like you will never have?

Peace. No rest for me in this life---maybe in the next.

18. shooting star: who is someone you trust to help you make the right decisions?

Kaspar. It's like a godsend of a social tactician and I've learned a lot from watching it. Cotton is also a good sounding board for moral decisions.

19. earth: where do you feel most at home?

Savannah, Georgia.

20. soothe: what's one thing that always makes you feel better when you're upset?

My MP3 player. Watching one of my favourite shows with someone. Champagne. One of my adopted siblings. My partner. Gallows humour.

21. slumber: what's one thing that helps you fall asleep when it feels impossible?

The cold and white noise. Especially the sort of 40 F cold that you only start to feel in the northern autumn.

-Xanthe

[riley-travels]

August 7- Travel day, Tea Ceremony, and Goodbye Dinner

Today I tried to sleep in a bit, but sadly was not able to and woke up pretty early. Once I was awake I felt like I had so much to do that I needed to get out of bed. After doing my morning routine I bought a checked bag allowance for one of my flights, booked a hostel in Shibuya for my first night in Japan, and then pre-booked a pocket wifi for Japan as well. I woke up and spent a bunch of money, which was both more stressing and also making the decisions took a weight off of my shoulders. After finally finishing that I headed down to breakfast (no matcha lattes and none tomorrow morning either :( ), but it was pretty good and I made sure to eat something filling along with my espressos. I will have to do the same thing tomorrow, as I am trying not to spend any money before leaving. We all piled on to the bus to start our ~4 hour drive back to Taipei, and everyone was very into karaoke. I was trying really hard to finish the season of a show, but the site kept buffering the whole way.

When we got to Taipei we attended a traditional tea ceremony which I really enjoyed. Jane Goodall signature was on one of the walls so I got a picture of that of course! I loved the teas that they chose as well as the pineapple cake and date bar. I got to talk to Iris a bit about her plans and maybe we will have the chance to meet up while in Japan. We headed to dinner after that, and it was also really good, sadly though I do not eat shrimp and many dishes included it. I think me and Sabrina also cleared two teapots by ourselves after being dehydrated on the bus.

When we got back to the hotel, I decided to immediately empty my back pack and sort out everything I needed to go to Japan. I only get 7kg (15lbs) for my one, so I am trying to take all of my electronics and necessities while still being in that. I will have time tomorrow to go through it again, but I wanted to be done and have to double check tomorrow rather than begin from scratch. On the way back I will be getting a duffel and then checking it so I am much less concerned about weight. I showered and packed and then settled in to take a breather and then go to bed.

Academic:

Tea ceremonies in Taiwan are deeply rooted in traditional Chinese practices, reflecting a blend of aesthetics, philosophy, and social ritual. Taiwanese tea culture emphasizes mindfulness, the appreciation of tea's sensory attributes, the aroma and the heat of the cup. These ceremonies often involve specific types of tea, intricate preparation methods, and elegant teaware. In contrast, tea culture in the United States is more diverse and less ritualized, influenced by various immigrant cultures and contemporary lifestyles. In the U.S., tea is typically consumed for its health benefits, convenience, or as a social beverage without the ceremonial aspects seen in Taiwan.

[pearlydewydrops]

finally finished obit and i’m stunned!! this book + i remain in darkness (which i have not finished…) paired together is painful. i feel very tired out and like i need a shower to cleanse myself now (that may also be because ive been reading this book for like 4 hours couped up in my bed). victoria chang says something about ‘sadness is plural, but grief is singular’ and that is so very true because her depiction of grief in this book is so unique and these individual moments that grief hits expressed through the figurative deaths of various objects, metaphorical beings, concepts and people all culminate into a beautiful and fragmented journey of her grief over her mother’s death. the final obituary is the only literal death described in the book, apart from her mother’s, which was the Parkland high school shooting that happened on february 14th 2018 (as i searched it up), although, the event that occurred on that date isn’t specifically stated in the book for good reason. May they rest in peace and i thought that was a beautiful way to end the book. it all felt so natural - the repetitive format and how all these obituaries feel like an incredibly heavy-handed diary (like a designated grief journal?). the book ends with a final poem that doesn’t end in a metaphorical sense, it’s an endless poem of hope hope hope (‘see how the mouth stays open?’ she writes as the final line) dedicated to her children. i didn’t notice the connection between the poems and the obituaries in the book but i noticed that a lot (maybe all?) of the poems were of victoria chang talking about her children

also weirdly this part of the book rlly reminded me of the image of sitting at the top of the bunk bed of my grandparents (not new but new for me since it was my first time visiting it last year in december) apartment in singapore. i imagine these two scenes to be wildly different cause the writer isn’t even sitting on a bunk bed 😭 but idk the image of sitting at the top of the bunk bed looking down at the many many streetlights through the small open window that only i could see from (yes this did make me feel special compared to my sister, actually i don’t even remember if she had a window on the bottom bunk maybe she did but i don’t think so) at 4am because their (new but not new) apartment was sooooo hot and cramped im not even joking when i say that opening the window was the only thing saving me from passing out (i kinda rlly miss their old apartment but its ok :(( ) and the veryvery white light illuminating through the gap at the bottom of the door from the bathroom whenever my grandpa would take bathroom breaks while watching the football game (i think he goes for arsenal?) is all still so fresh in my mind yet already nostalgic-feeling. it might just be nostalgic because i was feeling sad at the moment and was romanticising looking out an apartment window while im the only one awake woooweee…. but i miss itttt (even tho i was sorta kinda shitting on my grandparent’s new apartment a second ago i still loved it so much i wanna go back for a visit eugh) none of this added to what i was talking about with the book i’m really just saying anything because i am no good at analysing and evaluating books and beautiful writing BUT i will say

i love any piece of art that depicts grief in a lyrical, quiet yet passionate way. i’m scared for the day i have to experience my own intense grief but something about the way its written when its written WELL is fascinating and strangely comforting in a way no other concept of a feeling is (moreso comforting when the person has a good support system). idk why but it is

…my parents are back home now from work and i have to take a shower and study so i’ll just leave these scrappy notes here i guess… ??

(also this whole book reminds me that i don’t think i’ve ever read an obituary in my life. i admittedly didn’t even know what it was until i searched it up 😭😭 maybe i’m too young 😭)

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary222

4/24/24

wednesday

another opening shift tomorrow.

and i also get paid!! i also got a check today cuz i forgot it lol. i also just used it all . lol!! but i'm okay with that because i need an external hard drive, i should also stock up on skincare and clothes while i can also. things to assuage whatever... idk, desires and anxieties, to last long enough.

i will probably finish discipline and punish before work tomorrow, and i brought agua viva to work today, just to get into that book. should be a quicker read, i basically only got to where i was at when i started it last, but restarting is good, i will say, i think bringing a pen to work to take notes in the book, this used to be my ideal way to read things, taking notes in the book, but maybe not anymore? it feels like it gets in the way. so i will drink the book as i read it and not take notes for now, until i read something that seems to beg of it. i tend to underline too much anyways because i love every line i guess.

another thing on my mind, is the real frustration with seeing protestors at various college campuses, the people occupying buildings, setting up tents, trying to do something (anyone can say oh it is useless or whatever, but we do not know this for certain until it all comes out at the end, even if it demonstrates possibility, can we say that it is useless? that is a beautiful thing to illustrate for us all) as anti-semites. it is a total fabrication and distortion of the goals of these movements as far as i can gather, they are simply agglutinations of a desire not for 'justice' but the fact of an end to genocidal empire, imperial meddling, and so on. this is an important desire, the fact this is put forth in the media as anti-semitic terrorism on the rise, is psychotic and stoking the fact that we have seen so many actual fascist turns in this country as a way to increase panic towards anything radical and 'abnormal,' and even 'unnatural' as the unnatural is what prevents the continuous flow of regular life. demonstration of that as non-continuous, something you might step outside, the law, pigs, work, school, discipline and the facts of hierarchy, even in miniature, even if for seconds, even if these communes (in miniature) fail into these kinds of terrible organizations once again, there was something there where it did not confirm these facts. the world is praying on failure. i hope they remain strong in organization, that they are not treating one another poorly, that they are sharing. that they resist their being painted as terrorists (not that they don't destroy anything really who gives a fuck about property, i mean resist the guilting at work, this super-parental-punishing complex these apparatuses of the state would like to mobilize against the students and faculty).

it makes me sad that there is nothing near me. perhaps there is, and maybe i can only talkabout wanting it? it on some level, makes me feel like a failure. i hope i am not. there is something soon and i'll try to go but it seems...idk. it's 'a night of resistance' where they are serving 'free middle-eastern food' which isn't bad but it's got the air of a meet and greet rather than, idk, anything else. but maybe this city and campus is so distant a meet and greet could accomplish more than i imagine. i will be there to try and listen i suppose.

that is all i can do, it feels like.

(shell out money also but it's rude to talk about such things seeking eyes upon the act (is this a bourgeois moralism lodged inside my heart? i cannot tell. it feels true to me, no matter what. (and i wonder, under all this quibbling, i am supposing my saudi friend would say something about how i talk about this, the same way many crackers do i guess. it's a pathetic way to wish the world were better maybe.)))

anyway, i worked on the last song in that list, so i am back to the 3 songs that need vox and that's it. hope i get on that soon.

i hope i have the day off of work for the strange palestine thing. there will be poetry there, i hope it is good poetry. i am worried it will not be.

i worry a lot of things will be bad, i guess. maybe that's obvious. it gets in the way of living often. the fear is an engine too though, it propels me, maybe misshapen to the idea of life lived right, without fear, maybe i am wrong, but i hold onto the pulsions of my will(s), whatever they are, they take me to something, at least.

passion/(dis)passion, they seem almost equal voices perhaps.

anyhow i really must be getting to sleep now. last night was so sleepless, it seemed like maybe only an hour, and then at work, a profound waste of time came upon me when i was told i had to, along side my coworker, lift extremely heavy boxes of tiles because the owner came and said 'i don't like this. it makes no sense'. terrible stuff to happen to a (thing, androgyne, girl/boy,) like me, who needs sleep and to not be sore.

but i liked what i ate today, so that is nice.

anyway,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!