#is tense to say the least

[completeoveranalysis]

[8]

Oh! That’s interesting! 

I don’t know what to do with that information but it’s interesting nonetheless!

Does the Star Wand exchange value cover all future visits, or just this one?

Please Yuuko let me read the terms and conditions.

OOOOH

The implication of RESULTS from that choice that are much further reaching than we can comprehend just yet? 

What would that choice even entail?

We just don’t know!

Though I DO love how this is essentially an Exchange Student scenario between Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa. 

And that Syaoran in Cardcaptor Sakura ALREADY WAS an exchange student only in town to accomplish a certain important thing involving a Sakura. 

So mark another tally in the CCS parallel box!

Meanwhile Clamp directly mention Lava Lamp’s parents in the dialogue again here, deliberately asking you to remember who they are and where they are, which is only notable because I still can’t for sure point to either eventuality with 100% certainty and say I’m SURE it’s them. 

Reading Clamp really does things to you. 

[clarisinne]

woah tonight's update is 23 panels

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

disney is a coward so I know they'll never do this, but given what we learned was SUPPOSE to happen between alex and stevie, I would still love a post-eloping for the reboot.

like just imagine alex and stevie as the Cool Gay Aunts(tm) for justin's kids (+ billie). they show up for the holidays and totally shower the kids with magical gifts, including a baby dragon for the boys (which does end up setting fire to their parents bed sheets). milo shows off a magic trick to his friends, using alex (since billie's not allowed to) sneakily casting spells from the bushes so the card really does dissapear from his hand, leaving his friends cheering (stevie smiling but refusing to admit to alex how cute is it). stevie has a motorcycle (which alex thinks is super hot but also refuses to admit) and while the kids aren't old enough for a ride, she does let them sit on it and rev the handles nice and loud while justin panics from the porch. they team up with all three kids to pull pranks on justin and even sometimes get giana in on a few harmless ones. maybe alex even uses her role on the tribunal to get stevie's records cleared, and they both start to advocate for a more fair way of distributing magic between families.

and billie could have an extra adult at her side! I know justin is suppose to fill the pseudo-dad role, but while billie spends her time with the russo's, also gets to spend her summers or whatever with her two cool wizard aunts. they encourage her to keep up with her studies but for the most part they just chill, letting billie indulge in a few sweets (knowing how health-conscious justin has forced his family to be) and sometimes in a pg-13 movie together. when she's there however, the house does turn into a prank war; guests are to be extremely careful when entering and encouraged to bring a separate pair of clothes.

I dunno it would just be super cool; alex and stevie reunited and I think the kids would love her too - plus watching their aunt who's always acted so aloof get all smiley and whatnot and I'm just imagining a scenario with alex and the kids like:

billie: why does stevie call you babygirl

alex: hey who wants to play the quiet game!!

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

.

[ruvviks]

HIIIIIIII BONES what faction(s) does tiberius join? and which companions is he closest with? :]

HIII EZRA THANK YOU SO MUCH :] this got insanely long because i have. so much to say about this game it's unreal i'm very sorry in advance. but hope you enjoy ^_^

so in my canon of fallout 4, there's a couple of things different from the game because i personally don't think of tiberius as a leader in any sort of way, mainly because he's like. 23 years old. that's a literal baby. he was only born yesterday fresh out of the freezer

so!! that means that the minutemen are already very much established in the commonwealth again when he emerges from the vault, and there's a lot of sprawling settlements to be found in places where you'd otherwise have to build them yourself in game; so sanctuary isn't abandoned at all, and tiberius returns to his sister's home with a special surprise waiting for him (every other house in the neighborhood is now home to a bunch of strangers centuries into the future! welcome home boy!)

that said, tiberius DOES end up sort of joining the minutemen?? but not officially. he meets preston in sanctuary who helps him get settled in in this new and strange world and in return to show his gratitude tiberius helps out wherever and whenever he can, but considering the path of revenge he's about to go on he doesn't really consider himself good enough of a person to like. fully be part of it if that makes sense?? especially since the minutemen aim for as much peaceful resolution of things as possible, and he is not like that :(

tiberius massively dislikes diamond city, and feels a lot more at home in goodneighbor. he does some mercenary work there for a while and that's also how he ends up with the railroad, which he Does officially join :] a bunch of my other fallout ocs are also railroad agents; max, who's also general of the minutemen (don't ask how she finds the time to juggle all these different jobs she doesn't know it herself either); magnus, who's a goodneighbor guard; and nikolai, an ex-raider who now does a bunch of stealth operations for the railroad. tiberius takes his job as agent very seriously and through his new connections becomes more involved with the minutemen as well, now that he knows the two work together to give escaped synths a new and safe home and such :]

he does NOT join the brotherhood of steel. he hates them so fucking much it's unreal. to him they're literally just invading the commonwealth with the way they're terrorizing settlements and forcibly establishing their own outposts and whatnot and it causes a lot of chaos everywhere which is NOT ideal at all. max is handling most of the situation but she's clearly under a lot of pressure and it makes tiberius want to blow some shit up. which he eventually does when everything has escalated so far that there's not really another way to deal with it anymore

he only joins the institute to infiltrate them for the railroad, and he is NOT having a good time during it. he dislikes shaun (his nephew, not his son!) so fucking much but there's nothing he can do about it. i'm trying to make the institute a bit more interesting but it's still a work in progress because well the game leaves a lot to be desired on that front to me personally but either way, the whole place makes him super paranoid and he quickly realizes that it's a LOT bigger than what it's making itself out to be. the area he's allowed to be in seems just a little bit too well-organized and streamlined as if it's all pre-programmed and he constantly feels like he's being watched. which he is! because he ends up finding proof of a lot more levels that go much deeper into the ground and while a lot of them seem to be abandoned, he does end up finding evidence that there's more people holed up Somewhere. and they're watching everything that's happening in the area of the institute he's allowed to be in. it's all part of something bigger and he does NOT like that shit

lastly, tiberius ends up with the children of atom :] kind of against his will?? but also he's not really being forced to stay so it's kind of a gray area really. basically what happened is that he went to the glowing sea, ended up passing out because he went by himself like the stubborn mf he is and the children of atom take them to their crater to nurse him back to health but also give him like. some sort of special radiation cocktail of some sort which ends up making him a bit of a freak. much more resilient, much more absent as well, a bit faster than he used to be. he's basically their chosen one because i feel like out of all factions it'd make most sense for the children of atom to be weirdly obsessed with him like he's a perfectly preserved human from before the war. that IS kinda fascinating

either way tiberius doesn't really mind being part of them all that much because it puts him in like a negotiator position if that makes sense?? the other factions all have their other touching points where he isn't all that needed to create connections and stuff but having this extra connection with the children of atom who are mostly feared by the rest of the commonwealth helps a LOT with keeping peace and all that, so it's beneficial for all parties involved because it also means that tiberius can just freely enter any of their outposts and he can rely on them if he needs them for anything :] the children of atom are a lot more willing to assist him with something that may be a bit shady than the minutemen or railroad would basically so it's a good backup to have LMAO

as for companions, tiberius is closest with preston 100% :] when he emerged from the vault, preston was the first person who talked to him and didn't treat him as a possible threat, and he helped him get settled in which tiberius will always be grateful for because he was so so scared. and preston made everything a little bit easier. he's very caring and patient and matches tiberius' funnyman energy surprisingly well when they're joking around, which would all remind tiberius a lot of his sister stella. preston Would in fact be like a brother to him :]

he enjoys hanging out with piper and nick, but only sparingly so since those two just love to investigate stuff and a lot of their time hanging out ends up turning into business of some sort and tiberius does NOT have the detective's spirit! he likes being clueless. he does not always need to know everything. he does like tagging along but sometimes he just wants to SIT and have a beer or something

which, naturally so, makes hancock better company for him. tiberius did a couple of gigs for him personally (and got to know him much more intimately during a wild night with both him and magnus but we don't talk about that) and he likes to stop by goodneighbor regularly for a drink and to talk about shit that's been going on lately. since magnus and hancock are together, magnus is there a lot as well but tiberius sees him a lot more regularly at the railroad too :]

that being said, the railroad is definitely tiberius' main hub for hanging out with people he loves the gang SO much. his best friends there would be nikolai, glory (she's alive yes obviously), deacon, and tinker tom :] and also max but tiberius sees her a LOT more at the castle since that's by the end of the in-game events also a place he can be found at a lot. he doesn't take a lot of minutemen jobs but he does help out on location with whatever they need, plus the castle is a huge and busy marketplace which would be super fun to visit (especially at night) so he just likes hanging out there in general! that's also where he hangs out with cait and roxy (max' wife) whenever he gets the opportunity

tiberius' relationship with x6-88 is. strained. on a surface level he likes the guy, but his loyalty to the institute definitely gets in the way of their friendship a lot at first. i haven't entirely figured out yet how to like, get x6-88 on tiberius' side in a satisfying way that doesn't feel out of character for him?? but that's basically what i'm aiming for, because the two DO spend a lot of time together away from the institute itself which would give tiberius a lot of opportunities to show x6 what the commonwealth is really like. and what the institute's reputation is and all that. and with x6 getting attached to tiberius during all of that he WILL be forced to pick a side at the end of it all. and i personally don't think he would side against tiberius after spending all that time building up an actual friendship for the first time in his life

surprisingly enough, tiberius and maccready did NOT!!! get along well at first AT ALL. when tiberius was taking gigs in goodneighbor he was unbeknownst to him stealing away a lot of mac's clientele so naturally mac has very one-sided beef with him. especially because both of them are like. babies. i can't remember maccready's exact age but that's a baby. and tiberius is one too. and they're both competitive and kinda stupid so when they first "officially" meet there's this insane tension between the two of them and every conversation they have is just a pissing contest. they've been kicked out of goodneighbor together on at least one occasion because of their near screaming competitions

(at some point after the battle of bunker hill and tiberius has temporarily broken ties with the institute because shaun's attitude pissed him the fuck off he goes to goodneighbor with his friends and after a drink or two too many he agrees to a bet maccready makes with him about killing elder maxson. tiberius succeeds by knocking out a brotherhood pilot and pretending to be the pilot instead, sort of successfully flying a vertibird up to the prydwen, somehow knocking out a guy in full power armor to then steal said guy's power armor, killing elder maxson (who by then has committed enough war crimes including but not limited to laughing max in the face when she tried to talk to him about a possible collaboration in hopes to keep the peace in the commonwealth) with a pipe pistol, and then jumping down(!!!!!!!!!) in the power armor to make his escape by walking over the bottom of the ocean on the shoreline in the power armor. he brought the guy's coat and dogtags with him as proof. maccready was turned on and angry about it)

but after traveling together for a while, tiberius and maccready learn they have a lot more in common than they initially thought and they grow closer over time :] i adjusted mac's story as well by making lucy his older sister rather than his wife (HE'S A BABY. HE DOESN'T NEED A WIFE AND A CHILD IN THIS ECONOMY) and duncan his nephew, so it's still a direct parallel to tiberius' story except lucy is still alive but missing, whereas stella is in fact very much dead. at first it makes tiberius feel frustrated and upset in a very selfish way, but it helps him with like, allowing himself to grieve for the first time since he exited the vault which by then is a LONG time ago, and then it also helps him with moving on from it rather than staying stuck in the past. helping mac with curing duncan and finding lucy helps the both of them and after all that they end up getting together :]

SO YEAH. very bumpy road for tiberius all in all and he makes connections in a bunch of different places, but he's always just a gear in the machine rather than the one operating the machine if that makes sense :] he feels a lot more at ease when he can actually make a difference at his own pace rather than having everyone look up to him constantly, the closest he got to that was when he was the one to infiltrate the institute and he has NEVER been that stressed before in his life. he makes it out alive and relatively unharmed but good lord. he's never doing that shit ever again

[bolithesenate]

guard fic update :D

in which more trouble gets caused

[thesleeplessdream]

"How does it feel to be the last Pooka left? Do you miss your people?" Aster (genus) The name Aster comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀστήρ (astḗr), meaning "star", referring to the shape of the flower head.

[tamagotchikgs]

i feel extra awful today n weak and i went downstairs n both my mom and my sister the first thing they said when they saw me was that i look pale o(-< whihc i dont even know how they can tell when i am literally always some form of purple

[illuminatedferret]

Updates on My Fics

So, I was initially planning on saving this for whenever it is that I finish chapter 6 of Dearly Departed, but it's occurred to me that I may as well post this here, now.

Uh, basically: I'm not writing as much as I used to.

Which is a very silly thing to say, it feels like, because before November I was writing nothing. But TGCF has really inspired me to write stuff! And I have been so touched beyond words at the response my fics have gotten. I try not to let people's opinions influence how I feel about my writing(or myself), but it's been very heartwarming.

Anyway, for the past few months I've been practicing writing every day. Up until maybe the middle of January, I was writing probably an average of 1-1.5k words a day. Which is a lot. (Dearly Departed in particular I was working on every day for like a month and a half straight.) And it felt really good, but quite frankly, it's not sustainable. I don't even mean that in a burnout way (although I did hit that with Dearly Departed, which is one of the reasons why it's been a while without an update), I just mean that I can't maintain that level of enthusiasm forever. I really like writing fic, but eventually my brain just wants to do other things. Also, I've been unemployed, which should finally be changing soon. I'm about to have a lot less time in my schedule.

So what am I saying? What's the point? Basically, I want to just put it out there that I'm not writing as much as I was before. That probably means slower updates. I'm not doing a schedule or anything, and I'm not dropping anything, but it's basic cause-and-effect, y'know?

[unbearable-lightness-of-ink]

so anyway I really did start compiling a kinyarwanda/english dictionary/grammar guide out of all the random resources i've been hoarding on my phone (it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be better than searching multiple different files every time I'm looking for some obscure vocab or grammar detail) and one of these resources is some PDF uploaded to the internet archive and it's... not great. from the writing and contents it's clearly

old (my guess is mid-1900s. I don't remember colonial and post-colonial Rwandan history specifically enough to guess well here, but based on some of the typos, it was done on a typewriter and then scanned with OCR)

intended for missionaries (some examples of actual sentences in the "translate this" exercises include "I praise God because He saved me and He gave me peace and joy" and, I shit u not, "The blind man cannot see the Word of God, but he can hear and he can know the love of Jesus." it's. well for one thing this is basically useless vocabulary for me, and also it's cringe af)

written by someone who was not a linguist (at one point instead of just saying "if T is preceded by an unvoiced consonant, it turns into D" they give you a list of every unvoiced consonant and then recommend that you invent a mnemonic phrase to memorise the list?! why?)

written by someone who was shit with pronunciation (legit so many places where they're like "there's no way to describe how this sounds, you just have to ask someone to make the sound for you" my good bitch the phoneme might not be in english but I could describe it just fine. skill issue.)

but the thing that's really killing me about all this is that every time they try to explain tonal vowels or phonemes that aren't in english, they tell you to "ask an African to say it for you."

an. an what now? an African? babe there are approximately 1.5 billion people in Africa. Africa accounts for about 20% of the land on earth, it's the second-biggest continent, and it has an estimated two thousand living languages spoken throughout the continent.

and kinyarwanda? it has maybe 15-25 million native speakers, depending on which source I trust. it's spoken (almost*) exclusively in rwanda, which is the 9th smallest country in Africa--and that roundup includes islands off the coast of the continent. It has the second densest population in Africa but it still only has like 13 million people in it. and it's a very unique language. its closest relatives do not have the same phonemes that kinyarwanda has, and its closest relatives are also spoken by relatively few people. I don't know enough about kirundi to say much but I do know that it doesn't have the same vowel tones in all instances and it doesn't have some of the same consonant clusters. and the more widely spoken related languages that you're more likely to stumble on someone who knows how to speak? they're even worse for a reference; ask someone who speaks kiswahili to pronounce kinyarwanda for you and they will not pronounce the difference between, say, umuceri (rice) and umucyeri (berry), or the tonal difference between words like umusambi (floor mat) and umusambi (crested crane).

so, like. it's just absolutely sending me, this random white lady who was obviously a colonialist missionary, bothering to make a whole language guide to teach me how to proselytise in kinyarwanda, but along the way she's like "just ask an african--any african--how to say this" lady less than 1% of them are going to know this language but go off i guess

*almost because there's the diaspora of rwandan expats and immigrants in other countries plus the banyamulenge which is a whole aspect of it that has so much fraught history on all sides that I won't even try to say something intelligent about it, it's totally not my place/something i'm educated enough about, but to my knowledge most of them speak dialects that are more or less dissimilar to kinyarwanda; kinyamulenge and kinyabwisha are not the same as kinyarwanda. take it from my munyamulenge coworker who could never pronounce the difference between c and cy

[martyrbat]

blocking so many people tonight because how the hell do you post this without an ounce of self shame? 'there are people out there who are just as scared as you are' are you including the people your candidate has funded a genocide against? are you including the people Israel targets and opresses with the US regularly funding its crimes against humanity? the people who cant just go have a snack and talk to their friends because they watch their friends be murdered and theyre facing starvation? are you including the people you called the genocide of as a necessary sacrifice and something thats a 'lesser evil'? do you take into account their fear and trauma for a year of nonstop bombings, drones, missiles, shootings, invasions, etc?

'the world is going to be tense' its already fucking tense, you people just dont give a shit about anyone that isnt white or cant play into your ultimate victim complex to excuse your eager participation in genocide. you cant call for people to just 'survive' when you helped put a heavy asterisk next to who exactly expected to stay living if your war criminal wins.

[GO DONATE TO DOCTOR MOATH]

[goldenkid]

people comparing wild blue yonder to midnight like yeah they're both good scary and unsettling BUT the huge fundamental difference between them is that wild blue yonder is about being trapped in a huge empty space with your friend and this scary thing that wants to kill you and not recognising your friend/your friend not recognising you, whereas midnight is about being trapped in this tiny space with a group of strangers and an unknowable entity and instead of fear of not knowing your friend the fear comes from the doctor not having ANY friends there, from the paranoia and mob mentality. it's a very group-focused story as opposed to wby which is only really commenting on the doctor and donna and their relationship.

there are obvs lots of similarities: twisted reflections, a monster that we never truly see or understand, a 'bottle episode' set in one location, unease and building tension and fear, paranoia, but to me at least wild blue yonder is about friendship and being with your friend but also maybe not with them, and worry that maybe you don't know this person that you love as well as you wanted to think you did...but midnight is very much about not having any friends or allies, and how groups can dissolve into paranoia and blame. wby has no 'one-off' characters whereas in midnight the one-off characters are everything. in wby you're alone in this maze of rooms and corridors...in midnight you're trapped with other people in this tiny little shuttle

tldr midnight is very mob mentality/'little pocket of humanity' focused whereas wby is all about the doctor and donna's relationship, and the different sets - one small and crowded, the other huge and empty - show this off pretty well

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Just saw Godzilla Minus One last night, having an Extremely Normal One about it. Art isn't dead after all

[sentofight]

ooc. u know since i started teaching i think my grammar is getting..........tiny..........tiny...weeensyyyyyy eaaannyyyy better. i know how grammar works but then i write my brain: *slides arabic structure here because it can* and then you have arabizi*

[reikunrei]

the 1am impulse to go back and edit all my old fics to be more to my current standards. it’s making me itch

[elibean]

here’s fic 2. lu guang is whipped: the fic (again). 

           Lu Guang can’t say no to him. And that’s the root of the problem, isn’t it. If he could just tell him “no” (and mean it) and be firm, it would save him so much trouble.

           Of course, the real trouble is when he gives in and lets Cheng Xiaoshi go into a picture he really shouldn’t, or agree to a stupid plan, but those were arguably much bigger problems, with much larger consequences, than this current predicament.

           No, the current problem was that face, that face that he loved but dare not ever say so, was asking to KISS him, of all things. And he could never say no to Cheng Xiaoshi, not really, but this—this couldn’t be right. A fantasy. A dream, maybe? Lu Guang was prepared to take these feelings to the grave. But this…

           “Lu Guang?” Cheng Xiaoshi repeats, looking like a kicked puppy. “You can say no,” he murmurs sheepishly, and oh no, that’s right, Lu Guang hadn’t given him an answer yet. He clears his throat.

           “Um. I—Ah. What?” Smooth. Cheng Xiaoshi snorts, at least.

           “As eloquent as ever. I asked if I could kiss you.”

           “Right, but. Why?” At any other time, Lu Guang would have appreciated the red that creeps up Cheng Xiaoshi’s face, but he’s unfortunately too busy trying to keep his own composure. Cheng Xiaoshi rubs the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact.

           “C’mon, you’re really gonna make me say it?” Lu Guang doesn’t answer. Can’t answer, can’t think straight, this is all too much too much too much—

           “I thought maybe I liked you before, and then I thought about it more and more and decided that was right, that’s what these feelings are, and I know I just get on your nerves and am a thorn in your side, but—but, blame Qiao Ling! It’s her fault, she said she was sick of hearing me talk about this all the time, she told me I should just tell you, I guess I should have just told you how I feel instead of asking for a kiss, that was dumb huh—” Lu Guang shut him up with a kiss. Damn, if he’d known all this time it was this easy to get him to shut up, they should have been kissing a lot sooner.

           When they break away, they’re silent. Cheng Xiaoshi blinks once, twice.

           “Lu Guang?” he asks, whispers really, like he’s afraid any louder and he’ll scare him away. As if. As if this isn’t something Lu Guang’s dreamed of. But…well, in his dreams, it’s a lot less embarrassing, somehow. Here, now, in real life, Cheng Xiaoshi is looking at him hesitantly but earnestly, so genuine like…like he likes him or something. And of course Lu Guang loves him, has loved him for a while, but…But to say that out loud…He turns away, feeling the heat on his face.

           “…Yeah, you can.” A pause.

           “Huh?”            

           “You asked if you could kiss me. You can, and.” He swallows. “And in the future, you can kiss me too,” he manages. Maybe in the future he can say what he wants to say, can speak to the depths of his feelings. To how he wants to hold and protect Cheng Xiaoshi from harm. How despite everything, despite how he’s had to lie to him and hurt him in the past, he really doesn’t want anything bad to happen to the boy, and just wishes for his happiness.

           But for now, that’s all he can manage.

           “Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaims, jumping up and wrapping him in a tight hug. Lu Guang doesn’t resist, and after a beat hugs him back, sighing as if he’s annoyed (it’s pointless, they both know he’s lying). Cheng Xiaoshi is rubbing his head up and down Lu Guang’s cheek, which tickles.

           “Hey, cut that out!” he exclaims, trying to stifle his laughter. Cheng Xiaoshi eventually pulls away, looking at Lu Guang with a grin. Lu Guang can’t believe he’s the reason that he’s smiling that wide. Instead of returning it, he rolls his eyes. “Idiot,” he huffs out.

           “Yeah, but I’m your idiot now,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, his grin never faltering.

           “Always,” Lu Guang replies instantly, without thinking. He should be embarrassed by the admission—he is, but not enough to turn away.

           “One more?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks, putting on his puppy dog eyes. Lu Guang lets out another sigh.

           “You’re insufferable, you know that?”

           “I didn’t hear a no~” he sing-songs. Lu Guang rolls his eyes (again), but it holds no real malice, and they both know that. He offers a small smile.

           “One more.”