#i name some layers too like i don't even know how many total layers are in this beast

[ichorblossoms]

sighs fine i'll make a third honeybee sketchbook file

[putschki1969]

Kalafina 「sprinter」 (Yuki Kajiura LIVE Vol.#2) - Unreleased and Unedited

Update 24/09/07: The original YouTube "video" was made private so I can no longer link to it. Instead, I am including the audio which I downloaded last night from the video. Please note that even though I keep calling the original upload a "video", it is just an audio track with a picture.

Update 24/09/08: The video on YouTube is back up again. I don't notice any obvious changes so I'm not sure why it was put on private in the first place. Check it out HERE.

Update 24/09/09: Check out my UPDATE POST here. New information has been revealed that in my opinion proves that the track on YouTube is fake.

Thanks to @gslin (@gslin on Twitter) for the heads-up! A mysterious account on YouTube (@FJS_Official => which is definitely not "official" but pretends to be judging by their name and handle; The account has since changed their handle to "@FJS_Channel") has uploaded an interesting audio a couple of days ago. It is presumably from Kalafina's front act performance for "Yuki Kajiura LIVE Vol.#2" held at Shibuya O-EAST on July 31, 2008. Wakana, Keiko, Hikaru and Maya (who was still a member back then) sang 4 songs in total:

oblivious

Kizuato

ARIA

sprinter

Official footage exists of their "ARIA" and "Kizuato" performance (included as bonus content on the "Seventh Heaven" album) but up until recently, I think everyone believed that there were no live recordings of "oblivious" or "sprinter" featuring Maya (please correct me if I'm wrong in that regard).

When I initially saw the video on YouTube, I thought that this whole thing was fake. I feel like these days, any tech-savvy person can layer different audio tracks and make it sound like a brand-new live recording with a few tweaks here and there (especially if you factor in the growing popularity of AI). I mean, all you'd have to do is mix the original studio recording with Maya's vocals (or Maya's unofficial karaoke performance of the song) with one of the many existing live recordings of "sprinter" and voilà, you'd have created something like the above audio.

However, after listening to the audio a few times, I'm having a hard time recognising any specifics of the live performance. I'll admit, I'm not 100% familiar with every single "sprinter" performance since it's not exactly among my favourite songs but from what I can tell, Hikaru sounds a lot shakier than in any of the "official" live recordings that are out there. So yeah, this might indeed be "unreleased" and it appears to be as raw/unedited as it gets. I did a quick research but couldn't find anything on this topic so I don't think this has been posted before...

As @gslin has mentioned on Twitter, the sound quality is exceptionally well, too good for a bootleg (possibly recorded in an official manner close to the PA system?)

The video description says that it is a sound source preserved at Sony Music but I have my doubts about that. I wonder how the person who runs the account would just get access to it and be allowed to post it on a random YouTube channel. Sounds a bit fishy to me. If there are actually people out there who can get their hands on unreleased Kalafina audios, there would be more of them floating around (someone give me all those Christmas live sound sources!!!!).

But who knows, anything is possible. Maybe the venue had some of these sound sources stored (no idea if this is a common practice)? Shibuya O-EAST could have gotten rid of them (made them publicly available) after they rebranded the venue in 2021.

[forget-me-maybe]

WIP WEDNESDAY

thank you for tagging me @honeybee-bard <3

no pressure tags for: @lemonsrosesandlavender @lizziemajestic @reverieblondie @heartfluttered and anyone who wants to really

here's a snippet from the post canon, longest and final (ehm) part of a change of heart, the fic collection with the man we all love to hate; aradin beno.

since apparently i've made it's my life's mission to clog up the tav/aradin tag on ao3.

can i fix him? man, i don't know.

can i get some good smut and angst out of him? YES I CAN.

this part's mostly angst tho. tav coping extremely well with the aftermath of saving the world and is, of course, totally over the bastard.

cw heavy drinking and nsfw and just unhealthy coping methods in general

it might be a bit patchy and strangely paced bc i just removed the spoilery parts and also bc i wrote this in a frenzy yesterday

Partying helps, at least she thinks so. The vaults of memories she doesn’t want to revisit are harder to open that way. Just as the fragments of last night lie shrouded behind a thick layer of fog. Just as many things do from the past months. 

This morning, she has an uneasy feeling of there being something she should remember. She shrugs it off. It’s probably just something she said. Maybe she insulted someone. Wouldn’t be the first time. Nor the last. 

An undignified groan slips from her mouth as she climbs out of the bed. Her clothes lie scattered across the floor, unceremoniously she steps over them towards the side table by the window. The whiskey bottle is half empty, and soon it’ll be completely empty. The first gulp is uncomfortable and threatens to return up her throat, but she pushes through the nausea, longing for the sharp edges of her mind to become soft and foggy again. 

Bottle in one hand, she carefully peeks through the heavy curtains. The light stings her eyes and she has to blink a couple of times before she can make out the sun’s position. Must be some time in the afternoon. 

The next mouthful of whiskey goes down easier, its warmth spreads comfortably through her body. The headache makes way for numbness. There’s a rustle coming from the bed followed by a yawn.

“Sweetheart, come back to bed,” Daryk murmurs. 

If someone were to ask how they met, she wouldn’t be able to answer. Some time ago he just ended up in her bed every night and with his arm swung around her at every outing. She sure as hells doesn’t love him. She’s not even sure she likes him. But he’s another distraction. 

She places the bottle on the bedside table, she’ll need it later, before crawling back onto the bed. His morning breath is awful, she reckons hers is too. She doesn’t care, he kisses her just as well. 

And she doesn’t care as he flips them over. She stares into the ceiling as he eats her out. She wonders if he’d consider it rude if she were to drink while he goes at it. Perhaps best to save that to some other time. 

Instead she closes her eyes, trying to lean into the feeling. But Daryk has always been more enthusiastic than skilled with his tongue, the movements too light and never hitting just the right place. 

Her mind drifts off and instead of long black hair, she imagines her fingers hold onto brown curls. For just a moment she wants to push away the image, just typical of him to barge in uninvited. But suddenly Daryk’s tongue feels good against her core, his fingers reach parts of her she’s quite sure he’s never done before. 

When she comes, she imagines a raspy chuckle vibrating against her core. When he crawls over her she imagines tanned muscle weighing her down, callused fingers wrapping around her wrists, whiskey eyes instead of blue ones. As he slides into her, it’s another voice whispering filthy nonsense in her ear. And as she reaches her second climax she has to bite her tongue not to scream another man’s name. 

[magnolia-sunrise]

The way you explore Bastien’s sense of identity through his presentation reminds me of an OC of mine, so they might see eye to eye in at least some respects! My guy Evan (he/him) is a fat trans man who figured out he was trans a little late into his teenage years because he was too preoccupied being the third parent to his three younger siblings. Eventually this fact about himself was too strong for him to ignore, though, and thus he quickly began the process of socially transitioning and gradually sought medical transition as well. He changed names several times throughout this period (Callum, Beck, Rory, and many others among them)

His parents… They weren’t *un*supportive, but in the very least his mother, who saw a lot of herself in her oldest child, indulged his desire to transition while never quite shaking his deadname out of her vocabulary, you know? Especially with him changing names *so* often, it’s just *so* hard to remember which one is right these days. And Evan wanted to maintain a relationship with his parents for a long time (honestly what he wanted was to stay close to his siblings, the youngest of whom is 13 years younger than him). It wasn’t until after he met his eventual spouse, Isador (he/she), who called him by the right name consistently, who encouraged him to experiment and figure out what he liked about being trans, and who showed him what supportive family looks like (Isador was raised by her grandmother who absolutely loves the hell out of her grandkid), that he eventually got the courage to confront his parents. This eventually leads to him going no-contact with said parents, although his siblings reach back out to him on their own

It takes a WHILE for Evan to feel comfortable circling back to femininity for himself, and to feel totally comfortable in his body even then. He grows out a beard and dresses in layers to kind of hide how his body looks underneath. He pushed his feminine hobbies and interests to the side Hard when he started socially transitioning, because he convinced himself he Had to, and instead leans hard into new hobbies like handiwork and cars. Once again he’s content to simply push through the feelings as though they’re small, until they’re too big to ignore. Years down the line, after he and Isador are married, he can admit to himself that Christina Aguilera may still be one of his favourite artists. After they have a daughter together, he comes back to the mending skills he learned as a kid in order to fix her dolls — and maybe even make her some, when he feels brave enough

Evan also tends to be good at reading people and social settings, and if he knew Bastien to any degree, I think he’d be thrilled to see how their sense of personal style and the way they carry themselves changes over time. It’s good to see :)

(Wolfgang and Isador would also absolutely queen out. That’s a separate thing skhdjssjg)

(sorry for getting to this a bit late i got this ask as i was heading out!)

helloooo Evan(and Isador!!) so nice to meet them :") <3 !

really really love how much care and love you put into his story and the realistic and long identity journey (some of the family stuff really hits so hard).

i don't post about this stuff much since its not relevant to the story and i like exploring my characters identities in relation to each other but Bastien left his family when he was fairly young to get himself out of that town and that deeply supressive environment and off to med school as far away as possible, and they've been no contact pretty much since. he used to be a twinkish dyke, and then a dykish twink early on in university and that environment was really fundamental in experimenting with gender and sexuality for him. he was also really lonely, and unsure of anything - getting himself DIY testoterone and then waffling whether he actually wanted to go on it, then waffling about some of the changes, then waffling about top surgery (so he spent some years walking around with mustache and tits) just. a lot of anxiety and stress all the time, they preferred to just put their studies ahead of anything else and only engage in sexuality in terms of one night flings on campus. then after one dramatic event and a shoulder injury, continuing studies was no longer an option and his life just. shattered.

this is where Matteo came into his life in a bigger way, and immediately he was someone really attractive because he seemed so confident, his life figured out, future lined out. it was intoxicating to be in the presence of someone so self assured without a care in the world. who in turn also accepted Bastien - at least back then, when he was a depressed twink Matteo could "save"- and motivated him. but ultimately it was like jumping from one form loneliness and isolation into another form of it, now depending on his cis partner, surrounded by Matteos cis rich friends. his body still changing, gaining weight, feeling unattractive to his partner and locked into specific way of gender and sexuality expression, losing sense of his identity and what they even wanted to do with their life. its so alienating.

all this is to say-- i think if Bastien knew somemone like Evan early on, he would have really loved to have a friend like that - someone going through similar experiences i feel like they could have found a lot of strength and support in each other :") i think if they stayed in touch and friendly over the years, they could have been really positive influences on each other and maybe Bastien would not have such deep seated issues opening up to other people and even to himself. lost in the thought imagining the happiness Bastien would feel visiting Evan's family and seeing the pure love and joy there and what it took to get there its just :"))))) maybe he even would have the strength to leave his unhappy relationship seeing what it's like to be *actually* really accepted when seeing how Isador loves Evan :"))

thank you for sharing!!

[chamerionwrites]

I've thought about making a post like this countless times over the years, and the problem I always stall out on is just...no one should have to plead for recognition of their humanity. And to plead for the recognition of someone else's humanity sometimes just feels like a further insult. As if even in doing it - no matter how heartfelt - you are merely feeding the system that values your words, your thoughts, your experiences so much more highly than theirs. Every time some atrocity is happening in full view of the world there's an outpouring of: look at the faces of these children, listen to the dreams of these students, hear the names and stories of people not so different from you. Sometimes that feels like witnessing. Sometimes it feels like another dehumanization. No one should have to offer so many proofs of personhood, for the world to gawk at and debate over and disregard.

Which is all to say that I struggle over whether it is meaningful, or even right, to offer emotion and experience in addition to actions and analysis.

But every time some atrocity happens in full view of the world, I wonder how many people have felt that frisson of recognition, watching a film and seeing the street they grew up on. It doesn't need to be the actual street. But the sum total of small sensory details - the angle and color of the light, the recycling bins by the curb, the shape of the fence posts, the accents of the neighbors - is so instantly and eerily familiar that it gives the story an extra layer of vivid realism. And I think about the time I had this experience wrt a place I once lived in and loved - not while watching a fictional story, but while watching a documentary about a genocide.

I think about hearing a recording played on the news, of small children sobbing so hard - you could hear it even audio-only - that they might be sick. And I remember thinking numbly that to many of the listeners that clip would be noise. ChildrenCrying.mp3. Heartrending in any language - but they would not understand the words, and they would not recognize the accent, and they certainly would not hear the same childish lisp over the exact same consonant as the neighbor's son who once fell asleep sitting in my lap, on a bus too crammed with passengers not to share seats.

I think about the breathless inhale I took, hearing reporters and officials wail and gnash their teeth over the sight of "blue-eyed" - direct quote - Ukrainian refugee children fleeing their homes. How extraordinary and appalling and unquestionably worthy of compassion that was considered. And I think about multiple funerals in a weekend, people holding their breath driving through checkpoints of masked soldiers, everyone with a story of Where They Were During The Coup, and how brown-eyed children fleeing state repression is considered neither remarkable nor even tragic, but as a crime.

I think about how gutting each of those moments was. How they felt and feel like moments that will stay with me forever. How maddening it is every time the world gives you some fresh proof of how little it values the lives of people you love, or of anyone else whose suffering is considered similarly unremarkable. And how my own secondhand rage and grief must be only a scratch on the surface of what it feels to be the person whose humanity is - not even questioned, but so often hardly considered at all.

I don't even know where to go from that but if the rage and grief is worth anything, there it is.

[arwenadreamer]

//What I'm saying is: Dean IS jealous of people taking Sam's attention away from him. He can't help it. He's getting better with it in later seasons, but I'm sure those feelings informed some of his actions at least to a certain degree.//

Both guys definitely get jealous. It’s crazy to me how many people watch Season 8 and hate on Sam for being jealous of Benny (just let Dean-who already has more friends than Sam- have some friends!). But, they don’t realize Dean is also seething with jealousy over Amelia. Yes, hes hurt that Sam spent time with her instead of looking for him, but he’s so utterly dismissive of her importance that it has big "what’s your name again? Flamelia?" energy. If Dean actually met Amelia, I can totally see him pulling something like this.

Side note: it bugs me that the show explicitly parallels Amy and Benny, when Benny is more like a Ruby parallel. Fans have to work harder to understand Sam's point of view in things. 😔

You're so right! Both were overcome with jealousy in season 8.

I think it's natural that people tend to see things more from the POV of their faves. There will always be discussions about motives and who is right/wrong in fandom. In every fandom. I think I'm guilty of seeing things mostly through Sam's lense, too, since he is my emotional anchor to the show. If Sam didn't love Dean as much as he does, I'm not sure if I would. And if Dean didn't love Sam as much as he does, I'm not sure I could love Dean as much as I do.

But that aside, I know that the world is not black and white. That there are always many angles to different POV's. That feelings are potent and inform peoples choices, and that it is important to understand peoples feelings and not just look at (and potentially codemn) their actions. At least that is so very true and important in real life. I know, because itˋs my job. It's my job to help people understand that about themselves and others and to learn to act accordingly.

That said, Sam and Dean are not even real people, just ficitional characters. I love a good fandom discourse. I love meta discussions. I just don't understand how people can hate on each other over this. This show is so rich and this fandom is still going so strong, because Sam and Dean are so layered and give us so much to work through in meta discussions and analysing POV's. What a gift!

[rockinlibrarian]

Hi Rockin, for the ask game, I want to know about How to Catch Up with Your Therapist!!

1, 2, 3, 5 and 15, or whichever you like!

Thank you! If anyone else wants to ask me stuff, the list of questions is here, and the list of fics is here. I get tickled just knowing somebody knows any of my fics by name, so it's never too late to ask! There are 19 different fandoms featured in that list (granted, some of them are subsets of the same, like "Agent Carter" to "MCU" and "Tolkien--works and related fandoms" to "Lord of the Rings" AND "The Hobbit-- and that last one is crack anyway, but STILL), so I'm sure there's something for everybody!

ANYhoo, another ask for last year's Masked Author submission! Here's the link to my answer for #2!

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I tend to draft in dialogue to begin with, and then I flesh it out with all the rest afterward. But considering this fic is just two people sitting in a room, one of them telling an increasingly over-the-top story, there really wasn't much in the way of stage direction to add. And who needs dialogue tags, when it's pretty obvious when Viktor's the one talking and poor Dr. Miller is mostly just saying, "Oh," a lot, in various tones of voice? So I decided to embrace the dialogue-only format!

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Okay, hmm. I was going to say that technically all the narration is also dialogue, but there are definitely some bits that it IS Dr. Miller's reactions that are my favorite, so I'm looking through for anything standing out to me and I think I'm going to go with this:

“So that’s when Luther and Sloane announced they were getting married. That evening. Since the Universe was imploding and all. And—imminent demise and all, that was the nicest day I ever spent with my family. With my brothers at least. We had a bachelor party just drinking and doing terrible karaoke, and…I have never felt so completely loved and accepted as part of the family as I did then. One of the boys. The Best Man, even. But, I mean, everyone was— it was a big old love fest. It totally satisfied Luther’s wanting to throw me that Welcome to the Brotherhood party, but it wasn’t about me, it was about us."

It's just so happy on so many layers that it makes me kind of teary, and it's the fact that we're looking at this scene from Viktor's point of view, specifically, and you realize how much that moment meant to him in so many ways.

5: What part was hardest to write?

I'm not sure at this point, but I know there were a lot of parts of the show I couldn't remember properly, and I was between Netflix subscriptions so I couldn't rewatch, so I was working from transcripts which are based mostly on closed captions so they don't give you the settings, the actions, or even sometimes who's talking. There are a FEW scenes I kind of glossed over-- the part in between attacking Allison and killing Leonard sticks out as not entirely accurate for one thing. And the actual events of the first (second?) apocalypse-- I was very vague there, but at least with that I could use the excuse that it was still the most traumatizing event of Viktor's life and HE probably couldn't look at it very accurately or in detail, either.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

That I'm not QUITE as invisible as I think I am, and there WERE some people who remembered me mentioning it in the Elliott's House Discord before I decided to submit it for Masked Author on the basis that no one would remember me! XD

Also and more seriously, it helped me get more of an objective look inside Viktor's head-- ironically enough. Because like I said in the post about him the other day, (and implied in the paragraph before this come to think of it), I've always related to his chronic self-esteem I'm-Nobody-but-I'd-really-like-to-be-Somebody issues, but having to examine his motivations for every little moment of the show helped me separate ME from HIM, and I understand better things HE'D do and feel that I wouldn't.

[haruniki]

do you have any chainsaw man girls headcanons for when it's pride month?

a/n: tysm for the rq!! i really enjoyed making this and it was really fun!! Also i have no real experience with pride events (ie pride parades and such) and my knowledge is from clips I've seen from them off of tiktok. Im hoping this year i can change that but by how it's looking I'll have to aim for next year. I only included Kobeni, Power, Makima, and Quanxi. I only really write the first three but i had to include the lesbian and her gfs!! also kinda short bc i was struggling to write this a bit

content in the post: mentions of nsfw (Quanxi's part), includes my hc for characters that i will only use for this fic unless you all enjoy them(except on Quanxi's part bc she is a canon lesbian), i refer to Quanxi's gfs as just her gfs bc i really don't wanna type out all their names 😭😭, potential spoilers??

CSM Girls during Pride Month

Kobeni (hcs: she/her, bi +asexual)

Shy Bi gf energy (+ asexual!)

the quiet celebrator, doesn't really like going out to events but might go to one or two depending on how many people she thinks is going to be there

makes plan to celebrate at home like baking a rainbow layer cake or something (totally didn't hand a slice of the cake to Aki at all)

Makes a mental note of all the corporations who change their logo during pride (the public safety division)

Other than that Kobeni doesn't really celebrate, she might do some activities on her own but other than that she kinda just chills at home and watch lgbtq+ movies/shows.

Power (she/they/he, pan)

Power puts the homo in homophobic /j

Power (in my hcs) is pansexual and genderfluid! (all devils in my opinion are due to the fact that when devils die they comeback after a while as someone new, it was something like that in the manga. Apologies if i got that wrong rip)

Power has not a clue what pride month is but when they learn, she tries to make everyone give up their belongs

doesn't really know/care about anything other than that there's a whole month where if Denji is mean to her that they can call him homophobic

Makima (transfem (she/her) lesbian + aromantic)

Makima is 100% a lesbian to me, it just makes sense to me. And aromantic too!

Changes the Public Safety Division Logo to a rainbow version for the month

Also does the public apologies when someone power/denji accidentally say something a little homophobic

Makima celebrates by watching LGBTQ films

Has a mini lesbian desk flag on her desk

Another quiet celebrator but technically she has her dogs to celebrate it with her even if it's just watching a movie with them

Mentions of NSFW for Quanxi's part

Quanxi (she/her poly lesbian +aroace)

Every month is pride month when Quanxi and her gfs are around

Doesn't really care about the month being pride month, all she cares about is that her and her gfs are alive and happy

spends the month doing whatever her gfs want her to do like usual. Oh you want a certain kind of food, done. You want this? done. literally anything and she'll get it done for them

Quanxi is strapped but not the weapon kind

All she wants is for her women to be happy and if that means that for the month of june that they want her to have sex twice as much then by god she'll do it

would take advantage of the two for one sex toy deal at Spencer's/other places where they sell sex toys

Overall, Quanxi doesn't really care about the month, but her gfs might use it as a way to get more attention out of their stoic gf

[watchinglikeafangirl]

Love syndrome...

I have never seen a show with such a misleading pilot lmao. I thought I was down for some really trashy BL that's painful to watch because honestly the pilot had me in tears. It was hilarious, the scenes didn't align, there was no story, it was a mess. When I reached the fight in the snooker bar, that was it for me, I paused for like 2 hours to find myself curious again and then...I binged it?

Aside from the horrible subtitles with a grammar so bad, I sometimes don't even know who or what they are talking about, it's kinda solid. I don't like a single character, they are all shouting way too much out of the blue and Itt is the worst protagonist out there. But I desperatly wanna know if Day will remember. Then everybody can go back to normal.

This show is so toxic but they know it. Day would drop lines that are the biggest red flags, somebody would react a bit and then everybody goes back to normal as if nothing concerning has been said. Itt's entire world surrounds around Day and he can't live a single minute without him which leads to many many arguments since he's petty and everybody just accepts it. Nobody reflects on anybody's actions and it's so stupid how there's close to no development. How did Day and Itt make it for two years? Their relationship is wild.

Day is the bad boy gone good (yes I like TXT) and because of Itt, he went to people he did wrong to apologize which I have to give them credit for. It was kinda nice to see Itt having such a big impact even though I don't know how Itt could ever have enough "authority" in their relationship to actually get Day to do something. But I guess Itt is not as soft as he seems to be since he obviously knows how to physically fight and had a problem with some dangerous people in the past...

Yeah, this show is totally my thing. I absorbed it and now I feel empty. I am only invested in Day as a character since he has the most layers out of them all.

Btw Kamon's boyfriend (what's his name?) totally freaked me out. He didn't stop smiling...it didn't reach his eyes and he just talked while smiling and staring and it was so creepy

[kaddyssammlung]

ED - Related Sleep Token lyrics Part Two

Part one klick here

TW : ED (and yes it gets a bit graphic and also I mention my alcohol addiction and also SH; but I just mention it)

Sugar:

“Believe that though we never eat”

Again...maybe he means eating as an analogy for something else. Maybe being with Sleep?

But the lyrics have multiple layers and to me this just means starving yourself.

“We still know how to feed”

This reminds me of starvation and that strange need to kind of feed others. To cook for them or bake or buy food for them and never have anything yourself. That need to surround yourself with food.

The same lines together

“Believe that though we never eat We still know how to feed We still know how to bleed”

Eating, throwing it back up to the point where you start throwing up blood.

Things have happened...but it was again due to my drinking problem.

I guess the reason why I was not bulimic is because I hated throwing up because I did that anyway so often because of being hungover. Idk.

It's just something that occurred to me while writing this.

“Sugar I've developed a taste for you now”

I will never forget how I high I was on sugar. It was the moment I was not able to starve myself any more and I began stuffing my face my sugary foods. Foods that I had not eaten in over a year.

“Let my wrap the chains addicted to the pain”

The pain of starvation. But you can do more, right? At least that's what the ED tells you.

“Do you wanna see how far it goes? Do you want to test me now my love?”

Being tempted by food but being able to not give into the temptation.

And also my love...some have a tendency to see their ED as their partner and even give it an name. I never was like that but I can totally feel that.

“Things we buried low comin' to the surface now, my love”

Throwing up.

“You must be crazy if you think that I will give up the game”

Giving up on the ED.

Drag me Under:

“Drag me under Deep into your love”

Just wanting to be thin, wanting to be ED ed and having a romantic way of seeing this disorder.

Sometimes anorexia still comes knocking at my door and is like “don't you miss me? Don't you just miss it? How do you like your period, when you had me you were don't bothered by that stuff? Don't you want me back?

NO!

Bloodsport:

“I made loving you a blood sport I can't win”

I spent so many years in online communities with other humans who also had an ED. We also met in real life a few times. I travelled half across the country to the meet ups. Whatever.

Many that I know who had an ED also self-harmed.

so...”loving you” = holding on to that ED ; “made a blood sport” = made me self-harm. Often for punishment.

“You are still my weapon of choosing”

Holding on to this behaviour even thou you know that it does not serve you.

“I wanna choke up chunks of my own sins”

Again..that feeling of having eaten too much and seeking relief.

Shelter:

“And when you can't swallow your demons, you become starving”

Emotional pain can make you do many things. I can lead to believe that when you starve yourself your problems go away but they don't. You just add another problem to your already existing problems.

“Laughing at perfect death then you change, suddenly hollow you become starving”

It makes me think about someone who struggled with an ED for such a long time that she decided to end everything in 2016. You know what I mean.... And also it takes a lot of self-hatred to want to starve yourself to death.

[emodialisse]

The guy from GamingWins really gets me, used a whole video just analyze the stupid little details that I tend to notice too.

Not sure about hater, but yeah, it's a bit sad. But at the "bright side" Doc Ock and Spider-Man's origin stories had a bit of instinct to it since the beginning (get it? Animal analogy, hah), both suffered from a radioactive accident that changed their lives but decided to follow their own path after that. And it's amazing how the game managed to bring this together rather than just implying like the comics did.

The exception is that one Tom DeFalco story where he decided to write Otto as someone who views his and Spider-Man's conflict like a cord primal thread to hold their relationship together, something that gives him purpose, to look forward to the next day.

Like Scott Snyder said in a comic con panel on his story "Death in the Family" that Joker sees Batman and him as "these two halves where he says, you love me the way I love you, and they're essential parts of one conflict and it's the only conflict that matters in Joker's mind".

So the game offers us a chance to connect with their relationship, through their mutual project together. And makes sense that said project will always mean something to them even though the concept is deep covered in many layers of hate and regret.

Yuri Lowenthal is really the perfect Peter Parker voice imo. And yet he's totally humble about it. He said in one episode of the podcast Super Conversations With Hero Mentor that he felt "terrified about playing the part and wake up everyday feeling like he was going to screw up something".

I saw many people compare this scene to Far Cry lol. Anyway, it's one of my favorite sections from the game and I have the dialogue between Otto and Peter memorized because I tried to find this full scene in other gameplays.

It's really on the nose, but I love how the sequence changes when we go further into Peter's self degrading subconscious, Bill Salyers voice acting as Doc Ock and my boy Scorpion being a creep.

I think takeout's on Otto, and Peter brings the coffee. He knows the place well, it's the Coffee Bean after all, they give him a good discount.

He gets my humor too. Call me later?

If I stop to talk about this I will get a little Pepe Silva insane, yeah. Like the first scene with Otto, he gets off the power damperer and Peter scorts him away from it, the camera pans out and instead focus on these two as to say "this is their story, yeah the Octopus arms are a product of it but give your attention to these two first".

Or when Otto first rises with the help of his arms, he prefers to hover over Peter instead of talking to an eye level, because when he does it's to give Peter false reassurance. Otto thinks his place is above everyone else, which is why is cathartic to him "for the first time in my life, I don't feel like a failure, I feel like me".

Or the many moments the camera goes back and forth to Peter and Otto like they have some sort of synergy together. Anyway, you get my point.

"I have a father, his name was Ben Parker" lol, sorry. Look, I'm not gonna call out anyone, this just my opinion, but I don't understand why people would view Otto as a father figure to Peter. It's a bit cheeky coming from the guy who ships them, I know. But it's not because of some personal vendetta I have against the trope or fanon headcanons, I just don't see the appeal. Their relationship is already pretty interesting how it is portrayed in comics and I don't think a father/son connection really brings much to the table except being pretty boring.

What I see in their relationship is something entirely transactional, until they start to see each other beyond employer and emoloyee. Otto is a very lonely guy, companionship is important to us dumb humans, so he would love to have someone like Peter to take care of to some extent, to share his knowledge, etc, someone he can be close to.

I kind of get it how the writers twisted some screws to throw in a father/son dynamic, just like Spider-Man 2 did. Not gonna try to argue against it, it's just my preference to think of them as friends and enemies with some benefits. Not saying I'm not into that father/son shit, but it's in the gross way. Sorry not sorry.

So, on the topic of their friendship imma show you another guy, this time WritingOnGames, who sums everything I said better than I can articulate here.

(Meme not exclusive from the video)

Otto has stated in an audio draft from the game that he doesn't want Peter to think he's his assistant, but his equal partner.

Although, there's still that invisible barrier, right? I don't think they use to hang out, that's for future fics I didn't finish writing, but I'm certain their socializing takes place mostly through phone calls, e-mails and their Brokeback Lab. He's Peter's boss anyway.

But the way they met was very unusual. Otto didn't even have an internship program, he just followed the word of an old friend (May).

He took interest in Peter and so they spent two years together and have shared many personal stories and dreams with each other. Peter is aware of Otto's habits and personality and vice versa:

Couldn't have said it better myself.

It shows their relationship doesn't revolve just around their work.

And once he finds out Peter is Spider-Man, he doesn't anchor himself on Peter's superiority to humankind right away. He did that later to prove his point right, to make Peter stick to his side.

Otto genuinely shows appreciation for Peter's efforts and genius, but he also admires his good will to do the right thing. In return, Peter strives to make Otto proud of him, but also wants to protect Otto from himself. Which is why he walked so many lengths just to try to take back the Otto he once knew, because it's better if he hears Otto says it was just a miscalculation, right?

Peter knows Otto did wrong to him and everyone else in New York, but still wanted to talk some sense to him, even though Otto insisted he was doing it for the greater good. They're weird, complicated and I love them.

[kobblefort]

Rushsly: Second Cavern Arc 2

Our stockkeeper (remember her? fuck dude, I don't) apparently threw herself into the fray, and for her troubles gets her clothes rips to shreds and a steel spear jammed in her gut. I have no idea why the fuck she was there, she's not in the military, I would really fucking prefer it if she was not there but I guess she just sort of decided to join in. Awesome.

Our main doctor throws himself into the fray, too - ideally he's just there to rescue anyone who gets hurt in the conflict, but then he ends up charging ahead of the soldiers like he's the fucking vanguard. And because that wasn't fucking chaotic enough...

Shislik gives birth to twins. Yes, right there, in the middle of the fucking battle.

It does not slow her down.

It's over.

The only one to take any serious scrapes was Aslas Spoilsutters, who lost her tail, fractured her spleen (I don't understand how you fracture an organ but ok...) and lost the ability to stand. I'm not sure if she'll pull through. I hope so. I need to figure out what the hell she was actually doing getting involved in the first place. For now, there's cleanup to be done.

Ace chalked up another four. And with her literally-just-born babies in tow, all she wants to do is keep sparring. Shycla Cystnoble, her sparring partner du jour, got her own first kill in the melee, as did Rias Squarelauds, a fellow swordmaster.

Most promising of the new recruits is Saraz Fishedpraise, who scored just as many kills as the Beast Slayer herself, and is already a competent spearbold and skilled striker in barely any time at all. Maybe some day he'll be a proper Beast Slayer himself - I'm noting down that he likes talc, electrum, moonstones, and... green glass? Well I don't know where to get talc or how to make electrum but he really ended up in the right fucking place for green glass. And as you can see in that screenshot, Aslas is up and moving again. She's a bit faint, and she'll need a billon crutch to get around, but she can get right back to keeping stock of the kobble economy, with losing her entire tail barely registering as a hiccup.

I can't be sure how many of these were actually killed in the ambush, rather than earlier by the forgotten beasts as they rampaged through the first cavern layer, but on top of those, we have an additional 4 caged prisoners who, after the failure of the arena idea, we are simply just going to throw down a big hole so that they die, as is apparently our custom now. And just like that, besides - or, well, maybe including - the giant eyeless lobster lurking in the depths, things just go right back to normal. And so, with just a bit of greed in my heart, I decide it might be a good time to dig down to elevation -100 - out of a total of 129. The chances get higher and higher of running into "Hidden Fun Stuff" with each level, so if you're concerned about endgame spoilers, I won't be offended if you tap out. It seems a bit early to be saying "endgame," considering our fort isn't even populated with 100 kobbles yet, much less the Winged One and their entourage, but most forts simply do not survive cracking into their first big adamantite vein. I have a good feeling about Rushsly, but my intuition is often wrong. And while nothing happens when we hit the depths...

On the first cavern layer again, a big-ass bird with "deadly blood" arrives. Hyahyata the Deep. I'm not busting out the MS Paint effortmode for this one, its name isn't cool enough, sorry. We've near-completely closed off the first layer after the olm men ambush, besides two barred-shut doors - glass doors, again, unfortunately, but they should hold well enough against a creature with literally hollow bones. This will be another fight for the marksbold squadron, and we're straight to work fortifying another position to fire upon it from. It flutters around the cavern wildly, but doesn't seem to have caught the kobbles' scent or anything.

We quickly carve out a turret, station the marksbolds and have them wait just a moment for it to fly by, and when it does -

A single shot from Dralas Containedbanded tears through the great bird's wing, sending it careening around 20 Z-levels down, where it splatters into pieces upon hitting the ground.

Well, congratulations to our newest Beast Slayer. He'll need a room built right away - though both aluminum and orpiment only occur near magma, which besides the filthy bit of cheating I did way back at the start, still hasn't been discovered anywhere in the 112 Z-levels we've explored (from the highest bird tower, 7 to the lowest mine shaft, 105 - yeah I went a little deeper than I said I would.) In fact, in the greatest simulation game of all time Dwarf Fortress aluminum is tied with platinum for the second most valuable metal. I really prefer hooking up my Beast Slayers with their preferred elements, but it seems like even if we find some all the way at the very bottom of the earth, it'll be a chore to get it back up and smelted. But fuck it, this whole game is about chores anyway. You do chores so that your funny little computer screen characters can do more chores. Let's keep digging. Alllll the way down to 115, why the hell not?

And then we breach the third and final cavern layer. Beyond this can surely only be Hidden Fun Stuff. Starting to feel a bit stupid for calling this the 'Second Cavern Arc,' LOL!!!!!! But it's fine. We'll seal up the hole quickly and set about safely surveying the area. And, obviously, getting some aluminum for our troubles would be really nice.

All the way up on the surface, another one of these dumbfucks gets caught by the Bird Tower.

A lot more than one, actually, but they get scared and fucking scatter when they see the armadillo that just sort of lives outside our gates... roll up into a ball and unroll a couple times.

Fuck, it's actually a whole-ass ambush though!! The clever bastards managed to trick us into sending out our main force instead of hunkering down. Well, any kobble worth their weight in rocks can appreciate a good trap. The question is, will they regret it, or will we?

I wish I could rewind the game to capture GIFs sometimes, because one of the ratfolk literally exploded into a shower of its constituent parts like a firework.

Yeah I think they're the ones who regret it. Though in the fray, we noticed some gnoll thieves among their ranks - the ratfolk making any kind of alliances is obviously troublesome, and we don't know whether the gnolls will prove any tougher than the ratfolk. And oh shit

Zil Dentedleaks took a nasty injury in the fray, and awaits rescue by its fellow it/its bitch Kody Inkblighted, who doesnt even finish its drink before heading over to carry Zil to the hospital.

Zhag Gillpoker, one of the newer recruits, took a nasty scrape himself, and so they'll be keeping each other company in the hospital.

Closer analysis reveals Zil might have gotten hurt a lot worse than we initially thought - having your spine and its nervous tissue "torn apart" seems like the kind of injury that could end a career entirely. Though it and Zhag are both up within just a few days - Zil with a crutch - and they attempt to get straight back to training.

But winter is a time of rest for the kobbles, and so they're finally taken off duty for the season. Around just the same time, a farmers' guild is established, and they petition for a guildhall to organize in.

It's really no bother at all. You want a guild hall? Here, have a grand one. Zinc, iron and crystal glass floors with a platinum accent in the middle. Detailed billon walls and a gold pillar at the entrance. Worth a whopping 12706 whatever-the-symbol-is whatever-the-currency-means-eroo's. Go nuts guys I don't give a shit. We're rich

Shycla decides what she'll do with her free time is stand around the site of the carnage and just think about stories she's been told.

And just like that, we're suddenly very busy.

We've got more than a few gold and platinum crafts to start passing around to all these lovely guests. But the trading will have to wait for next time, because this has been quite an exciting, information-dense session and I can feel my brain overheating a little bit. Next time we'll be buying some crap (if anything is worth buying,) surveying the final cavern layer and building Dralas a nice Beast Slayer bedroom. And much like an episode of Mobile Suit Gundam that lulls you into a false sense of confidence, I'm going to end this episode by randomly blurting out WHO WILL SURVIVE???

[whosbex]

I tried not to send EVERY question this time, but I did still end up sending most of them. 😅

1. Art programs you have but don't use?

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)?

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw?

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate?

9. What are your file name conventions?

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw?

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what?

12. Easiest part of body to draw?

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing?

14. Any favorite motifs?

15. Where do you draw most often? (Like what environment/room/place is your favorite for sitting down to draw for a while?)

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what?

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)?

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy?

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any?

23. Do you use different layer modes?

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended?

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with?

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)?

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated?

Good Lord there are so many😭😭😭 (I’ll skip the ones that I don’t have an answer for)

2. are usually draw all my characters from an angle like not totally facing left or right, but also not totally facing forward.

4. hands. Must I explain?

5. I have a lot of old fanart.(not the best quality) that I did back when tangled the series was still running some of them, though I never finish coloring though. Most of the stuff I post on here are mostly all my recent stuff that I’ve done.

7. Watercolors and gouache paint I wanna try watercolors because I have the colored pencils for it but I feel like wash pain is a little too risky for me.😅

10. surprisingly,dresses. I like to add a lot of detail to them.

11. I wasn’t a lot of different genres of music, so I usually will listen to like a playlist or maybe one song on loop or maybe I’ll just watch KMK while I’m drawing. It really depends on what I feel like.

12. The face and hair

15. In my room.

17. i’ll eat whatever I can find in my pantry and then for my drink I usually just drink water or soda if we have it.

19.BOOKS!!

20. i’ve been told that faces and expressions are really hard to draw but personally I find them really fun to draw. I don’t know that’s just my preference.😊

22. Does procrastinating count as an exercise?😭😭😭

23.yah when I’m doing digital.

26. there is this one really good art piece that I did but I ruined it while coloring and I got really upset about it so I might redraw it now that my art styles a lot better.

27. Not really. I just need motivation and hyper focus.

30. I have a few:

Bill,and the one with Cass and Harry with their owls are old drawings..like I said I didn’t finish coloring a lot of them😅.

[risu5waffles]

Sweet Christing Hell, Time Slow Down a Bit

Here we are again, got another 10 in the pipe (i don't even know what that is supposed to mean.

A nice, simple one, wiv a good set of material choices to make up for a bit of a paucity in decoration. The gameplay is relatively smooth, keeping a good flow aside from a few overly tight jumps early on, and a bit of unclear player communication toward the end. A good use of the four or five minutes it'll take to clear.

Chronos loves this one, and i do like it well enough, i guess; though i find the pacing to be a little bit on the plodding side. i appreciate that the environment, tho' LBP1 kludgy, is actually cohesive. Like, you're in a factory, and it goes from base materials to final product, and that's actually kind of neat. The total lack of music does make things a little eerie, too, which was pretty cool.

This is a level i wish i could go back and lay in base LBP, because the translation to LBP3 really doesn't do it many favours. Still, i really liked the idea of making each scene discrete, wiv its own little platforming or puzzle challenge. i wonder if it was intended to be a group play kind of deal, because that elevator ride at the beginning doesn't give you any time for the stickering that seems expected. Also, while the boss was definitely neat, it drags on forever, it feels like.

We talked about this one last week, and i don't really have more to say except Neptune seems like a really nice kid, and i wish him well wiv his endevours. Honestly, i've been super lucky as far as YouTube comment interactions, but even wiv that, Neptune's been both kind and interested, and that means an awful lot.

Oh, i do remember one thing about the video i need to own up to, i accidentally wrote the publish date as December 14th, 2023, which is what happens when you've got too much going on and no one to give your videos an editing pass but you.

This is a neat one that i wish had a bit more to do in it. i've been a sucker for cardboard as a building material since day one, and seeing what atriku8040's done wiv it is super impressive. But at the end of the day, there really isn't anything to do here. One more editing mistake to mention, in the video the name is written as ダンボーロ instead of ダンボール because i am a loser, and now that's forever.

i was so pissed when i noticed. Which was, of course, too late to correct.

This one's cute, even if, again, there really isn't much going on in it. It was neat how they got the actual metro announcement in the level; don't know how gomafuomo pulled that off wivout the recording being total pants. It took me a couple of seconds to realize, "wait, i know that announcement. i've ridden that train."

It would probably be unseemly for me to mention here that i don't like Akihabara at all. i'm a geek, but i'm not really that kind of geek, and there's nothing that Akihabara does that Osaka's Den-den town doesn't do wiv more charm and far less walking. Think i'm always going to be an Osaka gal, me.

This one looks real pretty, but boy did it need another couple of good passes through playtesting and gameplay polish. Communication wiv the player is pretty poor throughout, and it's easy to get yourself lost in the crufting; and some of the jumps are just awkward (tho' some of that is definitely on me, i've never found jumping onto platforms moving through layers to be particularly intuitive). It's a real shame, because i see a lot of the Wedding kit being used for general "scary" levels, but i rarely see anyone leveraging it as a theme, and it's one i really do like a lot.

What to say about this one? It's a simple little LBP1 jam. It's got fire, it's got ice (glass), it's got a race wiv some fiddly jumps onto slippery ice (glass). It's not not fun, and i understand that's not exactly high praise, but it's hardly the worst feeling you could leave a level wiv.

i like this one. i think i like this one more than Thin Lines of Neon Lights. The verticality helps, and the feeling that your're just zipping along. Plus, Neptune changed the hamster wheel to actually do something based on my review, and folx, when i tell you i was honestly touched.

Holy crap, folx, this one tho'. i've mentioned before there seemed to be a couple of particular styles we'd see in the LBP2 era. You'd have your natural-y types, usually wiv a certain material set and often some gratuitous hookshot action; your weird cartoon-ish worlds wiv real blocky construction, expressive puppets, and meme-adjacent humour; and then you'd get, every now and then, something like this. Fiddly mechanical design wiv lots of movement and the level shifting and building itself as you go along, and holy shite, but this is a top-notch example of that style. i don't know if it's koknsun's best, but it is the best of theirs that i've played (although, that being said, some of their levels, like Hokusai's Soul are broken in LBP3; so that might be a touch unfair).

So that's another ten down, and we're up to 50episodes, and that's kind of a wow. i'd intended to put together a hub level wiv 10 i particularly liked from the set (not, perhaps, the 10 best, because i'm terrible at judging that kind of thing). That's still in the works, and actually pretty close to being done; just need to do a couple of passes to make sure the mechanical elements are working right and consistently, and then go through decorating and putting in music. Wiv luck it should be up sometime this week, or next Wednesday at the latest.

[literaticat]

Hi Jenn. I mostly write adult fiction but one of my novels fits into the YA or YA crossover space so I sent it to some children’s publishers, one of whom has expressed strong interesting publishing it. If it ends up being published by them it does have series potential and I’m not sure what happens then. How do I keep querying agents and publishers with my adult fiction? Do I mention the children’s novel (potential series) or not? Do I use different names to avoid confusion? And when do I start with that if so, with the children’s book or with subsequent adult queries? I wasn’t really expecting to ever potentially have a kidlit deal, and I might be jumping the gun here as I still might not end up with one, but if I do, it’s made me feel excited yet confused. I’m just wondering how to try to progress a potential career with adult novels if this takes off? It might not lead to anything but I want to feel prepared just in case it does.

I say this with all the love in the world: you're getting ahead of yourself friend. There's no reason to worry about any of this RIGHT NOW. It will all be fine. There are plenty of people who write YA and grownup books. It's really not a problem. Relax.

You build a career like you build a Lego set - one brick at a time. Let's say your goal is a Lego Castle. Now, there is no reason you can't do ALL the things you want to do and add as many turrets as you want eventually, but you start with the base layer. The foundation is all the work you've done to be a great writer -- learn about revision -- the time you've taken practicing your craft, research you've done, etc. (I'm sorry to say that without a solid foundation, it's likely your castle won't be too stable, but you can add layers during construction, so...)

Assuming you are not yet published at all -- you just have to start with SOMETHING and build from there. Let's say they buy this YA and want to publish it in Spring 2026, and it's a one-book deal. Great. Now you have a floor. And the parameters of the floor will inform where the walls go.

(After all: It's too early to start worrying about where the pictures will be hung when you haven't even got WALLS yet.)

If you are querying agents later with whatever the next book is, you tell them "I have a YA novel coming out in Spring 2026" -- they won't think that's weird. If you are submitting to publishers, same. If one wants to publish one of your adult novellas or whatever it is -- they should try and NOT make it be during that Spring 26 timeframe because you want to be able to adequately promote both, give each its time to shine, etc. That's fine, they will appreciate knowing that. There's no reason you can't publish, say, the YA novel in Spring 26 (floor!) then different adult novellas or novels or short stories or *whatever* at other times. (walls! windows!) Then if they want to do a sequel to the YA novel, great, same thing again (wow another wall!).

Now, as you build, you don't want to add things that will disrupt or BREAK what you already have going. Ideally, as you are adding elements, you are making the whole stronger, or at least more interesting!

...

re the pen name of it all:

If you WANT to do "kids books" and adult books under different names you can. But you certainly don't have to. Especially given the fact that you are calling this a "YA Crossover" -- what do you think YA is crossing over INTO? That's right, adult books. Both teens and adults read upper YA/crossover. So it's probably not a big deal. This can all be part of the same castle.

If the books are VERY different thematically, or you DO think there's a chance of confusion, you can just style your name differently. (Like V.E. Schwab writes adult SF/F, Victoria Schwab writes MG/YA -- they are obviously the same person, she's not hiding that fact, it just makes it a little clearer for the audience.) Still the same castle.

If at some point you want to add something that is totally out of left field -- a space ship! -- OK, then you either figure out how to integrate it into your castle in a way that makes some kind of sense (special launch pad on the roof?) -- OR, if you truly cannot make the two work together without breaking the castle, THEN that would be the time to worry about taking on a whole other identity and starting a space station build under another name.

There are already a ton of pen-name posts on here so I really don't think I need to get further into it, go look at those if you still have questions!

[22ndnervousbreakdown]

You do have some really fun ideas, and usually I'm all up to inventing modern aus, but the way I see this concept, I don't think it really works with anything but the canon Victorian setting.

As is, it would be a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that makes a point of not really resembling the canon, to the point of intentionally being unrecognisable as a Sherlock Holmes adaptation at first. Stacking a modern setting on top of it would, in my opinion, make it one too many layers of separation, very possibly putting it into the realm of not really being Sherlock Holmes anymore. Yes, that way the reveal would be less predictable — but I don't think it's necesseraly a good thing. The way I see it, the reveal should be predictable to a certain point — not 100% and not from the start, but enough to (let's imagine this show has a fandom) make it a popular theory a couple episodes before it happens, that sort of thing.

It shouldn't be that hard to do with Victorian setting: you'd just need to reference canon Sherlock Holmes events (probably slightly tweaked for the sake of continuity, logic, etc) with enough vagueness so it can plausably be a coincidence, especially to wider audience not thoroughly familiar with the Sherlock Holmes canon. If you move it to modern times, you wouldn't have canon events to go off from — you'd have adapted canon events. Which would already inevetably make them quite far from what happened in canon, and any degree of vagueness would probably make that separation too big for it to... Make sense as an adaptation? Not sure how to phrase it better, but I hope you get what I mean x)

And, again, I don't think it's hard to keep references to canon plausibly random or looking like regular easter eggs in the Victorian setting. 221B mention and suchlike is absolutely plausible as an eastern egg, Sherlock Holmes is a famous enough character in the 1890s, it's also not unreasonable for a Totally Random Show Set In That Times to just have some references for him being an actual public figure, and those mentions of him bein not connected to the main character (not immideately, at least) is kinda the point of him being in hiding. That said, while this show should definetly have some easter egg-type references of this kind, and they would function as hints, they're also very easy to avoid when not needed, because, again, he's in hiding. He's not telling his story to anyone and no one he meets knows him — well, again, up to a certain point. Or maybe later in the series someone even does (some politician and a former client of his, for example, to whom Holmes turns for help... Btw I can very well imagine it being either Irene Adler or the king of Bohemia, not named, or probably just someone close to him who knows the story and probably works as a messenger here), but Holmes is quick enough to indicate he can't blow his cover even for a second and this person never adresses him by his name and references the circumstances of their previous meeting vaguely enough so, again, it can be recognised as something from Sherlock Holmes canon if you know it well enough, but leaves room for plausible deniability.

I also imagine this show as being really episodic at first, so in the first episodes it's only slightly hinted that there even is a major plot arch, then it gradually takes more screen time and eventually — just in time for the reveal — becomes the main focus. So for that first half I think it wouldn't be hard to make the main character's backstory be revealed really gradually and only growing more recognisable when we're closer to the reveal, as most of the screen time would be dedicated to each individual episode's plot anyway, not to the backstory. (Btw! I also imagine there being a brief subplot of us learning that the reason he's on the run is definitely because he killed someone, and he doesn't seem at all remorseful about it, cue some moral dillemas all the while it's revealed, first, that he's not followed by the police or something similar but by the killed person's associates, then, that they're certainly not the good guys, and eventually, obviously, that the killed person is Moriarty). So it's only after the reveal, in the 2nd half of the show, that the plot arch — of Holmes finally breaking away from the Moriarty's henchmen for good, getting ready for his return and, well, returning — would be concentrated on the most, and by then there wouldn't be any need to make actual plot points vague anymore.

Anyway, yeah, while I strongly disagree about the modern setting, thanks for the opportunity to talk about the concept in more detail I guess, because apparently there's a lot that I've come up with but hadn't seen an opportunity to add it here x)

Guys listen up I have a banger concept:

TV show (called "The Hiatus" or something like that), set in the late 19th century. It starts with us meeting the Mysterious Enigmatic MC, who's traveling through Europe, obviously on the run from someone or something. Every episode starts with him arriving in a new town under a brand new alias in hopes to quietly spend a couple of nights there, but then he accidentally encounters some random person (usually a child or a woman who's been wronged somehow) in a difficult situation and can't help but help them. He doesn't actually want to even briefly speak to anyone, he's all Mysterious and Enigmatic and secretive and EcCeNtRiC and On The Run and very obviously in huge distress but somehow he just always can't leave a situation as it is (and also visibly very curious to resolve it). The people he helped are usually amazed by how clever and observant and also Mysterious and Enigmatic he is and want to get to know him better, but after helping them he always has to leave the town even earlier and more hastily than he planned to.

As the show progresses we gradually learn more of his backstory, including that there's this Certain Person that our Mysterious Enigmatic MC had to leave and now misses dearly and can't contact, (and the more time passes, the harder it gets for him to stop himself from writing to him).

Only about halfway through the show, after N episodes and some amount of increasingly obvious hints it's finally officially revealed that our Mysterious Enigmatic MC is post-Reichenbach Sherlock Holmes.

The very last episode is, obviously, The Empty House.