#i will get this degree and then im going to find a way to destroy the entire math department of this university.

[dragontatoes]

every college science class I've taken: I get that science isn't everyone's favorite subject but I want everyone in here to succeed. We're going to review in class before midterms and the final and you can work together while you take it. canvas messed up the due dates so you can just turn in anything from the first four weeks before the midterm and the rest before the final. textbook readings are optional extra credit. also I'm rounding up on the homework grades. good luk i love you all

every college math class I've taken: You're going to have to download and upload the homework and quizzes to like three different apps to turn it in, the time you take to do that counts in your time limit. the unit 3 homework is due before the unit 1 quiz. don't ask. this textbook is REQUIRED and it WILL NOT teach you anything. if you don't understand what the inverse of cosine is by now I will call your dad and tell him you're a stupid baby. what do you mean you hate this class

[ganondoodle]

(new totk rewritten)

some a bit less structured ideas/current plans

im reusing the forgotten plateau as the tutorial area for the totk rewrite .... but its INSIDE; you get put there after the start by rauru and have to rebuild the bracelet thingy around his arm bc it got destroyed/damaged in the struggle with ganondorf and the bracelet thing is what has the abilities instead of just .. him? having it somehow? but also not for some reason? bc i find that more believable and lends itself well to gaining one after the other by putting its parts back together (it also feels a bit more controlled in a way, not everyone would have been allowed to have them back in his days)

consider it like .. raurus secret basement, as his castle was also put on the forgotten plateau (but not in the spot of the citadel of time bc wtf, and by now its gone like most else he built), with it being all underground and without a map you wouldnt even know where you are (also i find it to be in character; id imagine it was still called the cradle of hyrule even without the kingdom being there- and thats where he got the idea from to name his "new" kingdom 'hyrule'- not knowing that was its name before)

(as of now the addmittedly cool moment of first jumping down from the canon totk tutorial isnt included but that can still change also i personally think its pretty cool to have to climb all the way up to the sky before getting to explore it- plus the sky is mainly for shiekah stuff since they are so .. having to do with celestial stuff and the sonau in the rewrite are from the underground- though theres little actual sonau stuff left and the shiekah were there too bc its been a long ass time after all)

its not in great shape overall and some rooms have been discovered by the ancient shiekah in the past who studied the bracelet parts they found and use that research to make the stasis and bomb runes (at least), since im bringing back the bombs and the time reversal is what the stasis rune was based on- at the end of which you have to fight a miniboss monster sent after you by gan (bc he damn well knows where rauru would flee to) get your first heart container and are let go into the world

i know its way more strict and less free but it could be a big basement and honestly i dont think trying to copy the fantastic tutorial that is the forgotten plateau in botw is the best idea bc it will almost certainly feel like a worse copy, so id just go for something that doesnt chain itself to attempting to imitate it

(the final battle will also take place on the forgotten plateu, but after the switch and rauru starting to changing hyrule to what he wants it to be its lifted up and he brings his castle back on it- which will be a dungeon on its own)

(another more random thought, i do want the aesthetic of the sonau to be more like they were in botw, the ruins you can find in it are the ones from other sonau that survived on the surface without tech past rauru doing the whole thing with ganondorf and everthing but their numbers having been rather low and dwindling over time anyway- but perhaps rauru has a bit of a different idea, in part bc he is older and still attached to their older style that didnt evolve any further and ... it might just be his personal taste to some degree xD

which ALSO makes sense bc if there were other sonau still alive even after rauru did his thing, it would be logical that the remains of their ruins were in better shape (in the rewrite theres barely anything of sonau architecture left until the switch and rauru bringing it back)- they still lived there for quite some time after all- while the ones from rauru largely fell victim to time or to people intentionally getting rid of it bc surely not everyone was loyal to him)

(also an idea for the gerudo sage, there was one loyal to rauru who did do his bidding but in the temple thing she was supposed to wait for rauru was hunted down by 'koume and kotake' -which im not sure if i want them to be gans moms or his daughters bc i also like that idea, im still working with the totk canon thing of it being a new ganondorf btw bc it just works better for this scenario im working with atm- and they took her place guarding the stone hoping that gan would first return there -perhaps its like extra difficult and rather intentionally structured to be anti rauru in way, and less like gan having overtaken it- .. plus i like the idea of you being able to return there after the switch bc you could get a bit extra lore and story for gans background bc he surely wouldnt have wanted to find them there- he might not even have known they were there bc he never managed to break into this temple so the things that stop you in it when you first do it alongside rauru were all placed there by the two and not gan)

[the-bonfires-ember]

ok so this has a lot of facets so bear with me. standard disclaimer that this is all based on my personal experiences as a narcissistic sociopath; im not a professional and i dont speak for everyone.

anyway.

firstly, yes we do. i think prosocials/egotypicals do it too to an extent but for different reasons and in different ways.

from an aspd perspective, i get annoyed at people and it is no longer to my benefit to stick around them, ill just disappear in a classic ghosting style. frankly i never get to this point anymore because ive managed to surround myself with people i very rarely if ever find annoying. in the past, when ive befriended people and then theyve frustrated me or ive just generally found them annoying for some reason, ive either slowly extricated myself if i could keep getting stuff out of the person or just totally destroyed the relationship so that they stopped reaching out and i could stop expending energy into dodging them. in my head if someone has pissed me off, it means that its going to keep happening and theyve just finally shown me their true colours so i might as well get out now or detach myself so im not going to emotionally invested enough to get annoyed again in the future. essentially this means i stop caring about them at all. as for how fear factors in; it goes a pretty long way back into people being fundamentally untrustworthy and only beneficial in as much as i can get from them. if im putting up with more than im getting out of it, id just walk away because everyone is out for themselves and of course that applies to me too. thats the way ive been taught the world works, and if im not getting any emotional backlash for doing that, why wouldnt i? it just makes sense. im fundamentally out for myself because no one else has been there to help when i needed them in the past.

from an npd perspective, if someones annoying me its likely because i am thinking of myself as being vastly superior to them and find the annoying quirks of them to be proof of their inferiority. the fact that theyve disagreed with me or fought me on something means they dont have the degree of respect and admiration for me that they should. this usually leads to me discarding them out of frustration and ill push them away by just showing less and less interest in them, or the ways i would that i mentioned above. the fear here, as you may be able to guess, is being wrong and being weaker/worse/unworthy. for me, being right and being more esteemed than my peers was a matter of survival in my childhood, and now if someone is starting to chip into the veneer or perfection ive built and maintained they have become a threat and i have to separate before they see too much and i lose everything.

now i dont know why you - orginal messager - asked this question, or why anyone else might be looking for this informatio. i can come up with a few guesses though, so im gonna add a couple things that applies to prosocials and other things that apply to antisocials and narcissists. but ill tuck that away so you can ignore my advice if you want to and just take the analysis.

prosocials - if you have a friend with either of these personality disorders and they are beginning to withdraw theres a choice before you. firstly, you can let them. you can recognise that this person doesnt want to associate with you anymore for whatever reason and allow yourself to be at peace with that. im sure it hurts, especially after what ive said about my reasons for doing this, but if you think you are better off just letting this one go, i support that and encourage you to just slip away with a clean break.

the other option you have, if you want to try your best to keep that person with you, is to address it plain as day. its uncomfortable, yes, but try not to be confrontational. a simple 'hey, ive noticed you distancing yourself and withdrawing and i wanted to check in and find out why and whether or not we can resolve this'. perhaps its cold of me to ask this of you, im not entirely certain one way or the other. but you deserve to try and make it work if thats what you want, and the only way that happens is by addressing the problems and really, truly understanding that the behaviours we exhibit come from a place of fear and the memory of pain. they are trauma disorders. and while trauma does not excuse harmful behaviours it does no one any favours to ignore that its the root of the problem. maybe your friend will brush you off, thats true. they might not be ready to look deeper and thats their right. at which point youve done all you can and now you need to prioritise yourself. but maybe youll make your friend reevaluate, maybe they want to heal. and you can be such a huge part of that by just asking the questions and really listening to the response. its hard work, i know, but i will always be so grateful for the people who made me stop and look at myself and really see.

the third choice is you pretend its not happening and just wait to see if they get past it and come back. they might, its not implausible, but to me this feels like inviting yourself to be treated poorly again later when symptoms flare again and those fears react to something you dont understand or know about.

pwASPD and/or NPD - im not going to try and tell you that you owe it to the people around you to recover. im never saying that. recovery is your decision and it should only be for you. i chose recovery because i wanted to see what i wasnt able to before, and it has been so fucking hard. but id do it again in a heartbeat. its important to note though that i got lucky. really really fucking lucky, and id be doing you a disservice if i pretended otherwise. on that note, here is my advice for those who want to get better and those who dont:

if you dont, if you dont want to see the fear that is reacting to the perceived threat, if its still too painful to look at, just dont. let yourself be blind to it and find comfort in the ways you can. its not cowardly, and its not pathetic. sometimes forcing yourself to stare into a fire is more damaging than its worth, and you are the only one who can decide if it is or not. only you know how close to that fire you are. perhaps its better to distance yourself from this person even if its just for now, or perhaps its better to leave entirely. it depends on how uncomfortable you feel. but i suggest figuring it out quickly and saving yourself the trouble that will come if you string someone along for too long. its always blown up in my face eventually, for what my experience is worth, so deciding on your next move sooner than later saves you a lot of trouble. but perhaps the perks are better than the blow up later on. who am i to say.

if you do want to recover though, firstly, give yourself some credit. the way you are reacting is because this has kept you alive and safe this long, dont let yourself forget that. you arent ridiculous or pathetic or cowardly or whatever else your brain might be saying you are. you are alive, and you are deciding to grow past your trauma and the responses youve learnt to cope with it and thats fucking huge. dont forget it. now the first thing you want to do is really look at what is making you uncomfortable. something is, but itll take some digging. these survival methods run deep, and tracing back to the root of the issue will take time and a lot of work and so much fucking courage. its not easy, im not going to lie, but you can do it. you are worth the time and the work it takes to get the things you want for yourself. find out whats messing with you and see how you can resolve it, either by discussing it with your friend and letting them support you or just rationalising it with yourself. understand that you are able to keep yourself safe, you just have to figure out what you are afraid of being vulnerable to. youre going to be ok, and for the record, im really proud of you.

obviously to everyone: do whatever the fuck you want to forever. im not here to tell you to change your entire life just because i say you should, even im not that egotistical. im just offering my experiences and observations, its up to you what you do with them.

[zooophagous]

Im so sorry if you’ve been asked this, but would you have advice for people wanting to look at breaking into the tattoo game? What was the process like?

I won't lie to you anon, getting into the tattoo industry legally and safely is a very competetive game that has a high drop out rate. The way you get into it also heavily depends on where you live, as the laws governing tattoos change not only from state to state but even city to city.

For example, in some states you're required to have a 2 year college degree from an accredited school to earn a license, and you can actually major in tattooing the same way someone might go to cosmetology school.

Where I am, and in most places I've heard, however- tattooing is taught from master to apprentice, and you typically learn on the job.

Apprenticeships are hard to come by, lots of people want them, not a lot of shops offer them, and sometimes even if you get one a great tattooer can still be a lousy teacher. Many people will move shops at least once before finishing an apprenticeship, and apprentices usually are not paid, and will be shelling out for a lot of their own materials, so you'll either need someone supporting you or you'll need a backup job until you graduate.

Some places even charge people to teach them tutor style, but I don't personally agree with that form of apprenticeship and find it predatory. It's usually something like an unpaid internship that includes duties like cleaning, answering phones, handling bookings and other menial tasks in addition to the learning hours.

I personally got an in at a shop by working part time as counter staff, with no promise that a tattoo position would ever open up. I was able to ingratiate myself to the artists and one of them believed in me enough to train me. I did end up moving shop towards the end of my apprenticeship and finished learning under a different mentor, as my first one was no longer able to keep up with the responsibility of a student.

It's a very fun, very worthwhile career path and I honestly believe if I hadn't found it I would be either dead or on death's door by now because corporate life was slowly destroying my mind, body and soul. But I won't lie, the bullshit hurdle to get there is a steep one. You have to be incredibly stubborn.

This is why the trend of ignorant style tattoos done by tiktokers with Amazon machines is so prevalent, because the actual legitimate path is a difficult one.

I don't say this to discourage you or anyone else who wants in the industry. It's a great industry that's gotten way more friendly and has way more mass appeal than it used to. I mostly say it to let people know the path to employment is not a straightforward one and that the high polished glamor of social media tattoo artists don't show you how many months or even years of crap you have to wade through to get to their point.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

-

reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

-

watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

-

playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

[ahli-stuff]

Me getting on my soapbox because I feel crazy but I am the only one who is irritated ivantill

Two reasons:

Undoubtedly the narrative of Alien stage surrounds Mizi—we started alien stage with her. Five of the six videos in alien stage has Mizi as a focus or a key character.

But with the release of round 6, all I hear people talk about is ivantill, ivantill, ivantill—it drives me crazy, im not trying to take it in bad faith, but. for Vivinos who has famously posted mainly feminine, lesbian, and sapphic content, what kind of message does it send that the first time she depicts a gay couple it goes viral? (who. Are not even a couple, and I say this even if Ivan had survived)

That’s the first thing im annoyed about, but the second thing is about the way people approach ivantill itself.

Don’t get me wrong, round 6 is GREAT. It has striking visuals, a compelling story, and and deeply memorable climax; so while I don’t share the excitement upon expanding Ivan and till’s characters I can at least understand it.

What I don’t understand is people framing Ivantill as this tragic love story where Till was mistaken not realizing Ivan’s love until it was too late. It’s… not that at all?

Honestly? I think Ivantill is just as shallow as MiziTill.

Ivan and till aren’t star crossed lovers. They aren’t even friends. They’re strangers at best, and stalker and victim at worse. From the very beginning, Ivan resembles more of a boy pulling a girl’s pigtails as he watches Till from afar and harasses him to get his attention. In addition to that, something that cements this stalker-ish behavior is that Ivan barely means anything to Till—Ivan is completely absent from round 2 which is supposed to be Till-centric. Afterwards, Till doesn’t even think to ask Ivan for support when Mizi goes missing.

People find that Ivan “saving” Till in round 3 and round 6 respectively to be endearing, thinking “Till fucked up, he had a good man right here while he was chasing another girl.”Not to mention Ivan only genuinely saves Till once—but what he does do is and stare at and touch??? Till’s unconscious body several times???

(They’re good and interesting scenes ; you’re meant to feel uncomfortable with the way Ivan’s eyes are pitch black and he’s often depicted looking out from the corner like a vengeful ghost.)

But that’s not even what baffles me the most.

Guys, Till doesn’t owe Ivan his love just because Ivan loves him. Till wouldn’t even owe Ivan his love even if Ivan saved him a million times. Ivan’s story is a tragedy but it’s not a crime that Till just wasn’t attracted to Ivan.

Till didn’t “fuck up” when he pursued Mizi because he loved her—that was his choice because that is his life. Ivan decided to sacrifice his life for Till’s because that was his life.

I think Ivan’s story is really good; it’s a tale of how obsession destroys you even when you use it as a mental escape from your unfortunate circumstances. It’s unnerving, tragic, and to a certain degree relatable.

But if you decide to believe Ivan deserved Till because he loved him so much, it creates this creepy narrative that promotes as long as you desire someone enough they should love you back. No.

Ivan dying for Till doesn’t make him any more deserving of Till’s love and neither does it erase the things he’s done to him. But that’s the point, I think. until the end, Ivan was this twisted ball of anger, despair, and longing—and his forced kiss with Till was just an escalation of what he had done before, until Ivan could finally go on no longer.

[dontmindmeimjusthereforthesequel]

Ok, wait. Im currently on my third relisten of TMA and I'm at Mag 107 Third Degree. Jon is poking around America following Gertrude's trail and he just found out about Gerry's death and subsequent skin book entry.

And that has always bothered me to a degree.

I just couldn't figure out why Gertrude would do that. It seemed unnecessarily cruel and oddly pointless. At first I thought it was because she needed him for something or just didn't want to lose him, but when Jon interviews him he doesn't seem to have much in the way of information, and Gertrude doesn't strike me as the overly sentimental type; and if she needed him, why would she leave America without his page? She was able to talk herself out of being arrested, and she had plenty of determination and resources as well as a good six months before her own death if she wanted to get the book back, but it just... didn't happen. I just didn't understand why she would go to all that trouble to put him in the skin book and then just... leave him there.

And then... I had a thought.

Did... did Gertrude put Gerry in the skin book to prevent him from coming back as an avatar? Because Gerry died of a serious brain tumor and Trever Herbert had lung cancer when he gave his statement and died in the institute and then just got up and went about his business. And dying is sort of a right of passage into becoming a fully fledged avatar, right? Was Gerry becoming an avatar??? His entire life he was constantly surrounded by fear, (first as a child with Mary and her Leitners, then as an adult with Gertrude at the institute) so there is no way he wasn't affected by all that. The guy had a reputation! He was constantly interacting with people who were marked or in some kind of trouble! even if he wasn't in it to scare people, he was still around them while they were experiencing that terror. There is no way he didn't attract the attention of ONE fear entity that entire time.

And if he was becoming an avatar, what entity was he aligned with? I know The Eye seems like the obvious choice, what with his tattoos and working at the institute, but I'm not sold on the idea. Gertrude and Mary (and presumably Gerry as well) were very careful to walk the tightrope between entities, never giving themselves over to just one, and if Gerry was eye aligned I would think that Gertrude would not approve. To me the tattoos seem almost like a preventative measure of some kind? Connecting himself to Beholding to prevent another fear from sinking its claws into him. Personally, I feel it is more likely he was part of The Hunt (tracking down Leitners for Mary and rituals for Gertrude) or The Desolation (destroying things that are precious to other avatars like the Leitners or rituals). Hunt seems more likely in the long run, especially since we find Gerry's page with two avatars of the hunt. Just saying.

Idk. Maybe this has already been discussed at length somewhere in the community, but if it was I certainly missed it, and it has been bothering me for years.

tl;dr - Gertrude put Gerry in the skin book to prevent him being reborn as an avatar

I need to go lie down

[stevebabey]

You don't have to answer this I'm just gonna bitch in your inbox about the x reader post you made because I felt this in my bones.

Like you really can't go in the tag for quality stuff lately. Everything is about sex. I'm not a prude. I read occasionally stuff, but omg, not everything has to be like this. Sometimes stories begin hopeful, but they end the same way. I'm just sick of it because it's all there is. And because it's so oversaturated, "normal" fics don't stand a chance because people don't click on that anymore. So yeah, as a creator, if I wanna get attention for my work, of course, I will produce stuff that people will read.

Also what you said about minors, how are they supposed to interact with fics if everything is porn.

In general, people are sooo fixated on "spicy" content. On tiktok, all people read is smut, or they can't handle other stuff. Literally, smut destroyed their brains. How is it any different than guys having a porn addiction?

Also, the tumblr tagging and searching functions are shit. I wanna find new fics from like 2020 or 2021 (before s4 bc I miss those vibes). When you go to the popular tag thing, the earliest you get is 2022. Like tumblr needs to fix that, so content from years ago can still be found. People also need to start tagging accordingly. It's such a pain.

Again sorry for the rant.

HOHOHOHOHO NO APOLOGIES NEEDED NONNIE i love having a bitch and being on my hater shit and i think more people than you might think agree with all of this + its a whole buncha opinions under the cut u have been warned

to some degree to decrease in quality fics will be due to the lull between seasons which always happens- some of the fantastic writers move onto other obsessions for the mean time and truly, i can't fault them for that.

but yet somehow i know it's more than just that - a smut piece will get more attention and notes regardless of the quality of the fic. it's so tough to complain about cos like sigh its all free writing produced by someone so to moan and bitch about stuff getting more attention than others is like. not very nice and being hypercritical but also

not everyone wants to read smut!! and its fuckin everywhere!! wouldn't it be darling if there could simply be a tag that was smut free but noooooo every post gets tagged with as many fuckin things as possible for 'reach' which is the stupidest fucking thing i've ever heard before

and ur absolutely right, because of it fics with no smut get drowned before they get a chance to get noticed. and sorry to say it, but its very rarely that i've read a fluff piece and been like ah, that seemed like it was just thrown together like no its always crafted to some degree- but i cannot say the same for smut in the least. again, often u can mentally sub in different characters and the fic still works which to me = bad writing (if its a steve fic i shouldn't be able to slot in eddie and have it work? ok cos then its not a STEVE fic its just a porn fantasy which is like fine but GOD this is a whole nother can of worms but if u just write smut and then cycle thru joe keery characters its like half a step from writing rpf cos its obvious u just think he's a hot guy and not so much into his characters 😭 maybe im being autistic levels of protective over my lil guy but i also think im right lmao)

and ough trying to write for an audience is so hard, its a vicious cycle of: wants to produce content ppl will read and interact with -> doesn't enjoy writing it as much -> writing isn't as good as u know it could be -> if it flops for whatever reason u feel like asshole. anon babey please dear god write the ideas you want to <3 i can promise you they will be 100x better than trying to cater to an invisible audience ! ppl follow you for your writing !!! and feel free to tag me!!!! i always want to read good steve x reader fics!!! (i just can't be assed hunting them down half the time)

the minors thing is just. god its - i remember hearing the phrase 'virgins write the best smut' and it was when i was 14 and now im like god don't say that they write like porn cos they have fuck all idea what they're talking about. i read so much fanfic when i was 12 years old and what u said is so true, it just used to sneak up in stories and ruin things. its the internet tho so its impossible to truly moderate

omg ur tiktok comment so fucking true babe. when smut is prioritized over plot, u can tell and so many of the booktok rec's they have are just that. there are ways to write smut and have it still be a story. there's also ways to write pwp and still craft it and yet, u dont see that often. also what happened to being excited when two bitches hold HANDS??? AND KISS FOR THE FIRST TIME?? it's appalling the way they thirst for that content but write their captions like "and they have s3x!!! and f@&k in the bathroom hehehe" like what. its such sanitized and shit content honestly

god ur so right i hadn't even thought about hunting down old fics - and it would make such a difference if you could do that because otherwise SO much weighs on when u post it and if it shows in tags and yada yada

this is so much omg u don't have to read all that but genuinely the reason i started writing more steddie and less x reader is the difference in reception and general support. i dont feel like i'm competing against my mutuals, but more like we're here to just hoot and hollar at each other and unless u have a tight knit group of friends on here, u don't get that on x reader fics ://

[altschmerzes]

With your parents being annoying… I can hear the feeling of intrusion and I don’t know your relationship… but as a mother let me tell you: you carry a peace of your heart outside your body… a call every two weeks would kill me … just to get a perspective for the other side. The problem is usually when they don’t care :). It is hard to find the mix between distance and closeness especially when trying to find your own way in the world. Overprotectiveness can be crushing… but trust me, it was much much easier to be mad at my parents before I had a kid of my own 😄😄🙈 again, not telling you what to feel and I am sure you guys will figure out some way

you’re right, you don’t know our relationship which makes this an unbelievably disrespectful and honestly downright cruel message to send.

she is the one who does not call me for upwards of a month at a time. i honestly can’t remember the last time she called me first. it’s all me. she barely remembers she has another kid and when she does she switches to being possessive and invasive to ‘make up for it’ or whatever. she doesn’t fucking care most of the time. and that’s not worse, this is not better, it all fucking sucks. the only thing im trying to balance is my parents’ continued degree of financial control over my life vs how badly it harms me to continue to have contact with them.

also, if she wanted more frequent contact she could’ve tried idk not abusing me. that might’ve helped. the cptsd makes it a little fucking hard to prioritize having a chat with her, what with her literally almost killing me several times and all. i may be a piece of her heart outside her body or what the fuck ever but she sure as hell didn’t let that stop her from destroying me as a person and blaming me for it. maybe if the idea of not hearing from your kid however often you want bothers you start with ‘don’t be abusive’ and go from there. im making plans for my first kid at the moment and i cannot fathom a world where having that child is going to make me anything but more angry at them for the shit they did to me.

not that you’re entitled to any of that information. just thought you might be jolted out of whatever rosy parents can do no wrong world you live in where there can’t possibly be a fucking reason aside from ‘oh surely this stranger doesn’t get why someone’s mom might want to hear from them’ that someone might not be fucking thrilled to call their mother. i cannot begin to describe how invasive and upsetting a message this was to get when i have already been having a difficult weekend regarding being triggered about this shit.

‘i can hear the feeling of intrusion and i dont know your relationship’ so you know this was wrong to say, then? listen to that feeling next time. it’s your fucking conscience and it might keep you from lecturing the next fucking abuse victim about how they’re probably hurting their abusers’ poor feelings and they just don’t get a mother’s love and how it feels or whatever. fuck off and go to hell.

[autisticempathydaemon]

This is for the matchups! :D

I’m sorry in advance for how much I typed personality quizzes/questionaires are my weakness. Thank you sm in advance if you decide to do this!!

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

song ✧.*

Fragile by Laufey! I wont call myself a hopeless romantic but listening to her songs makes me want that romance like oh my god?? It’s also really fun to sing (the only times i sing is either in the shower or if im screaming songs in the car w/ my sister)

My fav lines are:

Grew up in a case of fragile glass

But hammer away it's time to crash

And as it shatters let me shatter into you

(also the whole chorus 100%)

enneagram ✧.*

9w1! Very accurate since I hate any form of conflict and I’m a huge people pleaser in general. Also my MBTI is ISFJ!

video essays ✧.*

YES. My main form of entertainment now since I cannot find the brain capacity to get invested into a show. My go-tos are usually j aubrey (random social media scandals) or Wendigoon (horror, disturbing content icebergs)! Sometimes I watch social commentary like Jordan Theresa and Shansphere for funsies too. And if this counts I watch reviews/summaries of random books or games I’m really curious about but don’t have enough motivation to start?? Also media analysis (my current favorites are Night In The Woods and Midsommar essays). 

childhood imaginary friend ✧.*

I didn’t have one sadly but I was super into Undertale as a child LMAO

falling asleep ✧.*

It used to be random YouTubers (mostly storytime animators) or clip montages of shows I was fixated on but ever since I’ve discovered Redacted it’s only been sleep aids. My fave is the Milo one it knocks me out everytime. I’m always either holding my green dinosaur plushie or my bee plushie that’s shaped really wonky. 

name change ✧.*

Iris! I’m personally a sucker for flower names and flowers in general (I fucking love flowers oh my god). 

fave audio ✧.*

Bowling with the bois! I love the DAMN squad with all my heart and Gavin messing w/ Lasko is the funniest shit ever.

least favorite char (kinda) ✧.*

I’m really new to this fandom so I haven’t gotten the chance to listen to alot of characters (also thank you for your ‘new to the fandom post’ I’m so well fed now). There might be a chance I don’t know the character you pair me with but if I don’t know him I’ll definetely listen to his playlist! But if I had to choose I’d choose Ivan?? I’m only going off of the very brief time he was in Freelancer S1 so I know nothing

word for word ✧.*

Inside Job!!! Everyday I get sad over the fact Netflix cancelled it. 

platonic ✧.*

Asher! He’s just so sweet (the way he comforted babe on the elevator when they first met oh my god) and we’d definetely be gossip buddies. It’s funny because I got into the fandom for Asher and immedietely got sidetracked.

tired rambling ✧.*

I don’t ramble but I will laugh at almost anything. Like my humor gets 100x more broken.

gas station ✧.*

Starbux mocha coffee in those little glass bottles. I also get sour gummy worms and Haribo.

favorite playlist ✧.*

either my laufey playlist or fem rock artists playlist (destroy boys, sir chloe, etc!)

guilty pleasure ✧.*

Redacted. Fanfics too but I’m not that guilty abt those

anything else ✧.*

☆ Super introverted but if I’m with another introvert I’m able to be outgoing to a degree. All of my friendships consist of extroverts adopting me

☆ I prefer listening way more than talking

☆ I’m either thinking of 1920213 things per second or cannot think for the life of me

☆ Airheaded?? Lacking common sense in general

☆ I draw and play the guitar!

☆ I have too many plushies

☆ At first impression I’m super reserved but as time goes on I get more unhinged 

☆ Very easily distracted

☆ Sensitive but I don't outwardly show it

Hmmmm… I like you. I think you could work well with a lot of people and make them quite happy. However, something in my gut likes best the idea of you with Anton.

Your MBTI, Enneagram, and self-description give me the impression of a really sweet person inclined to fairness, introversion, mediation, and good vibes in general. Maybe that’s why you fit so well with Anton; he also has this chill, no-drama vibe of just trying to live a good life being himself, being with you, and being happy. Lowkey, I’m assuming you went with the pacifist route in Undertale first and maybe only. That’s fitting given I think Anton would take the same route (if he were a video game person which I don’t think he is. If anything, he’s a Tetris man.)

I think you have a really peaceful, stable life together- at least, once he gets back from his secluded, secret lab, of course. It’s a sweet life of Anton bringing you flowers randomly because he drove by the store or farmer’s market and wanted you to know he was thinking of you. He marvels constantly at your creativity, always loving watching you draw and play guitar, getting your favorite songs to play stuck in his head. Maybe he has you record some so he can listen to them when he misses you; that’d be really sweet.

Song:

I was just guessing at numbers and figures/ Pulling the puzzles apart/ Questions of science, science and progress/ Do not speak as loud as my heart/ But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me/ Oh and I rush to the start

This is such a “gimme” song and yet I don’t care! One, this is a super singable, sweet song that I can imagine translates well to a guitar. (I say imagine because I know nothing about guitar, please forgive me.) Two, scientist. Technician. I need not say more. Three, it’s a lovely, mournful song that, I think, is kind of about a break up but could also reasonably be about long distance and forced separation. It’s perfect.

Runner-ups:

Your runner-ups are really fun because you could make fun couples or a throuple! I like Damien for you because he’s a Type Six in my opinion, and they’re supposed to make really lovely matches with Type Nines. (This is me and my best friend so confirmed.) I also like Huxley for you because he has a lot of similar traits to you but just more extroverted. Also, plants. Together, you could make a beautiful triangle.

note: Thank you so much for waiting! October was a dickhead to me that delayed yours and the ones after you a lot, so you are so much appreciated~! If you haven’t listened to Anton yet, I highly recommend him, he’s so sweet

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[neutrallyobsessed]

I challenge you to make a tier list of your opinion on Ace Attorney ships >;)

Challenge accepted motherfucker >;))))

i did like 5 different lists cause not all them where complete enough to my tastes and then i found this MASSIVE tier list (with a lot of crack xdd) so i was able to do it, fortunally the nrmy week gave me some time to work on this and EVEN THEN some kinda obvious ones were missing so i had to edit them in from the other tierlists, plus stuff i made up lol

also, for it not be too long and mark very clearly my Heterosexual Bias, the list was divided in two, so let's start: (spoilers for investigations cause shih-na doest appear as shih-na)

The OTP category is very self-explanitory, so the second place is all other ships that i like and ship too just not as hard since i have OTPs for the characters already~~

Ohters I like and Im listening have varying degrees of crack but im still considering as potential ships to like seriously

the canon ships acting as a neutral divider, they are canon, you can't complain about that (or you can im just a tumblr post you can do what you want forever). if they arent higher is cause they are not as interesting or funny as the above ships, i still love them very much

then theres the absolute crack that i find amusing but couldnt take to ship it seriously and then ships that are either boring: too tame, lack spice, feel like avoiding being problematic was the priority instead of they'd be cute togheter; or ships that feel a bit too cruel for comfort and i percieve as no longer fun, but sad

this tier list didnt have ema/nahyuta but did have poly ships that included the three so there we go, the only het ships i dont like (2)

finally, the only gay ships i consider to be neat, silly funny friends-to-lovers not overly popular, very cool and epic

And now, the interesting one:

Rangu referenced and teased by canon joke ship goes first of course!

for real tho, there's friends to lovers OR rarepairs OR lawyer x assistant ships, being my go-to in het ships they'd rank higher here

Evil People In Love! What else can I say? When 2 people are down bad for each other and down for destroying everyone and everything whether for revenge or the lulz cause they're bad and they're doing it togheter it's just beautiful~!

anything crack or toxic in a funny way goes next

incest as a neutral divider since being gay is super normal thus uninteresting but adding the taboo incest spice that will NEVER be approved by society IRL will make me a bit more interested but like you know- neutrally

any boring crack or toxic in a unfunny way goes next

and finally we reach my real (yet still neutral) beef with the ace attorney shipping fandom, being the popular ships that get talked about ad nauseum and if you wanna talk about any other ship you get ignored at best or harrassed at worst. Overrated could be the perfect way to describe this ships as they're so oftenly rated over other ships when they're SO LAME AND BLAND AND BRING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. i am not criticizing originality, you know im unoriginal as well, but other fandoms have this something called ✨VARIETY✨ that EVEN IF the boring bland m/m ship still is number one ship of everyone and their grandmas, it'll still be in a relative equal number of fans and content (or directly opposite where Super Popular Ship has like 100 fans producing stuff and literally anything else has like <5, so you only have to block 1 or maybe 2 Super Popular Ships and then is smooth sailing full of variety~)

tl;dr they're annOyedTPs actually they're not bad, they are meh plus the over exposure can really grind someone's gears, second place being not AS popular thus annoying but still pretty much talked about and liked by many people as they are second places to ships in the normie zone

and finally finally what i actually dislike, shipping canonically het married characters with same-sex characters (and not in the funny way)(specially the gay best friend in love with their straight friend, my absolute belothed) or any flavor of enemies-to-lovers, whether it's a tame rivals-to-lovers or a legit hero x villian (stockholm syndrome can be fine but it depends on how its presented....or if it's... y'know funny) or same-age shipping where the characters maturity levels are SO DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT idk it feels kinda icky :////

In any case, i'm still answering asks for particular ships if y'all want a more in depth opinion ^w^

[aftonfamilyvalues]

the copy pasted jegulus manifesto

i think i like it mainly for the very specific tropes but also because of the lack of info on them both. it's a double edged sword basically because on one hand you can do almost anything with them and it would seem realistic but on the other hand wtf you know little to nothing about them and they're dead in canon why would you ship it. it's also a case of my headcanons are better than everyone elses and im the only one who gets it tm because most of the fics don't use the tropes to their full potential and also there are people who are pulling the polyamory card on jily which. no

which brings me to the james problem. i don't... hate him. i also don't love him as much as i love remus and sirius and the fact that those two are alive for a good portion of the canon has little to do with it. like i know he was on the 'good side' all with working for dumbledore and becoming an animagus to help remus and taking sirius in when he left his family but at the same time he bullied snape and bothered lily for years and i don't get how he went for that to getting married and having a child with lily

im mainly salty because jkr pulled the 'hero gets the girl after becoming a better person as a reward' trope which ruined the character for me. the only way james can work is if jily doesn't happen and he realizes he was in the wrong for bullying snape before he became a magical nazi. i think after a certain point he can go from that to antagonizing a death eater which is ok in my book but the mindless bullying because he got a hard on for lily and he was jealous has to go. and the reason why he stops being an asshole must not involve him getting lily in any shape or way. i kinda like to tie this to that moment in canon when he saved snape's life on the full moon so the reason why he stops bullying him can be related to his friends and having to find a way to keep snape quiet about remus being a werewolf. it can involve lily because snape had that weird ass obsession with her but this way instead of james getting the girl because he did the right thing it's james deciding to give up on the girl to keep snape quiet and do the right thing for his friend. so bros before hoes with extra steps. by the time he's good enough for lily to decide she wants to be friends with him he should already be done with his lily evans crush detox. literally going through withdrawal

which brings me to regulus. because if james is over lily and back on the market there's one less thing that's stopping this ship from happening. as opposed to the other 20 things which only make this more interesting imo

so james' best friend is sirius black who's also the older brother of regulus. 2 degrees of separation plus he gets second hand info from sirius regarding his younger brother and their life in the black family. regulus on the other hand probably got info on james from sirius while he was still living with him and maybe resents james for stealing his brother. so they're not complete strangers. they're also both playing quidditch for their houses canonically so they have this in common. he's also not a complete monster despite being a death eater (I'll get back to this) because he tried to destroy voldemort and he was very close with his house elf despite coming from a blood purist family so i don't think james could fall for him unless he knew regulus was a good person at the end of the day. regulus must also have been incredibly smart because he was a black and he had to maintain a certain reputation plus he discovered voldemort made horcruxes before dumbledore did and since lily was also really smart i think this could be another reason why james would fall for him

we have little to no information about regulus so as for him falling for james i think the proximity to his brother plus their shared interests plus james'personality (as far as we've seen in canon) are reasons why he could fall for him

now the drama factor. since we have basically nothing on those two the best thing about their relationship is the potential for drama. so there's the best friend's brother trope plus the complicated relationship sirius has with his brother (and his entire family) which can reflect on the ship. especially when sirius canonically doesn't know about regulus' discovery and how he died so for him his little brother was a death eater sympathizer who became one to please their parents realized it was too much for him shortly afterwards and decided to deflect and got killed for that

there's also the problem that he was a death eater and james was in the order so how would that even work for them. this is turning into an essay so im pulling the citations because why not

"I hated the lot of them: my parents with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal... my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them... that's him. He was younger than me, and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded" - sirius black

"They're all about Voldemort. Regulus seems to have been a fan for a few years before he joined the Death Eaters..." about the photos and articles regarding voldemort found in his room near the family crest

"He was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely. I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime of service or death." - sirius

"For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns... and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord." - kreacher

and im pulling the unreliable narrator card on all that shit

because if we go with what the narrators say regulus has always treated kreacher with respect despite his background. he essentially treated the lowest of the low as an equal when everyone around him treated house elves as slaves but at the same time he followed his parents' wishes he worshipped voldemort and he got the mark at 16 then realized it was a mistake and decided to sacrifice himself to save his house elf and destroy one of the horcruxes. how

i mean considering the circumstances and how smart he was and the fact that he was a slytherin it makes more sense he fooled everyone into thinking he was a sympathizer. first his entire family because he saw how they treated sirius and he didn't want to get the same treatment. then later on when he realized voldemort has a high chance of winning the war he decided to go all out with the death eater fanboy charade and remain on the down low out of self preservation. it would make sense because his parents were only sympathizers themselves and narcissa never got the mark despite being in close circles. afaik belatrix was the only one in the family who got the mark beside him. we know he got the mark at 16 so maybe he was obligated to take this final step because otherwise his loyalties would be questioned and he couldn't do much else as an underage wizard. at one point between age 16 and 18 he decided to ignore his self preservation instinct and sacrifice himself for the greater good after seeing the horrors of the war. i like this better than the "friend to all house elves to magical nazi to proto harry potter" pipeline. still better than snape's arc tho

imo the best way the ship would work is if james started dating regulus in secret so sirius wouldn't find out then had an ugly fall out when regulus got the mark then both went on their separate ways on opposite sides of the war then regulus started his horcrux hunt. preferably he survives the cave and reunites with james and he finds out about regulus' true plan regarding voldemort but that's just my preference. some like it better when reg dies and james finds out the truth after reg's death

so tldr this ship gives me brain diseases because no other gives off this flavor of "in love with my best friend's brother from a highly disfunctional family" but also "i blame you for taking my place in my brother's life" but also "sports/house rivality" but also "we're both teenagers and im in love with you but we're on different sides of the war and you're slipping further and further to the dark side and this can't go on so im breaking up with you and licking my wounds alone because i can't tell anyone about our relationship not even my best friend because you're his brother and a death eater then i find out after you died/after you almost died that all this time you were on our side and you've been doing all this on your own and now i regret everything i thought about you and how i couldn't save you" but also "we're teenagers and we're on different sides of the war and i though i could go through with my survival plan and have you too but now things are getting out of control and im in too deep and my brother hates me and you hate me and im surrounded by magical extremists and they're gonna kill me and i have nothing else except my theory on how to stop the dark lord and i can't involve any of you because I'd put you in danger and i can't trust anyone so im doing all this on my own and decide to save my house elf and sacrifice myself for the greater good because i got nothing else left" and then they die. maybe

wow, you have thought about this A LOT. it seems youve thought about how everything would work out. jk rowling bless you and your ship

[vodid]

Hey, dream pal again….

I am okey, sorry if the “worst week of my life” coment freaked you out, im cool.

I did walk through a forest, but funny enough I had walked in it many times irl and was around said forest when the dream happened, so I just assumed this is why I dreamed about it. I was with Jazz there and here is were I lost the short guy and found “you”... I wasnt sure about the oak trees since I am not a fauna guy but after looking up how they look, huh, guess what? there were in the dream too.

One of the things that really haunted me about the dream is that I know and I have been in all the places of said dream while awake… Even the store you drew has a strong resemblance to a store I know, but again… no mural which I find so intriguing.

I do remember talking to the girl I found while Jazz was still in the store. I don’t remember much of the conversation besides comments on Jazz, the death environment and someone saying that it was going to be okey (I trully don’t know who said that). I remember getting angry, but not the reason why I got angry.

The dream doesn’t end in the store for me. After the store we hit the road, and I sat on Jazz’s passenger seat as I looked out of the window, I wasn’t alone in the car, and I know more than one person was on the car, but I dont know if it was the same girl from the store. I know they *looked* white (it could be the cappibara lady, who knows), but we where quiet all the way.

In the dream I knew there had been an apocalypse and I knew Jazz was the only Autobot I could find, but I was also aware (to a small degree) that is was a dream. Who knows maybe this is why I got angry when we left the store.

This is so freaky… The dream doesn’t end on the road either, at least not for me (who knows, maybe the car passenger NPCs logged into a different server)… But after that I was alone.

I have to ask, in the forest did you happen to see other animals (a mule/ donkey)? or a small cabin?

Dude Imagine I end up finding the other people in the dream… that would be, creepy ngl.

The dream pal,

- R

i'm happy to hear that! <3

oak trees are pretty common but they felt very prevalent enough in the forest i walked through that it was worth noting. usually, where i live, they're a bit more sparse and mixed with tons of other trees.

and before i continue, this got EXTREMELY long and detailed so i'm placing everything under a cut hsdfsdfs

the forest in my dream was one i walked through many times irl too!! it was heavily based off the forest right behind my house at first, which has a small creek in it (that's where i started off in my dream actually. went into my backyard, saw a capybara and followed her into the forest) but the path and size were different, both much larger. the path went straight instead of turning left, there were more slopes around it, a thicker canopy, and the creek i passed through was further in and running perpendicular instead of parallel (it was more reminiscent of a wider part of my creek downstream, but the location was all wrong) there was also a small hill just before or right after the creek. around that point, it melded with a different forest i've walked through only a few times before: the forest behind my high school, which had a mf maze for its trails that we hiked on a few times and a very large river in the deepest part, to the left. the desire path i walked on in the dream was a lot more like those ones. perhaps, if you were the girl, you walked on a different trail until we bumped into each other? (tho i don't particularly remember there being any forks in the path)

the supermarket was a lot like a regular ol walmart but it doesn't particularly remind me of any i know. most walmarts here are part of a strip mall/near one and i don't remember if there were rly many other buildings in the plaza from my dream. probably all got destroyed. not sure, the details of the plaza are fuzzy besides a very, very dusty and crumbled parking lot. very large lot, but i'm not sure how large, and how much had dirt and grass had grown over it

the mural i'm sure is something straight out of horizon forbidden west. there are holograms in the game of the heroes of the apocalypse? called "ten." the holograms had a couple graphics that the mural was most likely based off of, mainly the orange and yellow background (stole this pic from ign)

after seeing the mural, jazz didn't move or speak in the rest of the full dream. he just sat on the rubble next to the mural. i would've loved to have hit the road lol but i guess he needed time. i really wish i remembered more about what happened towards the end, but i do know that, alongside the worry and the sympathy, there were feelings of dread and a slight urgency. we weren't in active danger, but we could be. that place was abandoned for a reason. (it felt as though jazz was the one in danger, but he found the girl to be in more danger than he was. classic guardian syndrome i guess LOL)

that's so wack tho. we both in some way knew we were dreaming (usually i am not aware of that in mine) and everything i bumped into was some amalgamation of a place i have been to before, even if the general area was a bit more rural than where i live lol there wasn't a cabin tho. mainly just feelings of there being stores and more houses (i live in the suburbs) around us. the houses kind of had the feeling of... being very recently built or still under construction? obviously they're not new now but back then, before the apocalypse, whenever that was, they would've been brand new. not sure if that's an important detail lol

i don't remember bumping into any animals besides the capybaras and maybe a chipmunk or squirrel but i did collect vegetables/fruits?? there were like. bright red tomatoes, cabbage and fresh peaches i picked up from around tree trunks (reminded me a lot of things like breath of the wild) and i tried to give them to the mother/child to help them, since it was clear they were looking for food, but the mother did NOT trust me. she didn't want to be near me and i'm not sure why i kept following her. she looked like she felt a bit uneasy around me as she did not speak english at first, so it was easy to misunderstand my intentions

anyway i decided to give the general area of my dream a go, so let me know if anything in it reminds you of something. it's hard to nail every detail exactly, since you know how dreams like to do good ol switch-a-roos on things but this should be at least a little true to my dream

it's very possible the forest trail was longer but i do not have a solid concept of the time i spent on it. mainly just the beginning. also not sure if jazz and the woman appeared before or after the creek. it was a very shallow but wide stream (honestly i do not remember really walking through it. i just remember seeing it but i KNOW it ran through the trail) anyway, don't be fooled, this whole place i drew is MASSIVE. imagine it's close to a mile long from top to bottom. the forest was huge, the parking lot was huge, the area beyond (north-northeast) was huge with powerlines that felt like they ran parallel to the street but looked like they went perpendicular ...not sure how that worked. they had a field with lots of overgrown tall, dry grass tho

either way, i hope something looks familiar! dreams are so weird with how much context they can provide without needing to actually see it? so i hope you can trust my word on this lol i built purely off what i remember feeling in my dream. and honestly, if i had to say, definitely felt like that sort of area would've had a donkey LMAO or maybe more so deer, but i did not see any nor feel any from the given context

also wondering, how tall are you? and a little more obscure, but do you own or have owned any shirts like this? it's a regular long sleeve, waffle knit shirt with some sort of magenta heather pattern (thanks google for making me have to draw it)

it's probably not important but thought to ask anyway on the off chance you do

[peachcitt]

hey 💕 just wanted to say that I'll finally convinced one of my mutuals to read metamorphosis and i'm so excited to see them experience it.

And it just reminded me how in a way metamorphosis will always mark such a period in my life and like idk it feels special that it pinpoints such a time in my life when a lot was going on and I'll always remember those changes and new experiences because it was framed around the time of metamorphosis.

It's honestly one of my favourite fics ever and just reminds me why I love fanfic so much. Like metamorphosis for me is the epitome of what I want in fanfic; if someone asked me "okay but why do you read fanfic I don't get it" I'd point them to metamorphosis. THIS is why people read fanfic, this is how amazing fics can be this level of quality is why people are obsessed. It just feels like a masterpiece to me it makes me feel so much and just gives me everything I could ever want. Too tired to properly explain it but yeah I just think metamorphosis is the perfect example for writing that will make you feel so much and destroy you and make you squeal and scream at the characters and want to shake their shoulders but also hold them softly in your arms and tell them that they are enough to not be so hard on themselves. @anna-scribbles gets adrien on such a personal/deep level and from reading this it's so clear how perfectly you write him as well. Your Adrien is so human and real and complex and in character; I read metamorphosis and I feel like I'm in his head that you have managed to captured his existence effortlessly. Idk I'm just obsessed with your writing of adrien in metamorphosis as I think many others are and I think you're one of my favourite writers of adrien ever in fics.

I'm also obsessed with all the other fics I've read of yours (unfortunately have not read them all cos you've written so many omg like a crazy number it's insane how have you managed to write so many and each so wonderful I'm sure??!) the ladrien fic this summer that was such fun to read; also chrysalis broke me and was also just so true; the fic about the whole plan for Mari's first real kiss they're so silly and I adore them so much and the one where they're drunk and do the quiz to see if they fall in love at the end I love your humourous fics so much and they are both so dear to my heart and now I want to go reread them right this second and there's also so many more I could mention but then I'd be here for days.

Also your playlist for metamorphosis I love it so much I should go listen to it again I found so many songs I really loved that I mightn't have otherwise you have such good time one that stands out to me is music by Armors/Olen (did they change their name or something what's the story there) listened to DOA cos I liked their music so much and it's a new fave

Anyways wishing you all the best and yeah just so glad you've been so kind to share your brilliant work with us. Thanks for bringing so much joy into my life and enjoyment to all of us during metamorphosis summer 💕

thank you!!!!! i think metamorphosis also came at such a transitional period for me, and so it’s nice to think that my fic that’s all about moving on and moving forward was able to convey that sentiment to others.

and also yeah. according to anna i get adrien adrien agreste “to such a degree.” he’s my weird little boy

and thank you!! i put a lot of work and thought into my fics (even the silly ones) and so i love hearing when people love them

also im so glad i was able to help you find new music especially (!!!) olen/armors. (and yes there is a story behind the name change basically olen is the lead singer and his other bandmates gradually left the band and this summer olen finally decided to make the change and use his own name. i support him fully although it does make me sad. he’s working on new music)

thank you so much for all your kind words and thoughts and im honestly so thankful to have people like you reading my fics<3

[chateautae]

hi sammy. i hope it’s alright for me to send you this, ive just been feeling really down today and wanted to ask advise from someone who doesn’t know me but who also brings me comfort.

my family moved to a big city this summer and i was supposed to move there around now-ish after finishing my degree. but i haven’t been able to secure a job/internship because of lack of experience due to covid these past 3 years and today my family told me i couldn’t move there until i secure a job because it’s really expensive. which i understand but today is the first time they told me this clearly and i just feel abandoned and useless. i feel so useless and shitty about myself because i worked my ass off to get a good degree and im incapable of securing a job, it’s just rejection after rejection and im starting to question everything including my worth.

i feel abandoned because my sister is going to this expensive international school and they go out every day almost and im just like..all i wanted was to join you guys. i thought it would be easier to look for a job once im actually there instead of looking online but they let me know that it would just be additional costs for nothing and i don’t wanna push. i understand that im older and i need to be able to support myself as well, but it’s just a shitty feeling, seeing how much fun they’re having there while im over here really struggling. im not a sentimental person and i can’t remember the last time i cried but ever since they told me this today i can’t stop crying anytime i think about it because i can’t believe how useless i am.

it gets even worse when i think about the boys. i see them and i see how successful they are at such a young age and i feel so proud of them and want nothing more but to be like them, be strong and successful because they inspire me so much, but when i keep on getting rejected i feel ashamed and bad about myself. im not comparing myself to them, i just really look up to them and not being able to achieve what i wanted to the way they did makes me wanna cry myself to sleep. being in my current situation, i get overwhelmed by an intense feeling of shame when i think about them.

idk what to do, how do i not loose hope? how do i keep on looking for jobs and stay motivated when all i get back in return is rejection? how do i get rid of this feeling of worthlessness? ive been trying to manifest good things for myself for so long but it just doesn’t seem to be working.

im sorry for dumping this on you, you don’t even have to reply i just felt like ranting because im not familiar with these feelings and im just lost and sad and confused and i hate this feeling, i just want to be able to feel proud of myself for once

first of all loves, i am so sorry for getting to this message so late, and i genuinely hope things are better for you by the time you see this!! if they're not, then i hope my words can bring you comfort, and i'm so happy you do see me as someone who can offer you that, it truly means a lot that you chose to confide in me <33

and honestly loves? what you feel is valid; i don't think it's fair for you to be iced out like this simply because circumstances aren't lining up for you. and i want you to know that that is exactly what this is, misaligned circumstance. this says nothing about your capability or that you're worth any less than your sibling's love. i promise you, there are numerous fully competent, brilliant people who also struggle to find anything in this cutthroat world, and i can tell you that this also happened to me! not that i'm saying i'm brilliant, i hoenstly believe myself the opposite, but what I'm saying is that there was a time where i genuinely was trapped at a horrible job that was destroying my mental health and me as a person, and i believed I would never find my way out. i continuously would apply to jobs and get nothing in return for months, and it got to a point where i honestly did give up. but i found my motivation again when i realized that nothing can happen if I don't at least keep trying to wedge my foot into the door, and so i decided fuck it, i'm gonna knock on doors searching for opportunity, praying that someone will hear me and guess what? right when i least expected it, someone heard my knock and opened the door, which even lead to another door opening for me and now i'm exactly where i wanted to see myself.

this isn't meant to put you down at all my love, but i just wanted to tell you that motivation really is hard to keep and find, but just because you keep receiving rejections does not make you worth any less than what you are. it simply means your time has yet to come, and while it sounds cliche, it's true, because there's no way you'll find that out if you don't keep trying, okay? i promise one step you take today could lead you down the path you're meant to take, or open a door that leads to success. feeling lonely and abandoned is also valid, because family is important and they mean everything to us, and i genuinely believe you should not have been cast aside like that, but i hope the motivation to also show your family that you're worth more than being iced out can push you to keep going. you're so strong and capable of fucking anything loves, remember that!

[khodorkovskaya]

09.10.23

so ive been feeling very mentally challenged today so im gonna complain to you guys about it.

so i have this thing with swimming idk how to explain it but like i find swimming so mentally exhausting. it's kinda like washing my hair. like i need to mentally prep for it and it's absolutely tedious, even though it's not supposed to be. idk if it's a sensory issue around water or wet clothes or idk what. but it's just like exhaaausting. so in the summer whenever my friends invite me to go swimming or rent a pedalo or something like that i always make up a billion excuses.

(last week it was my bestie's birthday and she loves swimming so i was like okay, im gonna go swimming with her, it's not a big deal. and it wasn't a big deal becasue i like mentally prepared for it for over a week.)

so here's the thing. my friend lucien has one of those inflatable motor boats. (but his is a military one obvs, cos he's like obsessed with military things, we love quirky special interests.) and he spends all of his free time on it, like he's obsessed. literally every day he's like chillin on his boat. and he's been asking me and my bestie all summer to come on the boat with him. thankfully, we couldn't coordinate bc one week she was on holiday, another week i had my period, then we were both busy, etc. the boat never worked out. and as summer came to an end i was like phew, no boat for me, thank god. but my bestie was a bit upset cos like she loves swimming and she really wanted to go on the boat. but like whatever, there's always a next time.

and this weekend it was 25+ degrees so lucien got the boat out again. and he messaged me on saturday like "hey, boat tomorrow?". and he's been asking me for so long and plus my bestie really wanted to go so i was like okay sure, let's get the boat over and done with.

and lemme tell you, i was dreading it. the night before i was like ughh i don't want to do this please god make the boat not happen. but the weather was lovely, the lake was calm, the boat was inevitable.

and okay, i feel so spoiled. because there i was, on this super cool boat with my friends at the lake chillin under the sun. and i hated every minute of it 😭😭 like idk what it is with me and water. but like i really hate being wet (in the literal way lol!) and being in/near water is so exhausting for me. and at the end i was soooo tired. i went to bed at 9pm and slept for 12 hours, that's how tired i was. like when i tell you, i find water activities exhausting, this is what i mean!

but that wasn't all!

even after 12 hours of sleep (or maybe because of it), i was still exhausted. i had this insatiable hunger, i wanted to eat allll of the carbs. and i had my skating lesson at half past two today. so i was like jesus how am i gonna skate? like i swear, being on the boat the whole day with no mental prep like destroyed me!!! so on my way to the rink i bought a pain au choc with ovomaltine for energy and it woke me up a little bit but mentally i was still not there.

needless to say, skating wasn't great. i was super stiff and shaky. and it sucked bc i look forward to it the whole week and today i really wasnt able to make the most of it.

then i had to go to the shop cos mum had a meeting. and this man came in and wanted to buy a 30chf shirt with a 200 euro note. so i calculated that it's 190chf, so i need to give him 160chf change. and idk if you guys understand, i cannot do mental maths (dyscalculia?? i can't read numbers either, it's a whole thing). i struggle so much with it. my brain goes into 90s dial up internet mode like "beep beep KHRHSHSHHSHHHHHH". it stresses me out so much. so i did 190-30 on the calculator but as soon as i started to hand out the change, the man told me i was doing it wrong. and, because i suck at mental maths, whenever customers tell me ive given them the wrong change, i tend to trust them. so i got confused. and distracted. and i had tunnel vision bc i was still feeling super exhausted. and fyi i have adhd, so this was hell. and i couldn't figure out how much i owe the man or how much i had already given him. and guess what! he ended up scamming me for 80chf!!!! i feel so stupid and terrible. i really shouldn't have accepted the 200 euro bill in the first place, it's such a basic scam technique. like this is first grade cashier safety, but i was completely zoned out. and we lost 80chf, great 😑

then this woman came in. and here i go back to being a weirdo. because i have a lot of trouble recognising faces. at school when id see my classmates outside of school like even at the bus stop, they'd say hi to me and i wouldn't recognise them, it's that bad. and at the shop we have returning customers ofc. and i always feel bad for not recognising them. what's worse is that we have a lot of russian/ukrainian customers and no offense to them but they all look the same. they're all blond and they're all called something like natalia, svetlana or tatiana. and this lady comes in and i say "bonjour", she says hello in russian and it's already awkward because i was suposed to recognise her. she had a bag of clothes to give to my mum so i was like "sure, i'll tell her when she comes back". and i had to ask for her name (it was natalia ofc) and it was awkward bc im sure we've spoken like 100 times before. but since i was so mentally tired i just like couldnt be normal.

then i went grocery shopping with my primary motivation being that i needed to buy vegetables for dinner. did i get the fucking vegetables? ofc not, i forgot. and had to go back.

like im just so tired of being like this. i wish i could just like go swimming like a normal person and be attentive and not socially weird and not have worse short term memory than my grandma with dementia, you know what i mean?