#i'll probably put together more in depth thoughts about it then and also when i watch it in french (ive been watching an HQ theater cam

[katabay]

When you say you have thoughts about the 2023 movie, are you talking about the one with Eva Green and François Civil? If so, I would loooove to hear those thoughts :0

that's the one! I fucking loved it. on a technical/artistic note, it's been a hot minute since I've seen a movie understand how to use a wide shot properly, and the way it uses the camera feels so genuinely enthusiastic about the story being told that every minute is a visual delight (my main critique is that I mostly wish that it was more colorful, but eh)

on a personal note, it gave me EVERYTHING. I'm going to be thinking about aramis kissing the crucifix during the torture scene for YEARS

[spaceorphan18]

The Lady Whistledown Papers : 1x01 - A Diamond of the First Water (Part 3)

Hi! Welcome back to The Lady Whistledown Papers, where I'm taking an in-depth look at Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton's character arcs and romance within the show Bridgerton!

For previous issues, follow tag : The Lady Whistledown Papers

Girls Like You

Jumping back in, we start off with a montage of suitors for both Daphne and Marina set to Maroon 5's Girls Like You. Usually, I have some great thoughts on the use of music within shows but this one feels... just like a fun little pop song to put to a montage? Most of the lyrics involve -- needing a girl like you -- and -- yeah yeah yeah. It's not the most profound song, but it works nicely for the montage.

Also, I love when they match the Featherington girls' dresses. I'd love the backstory as to why Portia is obsessed with citrus fruits.

As a nice touch, when the LW voice over starts, the camera pushes in on Penelope. I kind of love all the hints they give that LW is Pen -- it's incredibly obvious once you start looking for them. Anyway, Penelope is so devilish here. She loves the attention Marina is getting - not only because she finds Marina a nice person, but because it's pissing her mother off. I love that the LW narration is Pen's way of throwing salt in her mothers' wound. It's a bit wicked. And delicious.

What's somewhat wild, though, is that LW goes after the Queen about her choice of Daphne as a diamond. THE QUEEN! Like, that is bold, Pen. Incredibly bold. She even throws shade at King George, like wow. It's no wonder the Queen is obsessed to track her down. Pen's playing with fire here. But I wonder if she doesn't realize, yet, that there can be consequences to her words? I mean - right now, LW is almost like her journaled words being published -- unedited thoughts that aren't necessarily filtered, but are done so anonymously. The only reactions she's really getting are her mother's frustrations -- which she delights in.

It'll be interesting to watch the LW development as the show continues...

Courting I

Awww, it's our first real Polin scene of the show! And it's... like ten seconds long. But! Still plenty to dig through.

Colin's decided to call on Marina - I'm assuming he's the one (or one of the ones really) who brought her flowers. And during one of the suitor's atrocious poems, Colin's throwing Pen (and you could argue Eloise) looks. Like, can you believe this guy? Seriously?

But, no, I love that there's this layer of non-verbal communication right off the bat. Colin isn't just some random dude Pen has had a crush on from afar. They have an established relationship from the onset (which I'll talk about more in a sec) and how many times -- cutting through the ridiculous nature of the society they live in, do they shoot each other knowing looks.

They grew up together, and while Colin probably very much thinks of her as an additional sister at this point -- there's a comfort there that he can express how he's feeling over the situation to her.

A quick second about the dog - it took me a sad amount of times to realize that one of the suitors had brought it as a gift. It also doesn't show up after this episode (I think) so I really hope it's safely living at a neighbor's house after Portia decides to get rid of it.

Anyway... I was thinking about Eloise in this scene. Why is she even in this scene, she doesn't need to be. Well, actually, in a way, she does! First of all - we can appreciate Claudia Jessie's fantastic comedic skills (Btw - anyone else up for a buddy comedy with Claudie Jessie and Nicola Coughlan? Because I sure am here for it).

Secondly, it helps reestablish that Pen and Eloise are bffs. Which helps establish why Colin would otherwise randomly come up to talk to her after calling hour is over. This is the first episode of the series, and all of these relationships are being established. And it can be done without dialogue having to confirm it. It's all subtle, but it's better than the trap of over explaining things in expository dialogue.

Anyway, I want some backstory... How often do Eloise and Pen sneak over to each other's houses? They were children when they met - how often did Pen play over at the Bridgerton house? It's interesting that children are allowed some freedoms that once you get older, aren't allowed anymore. I have to wonder - if one reason that Pen and Colin are so free with each other later on is that because they they were children together, and probably played together as kids, they don't feel as bound by society's rules because they didn't have to when they were younger.

And now I just have all of these headcanons about a much younger Colin chasing his sister(s) and Pen who is visiting around the house in the way siblings do. And Eloise deciding she wants to take revenge, and she and Pen coming up with plots to play pranks on her brother(s). Think of Gregory and Hyacinth at the beginning of the episode, running around causing havoc. And I can just imagine that Eloise and Colin are a lot like that, too. And of course, Pen, who wanted to be away from her own family, from her own sisters who treated her like a disease, would want to be a part of it as much as she could.

Before I get into their exchange, a small, but important detail is what Portia says a moment before -- she encourages the young men to acknowledge her other daughters in hopes that someone will notice Prudence or Phillipa. But the way she includes Penelope's name -- "or even Penelope" -- it's an after thought. It's like, oh yeah, I have a third child I guess if you really want to acknowledge her, go ahead, but meh, who cares. It's so sad, really that Portia thinks so little of her at this point in time.

But then here's the kicker -- not one of these suitors even takes a glance over in Prudence or Phillipa's direction. But Colin takes a moment to full on have a short aside with Penelope. He makes it a point to go over to her to share a laugh -- because they'd probably been rolling their eyes at each other during all of this suitor business, and now that the official courting moment is over, they can have an exchange.

The fact that Portia is so blind to what goes on with her youngest daughter is the reason LW works. Penelope is left to really be on her own - and while that's devastatingly lonely, it also allows her a freedom that other women her age and place in society don't get.

Anyway, back to Colin -- and the fact that the first thing he does is seek out Penelope. He could address his own sister, who is sitting right there, but he doesn't. Because Eloise probably usually ignores him. Penelope doesn't. She latches on to pretty much everything he says, and that's gonna be a big deal for Colin (but we'll get there...)

Their exchange is only a couple of lines, but they're able to be witty with each other. Penelope mentions that the suitor is no Lord Byron (and -- guys, as an aside, if you want a wild time, look up the life and times of Lord Byron and the Shelleys. It's just... a good time...) Anyway, Colin's face subtly shifts in this moment. Her wit and intelligence is impressive, and he clocks that. It's why he keeps coming back to her - because they can share similar thoughts - but also she's deeply amusing on top of that.

And, oh, dear Penelope... Her eyes never leave him. She is just so, so gone. Not only is she just over the moon that he comes to stop to talk to her, not only is she gazing adoringly up at him during the quick exchange, her look lingers as he leaves. Of course, part of this is visual storytelling to show the depths of her feelings. But, we're beyond crush stuff here -- this girl has got it bad.

Seriously -- how does Eloise not notice all of this? I mean, plot purposes, yes, and the fact that Eloise is usually caught up in her own drama to really notice other things. But you'd think you'd notice your best friend being moony for brother after a while. Because, Pen, girl, you wear your heart on your sleeve...

Courting II

Before we get into the meat of this short, little moment - I have to mention the transition. In the scene before, Simon and Anthony were talking, and Anthony mentions that he's not worried about taking a wife because he has brothers... And we cut to this scene where Colin is courting Marina. And, I think it's a neat little transition because - we see Colin doing something that Anthony is actively not doing. Looking for a wife. (Or at least a romantic partner)

That's the thing about Colin -- he is a romantic. Unlike Anthony, whose position is different because he is the oldest and therefore there's more responsibility there, and therefore he'd rather not deal with it at all (and who has a ton of trauma going on in addition) and unlike Benedict, who is kind of caught up in finding himself more than anything, Colin (who is young still at this point) likes the idea of a wife and a partner and a domestic home.

It's one (of many - I'll get to it) reason he is so quick to propose to Marina. It's why he doesn't fuck around ages later when he figures out his feelings for Penelope. It's actually something Colin and Penelope have in common -- they both have a shared love of romance.

Okay, so onto this moment, I want to note the blocking of the scene. Notice how Penelope is on the floor, playing with the dog? It's purposeful! It positions her to reflect that she's still a child, or at least a child when compared to Colin and Marina on the couch, deep in their courting moment. It highlights the chasm currently between them -- something Marina will bring up later, that Penelope is still a child, a younger sister, not serious marriage prospect in Colin's eyes.

There's Lady Whistledown narration going over this scene -- where LW proclaims that Colin might be rewarded with the prize of Marina. And we see Penelope watching with a mix of emotion.

Penelope was having fun with all the suitors back when there were a ton of them and they were spouting bad poetry. But now that it's just Colin and Marina, the knife twists a bit in Pen's heart. She's playing with the puppy, as a way to pretend she's not that interested, but she's dutifully watching. And yes, a small part of it is her LW ways. A bigger part of it is to watch the development of this particular courtship. And, a third part of it is that there's a twisted sense of -- I may hate every thing about what's happening, but we're still in the same room together. She doesn't miss opportunities to be near Colin whenever she can.

The LW narration is somewhat brutal and almost petty. Pen is mocking Marina through the guise of carefully placed compliments. (Note - Julie Andrews doesn't oversell it the narration, but the hint of sarcasm is there.) Again, they did a great job at layering the narration over Pen's face, so we literally are hearing what she's thinking.

Here's the other thing about the narration :: 'It has come to my ears that Mr. Colin Bridgerton will win the grand prize when he sweeps Miss Thompson off her pretty, little, slippered feet.'

There's a lot in that little sentence. Pen is watching Colin and Marina laugh together. And that is hard for Pen -- because we saw it even in the first scene they have together. They laugh, have in-jokes, seek each other out and share cute, sweet little moments. Sure -- we know (or will be told) that Colin is flirty in general, he cracks jokes, makes people seem at ease, and is genuinely kind to everyone. But Pen has taken a lot of those interactions for herself, has buried them away as something special between the two of them.

Colin flirting out during promenades (or whenever) is kind of a distant thing. Pen having a front row seat to watch Colin lay his natural charm at a serious romantic partner is something else entirely. She hates it. And that's why she turns away, because it's a bit too much. And yet, she doesn't leave -- because she can't.

Also, ALSO! The - sweep her off her feet - comment in the narration. Marina will find Colin a bit fun, but it's a nice connection. And I do think she likes Colin. But she's not really swept off her feet. Pen was the one who got swept off her feet. I just... think they did a great job keeping up the duality of having LW be her own thing and having it really reflect Pen's inner thoughts.

So on that angsty note... one more post about the first episode to wrap it up, then we can move on!! See -- I told you there's a lot in this first episode!

[emeryhiro]

Do you think Carol would have continued to stay with Ezekiel had Henry not died? For me, Carol's married era in the Kingdom is a conundrum - because on the one hand, I love that she got to experience some peace and happiness after being put through the wringer both emotionally and mentally. I love that she was able to save Henry and at least partly come to peace with the fact that she was able to find and save this kid - when she has lost so many in the past (which makes it all the more heartbreaking she has go through all of that again in s10 - I love s10 but it so emotionally hard to watch as a Carol fan). But - in the second half of s9 whenever Carol is shown in the Kingdom, it feels a little wrong - like maybe she doesn't belong. She is smiling so widely and brightly - and it is so great to see her lighthearted - but something somewhere just feels off. Even her appearance - her clothes - they don't feel like her. I can't quite pinpoint it. Or I could be just looking at it through shipper goggles. Lol.

I absolutely adore your narrative breakdowns of these two. I don't have much hope for Caryl in TBOC but I am definitely looking forward to your analysis of the episodes to come.

Hi Anon 😊

Thank you so much for the kind words! They truly mean so much to me 🩵🩵🩵

I already have my thoughts/breakdown of TBOC episode 1 written up, which should be posted as soon as episode 1 is released to everyone. I honestly can't wait for everyone to see it and get everyone's thoughts on it as well.

Now, regarding your question...

This is such a good question, and I really had to think about it for a bit to be able to express my thoughts properly.

The short answer is yes, but ultimately, no. I think Carol would have stayed with Ezekiel if Henry had lived, at least for as long as they were in a good place. I know that seems like a cop-out of an answer, but I'll flesh it out a little bit.

Carol was happy enough with Ezekiel, and she would have probably continued to be with him until their situation changed and they had to go through some form of hardship as they naturally would've at some point or another in an apocalypse. Even if it wasn't for losing Henry, there would have been something else that would have pulled them apart because despite them being happy enough, their relationship lacked the depth to withstand severe adversity. They loved each other, but they weren't IN love, if you know what I mean.

If by some miracle they didn't face any hardship of any kind, then yep they probably would stay together for two main reasons (and trust me, this hurts my Caryl shipper heart to say):

Loyalty/Convenience: As we've seen, Carol is an incredibly loyal person. We don't know Ezekiel as well as we know Carol, but from what I could tell, he seems to be a very loyal person as well.

Trauma/Sacrifice: The only person that Carol would hypothetically leave Ezekiel for would be Daryl. But both Carol and Daryl have experienced way too much trauma to actually come clean about their feelings, not unless something huge happened to push them to do so. Daryl would never ever think he's good enough for Carol, or that he could make her happy compared to how Ezekiel appeared to make her. And Carol would feel the exact same way about Daryl, and she'd also be content with (as you said) the peace and happiness of staying with Ezekiel because she would never think she deserved anything better than that.

Ultimately, the perfect circumstances that would have kept Carol and Ezekiel together are near impossible in the world they live in. Starting a family with Ezekiel and Henry definitely helped Carol heal from some of her past trauma with Ed and Sofia, but ultimately the deeper traumas and wounds that she had yet to face and heal from (as she will in TBOC) would have never healed if she stayed with Ezekiel. They would have eventually been naturally pulled apart because neither is made for the other.

I also think that Carol always sensed/knew that her relationship with Ezekiel had an expiration date, and she had probably prepared for that inevitable end from the start of the relationship, while Ezekiel on the other hand, was less willing to accept that their relationship was at its end when Carol tried to return the ring in S9EP16.

Regarding Caryl...

I honestly don't blame you for not having much hope for Caryl, especially with all the mixed messages being sent around with the current publicity campaign. And I'm not sure if this will mean anything or change anything for you, but I'm personally still confident that canon is where we're heading. And as I've said in my previous posts, especially in the summary section of my last one (here), it makes sense (at least to me) for them to wait until season 3 to finally make Caryl officially canon.

I'm just gonna fangirl here for a second, but I believe (since the first time I saw them 12 years ago) that Carol and Daryl are soulmates, and I don't just mean platonic soulmates, but soulmates in every sense of the word. So, in my mind, based on all the evidence I've seen, one way or another, they will be together in the end. But like I said, that's in my mind. The final outcome for Caryl depends on Norman and Melissa's vision for the characters, which I understand may not align with mine, but I trust that no matter what they end up giving us, it's still gonna be a fantastic story ♡

~~~~

Thank you again for the really interesting question ♡♡♡ I hope my answer made sense and got my thoughts across properly.

I can't explain how excited I am about TBOC and seeing Carol and Daryl in the same frame again. ONLY 19 DAYS TO GO!! 🥰🎉

[biteofcherry]

Hope you’re having a good Saturday! 🥂

As it turns out you need a date for an upcoming function. Everyone else is bringing a plus one and you just don’t want to be the odd one out.

There are a few candidates:

Brother’s best friend Ransom: He might be a bit of a prick but he was serious when he offered to come with you. He’s been to fancy parties before and would fit right in with the rest of the crowd. Being on his arm would show that you're someone with friends in high places.

Boss Ari: He hinted strongly that he wouldn't mind coming if you couldn't find someone and he looks hella good in a suit. Everyone else would envy you. It may also give you a chance to explore the undeniable chemistry that the two of you have.

Dbf Andy: He heard about your struggles from your dad and he's free. Even if he's your dad's best friend he's a lot closer to you in age than your dad. And if you're not mistaken, he had a hard time keeping his eyes off you at the last barbecue.

Neighbor Jake: He heard you complaining to your friend over the phone as you were unlocking your front door. Jake and you regularly have dinner together since you both live alone and it can be lonely sometimes. He would make the evening enjoyable and fun!

So… which one do you choose???

(Yes, I'm leaving Steve out 😂)

So so cruel, keeping Steve away from me 😭 lol, but it's also funny

Okay. So I'm saying no to Ransom right away. I'm sure he wouldn't be mean to me, after all he offered and yes it could give me some boost of confidence. But since he's very familiar in those circles and with those people, I fear we'd bump into some nasty friends of his, or his exes and I really don't want to deal with that shit on top of my regular stress.

I think I'd also decline Andy. Probably because I'd read it the wrong way and be angry at my dad for trying to find me a pity date, like the time no one asked me to prom. Besides, I feel it a bit icky that I could hit it on with someone who is so close to my dad. That would be awkward in the future 😆

Jake is so cute and I feel comfortable with him! I know he'd make the evening fun for me, even if he'd be out of his depth at this party just like me.

But... to be given a chance to explore this chemistry with Ari?

It's bad to be thinking that kind of thoughts about your boss. It's so very unethical and puts both of you in a bad light. But he's just so tempting and his company would also give me a confidence boost.

So am I going to let my insecurity and fear keep me away from trying to at least spend one more intimate evening with Ari, or maybe I'll be brave enough to try it?

I want to for at least one evening experience the thrill of being on Ari's arm and doll myself up for him! 😌❤️

[starlight-tav]

Shadowheart and Religious Trauma

Warnings: MAJOR spoilers for Shadowheart's companion quest, religious abuse/trauma, anxiety, grief

Note: I'll probably revisit this one day when it's not so fresh in my mind and hopefully I'll make more sense then. For now, these are my thoughts, jumbled and raw

One of the most heartbreaking things for me while playing BG3 was Shadowheart's story and how analogous it is to religious deconstruction.

I was raised in a Christian cult – I won't go in depth about the abuses I suffered within, but I will say that the pain is always with me, much like the curse of Shar that lingers within Shadowheart until you make your final decisions in the House of Grief.

Shadowheart travels an arduous path from Shar's embrace to freedom; she's zealous when you first meet her, having been stripped of her entire identity. Shar and her followers have not only taken her name, her memories, and caused her immeasurable mental and physical harm; they have also taken her family, warped her only memory of her father into a source of paralyzing fear.

If you establish a bond with Shadowheart, you see her start to question the curse bestowed on her. She begins to doubt the "lesson" her goddess must be teaching her. And then you meet the Nightsong, the ultimate test of her faith.

If Shadowheart spares Dame Aylin's life, she turns her back on her goddess and the only community she's ever known up until the tadpole brought you together. She doesn't have to make this decision alone. She has you and your other companions standing with her. She spares the Nightsong and rejects the cruel deity she's spent her life serving.

Shadowheart appears more hopeful, more determined than ever. With your help, she's going to find her parents and save them from the goddess.

You fight side by side through the dark disciples and the Mother Superior in the House of Grief. You get the key to the dungeon. You find her parents. There's an impossibly brief moment where you think we did it. And then Shar shows herself.

She tells Shadowheart to make the choice between her own freedom and her parents' lives. This decision devastated me. I had to close the game. I had to take a breath and calm down. Because I had to make that decision too.

I had to decide between my own life and a relationship with the people who raised me. I could come out and reject everything I'd been taught, severing the bonds between myself and the people who perpetuated my pain; or I could carry on in service until it killed me.

When Shadowheart was presented the options, there was no question in my mind as to what I was going to choose. But I didn't know if that was because it was what was best for me or for her.

This is where Shadowheart's story diverts the most from my own. Her parents wanted her to be free. Their faith in Selûne would transform them, bring them peace, and keep them close to her. Knowing this, I urged Shadowheart to take their lives, putting them at rest. She did.

Shadowheart is free from the Lady of Loss now. But she grieves. She'll never hear her parents' laughs. She'll never feel their comforting touches or receive their careful wisdom. That pain is real, and it'll never disappear. But the hope is that she won't be alone. She has your merry band of weirdos after all.

That's what has saved me too. My friends, the queer and neurodivergent communities, support from my therapist. It'll always hurt, but with their help I'll survive it.

Larian is such an amazing team. The care they've put into telling stories of survival, grief, love, healing, and tough decisions is so amazing. I'm grateful for their hard work and creativity. The moments of hurt and the moments of catharsis will stay with me for a long, long time.

[birdmitosis]

if you’re still doing the ask game, i’d love to hear your thoughts abt voice of the smitten please 😊 (no pressure though)

[ask game here]

Oh gosh, no worries! I am super open to doing more of these :D

SMITTEN TIME 💖

First impression

My first impression of him was absolutely during the Damsel route, and I'll be real, I mostly defaulted to vaguely fond exasperation. I was a bit "oh no, he's funny for sure but Oh No" about him and he was one of my least favorite voices for the longest time!

Impression now

...Whereas at this point he may not be one of my favorites but I honestly love him. He is fascinating, having darker depths of emotion than one would think at first and being capable of some definitely bad things, but also having a great capacity for love that is unflinching, unashamed, and comes with no caveats. He is a supportive darling with unbending faith and this also somehow makes him not only one of the strongest voices but also one of the most potentially dangerous to the group. This is great.

Favorite moment

Ohhh, there are so many small moments I can't choose between! The "He just likes to hear himself talk." "I do." exchange, the part where he straight-up says he's no thoughts head empty except for the Princess, how quick he is to forgive Opportunist and just accept him back on sides, how he slays us if we slay Damsel and his homoerotic fight with Cold at the very beginning of the Burned Grey route, The Look...

I think my favorite moment, though, might just be when you find the Princess's skeleton in the basement in Burned Grey and he goes "No! She was alive and well just a moment ago, floating away transparently!" It is SUCH a funny moment and if I make another "funniest moments in Slay the Princess" video, that is definitely going in there. He is hilarious.

Idea for a story

TBH, before the Pristine Cut comes out, it could be fun to write a version of the Damsel Chapter III that I don't think we're getting, one that I'd been toying with in my head... Choosing to stay with Damsel and the Narrator trying to force our hand again (or threatening to) leading to Smitten slaying us to show Narry he's serious about that, and then when we get to Chapter III instead of a basement it's an upstairs room, and it's way more livable, comfortable, with chairs and things, and her chain is thin and long and allows her access to the whole room comfortably. There is no blade. The only option, if they don't want to stay forever, is to brave what might be out there together and face the world, whatever may be. Once you actually decide to break the chains they snap easily.

(I think Cheated would be a fun option for this one, but I'd probably write it with Paranoid. Torn between love and fear in the Damsel chapter, and part of why we're "staying together" instead of escaping is fear of what will happen and what we'll find if we leave...)

Unpopular opinion

IDK how unpopular either of these are per se, so I'm going to give two of them:

One, Smitten shines least in his own basic route. If you go for Damsel and either free Damsel or deconstruct her, it is definitely incredible to see just how powerful Smitten's power of belief really is, but he himself isn't all that interesting and isn't as hilarious or as fun as in other routes. He has incredible moments in the Razor path, he's intensely sympathetic in the Moment of Clarity, he is both funny and very interesting personality-wise in Thorn (especially if you do free her), and then if you slay Damsel and get into Burned Grey he's maybe at his strongest both humor- and interest-wise.

Two, despite what I said above about loving Smitten in the Thorn chapter, which I do... I don't actually like the way to get Smitten in the Thorn chapter. I think it's jarring and kind of off-putting to start strongly flirting with Witch in that particular situation, and I don't like the implications of the "why are you actually trying to free me" "you're beautiful" exchange.

Favorite relationship

Among the other voices, I think my favorite relationship he has with them canonically is the one he has with Opportunist in the Thorn chapter. (I told you I love Smitten in The Thorn! I just don't like how you get there with him!) His weirdass relationship with Cold is a very close second, though, and I would be very interested in seeing them with a different dynamic in one of the new Pristine Cut Chapter IIIs, potentially!

Among the other voices, the relationships we don't really get to see in game that I'd love to see are how he'd be with Broken or Skeptic, with Cheated, Contrarian, and Paranoid being runners-up.

Among the vessels, my favorite canonical relationship he has with any of them... Hear me out, because I did say he is least interesting in his own base chapter, but I still really do love his relationship with Damsel. One of the only two vessel/voice ships I actually ship somewhat strongly (along with Adversary/Stubborn). I'd also love to see his relationship with Prisoner, Spectre, or Wild!

My favorite relationship for him in a shippy way is with Broken, though, by far. (Mending Hearts my beloved...)

Favorite headcanon

I really do love the idea that Smitten's unhesitating, unapologetic love of the Princess also translates to a love of the world, and that in any post-Construct AU where Shifty wasn't slain, he loves the world and life intensely because she is a part of all of it, even if he misses her.

I also really love trans Smitten, though! I specifically go back and forth between seeing Smitten as transfem and Damsel as transmasc, or seeing both of them as bigender, sometimes he/him and sometimes she/her.

[synnthamonsugar]

1.

On that point on drifter being a reckless flirt and how it's lost in fanon that you added to the ask.

It disappoints me how much that happens, because I think it could be an amazing part of his character to explore when writing fics or making fanart or even just in discussions like these. I don't have the time or the skill to write like that myself, but having a character unable to read his affection in some boy-who-cried-wolf type way would be the type of conflict a good fic could use, even if it's only a short one. People seem to think that by acknowledging that he's willing to be that brash with everyone, especially in acknowledging that he's canonically pansexual, they're going to lose part of the story, as if it's no longer real romance. There are so many interesting interactions that you can get just from that trait, yet it seems to be the most frequently overlooked one.

2.

The other thing that stood out to me in your response was the mention of him being reduced to a derogatory Asian stereotype. I'm surprised that I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm not Asian, so it's sadly easier for me to overlook it. I'm glad you made that point, it definitely puts something to words that had been bothering me so much about the way some people portray him. I definitely see it now thinking about some of the more problematic depictions I've seen of him. I think it's also why characters in other media with similar complexity & personality traits aren't watered down to negatives the way that he seems to be so often.

3.

Allow me to get somewhat off track and into just Drifter and the community for a moment here, because this strings together some thoughts that I already have. And, thank you for your patience in reading all this, I'm glad to have somewhere to put my thoughts. Again, I'm not Asian, so I probably can't articulate this as well as someone who is might, but I'll try.

The critical comments that I have seen about his appearance, though not directly stating race, have sometimes seemed to be coming from racial biases. He's a normal guy. Handsome, even. When people talk about how they don't understand why anyone is attracted to him it comes off strange to me. Sure, he may not be your type, and that's completely normal lol, but to rip on him as if he's particularly ugly is odd.

That, and the naming. When I've read fics related to him people very often switch his name back to Eli. I could be wrong, but I thought the name he had used the longest was Wu Ming? A few fics choosing Eli wouldn't seem weird to me, but the fact that I have never seen one use Wu makes it stand out differently. I may just be overthinking at that point, I don't entirely know, but the more I see it the stranger it seems. I don't think it's wrong to use/continue using Eli, after all it is canonically one of his names, it's just that it's so heavily preferred, other that drifteris shippers liking Germaine because she calls him that.

Again, I think it would be more of an opportunity for character depth, given that he had a lot of foundational (both negative and positive) experiences under that name. Is there lore where he's discussed not using it? Because that may make some more sense.

That may say more about that parts of the community that I've interacted with and the authors that I've read from more than it speaks on issues within the community as a whole. If that is the case, it's on me to find the better parts of it, and I will.

Again, thanks for the space to think aloud. I appreciate you & the others that've read through the other post taking the time for it. I'm glad to be able to have a meaningful discussion about it.

Thanks again for another excellent message. Hope you don’t mind me sharing my thoughts on what you have to say.

People seem to think that by acknowledging that he’s willing to be that brash with everyone, especially in acknowledging that he’s canonically pansexual, they’re going to lose part of the story, as if it’s no longer real romance. There are so many interesting interactions that you can get just from that trait, yet it seems to be the most frequently overlooked one.

Amatonormativity in action! A lot of people conflate flirting, promiscuity, and infidelity — never mind those are three separate things and that the first two DON’T imply unfaithfulness (flirting doesn’t have an inherent sexual or romantic component, someone can have many partners and not be a cheater). So people avoid writing Drifter as flirty or experienced in love because they incorrectly believe that will de-value their OTP.

OTOH I wonder if there’s an element of wanting to avoid pan/biphobic stereotypes of pan/bi people being flirts. Which I consider well-meaning but misguided because “flirtatious” is pretty harmless by the standards of pan/bi stereotypes, because (see above comment about flirting not being inherently romantic/sexual) and also because one example of someone fitting a stereotype isn’t as harmful as a pattern where ALL the characters belonging to a demographic act a certain way, or have certain experiences. Mara is word-of-god bi, has only had one canonical relationship, and isn’t flirty at all (sorry to the Mara/Petra and Mara/Eris truthers, I see the vision but I don’t think there’s even subtext for it, at least not as a reciprocal thing in Petra’s case), and Shaxx who is implicitly bi/pan but whose attraction isn’t a defining feature of his character ... or even really a thing at all excluding a few lore tabs.

(As an aside, I’m going to use this moment to shill for @/phthalology, whose Drifter characterization is some of my favorite of all time and hearkens back to the Forsaken era of Drifter as a frontiersman-meets-showman, someone who is funny without being jokey, someone who wears a mask with little intent to take it off, but is overall deeply human and sympathetic without feeling cloying. I can’t recommend her shippy or gen Drifter fic enough.)

The other thing that stood out to me in your response was the mention of him being reduced to a derogatory Asian stereotype.

When people talk about how they don’t understand why anyone is attracted to him it comes off strange to me. Sure, he may not be your type, and that’s completely normal lol, but to rip on him as if he’s particularly ugly is odd.

I can’t speak authoritatively on this because I am not East Asian nor a person of color but the insults to Drifter’s appearance (when he is – by any measure – a conventionally attractive man) leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well. Especially when paired with the ubiquitous “rat” insult which is racist & xenophobic (used against PoC, immigrants and other minority populations in dehumanization campaigns generally, and against Japanese people in WWII-era propaganda specifically).

And yes, I suspect most don’t use it with racist intent, but people forget that one can be accidentally racist and that accidental racism is still racism – it’s not a world-ending thing, it doesn’t mean a person is irredeemable, make right, stop saying it, and move on. But it doesn’t even make sense as a “neutral” insult. In its common usage, “rat” means “snitch” or “turn-coat”, and Drifter has never told on the Guardian or Eris or Orin or anyone else that I know of so … why “rat”? Who’s he “ratted out”? I wish it and its relative phrases (e.g. “moonrat”) would be retired from in-game/fandom use, but after four years of call-outs I have little hope for change.

As for Drifter’s pseudonyms, I can’t say I’ve seen that much “Eli” in fic (though I also haven’t been keeping up). “Germaine” seems to be the most popular one, though your original point of “why not call him Wu Ming” still stands.

Germaine was the name he went by in his earliest years (first part of the Man With No Name lorebook, when Drifter guarded the settlement of Eaton), so there’s perhaps a good-faith reason that people call him that - it was his “first”, and the name associated with one of the best pieces of writing in the game.

Wu Ming shows up later in A Man With No Name, when Drifter is running a bar at the foot of Felwinter Peak and negotiating with the Iron Lords. Of note, Wu Ming literally means “no name” - I do not speak Mandarin so I can’t speak for the precise connotations of it, but I can see why people who are aware might avoid what essentially means “anonymous”. But I don't know that most people are aware of it, so it's odd that it sees little use compared to the others.

Eli is one of his more recent pseudonyms and the name that Orin knew him by. I suspect this name goes overlooked by the fandom because the content it was in was cut from the game; you’d only know of it if you read some of the old Gambit Prime lore tabs on Ishtar Collective.

All that being said, I think there’s a lot of interesting, overlooked story potential exploring his different names. Or just like, encountering people from different eras of his life and being called different things. (IIRC, Saladin called him Wu Ming when they met which was a cool throw-back and a good example of this idea.) If I had to hazard a guess, a lot of recent writing leans into Drifter "settling down" so I suppose the people writing those kinds of stories don't want to lean into his past as an itinerant wanderer of many names.

[radio-heads]

omg…quarry and aftg brainworms. me too. been picturing the aftg characters in the quarry and giggling to myself. thoughts?

i have a lot of thoughts omg. whether i can put them into coherent sentences?? up for debate

but i am so willing to try.

(heads up the trojans won't be talked about in this for rn because i'm still rereading tsc and am trying to get a grasp of the characters and their personalities etc etc. i'll probably add to this in the future.)

first and foremost- majority of the aftg characters would probably survive. at least, that's what i think. some of them would survive accidentally, others on purpose, and some you are left wondering how they survived at all.

neil survives because that's what he's done all his life- survive. he knows how to stay alive. sort of. andrew is also partially to thank for neil surviving.

andrew keeps kevin alive, too.

and andrew being the man he is (affectionate) would survive no problem.

i think aaron would manage to survive by sheer luck and the exy racket that he spawned with. he would beat the werewolves to death.

matt is a fucking tank. he'd body those werewolves.

renee would survive without a doubt, she could fist fight the werewolves and win. whether she does that or not is up for debate, but she has dan and allison at her side. that trio would make it out alive.

dan would keep them all in line, though, and make sure they handled this together. she's captain for a reason and is damn good at her job and i think that would apply here as well.

the foxes are resourceful and they are very capable.

they got this.

PERHAPS i am being too generous with their skills and perhaps i am heavily biased wanting them to live because i love them so much.

but they are also a team of wild, traumatized kids that play exy. they would survive.

i'll probably come back to this at some point when i am capable of forming coherent sentences and can go into more depth about why i think they'd all live. if i remember. ✨

[bunbunbillion]

THE BUNBUNBILLION Q1 2024 MEDIA THREAD EXTRAVAGANZA

i've been recording everything i consume for the past few months to do a media thread at the end of every quarter. and now april is over... so its time to talk about stuff!! forever!!!!!!

01/13 - Homestuck (Re-Read)

I finished re-reading Homestuck for the... 4th? 5th time? I've lost count. It's a good way to start the year though. This time around I read it with my girlfriend, who you should give all of your money too (@yinkybaginky), and it was very fun to see someones reaction to it for the first time. She knew literally nothing about Homestuck, not even what a Vriska Serket was. A truly great experience, especially thanks in part to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. I'll probably have more to see about Homestuck in depth on a later date, so I won't bog down this post with that. It's my favorite piece of media ever, and that's all there is really to say on the matter.

01/24-01/25 - The Trolls Movies

I've been surrounded by gay people who love Trolls for the past like 5 years so I finally decided to give them a watch on a whim with my girlfriend, after catching some of the first movie in a streamers server.

They were fun! I really don't think I have much to say on them. They're kids movies, sure, but they're also just very visually great and made me go "yeah you know what some of those old pop songs WERE pretty good". I think when it came to stories I liked the first one the most just because I liked the Bergen's a lot, I thought their whole world was very well designed and all that. Don't have the most care for Branch, and Poppy is OK as a protagonist, but otherwise I had more fun with the other characters. Creature design is absolutely excellent and is what stood out to me the most of anything, though. The animation in the 3rd movie is also top notch, I really do want to see the series continue. If they do, I like the third movies approach of finding a niche to make "the thing" for the whole movie, it's a fun way of doing stuff.

We thought this shot was really funny.

1/20 - Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

I was gonna watch this when it came out awhiiile ago, but just put it off forever. I saw Jacob Geller had uploaded a new video about Pinocchio, which talked about the movie and was like. Man. I wanna watch that video. Guess I'll go watch this entire movie. So I hopped into VC with Netflix on and just watched it.

It was Fucking Good!!!!!!!!!!! Every good thing you've heard about the movie is absolutely true. Do yourself a favor and just watch it. That being said, I also don't have too much to say about it! It's been a few months and it hasn't totally stuck around in my head, but that just means I get to rewatch it sometime, and I can look forward to that. It mostly made me want to watch more stop motion movies.

If I were to highlight anything, its that I love to make the movie all about death. Pinocchio as a story seems to constantly get turned into this thing all about freedom and living and how great life is and all that, but this movie completely nailed that yea. Pinocchio works so much better as a movie about death. A puppet living on a blessing against the laws of nature being used as a vessel to explore acceptance of death. It's really great.

the demons are such baddies btw

01/29 - Earthbound USA

Not the game, but the documentary put together by Jazzy Benson through Fangamer. It was absolutely fantastic. Easily my favorite game documentary I've ever watched... Because it's not really about the game.

To put into words, because I imagine 90% of people reading (not including the people I watched it with) haven't seen it or even heard of it, Earthbound USA is a documentary about specifically starmen.net and Earthbounds western fanbase.

The doc highlights basically every aspect of Earthbound in the west. They talk to the people who translated the game, who made the marketing campaign, the fans who bought the game day one, the translator of the MOTHER 3 fan translation, they talk about Earthbound Zero, about the virtual console releases, the quest to get MOTHER 3 officially localized and every single defeat that came with it, I mean Shigesato Itoi is just here too. It's everything you could ask for all combined with home videos from the early 2000s, an outstanding soundtrack that gives me goosebumps from Robbie Benson, it's just... So good.

I bought the DVD for the movie and streamed that to my friends, which you can get here on Fangamer, whenever they plan on restocking it at least. Or, you can watch it on streaming services listed on their website! If your a MOTHER fan, I'd say this is like, essential viewing. It may as well be official with how good it is.

01/29 - A Brief Retrospective of The Simpsons' Golden Age

I finished this the same day. I recorded this mostly as a joke, but hey if your insane and have watched every single Simpsons episode like me and want whats basically a Simpsons Summary Podcast, I recommend this 11-hour video.

02/06 - MOTHER

A week later I couldn't get Earthbound USA out of my head, so I decided to finally sit down and go where no MOTHER fan has gone before. To the first game in the series.

It was really really good. Like, man, I don't know why I slept on it so long just because it was an NES RPG. Ok, I mean, I know why I did, it's because it's a NES RPG, but still.

This game really highlights everything that went into its two sequels to make them so good, and has so many little unique novelties about it that make it just so so memorable. The music, the writing, the places you go, it's just... So, so good. I still think the best way to get into MOTHER is to start with Earthbound, just due to how approachable it is, but if you like it and/or MOTHER 3, do not sleep on MOTHER/Earthbound Beginnings. It's just so good.

Probably use an emulator with rewind or save-states though.

i'll be fine with not hearing magicants music anymore though

02/17 - Yakuza Kiwami 2

I started this game probably years ago, and never got that far. Yakuza 0 is definitely one of my favorite games ever, and I was kind of mixed on Yakuza Kiwami, but I was enjoying the start of Kiwami 2 for sure.

How did I feel by the end?

I mean it's not BAD, per say, it's just... Not very good, either. The gameplay never really felt like it evolved much, the writing really felt like it never picked up and just kept ADDING stuff, but at least the side quests were probably the absolute best the series has given me so far. That definitely saved it for me, but man the story. It just wasn't very good.

I had a lot more thoughts after playing it, but I think think in the end it just comes down to;

Ryuji did not get nearly enough time to shine to be an impactful villian

The bastard cop was a character I was given no reason to care for, and the focus put on him did not feel earned in any way

Kiryu really did not feel that involved with everything going on

Sayama did not get nearly enough agency in this story

As for the twists, I didn't like how many there were at first, but I think by the end there were just so many twists I was like. Yeah nvm this is so fucking stupid it owns. So good on them for that!

I don't think I'll ever replay the main story for this game, but I will absolutely come back to those side quests, they're so good I don't want to spoil a single one. I am also really enjoying Yakuza 3 so far, so that's a we might just be back regardless.

the selfie feature is really funny. you really feel like your some 40 year old dad.

02/22 - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasures of Area Zero - Epilogue

I have a lot of thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. I am a HUGE Pokemon freak, like omega huge freak levels of such. I will claw and bite tooth and nail defending Sword and Shield any fucking day of the week. I think Scarlet and Violet are like, painfully mid games in such a disheartening way. I still enjoyed a lot of it, but man it's so held back by... everything, really.

And the DLC fixed I'd say about none of it. In fact, I'd go as far to say the 2 DLC stories only highlight and strengthen every single problem scarvi has as a game and it disheartens me, so, so so much. Unlike the Sword and Shield epilogues, which expanded upon the best parts of the game and experimented with brand new formats as prep for the next generation, scarvi kinda just does. Nothing. It's more Scarlet and Violet, slime grease and all.

Kitakami is... Ok, I guess? It's an exceptionally uninteresting region with absolutely no landmarks that stand out in my mind. The story in it is pretty subpar, it's a really annoying kind of "player has no control over a misunderstanding" narrative in a really obnoxious way and by god I'll say it I never really get a reason to care about Kieran. He's not bad by any means, I mean he's just a kid, but really I don't feel like I'd ever call him a friend. The story with the Loyal Three and Ogrepon is really cute though, I do love that they completely flipped the story of Momotaro on its head in such a fun and unique way.

Blueberry Academy I was looking forward to much more, thinking that while Kitakami was really rushed and pretty bad, it must mean more resources were just put towards the second DLC. I was pretty wrong, it was basically just as under baked... But also still better, regardless. They introduce a lot of characters you won't really remember with this DLC, and it feels weird because it feels like there SHOULD be more to these characters, but it's all confined to a pretty short campaign.

The story is pretty ok, and I like what they did with Kieran here, but the second you beat him in the champion fight the story like, immediately halts the breaks and everything stops mattering. I really thought Drayton might've been set up as an interesting antagonist, someone subtly bullying Kieran and egging on how he is, but in the end he's just a well meaning friend who's just eccentric. All the other trainers basically disappear as well, and Kieran reverts back to how he was before all this for the most part. Then the story with Terapagos has to happen, and you get the return to Area Zero, except with your new friends you've barely built bonds with and Briar instead.

Similar to Drayton, I thought Briar might've been getting set up to be a bit fucked up. She's pretty obsessed with Area Zero and proving that Heath was right, and that feels like obvious easy set up for a villain right? Obsession is kind of the text book villain motive, especially in a series like Pokemon. But, no, like Drayton, Briar is actually exactly as she seems, and there's nothing underneath.

Unfortunetly, Area Zero itself was also not as interesting on revisit. I imagine it was the far lower budget, but it ends up mostly just being a very basic crystal-cave environment, without that really fascinating hollow-earth vibe Area Zero has in the base game. You're also mostly just traveling alone going on fetch quests to beat mini-boss Pokemon to open up gates, so that feeling of traveling an unknown place with friends is also completely lost. In the end, Terapagos isn't much of a character at all, like Ogrepon (or Miraidon/Koraidon) are, and is just kinda There. I'm sure the anime is doing a lot more with them, given they're a main character, but man they are NOTHING in this game and it's really disappointing with how incredibly hyped up they are.

In the end though, the thing I really came out loving with the second DLC was something I didn't actually know about until after finishing the epilogue, which was the brief interaction with the Professor in Kitakami once you have Terapagos. I won't spoil it, I'd recommend going to the crystal lake in Kitakami with Terapagos in your party to see it, but it was a moment where I was really like... Damn. This story really could've been something special.

NOW WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY, it was the Epilogue that I beat this year, which acts both as a bonus to the DLC, and a Mythical Pokemon event similar to ones from the DS games. And, I gotta say.

It's easily the best thing in the entire DLC, bar none.

Despite just being a revisit to Kitakami, the Epilogue is not only better written then both of the DLC chapters, but actually shows that promise for future games like the SWSH DLC did years ago. I had a smile on my face basically the entire time.

First off, hanging out with the three friends again after they basically disappear once you beat the game is so incredibly refreshing. Just having them over to your house is the first time in a Pokemon game I've actually felt that like... Oh, I'm a kid hanging out with my friends, kind of feeling. That original inspiration the Pokemon series had was just completely captured with that, and I love it, and it continues through the entire DLC. On top of that, the DLC does a lot of very small things with its cutscenes that I felt were really missing from the main game that actually completely caught me off guard. Seamless transition between overworld cutscenes, cinematic cutscenes, and battles mainly. It feels like Pokemon games have always struggled with taking you out of the story for loading screens or transitions or letting the player wander off or something. It's hard to immerse, but with this DLC just through the most simple methods they really catch you off guard with the cutscene framing and battle starts in a way I absolutely adore, especially since your with your friends who can actually Talk for you too. Helps that all of the writing is just really funny too, I had such a good time.

Overall, I think this is where I want the Pokemon series to go. The segment of Area Zero where you travel with all your friends already stood out to a lot of people, but didn't have the most writing to back it up. Similarly, this DLC has all of the writing, but it can feel like you aren't actually traveling with your friends, as they don't follow you. I think having a Pokemon game where you travel directly with other people in a bit of a party is the way to go with expanding on Pokemon as a series, and this DLC combined with base scarvi really proves How it can work. It makes me so excited to see where we can go from here, and I can only hope they learned from all these mistakes.

wow i had a fucking lot to say about scarlet and violet dlc and i didnt even mention this thing. whatever.

02/26 - Splatoon 3: Side Order

Funny story, I actually beat Splatoon 3 on a friends copy, but on my own switch, so when this DLC came out I ended up buying an entire new copy of Splatoon 3, with DLC, and an already completed save file. So was the DLC worth 80 bucks? I mean, no, not at all, but it was extremely good!!

It came out while I was out of town with my girlfriend, so we had a lot of fun playing it together, and I think it's just overall a genius idea for a Splatoon mode. It makes me like, viscerally crave an even bigger Splatoon roguelike, but I'm also like an extreme roguelike freak. The story was super cute (my big "I <3 PEARLINA" shirt notwithstanding) and basically everything it introduces is great. I haven't actually beaten the Agent 8 locker yet, because I'm Bad At Splatoon </3, but I everything else was just so good.

im actually extremely biased, btw

02/27 - Ponyo (Rewatch)

I rewatched Ponyo with my girlfriend while I was over for the first time since I was a wee little amoeba. It was so fucking cute!!!! I really do love Ghibli movies a lot. I don't think there's a lot I can say about Ponyo, per say, at least not as much as other Ghibli movies I love like Spirited Away (my fave movie evarr), but I think this movie combined with like. Finding Nemo, Animal Jam, and going to the Houston Aquarium combined are probably why I love marine biology so much now.

02/29 - Death Note

The anime, to be specific, for the first time. Yeah, I can see why this became such a big thing with fujoshis. I get it, I understand now. I'm sorry L, I didn't know your game.

Death Note is overall both an anime of its time, and an absolute classic you should be watching. It's engaging, it's dramatic, it's funny, and there's so many points where your just like "damn are they gonna bone" about the two characters the authors 100% had no intention to be seen in that way.

It's only real problems come from the authors also having no fucking clue what to do with women in the story, and making pretty annoyingly shallow characters that get sidelined really hard. The final arc is also a bit head scratching, but it makes for good drama, so I can't really complain, even if I remember a lot less of it. Great show, great ending. Where's my Misa & Rem yuri manga series.

he really is just fucking jeff the killer huh

02/29 - Promare

Watched this with my girlfriend on a whim, cus we wanted to watch a movie together. I've been a very lowkey TRIGGER studios fan since I was a kid, watching Kill la Kill when I was way too young to be watching shows that crazy boobed, but it did definitely contribute to my transgender-ness, so you can't fault it there (you can fault it for a lot of other things though). No matter what though, when TRIGGER just randomly came out with a full feature length movie released in theaters, I was pretty interested. Which is why I didn't watch it for years.

After watching it though? Yea, that was really fun. It's not much in the way of story, very basic Minority Allegory story I think, but it's all to make way for extremely crazy action scenes and homages to all their favorite mecha anime, which like, yea props they did a great job. Character design is extremely fun, environments are super colorful, animation is what you'd expect from TRIGGER (good), and there's a lot of man tits this time around. I recommend it!

03/04 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

I'll be so fucking honest I watched this on my phone on a plane ride and I don't fucking know anything that happened. I think it was good?? I think it made sense??? I really wanted to fall asleep but I really wanted to watch the movie. It felt like it was simultaneously 4 hours long and 30 minutes. I think I should probably watch it again. I don't know why I chose to watch it on a plane. But hey, I did!

watching this shit while half awake on a dark plane felt like i was in another fucking dimension. what the hell happened

03/08 - Fortnite Chapter 5: Season 1

Hey Fortnite, I play that game! Sometimes.

I've been pretty consistently "playing" Fortnite since Chapter 2: Season 5, and I do really like the game. I love the gameplay, I love all the stupid crossovers, I loved the story, it was just a really fun time!

Well, up until like half way through Chapter 3 at least. The problem with Fortnite is that, no matter what, in the end of the day, it's still owned by Epic Games, and that means at some point, shits gonna get sloppy. I won't go over my whole history with how I feel Fortnites been on a decline since Chapter 3, but I can at least say i was pretty fucking checked out most of Chapter 4. I really didn't like it.

So, coming back on for Chapter 5? Oh shit this game is actually fun I forgot. Played a shit ton that season, actually finished the main battle pass for once, had so much fun with all the new things they added, it really feels like Fortnites back.

Oh... and there's that LEGO mode... and that rockband mode... and there's racing I guess... I didn't really touch them much but they're neat... They were pushing those modes pretty hard, I hope this isn't a sign of something to come... I'm sure they'll keep up the momentum for the next season right? Battle Royale is totally back, right?

i ended up staying up till like the last day grinding in creative to get this emote. im so glad i can make perfect cell do the bird is the word dance now.

03/12 - King of Crusher

I beat this game over on my twitch, you can catch me live playing obscure games every so often each month!! Check it out and give me money! I said mostly everything I wanted to say about it on stream, but this game was just a really fascinating little art project that was both really frustrating and really funny to play. I really wanna find more little gems like this to play, it's so ODD but fun.

03/15 - Animal Crossing (Movie)

Watched this movie as apart of a movie night with my groupchat and it was adorables so cutes! I don't think there's really anything I COULD say about this movie, but it does really make me wish Nintendo was more willing to make more stuff like it. Just a really well animated fun anime movie that's not trying to be this big thing.

the ending caught me completely off fucking guard though

03/17 - Unpacking

Similar to Animal Crossing, I don't really have a lot to say about this game besides so cutes! The story told through the environment was super adorable and I really do think back to this game a lot in a very emotional way.

That being said, I wish it was a tad longer for how expensive it was, as great as the art was lol

If you can find it on sale though, go play it!!

i was playing with my girlfriend and we ended up interpreting the main character as really hating her boyfriend. my fucking Pig of a husband wont let me put my posters on the wall. my Pigly husband. i need to Kill my Meat Pig of a Husband.

03/17 - Pizza Tower (The Noise Update)

In complete tonal contrast to Unpacking, I beat the Noise Update in Pizza Tower right after. It was, like Pizza Tower, really good, but not without its flaws.

In the time since I've played Pizza Tower, I've reflected a lot on what I love about the game and what I honestly don't care much for. I've been playing demos since the very first public one, and I've loved watching it evolve, but if there's one bit of context I've gotten that shapes how I look at the game, it's that the games creator has a really big issue with having a lot of ideas for stuff, and not really thinking about how they fit in together.

Pizza Tower is like, a REALLY good game, don't get me wrong. The movement is borderline perfect, the level design is consistently fun and flows well, the graphics are unmatched in how expressive they are, the music is some of my fave from the entire medium, but if there's one thing really holding back Pizza Tower it's that lack of focus, and I think you can boil that down to the core game design of levels.

Pizza Tower is easy to compare to Wario Land, given that's its primary inspiration, but I think it's much more akin to Sonic, which is also a major inspiration for it. The problem is, it definitely tries to apply Wario Lands brand of "wario can be anything" to sonics "levels can be anything". Sonic levels are all about super quick flashy levels you can blast through, each one having a gimmick unique to the level that you learn, master, and then use throughout the multiple zones. On the other end, Wario Land presents you with these large winding interior-like levels that you slowly (or somewhat quickly in the case of entries like WL4), navigate and solve puzzles throughout for treasure, with your main solution typically landing on how Wario himself can be controlled using various gimmicks unique to him. Your presented a gimmick, and then you remember that gimmick for the future so you can use it to solve a future puzzle. In many ways, these two games can almost feel like the opposite kind of game, only linked by being sidescrolling platformers where you can bust through walls. Pizza Tower, despite that, tries to be both, and in many ways succeeds, but cant avoid the problems that inherently comes with trying to be these two very polar ends.

Basically, I just feel theres a lot of really forgettable levels and an overall problem with gimmicks getting absolutely no chance to be explored so you can never really be rewarded in basic play for mastering a gimmick, other then replaying a level multiple times. I think less gimmicks but more places to use the same ones would be really great.

Talking about the Noise update specifically, it was just a fun retake on the main game, and made for a fun replay after not playing Pizza Tower for about a year since release. I find it really fascinating how even after changing how the entire game controls, the levels still work with minimal changes. I'm looking forward to see if they decide to change it any more in the future, and I hope whatever comes after Pizza Tower can be a much more focused experience.

03/17 - Hiveswap Act 1 (Replay)

See; Homestuck Reread. Been here a billion times, here to show my girl this time. I'll probably scream about this one later. <3

03/20 - Rescue Shot

See; King of Crusher. Another stream game! This one I liked even more, though I Really wish I had a lightgun (or could fix the mouse controls on my emulator). Incredibly adorable game with insanely good music, check out the VOD if your interested!

03/25 - Super Mario Bros. (1993)

I feel like in recent time, people have been hyping up this movie as like, secretly a really good film that people only hate because it's not a Mario movie. I'll be real, after watching it for the first time, I don't see it at all, I think this is just an incredibly funny bad movie.

Beyond not being Mario, which really doesn't matter at all, it kind of just felt like a fever dream of a script. Things kept HAPPENING there wasn't a single second to break I felt like I was in a nightmare hell dimension being blasted with insane plot beats and I couldn't keep track of anything. Without the Mario branding this would be like 10x LESS comprehensible, but good lord.

Maybe this is like, an arthouse film, and I need to watch it 12 more times and be high at least half those times, but idk I think it might actually be bad guys. Big Bertha a baddie though.

03/29 - The Croods

Another movie night with friends, we got the PRIVILEGE of watching The Croods. I saw it once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember anything about it other then there was a character named Grug.

I now realize that the reason I remember this character is because this movie literally lied and he's the main character. It really tries to set up that the conventionally attractive main teenage girl is the protagonist but no this movie is 100% about Grug and it's so fucking Particular. Why pretend it's not about him when he becomes our sole point of view for half the film? Why pretend its about the teenage girl when she basically doesn't have any dialogue for the last 25% of the movie? What is this movie trying to say, politically? This movies a thinker. I think its a bigger thinker then 2001, honestly.

04/12 - Police Story

The first Jackie Chan movie I've ever seen and damn what a fucking good one to start with. Insanely entertaining, incredibly funny, and just a really great film! I don't think I have much else to say about it other then gush about each and every scene and how well made it is, but it really makes me wish we could get movies like this more. Just a practical effect wonderland where the main guy is just having fun with people on set. It's great.

hes kind of a babygirl

04/13 - Con Air

Actually the first time I've seen this movie, surprisingly, given my attachment to the media that has essentially co-opted this film. It wasn't good, like at all, but it was very very entertaining with friends. I didn't expect it to get so much into like, weird racism stuff?? Characters just keep appearing and getting named it's so fucking weird. What was the deal with Steve Buscemi's character, I feel like scenes were cut or something. Nick Cage was incredibly funny as the lead. It's the thing you watch with friends on 4/13, what else can I say.

why did he do this

04/19 - The Princess Bride

Honestly, I thought this one was a rewatch when we put it on in the GC, but I think I just remembered watching clips of it or seeing half of it on TV as a kid, so I'll just consider this a first time watch. It's really good! Just a fun simple movie full of extremely witty jokes. It's kind of like watching a Simpsons episode for the first time and getting to a part where they say something and you go "oh i've heard this quoted like a fucking million times, i get it now". If you haven't seen this movie, whattarya doin, go watch it!

i feel like were it not for andre being basically irreplaceable we would have a netflix reboot about these three right now. maybe that does exist already.

04/21 - PokeRogue

Half this thread is Pokemon and as I already said, I'm a roguelike freak. This game is like crack for me. That being said it's just alright. I think I'll be willing to judge it more once it's more finished and not just Pokemon in the most barebones form imaginable, coding wise. It's the basis for an extremely addicting game, and I plan on sinking even more hours into it soon. Extra points for using PMD music as well <3

im only just now finding out the rival is gendered. hey cunts let me play as a girl and get the girl rival or you hate me ok?

04/22 - The Mask (2023)

Now you may be wondering, The Mask? The movie from ten TRILLION years ago staring the homunculi known only as Jim Carrey? You'd be a fool to assume this. I am talking instead about Connor O' Malley's current best work, THAT The Mask.

There's not much I want to say about it, because I just think it's good, but if there's one thing I can say it's that Joker (2019) should be fucking embarrassed in how hard it was stood up by this short film.

Content warning for pretty heavy themes and a lot of crass jokes.

04/23 - Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) & Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) (Rewatch)

In preparation for the Knuckles show (which I still haven't finished), I decided it'd be nice to rewatch these two films for the first time. I haven't seen the first one since I watched it for the first time before Sonic 2, and I haven't seen Sonic 2 since I saw it at an early screening. What do I think of them now in retrospect?

Yeah, not very good films. Very fun! But damn, yea wow, I think with enough time to look back on them, there's a lot I really don't care for in them, and I'm not just talking about the human scenes.

I've been having a lot of conversations about adaptations lately, so I'll mostly summarize my thoughts here. In making an adaptation, your one mission in my eyes is maintaining what made the original loved. Not good, because that's not really a quantifiable thing. Not faithfully, because I feel you can make a good adaptation without being faithful. All you need to truly keep is the Reason people came to that piece of media originally, in my eyes. Whether that means going as hard as you can with something like The Last of Us, which essentially 1 to 1 recreates an entire video game, or be much more out there like with One Piece (Netflix), which essentially tells the same story but with wildly different circumstance and aesthetic.

The Sonic movies, in my eyes, simply don't capture that. In the first movie alone, Sonic and Eggman are essentially our only ties to the games, which is fine as long as they can nail them right, right? And, as many before me have really pointed out, no they don't really at all. Sonic isn't really like Sonic at all, he's a much younger, innocent, and hyperactive "version" of the character, and I say version in quotations because I don't really feel like with those adjectives removed he'd be all that similar to Sonic still. This is basically a new character, and that's fine, but I'd be hard pressed to say it captures what brought people to Sonic. Similarly, Eggman is very much not really similar to any iteration to Eggman at all (except maybe AoSTH?) A lot of people love Jim Carrey Eggman, and I totally get why, but man he really has never clicked with me. I think I like canon Eggman too much to let go, it's over for me.

But I'm sure anyone who's been around Sonic long enough has heard a trillion complaints about the first movie. In rewatching the second movie, I found that it moved way faster then I remembered, and just had way less.. character? Tails is so incredibly shoehorned in, which is a common complaint, but it really felt like at times Sonic was too?

In Sonic games, Sonic isn't exactly a character we put ourselves in the shoes of. Sonic is like this cool older brother we're just along with for the ride. If anything we insert ourselves (as kids) in Tails' shoes. Sonic doesn't really have an internal monologue, nor does he really tend to need a big shonen arc to overcome in his games. He's very much this vessel to explore other characters, to see how people respond to his brash and cocky personality. In that way, Sonic works really well, but can struggle really hard when he's placed all alone. He needs people to not only bounce off of, but to do the emotional side of the story in his stead. With the Sonic movies, we get this very very diffrent form of Sonic being put into this scenarios the canon Sonic wouldn't typiclaly find himself in, and see how he acts. It can work for original stories, because it's basically an original character, but that's the struggle with Sonic 2, and I worry Sonic 3 as well. They aren't fully original stories. Sonic 2 is a loose adaptation of Sonic 3 in most ways, with Knuckles being the true second character, and Tails being mostly to the side. Knuckles acts basically perfectly, like yea that's Knuckles, no notes there outside of maybe not taking his heritage seriously enough, but that's him. So how do you write this movie sonic into this adaptation with a Knuckles whos playing it basically straight like the games? Well... I mean, you kind of just... You, don't, really? Sonic is really just There sometimes, to say quips and to move the story forward. With exception to the scene where he's having a feeling jam with Knux, which I like, Sonic is very much Just There, and it feels really odd. In the games, this works because of his aforementioned status as this guy your along with for the ride, a dude whos too cool to even be the protagonist, but Sonic Movie Sonic IS the protagonist. He's meek and still learning and is far from the asshole we know in the games and comics, but implanted into a games storyline, he just doesn't have much he can do. He can't be that too cool guy that let's his friends do the talking, because he's already been set up as this superhero esque main guy who needs to learn a lesson by the end of the film, or overcome some kind of arc. It's just all odd in retrospect, and I really wonder how they're gonna tackle it in Sonic 3, especially without all the characters that make Sonic Adventure 2s gears go.

i also couldnt stop staring at his teeth in the movie. i really dont like the teeth idk why im just now noticing them.

04/25 - Pseudoregalia

Knocked this game off my backlog and I'm really happy I did! Beat the game with all the time trials done and I really do love it. I want to call it the perfect length, but really I think it was just a bit too short and I hope we can get more content in the future, I'm definitely itching for more levels and maybe even more time trials.

I can't think of much else to say about the game. I don't think I picked up on the story much at all, I'll probably have to ask my girlfriend about it sometime, but it's not exactly a big part of the game. The music was absolutely fantastic, and I adore all of the costumes for the main character. I like her design, for many obvious reasons.

For further criticism besides length though, combat feels pretty useless. There's really no point in the game where I ever feel like I have to or even SHOULD fight, and the final boss ends up losing a lot of impact because of it. Enemies just become a hazard in navigating the world in a way that isn't particularly fun. Similarly, there were a few upgrades that had maybe one use ever and I don't even know why they're there. I think this game could benefit a lot from playing even harder into it's all too obvious inspirations and just getting a bunch of RPG mechanics and more RPG inspired elements in here. Give me Symphony of the Bunny-Cat-Goatgirl, full on.

I also watched madagascar 2 with friends, but i don't even feel like counting it. watch this fucked up compressed video instead.

THAT'S IT FOR Q1 2024!! I'm really trying to look at a lot this year, and I hope to have EVEN MORE TO TALK ABOUT in 4 months! maybe ill do it even earlier because damn this was a fucking lot to write. If you read this far thank you, I'll be sending you a giant mettalic muscular butler sir in the mail as thanks.

[brooklynisher]

Hey ! I think I've seen you mention details about how Boop and GG met (if I'm wrong I'm so sorry I'm . So tired) ,, could you maybe . Elaborate on that I miss them ....

Aaa

Right, so I don't think I've ever explicitly stated it bc the lore is really stupid, but I did vaguely hint at it multiple times

You remember when I asked you to draw GG in the backrooms?

I'm being serious about that

I don't think you knew, but that request was a lot more self-indulgent than you probably thought it was ;D

I'll give you a little rundown on the lore. It's a little tragic, but not so much from her perspective. Maybe if she gains hyperintelligence it'll weigh down on her more, but not atm. I've been pulling together my thoughts on her so don't be surprised if this is a bit info dumpy ok?

Boopsy Doodle was built in 1923 by Peter Walter III. She was a prototype drawing bot. He worked on her for 2 years before leaving her to figure out the outside world on her own under supervision of course. Unfortunately, he looked away for just a second and she was gone. She was drawn by Delilah, the giraffe, not the wraith, but because her sense of depth perception wasn't quite developed yet, she fell to the bottom of the pit that contained Delilah. Peter and the Walter Workers scrambled to the bottom to search for her, hoping that they could at least retrieve her parts and repair her again, but she was nowhere to be seen. That's part of the reason why III doesn't have any kids. He felt really bad about losing Boop just before she could ever meet the other robots.

She fell into the backrooms and met GG. Don't ask me why GG's there she just is. But yeah. GG was just as egotistical, mischievous, obnoxious, and loud back then as she is now, but after a while, she realizes the Boopsy is the only real person she can talk to in there, so she puts a lot of her pride behind for Boop so that way if they are stuck there forever, GG doesn't have to be alone forever. Much less with someone she hates.

And I've never been a fan of the whole modernization of the backrooms where people added different levels and different monsters to make it "scarier". I think it's creepier at its core. But for the sake of lore, I'm going to incorporate the leveling thingy so that way GG and Boop's whole thing isn't just sitting in an empty room for god knows how long doing nothing. I wanna give them something to do.

So yeah, GG and Boopsy's backroom adventures. Eventually, they escape. It was by accident. They were getting quite used to level hopping in the backrooms so it came as a surprise to them when they finally escaped. But they were separated so that sucks. Still haven't decided what's been going on since they were separated from each other.

Also, thought I'd mention, I like to think of her personality as very similar to Frisk from Undertale. Basically non-existent through words, a little more noticeable through actions. I like to think that like Frisk, Boopsy has a very go-with-the-flow-like attitude. It doesn't matter what kind of world she gets stuck in. She'll go along with it and not question it at all no matter how strange it is. Which I suppose is more of a child-like approach to new situations more than anything else.

She'd make a great videogame silent protagonist whose personality is revealed through actions rather than words is what I'm saying.

But anyway

[necrophcge]

NAME:

Lee

PRONOUNS:

he/him

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?

// Meddles here is technically my most active, but I'm doing stuff behind the scenes for my lads Brom ( @of-forossa ), and Samuel Whist ( @fishermcn ) so I'll add them here too lmao.

RP PET PEEVES?

// Ah hell man, probably a lack of progression when it comes to replies? When I'm writing a thread with someone, I do what I can to make sure they have enough from my own to continue the story we're telling together. So getting a reply in return that doesn't move things forward puts me in kind of a bind y'know? Matching or similar length comes with that as well, though I don't expect folks to match me word for word so much as giving as good as they've gotten!

Communication is also key! I know that it can be uncomfortable or a bit daunting to try to chat with folks you haven't gotten to know all that well, but with threads being something we create together we really should be on the same page. Even just a little update or the like is preferable to total radio silence rofl.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?

// Shoot, it's probably been about twelve, maybe thirteen years now? Been on here the whole time and have bounced around to a few different fandoms before more or less settling down into the soulsborne community.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?

// I'm definitely an angst kinda guy, though usually in the sense that things are going down or conflict is brewing rather than interpersonal drama. I live for fight-writing and the tension that comes with lives being on the line. Fluff is usually reserved for one and done replies rather than threads because I feel it's more impactful thst way, while smut is... well. I'm getting better at it, but it's definitely my weakest writing of the bunch. That, and I admittedly can get a bit nervous posting it out here in the wild for everyone to see (////-\\\\)

PLOTS OR MEMES?

// Both! Plots and plotting are my preferred go-to for our muses to get to know each other and establish what their relationship will be like going ahead, while with memes I'll usually go ham on a single reply with the intent of further fleshing out what we've pieced together for our muses.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?

// If you've known me on my other blogs you already know I tend to get long winded XD. Short replies never feel like I've said enough honestly, and by taking the time to get in depth with them I reckon it opens the door wider for potential interactions (memes) or it gives the other person more room to reply with (threads). Least amount I'll do is around two to three paragraphs.

TIME TO WRITE?

// I'd love to tell you folks that I'm a responsible, orderly guy who keeps a good sleep schedule and has a set time for writing. Unfortunately I'm little more than an animal who's as likely to bump out an ask or reply at 4:00 in the morning as I am to post something mid-afternoon. Ideally though... I prefer the evenings for it. More privacy, more time to gather my thoughts and less demands for me personally to have to address.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?

// I'm a firm believer in the notion that muns typically have something either in common with or identify strongly with their muses in some form or another, and I'm no exception. Meddles might be a conqueror, cruel and malicious, but struggling against a seemingly impossible task and not wanting to be alone in this world... yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that. It helps me put myself in their shoes and understand them better if there's something about them I identify with.

tagged by: @ferinehuntress (much obliged panda :D)

tagging: @yellowfingcr, @hexenjagd, @bcwblade, @rotten-pest, @izar-tarazed, and you!

[dreamypurplesky]

So I wrote a letter for my ex best friend who doesn't want to talk to me anymore for reasons best known to him. I never post anything I write because that makes me feel vulnerable and I hate it. But this time I figured that if there's even a slightest chance of this letter reaching him, it's through the internet and not in the depths of my notes app. So I'm baring my soul to strangers by putting this out there, please treat it kindly.

A letter to my dearest friend.

Yes, you heard it right. You're my dearest friend even if we don't talk anymore. Actually, that doesn't change anything at all, nothing can. You'll always be my dearest friend. Suck it up. I'm writing this because I'm starting to forget you and it scares the shit out of me. I was laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, reminiscing our time together - like I've done countless nights so far. More specifically, I was trying to piece together a poem about you in which I needed to list a few things that you like. My mind went blank for a brief moment. That's not good. I used to be able to instantly say that you liked music, making music. You also liked playing basketball and training in jiu-jitsu and programming. You liked looking up at the stars. You liked talking about philosophical stuff and you liked photography. That was what brought us closer in the first place. You liked working out and you liked mangoes. This is just me panicking and noting down everything I remember about you so if it ever starts to fade away, I can come back here to retain my memory. You also liked me. Oh, how could I ever forget that? You were probably the first person who ever actually liked me. I never thought I'd have to try so hard not to forget you. Our memories have claw marks on them from me holding on too tight. But I guess it was stupid of me to expect this to last forever. I mean, the world was in lockdown when we met so we were just two kids who had plenty of time to kill. Looking back, it probably didn't mean anything more than that to you. Or did it? I don't know. The way you moved on so easily tells me my guess is correct. However, it was very real for me. It was more than just a friendship developed out of boredom. You showed me who I really am, taught me how to value myself, and left me with so many beautiful moments to cherish. I've always told everyone I've met after you that there can never be another guy like you. I adore you, I really do. And it has got me fucked up. I'm out here stalking your Linkedin, for fuck's sake, like someone who has lost their goddamn mind. You've got a girlfriend and a big boy job and all, why would you bother to engage with a sad girl you met online who wrote poems about you? I understand your decision. I'll always understand. I promised, remember? Nothing you do will ever be looked down upon by me.

Tumhari narazagi bhi hume qubool hai,

kyuki vo tumhari hai.

Or jo tumhara hai,

vo mujhe sabse pyaara hai.

(Even your abandonment is accepted by me, as it is yours. And what's yours, is the dearest to me)

I wake up in the middle of the night and frantically check my discord to see if, perhaps, a miracle occurred that made you text. I always go back to sleep disheartened. But it's okay, I don't blame any of it on you. In fact, I'm grateful that I even got to know you. And I'm so pissed at myself for letting you go that first time. I am sorry for taking you granted. Your birthday's coming up soon and as much as I want to wish you, I don't want you to think I'm some desperate creep, even though I am. So I'll just write a note on The Unsent Project and console myself. If this message ever reaches you av, know that you can always come back to me. Even if it's 50 years later and the world is ending. I'll always wait to hear from you again.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #49

I told you that I'd have amazing pictures for you today. So I'm going to show them to you! Maybe you'll think they're amazing, too! Or maybe you won't; after all, you've got that fancy wing of yours, so sights like these are probably not all that unusual for you.

...With all three of you having only one wing, how is it that you manage to fly in anything but circles, anyway? All of y'all are defying physics like it's no big deal, and yet you somehow have the audacity to act like y'all are monsters and that your wings are bad things??? Do you have ANY IDEA what I would give to have an extra warm, soft, fluffy, feathery limb to hug people with??? I swear to goodness, even if I never hear the word "monster" out of any of y'all's faces ever again, it'll STILL be too soon.

...Anyway. Did you know that my husband can fly an airplane? Check it out!

Ever since his brother, Daniel, died, my husband has been doing his best to honor Daniel's memory; I'll tell you more about that in some other letter, maybe. Daniel was one of the finest human beings I've ever had the privilege of meeting, and those of my house still feel his absence keenly.

To honor Daniel, once my husband has enough confidence and his own plane to pilot, he and I are going to fly all the way to the West Coast of the United States, all the way from the East Coast, where we live. He'll be the one piloting the plane, of course. I'll be around for emotional support, and to make sure that he does things like eat and sleep and hydrate properly. I'll also take pictures along the way; I don't know when this trip will be, so it's important that I get the practice now!

Of course, given that airplanes are crazy expensive, it'll probably be a very long time before we can make this trip. And that's okay too! It'll just mean I'll have that much more practice by the time we get to that point!

In any case, here are some of the photos I took, and an explanation of why I took them!

This is a salad!! I took this picture because this is what I ate for breakfast this morning! It's VERY IMPORTANT to eat a balanced meal before going up in the airplane, even as a passenger! High altitudes can do weird things to bodies, so you gotta make sure your body has the resources to handle any weirdness! I threw together some mixed greens, carrots, onions, green and yellow bell peppers, and tomatoes together, and topped it with steamed salmon (I'll show you how to make that soon!), crushed Fritos (these make GREAT alternative croutons!), and ranch dressing!

This weird circle in the middle of this random field caught my eye as we were toodling around in the sky:

My cellphone camera doesn't capture it as well as my eyes do, but I liked the way the shadows danced around the hills, so I took another picture:

I don't really know why, but I thought the arrangement of the road and the houses was very cute in the snow. I also liked the little river and all the little frozen ponds:

In this one, I was struck by the gentle curve of the railroad tracks as they cut through the landscape:

The shadows left behind by the trees was very visually interesting!! I loved the contrast on the snow! So I snapped another picture:

An arrangement of houses and winding roads. I thought it was cute:

...And then we landed at some very tiny airport! Here:

After we landed, we put the plane in a spot where it wouldn't be in the way:

There were black chickens wandering around the airport!! They were so feathery and cute!! But I couldn't make my cellphone get a good picture of them. I'm sorry about that. But I did get this picture of a puddle that formed from melting snow dripping from a metal roof!! I couldn't make my cellphone capture the depth of the puddle, but I was able to capture the water clarity. It was a VERY good puddle, and I wish it wasn't a bad time of year to jump in it!!

I also took a couple pictures of water freezing as it dripped along a metal fence; I thought the crisscrossing pattern was very cool!

We took off again shortly after landing.

We wanted to go to a specific other grass-runway airport, but when we got there, it was covered in snow, so we had to just turn around and go back home. The return trip from this airport to the one we started at was a bit longer for this reason, and I got lots more pictures as a result!

I liked the way this river cut through the landscape:

I found a pond that looks like a duck's footprint!!

A winding river, a bunch of shadows cast by the rolling hills, the evergreen trees, and the distant mountains on the horizon:

The transition between warmer areas and colder areas. You can tell where it's a bit colder, because there's still snow in those spots:

Rolling hills, and snow arranged in squares:

I found a weird wrinkly hill! And beyond it is a river!

I thought the structure of the highway was interesting to consider. It also crosses over a river:

A field with darker bands of vegetation that flow in a river-like pattern:

I thought that this was a nice, diverse mix of snowy and non-snowy ground. There's a quarry in there, too, and I thought that was an interesting shape:

Shadows cast by the hills. These became more pronounced as the sun sank lower in the sky:

...I just really liked how this looked for some reason:

Funky river is funky!! And I liked the way the sun sparkled on the trees in the lower left corner:

Shadows cast by rolling hills, sunlight sparkling on the tips of trees, and an X made of snow, where the power line crosses some kind of trail.

This is where the trains go! It's a big train junction! I was able to get a picture of the colorful train cars, too!

...And then we landed!

By the time we got the plane put away, the sun was setting. I managed to snag this picture:

My husband made a bunch of friends at this airport because he is helpful, friendly, and kind. We ended up staying for longer than anticipated because of conversation with other friendly folks. As part of that, I met a wonderful doggo named Huckleberry! We became friends very quickly!

...And that is the end of today's adventure! I am back home, safe and warm, which is very good because it's very cold outside right now, as it should be!

I don't know how you fill your days over at the Edge of Creation. But I hope very much that you get to see a lot of beautiful things, and interact with a lot of wholesome, loving individuals. I hope that you can find spaces in which you can be safe and warm. I hope there's no shortage of things for you to delight your senses with, be it a tasty snack of some kind, or a bit of music, or some soft, warm blanket to fall asleep under, nice things to smell, and nice things to see. I know your life has been difficult and cruel and unfair to you. But I still hope that you can find reasons to be glad that you were born.

...Please stay safe out there, okay? Remember that you're loved and wanted and needed. You are a good thing, so make kind and good choices.

I will keep writing to you every day until you can know in your bones that you are a good thing. So please keep your eyes and ears open for whatever my brain comes up with tomorrow, okay?

Your friend, Lumine

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 6: Plexure 🪢

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Plexure (n.)

the act or process of weaving together, or interweaving; that which is woven together

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I opted to keep things a little more simple for today…Yet I’m still posting late-ish & feel a bit -un-woven myself because I kept noticing dumb mistakes in the final image that I had to fix. 😅

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about my thoughts/process for this piece (dumb mistakes aside) ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Ironically, I feel my brain is coming a bit unwoven at the moment because while I technically finished today's mandala much, much earlier, when I sat down to start the upload process, I kept noticing really dumb mistakes or oversights I had to go back and fix. 🙃

Ignoring that, I am once again really pleased with these results. "Interweaving" didn't give me a ton of super strong imagery to work with, so I opted to stay true to that keep things simple.

I was kinda worried "just woven lines" wouldn't be visually interesting enough and might be a little too similar to how angular yesterday's mandala was, so I did linger and tinker with certain things a little longer than I otherwise would have on that front. In particular, those interlocked squares near the corners were probably the biggest pain to draw out of the whole thing, but I feel like they add a lot and that's why I even bothered with them.

There were also several false starts to include more curves (again, to help separate from yesterday's piece) but you can see they largely failed. I just couldn't come up with an arrangement that felt like it fit with this concept. The only curves that survived are the really thin ones in those squares I mentioned and then the "soft" triangles I used between weaving lines.

Those soft triangles were a very spur-of-the-moment idea trying to provide some visual relief from all the hard edges and angles. But I really like how, especially hatched over like this, they kind of look like worn appears of fabric, or some other kind of "fabric depth." The mandala design might look even better if the center octagon was filled in similarly instead of the definition being there; Food for thought for another time! The color palette is sort of random; In the name of simplicity, I went with the first thing I thought of: Rainbows are color "woven" together, and/or white light is "woven" from all of the colors. However, in my efforts to shift a little away from a "traditional" rainbow palette and not use too much blue and risk getting a glass-like effect (because I'll be working with glass themes at least one other time later this month, possibly two), I circled back around and this palette is a little more similar to yesterday's than I really wanted. But I've fiddled back and forth with it enough times that I'm really just tired of messing with it and want to settle, lest I keep fiddling until 11 o'clock at night. To be clear, I still like the color palette a lot; The part I'm struggling with is the similarities to yesterday's and the specific ideas I had in mind for this piece as a whole. In a vacuum where those two things don't matter, I actually find the color palette really pretty as a step-off from a more traditional rainbow.

Art feelings are complicated sometimes! 🤷‍♀️

The biggest silver lining though is that, aside from the dumb mistakes I mentioned at the beginning, I didn't encounter as much frustration in trying to put this one together as I did yesterday, which was nice. Hopefully that's a pattern that continues, because I think this coming week is going to be an awfully busy one in a few different ways. 🤞

Only one way to find out, though...! Hope you Sparklers don't come unwoven before then. 🤪

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Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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[altdeldraw]

we can talk about the fanfiction when i hear about them damn auths (or any other character tbh) or like any more information you have about atla au that ur thinking in ur head… im so curious…

like any other good "author" (and by author I mean person who really enjoys literature and has tons of story ideas but never actually writes them most of the time) i create AUS constantly, but this is one of the few that actually bounced around in my head for a while so i did come up with a few ideas merging the two universes and its' characters!

currently i'm working on making commie, and when i'm done with both auths i'll likely make individual posts for each extremist talking about their stories more in depth, since i only put a quick summary of them besides their first artworks. While that doesn't happen, here's some of the story plus what the other characters are up to!

first of all, i should say this story is pretty achronic as far as ATLA is concerned, the avatar was missing at some point, and he came back, but the fire nation is still kind of an evil dictatorship, so, this doesn't follow the canon events in the show, especially because i didn't watch TLOK. sorry.

when the avatar went missing, a lot of people believed that it exposed a major flaw in their system, as they are heavily dependant on the presence of the avatar as a peacemaker and diplomat, and unable to keep balance by themselves. identifying that as a problem, a group of people from all corners and backgrounds decided to come together as a group to essentially be their own avatar, and use their skills for the well being of the world. these are our "extremists", or like, proto-extremists, since we haven't gotten there yet.

so, the avatar returns, and most people forget why those extremists exist in the first place, the status quo is restored, but some people in that group still remain, firm on their beliefs that some day, they will be needed again.

one day, the avatar, which i currently settled on being jreg for lore accurate purposes, goes kind of off the rails. oh no! chaos ensues, and now it's up for the extremists, with that i-told-you-so shit eating grin to restore peace, and hopefully in the process remind people why relying solely on one person for everything isn't a very cool idea.

i think this story kind of keeps the spirit of the original, of destroying the status quo and making change through your own hands, but it's modified enough to fit the universe it's in. the coalition functions sort of like a white lotus society of sorts, and to join, you cannot have any other affiliation, especially not with any governing bodies.

speaking of the white lotus, i think it would be cool if they were the centrists? mostly because of the lack of color, but i can see if this uprooted freemason-like society felt threatened by a new and upcoming group who wants to change the system they've carefully build over the course of years and years. they probably would also not like the avatar (since, centrists), but the avatar could easily trick them into thinking that he and the extremists are allied so that both groups that hate them could pick each other off. i also thought of centrists as non benders, and since it's often shown in the show how skilled fighters can go toe-to-toe with benders, i don't think this would be unbalanced or an issue. they are, after all, a secret society with the finest of what the world has to offer.

as for the wackies, i was thinkin that they could be sub-bending/sub-element masters, since i think this nicely channels their more niche ideals and funky personalities into their powers! this concept i'm still sort of expanding (after all, i only just started putting the regular extremists on paper) but i've already had plenty of fun with some ideas:

Nazbol, a young member from the sun warriors, discovered early on his prowess with lightning. His purple clothes come from the blue of the lightning with the red of the flames. it's also a nice nod to the dragons, who are red and blue.

Transhumanism is a metalbender who channels his power mainly into a sort of mecha suit he pilots/lives in. he refuses to leave it, much to other people's shegrin.

Anmon is a bloodbender. his ability is shunned by many, he is hated as much as he is feared. he wants to use his power for the greater good, of course, but his power trips sometimes get in the way, with him believing he knows what's best for everyone.

Posadist is a combustionbender. he does not have any real backstory or motives, he just likes dolphins and explosions. (/j, i'm still working on this one.)

Anprim is a sandbender, he lives in the desert because technology can't catch him there, will hunt anyone that has anything more sophysticated than a torch or a pointy rock. (also /j but he would probably be sort of a weird hermit guy)

i dont know if this counts, but if we would put any nature-inclined ideology (like ecofash) they would definetly be plantbenders.

anyways, it's getting a tad bit late for me (almost 3am) and i'm pretty sure that's all i came up with either way. so i'll be wrapping this up now. i'll make sure to make more posts later on if i get any new ideas though! toodles :3

[bullshit-bulltrue]

Hawk Talk

Okay so sorry if this is a little jumpy I'm having a so far two-day long anxiety attack anyway-

We got assigned seating in history and i got sat next to the biggest cunt wad i have ever met i fucking despise her and she's my desk partner

she was cordial and so was i but she has not fucking changed at all

And the cute boy from years ago is still cute and shy and such a sweetheart but he sits behind me ish and to the very far right

So I can't even look at him anymore without anyone noticing :(

And nyxie darling (@whennyxfallsinlove) was right, i was looking at him like a deer staring at headlights the first day because holy shit i REALLY *REALLY* liked him (still do) because he was one of the only genuine boys I met at the time and I was having a really difficult time and yk hanging out with him helped me out since things were happening in my home life that were difficult to say the least

So then the rest of class went smoothly

For math, there is no cute guys

But thats fine because I really like my teacher and he's taught ways to do math that are so much easier

Not only is he funny, but he also REALLY goes into depth of equations and helps out a lot!!

Sooo yeah

I had a mini heart attack bc after I left class I thought my phone fell outta my pocket but the pockets on my jeans are high (since the jeans are high-waisted duh) so it turns out my butt just didn't recognize the feeling since majority of my jeans don't have wider pocket space

But yeah

Anddd then I went to English class

And if you saw the recent small Hawk Talk posts of me interacting with nyxie, you'd know that there are two boys that are lowkey cute 👀

Idk they're cute by my standards but probably not everyone else's lmao

So I feel like I should call these guys smth??

So umm let's call one of them Baseball guy bc he likes baseball and I also didn't wanna ask his name but when I do, I'll probably make a nickname to refer to when I post about him

And the other we'll call D/Dee ig??

So yeah D was funny as usual

And the baseball guy talked more and lanie, him, and I were going through this box

It was a worry box and my English teacher (we'll call her Mrs. K) basically had a chest and put it at our table to write our worries on an index card and put it in there (anonymously, but some kids put their names so now we have Blackmail™️ . Probs won't need it, but it's good to have information on people)

And like she said that we could NOT under ANY circumstances go through it..

But we did 😘

So yeah that was fun because I didnt get caught

so i'm her favorite student while also being a little shit

🙃

So me and Lanie started following Cute Baseball Boy™️ to his locker because we're nosy bitches

But then I lost lanie so I sat on the floor until i was found like a 7-year-old who lost her mom at the supermarket

Aaand then we had lunch together !!

But then I found out she thought baseball guy is cute too :(

And idk how to feel about that

So I'd anything happens between them I'm gonna be kinda bummed bc I don't want her to get the wrong idea about me thinking he's cute

So im gonna have to find a way to not like him ig??

Or just keep shit to myself (with the intention of telling y'all every little detail)

Gonna je bummed if they start dating or smth but I'll be supportive nonetheless because they're both my friends and if they're happy then that's all that really matters to me

So anyway

Thus guy across from us at lunch was fucking hilarious

His friend kept putting a plate of school food someone forgot to throw away in his face and he let out the most high pitch ear piercing scream I have EVER heard lmaooo

Same bro, same

Felt that

And like I looked at him like wtf was that dude

And his eyes got SO wide

He kept frantically pointing to the girls that were sitting near him and even his friend 💀

So like that was funny

And then we got to gym !!

We didn't get to actually do anything :(

Basically what happened in PE: got gym clothes, got gym lockers (mine and lanie's are next to each other!!), and watched boys get play basketball (D was playing and he wasn't that bad)

Sooo yeah

Ik I said that I went basic white girl mode and watched the boys play

But like half the time I was just taking selfies on snap and scrolling through tumblr memes lmao

But the other half me and lanie were laughing at the boys clothes and haircuts bc they look like they rolled out of bed and asked a 5 year old to make their hair the shape of a fucking broccoli spout or whatever tf you call it

y'all it was that bad

(we also laughed abt that shit at lunch too)

Oh forgot something

While we were all going into the girl's locker room of the gym i thought lanie was right behind me but when i turned around i had to tilt my head up and look around for her head because she's way taller than me and she was at the very back of the crowd

So i went to the side and waited for her to get close to me

And she literally fucking said

L: damn girl i keep losing you, you're really speedy

Me: yeah i'm short but it means i walker faster than you, you're a fucking giant

L: well yeah to YOU. but like i'm tall enough to be your mom

And I lost it. I laughed so hard bc of the way she said it lol

Soo yeah that was the end of my school day

Hope you enjoyed <3

Oh and tagging people that wanted to hear about my day and/or have been reading my Hawk Talk posts (if you dont wanna be tagged lmk and i wont anymore, and lmk if u do wanna be tagged in the full day hawk talk posts!) : @cereal-is-a-soup100percent-true @whennyxfallsinlove @dizzeners @cau-lee-flower215 @sp1rit-realm