#it was stuff I'd obviously thought about but not articulated and !!!

[inthedarkofficial]

Ended up writing an impromptu mini essay on my protag today as part of a book submission and man... someone publish me I want to rant about SK Flame

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok and now some thoughts about my early experience of parenting.

it kinda rocks... i really like it. i will definitely have a second kid if finances and biology work out. my life is so much better with this little guy in it. the sacrifices so far are mostly minor and are much more logistical than personal. i have to work more hours than i'd ideally want to because there's only one paycheck. i have to try to cobble together more sleep than i used to because i am pretty tired at the end of the day. i can't go to the gym or run an errand or go write at a coffeeshop for a few hours without hiring a sitter or asking my friends to help out. but the tradeoff is i get to be this little kid's mom. he thinks i'm pretty funny and he's interested in everything i do and he calls to me to get me to come over to his mat and talk to him and he likes to grab my face and hold it still so he can study it real intently and when he's upset he wants me to snuggle him until he feels better. i would pick that over getting to run into a store without the stroller a million times over.

i remember reading this book years ago where someone (paulo freire? someone influenced by freire's pedagogy?) recommended that all teachers, no matter how long they'd been teaching, carve out time every six months to reflect on their teaching practices and consider whether those practices were aligned with their core/guiding values as educators. i obviously love this idea because i was born to engage in sustained reflective journaling about my values lol. but also: i do think there's value in setting aside time at regular intervals to check in with yourself about the way you are living, or about whatever you are practicing, whether it's teaching or your work with others or, in this case, parenting. so idk i might try using his birthday and half birthday as time to journal both about my kid and about my own practice of parenting.

do i have a practice of parenting?? that sounds too fancy for someone who is only six months in lol. but i do enjoy thinking about what i'm doing and i like trying to connect the day-to-day choices i'm making to larger principles. i have written about this before but idk i think i am somebody who derives a strong sense of security and groundedness from having a loose framework of guiding values i can refer to when making decisions. and i guess in this first round of reflective journaling i will try to articulate what some of those emerging values/principles are. here we go:

I am making a conscious effort to not sweat the small stuff. there are one million things you can be worried or stressed about in parenting. and there are one million ways you can fall into the trap of thinking that if you just control every single variable nothing bad will happen to your kid. i am trying, inasmuch as i can, to avoid at least a few ways of falling into that trap. i have worked really hard to choose flexibility instead of rigidity when it comes to, for instance, letting other people care for my kid. it's okay if people do things differently than i would - as long as he's safe, he can only benefit from being exposed to different caretaking styles and adapting to different people's ways of engaging with him. i also made a decision early on to not engage with any parenting content on social media (this means ignoring the dozens of insta reels my mom sends me every week lol) and that has been really healthy/good for me. there is TOO MUCH information out there. it is way too overwhelming. you could spend your whole life worrying and i want to spend my life doing other things, like funny accents and comedy bits for the baby.

i am working hard to not interpret other people's parenting choices as a judgment of my own. i really believe that there are lots of different ways to raise healthy, well-adjusted kids. we can make different choices (small and big choices!) and still arrive at the same outcomes. i just really don't want to be the kind of person who takes it personally when people do something differently than i would've! i want to be secure enough in my choices to be able to accept and appreciate a whole range of other parenting styles. i also want to be humble enough to realize that i don't have it all figured out and might learn something from reflecting on someone else's parenting choices. anyway this has been a challenging one as i sometimes DO feel quite judged or shamed by other people's choices. but i also think it's ok to feel that reaction as long as i can keep making space for myself to take a deep breath and think through why i feel like that. idk! work in progress but i've only had six months of practice lol.

i am also trying not to interpret other people's anxieties as anything other than them working through their own stuff. to give one example: i love my mom so much but she is just, like, vibrating out of her skin with anxiety at all times about literally everything. and she has really found an outlet for that anxiety in grandparenting. i get dozens of texts a week about what exercises i should be doing with him and what experiences i should be making sure he has and where i should be taking him and what i should be saying to him and what i should be asking the doctor about and so on and so forth. this obviously could be pretty stressful, and i know that my brother and SIL find it so stressful that it is kind of negatively impacting their relationship with her. but idk i feel like with my mom i spent a lot of my life taking her anxieties personally, thinking that she thought i was incompetent/incapable/irresponsible/whatever. and then at some point in the last few years i was just like oh... this isn't about me at all, is it? this has absolutely nothing to do with me. this is just her fear and her terror of doing things wrong and her overwhelming need to avoid shame, and all of that emotional stuff just happens to be playing out in this relationship because we are close enough that she can lets her emotional walls down and let me see the churning river of anxiety that runs through the heart of her life. i wish that she didn't feel like that. but it's also not something i can fix or change. the only thing that is within my control is the choice not to take it personally, which in turn helps me put some guardrails around it so that it doesn't impact our relationship. idk i think this will probably be an ongoing thing i have to sort through for myself. but also she is who she is and i love her and it is important to me that she be a big part of owen's life. so we will figure it out.

I refuse to optimize my parenting because i refuse to see my child as a thing that needs to be optimized. this is in some ways hard for me because in many respects i am all-in on the very american philosophy that everything can be improved endlessly, including yourself and your family, if you just work harder and care more and give endlessly of yourself to the work. but nope! nope. not for parenting. not for my kid. i want him to have experiences and be exposed to new things, but not so he can "get ahead" or excel in things. i want him to be curious, engaged, interested, flexible, alive to the world, open to new things. i do not care if he is bilingual by age four or has a STEM curriculum at his daycare or goes to a top college or whatever. and i want the choices i make about what we do together and how we spend our time to reflect that. idk he's still so little that this is not super relevant yet but i can feel some of it creeping in.

lastly: i am trying to approach all aspects of parenting with the fundamental belief that i am and will be a good parent. i feel like our culture wants women in particular to spend all their time feeling guilty and inadequate as mothers. we also don't get a lot of external feedback on whether or not we're doing a good job as parents, which i think can make us frantic for validation and riddled with self-doubt over whether we are doing Enough. but i want to just like, try to cut some of that out and just answer it for myself. i'm doing a great job. i'm a great mom. i love my kid and my kid loves me. as i learn more about my child and myself as a parent i will undoubtedly adjust my approach to parenting many times, but making adjustments doesn't mean i was doing something "wrong" or "bad" before. it just means i want to try something new or shift gears a little bit. idk maybe this sounds dumb but i actually think it is proving kind of powerful so far as a strategy for managing parenting anxiety. i just assume that my parenting instincts are reasonably good and will guide me to make reasonably good choices, and if something turns out not to work, i assume i am a good enough parent to figure it out and adapt accordingly.

ok!! good journaling session and now it's time for bed!!

[sleepy-vix]

How to annotate your books like i do

i'm writing this because i am bored :)

📰🪶

what you will need:

- a bunch of annotation tabs in a variety of colours (you can buy these on amazon)

- a pencil (preferably tiny so it's not always in your way, but that's up to you.)

- no pens. too permanent and they bleed

- no eraser

- no ruler

- no highlighters, colour pens, or colour pencils

- a pencil hook holder thing that you attach to the plastic flat thing that your annotation tabs are on and put your pencil through. compact. keeps all your stuff together when you're not using the pencil

- a book. obviously

- a drink: optional, and unrelated.

How i make the key:

choose colours that match your book. I usually pick out 5 based on intuition. This is how i make my key:

- the darkest colour is for sad/ horrifying/ basically wtf moments

- i always have one for quotes

- i sometimes have one for fun fact; depends on the book

- i like to have a tab that i label as "hm" which basically means "ooh interesting idea proposed here" (not all books will let me have this tab. like a fantasy book wouldnt have this tab, but a dystopian book would. i love it when books allow me to add this tab ^^)

- sometimes i have one for beautiful descriptions and writing

- i have one for cool protagonist moments

- i have another for 'cool character moments: side characters' (i only give side characters their own tab if i find that i am very attached to them. like i was reading the poppy war, and i was bookmarking kitay moments alot so i decided to give him his own colour)

honestly, i do alot of this based on my intuition, and i like to adapt it as i go along

also here are some more general facts abt my annotation habits:

- i usually leave space in my annotation key because half way through the story i will probably add more to the key

- i don't believe in having a tab for plot points. i'd much rather write my thoughts on foreshadowing and plot theories in the margins of the book with my pencil. i see no need to give it a tab

- my pencil is everything. i try to use pencil to express my thoughts whenever i can. i only tab when i really loved a scene or line and feel that my future self would want to easily flip to it

- i don't force myself to be articulate in my written annotations cus there's no space to be. most of the time i just wrote lol, aw, draw a skull, draw a straight lined face, or draw a crying face so that my future self can see what i was feeling when reading it

- i don't like underlining a whole paragraph, i feel like it looks clunky. so instead i draw a bracket like this [ in the margine so it draws my attention to that entire paragraph and future me will know that i found that entire paragraph to be interesting

- my lines are messy, and i love it. it breaks my reading rhythm to bust out a ruler and meticulously rule my lines, i just wing it and move on

- usually, in my annotation key, to start with, there are no tabs for ships. i usually add that in later on if there is any that i care about. if there is romance that i don't care about then i simply won't add a tab.

my annotation experience is very personal and it's done for my future self, or anyone that would like to see my personal thoughts on the story.

i don't care to annotate in a logical way. i won't make tabs for every main character or every plot device or every romance ship. that makes me feel like i'm shallowly categorizing the scenes in the book... ykwim?

- ooh also, by the end of the book, if i find that i am head over heels in love with it, i'll usually go back and draw on any blank space i can find (i try to draw the scene that is happening)

btw none of these photos are mine

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[batsplat]

In fact Open is a mandatory book for vr46 boys :)

ohhhhhh thank you!! that is SUCH impressive archiving, I'm always in awe of how much material you've amassed. and very based of them, big W for italian motorcycle racing. it's a great book!! I love that they've read it! there's a lot of sports autobiographies that take care never to stray from the generic when telling their stories... but this one has so much character that even knowing other professional athletes have read it makes me want to quiz them about what they thought

seeing as I've been given an opportunity to proselytise about this book, here is how it opens:

it's a book about having a deeply complicated relationship with the thing you've been forced to dedicate your whole life to, about being in constant pain and asking yourself if it's really worth it, about never having been given the time and space to develop properly into your own person... about hating tennis and never quite being able to walk away from it. the misery of winning and the refusal to countenance losing. the burden of having the whole world narrativise your career and your life, denying you the chance to do so for yourself, of being constantly judged and being constantly found inadequate. about rivalries!! having your whole career ending up being inadvertently defined by One Guy who you just don't really understand and who you can never escape

what agassi does is put words to a lot of the underlying narratives and themes of sports that other athletes also come into contact with in one way or another but are far less capable of articulating. you'll be hard-pressed to find another book that captures the humanity of sports so well, its twisted appeal and why it's so compelling

like,, idk there's so much going on in that book that when I find out another athlete has read it, I do want to basically go through it with them chapter by chapter (obviously I have a full set of notes and a highlighting system with one colour dedicated just to the sampras rivalry, so I'm well prepared for this task). it's cool that they've read it! good healthy interest in sports narrativisation on their part. in this post I brought up one of my favourite excerpts from the book when discussing the vale/casey rivalry -

- and idk, this kind of thing is just so fun and interesting you kinda want to go around and get everyone's thoughts on it. also obviously on a personal level,, enjoy the motogp guys, adore agassi and that whole era of tennis, so it's a fun crossover for me specifically. yay

btw, a new interview with agassi was published in the nyt a few days ago that I'd defo recommend to anyone with even just a passing interest in the sport (once you scroll past the bits about the worst event in tennis). starts with the line “as far apart as you are on a tennis court, you can actually feel the other one very intimately". even when he's delving more into the nuts and bolts of the sport, he just kinda gets how to explain it in a way that taps into the fundamental narrative appeal of what you're watching

oh yeah that's the good stuff

[swordfright]

What do you think is your most controversial dsmp take?

I got this ask a while ago and I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with something, but honestly...I don't think I really have many hot takes? At least, not ones that I'd consider controversial. Most of my controversial takes are about fanon/how the fandom interacts with the source material, which I assume isn't what you're looking for (but BOY DO I HAVE A LOT OF THOSE.) I also have likes and dislikes when it comes to duos and shipping stuff, but that's subjective obviously and more opinion than lore interpretation.

I guess if you put a gun to my head, I might say these are my most controversial Actual Lore Takes, but they're not all that interesting imo:

The experiments in the revival lab happened AFTER c!Dream's incarceration, not before it. My understanding is that most people interpret that sequence as occurring prior to the incarceration because...why would c!Dream let himself be locked up, relying on his knowledge of the book to be his life insurance, if he hadn't tested the damn thing out yet?! This logic tracks, but I think you could also flip it to argue the opposite: that he also could have conceivably waited to fully test the book until after escaping. During the run-up to the Disc Finale, c!Dream was incredibly busy with the fallout from Dethronement + Exile + Manburg related stuff etc, as well as busy preparing for the confrontation with c!Clingys, plus arranging the staged finale with Punz. The guy was busy as hell and he was also like...still kinda in the midst of a manic episode. Also, keep in mind that while the book was his life insurance for the finale and its immediate aftermath, he had no idea that c!Sam was going to betray him. Considering all that, I don't think it's inconceivable that c!Dream may not have had time to thoroughly test the limits of the revive book beforehand, and he likely didn't realize quite how vital his knowledge of revival would become during his incarceration period. So yeah. I'm open to either interpretation, but I am partial to the possibility that the Vikk and Lazar necromancy montage happened after the prison era. And the exact date/location of the lab are never specified either, which makes me even more open to the post-prison necromancy option. Not a hill I'd be willing to die on, but a hill I like to sit on and admire the view from.

End of Las Nevadas is the weakest stream of the Las Nevadas series. I found it narratively unsatisfying, and not in a clever way. I don't hate that stream, I think it had some really interesting moments, but overall I'd say its messaging was convoluted and the tension was pretty poorly mismanaged. I'd be willing to go on about this if you want, but I think a lot of other folks have probably already articulated it better than I can. Oh, I'll add that I also have complicated thoughts about c!Slime as a character. Don't hate him, don't love him...but I am puzzled about the role he was presumably meant to play in the story vs. the role he actually ends up playing. I could go on about this in detail but it's late and I'm sleepy.

c!Quackity has very simple goals and motives, but his pursuit of those goals is oftentimes way more convoluted than necessary, which ends up making him read as a more complex and dynamic character than he really is (I like this btw!) Another way to put it would be that Q is not a terribly complex character in terms of motivations and ambitions (dr3 has rly good meta on this btw), but he does tend to needlessly complicate his own life and the lives of the people around him in pursuit of simple goals. I think one of his big failings is that he sees violence as an easy solution to his problems but in reality it just creates more problems for him. It's like he keeps failing some sort of foresight check, over and over again. Take the formation of Las Nevadas, for instance. Most of the country's members were intimidated/threatened into joining, not because they're people Q particularly wants to hang around with, but because they're people Q sees as either strong (i.e. they are capable of contributing to LN) or directionless (i.e. they're in need of an owner a leader.) Quackity doesn't really forge alliances, he just...buys people, basically? And then he's shocked when this backfires. His relationship with Purpled is the most obvious example of this, but also LN as a whole: in LN5 (?), Quackity's angry and offended and hurt that only a tiny handful of people show up to the opening ceremony, even though by all accounts the reason the turn-out isn't bigger is because the server has by this point become a chaotic and violent place where anything can happen to anyone for any reason and most inhabitants feel safer sticking to their own turf...and that atmosphere of chaos and violence is something Q has ostensibly contributed to, even before Pandora. c!Quackity creates a country that no one is truly loyal to, inhabited by people who are closer to employees than allies...and then his solution, when he realizes nobody really gives a shit, isn't to try recruiting people in a more equitable way, it's to bioengineer a slime army. That is insane. That is an insane way to solve your problems. In no way is bioengineering a slime army a normal or well-adjusted solution to any conceivable problem. This is what I mean when I say he's a relatively uncomplicated character who complicates everything - he's constantly jumping through hoops of fire to avoid changing his behavior and taking any kind of accountability whatsoever.

I have tons more takes but they're mostly about silly subjective stuff and/or fanon, so I'll leave that for another day if anyone's interested.

[sophaeros]

thoughts on fab,jules,albert as a dynamic?

they're so so cute theyre just three puppies[GUNSHOT] ok obviously everyone knows these photos from when julian injured his knee theyre The albert/fab/julian pictures and i think it sums them up fairly well. julian needs someone to force him to let them take care of him and fab needs to be useful so he can feel like he's earned love. albert is harder to figure out but i think he wants someone to chase the adrenaline of life with maybe, especially when he was younger. someone who understands him. which i think is difficult because he doesnt necessarily understand Himself he Wants to but he can't confront it head on. which is very similar to julian as well. i think. well i say he wants to but he is not so prone to introspection i think lol. this one 2023 interview where the interviewer is like so is melodies on hiatus about events in ur life and albert is like idk i didnt think about it that hard i just wrote about whatever came to mind and stuff like that naturally falls into place

IDK you would think i'd have a better answer considering i have a 2k and counting wip for the three of them but this ask has been sitting half answered since sept 1 bc i can't articulate it 😭 i am not a very good character writer im more of an atmospheric scene kinda guy. but im working on it arm flexing emoji

ok theres just too much nuance for each person for me to sum up like every sentence here requires a footnote in my head

[ruined-sketchbook]

I'd like to know more about your sides as avatars AU, if you'd like to share :D

Idk what to ask, so just tell me all about it and I'll come up with questions. I'm really curious about it

-g

I've been thinking about it constantly but in terms of stuff I haven't already said I don't think I have toooo much?

Like I said I wanna include Hades and Homer, and I've been imagining both of them as avatars of The End in different ways.

Hades is a taxidermist (it was between that and a mortuary person but my partner voted for taxidermist so that's where I ended up) but the way he does the whole fear generation thing is like. Appearing sort of like as an omen of death. I'm horrible with articulating my ideas lmao I've just been imagining him standing there menacingly and that putting the fear of death into people for the most part.

As for Homer. I've been imagining a reanimated corpse situation with him, sort of like the Jane Doe cadaver from Georgie's statement. As for what he does...I don't have specifics on that one. Obviously there's the option to also have him do the whispering thing but idk.

I also figured out the Critic (who for reference I refer to as Dice- I think the fandom settled on Anton but Dice is too firmly cemented in my brain atp)! He is an avatar of The Vast :] big space fan that guy. He is going to toss you straight into the exosphere /j

Also another thought I've been having is Remus using Logan as Surviving The Horrors For Dummies. Got weird shit going on? Go ask Logan! It's how he found out Roman didn't get bodysnatched. Logan definitely hits him with the "figure it out yourself damn it" a lot though. Logan's just trying to collect information he isn't trying to be Monster Google, Remus.

[mandms-blog-of-silly]

Hi! For the ask game! 💛

🦅🫣🦋🕊

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☆EEEH!! THANK YOU!!! <3 OKAY!

{This might get rambly and it might make no sense. I'm not great ay articulating my tjoughts in these. Gotta get the thoughts out so sorry 😅}

⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟⭐️

🦅: How good are their friends at being wingmen? Do they even help at all or just sit back watching the pining with a bag of popcorn?

Erik's friends include Gerard and Christine {I'd like to believe that he doesn't die and they're able to work things out remain friends :)}

Gerard starts with actively getting in the way, he's worried that he might have another Christine situation on his hands and that it might get both Erik and Thalia hurt so he tries to talk both of them out of it which doesn't work obviously because they're both stubborn as hell.

After that he just watches the pinning and keeps a close eye to make sure nothing goes south.

Christine is a great wingman and frequently interferes to try and get Erik and Thalia together. She cares deeply and thinks Erik deserves to have someone that loves him and makes him happy and will deliver or obtain things to help the cause and is not opposed to putting in a good word for him. Is slightly protective of Thalia because she doesn't want her to get herself in a situation like she was in, so also gently guides her, unsolicited sometimes.

Thalia's only friend is her sister who thinks it's hilarious to watch her pine and is no help at all, sitting with popcorn to watch the show lol

🫣: Who stumbled the most with their feelings around the other? How much did the other person notice?

Thalia definitely stumbled the most around him when it came to her feelings. Safe to say she was enamored by him and pretty akward about it. Erik noticed but also assumed it wasn't about him but about the 'Opera Ghost' and her previous interest in the stories.

🦋: How long did it take them to get out of the awkward early relationship stage? Have they gotten more confident around each other?

Probably a little bit actually, Thalia is super akward in any new relationship and it takes her a long time to realize she doesn't have to be. She gets attached super fast and worries she might shatter the whole relationship if she does something 'wrong.' She believes that if she loosens up he might realize she's too offbeat for him to understand and that he might find her annoying and loose interest. Erik is the same and it takes him a long time to allow himself to be comfortable. He doesn't want to drive her away, and thinks he's not good enough or deserving enough of this newfound relationship. And still harbours that akward anxiousness until Thalia sees his face and they adjust and work through that. {mainly him, Thalia doesn't really care is quick to adjust to what he needs.}

🕊️: Give just a general domestic tidbit for em (things they like about each other, routines, habits, and just overall sweet stuff)

Even years into their relationship, Thalia still leaves little drawings/notes and candy everywhere for Erik to find like when they first met.

Thalia can't sew to save her life but Erik can and will tailor her clothes for her or sew up rips.

They have separate rooms but always sleep together. They start cuddled together and end with Erik sleeping like a corpse, all straight and still and Thalia sprawled out like a starfish and turning around.

Of course the obligatory creating for eachother.

Erik composes songs for Thalia, and does alot of hands on crafts, he likes to write and has learned to bound books and also likes carving and sculpting. He's bounds sketchbooks for her and also a scrapbook {A 'crow book' to keep all her shiny trash bc she's me lol.} And occasionally carves/sculpts her bracelet charms since she wears alot of them.

Thalia paints and draws things for him or dedicated to him. She makes all her own jewelry so makes him bracelets as well, with lots of beads and dangles for him to fidget with. Also paints him masks. Occasionally decides she wants to try something new {namely knitting/crochet} and always makes him things from those side endeavors too even if they aren't good.

Both can have trouble sleepy so to help Thalia will read to Erik until he falls asleep and Erik will sing to Thalia until she falls asleep.

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[acaciapines]

so....abt that adventure time daemon au....sits down with folded hands. im SO SO curious as to what your thoughts are and lowkey wondering if theyre anything like what ive been cooking up in my twisted mind...slash joke...YOU GO FIRST I WANNA KNOW!!

jkdfgdjfkg yeah im gonna focus on the fionna + cake aspects since thats what i posted but if you wanna know about someone else send a followup!! i have the strongest ideas for marceline and more scattered thoughts on everyone else but!! i turn this around in my head a lot lol.

under the cut bc i am incapable of being short

so. the reason fionna world is Like It Is despite nominally being a human au is bc i decided that in ooo, humans are the only people with daemons! everyone else has Something Else, but that something else isnt actually a daemon (this bit is still fuzzy lol since it would just be more bg in anything i write).

so that means the only characters in adventure time who have/had a daemon are finn (tossing around the name honey for her?? shes unsettled but mostly dogs bc they grew up with dogs lol), marceline (she lost her daemon upon becoming a vampire, gets her back at the end of stakes. do not ask me what she is settled as idk as of now lol), and simon (lost her upon becoming ice king, he does Not get her back. i think its fun if she is a penguin bc that makes ice king surrounding himself w penguins super tragic. he knows something is gone but cannot articulate what.)

also i guess people like susan strong and the humans on the human island but shhhh i dont have super strong ideas for them lol.

ALL THAT TO SAY. since fionnaworld was created by prismo (gonna be real idk what his deal is but he is obviously His Own Thing and as a deity type deal he probably is granted w 'can see dust' powers and thus has no idea what daemons are all about) and lives in ice kings/later simons head (one who doesnt know about daemons and one who is mourning the permanent loss of his own) when fionna and cake were "created" finn jake and finn's daemon were mashed into two characters, who are! human and daemon.

everyone else either never had a daemon in normal ooo (ex. pb) or didnt have them at the time fionnaworld was created and thus they werent carried over (ex. marceline.) of everyone tho probably marshall WOULD know the most, this is why he has a line in my fic where he's like, do you know what i'd do for a weird cat? as a sort of hint that he SHOULD have a daemon, but. alas.

uhhh. where am i going with this.

OH RIGHT so yeah basically when fionnaworld became de-magicked it took with it a lot of people's points of connection--everyone ends up way more isolated than they were. since simon is mourning his own daemon that translates to daemons just Not Existing, and so fionna and cake are very much isolated from each other. they dont have the words for their relationship. all fionna knows is she needs cake with her, and vice versa.

cake IS still a daemon, but without that framework shes stuck in the 'normal cat' role even though she does a lot of noncatlike things, n her and fionna are very very good still at sorta knowing what the other is thinking and reacting accordingly. the people closest to fionna (so, really just marshall and gary lol) have SOME idea of what is up but if asked its more leftover instinct than like, the ability to actually explain any of this. fionna and cake try to interact w the world as a human-daemon pair but that doesnt work when the world has no fucking idea what that is.

uh. that. probably answers some question!! i think the plot of fionna and cake itself is MOSTLY the same...really fionna and cake just find out there is a word for who they are to each other n get that relationship reestablished which isnt a far cry from canon. i really like the stuff they do with betty/simon so i wouldnt want to change that, though i imagine there is a bit of simon mourning his lost daemon too--idk i feel like you could tie those feelings in if you were to write a full adaptation but i!! dont think enough changes to do that so i wont be lol.

i mostly just wanted to do episode one bc again. daemon in a world that doesnt know wtf a daemon is. truly the funniest and most tragic thing in the world.

[yurisorcerer]

That was really good!

Gosh, I have many thoughts, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate them given that I'm kind of tired at the moment.

So, my main love here is for the characters. I think people tend to sell Dungeon Meshi on its worldbuilding and I do get that (it's very complex and is quite well thought-out), but the characters are what really grabbed me. I don't think there was a single member of the main cast I didn't love. Laios is such a delightfully weird monster manual fanboy and I 100% agree with the people who say he feels neurodivergent and that this feels intentional. Senshi is awesome and it's very funny how the manga is extremely horny for him. Chilchuk brings a profound Divorced Dad energy to the cast that I think is great for bouncing off of the other characters. Izutsumi is interesting by how she contrasts with the earlier party members, I want to think about her role in the story more. I think she was kind of meant to give us an "outcast's perspective" of sorts? I think she's good at being that, but I feel like having blown through most of the manga in a few days may have hampered my appreciation of some of the more subtle aspects of her character.

Marcille, though, is my favorite; as someone who is also a really fussy eater and just kind of tightly-wound in general I found her really relatable. She's also super, super, super pretty and cute but we don't need to get into that right now. I cannot be the first person to point out how, when she becomes the dungeon lord, her behavior starts feeling extremely manic, right? I suffer from delusional episodes that include very difficult to ignore intrusive thoughts, and I thought the whole bit she went into about how being the dungeon lord feels felt very familiar in that respect, and it really hit home for me.

(On the flip side, having your desires eaten by the demon seems similar to depression. I've been there, too.)

Other stuff! I like the whole overarching theme of eating both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for going through one's life. In the very last chapter Marcille says something to the effect of, perhaps this journey was to teach us to accept death, and I don't think that's necessarily the entirety of what the series is going for, but that's part of it definitely. There's a whole circle of life thing going on here. The manga is very....sensory? Lots of focus on taste of course but also scent and feeling. Lots of really strong imagery along those lines throughout the entirety of it.

I set the worldbuilding aside earlier but it is super neat actually, also. I still don't love the general conceits of a western-style fantasy setup, but I think this is honestly about as well as it's possible to do this material. Everyone has a motivation for their actions that feels inspired by experience and history rather than just Dwarves Do X and Elves Do Y and so on. There's a LITTLE of that, but not nearly as much as is typical for this kind of thing. In particular, I liked the orcs. Their usage as a symbol is perhaps somewhat fraught (I'm not the person to make that call either way), but it felt like it was coming from a good place and they're just treated so much better here than comparable people in other media, idk. It felt nice to me.

The art! The art is fucking gorgeous, like, if I wanted to get someone to read this manga this is one of the things I'd mention. The entire dungeon feels so wonderfully lived-in and ancient. You can practically feel the stonework in some panels. (Sidebar here! The anime is really good at capturing this, do watch the anime it's fantastic.)

Some other random stray thoughts:

-The circumstances she gets it in obviously suck, but Marcille's dungeon lord outfit honestly serves hard and everyone should get off her case about it.

-I ended up liking the captain of the Canaries a lot more than I thought I would. He's just an interesting character all around.

-I also really love Sissel / Thistle / apparently how you romanize this is a source of some contention. I feel sooooo bad for the guy. He just wanted to keep everyone safe! It's not his fault that his idea of keeping everyone safe ended up being influenced by a lion-headed demon from outside of reality and corrupted into a suffocating hellscape for those same people! OK maybe it's a little his fault

-I like the diversity in appearances across the characters. This is a thing I wish more manga did this well.

-Laios' kingly titles in the final chapter, RANKED from MOST to LEAST badass: 1. Laios of the Three Heads (based as fuck, makes people ask questions when they hear about you in a history book several centuries down the line), 2. The Demon-Eater (badass and very specific) 3. The Vegetable-Armored (basically gets the same reaction as #1, but with a more comedic lean) 4. Demon King Laios (this honestly seems pretty disingenuous but it is dope) 5. The Dragon-Slayer (very generic, also not even the most impressive part of what he did) 6. The Lord of the Dungeon (Crusader Kings 2 auto-generated-ass name) 7. Pervy Tallman (this sounds like a bad comedian)

-I want to kiss Marcille on the lips

-who said that

-haha I wouldn't mind the Canaries coming to arrest me am I right fellow lesbians

-who said that (part 2)

anyway yeah really good manga highly recommended. I'm not sure if it's a (get out the scare quotes folks) "Personal Favorite" per se, but it might become one over time. Usually such things take a bit to settle with me. The fact that I have any interest in reading it again is a good sign, though. 90% of the time when I'm done with media I'm fine with never revisiting it again. Dungeon Meshi I would very much like to revisit, both in the form of the anime that's airing right now and also I think I'd like to re-read the manga in a few years when I'm at a different place in my life to see what I think of it a little farther down the line. I liked it a lot, and I think it will stick with me.

[all-things-ghostly]

Hi hi!

So I don't know if you take requests or not but if you do I have one for you!!

How about Hatbox ghost (movie or not doesn't matter) with a medium s/o. They are like Madam Leota but more in touch with the spirit world since they've studied more and are a wee but adventurous.

They can also get into the minds of other people but getting in a tub filled with ice and water blindfolded kinda like El from Stranger things.

I hope this isn't overwhelming and if I can't request anything that's fine! Just thought I'd try! :)

❤️ anon

Oh wow hi anon! You're actually my first ask! I know I haven’t really mentioned requests before since honestly I usually just take those on a case by case basis based on whether or not I can come up with something for it, but you were super sweet and polite and I have quite a few ideas for this so I’ll give yours a shot 👍 I just hope you don’t mind if I do it more headcanon style because I can’t really think of a way to make my ideas flow properly into a oneshot lmao. I’m honored that you thought of me, thank you!

Your powers were actually what initially led you to Alistair. Your sense of adventure always had you traveling from haunted site to haunted site, seeing what you could pick up on and who you could potentially meet, so when you noticed the mansion was vacant once again you immediately took the opportunity to go inside and check it out.

He was the first ghost you encountered in there, since he obviously got all excited and bloodthirsty when he realized another mortal got caught up in his trap. As you can imagine at first he wasn’t all that friendly. In his eyes you were just another soul to claim, although he did quickly catch on that there was more to you than what meets the eye.

That just convinced him to up the ante on his mind games even further, he did some of the scariest things he could think of, sent out all the most erratic ghosts after you, all that jazz, but it just completely failed lmao. Instead you just ate that shit up. You were searching for wild ghost encounters? Well now you certainly have them.

Alistair was so annoyed with it at first but you eventually grew on him. He saw a bit of himself in you. You had that same curiosity for the morbid and mystical that he once did when he was younger.

Which is why he maybe even starts to teach you some of what he knows. I’m sure he has some like ancient books hiding around somewhere (even if his reading skills are… questionable…) that were lost to time and never published in modern day that taught you all sorts of new things. Although he was more so into the dark arts aspect of things which can obviously have repercussions, so maybe it’s best if you skip over the blood sacrifices for now… or don’t, who knows. That’s for you to decide ;)

However, as much as he’s intrigued by your talent, he also looks out for you. Theres no hiding that you can be just a little reckless and over ambitious sometimes and may not always properly protect yourself. That can lead to very bad things, as he would know, he was summoned into the mansion for that very reason. So if by any chance the time ever comes, he will make sure no dark entity ever crosses you. This guy can seriously mess somebody up-

As for the emotional mind reading aspect of things, Alistair’s bad at showing and communicating his feelings most of the time. His dad kind of enforced that into him. Sometimes you’ll have to use your abilities to be able to fully understand how he’s feeling when he can’t articulate it himself. You don’t always have to go full sensory deprivation, sometimes it can be as simple as closing your eyes and clearing your thoughts, but he can also bury some stuff REALLY deep down that would require you to really ground yourself to get into his mind. He does appreciate it though, it allows you both to empathize with one another even when he can’t easily be open.

I had another thought that kind of goes along with this. Now if reader’s a REALLY good medium, like able to connect all the way to the region beyond type of really good medium, there could be a time where you might reach out to his mom for him. Only if he’s ready for it of course. Theres a lot that’s changed since they’ve last seen each other. And, I like to headcanon that when he was mortal and participating in occult, he would sometimes secretly go off alone and try to contact her, but it would never work. You may very well finally be his chance to do that again. He sobs like a baby during the conversation but it’s very healing and it ties up a lot of loose ends on his side. Sometimes if he’s having a really hard time, you’ll offer to try and reach her for him so they can talk, since his mom is the only person he really has ever felt completely 100% safe around.

I hope that kinda fit what you were thinking of anon! Thanks for popping in ❤️

[kafus]

i've been chewing over how i want to write my update about the team galactic endgame stuff in sinnoh, but i just don't think i'm going to be able to articulate my thoughts honestly.

i started this playthrough in september because i wanted to fully engage with platinum again; i had replayed platinum for the first time since childhood a few years ago but that playthrough is strange because i was still overcoming a lot of dissociative barriers to the game and i didn't really feel able to fully connect with the game until the very end, when i finally felt like i overcame that struggle. for context, i absolutely used sinnoh to cope with a lot of Severe and Chronic childhood abuse, and for years i couldn't even touch DPPT because it would make me dissociate so badly, i just couldn't

anyway point is i spent most of that playthrough working through those barriers my brain had set up so i could enjoy it again, and therefore... didn't really enjoy it?? at least not to the fullest extent. so now that those barriers ARE broken, i wanted to enjoy it fully from the beginning. i hope this makes sense

all that being said uhh the lategame plot with team galactic still makes me way more emotional than it probably should or is meant to because of aforementioned childhood trauma stuff, and i cannot put that into words without just talking about The Horrors on main and i'd rather not. so i won't! but. i still have some things to share

all these years later this cutscene is still extremely fucking cool, idc what anyone else says this shit slaps. when i was a kid and i got to this part for the first time, i was actually playing in the dark at night under a blanket, probably past my bedtime, and this shit Genuinely Spooked me. they really said Giratina Jumpscare huh. i can't think of anything else in pokemon that's this bold with being intentionally scary lol (i mean obviously as an adult now it doesn't scare me anymore but as a kid it sure did)

chilling with the lake trio. the distortion world is still incredibly impressive all these years later if you keep in mind the way games were at the time. blew my mind as a kid and still cool to go through now

also MORE DEX COMPLETION!! idk why i've been so dedicated to taking pics of every time i register smth new in the dex LMAO... but yeah these are from the mt coronet climb and after the distortion world, sendoff spring and the route leading to sunyshore. (the mt coronet climb is so fun btw, i miss dungeon-y areas in pokemon so bad)

i am going to make a separate post about the cyrus fight & catching giratina cause i actually have more to say about that and i'd rather not have that prepended by me talking about my trauma LOL

[ectonurites]

Hey I noticed you saying you weren’t a Geoff Johns fan, and I was wondering why? I love his Flash, GL, and Justice League work, amongst others although I haven’t read his Teen Titans, and I’d defer to you as the expert on the core four anyway. So I was wondering, is that run just bad or is it something about his writing as a whole? Obviously not an issue you dislike Johns, just curious why.

AH YES okay so. Yeah, my problem is more specifically about his Teen Titans run rather than necessarily Johns as a writer in general. (Which I can understand not being 100% clear from the context of what I recently said. My point was primarily 'it's frustrating talking about this run with a Johns fan who blindly defends that run's characterization of the core four despite how drastically Johns had altered things')

Frankly, I don't even think I've read all that much of his work to even try to make super general comments/form general opinions on him as a writer. His Teen Titans run often incites a fiery rage within me if I try to think about it too hard/don't just joke about the funny (not intentionally funny, just turns out that way funny) parts, I was Not a fan of Three Jokers after the first issue, I did enjoy Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., I do really enjoy Superboy: Boy of Steel, and Infinite Crisis was like, interesting. Those are the main things that come to mind that I've read from him, so like, there's definitely varying opinions there—it's not all negative. Just the negative feelings are Strong when they occur.

Anyways, to TLDR why Geoff Johns Teen Titans bugs the shit out of me: it just shows a blatant disrespect for the history and prior characterization of the Core Four! It's not even that I think the book is entirely bad, there are plenty of elements of plots I like (though it's a lot of... 'cool idea, i do not like this execution') and it in general does have some good moments... BUT I think that time where within a three day period I did a full read through of Young Justice (1998) -> Graduation Day -> Teen Titans (2003) thus within a pretty short period of time consumed about 13 years of content that pretty consistently featured at least some combination of Tim, Kon, Cassie and Bart... well it was just eye opening and showed how little care was put into many choices made with how those guys would get portrayed when they transitioned between teams.

Now, at this present point in time, it actually has been a while since I've given Teen Titans Vol. 3 (or even just Johns' run of it, so #1-50 barring a few issues with guest writers) a full reread, so I'm maybe not in the best position to articulate all my thoughts on this subject. Though I did find this post from pretty freshly after I'd done that big mega reread talking about my frustrations in how Cassie was handled.

Just seriously, look how he massacred/yassified my girl….

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #25)

Now, one thing about me though, is that when I approach these books, even when I have problems with them I don't like to ignore them (the ‘reject the canon you don’t like’ approach to fandom simply does not work for me personally outside of situations where canon literally has conflicting info you need to ignore some of to try to reconcile things OR things get rewritten over like by reboots/retcons).

I like to try to find ways to rationalize/make sense of the things that occur, I try to put pieces together and still find something enjoyable out of it even if it’s far from what the author(s) intended. That’s how I manage to feel as negative as I do about TT Vol. 3 while then also enjoying Boy of Steel—because many of my problems with TT Vol. 3’s approach to Kon come from how changes with him were made and handled… but when I approach Boy of Steel accepting that those changes happened and taking that story in not just still being mad about the previous stuff, I do really like it. I contain multitudes.

Anyways I rambled far more than you probably needed me to, but uhhhh. yeah!

[vraska-theunseen]

the other day i was watching the crying game with my dad and he was talking about dil and i was kind of being overbearing in how i tried to correct his language in a way i later apologized for because i was embarrassed at how it sounded like i was authoritarian about meaningless specifics and being a rabid unwarranted sjw or whatever. and when i did he said it's just that we disagree on some topics and when i asked for clarification he said something like "i don't believe a man can become a woman, like genetically, with chromosomes and all that." and at the time i was like 🫤 fuckin transphobia and i tried to think of a response and in an attempt to meet him where he was i could only kind of weakly be like "well gender is social so social roles and recognition matter more than a string of dna if a trans person is recognized as a woman in society it doesn't matter what their dna says" and then we had a little bit more conversation before unpausing the movie and that was the end of that. i've been thinking about it a lot and i think based on how he phrased it i think it might just be a situation of him not being familiar with how i and others think of trans related things like the distinction between biological sex and gender identity and gender presentation etc, i know rationally there's a difference between being a willful bigot and being misinformed or ignorant and he is always polite socially and genders people correctly in conversation and stuff when he remembers even if he will confide in me things like this. it's hard for me who is so steeped in hanging out with young queer people to work backwards to thinking of how i'd explain it if i wasn't familiar at all bc i think of everything so abstractly. it could just be wishful thinking on my part that i could convince him of anything obviously he's an adult who is capable of being deluded and bigoted but i'd like to believe he'd be open to listening and capable of growth so i really wish i was more articulate and more able to think through and internalize and then re explain concepts bc i think if i just had conversations w him where he could be like well i think this or i don't understand this i could try to elaborate on my perspective in a way that might teach him some things. but im not articulate most complex topics i don't understand in a way where i can explain them even to someone who's already closer to my side (drives me crazy makes me feel so stupid and incapable of having thoughts of my own but not the point of this post) i've spent 30 minutes writing and editing this post alone so i feel like there's no way for me to find out if changing his mind is possible

[gotjacobian]

Thinking about how I distinctly remember the moment I felt like I 'got' what abstract art was. Like, up until around age 13, I really didn't understand what the point of it was, and got frustrated when asked to analyze or interpret anything that wasn't clearly representative. Then one day, the english teacher put a painting up on the screen and asked us to write about it and I just... finally understood what I was supposed to do? It wasn't a painting I feel or felt particularly strongly about, but suddenly I was like "oh I see, non-representative styles, depictions, and expressions can be evocative, impactful, deliberate, etc." When I definitely was not on that level before.

I had a very similar experience with music, actually, but younger, maybe 10 or 11 - kid me cared a lot about the lyrics of music and preferred stuff that was grounded and fairly literal. But then my parents were listening to The Wall - which I had absolutely heard before! - in the car at one point, and got to Comfortably Numb, and all of a sudden I had to go lie down for a while about it to process the affective experience I'd just had. And then every song after was like that - I recognized that music could make me feel things, that that was the point.* Obviously there was and always is more to say about art, but both times for me that first step was like flipping a switch, to the point I legitimately think it must've been some kind of developmental stage. *tbf my parents do also have a lot of stories of kid me like, crying at the cinematic parts of orchestral pieces and things, so obviously I was capable of being Affected, but I think I couldn't articulate the intentionality behind it before that. Like, best I can explain it, I thought that music made you sad because it was or would be the soundtrack to something sad happening? Or that it was a fundamental trait of the music itself, that certain sounds were magic spells that Caused Crying. Not that someone could, and would choose, to make a song that felt and sounded like depression so that I would then hear it and respond to that. The shift was half theory of mind, half realizing that symbols can mean things that aren't purely, completely grounded.

[underestimated-heroine]

re-evaluated myself and agree with you in retrospect, i am sorry i was an asshole about it. thanks for catching me and standing your ground even though it was unpleasant and I was not receptive.

Hello again. Sorry for the delay in response...I was honestly deliberating how to answer/post your ask. Ultimately decided to handle it how I did your previous one--posting it but making it unrebloggable--because I felt that was most fair (hopefully? please lmk if not). Plus I took some time to articulate my response:

I truly appreciate you re-evaluating yourself and saying this, and accept your apology (insofar as I'm the one to do so). Like I said, I have not been perfect, either. Not too long after October 7th, a mutual of mine was kind enough to DM me & gently call me out on a very harmfully inaccurate post I had not only reblogged, but linked in my pinned post. Subsequently, I went through all the I/P stuff I'd reblogged/posted and realized I needed to do way better. Since then, that's what I've been fumbling to try and to do, though I am well aware I still have a long way to go.

Plenty don't want to hear it (and that's beyond fair imo, because whether or not this is our fault, it's our responsibility) but I think it's inaccurate to deny that avoiding antisemitism in fighting for Palestine has been genuinely difficult for a lot of gentiles throughout this conflict. When white supremacy isn't straight up hijacking the conversation (ex. *cough* J@ckson H*nkle* *cough*) and tricking leftists into amplifying it, it's permeating the groundwater, fundamentally warping the conversation.

The problem is that for the victims of systemic abuse and oppression, the only indicator for trust and safety they have is peoples' actions - and I think you and I can agree that includes reblogging and posting even if some act like that's silly. It's not fair or right to ask people to assume the best intentions from us when we've made mistakes, especially when antisemitism's been a growing problem in our country for the past several years.

idk. I am not trying to lecture or something, just to present my thoughts a bit more clearly, maybe? I struggle with social cues and articulation at times, so I worried about how I came off especially in my first response to you. I am also truly sorry if I was condescending or it seemed like I was attacking you. Emotions have run high through all this, and it's been hard to keep a level head through all the horror, fear, and anger.

I just truly think one of the most impactful, meaningful things we can do in our day-to-day lives to help (yes, even & maybe especially Palestinians) is to make our Jewish neighbors--and Jewish people in general--more safe, which obviously and honestly needed to happen long before October 7th.

Anyways, thanks again for saying this. It gives me comfort and motivation to see another person whose perspective I relate to, admire, and understand making the effort to take accountability and accept nuance like I am. May we both find a way to navigate through this which our future selves can be proud of, and more importantly which does the most good possible for those who are suffering.