#i like the aesthetic but in terms of plants i want to actually own they are literally so low on the list

[rebeccadumaurier]

my contribution to the tlt venus flytrap discourse is that (having previously owned one) one of the things i find most interesting about them is that a single mouth of a venus flytrap will usually die after closing and digesting ~3-10 times, because the digestion takes such an enormous amount of energy. they are also super tiny (like palm of my hand tiny) and i could only give them distilled water because they cant handle impure water or any kind of fertilizer. they also may or may not become endangered due to poaching. basically i'm saying they're the harrowhark nonagesimus of plants: small, threatening but also frail, and cannot handle flavor

[paintedperiwinkle]

plant dashboard simulator

🍁 nevergreen Following

when are we gonna talk about the superiority complex that evergreens have just because they don’t go dormant

🌱 sproutaloud Follow

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!

🌳 oakspoke Follow

um it’s quite literally the opposite actually?? evergreens are always ostracized because they don’t turn colors in autumn

🍁 nevergreen Following

found the evergreen apologist

#evergreens if i see u on this post ur getting blocked immediately

25,398 notes

🍌 fruitsalad Follow

just a reminder that imported produce take away from the desirability of locally grown produce!

🍓 berrysweet Following

what the fuck??

🥥 tropical-chill Follow

op i’m outside your house with a weedwhacker

#tw discourse #tw idiocy

36,294 notes

🥕 carrottop-deactivated10022023

demeaning crops who weren’t sowed with higher quality soil and fertilizer is elitist btw!

🍒 redandjuicy Following

literally who is doing that

🪴 homegrown Follow

flop post i fear

🍂 autumnbreeze Follow

bro deleted his whole account 💀

97,173 notes

🥀 wiltedbeauty Following

can we PLEASE talk about the pretty privilege of garden flowers?? weeds and wildflowers are always cast out just bc we aren’t “aesthetic”

🪻 violet-and-violent Following

and the most stuck up ones are ALWAYS roses and sunflowers

🥀 wiltedbeauty Following

YOU GET IT!!!

5,746 notes

🌻 de-flowered Follow

just got pollenated for the first time…

🌳 oakspoke Follow

some things can stay in the drafts op

🌷 pinkandpretty Following

don’t listen to them you go girl!

5,229 notes

🪴 homegrown Follow

dni if you think that kudzu shouldn’t be held accountable for the damage it’s done to native flora communities

🍌 fruitsalad Follow

op they aren’t gonna like this one…

🍁 nevergreen Following

your ass is always at the scene of the crime huh

57,385 notes

🍄 not-a-fun-guy Follow

do you guys ever feel like you don’t belong

0 notes

🌵 aloesoft Following

gentle reminder that the terms succulent and cacti are not interchangeable!! all cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti! it can be offensive to some of us to use them incorrectly!

🍓 berrysweet Following

reblogging so more people see this

#important

3,385 notes

🍃 soil-lover Following

all lawns are beautiful!! lawns with weeds! lawns with sparse grass and dirt patches! clover lawns! overgrown lawns! you are all beautiful!

🍂 autumnbreeze Follow

one of these things is not like the others…

🌾 gonewiththewind Follow

the real issue is that “lawns” exist in the first place. what happened to wide open fields?

🍃 soil-lover Following

can you make your own fucking post

17,220 notes

🌱 sproutaloud Follow

vegetables that can be grown throughout multiple seasons i love you <3

🥒 cute-cumber Follow

so just fuck single season veggies then huh?

🌱 sproutaloud Follow

that is literally not what i said. but now i am. fuck you

#??? #are you stupid on purpose or

6,383 notes

🪷 hightide Following

some of you guys need to start including aquatic plants in your advocacy. we are the most overlooked plant group

🌵 aloesoft Following

THIS!!!!

🪷 hightide Following

why are you the only one who understands me

#aquatic plants 🤝 desert plants

104 notes

🌿 fabulousfern Follow

no offense but indoor plants will literally never understand what wild plants go through

🎍 bamboozled Follow

you want a medal or something?? as a wild plant myself we’re not somehow better than them because we don’t need humans to take care of us. they didn’t ask to be born house plants

🌿 fabulousfern Follow

kiss ass

#did they pick you? #i hope they see this bro

9,385 notes

🍀 luckyday Following

shoutout to all of the big trees that share their nutrients with us little guys down here!! we love you!! 💚

11 notes

🌳 oakspoke Follow

no one tell the climbing plants but it makes me feel a bit claustrophobic when they grow up all over me

🌲 suburban-spruce Follow

HELP i thought i was the only one 😭

🍁 nevergreen Following

oh that’s not…

🌱 sproutaloud Follow

it’s not too late to delete this…

🍇 leavesfromthevine Following

like literally wtf???

#sorry that not all of us have a fucking trellis to grow on?? #we literally can not help how we grow??? #yall pretend to care about plants different from you but then post shit like this #did u think no one would see this? be honest #pathetic

62,590 notes

[emeryhiro]

Part 2: My Thoughts on The Book Of Carol Episode 1 - Panel

-Spoiler-free edition-

This continues Part 1 of my thoughts [link here], specifically focusing on the panel.

There seems to be some confusion that's also upsetting some people, so I feel like, as someone who was there, it's my responsibility to clarify things and share some new things. I'll also be including my transcript from different relevant portions of the panel that don't spoil the episode itself, and just to make it clear, this transcript is word for word with what was said and has not been paraphrased by me; the only portions I removed were the pauses and instances where a speaker stammered.

Incorporating Carol into the Story

Zabel has been in conversation with Melissa (about Carol) for as long as he's been in conversation with Norman (about Daryl), which is from before writing & filming even started for season 1, discussing what they each had to say about their characters in detail. Once they began to approching season 2, Zabel then began to have more detailed conversation with Melissa about what she wanted for Carol going into the future, which we could see had already started to be from episode 1 in a huge way, with almost every single Carol scene having intention and deep meaning behind it.

D. Ross: What was it like starting to think about how to incorporate Carol into the story? Did you talk about season 2? How was that discussion? S.M. Gimple: I mean, Zabel drove those discussions. D. Zabel: I think it came out in our early conversations to make sure that the first episode which you just saw really planted Carol back into the world. You know, that was a very conscious choice because we spent 6 episodes of the show focused exclusively on Daryl, and knowing that we're bringing Melissa into this show, we wanted to make sure that we started the story off in a very strong way. To sort of re-establish the character after a couple of years, we hadn't seen her. And also to make her drive to find Daryl very compelling, motivated, and active. That came out of our early, like our first conversations about how to do it.

Collaboration between Zabel, Norman, and Melissa

I said this before, but I wanna say it again that Melissa's voice was really obvious to me in the way episode 1 was done, and Norman has spoken many times about how he's worked really hard on Daryl's story in the spin-off. The below exerpt also shows that the collaboration was actually really there between Zabel, Norman, and Melissa, and that it had great influence on the direction of the show. Even Gimpel gives the credit to Zabel, Norman, and Melissa and greatly compliments their collaboration.

D. Ross: What were your discussions? Because obviously, Melissa and Scott have worked for a long time together, and obviously, Melissa and Norman forever, but this is, you know, your first time connecting David and Melissa, so what were those conversations like in terms of finding the character and getting the input and sharing new ideas? D. Zabel: Well, yeah I'm the new guy, and so as a result, I had to be hazed. It was great because I had a whole year with Norman working on the show, and part of that was my own learning process about the characters, the character specifically of Daryl, about all the show and the aesthetic of The Walking Dead universe, and so during that time I was also having conversations with Melissa and getting ready, so there was really a lot of leadup to when we brought the character back into the show and a lot of conversations that we had after those initial ones were really Melissa and me talking about how to advance the character of Carol and how to not let the character stay stagnant, same as the kind of conversations that Norman and I had in the beginning, how to continue to move the character forward and move the story forward and expand on the universe in general, and not let the characters and the world stagnate and say in the same place, 'cause it's easy to sort of keep going through the same things over and over again. So a lot of it was talking to Melissa and understanding how she saw the character, thought the character was and the things that she felt were interesting to play moving into the future. S.M. Gimple: And that is a huge thing with both Norman and Melissa. You know they have that executive producer credit, but that's the real deal, they provided a lot towards the narrative of their characters, towards the trajectory of their characters. This is them expressing themselves. And to watch this collaboration has been amazing.

Melissa's thoughts on coming back to the show and bringing her ideas

Throughout the entire panel, Melissa seemed incredibly happy. She constantly made jokes that made the whole room and panel laugh, and she spoke really proudly of the work she had done. She also seemed very comfortable collaborating with Zabel, Greg, and Norman and had nothing but beautiful things to say about them, and Manish (Ash).

I've attached a video below [link here] of the following transcript, which I recorded from my perspective. It's at a wider view and slightly longer than the ones previously uploaded by others, and it captures a lovely and respectful exchange between Zabel and Melissa.

D. Ross: What's it like from your perspective, Melissa? I mean you have so much ownership of this character for so long, so tell me about, like, in terms of coming to this new show and bring your ideas. Melissa MB: Oh, well, Scott, David, and I talked about some of the things that were really important to me, as far as what I thought Carol might want to dive into. Things you know… 12 years of The Walking Dead, there was a lot unsaid. I made a rhyme. But anyway, we picked some of the core issues, and we kind of built on that. D. Zabel: I think one of the things I'll add is building on that, things that were maybe not fully developed or resolved in the original series for the character and also and also making sure that Carol was coming because she loves and misses her friend and is worried about him, but also has a narrative of her own, that's about the things that she's dealing with herself. So, that was really important for us was that Carol needed to have a dual narrative. It wasn't all about just finding Daryl, although that's crucial,... Melissa MB: obviously. D. Zabel: but it was how is that somehow working through her own experience and what things that are still plaguing her.

Carol and Daryl as the core of every storyline in season 2

It's clear that they have made Carol and Daryl's story the centre of the whole season and that they will be heavily involved in all of the major storylines and resolutions. Using episode 1 as an example, it was already clear that even though Ash has a really interesting backstory, which they delved into in a very thoughtful and intentional way, it was still there to serve Carol's story and ultimately, Caryls story in later episodes. The same, I believe, can be said about the different storylines in France and how they're all ultimately going to come together to serve Carol and Daryl's story and development.

D. Zabel: Every episode is big, but the way that it resolves ultimately all these different stories and these different characters by the time you get to the end, I think that's the single thing I'd say was the greatest accomplishment of Season 2 is sort of the accumulation of story and character, how all the stories are resolved specifically through Daryl and Carol, of course.

Slight spoiler warning for what's below the line. This spoiler has already been shared and talked about for several days at this point.

Reunion episode.

Whether or not the reunion will be in episode 2 is up to personal interpretation. Below is the link* to another video I took from my perspective, where you can see everyone's expressions. I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions on whether or not they think it's episode 2.

I personally lean towards it being true, firstly because Norman and Melissa's tone/behaviour seem genuine, while Zabel and Gimple seem to be more nervous and overcompensating with their counter comments (However, Norman and Melissa are so talented as actors that they could easily fool us 😅). Secondly, why tease/mislead the audience in that way? There's no logical reason, and they know that, ultimately, it would just leave us (the people who believe them) a little disappointed after building our excitement and expectations up.

This was everyone's reaction to Gimple saying, "You know what? Let's say it doesn't happen in episode 2. Let's just get into an argument now."

*Note: Tumblr only allows me to upload one video directly to the post, so unfortunately, the second video had to be a link. I know that the link may not work in some countries like Canada, so if that's you and you'd like to see the video, let me know, and I'll send it to you directly.

My final thoughts.

I know that there are a lot of concerns about:

How Carol and Daryl's joint story will fit into the season 2 narrative and whether or not their story will be handled with care

How will Carol be incorporated into the story, and will her character be treated justly (not overlooked/overshadowed)

Is Melissa being treated/billed fairly, and is she happy with the product that is Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol

Based on all the examples above and my thoughts in the part 1 post, I'm confident that the writers, showrunner, and, of course, the leading cast, Norman and Melissa, are handling both Carol and Daryl's joint story and their individual stories really well and with a lot of care.

Regarding Melissa's treatment and happiness, none of us knows what's happening behind the scenes, but from what I could see during the panel, everyone on that stage was treating each other as equals; no one was undermining anyone, and they were all clearly there to support each other. As always, there was also that special connection between Norman and Melissa, who were having really sweet moments just between them, smiling and whispering to each other and making each other laugh, which really warmed my heart. In terms of the audience's reaction, we all clapped, cheered, and reacted the loudest for Melissa and Norman, but especially Melissa. Everyone was so excited to see her, and I even noticed some people wanting to give her a standing ovation and were halfway standing when she came on stage but were motioned to sit back down by someone who looked like event staff or security.

And lastly, regarding the billing order, I feel that it's wonderful how some of Melissa's fans are really speaking up and standing up for her on how she should be equally billed with Norman, just like Danai/Andrew and Lauren/Jeffrey, which I wholeheartedly agree with; however, I think (and bare with me here) that we should be patient, especially for the moment. The order of billing within the credits does seem strange to me as well; however, the season is still three and a half months away (110 days) from its actual release, and these are things that could have been done in error and can still be amended for the official release. If it's not, then it's also important to acknowledge that whatever the agreement is that was made between AMC and Melissa/her agents, Melissa is a very intelligent and capable of making rational choices that are in her best interest, and as long as she's happy with it, then we should be respectful of those choices because, ultimately, we are not part of that contract and therefore can't really know why certain choices were made unless we're told by one of the parties who hold the contract.

I'm not saying we shouldn't speak up if we believe she or anyone else is being treated/compensated unfairly; however, we should still keep celebrating with her for her return as Carol to the series, her incredible performance in season 2, and all the hard work she has put in, alongside the rest of the cast and crew, to give us this new season.

~~~~~

There will probably be more parts to this as more information comes out, but for now, a huge thank you to those who read this ♡♡♡ I'd love to know your opinions if you agree or disagree with anything I've said. One of my favourite things about this community is how passionate everyone is, which allows us to have some really deep and meaningful conversations about the show and characters we love.

If anyone has any questions about the episode or panel that I haven't addressed yet or would like further information on anything I have shared, please feel free to leave me an ask, anonymous or not, and I'd be more than happy to answer and discuss it. However, I will refrain from giving away any spoilers that haven't already been released.

[emi-writings]

Just A Few C!Niki Headcanons:

Niki is a fallen angel, but prefers to just pass herself off as an avian hybrid, specifically a jackdaw hybrid, to most people. Only a few people know she’s actually a fallen angel and she prefers to keep it that way. She will playfully bat people over the head with her wings on occasion.

Niki’s eyes actually change colors depending on her mood and mental state.

Niki’s most preferred weapon to use in combat are spears. Spears simple to use and provide excellent reach, which is great for someone who can fly, as well as someone who doesn’t have as much reach as her enemies without it. They also pair nicely with her magical abilities. Also, it’s cool to imagine her with a spear, spears are very fun.

Despite preferring spears, Niki also learned how to use swords in combat thanks to Techno training her a few months before she joined L’manburg.

While she doesn’t have as much magic and abilities as a true angel, as a fallen angel Niki still has some abilities and magic. She has the ability to create and control fire. She also has the ability to dreamwalk – to enter other people’s dreams (this is kinda canon, but not as many people know about it so I’m listing it here as a headcanon).

She will play with lighters and candles when bored, mostly to either practice her fire magic, and sometimes to do some fire scrying. Sometimes, all she does is use her fire magic to light candles repeatedly, or she just flicks her lighter on and off again. She thinks fire is very pretty.

Niki is able to play a few instruments, her favorite and the one she is most skilled at is the lyre, though she can play a few other stringed instruments such as guitars and harps.

The reason why her L’manburg uniform is different is because she was the one who made her own, so she was allowed to pick the colors of her uniform.

While it’s canon that Niki has Wilbur’s coat, I like to think that she patched it up and embroidered. One of the things she used to patch up the coat was the remains of the first L’manburg flag, the one that she made, that got burned. She made a lot of subtle, symbolic choices with what she embroidered on the coat, though she doesn’t explain that to anyone.

Despite being prone to wearing cute and colorful outfits and her décor aesthetic being more cottagecore and fairycore, her favorite color is actually black.

When mentally okay, she is prone to stress baking. This usually results in a variety of things being baked, and she’ll continue to do it until she’s no longer stressed or she’s out of room to make more baked goods. When she’s not mentally healthy, she doesn’t bake at all, and her stress relief is often more destructive.

Niki really likes gardening and nature. This pairs nicely with her baking hobby, as she’ll use edible plants and flowers in her baking.

In terms of zodiac signs: Sun Sign is Sagittarius. Moon Sign is Cancer. Ascendant Sign Cancer. Mercury Sign is Sagittarius. Venus Sign is Virgo. Mars Sign is Gemini. Jupiter Sign is Sagittarius. And that’s as far as I got before I gave up on researching zodiac signs, but I think that’s a fair amount for the sake of fun shenanigans in fics.

Her chat manifests as soulfire that flickers and dances around her sometimes. She tries not to make it obvious she can hear the souls in soulfire, because she doesn’t want to freak anyone out.

Niki is an absolute bisexual disaster, and this is especially obvious when she sees women kicking ass. Something about women being powerful and strong makes her heart speed up.

[misc-obeyme]

your post about the human au with beel as a farmer has me giggling and kicking my feet!! and now i can't stop imagining the brothers on their own little farm (writing this even though i know nothing about farming)

lucifer and satan mainly handle the finances, making sure they have the best equipment and techniques to produce good crops. the goats and sheep seem to take a liking to lucifer, especially the baby ones, who love chewing on his clothes. satan stays away from them bc they keep thinking his blond hair is food, choosing instead to coo over the farm cats

mammon and levi are the unofficial handlers and bully victims of the birds. mammon gets pecked by the chickens as he goes to collect their eggs, and he says one day, he'll cook them all up as revenge!! (everyone knows he's lying). levi spends more time with the ducks, where they quack at him on the farm and when he's fishing at the local ponds. (one time, a group of baby ducks imprinted on him and followed him home. it took forever for him to get them back to their mama)

asmo does a lot of advertising for the farm, with both his social media and charming personality at the farmers' market. he designs the cutest packaging and sews any holes that end up in his brothers' clothes with lovely little patches. his favorite animals on the farm (a couple piglets and bunnies) are marked with pink bows, but you could tell by how he squeals whenever he sees them

you already went over beel, but i imagine him still having his super strength and can easily carry adult sheep with ease. he also has gained a lot of (kissable) freckles from being in the sun all the time

belphie is a straight up cow whisperer, which may be caused by his habit of cuddling with the cows on their pasture to skip out on chores. but he's great at milking and can instantly tell if something's wrong with the cows, to the point that other farmers go to him in need of help. he's a lazybones hero!

aaaaaa the sillies - 🎠

Honestly, I'm surprised that little post of mine got so much attention lol! I was definitely thinking about it more in terms of what I think the boys would do if they were humans, rather than how it would be if they all worked on the same farm. But I saw a couple tags suggesting a Stardew Valley crossover, which could be all of them on the same farm or all of them with separate farms. I haven't played Stardew in a long time, but I am so obsessed with farming sims it's ridiculous. My favorite is Story of Seasons Trio of Towns, I've played it so many times and I still replay it from time to time because I loved it so much lol.

ANYWAY that's all to say that my farming experience comes almost entirely from video games. I took a class about plants and agriculture in high school, but otherwise it's all vibes and cozy gaming!

But I think you've nailed it with these. I keep seeing Satan falling asleep in a pile of hay, just completely covered in barn cats. Cute lil Asmo all decked out like a farmer but only for the aesthetic 'cause he's running that farmer's market booth like nobody's business. Cow whisperer Belphie, please I love it so much.

Also freckled, sun-kissed Beel... human!Beel would have so many freckles if he spent any time outside at all. I love this because I'm extremely freckled myself and it'd be really cute if MC had freckles to match his.

Though I actually hadn't even thought about MC's role in a human au. Since they're already human. Would it be reversed? MC is the demon in this scenario? Or just MC is their same human self but they meet the others in a different way? I think both options could be interesting. I was initially going with the idea of there being no magic and no realms though.

I was trying to think of what the characters would do with their lives based on their interests and Beel just screamed farmer to me. Like yeah he probably still works out a bunch, but he really loves food. So I thought it would be interesting to consider that as his primary motivation for wanting to become a farmer. He just wants to feed everybody.

Anyway, I love this, I'm thoroughly enjoying imagining the boys on their farm. Though Mammon threatening to cook the chickens is hilarious. Like I can just hear him saying that to a bunch of indifferent hens, too. It reminds me of a story my mom used to tell me about my great-grandmother getting so annoyed at my uncle's pet rooster for getting his beak tangled in her yarn that she straight up made soup out of him. I dunno how true that story is, but it's one my mom & her siblings have told me numerous times lol.

[grimoiremanifest]

g0re you should put some stuff here about what you're writing it sounds really cool and I want to know more :3

nnghh i shold, i've tried many a time to actually organize all my shit into one easily digestable megadoc that i can just throw at people instead of like. actually doing a proper elevator pitch but i still have yet to complete it.

in the meantime though as for what the world actually IS - a fantasy setting defined by how much of it is dominated by these big ol' spooky woods. This region is absolutely massive, very difficult to navigate, chock full of magic, and incredibly hostile to anyone that dares to make a living within its trees! I've named it Fortune, since Fortune favors the bold.

Due to time constraints I'm not gonna go into a full history of expeditions and settlement efforts, but the TL;DR is that by the time in which the story takes place, methods of crossing the woods are in existence but they still act as a very concrete barrier for getting around. They're much more manageable in daylight and with a light source, but if you have any trip lasting longer than a day you absolutely need to have a safe place to stop at. There's a ton of little towns and safe havens along trade routes and foot paths, but getting there is often a tall order.

There's two distinct 'regions' to be concerned with, separated into two halves - the more established east half of the island, where the woods are far less dense, and where the current ruling body alongside most of the island-continent's population resides, and the settlements of the west half which are almost entirely restricted to the western coast and wherever else there's enough open area from the woods. Most of the story will take place on this western half, and more specifically in a few towns closer to the coast.

How the balance of power shakes up is a bit confusing to describe, but basically, it's that these western establishments are self-sufficient. They don't have their own full on mini-governments or kingdoms, but they also don't really answer to a higher rank. How I'd describe it is more or less like that mid-early period in Britain's colonization of America - *technically*, everyone here has an allegiance to the Crown, but who's really keeping track at this point? They're on the other side of [the ocean/the woods] and the guy that's supposed to be enforcing that doesn't really do much, might as well just go about ourselves and tend to our farms and businesses. That's more or less the crux of Fortune as a worldbuilding project, and probably the most well-established part of it so far. I'm still trying to settle on other incredibly important stuff.

Consistent technology is hard to establish - I love the aesthetics of...say, 'rustic rust', I'd call it, but I'm still trying to better define it. It's infuriating, but my biggest influences in terms of visuals are HIGHLY anachronistic in how they combine all their elements together. I would LOVE to have something like a technology level around Amulet's or Bones', or something where I could reasonably get away with mixing sword and spear with manual-action firearms and steel plants and windmills and automatons and galleys and whatnot, but i'm still unsure as to how I would go about mixing other technologies in there. Like, fuckin I dunno, pick some 'modern' tech out of a hat. How weird is it to say that I don't want cars but I would like factories to exist. I can't even give an upper or lower limit in terms of our own world's time, so I really need to get particular with it. it's not that i'm trying to like, adhere to hard and rigid worldbuilding, I just want to be able to describe it more efficiently than I just did lmao

Magic is a little bit more easy to say - a softer magic system, but with some stipulations in order to better create narrative stakes and such, like the typical 'equivalent exchange', channeling rules, magic sinks and magic 'batteries', 'healing' magic can't fix, it can only speed up the process, yada yada.

There are a couple of interesting facets, though - for instance, magic is so goddamn prevalent on Fortune on account of those spooky woods that actually doing magic is super fucking easy, like a toddler could do it without much prompting. There's a million different ways to do it - runes and lexigraphy, spoken and written words, waggling your hands in a specific way while thinking really hard, or pitching a funny rock at some idiot's head. The caveat is that while it's easy to *do*, it's actually pretty difficult to *learn*. If you're seeking a career path that takes even the slightest bit of magical proficiency, you need to be educated on magic. I've equated it to learning an instrument - anyone can pick up a trumpet and hold a note, but you need to learn how to play arrangements and songs to actually do anything with that trumpet, and if you want to be able to improv you have to practice a whole lot more.

I also don't have much in the way of actual fauna and flora, and I would prefer to trend away from having humans as default or of a binary with like, 'sentient monsters' being the other half. that is BORING. the one interesting thing so far is that i made some guys that look like typical fantasy ass elves with long ears and freaky eyes, but they're actually just...offshoots of merfolk that just started doin' it on land. if they get over-exposed to magic, they'll re-develop those fishy bits.

As for anything else...I lost track. I'm sure I missed something important to explain, so when I remember (and when it is not 4 am) I will add it. questioms are cool too ig although i don't know how comprehensively i'll be ablw to answer

[bohemiandeer]

Lifeweaver Headcanons Part 1: This man's fricking Home and living conditions.

Just, a couple o' headcanons I have on how this man lives. Don't mind me. I'm bored and going through brainrot rn, ANYWAY: ❧ At the Atlantic Arcology he actually lives in a modified greenhouse he more or less converted into an apartment where he usually does a majority of his research and biolight experimentation or just, hides out in periods when he needs to. But is usually very nomadic by nature, being prone to travelling out, usually on humanitarian aid runs on/off in between research periods when he starts feeling stifled from being confined to his residence for a long term period of time. Almost no one knows where on earth he even lives. He either never discloses his resident's location whatsoever or always gives false locations that change every single time he answers, if not a combination of both. For him to actually disclose the actual location to you is a MAJOR sign of trust in you on his part.

❧ Likes to collect and cultivate a variety of different plants and especially flowers that he regularly and religiously cares for, studies and documents down. To where a good chunk of his greenhouse's space is just, purely dedicated to his plants. Not to mention, he grows a majority of his own food. Also has one of the very few people he trusts enough at the Arcology come in to care for them in his absence.

❧Has a very strong penchant for collecting souveniers, souveniers from his travels pretty much everywhere, basically strewn around like shiny things in a Magpie nest. If they're not organized out on the bookshelf. He thinks it adds even more character to his living space. ❧ Detests Minimalist/Sleek Modern Day aesthetics with a passion, is very much a Maximalist in how he decorates his place. Not to mention since he doesn't really have much to spend on furniture to begin with, almost all his stuff is second hand or handmade.

❧ The actual living space of his residence looks like organized chaos in the most colourful way possible. He isn't so much of a slop as to end up on a TLC show but his living space is VERY, very disorganized. I'm talking Howl's Room from Howl's Moving Castle, but spread out all over the house as opposed to being contained to just one room. I'm talking about a place with the most random objects misplaced in the most out of pocket of places, especially his work tools. To where when someone visited him the one time they found his cordless soldering iron, in the fricking bathroom, and a misplaced spatula just, vibing in the fridge among his leftovers. More books OUT of his bookshelf and piled up on whatever nearest coffee table or surface area he just randomly put it down after he finished reading it, than IN the actual dang bookshelf. If anything the bookshelf's slowly getting repurposed as a souvenier display. Random piles of blankets and clothing piled up on the one side of the couch and the armchair he never really even uses. Unwashed dishes just, randomly left where he placed them and forgot about. ❧Also has a habit of leaving half finished projects everywhere including incomplete blueprints, WIP sculpting projects and half painted pottery he made for the plants just, all over the dang place. Not to mention, in regards to his actual research, a good chunk of his equipment everywhere.

❧Has a wooden board in his bedroom pinned up with photographs of friends, found family and places he visited, drawings and various little trinkets like pamphlets, travelling maps, postcards, letters, tickets, restaurant receipts, etc. That he has since dubbed his "wall of sentimentality". Namely because every single thing on that board is a piece of memorabilia of a memory and/or experience to him for him to look back to when he wants to remember moments that made him feel happy and are worth remembering. Has little to none in the way of photographs or any memorabilia whatsoever of his actual family, especially his parents. Pretty much no one both inside and outside of his house even knows what his family even looks like, that's how little in the way of a footprint he has on them. ❧The kitchen is the worst place in the house, largely because, growing up in a household where the kitchen was always tended to by house staff, he has no idea how on earth to properly tend to a kitchen, even as an adult. He tries to keep the actual part he cooks in as clean as possible because he's enough of a stickler for hygiene to know a unclean cooking space is where he doesn't want to make his food. But the rest is best described as a place of nightmares to most people who know how to tend to a kitchen just fine. A lot of people think he doesn't know dishwashers exists because the sink's the worst part of his house. It can't even be said that he presumably thinks the sink's just there for decoration because the sink itself is already partially a health hazard. Assuming a good chunk of his dish pantry isn't strewn all over the dang place in the rest of the house to begin with. ❧ Alot of people think he doesn't know how to use a laundry basket either and that the laundry basket is a decoration because he has more clothing dumped in the corner of his room, his bedroom chair and the aforementioned side of the couch and armchair, than he has in the laundry basket. ❧ Rarely makes his bed. Unless people come/stay over then he'd just, pull the blankets and covers over the thing. Doesn't see the point in it because he thinks it's gonna be reduced to a pile of blankets/covers either way.

❧Doesn't typically clean his place in the same way other people do for a variety of reasons. One being that he doesn't typically have the time, nor does he have the habit out of once again, having grown up in a house hold that routinely already did that FOR him. To where he just simply, forgets to clean up after himself, even in adulthood. But the main reason is simply that he just works best in a "disorganized" space, it gives him a sense of comfort to a degree and makes it feel like the space he inhabits is actually lived in.

❧ On a related note, is the kind of person who, where others see chaos, he sees an exact mental layout on where he put what and what he usually puts where. Even if they're not in the place they're actually supposed to be. To the point that if one were to move like, one object from where he placed it to where they think it's supposed to go, he'd immediately notice. God forbid someone cleans up his space and puts everything away because he will turn it into a cesspit of chaos again just trying to look for the thing he is looking for. Had this thing at the Academy too. He used to drive Satya NUTS in this regard.

❧ He keeps his biolight gear, including the petals, in a repurposed lab cabinet with a wooden stand in it that's security protected alongside the rest of his most vulnerable/important work. Anyway stay tuned for Part 2 of me rambling about my favourite gorgeous ass Pansexual Plant Pot of a Husbando.

[carpenoctem99]

its diwali, a time that people most pleasurably utilize to burst crackers and other shit. but lets get to the point - the point being how bad it's for the environment. yes, yes you'll probably scroll past this article thinking how common these things are nowadays. but i dont care because all i really want to do is voice my opinion, even if it creates a ripple change -atleast its something. so being someone who bursted a lot of crackers during diwali during my childhood i can understand how addictive, artificially pleasing and aesthetic it might all seem but its high time to look past moments of transient joy. I mean how idiotic it is that you excite yourself over a few moments of ignorant bliss when you very well know you're building a hell hole for yourself in the future? yes, of course you've heard of environmental protection, sustainable development and all that. I don't hold you responsible for not resonating with these terms and making a change. But if you don't have the capacity to be magnanimous by actually hearing these big words, atleast be magnanimous by being selfish. yes it's complicated but trust me this works to put it simply IT WILL WORK

YOU CAN BE GENEROUS BY BEING SELFISH AND HONESTLY YOU DON'T OWE ANYONE AN EXPLANATION

let me give the easiest example of myself

during my childhood for about 3-4 years i was shit crazy for crackers and stuff and there wasn't even a single diwali i spent without them but now things are pretty different just hold up for a while and give me a chance to explain

things changed when i fell sick temporarily and the doctor asked me to stay away from them for just one diwali and to be damn honest it hurt so much to see others do it and you just sit around staring at them but that was the game changer for me

when adults came and told me about all those big impacts it has on nature plants animals air quality and stuff stuff it was all too much for me to digest and actually accept

but when i saw this sacrifice through my own perspective it seemed all different

so what if i couldn't empathise with those big words and all? my perspective was enough to make me still to my resolution, atleast it has been for the past six years

it was the moment i realised that i have dreams bigger more lasting and enduring than this temporary sort of excitement and all

i had always dreamed of seeing a healthy, fresh, abundant and vibrant earth

an earth full of radiant flowers but not those shrivelled or withered by heat or chemicals

an earth where the birds' melody echoes through the deep dense forest and not where the melancholic wails of scared and injured birds abounds

an earth where the soil smells as fresh and invigorating as the morning rays of sunlight and not one where the deep black soil is ingrained with grit, ash and chemicals

an earth where the scent of flowers drifts lazily through the morning haze and not one where it smells of burnt ash, fire and dust

so why would you give up such an endearing and everlasting possibility for something so trifling and temporary?

yes, not everyone does it so you would think it wouldn't matter if you do it

But if thousand other people like you who previously thought that their contribution wouldn't matter follow it then i guess it's more than a ripple change

So this diwali, let's invest in our planet not stocks bonds real estate precious metals or commodities

[winxngasks]

Winx Club Next-Gen AU: Miele/Jared’s Kids

Next up for the AU next-gen bios, we have the children of Miele and Jared! Originally had this one in my drafts since April of this year, but I didn’t get to adding all of the information in till just recently. Also, since this is the last of the ships I have planned for this AU, this will also be the last post that has a ship backstory. For the next few bios that aren’t necessarily a planned ship, I will most likely put a little information on what the parent’s life is like in the eldest kid’s bio. Just thought I would mention that as a heads-up!

=============================================================

- Backstory: Sometime during Jared’s relationship with Alice they break up, as they both felt the love wasn’t quite there for them anymore. Eventually, Alice moves on and settles with Darko, while Jared just focuses on his specialist duties for a while. At the same time, Miele was looking to start dating and so her sister Flora helped her find a date, as she had more connections being the older and more experienced sister. After hearing that Jared became recently single, she got the idea to set them up on a blind date together as she thought they would be a sweet match together. During that first date and the ones they would have after they started to form a connection, both being sweethearts who still had their differences to keep things interesting in their relationship. After a few years of dating they eventually married and settled down with their own family together.

- Their Kids:

* Adeline

. Age: 16

. Magic Title: Fairy of Seasons

. Physical Description: short with a thick and chubby build that is a bit toned from her active lifestyle, long and curly orange hair, tan skin, hazel eyes

. Bio: Oldest child and daughter of Miele and Jared, currently attending Alfea. Adeline takes after her mother Miele greatly in terms of both looks and personality. She is a rather reckless and selfless person, always ready to jump into battle to protect those she cares about and to help save the world from evil forces, which often gets her into trouble sometimes as she is left more scuffed up than her teammates. She has also inherited a lot of her Miele’s bravery and attitude when she was her age, which ironically puts her at odds with her mother at times as she just wants Adeline to be safe and responsible. Very active and tomboyish, she likes to keep herself busy by participating in most of the sports Alfea offers and does not feel super comfortable in Linphea’s more ‘flowy’ fashion aesthetics with how they can restrict her movements. Which only sours her mood more that her fairy form includes a skirt, but she has learned to make her peace with it and fight in it the best she can. Although she is pretty close with her cousin Fawn, Adeline was actually determined to find her own path and people when she started at Alfea, instead of sticking by her cousin’s side all the time.

* Basil

. Age: 12

. Magic Title: none atm

. Physical Description: short with an average build that is a bit on the skinny side, short and fluffy reddish-brown hair, tan skin, amber eyes

. Bio: Middle child and only son of Miele and Jared, currently attending a regular public school. The most withdrawn and timid of the siblings, it is hard for him to speak up for his own interests but he does often work as the mediator with keeping the peace within his family. Gets along the most with his older cousin Alaine, as they both are both the most soft-spoken and awkward out of all the cousins, so they find it easier to talk to each other when at large family functions. When not attending to his schoolwork he can commonly be seen in either the garden or up in his room, studying up on and reading all about the different plants in the world, both those native to Linphea and those native to the different planets. While he hasn’t quite made up his mind on it yet, he has considered becoming a botanist in the future, so he can continue his study of plants. As he is only a preteen at the moment he has not shown any signs of potential magic, but he is not super fussed about it or about becoming a specialist instead, as he is more interested in attending Linphea College or a different, regular college instead when the time comes.

* Camellia

. Age: 8

. Magic Title: none atm

. Physical Description: short with an average build, shoulder-length and straight bluish-black hair, tan skin, bright green eyes

. Bio: Youngest child and daughter of Miele and Jared, currently attending a regular public school. Seems like your typical sweet and nice little girl, but she has a lot more spunk and sass to her that tends to throw people off upon first meeting her. Can also be described as a “weird girl”, as she has some unusual interests and eccentric ways of thinking and acting that have people consider her to be an enigma, but her out-of-the-box way of thinking makes her one of the smartest kids in her age group. Close with her cousin Sorrel, who doesn’t find her annoying like some of their other peers and actually goes along with her ideas, and Princess Dahlia as they have a lot of similarities but Camellia has a little more common sense than her to know when people are trying to mess with her. Has not shown any signs of magic yet as she is only a child, but she wouldn’t mind being either a fairy or witch in the future if she were to have magic.

[deepinifhell]

OCs as Planets

Thanks @wayhavenots for the tag! I took this quiz for my detectives. I crossed out anything I didn't feel really fit. Tagging (no pressure!): @megatraven ; @sealriously-sealrious ; if anyone else wants to do it please go ahead!!

Lauren Jenkins -Saturn - patient. stable. reliable. preserving and diligent. your capacity to hold focus on something you choose to is unmatched by all other planets. you were made for hard work that you love and that you know is rewarding. you are the shoulder that everyone wants to cry on, so remember you can lean on yourself when it seems there is no one else. there is nothing wrong with being self sufficient. you are justice and evenly balanced scales.

This was a solid effort to describe Lauren Jenkins in positive terms. Lauren is pretty stubborn when she wants to be. The things she finds rewarding are not usually things society looks upon favorably, but she will work hard for them.

Her self-sufficiency and avoidance of relationships is based on the fact that there weren't people (*cough* Rebecca *cough*) around when she needed them. Don't hire her as your mediator, please don't cry on her shoulder, but if an asshole needs punched she will equalize the playing field.

Pax Izaz - Earth - nurturing, generous and caring. introverted, tolerant, honest and trustworthy. you are "my phone is always on, call me any time." you are "i feel like i'm everyone's therapist." you are impressive with your stability and peacefulness. you are wallpapers of cows and fields of ever-growing seeds. you are the best friend. mother nature. ice cold water and the smell of rain.

Most of this works just...not in the traditional way one thinks of these descriptions. She's nurturing in a clinical sort of way. Can keep very finicky plants alive nurturing, not warm and loves children nurturing. Her phone is always on and she will answer, but its usually because she's hoping for (mis)adventures.

She's not particularly attached to most objects, and the things she is aren't usually coveted by others. That makes it easy to be superficially generous, but she's not virtuously generous. Similarly, she's not super attached to social power nor does she need much social interaction. So yeah, she seems very honest and trustworthy... because she doesn't care about maintaining any of the dishonesty that is so frequently encouraged by social rules and hierarchy.

Neveah Desanto - Neptune - mercy. kindness. sweet. forgiving and compassionate. you are second chances and sometimes third. you are "its ok because everyone makes mistakes." you are "i forgive you as long as you are learning." you are not held down by the demands of your ego. you believe in right and fair. open mindedness and friendship. you are mystical and magical, observant and the smell of warm bread in the morning.

I have no notes. She is problematically forgiving and idealistic and it's her greatest strength and greatest weakness.

Ainsley Rice - Jupiter - optimistic. hopeful. generous and compassionate. you are the guardian angel. you are 4:44 am and a sense of being watched over. you enrich the lives of others just by existing and caring for them. you give as many blessings as you receive and there is always more to go around. careful not to become too over-confident in these abilities. what makes you jupiter is your belief that ego has no part in caring and love. you are softness and the smell of almond coffee.

Yeah, this fits very well. Louise Langford - Venus - passionate. romantic. loving to be loved. courtship. adoration and taste. you are your own personal aesthetic. you are hand written love letters in copper ink. you are "let me show you just how much i can love you." you are royalty and class. love has no bounds with you. your heart is wrapped in chocolate tin foil. you attract what you manifest so keep believing in love. it is you and you, it.

I wasn't sure about this at first, but I think it's actually pretty solid. Louise is very much into grand gestures, romanticism, and appearances. This is part of why Nat's affection hit her so hard.

Bernadette Kane - Mercury - clever. intelligent and witty. wisdom, sharpness, anxiety and indecisiveness. you are the comedian. the "make someone laugh if they are crying" kind of lover. you dont want to think too much about anything because that stops you from just having fun, but your brain doesn't ever shut off. you are curious and never ending. forecast and shadows. the smell of clean sheets.

No notes.

[infolane]

ARC V MONTH DAY 3 - Duetto of Duelist and Spirit

@arcvmonth​

Let’s get opinions outta the way first! Our favorite cards are the Fairy Tail ones! They are cute and very versatile and star in our main deck! Shoutout to supreme king servant dragon darkwurm, also :>

But, since we are talking about cards, let’s pick up our first optional prompt too and talk about something fun-

In our fanfiction, That Which is Seen, we have introduced new side monsters for each of the yuboys, and fusion aces for the non-fusion bracelet girls. Let’s talk about them and their designs!

-x-x-x-x- 

Odd-Eyes Vanishing Dragon

Yuya’s new dragon friend! Her name is, naturally, as allusion to his unfortunate condition.

Going into this, I knew I wanted to create a design which wouldn’t feel out of place with the other performapals and Odd-eyes pendulum dragon himself, making a more organic looking dragon.

So, I decided to lean into how people say odd-eyes looks like a chicken on this design! :> Huge peets, little hands, many colors.

Like the other dragons, she is a living promise to meet again under God’s gaze.

-x-x-x-x-

Dark Nadir Dragon

Hardest to design and, unfortunately, the least featured of the four. Dark Nadir is rather elegant looking when compared to Dark Rebellion- I wanted something delicate to contrast with the rough and war-worn vibe of Yuto’s dueling.

Her name is actually inspired by Dark Anthelion’s name. That is one great name that is hard to beat... but I went with an astronomical thing to keep in line. I had planned it to be dark blues and purples, but never did get to color her.

-x-x-x-x-

Clear Reverberation Dragon

Not to be confused with the Blue Reverberation /j. I think I did pretty well to keep her in line with Clear-Wing’s aesthetic! And she’s my favorite design, too. I imagine her as being rather small compared to Clear-wing.

She gets a say in teleporting Yugo around and talks to God in the ruined nothingness.

Her name also connects to Yugo’s condition- like a wave of information spreading among people.

-x-x-x-

Starving Solipsism Dragon

A lonely dragon for a lonely boy, as her name implies. Another one I did less with than I would have liked. There is something particularly ethereal with her, I think.

The lavander and light yellow sets her well apart from Starve Venom in terms of color and the plants growing between her horns are really fun to draw!

-x-x-x-x-

I don’t really have finished art on hand for the new bracelet girl monsters, but I’ll talk about the concepts.

See, I do believe that there was an intention to give all four of them fusion-based aces... and the anime executed it real poorly, only working well with Serena and Yuzu. So, naturally, I went at it for Ruri and Rin.

So Rin’s fusion ace is Twee Stitchwitch Evibell.

This card, in the fanfiction, is shared between her and Sora, functioning as a shared persona in order to cause chaos in the Synchro dimension. The monster itself looks like a witch, naturally, dressed in black, with mismatched orange and green eyes.

Evibell as a concept is also featured in my other fic, And There Were Four. 

This monster is a saboteur, a smart thing hard to catch and a means to an end, for the sake of loved ones. The use of fusion, for Rin, symbolizes how she does not care for the way, for enemies decided by people she has nothing to do with. As far as she is concerned, there is only a friend that uses Fusion.

Ruri’s own monster is Lyrilusc - Beholding Lammergeier

Born from her desire to understand the war down to her bones, she first uses this card against Sora inside a fracture. Despite the nature of the duel in exposing Sora as an agent of fusion, there is nothing but fondness to it.

This monster looks like other lyriluscs, but seems rather menacing in blacks, whites and rusty oranges.

[nettleshuttle]

I'm gonna ask for a character too! Who?

My girl Akiza! :)

ooh very gladly, one portion of thoughts on aki coming right up! (disclaimer: i’ve watched up to 80 eps of 5ds until now, so that’s the scope of my opinions)

how i feel about this character: if my tumblr layout wasn’t enough of a hint, i really love aki. she’s definitely the best love interest in ygo, both in terms of my personal favs (though asuka and yuzu are neat too) and, like, objectively (as in best written, most complex). she’s got some great tropes in her character, fantastic intro and development and her relationship with yusei makes me tear up at every duel they play. also her design and deck make-up are just >>>

all the people i ship romantically with this character: yusei. i’m so glad this is a canon ship because this content brings me undue amounts of happiness. the start of their relation was what particularly hit me, with their initial duel and the one in the hospital, then how he consoled her after the whole thing with divine, taught her to ride a d-wheel (built one for her??) — yusei’s as precious as can be and she deserved someone like that so bad. as an optional no. 2 in this short list i’d put sherry — their ship appeals to me far less, but, y’know, lesbians on motorcycles. i’m a weak human sometimes.

non-romantic OTP: hmm. actually, i feel like aki has little to no relationships apart the one with yusei — she was deliberately isolated from others by divine, then when he died yusei seems to be the only one she really trusts. crow and jack appear really distant from her, although they are friendly towards one another — it struck me when crow specifically mentioned how aki hangs out with the signers not so frequently and i just get the impression she doesn’t fully consider them as her friends. i’d put sherry here because they’d have a nice vibe also as besties on motorcycles and also maybe rua and ruka? aki taking care of them is really nice and though, of course, they won’t be her friends the way a person her age would be, it’s still a good relationship.

unpopular opinion about this character: i wrote that i like the make-up of her deck, so, to clarify: black rose dragon is just great and the overall aesthetic of the cards fits her perfectly, but the way it’s constructed, game-wise, is absolutely garbage. why does she have a plant based deck and plant effects for a non-plant ace? why are her best tuners suited to a different star rating than 7? why does she not have cards that would alleviate black rose’s self destruction? i play rose dragons in duel links and it makes me just livid how stupidly this all was planned out because it doesn’t make sense even with adjustments that konami introduced later — and, consequently, they’re making her play some really bad duels in the show. i mean, she could be so damn strong if they admitted her some properly designed cards? i get that she’s one of the more powerful love interests anyway, but, come on, asuka could have gotten a playable deck and not aki?

also idk if that’s unpopular, but i want to say it: she’s probably the only character in the whole series whose psychic powers feel justified and make sense. they have more downsides than anything else, but they’re still ironed out into a real strength in the end, they add a lot to character, her personality is built accordingly, everything clicks together.

one thing i wish would happen/had happened with this character in canon: apart from giving her a better deck and a chance to kick some ass with that? definitely a better ending to her relationship with divine. yeah, he was a toxic, manipulative bastard who fucked her up bad in the head, but he was the single most important person in her life for so long (if not forever, before yusei) that randomly killing him off feels so unsatisfying. let her defeat him in a duel? let her break free of him on her own? the guy caused her so much trauma, she should have had the chance to overcome that (and him) on her own, instead of such a bland resolution.

[the-assignment]

Blog 6: The Final One

I can’t believe it’s here. Not only have I reached the end of my last term as an Undergrad EVER (graduation is in 6 days!!) but this is my last blog post for my Afrofuturism class. As such, I wasn’t sure what would be most fitting to end this experiment on. Call it hope for my future outside of UCLA or an ode to the way time is often malleable in Afrofuturism, but I decided that it’s important to look forward… by also looking to the past (because honestly what even is time).

One of my final lectures was about the current state of the Afrofuturism genre and its future. But in looking at how far we’ve come, we need to acknowledge Afrofuturism’s past…. And unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot going on to be honest. One of the things that surprised me, is that it wasn’t until recently-ish, a few decades, that Afrofuturism artists and works began to really emerge. In the beginning, there were only a few movies and books and authors, and like, one director. When one of the pioneers of the genre, Octavia E. Butler passed, it might have even felt or looked like Afrofuturism was done and over with. But that, fortunately, didn’t happen! In fact, it really started to take off within the last few years. When Black Panther came out - and by Mainstream Marvel no less! - it set a new fire and hope that Afrofuturism could inspire and continue - and it has. Many artists (Missy Elliot, Janelle Monáe, Kenrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Alabama Shakes, Reggie Hudlin, Okorafor, Nnedi (with Wanuri Kahiu), Boots Riley, etc.) through various mediums (music, music videos, lyrics, stories, movies) have produced great works of Afrofuturistic art and it’s only getting better. Especially with the past influences to draw from (Sun-Ra, George Clinton, Samuel R. Delaney, Derrick Bell, etc.) and the new forms of technology (which can be both good and bad) to help achieve a futuristic aesthetic. 

However, as discussed in one of my final lectures - the future of Afrofuturism (and I’d argue art in general) is a caution of relying solely on AI for these things. This is why, in my opinion, the WGA strike is so important in a lot of different ways. For the sake of good and soulful art - and for the care of people. Because Afrofuturism started and will continue to be a way that cautions and warns and shows people that we need to think about and invest in people that we often disregard. We as a society have to make sure we are taking care of each other and the things we care about: equality, justice, food and housing security, fair and liveable wages, healthcare, safety, etc. Parable of the Sower was set in the year 2024 - and we are almost there. And while I don’t think that it will be exactly like Lauren’s world, I do think that we are moving closer and closer to it. Closer and closer in having to fight for the right to live (I think most of us are actually there - just not in the extreme ways in Parable), closer and closer to constant violence and a need for hypervigilance, closer and closer to new and legal (if not completely unethical) ways for modern day slavery. 

But we can also get closer and closer to helping others and finding our own place to plant our own seeds. We can get closer and closer to helping others plant their seeds. And soon, if we work together, and take care of each other, and help and watch out for each other, and make sure we’re paying attention and fighting for the things that we care about, all the seeds that we were able to plant - of community, and love, and hope - will grow. And I want to make sure I’m part of that harvest.

[taisvns]

“ I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ It’s dark and tormented.”

taesun choe : tai . 28.09.1996, she / her. born in melbourne, australia. libra, enfp. musician, songwriter and actress. ( penned by peppy )

application ⋆ aesthetics ⋆ soundtrack ⋆ relationships

biography.

ONE. born in south korea, but raised in melbourne, australia, a land she calls home to this day. an only child, her mother is a well-known actress and model, and her father, an aspiring screenwriter who never fulfilled his dreams, and later became a bookstore owner. their relationship was the talk of the media from the start, and as a result, tai has been surrounded by cameras from an early age.

TWO. since childhood, rubbing shoulders with famous people, it was logical that tai wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps, due to her good relationships it was easy to get jobs for her daughter, it was fun, exciting, her earliest memories are of being on a set, small roles for all type of series, modeling gigs for clothing catalogs and a handful of tv commercials, nothing very significant or substantial actually, just a little girl dreaming about stars and ballerinas.

 THREE. she discovers her true passion latter on, showing a natural talent for music. at twelve years old, she enters a talent show where she comes in second and everything cascades from there, signing a contract with the label and with her mother, who doubled as an agent, controlling, and taking care of every aspect of her life, at age nineteen she became a recognizable face for the australian public, soon enough there is one hit single and others coming up. and of course, tai enjoyed her profession, with an undying love for music and playing pretend.

FOUR. but everything that goes up has to come down, cruel comments began to appear sooner rather than later, 'tai is only someone daughter', 'talentless singer’, ‘industry plant’, endless variations, the seemed popular opinion, and there's only so much flak you can take before you start to believe it too, and the 'maybe they're right' appearing on her mind,  little by little her presentations stopped having the enthusiasm, the accustomed radiance, in her mind it is useless to try so hard if they are going to hate you anyways.

FIVE. it all culminates in a fateful live performance on a morning show, the release of a new single, and an altercation produced by a anxiety attack, too public to be swept under the rug, and nothing was the same from then on. there isn't much left to do, her reputation already being tarnished, and the only way other than to retrieve with what's left and the goals that weren't met.

SIX. giving her music career a second chance doesn't happen until years later, in fact, she moves to california to study for a degree in history, the glitz and the glamours, the feeling of being loved by a crowd, are just so alluring, and whats the worst that can happen? it turns out, tai finds out almost right away, the worst thing that can happen it succeeding, trapped by your own ambitions, by your own dreams.

psychology.

the kind of person who can't fake a smile, but smiles often, easy-going attitude, FRIENDLY, although bad for small talk, constantly commits the sin of being to QUIET, sullen even, she likes to think of herself as a proper tortured artist. DISCIPLINED like few , she puts her tasks at the center of her life, there is a certain obsession with being virtuous, which leads her to be SELF-CRITICAL with her own mistakes. she enjoys cotidianity and a simple life, with deep-rooted customs, it is difficult for her to leave her comfort zone, which makes her a bit LONELY, but she is absurdly LOYAL, willing to take risks for those they consider valuable people in her life.

artistically.

music claims: mitski, luna li & willow.

actress claims: ( don't have a specific list yet, but she only does supporting roles in horror and drama )

wanteds.

long term crush. she literally develops crushes on anyone who is nice to her for two seconds, what happens with this specific person is that, surely, they became friends, and tai never lost her crush on them, and she doesn't confess anything either because she is terrified that the other person doesn't feel the same. can be reciprocated or unrequited, it's about the craving, actually.

ex almost something. the kind of relationship they could have even gotten married in, but nothing ever really happened, I guess things ended just because of the long term crush mentioned above. tai just can't get over it and that's how the relationship is ruined, it's really about the angst.

dearest frenemie. they just can't stand each other, but there's something there, it's not that they really hate each other, it's just their worldviews are too different, but you got to work on a project together, and you're the only other person in the whole cast with the one I can talk about, if you are insufferable the others are so much worse.

stranger like me. they are both a bit averse to public life and prefer to just live their lives minding their own business, I imagine they can spend hours talking to each other over coffee, bonus points if they can geek about music, literature, history or art in general.

this being said, i really open to plotting almost anything! .

[philosophicalparadox]

Got a Japanese grocery store near me. It IS kept very meticulously neat and orderly, but in a completely different way than what we usually see in the US — the “flow” of foods breaks up differently I guess.

Even so, despite now living on the East coast where literally anything from Japan is easily three to six times the cost as it was in California, many foods are still much cheaper.

And there’s WAY more variety. If you ever wanted to know about 21 different types of edible seaweed, and how to use them, that’s the place to go, and they WONT bankrupt you like a health food store.

The exception is some snack foods and other imports — but largely, the produce in that store actually comes from California; it often says so right on the boxes.

You see, the US has very weird food standards aesthetically, so we import a huge quantity of produce, and export the stuff that’s Ugly or that we just aren’t interested in.

But some of it stays here — and goes principally to markets aimed at minorities.

SO if you actually want to support US agriculture AND get cheap groceries, do absolutely find an Asian or even Hispanic / pretty much any minority market/store. I grew up next to the latter, with a similar butcher shop across the street. It was often times the only way we even could afford produce and meat; neither store was pretty by US standards, but it was INFINITELY better than relying on the quite literally rotten food that came in the food boxes. At some point FREE just gets used as a convenient excuse to dump waste somewhere and make it someone else’s problem; and while we did need to rely on those boxes at times, you bet your ass we nickel and dimed our way into those produce markets and learned to make preserves, because nobody should have to eat f-ing rotting food. But that is another story for another day.

Point is you are doing a lot more good for a lot more people shopping in a store like that than feeding the corporate overlords.

(And for the record, when I say cheaper, which is not a term most Americans associate with Japanese anything, I mean it — a bushel - that is about two pounds- of apples at Acme/safeway is like 4-6 bucks, so 2-3$ a pound. At this particular Japanese and sometimes Korean market, THE SAME APPLES are like 50c- 1.00 a pound, because They’re From The US and often are just not as pretty as ones you’d buy elsewhere. Yeah, you’ll have to cut around some nicks and bruises on that pear (and OMG do they have pears! Like 6 varieties!) but it’s perfectly edible and delicious.

Same goes for herbs. Whole Foods is a freaking rip off selling fresh mint for 2 dollars for like 12 stems. The Japanese market? You can get an entire damn mint plant for that price. Dried spices are sold in bulk like at Winco, from hoppers with bags. You pay by weight, not brand. So you can in fact get more than 6 stamens of Saffron for the 9$ that freakin’ McCormic sells that stuff. (You pay for the glass bottle more than anything).

The ONLY thing that makes this market unappealing to people: They put just about everything they can in Metric. Weights are sold by mg and kilo first; there are numbers that correlate to the respective pound /ounce on some things, and others are just in US imperial like the apples. But if you weigh the spices or pasta or anything like that, you’ll be charged for the metric conversion. Which apparently upsets dumb people who don’t understand that a gram is far more precise than an ounce, and that it keeps them from losing stock too fast since they’re pretty small fish — it’s owned by two people, and staffed by maybe 7 at a time. They don’t get priority on restock.

Anyway, small business grocery = best place to buy food

How to Shop at an Asian (or other ethnic) Grocery Store

Do you live in or near a city in the US?

Need to save some money on groceries?

Might I introduce you to... shopping at the local Asian grocery?

Asian grocery stores aimed at an Asian-American customer base almost always beat the prices of their western (or for-western) counterparts. Often by a significant amount, especially in categories like produce, meat, rice, and spices. Plus in addition to lower prices, you get the satisfaction of supporting a small, local business instead of a larger chain store.

(Note that a lot of this information applies to other ethnic grocery stores as well, but we're using Asian because they're common in many cities, and have particularly good prices on produce.)

But it can be a little bit of a learning curve when you first start to shop at them. This post will give you the information you need to navigate them.

So how do you find a good Asian grocery store?

First, go on google maps and search "grocery".

Note that you are NOT googling "Asian Grocery" or "Cheap Grocery". If you search "Asian Grocery" you will get results for Asian stores marketing toward a western audience, and because of this, will be neat, shiny, and very pricey. If you search "Cheap Grocery" you will get stores marketing themselves as cheap, which generally are only slightly less expensive than their "expensive" counterparts (think Aldi). Okay in a pinch, but you can do better.

Second, look at the pictures of all the stores you can easily get to.

Here's what you want: not a lot of printed ads, pictures of hand-written signs (especially in languages other than English), food in cardboard bins, and you want it to look kind of "junky". Bonus points if you can see prices listed in the pictures or the people shopping there are mostly older, ethnic women.

Third, If you couldn't find anything like this, go on your city's subreddit.

Search "cheap", "cheap grocery" and "expensive grocery". Why "expensive grocery"? Because you want to find people complaining about grocery prices, and you want to see the advice they get. Many times, that advice is Asian or ethnic grocery stores.

If you're still not getting anything, google "[city name] cheap grocery" and "[city name] expensive grocery" (see above). Scroll until you get to FORUMS discussing groceries in your city. You DO NOT want blogs or articles. Again, you're looking at the advice people are given when they complain about grocery prices.

One of the first questions people ask upon walking into an Asian grocery store of the type discussed in this post is:

"Is the food I'm getting here safe to eat?"

The answer is just as safe as anywhere else you might shop.

You're probably used to very clean, pretty, well-lit, well-organized stores. This will probably not be that, but it will be regulated by the same health department that regulates those stores. They are held to the same standards.

It's a lot of work to keep a store looking like a western consumer expects. It's a lot less work (and thus less money) to keep a store looking like an ethnic career housewife or grandmother expects. That is largely where the savings comes from.

What's a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Produce. You're probably used to things like onions and carrots being the cheapest per pound. Here it's going to be greens, apples, pears, radish, cabbage and maybe squash and sweet potatoes. Check unit prices and prepare to try some new things. Also a pound of greens is a LOT of greens. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that you might see a few pieces of produce that are bruised or have mold on them. That's okay. Just don't buy those pieces. The rest of the batch is probably fine. Wash produce when you get home if you're concerned, though you should be doing that anyway.

Rice and dry beans. If you like to buy in bulk, you're in luck. Don't expect to walk away with a pound or two of these. They come in 40lb packages. But if you tailor most of your meals around them, those meals will be cheap af. There are also lots of different types of specialty rice if you want to make your own sushi or mochi. Learn how to soak and sprout beans.

Tofu. Tofu is expensive when you buy it at a health food store. It is not when you buy it at an Asian grocery. It probably won't be in pretty packages, but again, cheap is not going to be super pretty.

Meat and fish. Meat is generally going to be cheaper here, though maybe not by as much as the produce is. Pork will probably be your cheapest option. You may also see cuts you don't normally see, like tongue, intestine, liver, kidneys, blood, etc... "Weird," however, does not automatically mean cheap in this context. Check unit prices and prepare to be adventurous. If you don't know what else to do with them, dried fish and animal organs make fantastic stock when boiled.

Spices. Again with the extremely large quantities here. But very inexpensive compared with their western counterparts.

Candy. This makes a great inexpensive gift if you need one, since the candy sold at these stores is fairly exotic for a western audience.

What isn't a good deal at an Asian grocery?

Dairy. This includes fresh milk, butter, cheese, etc... If they have it, it will be very expensive. Consider buying elsewhere.

Eggs. Again, this will probably be as expensive or more than the eggs you could get at a western supermarket.

Snacks. Pre-made items will be expensive in general, even though they may be tempting because they are different from what you are used to and you don't need to learn to cook a new thing. Do your best to avoid these and make your own if you can. If you can't, frozen pork or vegetable dumplings are probably your best bet for a quick meal.

Bread. It's pricey. A lot of Asian cuisines use rice, noodles, or buns for their starch instead of western-style bread. So if you can find it it will often be a novelty item.

What else do I need to know?

It's okay to be overwhelmed by new ingredients. Look up some YouTube videos on how to cook certain ingredients if you're not familiar with them.

These are not supermarkets. They sell food and sometimes the kitchenware (steamers, woks, chopsticks, etc...) needed to cook it. You will probably need to get your soap and household items somewhere else.

Pay in cash if you can. Most of these are very small businesses and paying them cash makes it so they don't need to pay credit card fees. At the very least, make the minimum purchase before paying with a card.

[bizarrequazar]

GJ and ZZH Updates — October 9-15

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This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

10-09 → Gong Jun posted seven of the Vogue event photos to his Xiao Hong Shu, caption: “Wuhu  Happy!” and his Instagram, caption: “Happy 😁😁😁” 

→ Vogue posted another photo of Gong Jun from the event. They later posted an additional one to advertise the VogueWorld exhibit, which will be open until 10-23, where Gong Jun’s short film “Hello, Hello” is being shown.

→ Tiffany and Co. posted two of Gong Jun’s photos, highlighting their jewelry. 

→ Gong Jun’s studio posted seven more photos from the event. Caption: “The brilliant aesthetics of gradient colors, congratulations to boss @ Gong Jun Simon for finally getting what he wanted, the cool autumn has arrived, and the grandeur is as good as ever.”

→ Gong Jun’s studio posted a douyin of behind the scenes footage from the photoshoot. Caption: “Welcome to boss @ Gong Jun Simon's ‘eating and broadcasting’ paradise 😏” BGM is Another Day of Sun from La La Land.

→ Gong Jun’s studio posted a behind the scenes video from the photoshoot. Caption: “Ding 🔔 You have a mysterious call from boss @ Gong Jun Simon to be answered from the Wonderland of Oz 😎~” BGM is Warm Nights by LAKEY INSPIRED.

→ 361° posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ Vogue posted a group photo of all the celebrities they had included in their promotional photos from the exhibition.

10-10 → Youku posted four of the green suit photos to Twitter.

→ AllSaints made a post highlighting their biker jacket worn by Gong Jun in “Hello, Hello”.

→ Gong Jun posted a photo of himself with a newly announced Sanrio Tangle Teezer collab design to his Xiao Hong Shu.

→ A planted Zhang Sanjian supporter posted “insider info” saying that Zhang Zhehan won a music copyright lawsuit; a cryptic post by Xie Yihua seemed to back this up. No evidence has been found for this lawsuit actually existing.

→ VogueFilm posted a collection of photos from VogueWorld, one of which shows “Hello, Hello” being shown.

→ Vogue posted a promotional video for VogueWorld featuring Gong Jun, shortly followed by a photo ad. Charlotte Tilbury reposted both of these. [1] [2]

10-11 → 361° reposted a paparazzi video of Gong Jun arriving to work for Fox Spirit Matchmaker’s filming wearing their brand’s clothing.

→ Gong Jun posted four photos to his Xiao Hong Shu of himself posing with a SKULLPANDA Between Light and Dark figure. Caption: “You don’t say (别说)  Really do like it” Fan Observation: This was the second year anniversary of the release of Zhang Zhehan’s Another Me EP, which included the song Don’t Say (不说). [candy breakdown]

→ Vogue posted a short commercial featuring Gong Jun for VogueWorld.

→ Costa began selling cups with a cartoon jellyfish they used last year in their endorsements with Zhang Zhehan, disproving old rumors that he had copyrighted the design for his solo fans.

→ Hogan posted the photos of Gong Jun with the SKULLPANDA figure highlighting their shoes he’s wearing in them.

→ Honor posted a photo ad with a caption that includes 瀚海 (han from Zhehan, hai from haizhe). 

Addition 10-21: ELLEMEN Fresh posted an article about period drama costumes, in which they included a section talking about Gong Jun’s costuming in Word of Honor.

10-12 → Flora posted about a recent tactic being used by planted Zhang Sanjian fans where they’re using KOL-promotion hashtags on Weibo to spread photos of Zhang Sanjian to the general public. Followups: [1] [2]

→ Colgate posted a promotional video spoken by Gong Jun.

Addition 10-21: The Instagram posted photos of Xiao Yu and Zhang Zhehan from the filming of Retro Detective, wishing Xiao Yu a happy birthday. I’m sure he was thrilled. /s

10-13 → Colgate posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

10-14 → A song performed by Gong Jun entitled Little Shoulders was released. [music video] [solo audio with translated lyrics] [Spotify] The song was written to encourage the dreams of children, and was recorded for an initiative sponsored by the Culture, Art and Audio-Visual Communication committee of the China Federation of Radio and Television Associations, which Li Xuezheng is a vice president of. It will also be used as a dedication to the National Congress. Fan Observation: The song shares its lyricist with Zhang Zhehan’s song Heart Towards the Sun.

→ Gong Jun made a post promoting the song. Caption: “Little shoulders carry big dreams. I wish all children can be full of hope and bravely pursue their dreams!” This was reposted by his studio with the added caption, “‘Little shoulders also have big responsibilities’, boss @ Gong Jun Simon joins hands with children in the new era to sing a dream movement, living up to their youth!” (10:04 and 10:06 respectively, possible 511 and 1640 kadians with the date) It was also reposted by 361° and MUJOSH.

→ #Gong Jun’s new song Little Shoulders# got on Weibo hotsearch.

→ Hsu Fu Chi posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ Vogue posted a commercial for VogueWorld that briefly features Gong Jun.

→ 361° made a post promoting Little Shoulders.

10-15 → Kangshifu posted three photo ads featuring Gong Jun.

→ Flora posted a translation of an exposé done by a Chinese fan sharing a personal account of attending offline fan-meetups of Zhang Sanjian supporters designed to brainwash skeptics. These meetups are held in remote locations where it’s more difficult for attendees to leave, use various tactics such as psychics and “insiders”, and are designed to target CPFs in particular. The account is a play by play description of cult indoctrination tactics.

Addition 10-21: The producer of Little Shoulder posted a sample clip of it to his Douyin, including photos of Gong Jun with him and the children from the music video.

Additional Reading: → Flora’s daily fan news thread → More followups about Peter from throughout the week: [1] [2] (< added to last week’s post, you may have seen these already depending on when you read that) [3] [4]

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This post was last edited 2022-10-21.