#i used to have a VW blog

[ashestoroses018]

Four Puffs (1/2)

Originally posted in 2017.

mikeygc3000 (mikeygc3000.tumblr.com) said: Could you write one where you’re Dustin’s older sister and all the kids can tell that you and Steve are in love but are in denial so they set up a blind date by tricking you and Steve and you both end up together in the end???? And lots of fluff!???? (P.s I just found your blog and I’m in love with it)

“Dustin, where the Hell is my hair spray? Did you steal it to do your hair again?” You shout through the house.

“Language, F/N!” your dad yells at you. It’s not often that he’s home, considering he travels for work, and when he is home, you have to fight the urge to roll your eyes every time he opens his mouth.

“Dad. He keeps stealing my hairspray and using, like, all of it. And the little shithead never asks first!”

“F/N! One more outburst like that, and you won’t be going out tonight!” Your dad looks over his newspaper at you, an eyebrow raised.

“Sorry, Dad. Do you know where Dustin is, by any chance?”

“Dusty’s over at Will’s house.”

“You couldn’t have told me that before I started yelling for him?”

Your dad folds the newspaper on his lap. “I didn’t have the chance, missy. Just call Joyce. I’m sure she can get him on the phone for you.”

Your battle against the eye rolls is futile, this time. Instead of even gracing your father with a response, you just grab your keys and a scrunchie, tossing your unruly hair up lackadaisically while holding your keys in your teeth.

“Be back before dinner, F/N! Your mom’s cooking meatloaf!” your dad calls behind you.

“’Kay, Dad!” You slam the door behind you, jogging to your beat up ’68 VW Beetle.

She is your baby, but shit if she hasn’t seen better days. Your seats are stained, and the engine makes this weird sound, if you drive Becky the Beetle for more than about twenty minutes at a time. One of these days, she’s going to crap out on you, and fuck if that day doesn’t terrify you. Who bikes to school at eighteen years old?

It takes you roughly three minutes of driving to arrive at the Byers’ residence, and you thank every god you can think of when you see your baby brother’s bike outside on the lawn, thrown there while he was obviously in a rush. What you don’t expect is to see Steve Harrington’s brown BMW in the driveway.

However, when you see that Joyce’s and Jonathan’s cars are both gone, it makes more sense. He must be playing babysitter for the thirteen year olds again. With a sigh, you go up to the door and knock, knowing that you’re about to embarrass the hell out of yourself in front of Steve, considering you’re in exercise clothes – leggings, leg warmers, and a ratty sweatshirt. All over your petty need for hairspray.

You raise your brow when it’s your brother who opens the door. “Oh shit.”

“Hey, Dustin. Wanna let me in?” Your tone of voice brooks no argument.

“I can explain, F/N, I swear.”

“What can you explain, Dustin?”

“I didn’t realize I still had your hairspray in my bag, and you have the Farrah Fawcett spray, and you know they discontinued it, and I really like your hairspray, because it’s better than Aquanet, and – “

You follow your brother through the Byers’ residence. In the living room, his friends are sitting around a table, playing Dunces and Diapers, or whatever the hell the stupid game is called. In the corner, a bottle of Coke in his hand, sits Steve Harrington, whose eyes meet yours as soon as you walk in the room.

“Well, Dusty?” you ask, your voice suddenly saccharine sweet. Your brother gives you an incredulous look at your impromptu change in demeanor. “Where’s my hair spray?”

“I can’t believe you needed it so bad that you actually came all the way out here,” your brother mutters under his breath as he digs through his backpack. “interrupting our game and shit.”

After a moment, he hands you the bottle of Fabergé Organics hair spray, which you immediately notice is nearly empty. “What the hell, Dustin? You used all of it! Do you know how hard this shit is to find?”

He looks down at his feet, biting his lip. “I’m sorry, F/N.”

“I had a date tonight, but I guess I’ll have to cancel. Aquanet sucks.”

“You, uh, you had a date, F/N?” Steve suddenly speaks up, and you glance over at him.

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything crazy, but Billy Hargrove seems like a nice enough guy.”

The redheaded girl, Max, gags audibly. “Billy is a shitstain of a human being. What are you talking about?”

“He really is, F/N. You shouldn’t go out with him. Did you know he beat up Steve?” Your brother is nodding emphatically with Max, his eyes wide.

You raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah, he was defending Lucas! Billy’s a terrible person, F/N. You should cancel that date and just hang out with us tonight.”

“Fine, Dustin. I’ll take your word for it, this time. Hey, Will, where’s your phone?”

The Byers boy points you towards a wall handset, and you connect with the operator quickly, asking for the Hargrove residence.

“Hello?” A woman, whom you presume to be Billy’s stepmom and  Max’s mom, answers the phone.

“Is this Billy Hargrove’s house?”

“Yes, it is. One second. Billy!”

A moment later, Billy’s on the line, and though you’re not particularly interested in the boy – aside from his obvious physical appeal – your heart skips a beat at how charming he can be. “Hargrove residence, Billy speaking.”

“Hey Billy, it’s F/N Henderson.”

“Oh, hey, babe. What’s up? I’m still picking you up at 8 to see Ladyhawke, right?”

“Actually, no. A bit of a family emergency came up. Sorry, Billy.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?”

“Yeah, sorry. Our, uh…cat went missing again. My mom loves that kitten, so Dustin and I have to look for her.”

“Just tell her that you’re looking with me, F/N.”

“I really can’t do that to my mom, Billy.”

Steve comes up to you, hearing the tension in your voice. You okay? he mouths towards you. You just nod, your mouth pursed.

“Fine. Forget about rescheduling, though. I can get a more attractive whore at Hawkins High.”

“Excuse me? What the fuck did you just call me, Hargrove?”

“A whore. Everyone knows you’re fucking Harrington.”

You glance over at Steve, embarrassed that he’s going to witness what you’re about to say. “I am not fucking Steve Harrington, asshole. And you’re right. We’re not rescheduling. Get bent, shitbag.”

You slam the handset back onto the hook, actually shaking through the force of your anger. “Dustin, come on, we’re going home.”

“Wait, what? But I don’t need to be home until dinner.”

You give your brother a Look. “Please, let’s just go.”

“Let him stay, F/N. Why don’t you stay, too?” Steve asks, in a placating voice.

You bite your lip. “I need to be alone for a bit. I was hoping my brother would be there for me, but I fucking guess not. I’m going home Dustin. Dad says to be home by dinner.”

There’s a fierce migraine brewing in the left side of your head right now, and you just want to take a bath and ignore the world. Careful not to slam Joyce’s front door, you jog to your car, however your beloved Becky the Beetle won’t start. You turn your key in the ignition seven or eight times before slamming your forehead onto your steering wheel. This cannot be happening to you right now.

Giving up, you walk back into the Byers’ living room, much to the shock of everyone there. Steve is the first one to break the silence. “Change your mind then, Henderson?”

You sigh. “My car’s not starting, so I’m stuck here. Maybe you guys can help me push start it?”

“Can we do it after our game, F/N?” your brother asks.

Once again, you sigh. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll just go…sit with Steve, I guess. Enjoy or whatever.”

You collapse on the Byers couch next to Steve, who glances over at you. “You can’t tell anyone this,” he whispers.

“What?”

“I…have a few spare bottles of the Farrah Fawcett spray. Is that what you use?”

Your eyes widen. “Wait, really?”

He smirks gently at your excitement. “Yeah, I do. I can bring a bottle over to your house tomorrow, so you have it for school on Monday.”

“Oh my gosh, Steve, you’re the best!” You lean over and give him a hug, forgetting, for a moment, that you’re not looking your best.

He blushes slightly, his smirk turning into a shy smile. “Glad to help, F/N.”

[sadismismybestquality]

Welcome :)

I've been following whumpy blogs for years, until I finally caved and made my own. You can call me Sadi. I'm vaguely feminine, but don't care what pronouns you use.

I'll be really slow to post or write things, since I'm actively trying not to fail college (expect an update every 3 years).

What I'm Working On:

After Hours - aiming for 40k words

main cw: bbu, and all it entails (chapters will all be given more specific tags)

When Cassandra's estranged grandfather dies at 87 from a heart attack, she did not expect to inherit the entirety of his belongings. Every last thing of his now belongs to her. The money, the house, the magnets on the fridge, and the five pets she didn't even know he had.

Three Butterflies - aiming for 50k words

main cw: violence, noncon, religious whump (chapters will all be given more specific tags)

A man named Soren enters into a contract that's more than he initially bargained for. He never could have imagined how many people he would be willing to kill to get out of it.

This is a non-magical AU to a (slightly less whumpy) fantasy story that I'm working on that I'll occasionally reference as the Voidworld. But the VW isn't all that important to understanding this.

The Man in the Corner - aiming for 80k words

main cw: violence, gore, body horror!!! (chapters will all be given more specific tags)

A broke college student named Natalie gets kidnapped and locked in a basement by a lunatic dressed as a plague doctor. Her captor never shows his face. Never speaks. Never enters the basement unless it's to torment her. And he always brings a clipboard down, but Natalie has no idea what he's writing...

whump likes and dislikes below the cut

Whump I Write For:

morally dubious whumpees

psychological and emotional whump

violence and gore

body horror

noncon

manipulative whumper (and whumpee)

depressed/suicidal whumpees or caretakers

lady whump!

guilt and regret. I repeat, a lot of guilt and regret

Whump You Won't Find Here:

public humiliation

complacent/docile whumpees

eternally patient caretakers

lab whump

vampire whump

giant/tiny

[darkboysroadtrip]

Helpful Guide To The Road Trip!

First and foremost, the ask box is always open, I haven't closed it before and I'm not gonna start! Which means, send in whatever whenever all the time forever! I will never not want more asks!

Okay! Here we go!

Like the title says, this will be a helpful little guide! Here's what you can expect!

I'll be putting in the story thus far in bullet points if anyone doesn't want to read through everything.

Links to my art (they will be categorized by story, memes, requests, reference sheets, and any others there may be.

Links to things sent in (art/writing/memes)

Links to important parts of the story.

Useful tags I use (even though we all know the tag system sucks but oh well)

A list of all the emojis/names anons have used.

A link to a ficlet I wrote for this.

Links for the boarding school years blogs.

And here we go!! Buckle up! There's this post which is the first five days. Then a link with the rest of the days and THEN another link with all the other things!!

The links are here and at the bottom.

Days Continue

The Other Stuff

If you do want to read the whole story in its entirety and not just the bullet points, AO3 is your best bet to go through it!

The Story Thus Far And Important Story Links! As bullet points!

Not all of the links provided are essential to the story, but I do find them amusing. If the bullet points are enough context for you it's fine if you don't want to read the post.

Day One.

Remus makes the blog, pesters Dee and Virgil to go on the road trip. Link

Remus' car is a 1969 VW buggy, nauseatingly toxic green in colour. He adores this car. (no there is no foreshadowing with this definitely not)

They pack and leave once Remus gets home. (He was at Roman's)

Yes the three of them are in a relationship.

Virgil quits his job to do this (he forgets to quit)

They all met in boarding school, under not so great circumstances.

They have no destination, they're just going and doing, taking suggestions from followers.

They stop to get slushes

They go to the post office? Because it was a suggestion

The post office gets stuck up by a gun toting hooligan

Murder was suggested, they (unfortunately) did not go that route

Virgil throws Remus' slush at the mugger then hides, Remus fights the guy, knocks him unconscious and zip ties him, they leave before the cops get there. Link

It's revealed that Remus has one eye. He always makes a new story on how he lost it.

They get to a campsite for the night. Link

Short answer on how they got together, Bonfire at school, Remus made the first move on both of them. Link

Their ages revealed! Virgil and Dee are 26, Remus is 25.

Their heights are revealed! Remus tallest then Vigil then Dee.

A couple of asks about murder, Remus is for it the other two not so much (dependent on specific situations)

Dee has vitiligo confirmed.

They have been up for a long time, they go to sleep.

Day Two.

Day two begins post. Link

Virgil might have done crimes before. (what crimes? Who knows)

They plan to have a picnic today. It doesn't happen this day.

Dee is used to camping.

Remus likes to cook, he's not bad but he is Inventive. Dee is the best at cooking.

Remus asks Virgil to put 'atrocities' to their list of things to do. He does not.

Remus says money is handled and he will not lose it anytime soon. We'll see.

The anons want Arson. Dee says maybe.

Virgil remembers that he did in fact, not quit his job yet. Oops. He was a manager at an art store, his boss sucks and the job was soul sucking. No loss here.

Dee will not tell you his name.

Virgil puts arson on the list at the request of the anons.

Remus gets into a fight with a rabbit (anon)

Dee knows how to hunt, skin and clean animals for food. His mother taught him survival skills.

His mother is a sore spot for him.

[The anons dub me CC]

They're leaving the campsite, Dee is voted to drive, he loves driving.

They need supplies.

They ask for suggestions on stuff to buy.

A skeleton, beer, chocolate, sandwich bags, rubber bands, lube and water is suggested.

The skeleton is named August.

Their phones gain signal again. Roman is Worried. Link.

Roman is now following the blog.

Favorite food: Remus' sweet spicy ribs, Dees Korean barbecue and sushi, Virgils coffee mocha ice cream.

They get to a mall, it has a Halloween store where they get August, Remus and Virgil also get Dee to dress up in costumes for them. Link

They dress August up in grunge clothes.

Remus is banned from having gum, for multiple reasons, but mostly the gum catastrophe of 2015. No they will not elaborate.

Dee is asked his exact height. It's 5'4, he's not bothered by it at all.

He gains an army of short anons.

They get to the grocery store. They are kicked out of the grocery store. Link.

We learn that Remus (or at least his family) is Rich.

An anon calls Dee and Virgil Remus' sugar babies. Virgil does not take kindly to it. Link.

Like really not kindly to it. He sprains his hand. Link.

We gain our first antagonist anon.

We find out why Virgil went to boarding school, he's trans with transphobic parents. Link.

Dee knows medical things. He went to medical school for about a year.

Remus goes to the pharmacy to get supplies for Virgils hand. He forgot to bring payment.

Instead of going to get payment he... just kinda steals the stuff. Link.

Chatting in the car while driving to a motel, the boys are tired and calming down, Dee reveals that his mom is dead and died the year before he was shipped off to boarding school.

End of day two! Link.

Day Three.

Day three start post! Morning starts, Remus gets breakfast for the boyfs. Link.

The anons want to play truth or dare. It's Remus' favorite game, they can't not do it. Remus will do anything he's dared to do.

The first dare is that Remus needs to paint something on his car. He's down for it, they plan to continue playing and go to the store for paints.

Second dare is also for Remus. Link

Three truths for Virgil. Link

Another truth for Virgil, about his parents sending him to boarding school. Link

They get to the hardware store. It is Life Changing. (more on that in the next bullet points)

A crying small child approaches them. Link

The anons suggest kidnapping.

Dee and Virgil take the kid to look for his parents. Remus is left alone with the paints. He doesn't notice.

Dee loves the child. They may kidnap. Link , Link

Remus is unattended. He's pouring brown paint in toilets. He was alerted about the kidnapping as he was doing so.

They are probably taking the child. Link

Well, that's their child now. They re-name him. Welcoming Thomas to the group! Link , Link

Do we see a hint of abandonment issues in Dee? Link

Thomas' dad got mad at him for making noise.

They go to a Toys R Us and a clothing store to get some essentials.

Remus gets antagonized, it doesn't work. Link

Remus gets antagonized more, it kinda works. Link

Virgil explains what arson is to Thomas. Link

Dee and Virgil realize Remus isn't following them anymore. Link

Thomas is really small for his age.

They finally step into the stores. Thomas gets some new stuff, Remus is weirdly really good with kids. Link

Thomas thinks all rodents are just different rats.

They get back to the hotel, they're just chilling now.

We are informed that Roman is in a relationship with both Patton and Logan.

They start to get ready for that picnic they were gonna do on the second day.

Oh yeah, technically still playing truth or dare, here's a Remus dare that is funny. Link

The last post of day three, they go on the picnic, Remus' car actually gets washed so he can paint it, the rest of the night is peaceful. Link

Day Four.

First post of day four, Thomas is the first to wake, he's quiet about it, his father didn't like being woken up. He unintentionally wakes Remus, Remus does not care. The morning is quiet, they pack up their stuff to get on with the trip, a magic coin is found. Magic anons are on. Link

Of course the first thing the magic anons do... gives Virgil a dick. It's free bottom surgery babeey. (He owes Rat anon a favor now.)

Virgil also now has a pet spider. She is fuzzy, black and purple and kinda sentient. (she doesn't have a name, we kinda forgot about her...)

Magic anon sends bad memories to the boys. A little bit of Lore Link

Talking about Dees mom and abandonment issues. Link , Link , Link , Link

On that same note, was she really sick? It hasn't had a direct answer yet ;p

They pull over to get some air after the antagonizing.

The anons Will Not Let Them Rest. Remus throws the magic coin away in the forest. Link (warning for fake gore)

An anon takes their clothes away for 10 asks, they still have underwear, Thomas is still fully clothed. Remus is loving it, Virgil not so much. Link

Some of the nice anons however come in and give encouragement to our boys. And treats! The coin is unfortunately (for them) back ~Magically~ . Link

They decide to go to another campsite to unwind and sleep, they are going to be there for a while this time. Remus texts Roman to tell him about an ask that came in for him. Thomas is awed by fire. Link

Two anons have hugged them for comforting.

The attack on Roman, basically saying how fake he is and how he's probably jealous of Remus cause he doesn't hide his real self and not 'perfect' saying that people wouldn't like the real him. Remus defends Roman. We find out they didn't always have a good relationship and we find out Roman is a Broadway star. Link

The Main Antagonist Anon asks for hugs. No One Liked That.

Another anon comes in to take away their warm things for the night their blankets are gone and they're not allowed to start a fire. Their clothes will be back soon though. It is still going to be cold.

Another anon... doesn't exactly hug them so much as envelopes them in a sensation of tongues.

Another antagonist anon gives Thomas only a hug. And and ominous message of "I'll be back soon".

People are very huggy today, but at least this time the anon asked first. Virgil is getting sick of them, Remus is enjoying them.

An anon takes away their food by putting it all in a bag and getting it stuck in a tree. Remus mourns the snacks loss.

A ladder is given to them, Remus immediately tries to get the food down but it's stuck with magic. He tries to cut it open with a butterfly knife, still doesn't work and the ladder falls. He falls with it, he lands in a bush, the ladder lands on his face and his nose is bleeding.

Someone gives them bandages, Dee checks for a concussion, he's fine. We learn Remus' full name. Remus Able King, he doesn't seem to like it.

Oh yeah, his knife landed in his thigh when he fell. And his ankle is sprained. Dee patches him up. Link

UFO Anon distracts Thomas with a light show.

Rat anon erases the adults memories of each other, they are mentally teenagers again. This lasts the rest of the night. It doesn't go well. The only thing they remember is school, they don't trust each other. UFO Anon tries to abduct Thomas, Wasp Anon tries to as well. Remus is Not Okay with Thomas missing. The rest of this night is a pretty important part of the story, so there will be many links here for it. Link , Link , Link , Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link.

Day Five.

Day five begins, everything is normal again. They decide today is for strictly relaxation. Link

They talk a little bit about how last night was crap, and about how much they've changed since high school, and that them meeting was the best course that their lives could have taken.

They're determined to have a good day, they decide that swimming is a nice idea.

They get to the campsite beach, they give more insight to how they got together. Link , Link

They talk about how much their lives would have completely sucked if they didn't meet. Link

Talking about their parents reactions to them getting together (hint none of them cared a bit for it). Link

On how the school reacted to it also was not good, but our boys like to go against authority if nothing else. Didn't stop the adults from targeting them and turning a blind eye to anyone else who was deemed 'good' i.e the favorites.

They also didn't like Roman just by association with Remus.

Virgil was roommates with his bully. Here are some pranks he pulled on her for payback. Link

They used to sneak out a lot, to Remus' room or to the forest.

Virgil used to do gymnastics.

Roman begged Remus to join a sports team with him, Remus didn't really enjoy it.

Remus speaks German. Virgil knows Latin. Dee speaks French and ASL.

Thomas knows a little bit of Spanish, so does Roman.

They have yet to get into the water. Dee pushes Virgil in, Dee ends up falling into the lake when Virgil tries to drag him in too.

Thomas does not know how to swim. Remus tosses him to Virgil who is in the water to teach him.

They realize that they should probably be more careful with Thomas. He seems to have no self preservation. Link

They go back to the campsite, Dee says he's going to go to town to get food stuff, he's taking Thomas with him, and the two injured should stay there.

Someone suggests finding Mothman, they want to but are injured. So they make it a plan to go to Point Pleasant.

Virgil and Remus want some *ahem* Alone Time, so they turn the anons to Dee. It is uneventful shopping (except for the fact that I had to have Thomas accidentally erase all the asks cause... I accidentally did that...)

Also the cashier at the store is Suspicious of Dee (he seems to recognize Thomas (though no one picked up on that))

He goes to buy some clean blankets then back to the campsite.

The rest of the night is nice and smooth.

Before sleeping Remus and Virgil tell Dee that they're handing the blog over to The Others for a few days so they can relax.

Days Continue

The Other Stuff

[butwhatifidothis]

Nice blog you have hear. Your VW rewrite is great and I adore the idea of a Claude-Rhea rapport, but there's one thing I'm struggling to understand.

How is Claude becoming tolerant of the church--an institution mostly run by white people--in VW any different to Nader being scolded by Lorenz about the Almyrans' behaviour in GW (from what I've seen--I have no intention of playing Hopes ew)? Especially since Rhea's need to hide her identity is a more abstract exploration of othering compared to Claude's which is more grounded in reality, thus running the risk of making their (personal) connection problematic.

(If you don't want to answer this publically, please make a post saying so and I will come off anon.)

Hm. I don’t think I quite understand the comparison being made here.

Claude becoming tolerant of the Church would be a result of the Church itself being tolerant to outsiders and foreigners, at least per my rewrite that you're referencing. He is accepting of a good institution doing good things that he already agrees are good things, with no requirement of the "mostly run by white people" institution telling him these are good things.

Meanwhile, in Hopes, you have it to where Nader - a POC man - is turned into someone who enjoys pillaging conquered lands, when that has never been established in his character before. Building onto that you have Claude - a man of the same POC race as Nader - saying nothing against him doing this; he is either enabling Nader, or is outright also fond of/okay with pillaging conquered lands. It is only Lorenz - a white man - who steps up and reels Nader back in a good moral line. It would have been one thing had Claude been the one reprimanding Nader, or even showing disappointment in specifically Nader doing this (which would indicate it's a pattern of behavior for specifically Nader), but him saying nothing at all speaks volumes on how Almyra's culture seems to be like. These are two out of a whopping four Almyran characters we ever see (when counting Cyril, even though he explicitly doesn't adhere to much of Almyra's culture), meaning that half of the game's known Almyran characters participate in or otherwise allow for pillaging.

I don't mean to be rude, but what you are trying to compare are two entirely different scenarios. Claude accepting an mostly-white-run institution being open to outsiders/foreigners is... not the same as him and Nader being used to paint Almyra as a pillaging bandit continent that have to be calmed down by the good white man. Not to be rude, but I'm having a hard time understanding the point trying to be made here.

Nor do I really understand what you mean by "Rhea's need to hide her identity is a more abstract exploration of othering compared to Claude's which is more grounded in reality, thus running the risk of making their (personal) connection problematic." Rhea's need to hide her identity is... absolutely not abstract. Like, at all? The most "abstract" thing about it is that she's a nonhuman entity, but pretty much every else aligns almost perfectly with Claude's need to hide his identity. They both experience the following:

A sense of being unable to truly trust/open up to those around them due to how they've been treated because of their race

A real, logical, physical danger that looms over them should their identities be revealed too callously and to the wrong people

Being seen as strange and untrustworthy in extremely large part due to how they come off because of them hiding their identities

While the depths of Rhea's trauma includes far more immediate tragedy than Claude's, both experience very similar feelings because of what they went through. I don't see what risk would be ran should they be written to have a personal connection to one another?

Again, sorry if I come off rude or standoffish, but I genuinely do not get what you're trying to say here

[kyogre-blue]

SS continues. Seteth is handsome and I think I would be okay with this normally, but I played VW first and Claude was cuter.

Not to be mean, but that's pretty much literally the only difference so far. Off screen Claude even supporting character magics us into getting the same reinforcements in the same place and going to the same next map. (I tell Seteth I want to go to the Kingdom this time. Seteth says no. I feel like at least Claude didn't pretend I had options. Did I just agree with him on everything...? That is also possible.)

It's kind of... even some of Seteth's lines don't seem to be intended for him. I heard from interview that SS was written first, so I figured that playing it would make VW feel like a reskin, but I dunno if it's the order I did them in, but tbh VW so far feels a more "natural" progression, Edelgard stuff aside.

Aside from that, using church units on the church route has some funny effects like that one general going "your army of children," but I'm actually... using almost entirely adults...

Live blogging notes:

Oh, I didn't notice, but the "village" where we wake up is in ruins. There are burnt remnants and half-collapsed brick walls in the background.

Interesting point: I didn't keep track of the months before, but now I see we fell asleep in March 1181 but wake up in December 1185. I kinda thought it would be the same months, but it's not.

Edelgard's tone at the reunion is...... hum. Not very emotive? Don't get me wrong, Claude doesn't exactly get worked up much either, but Edelgard has a lot more personal stakes in all this, and she should really have a deeper investment in regard to Byleth. It was like this when they parted ways in Garreg Mach too.

Edelgard says "friend from our Black Eagle days have chosen to join me in the fight ahead." But that's... hum. First, why is it a fight ahead for her? She's been fighting for 5 years and is winning, according to the info dump. Second, did the students actually join her? I got them all killed, so I won't know either way, but my impression is that this is not actually the case to begin with.

Edelgard is using a wavy sword... Levin Sword?

Kinda meh sword battle scene.

The fact that Edelgard is older than Byleth now... haha. Claude switches to calling you "my friend" but Edelgard is still pushing the teacher angle.

The info dumps about the political situation post timeskip are slightly different all around, but the only real difference seems to be that Lorenz leads the Empire supporter faction in the Alliance, which iirc was not the case in VW. That checks out. Dimitri is still presumed dead and Faerghus is a Dukedom.

Flayn says she forgot something at the Holy Mausoleum, where we meet up with her... Not sure what this is about. (Update: She and Seteth hang around there later too. Really not sure why.)

SS savefile has the banner I presume Claude also makes you use in VW - kinda blue-grey background with a pink Crest of Flames.

Lol, I killed everyone, but the chapter crawl still says students from the Black Eagle house are working with the Church. Instead I recruited all the Church units, so they show up to help in the new month.

War phase SS has the same monastery music and yellow skybox as VW. Kinda disappointed, tbh. I was (vainly) hoping that each route would get something a little different.

I did notice that they have wooden construction equipment type structures in a lot of places, which I didn't realize before. I guess it's supposed to show how the monastery is in a rundown, damaged state, but even seeing it, I don't think it works too well.

Shamir says that Dagda was "destroyed" ten years ago.

Seteth has been refusing Hanneman's requests for 21 years. So even though Flayn came to the monastery very recently, Seteth has been around for long enough that his physical age is going to start looking weird lol (his info on Serenes Forest says he's physically 27). Notably though, he and Jeralt didn't know each other (iirc), so based on the timeline, Seteth came pretty much immediately after Jeralt faked Byleth's death and disappeared. I wonder if it was because Rhea would have been "in a state" about Byleth's supposed death (and the loss of Sothis's crest stone).

There are no records of anyone except Seteth having a Major Crest of Cichol. In fact, it seems like there's probably no one who has a crest of Cichol at all. Seteth says he is a commoner and has no idea how he ended up with a crest. Hanneman when Byleth says the exact same thing, while being just as sus:

There's some cliff rubble on the monastery defense map... looks like there was a rockslide during the Imperial attack.

The fact that I've forgotten half of VW already is making this a little more tolerable, but looking at the chapter list for VW, we did have a monastery defense map before going to get Judith's troops, and in SS we are...... also going to get Judith's troops.

There's some snippets about how Judith and Daphnel have mostly remained out of Imperial attention and how Judith is a devout follower of the Seiros faith, but tbh it feels out of place here compared to VW.

Oh, there's a spy. Man, was this in VW? I remember nothing.

I've seen this mentioned in fic, but the quest for the Almyran merchant in disguise mentions a Nader bear (which is an Armored Bear Stuffy in your inventory). The thing you give him is "Zoltan's Beast Idol" that mentions the famous craftsman Zoltan who was believed to have made only weapons. I wonder if there's some weapon in the game that was made by him?

Seteth repeats the legend about Ailell being caused by the goddess's wrath after a battle there long ago. Which... is a weird thing, given that he should theoretically know the actual cause -- Agarthan missiles getting deflected from the monastery by the protections on the Holy Tomb.

Oh, Judith suggests she's helping because Claude asked her to. My sus man <3

Reiterating that the Oghma mountains are to the south of the monastery and between it and the Empire. You can't enter the monastery from the Empire directly. You have to go through the Kingdom or the Alliance.

Why do they give you the choice between east and west approaches?? I picked west because I already saw the Alliance stuff, but Seteth just directly shoots you down...

Claude continues to be a proper side character by giving us a way to get into the Empire through the Alliance. "I don't know exactly why, but I feel that I can trust you," my dude, it's because you are a side character who exists to fill the needs of the plot. It's the damn bridge again. SIGH

Also, I was worried for a moment when I couldn't talk to Ashe, but apparently you don't need to. Just kill him and he magically survives. There isn't even a little scene about him coming back or anything...?

[2dkapsddr]

==- WELCOME to VIP ROOM -==

Welcome to the rhythm game scoreposting account of Kaps, the rising jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none! Also going by TopKaps and, most often recently, 2DKaps, this is my public hotspot where I've posted and archived eeeevery score I've gotten over the years! (or, at least scores that I've saved either on my phone, phone's camera, new PC, or Nintendo Switch).

Here in my humble abode, I've documented my near-daily experiences with a ton of such games, and for further ease of access, I've started using tags of my own for these such games to make them easier to view and sort through, in case you're stalking my scores for a tournament match or just looking through my progression!

Listed below are all the tags I use on this account for different games, and listed even further below are all my friend/rival codes/IDs in case you want to compete with me off the account too! If I ever try a new game, new version of a game, or even enter a new year, I'll update the list with its new respective tag and the easiest way to search it!

// Game-specific tags (sorted by Arcade/Mobile/Home, then alphabetically)

#2dkaps beatmania, #2dkaps chrono circle, #2dkaps chunithm, #2dkaps dar, #2dkaps danevo, #2dkaps ddr, #2dkaps drs, #2dkaps ez2ac, #2dkaps gc, #2dkaps gitadora, #2dkaps iidx, #2dkaps jubeat, #2dkaps maimai, #2dkaps museca, #2dkaps music diver, #2dkaps piu, #2dkaps sdvx, #2dkaps smx, #2dkaps tetote, #2dkaps wacca, #2dkaps arcaea, #2dkaps beatstar, #2dkaps cytus, #2dkaps daistar, #2dkaps enstars, #2dkaps kalpa, #2dkaps neon fm, #2dkaps noisz, #2dkaps orzmic, #2dkaps overrapid, #2dkaps phigros, #2dkaps piu m, #2dkaps proseka, #2dkaps rhythm hive, #2dkaps rotaeno, #2dkaps takumi, #2dkaps voez, #2dkaps diva, #2dkaps djmax, #2dkaps etterna, #2dkaps ez2on, #2dkaps festival, #2dkaps itg, #2dkaps jd, #2dkaps muse dash, #2dkaps osu, #2dkaps quaver, #2dkaps rhythm heaven, #2dkaps taiko, #2dkaps v/s,

// Version-specific tags (arcade and some home)

#2dkaps ddr extreme, #2dkaps ddr sn2, #2dkaps ddr x, #2dkaps ddr ii, #2dkaps ddr a20, #2dkaps ddr a20 plus, #2dkaps ddr a3, #2dkaps ddr world, #2dkaps iidx 27, #2dkaps iidx 28, #2dkaps iidx 29, #2dkaps iidx 30, #2dkaps iidx 31, #2dkaps sdvx vw, #2dkaps sdvx eg, #2dkaps wacca lily r, #2dkaps wacca reverse, #2dkaps piu xx, #2dkaps piu phoenix, #2dkaps jubeat festo

// Miscellaneous tags (years, auto tags, etc)

#2dkaps 2019, #2dkaps 2020, #2dkaps 2021, #2dkaps 2022, #2dkaps 2023, #2dkaps 2024, #Youtube (posts with videos recorded of gameplay), #2dkaps etc (posts with BONUS in them like vids, random photos, funny stories, etc.), #2dkaps updates (posts regarding account changes)

And now, for the hotspot of them all, where you might've come here for! (probably not, but Pleaseee i need more rivals across everything) It's the...

// Rival codes!!!

DDR Rival Code: 6158-7110 (2DKAPS)

IIDX ID: 2349-1996 (DJ 2DKAPS)

SDVX PLAYER ID: SV-3473-9971 (KAPS)

Proseka ID (Global): 162415143295172610 ([39s] Kaps)

Proseka ID (Japan): 170058506242576384 (Kaps)

Arcaea ID: 334 526 936 (TopKappa)

Steam (for DJMAX, EZ2ON, Muse Dash, etc.): topkaps

Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-3296-1907-2304

3icecream (DDR scores): Kaps (also on SkillAttack!)

// Account changelog (last updated 1-29-2024)

Here's where I'll link any updates to my account as I write them, usually formatting changes or revisions, maybe a few mechanical changes that might affect followers or viewers (as if i have any of those LOL)

January 29th, 2024: Unimportant Note Regarding Account Privatizing

Thanks for checking this blog out, feel free to follow if you'd like! Otherwise, enjoy the show!

[ender-afton]

Hello! I'm going to tell you about myself, So you don't have to look through my rentry

Names:

Pronouns: They/It/Glitch/Null/Nym/Prox/Xe/Vey (Currently using: Thing/Things, He/Him, Ry/Ryx and It/Glitch/Null)

16 (Birthday is November 8th)

Scorpio♏

Legally blind in my right eye, ND

Eclectic witch (Thunder, Traditional, Green, Gray, Crystal, House)

Furry

Yandere + Kekkondere + Megadere (Yes I use these to describe myself)

Age regressor + dreamer (0-3), Pet regressor + dreamer, Cg

..... (7/31/20-1/14/24), 4/29/30 -QPR WITH MY LOVELY

Online family: Midnight (Mum), EJ/Louis (Dad), Grim (Second mum), Cato (Uncle), Ozzy/River (Sibiling) ( @/riverissilly ), Vinny/Dakota (Brother), Dizzy/Eli (Sibiling), Cookie (Sibiling), Avryn, Kio/Cicada, Olive (TRIPLETS), Z (Mother of my kids minus 4) (Ex-wife), Stars (Mother of my kids minus 8) (QPR wife), Akari (Godparent of my kids), Cloud/Zai(Lovestruck sys) (Child), Casimir (Child), Ares (Child), Lyla/Astro (Child), Oliver (Child), Nebula/Naevis/Miko(Starry void sys)(Daughter), Roxy & Bennie (Kds(?)), Seraphim/Francis(Seraphim System)(Child) ( @/the-church-of-strabismus ), Divinity(Child), Blue/Miles(Daughter), Rattie/RTS (Rat tail society)(Child), Edd/Aubrey/Jordan(Niece/nephew), Tyler(Nephew), Ayva(Grandchild), Twinkie(Grandchild)

William Afton kin, Fictionlink, Copinglink, Mirrorlink, Conceptkin, Songkin, Otherlink, Fictionhearted? Plantlink, Voidpunk, Aldernic, Horrorvesi, Ocvior

Reality shifter (Has yet to shift cause I keep forgetting)

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Blog things

Rp brackets/sign offs: Jennywise, Pennywise, Nightwise, Lanawise, Dawn, Thunder, And Midnight(JW, PW, NW, LW, DN, THDR, MDN) Jennywise's kids: Milo and Sonnet (ML, SNT) Pennywise's kids: Holly(wise), Persephone (HL, PHE)

Morrigan (Me) -MG, Kioshi (Me, Again) -KOSH (I'ma do none if it's just me-), Ezra, Athena, Saturn (EZ, AE, SU)

Glitchtrap/William, Delilah, Vanny/Vanessa, Kerrigan, Flare (GT, WA, DLH, VY, KRG, FRE)

Melody, Rain, Mareen, Daeva, Alex, Blaire (MD, RN, MIM, DPC, ALX, BR)

Vinnywise, Danawise, Kelseywise, Korawise, Iris, Cleowise, Tatum (VW, DW, KW, KW2, IR, CW, TM)

Glamrock Mangle, Glamrock Foxy, Roxanne, Glamrock Chica, Glamrock Casey, Glamrock Bowie, Alvira, Rockstar Tangle, Sunshine, Roux, Madame (GRM, GRF, RW, GRC, GRC2, GRB, AVR, RTG, STF, RTR, MTW)

Suki/009, Jaylyn/048, Vivian/068, Sparrow/072, Lixius/097, Zeppelin/105, Xia/117, And Dai/281 (EPT, JY, EPX, SP, LX, ZN, XI, DI)

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Other blog things

Tags: ☆ender glitches☆ -Main posts

☆ender codes☆ -Reblogs

☆ender manifests☆ -Replying on reblogs

☆ender breaching☆ -Venting/ranting

☆ender searching☆ -Bad tumblrs that need to be blocked

☆👁hypnose n spiral🌈☆ -Me n my friens fursona posts :3

🔮Glitchtrap breaches🔮 -Either regressed/dreaming or age(d)re rp

🎈JW dances🎈 -Caregiver rp

🏁Roxy races🏁 -Caregiver rp

👁Kitpup belps👁 -Me regressed

📻Alastor purrs📻 -Pet(d)re (perhaps) rp

-📻Alastor alterhuman...☆

-🍁Bobby Bearhug alterhuman...☆

-💿William Afton alterhuman...☆

UPDATE: One has been changed to @the-glitched-daycare One has been added: @alastortheradiocat

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Some userboxes I use

[the-silent-windchime]

Midwest/Southwest Gothic

Here’s a list of things I associate with my particular brand gothic horror

My dad took us out to Oklahoma once to visit the house he grew up in. When we got there, we found a cracked concrete slab supporting the skeleton of a few crumbling walls and a nearly intact red brick chimney. There was the hollowed-out shell of an old VW Bug sitting on cinderblocks in the overgrown yard, and a barn that swayed every time a strong breeze picked up. The house, like a concerning amount of the childhood houses in my family, had burned to the ground years ago, and the title to the land was lost in the system. It’s unclear who now owns the land, and by extension, the house, or what they intend to do with it, but someone had zip tied a piece of cardboard to the fence that said “do not trespass”. There was a horse standing in what used to be my dad’s room.

One time I was riding my bike to work and happened to go past one of the town’s most notorious meth houses. They had a dog, and I’m not good with dog breeds but this one looked like it had been bred to be mean. It pulled its lead from the ground as I biked past and chased me all the way down the street, managing to bite me in the leg. Every time I tried to speed up to outrun it it got more agitated, so I just stopped. The dog stopped too, and just watched me from across the street, refusing to come any closer or let me approach. After a little while it wandered right back to the meth house and curled up under the saggy front porch. That dog was gone the next day.

Corn fields are spooky, but nothing is scarier than being in the woods by yourself at night.

Animals just wander into your space all the time. They have no concept of civilization vs wilderness. We would get deer, turkeys, coyotes, moles, groundhogs, and even once an entire family of black bears. There was a stray cat in the neighborhood that we never once saw, and only knew existed because it left dead mice on our back patio when we started leaving the door to the shed open at night.

Nothing, and I cannot stress this enough, NOTHING is more terrifying than turning on your brights when driving at night and suddenly seeing a crowd of deer standing on the side of the road, watching you as you drive past.

Cars coming on the opposite side of the road will sometimes flash their headlights at you as a warning about something, usually a cop. One time I was driving up the side of a mountain and a car coming down flashed their lights so frantically that I just found a place to turn around and went right back down. I passed someone else going up and gave them the same warning without knowing for sure what I was even warning them about.

My blog name is actually based on an item I pulled from the detritus of an old hoarder’s house I was helping clean out. The guy must not have liked the sound of the windchime, because he’d glued cut up bits of pool noodles to it to silence it. This one is less Midwest gothic and more what the fuck went on in your head dude

My grandparents have lived in the same trailer park for all my life. It’s a nice little place out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas, all the neighbors keep their places clean and quiet and they were all polite on the few occasions I interacted with them. It is Kansas, though, so the only way to get to the park is on the one cracked up old road that goes out of town and cuts through miles of nothing as far as the eye can see. And as someone who grew up mostly in urban areas, it’s a bit strange to see the plumes of smoke that go up every couple couple of days when people burn their trash (my grandpa is big into recycling, so for the longest time my grandparents used the inside of an old washing machine as a burn barrel)

Flea markets.

Pawn shops (bad and evil, full of weird taxidermy, walls of scratched up DVDs, and guys who are way too obsessed with guns)

Casinos were The Backrooms before The Backrooms were cool, and it’s completely by design. Manufactured fucking liminal space, baby

The weather changes on a dime. Sometimes after a few days of really warm weather the clouds will just close up like a trapdoor and turn the sky white instead of blue. And sometimes after a storm the clouds will blow away and the sky will be so blue it almost hurts to look at.

These were all the ones I could think of off the top of my head. I mostly did this because the search results for “Midwest gothic” were a lot of abandoned houses in the country and weird, decaying religious signs. And yeah, there’s a shit ton of that stuff in the midwest, don’t get me wrong! But that’s not all there is.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop summer fundraiser is almost over! I am an alum, instructor and volunteer board member for this nonprofit workshop whose alums include Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, Nalo Hopkinson, Kameron Hurley, Nnedi Okorafor, Lucius Shepard, and Ted Chiang! Your donations will help us subsidize tuition for students, making Clarion — and sf/f — more accessible for all kinds of writers.

#15yrsago Super Man and the Bugout reading: what if Superman had been a nice Jewish boy from Toronto https://ia801603.us.archive.org/5/items/TheSuperManAndTheBugout/SMBO.mp3

#15yrsago Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you’re innocent http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/07/eight-reasons-even-innocent-shouldnt.html

#15yrsago Candian band staples CC-licensed CDs to phone-poles with anti-Canadian-DMCA messages https://web.archive.org/web/20080801204812/https://torontoist.com/2008/07/the_craft_economy_kill_bill_c61.php

#15yrsago UK tech-czar’s ridiculous, fatuous podcast interview — hilarious gag interview https://web.archive.org/web/20080804093334/https://fishnchippapers.typepad.com/tomorrow_fish_n_chip_pape/2008/07/if-ever-there-was-a-clear-statement-of-what-is-wrong-with-transformational-government-and-the-nis.html

#15yrsago Uni of Nottingham: Grad students researching terrorism aren’t allowed to look at terrorist documents on US anti-terror gov’t sites https://web.archive.org/web/20160315042221/https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/researchers-have-no-right-to-study-terrorist-materials/402844.article?sectioncode=26&storycode=402844

#10yrsago Researcher wins NSA cyber-security prize, says freedom is incompatible with the NSA “in its current form” https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2013/07/19/nsa-award-for-best-scientific-cybersecurity-paper/

#10yrsago Bank forecloses on wrong house, changes locks, steals tons of stuff, won’t compensate owner in full https://www.popehat.com/2013/07/26/want-to-burglarize-a-house-with-impunity-then-nickle-and-dime-the-restitution-it-helps-to-be-a-bank/

#10yrsago Canadian Tories distribute fake Braille flyers about disabled initiative https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/conservative-flyers-on-disabled-initiatives-contain-fake-braille/article_e500f631-3cc1-5b81-b4a3-db7f0b7edb2d.html

#10yrsago At VW’s request, English court censors Usenix Security presentation on keyless entry systems for luxury cars https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/26/scientist-banned-revealing-codes-cars

#10yrsago Bribery: pro-NSA Congressional voters got twice the defense industry campaign contributions https://www.wired.com/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/

#10yrsago NSA college recruiting ad, 1976 https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeholmes/9384778371/lightbox/

#10yrsago NV court marshal sexually assaults woman, then arrests her for complaining while judge looks on https://web.archive.org/web/20130726035500/https://www.8newsnow.com/story/21557505/cover-up-alleged-in-clark-clark-family-court

#5yrsago Android’s keyboard will no longer autocomplete “sit” with “on my face” thanks to me https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/sit-on-my-face-android-autocomplete

#5yrsago The Russian equivalent to Alexa is a “good girl” but not too friendly, and is totally OK with wife-beating https://aeon.co/essays/can-emotion-regulating-tech-translate-across-cultures

#5yrsago Calgary malls caught secretly using facial recognition to characterise shoppers’ age and gender https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-malls-1.4760964

#5yrsago The Cyberdeck: a homebrew, 3D printed cyberspace deck https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/8yyayp/just_designed_and_3d_printed_a_cyberdeck_time_to/

#5yrsago Trumpian Ontario premier Doug Ford will gut Toronto’s city council to punish his Tory rivals https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/ford-to-slash-toronto-city-council-to-25-councillors-from-47-sources-say/article_8d99a5f5-caeb-58d2-a6eb-1db261560a02.html?

#5yrsago James Comey: A freak of nature with the power to cloud liberals’ minds https://clickhole.com/step-right-up-and-feast-your-eyes-on-the-unfathomable-c-1825329399/

#1yrago Peter Thiel’s evil, but he’s not an “evil genius”: How to criticize self-mythologizing villains https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#ordinary-mediocrity

#1yrago Your computer is tormented by a wicked god: Bootkits are why we can’t have nice things https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

[objectosexual]

hey gamers, this blog is a huge WIP (and i might change the URL... we'll see) but for a basic intro/pinned post...

my name is carson, im in my late 20's, im gay and objecto. im also trans and use he/it pronouns

my main blog is @clippy + my selfship blog is @ohgodimyearning... consider this blog to be a companion to the latter (most of my F/O's are objects)

i also have a locked NSFW twitter account with similar content that can be found here (you will need to send a follow req to it tho, sorry!) -- keep in mind that it 1) doubles as a vent account and 2) does have NSFW images

this will also be a general animism/POSIC+ blog, tho please keep in mind that i primarily view those things through a lens of being romantically and sexually interested in objects... that isnt to say i want to fuck every object i view as having a soul, but wanting to fuck objects has essentially made me... aware of it, i guess. (that and im autistic so i've always had weird hyper-empathy toward objects)

my literal first crush ever was on Herbie (the VW beetle) so i have a huge soft spot for cars, but i also like other vehicles/modes of transit, robots/computers, toys, roller coasters, and buildings

i also like objectheads and i know those arent inherently an objecto/posic thing, the main one i care about is Cl*ckboy, whose design helps me Process my feelings for the real life object he is based on

^ i will go more in depth about this sort of thing in the future (i think explaining my "journey" with this part of my sexuality will help others who are "questioning" -- i used to talk CONSTANTLY about wanting to kiss cars on main and i've had ppl tell me i helped them connect the dots so. lol) but i currently am fighting w my body for energy so dont expect it soon...

THIS BLOG IS AN 18+ SPACE, MINORS PLEASE DO NOT FOLLOW!

I will block people with no ages in their bio (unless i already know you)! While i will not be sharing mature images, i will 100% be sharing sexually explicit/suggestive/etc text posts.

if i interacted with your post, and you're a minor or don't want NSFW blogs interacting with you, please let me know and/or block me! i wont take offense to you asking me to delete a reblog or being blocked. everyone's comfort is my priority, and i do my best to screen OP's of posts before reblogging to my sideblogs but sometimes i forget/miss things

anyway i think that's all for now...? i will start reblogging things here ASAP i think, but just know im kinda working behind the scenes and probably wont make many, if any, original posts until im a little more settled here

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Do you feel that Edelstans are engaging in some sort of psychological warfare here? The amount of times they sealion and repeat the same talking points that have been discussed over 4 years be it about Edel's stance on nobility, her imperialism, her racism and desire to genocide an endangered race feels like it's repetitive on purpose; to make the mind vulnerable to believe anything even if there's factual evidence against it.

I don't know that they're thinking that far ahead about it nonnie lol, I just think they're trying to argue for the sake of it. They have to know by now that people have their opinions already and that arguing and telling us our opinions or discussions amongst ourselves are wrong or "strange" isn't going to make us like or even want to like their favorite. They just, for some reason, cannot stop reagitating the same old shit.

I mean, I think they're a combination of chronically online and can't handle that other people don't like their favorite. Whenever people are minding their business just talking amongst people they know with their shared interest, these people seem to butt in and argue with them. My post was almost entirely about Miklan and his influence on the story, and yet that last person was saying "Crests had nothing to do with it" and shit, but like... Sylvain and Dimitri's supports were literally about that?

Basically they ignored everything in my post regarding what it was actually about and just wanted to argue anti-Dimitri (and Rhea, who the overall post was very minimally about), because the overall post they responded to wasn't really that much about Dimitri, but Miklan's place in the story (which has to include Dimitri and what he's doing).

Generally, from everything I've seen across various Faerghus blogs/people who just like the Faerghus characters, the Edelgard stans do this to all of them or most of them (at least the ones who are actively discussing the games amongst each other). Basically if you're just any random user who likes Dimitri, they'll do this to you if you're posting about him in a positive light. That's what I meant by as soon as you start posting about Houses, that's it, you're immediately anyone's target for discourse even if you don't engage in that regularly (and only do so when it's thrown at you).

Like yeah, I give my opinions about what I don't like (such as the second half of GW and coming up, why I hate VW's treatment of Claude about as much but in a totally different way), but I'm doing it to just express my opinion on my blog to my followers in my own space without tags that aren't my own personal tags.

It's fine to talk about what you don't like, but they always come in to talk about what they don't like... on posts that already exist about liking those things these people don't like. Like... it's literally common courtesy not to go onto a post loving up about a character and being like "this character is bad and wrong".

Frankly, I think they just thrive on discourse. Why else would one of them come onto a post that had nothing to do with them, wasn't in the Edelgard tag (and was a reblog no less, from someone they don't even know and had never met), was only talking about Dimitri as a side effect of talking about Miklan, and ultimately had nothing to do with what they wanted to argue about it (i.e. they just seem to have picked a random post that was pro Dimitri to argue for Edelgard and reach as faaaar as they could to justify why they were on that post at all)?

Also yeah, it's been the same shit for four years now with some extra Hopes salt and pepper added in. It's tiring and I want no part in it. Like, my posts about why I believe the writing failed Edelgard as a character? It's my opinion on the overall writing, and while they haven't engaged with those posts at the time of this ask (I didn't tag them in the main tags specifically for that reason), I wound up tagging it as discourse in at least the first part (for followers who are worried about discourse and being found and targeted to be able to avoid that) because all the discourse that's happened ultimately ended up making anything negative about Edelgard discourse. You can't say anything bad about her without it essentially being discourse because of this bullshit.

I enjoy discussing things with my followers and mutuals and seeing their perspectives, and it's good because we realize things from each other! But the important difference is that we're on the same page with each other/understand that it's harmless discussion, just giving our thoughts to each other and we understand that we're all trying to be respectful and not drag discourse into it. We don't have to agree on everything. I've had people disagree with me to some extents regarding Edelgard, and like... that's fine if you're not an absolute dick about it?

Me and R (if you know who that is you know who that is lol, just to not specifically name drop in case?) don't agree on Ike at all but we've been mutuals for years (and that's looking at my favorite lord, one of my favorite FE characters overall, and my second and third favorite FE games in the franchise). Difference being, we can have a solid and respectful conversation about it, or even about Claude who I like and R doesn't really like all that much).

It's one thing to have a discussion, but they only want to be completely right with no contest. They also come in, instead of having a good faith conversation, saying outright that we're wrong and strange, which is an antagonistic manner of starting a conversation. They're not polite; they're demeaning right from the get go, and they can't fathom how anyone could like Dimitri.

So, to sum this up... it would appear to be a case of chronically online, people unable to handle anyone having differing opinions, and thriving on arguing and pulling people into discourse. I don't know that they're trying to wear people down, because people who like Dimitri already are set in that they like Dimitri. They're not going to magically change their minds no matter how hard Edelstans argue at them. It just seems like they want to argue and hate other people.

Sadly this is why I have to be cautious when interacting with FE fans at all (of any game), because if they like Edelgard I'm automatically wary because of shit like this.

When talking to someone who isn't in the fandom, I expressed worry about their Edelgard loving friends knowing about me (because said person was playing Houses for the first time) because I love Dimitri and because of experiences from Edelgard fans and how they target Dimitri fans.

You know what they told me in response? That Dimitri fans are the ones attacking Edelgard fans (on Twitter) just for liking Edelgard. That is to say, the Edelgard lovers already told and convinced their friend this was true before I even expressed my worry. Was I surprised? No. Disgusted? Yeah. It tells me that when Edelgard fans get their friends into the game (and have them play CF first), they "warn" them about Dimitri fans before they even start playing.

Mind you, this person has now played CF and is an Edelgard fan now, just like her friends. When I started trying to explain to this person why I'm not comfortable discussing politics from this game (because of all the discourse) she got mad because it was "too much fandom drama" for her... but she didn't care when her Edelgard loving friends "warned" her about Dimitri fans? Said person also said "her friends will filter for her", and she told her friends (which I saw from a screenshot from her) that she leans more toward Edelgard's viewpoint politically, so uh... suffice to say someone I once was a friendly acquaintance with because of another fandom I'm very uncomfortable around now.

Ironic, isn't it, how the Edelgard fan has Edelgard loving friends and they get mad when a Dimitri fan tries to explain why they're uncomfortable with the game's politics, but the Edelgard fans can actively talk shit about actual real life people for being fans of an opposing character and that's not too much fandom drama. I've felt sick to my stomach that a potential friendship has a tear in it now because of fucking Edelgard discourse, and frankly I don't know if it can mended because of how uncomfortable I feel around her now.

While I'd like it to, I don't have high expectations considering she was more than happy to listen to her friends talk about fandom drama/tell her about it but got mad at me for trying to explain why that exact drama is why I'm uncomfortable discussing the game's politics.

Like, it really is always the Edelgard fans and I've seen plenty of people who originally were on the fence about her decide they don't like her now because the stans made them hate her or actively dislike her.

[a-real-life-hermit]

X is bald and bearded and makes badass music, playing multiple instruments

Mumbo is blond and mustache-less, and does cinematography professionally

Mumbo is also a car guy and likes doing short films with his cool cars. He used to (maybe still does) film inside a not-so-kitted-out VW van

Tango, Impulse, and Skizz live within 15 minutes of each other.

Imp and Skizz have been friends since high school, but Imp and Tango met after they started their YT careers

Imp and Skizz were in a drum corp - Impy's entire brand is based on Impulse Drum and Bugle Corps

Skizz coaches softball

iirc Doc was a professional/semi-professional basketball player in Germany..?

Ren's brother Jono makes music on YT and has made timelapse music, intro/outro music, and remixes for hermits

Ren & Doc are shippers of their in-game personas

Bdubs and Pungence sound SO IDENTICAL that when they played Among Us with some hermits/mc youtubers, EVERYONE had trouble telling the two apart.

Bdubs was also in contracting/architecture irl before Minecraft, and he's openly attributed that experience to his attention to detail with building... according to him, especially rooves.

Grian has had at least 2 hippie arcs in Hermitcraft

Cleo uses she/they pronouns!

The peeps at Hermitcraft Recap use both she/her and they/them pronouns for Cleo! (as a genderqueer person this made me cry the first time i heard it)

Cleo is also a geologist

Gem is bi! she has the bi flag on her MC skin's shoes and always uses bi merch in the pride-themed MCCs!

Keralis co-owns XTRFY, a gaming tech company

Keralis is also Polish!

Cub has degrees in both Physics and Astronomy

Cub played golf throughout highschool which is where his love of it comes from. According to Gem, Tango, Imp, and Skizz, and in Gem's TwitchCon blog from last year, he's REALLY good at it.

Beefers lives on a farm and keeps tons of animals and has a homesteading YT account where he posts vlogs and stuff. Because he lives on a farm, his connection is awful and his wifi sucks.

Wels is a veteran, army iirc?

ok so since it's just occurred to me that the fandom is constantly growing and changing and learning, there's some bits of hermit backstory that I know that others might not. hermitfacts coming up:

the server was built as an equal mix of builders and redstoners (and then Joe Hills was added as a WILDCARD to shake things up)

season two only happened because Joe Hills ran a coup

tango is the father of the iron farm, before 1.14 made iron farms easy, your best bet was to ask tango. tango also modded villagers before the villager update

etho invented the etho hopper clock, revolutionised the minecraft let's play, and inspired a lot of the server to play/film

impulse is the guy behind the item sorter, and he is a master of villager manipulation, with his villager breeder being in massive use

bdubs' brother, pungence, joined hermitcraft before he did and played for season one

iskall is behind the vault hunters mod and it's really cool and you should check it out

the way cub built concorp inspired Mojang to update the way villagers work

doc is friends with the Mojang game Devs (even if they took his arm)

Hypno runs the hermitcraft website, even when he's not active on the server

Welsknight came in to defend the others in a rap battle when he was away from the server

Stress runs a fitness channel alongside her Minecraft channel and being a parent

Joe hills used to have a webcomic and do drawing streams - he saw twitch be born, and will likely see twitch die

Scar got his start in call of duty

Joe Hills thought hermitcraft was a scam when he was invited

add your own!

[edwin--artifex]

I worked @ the BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) Radio Studios, Cologne, Germany for about 6 months in 1976/7 as driver-factotum (and even got to do a few interviews!) when my father was stationed there with BSSO. They gave me a little 1960s Morris Mini Minor (an army olive green matt paint job) with a British number plate, a big GB sticker and a Union Jack on the back. Like this one here ->

There was a journalist working there as presenter I remember particularily well: Andrew Pastounah. Flamboyant, eccentric chap, extremely pleasant to work with though; he owned an enormous 1960s Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud (model III) and instead of me - detailed to chauffeur him from BFBS, Cologne to Bonn (at the time capital city of Germany) to the Federal Chancellery (about 30km) in the Mini (!) for one or the other interview - he preferred to drive himself (the Rolls, of course) and I accompanied him (!), carried the Nagra, held the microphone, cabled stuff, got the coffee and things. Had a good time. Interesting. I remember he gave me a pile of new LPs once, among which Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'....

Here are some archive photographs of the studio (in a mansion in the Green Belt uptown area of southern Cologne (called Marienburg, in Lindenallee, 7 - near the Deutsche Welle studios, also in an old 30s/40s villa) . It was a 5' walk to work from my father's 'quarters' - another enormous white 30s villa in the nearby woody area near the park. Just for us two!)

One real 'institution' at BFBS Cologne at the time was 'Uncle Bill' (William Charles Boyden-Mitchell) an extremely pleasnt person, always kind and generous (especially to me, the studio factotum) A bit 'remote' and definitely 'posh', he'd already kind of 'outlived his time'. He was the presenter of the 'Kinder Club' afternoon show. His invention: 'Big Wood Stories' was a world of its own. A great voice artist, he acted a l l the characters in the show! and worked in his own office/studio. A kind of Graal. Full of reminiscences and paraphenalia.... He hardly ever had to be accompanied anywhere, but I always made a point of looking in to say hello to him at the end of the day. He liked that and we sometimes had a good cuppa together and a friendly chat :-)

<- Uncle Bill's office

When I left BFBS he regaled me with a portable radio-cassette recorder-cum-television (!) Quite something at the time. A gesture I warmly remember. And I used it a lot (also in my VW bus, on the dashboard, the long antenna along the inside of the windshield :-) produced by Hitachi ->

Here's an interesting blog-article I found on Uncle Bill ->

Here's one sample episode of 'The Big Wood Stories' . Uncle Bill's voice acting really fascinated me. I remember his live radio programme sessions only too well. I can consider myself lucky to have been allowed to 'assist' a few. Found it very inspiring. Just thinking about it today, finding myself in the voice acting and dubbing business since the early 2000s!

This is his: 'Mr. Owl and The Bishop's Ring' ->

...and here's 'Uncle Bill''s Wikipedia page ->

[steveramsdale]

Blog Update (or Blogdate)

Blog Update (or Blogdate).

It was 10th December 2022 when I last blogged in the Teaching on the Naughty Steppe series. Much has happened since then, but no of it to me.

However, something has happened which bears on the Uzbekistan adventure story. As I was about to start typing this, in fact I was waiting for Word to open on my computer, and last minute, breaking piece of news came to me, and I will tell you what that was in due course, at the right time.

The events in question concern Муниса that’s the VW character who made many appearances in the blog that used to disturb Saturday mornings between 2016 and 2020. I am sure you’ll remember that, after a few adventures around Tashkent and (memorably) Kazakhstan, she came to Derbyshire and lived a quiet life with me here.

For about 9 months, she was left in our storage place where the caravan was usually kept. (I’m switching to ‘it’ now.) During this time, we realised that we were not using, and probably not going to use it and that we should sell it to someone who would.

Therefore, I advertised it, a couple of people came to look. One of them bought it for just under the asking price. And that’s that. No. Of course it isn’t. It couldn’t be. I could still have spun that in to another (pointless) blog, but the real story is more interesting.

So, a few weeks ago, after we had sold the caravan, we went to the storage yard and brought it home. Of course, the battery was completely dead but I had taken a charged one we happened to have and was able to start it up. Of course, the indicators were not working so getting the five or so miles home was fun. After a really good clean inside and out, it was time to advertise. I also bought a new battery but they only had quite a small one that could not be secured properly in the bay. The van still had a valid MOT until 1st September and I planned to try to get a new one.

There was some initial interest at a fair price for a running, MOTd vanand after a week or two someone came to look. They (a father and son) had a good look around and the time for a test drive arrived. I was driving with the son who was the interested party when the gear stick snapped right at the bottom. The father drove up to where we were and he was able to get it in to second gear and I drove home. The father pointed out a small hole in a sill near the back and said it might well be an MOT fail as it was near a structural part. Interestingly, they said they’d have to go and think about it and I have never heard from them again.

A few days later, I got a message from a man in Portugal asking about it. I’d made an MOT appointment but couldn’t go, obviously. So I explained all of this to the man (Luis). He did not seem put off by this. He has many classic cars at his home and works on them himself. He also has another, similar VW and said he could bring the gear stick from that and fit it on my drive. I told him that without the MOT, he would not be able to drive it – he planned to drive it back to Portugal. I did what I could to dissuade he but he was undeterred, booked a flight and transferred a deposit.

On Thursday of this week (18th) he arrived and I picked him up from Birmingham airport. To make the story more interesting, he has some mobility issues and uses crutches, so I couldn’t leave him to navigate the railway system! 

Back here, we got to work on the gear stick – I say ‘we’ but I was just passing screwdrivers and such like. I had also told him about the indicators and that the MOT (booked for Friday) might throw up other issues. However, the indicators had started working again. All seemed to be going well. The gear stick was a fairly easy fit and worked well. I had charged the old battery that fitted properly and drove up with that.

Early Friday morning, I drove the short distance to the garage for the MOT and asked if they could fix anything minor. They said they were very busy but might be able to do anything really minor.

Around 10am, someone called to say the accelerator was not working. I said that it had been when I drove it up to them!  They had a good look and found that a small rod from the pedal to the throttle cable seemed to have rotted. They would be able to do the MOT but not fix that. I knew I could get it home on the revs of the engine in reverse and first gear and down the hill but the sale seemed to be in jeopardy.

When I went to collect it, it had passed the MOT with them having fixed the fog light switch!  They also said they had been able to get the rod back in the right place so I could drive normally. We were back on track – except they were using a boost pack and told me the battery was dead!

After all of this, Luis and I drove to the petrol station to fill up. I had given him the 25l fuel carrier I had bought in Tashkent. We filled the tank and put 15l in the container and drove home. He had some concerns about the alternator and testing the voltage (he had a device that plugged in to the cigarette lighter) seemed to show it was not charging the battery properly. We left a charger on the small, new battery overnight and Luis planned to leave early Saturday morning so he could drive in the light and not worry about the headlights draining the battery. We loaded everything in the car and he asked me to make sure he was up early.

Sure enough, by 7am we had removed the charger, closed up the engine and he was in the driver’s seat and I was ready to wave. After a few minutes, nothing seemed to be happening and I went to the window. He said that the battery was dead and the accelerator pedal had gone again. There would be no departure any time soon. I should say that I was experiencing very unfamiliar (to me) high anxiety this whole time. Not surprising perhaps, but not something I’m used to.

So…...we had to go to Halfords and buy an appropriately sized battery and find a small part for the alternator. One shop said they could get this by 1pm which was a relief. Returning home, we fitted the new battery and put the small less new one on charge as a spare. Luis did some research on how the accelerator pedal was supposed to work and went under to see what was going on. He dismantled part of it, we straighten and cleaned bits and put it back together. He then noticed that the pedal inside was almost broken. This could be the reason the rod was coming off – if the pedal was moving sideways. We decided that the only thing we could do (apart from order a new one and wait a few days until it came) was do and Uzbek-style repair. This involved putting some very strong tape around the cracking part then drilling small holes to thread cable ties through to strengthen it more. Luis was actually happy with this.

I collected the alternator part and that was fitted easily (enough). The voltage device was still showing low voltage and charging. I suggested we try connecting the 12v plug to a different point in the fuse box – I had fitted this cigarette lighter in Uzbekistan and it was sharing a connection with the headlights and only worked when they were on!  A new slot was selected and suddenly the reading was good and showed that the alternator was working properly.

So, Sunday morning was now the departure time! We took Luis out to our favourite local pub/restaurant which he loved. I went to bed a little less anxious but still fearing a new or recurring problem in the morning.

This morning arrived – as it was always going to and I had to wake Luis just before 7am. We went through a similar routine to Saturday but this time, the engine started first time and Luis drove away. Amazingly (to me anyway) he had come to the UK without bringing a phone he could use on UK networks. We were not going to hear anything unless he found wifi.

The breaking news? As I was about to start typing this story I got a message from Luis. He is on the ferry in Dover waiting to set off to Calais. He said the sliding door had popped open a couple of times (scary) but the battery, engine, accelerator etc have been fine. He has several hundred miles still to go to his home in Portugal – the story is not over, therefore. I will update you when he gets there.

This seems, though, to be a fitting end to my part in the van’s story. I could have sold it to someone 50 miles away who could have brought a trailer to get it and used it here after fixing everything. That would not have fitted with the story so far. Luis wants the van to go to Morocco and sort out some business there – so another new continent awaits.

I hope you agree that this story was worth telling. Should anything else interesting happen in this or any other context, I may venture into the blogosphere again!

Bye.

[kyogre-blue]

CF, let's go!

Immediately more amusing than SS by virtue of the fact that I care about the enemy units. Yes, Rhea looks so cool, Flayn is so cool, Catherine yeeeeeah. Very nice, I'm very happy.

Jokes aside, CF is looking very interesting from the perspective of speculating about 3H's production process.

From what I recall of the interviews, it seems they added CF comparatively late, due to simping reasons. That's interesting in itself, because Edelgard was given a lot of focus in development, given stuff like the early drafts of her also being able to Divine Pulse. But I guess it was only later in that they realized that, yeah, giving her a route would be cool and probably the most unique thing they could do.

Anyway, given its weird development, CF has a lot of strangeness about it. It's the shortest route by a good margin (VW and AM have 10 chapter each, SS has 9 due to Gronder being cut, but CF has only 6). There is only one actually unique map, I believe (Tailtean), but the chapters are reshuffled in completely different order from VW-SS-AM having basically the exact same progression. At the same time, is a very obvious lack of pre-rendered cutscenes and even in-engine scenes to some extent.

So the impression I get is that it was added late, so they couldn't produce certain assets like cutscenes or more than six chapters, but at the same time, they had a lot more passion for it, since they created a unique progression and honestly Edelgard has been emoting more in one scene than the entire Academy phase.

My dudes.... perhaps you should have started from the villain route and just gone full in, instead of the limp-wristed SS stuff, which supposedly was written first out of everything.

Live blogging notes:

I like how Edelgard is in her school uniform during the pre-battle scene in the Holy Tomb, but is then in the Flame Emperor outfit post-battle. Girl took the time to change, I see. It's not really a huge deal, but it's so lacking in attention to detail, sigh.

Man, furious antagonist Rhea is so cool. Very nice.

The Immaculate One is just a still here, where it was always a cinematic in the other routes.

"The monsters that have controlled Fodlan in secret for far too long" Edelgard again attributing things the Agarthans have done to the Nabateans.

We book it. Only respect for Rhea.

Hum... all the BE students escape with us to one of the Imperial army's provisional camps. Except Flayn, obviously. The students give a mix of reasons why they're siding with Edelgard, and they're fine. Kinda mild, but whatever. The music really gets me. Cute bubbly track while everyone is like "well, I wasn't thinking and just ran" or "I have political reasons" and then it switches to Edelgard's imperial march theme, and man. It's really something.

Yeah, Edelgard's anti-Church pitch is kinda... lol. Given that her own henchmen was like "steal all the bones! desecrate those graves! kill everyone!"

"[The Church's] control over the lords of the Kingdom and the Alliance is nearly absolute" L M A O

This is hilarious. Admittedly already more fun than SS.

Edelgard admits to being well aware of how much chaos and destruction she is bringing about based on just her own will. She knows she is the cause of countless deaths. But she still says she wants to bring down the church.

Except, of course, the Church hasn't done anything to her lol Edelgard's manifesto will expose "the foul practices of the nobles from the Kingdom and Alliance" like what tho

Byleth is going to lead a special "Black Eagle Strike Force"

oh ho.... we're exploring a non-monastery area! very nice

Quickly noting: We skip the entire last month of Academy Phase, going from 2/29 for the Holy Tomb directly to 3/30 for the pre-assault camp.

Edelgard B: takes place in her monastery bedroom, which is funny at this juncture. She talks about how she'd like a day to just idle away and eat sweets, and also how without Byleth she would have become a harsh leader with a heart of ice (ok, sure) and how everyone else always treated her as an untouchable princess or emperor, didn't look her in the eye, etc. Ferdinand does not exist, I guess. It's very staple as a concept, but the details aren't really in place for this. At best, you can say this hinges more on her own perceptions -- she never respected anyone else until Byleth enough to let them approach her as anything except pawns and vassals. Self-imposed trials and all that.

Roundup of the kids: Ingrid wants to try to persuade her father to join Edelgard but thinks he probably won't, Caspar's father is leading the "western units" and he'd have had to fight him if he stayed at the monastery, Linhardt calls out that the biggest nobles in the empire stripped Edie's dad of his powers but are now supporting her to smoothly take the throne (weird!), Ferdie acknowledges that his father is greedy and arrogant but feels that he did a lot of work for the empire only to now be disgraced (stripped of his rank and under house arrest), Bernie has less thoughts in her head than Caspar, Felix has like two lines lol, Leonie is just directly with Byleth and no one else, Ashe emphasizes that he can't trust the Church after Lonato and Christophe, Sylvain is kind of mess, thinking of his father, Dimitri, how he might die in the fighting, etc.

Hubert says it's not up to Edelgard to bring the students to our cause, which is... kinda wild. Why is it not up to her. Based on the rest of the dialogue, he means the recruited students from other houses, but uuuh given 3H quality, I expect he says this even if you haven't recruited, and also the phrasing is very vague to begin with.

Garreg Mach has never been attacked, so no one really knows how well it can stand against assault. Edelgard is confident in our power "from a mathematical standpoint."

Ladislava leads Edelgard's personal guard. There's also Randolph von Bergliez. His mother married into Caspar's family but this was after his birth. Unclear if this means he's from a previous relationship of hers, or if he wasn't legitimized despite being from a Bergliez fling. That explains one random battle line I got from him when attacking as Caspar on SS.

There's a couple stray comments from NPCs about Rhea turning into a beast (which happened down in the Holy Tomb where only a few people were, so... curious an NPC knows) and about not entirely believing Edelgard but supporting her for now.

Overall battle plan for the assault: Edelgard (+Byleth) leads an elite force that strikes as close to the monastery as possible, planning to draw attention of the elite Knights and Rhea's ire. Meanwhile, the main forces that marched in from the capital will surround and "annihilate" the remaining areas.

Another still of the Immaculate One after the battle, no CG. The entire scene is just one still, headshots of models talking and some filter to show that "the castle" is "crumbling." And that's it, wow.

Without Rhea fighting Thales and trying to save Byleth, she's well enough to flee to Faerghus. Nice!

Dimitri is King <3

Claude "strategically stirs up conflict between Leicester lords in an effort to maintain neutrality" lmao

Sothis is cool with you even after the Edelgard simping shenanigans, I guess.

The Imperial Army is holding the monastery, which is different from the other routes.

Edelgard emotes?? At the reunion with Byleth. WOW

Another still, no cutscene.

Edelgard's dialogue here... has almost the exact same beats as Claude's which is a bit funny.

Recap again that Dimitri is King and supporting the Church, Claude is being neutral, though Edelgard makes it clear this is a negative. His leadership "has thrown the Alliance into chaos."

OK, so Edelgard directly says we're going to eliminate the Church, the Kingdom and the Allaince. We're out to get them all, and the first target is Claude because Riegan has been standing against the Empire. To secure a route for imperial troops into the Alliance, we'll take out the big bridge first. At the same time, we'll take out Judith and since her territory is on the border with the Kingdom, getting her out of the way will be useful too.

[mizkit]

new blog post: Picoreview: Bumblebee

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/picoreview-bumblebee/

Picoreview: Bumblebee

Picoreview: Bumblebee – this is a great Girl And Her Horse movie.

I loved Bumblebee when I first saw it in the theatre, except the night we went, so did about 15 incredibly obnoxious teenagers who obviously didn’t really want to be there and who were unbelievably loud and rude and giggly and stupid through the first half of the film, after which they either left or were kicked out, I can’t remember. So mostly I didn’t hear any of the first half and really liked the second half, and I’ve been meaning to watch it again ever since, except actually I’m quite bad at REMEMBERING to do that so it’s taken me, er, six years.

Anyway, yes, it’s a genuinely terrific Girl And Her Horse movie, with the part of the horse obviously being played by beloved 15 foot tall voiceless transforming sentient alien robot Bumblebee, everybody’s favorite Transformer*, and the part of the girl being played by Hailee Steinfeld, who we all know has grown up to be Hawkeye.

It’s got a pretty good emotional core, with Steinfeld’s character having lost her father (look! they killed off a dad instead of a mom!) a few years earlier, a mother and brother who seem to have moved on, and an annoying stepfather who honest to god gives her a book on the power of SMILING MORE. Like, totes cringe. She puts her feelings into trying to fix the Corvette she and her father used to work on together, ends up finding a memory-wiped Bumblebee hiding out in VW Bug form, and adventures ensue.

John Cena is the slightly-brighter-than-his-compatriots human face of The American Bad Guys–he’s the one who gets the very best line ever uttered in any Transformers movie ever, i.e., “They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn’t set off any red flags?”–and Angela Bassett voices the genuinely sinister-sounding Decepticon Shatter.

It is, in my opinion, easily the best Transformers movie ever made, and I would really love for Steinfeld’s character to have to come back into that world and renew her bond with Bumblebee. The biggest problem with that is that it’s a period piece, set in 1987, and any really viable sequel would presumably have to be set in the 90s, because it would be silly to try to make 27-year-old Steinfeld much older than she actually is. I personally think that would be not only fine but actively GREAT. Apparently Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was at least nominally a sequel (it was set in 1994, among other things), but it was UTTERLY DREADFUL, so we’ll just pretend that didn’t happen and make a play for Bumblebee 2, ok?

*don’t lie to me. even if he’s not your FAVORITE, you’ve got a soft spot in your heart for Bumblebee.