#it’s all about the cycles babey!!!

[bravevolunteer]

anyway before i go to work… i am thinking about michael time travel aus again

[cas---2y5]

The Anxiety™ is ROUGH tonight y’all

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I do agree with your assessment that Eridan is one of the more repressed trolls of the Alternian friend group but I do not believe so full-heartedly that he never found time to enjoy himself for a scant few seconds at minimum. So I ask you what does a week look like for Eridan Ampora on Alternia, and how much of it is composed of desperate posturing towards others?

It's less that he's never enjoyed himself and more that his perceived experience is that of never enjoying himself. He self-describes murder as "all i evver done practically," and while that's obviously not LITERALLY true, it's how he FEELS the truth to be - that his entire life has been dominated by this endless cycle of murder, preparing for murder, cleaning up after murder, thinking about murder, obsessing about murder, and feeling like he should be doing something about murder.

It's anxiety - Eridan is one of those people who has no idea what to do with himself if he doesn't have some sort of Task hanging over his head (we see it with his utter inability to make smalltalk with Feferi, and his general reluctance to shoot the shit without some sort of goal in mind for the conversation). Under these circumstances, any fun or enjoyment he DOES have feels stolen - like he shouldn't be having it. If you can lean, you can clean. If you have time to be watching a movie or shopping for clothes or playing pretend with your shitty wands, you have time to be MAKING SURE YOUR WHOLE SPECIES DOESN'T DIE IN AGONY.

It's not that he literally never has fun, it's that any fun he does have feels undeserved, unearned, and shameful. Distractions from his responsibilities. Failures to live up to expectations. That's why the few leisure activities we actually get to hear about or see him do are usually couched in being part of his duties - FLARPing with Vriska feeds their lusii, and his attempts to hang out with her are transparently hidden in trying to get her to build him doomsday devices. He dresses to emulate Dualscar first and foremost, and even though he prefers drama and romance, he only lets himself read them in the context of military history.

It makes his love of wizards more striking because he can't come up with a good excuse for it - he just ardently fucking loves magic and pretending to be a wizard. But even then, he clearly feels shame for liking magic, because he's constantly decrying it for being fake kiddie playtime shit for wigglers. See what I mean? It's not that he doesn't have fun, it's that he doesn't feel like he's ALLOWED to have fun. Even when he is doing things that are objectively fun, there's a part of his brain chastising him for wasting his time. He's always filled with a nonspecific fear that if he isn't doing something "useful," then Something Bad Will Happen. So to that end, as much as he's been able, he's tried to make his hobbies all somehow related to fulfilling his various overhanging Duties and Responsibilities, to the point where his own lived experience is one where he is perpetually on call. Das mental illness babey!!!!!

The one exception to this seems to be his long conversations with Karkat, where we actually see Eridan chill way the fuck out, crack jokes, and talk about his and Karkat's feelings. It helps that Karkat's, like, the only person on the team who takes Eridan's problems seriously.

[15-lizards]

You need to tell us about Gregor's daughters

Tw: child abuse

Honestly I’ve never fleshed this idea out further than “wouldn’t it be supremely fucked up if Gregor, constant danger to all women, had daughters from his previous before they mysteriously died” but I should

It would just be so both cosmically unfair and horrific that the one who’s responsible for so many horrific fates of women in the series has daughters of his own

And ofc the daughters would have to be So mentally fractured bc what is ASOIAF if not about the horrible cycles that can occur between parent and child over the generations. It’s all ab the cycles babey!

Daughter 1 the comorbidity queen would fully have some sort of antisocial AND borderline personality disorder. Toooo much like Sandor for anyone’s comfort. She’s aggressive and paranoid and constantly in fight or flight mode, takes everything as a slight or insult, which is all just a production of her extreme anxiety. Growing up as an eldest daughter in such horror leads to constant dissociation and feelings of emptiness. However she’s probably super defensive of her younger sister, though that relationship is ofc also unhealthy. Her sister is her only lifeline and is basically her morality pet, so she’s incredibly defensive and protective of her, even to her sisters detriment at times.

Daughter 2 is selectively mute with dependency issues. More traditional signs of extreme anxiety. Like her sister, she’s in a constant fight or flight mode, but her go to method of survival is usually avoidance. She makes no disturbances, is always hidden away somewhere. Completely avoidant of most other people and lives in her own mind as a safety response. But completely dependent on her elder sister to the point where she can’t do anything without her. And thinks of the elder as more of a mother figure than anything else

Um yeah so I never shoehorned them into the plot that much other than to be a kind of foil to Sansa and Arya’s decent upbringing and morality pet for Sandor but here you go ✨

[swallowtailed]

palisade 42 (!) part 2/2: the character arcs of it all. also, rule of three.

at a certain point in this episode, i paused it and made the following voice to text note: "it does kind of feel like the third beat here is for brnine to die". (except voice to text rendered "brnine" as "brian".) then i put the episode back on and one second later ali said she had a move that let brnine put themself in peril to protect someone else. at this point i got off the highway and got taco bell because the only alternative was to scream forever and also i thought it would feel right to listen to brnine's death scene in a taco bell parking lot.

anyway, the rule of three. brnine has borne witness to a lot of self-sacrifice—or, well, almost. they weren't there when valence died. they were there with phrygian, until the very end. and then they're in the cockpit with jesset as he tries to throw his life away. there were two outcomes, as i see it, to resolve this arc. brnine could sacrifice themself to save jesset (die to break the cycle of their friends' deaths and essentially pass their torch to jesset), or they could stop jesset from sacrificing himself and survive as well (outright break the cycle of self-sacrifice among millennium break). i would've supported the first option! it's resonant and tragic! but i do think that, once brnine didn't bite it while stopping jesset, it felt more right for them to survive. because that arc is then an arc toward survival, toward staying alive to fight on.

(if brnine were to die in the finale, i would sort of hope that thisbe would also die, because it would be incredible for cori to be the last survivor of the original blue channel crew. not that i want thisbe to die (at all, even a little bit). but just imagine.)

also it was just a very good scene in general. jesset stopping as soon as he felt brnine touch his hand. squished together in the cockpit debating self-sacrifice. also, the little affirmation of thisbe not leaving this time (not like with valence); brnine not leaving without thisbe (not like with valence).

lastly: brnine getting an extra risk slot aboard the blue channel was suddenly heartwrenching. that's the ship valence gave them to escape... and it's not even that they're any safer or stronger on board, they can just survive a little longer. one more breath. i think the only way would be for brnine and the blue channel to go down together.

cori this episode: (deep breath) FUCK YEAHHHHHHHHH. three sets of black wings babey!!! we love to see it. sylvi's line about it—"not content are they with chaining our wings down, they are chaining the wings of the god we're supposed to be worshipping"—absolute banger. i don't think we knew (or maybe i just forgot) that original devotion had wings, but it's a beautiful touch alongside cori's wings. a chained angel under the eye of a dark sun. i'm so excited to see where she goes next. with, now, another grief to bear. (also, hey—is she older than any of her siblings now? since she's been outside the mirage?)

thisbe this episode: nonstop slay. it is so great to see thisbe unleashed. illusion strats as compelling as always. her faith in figure at the very end, her steadiness while brnine and jesset balance on a knife's edge—thisbe is so important. janine remarked that she's underutilizing integrity, but i think this episode really showed that new confidence thisbe has gained with it. i'm really interested to see where that relationship goes. it seems like thisbe is treating integrity like a seedling to nurture. ultimately, i think thisbe might still need to confront her conflation of personhood and use; it works for her, but it's not gonna fly with every divine. also: shrieked with laughter at the return of the concrete hamburger seatbelt. everything that has happened before will happen again, we're going back to the mirage, etc etc. attached to that, though—ebullience being turned into corporate art genuinely feels like a fate worse than death.

i don't know where this leaves us with figure's death, frankly. perennial's grief felt like it paid off their last roll, and we got a brief scene with the crew finding out, but it still doesn't feel resolved to me. i think i'm looking for wherever cori and brnine, in particular, go with this. we'll see. (would be neat if cori went over to perennial.)

now, with all that said, imo the last 90 minutes of this episode were maybe some of the best palisade has been. the weight of the whole divine cycle came to bear on those moments. (it might just be that i'm listening to counterweight right now, but i'm feeling counterweight, too.) i think i'm at a point with this season where i'm genuinely open to whatever ending comes, because there's so much material that it'll resonate forward either way.

and they’re going into the mirage.

[skyyknights]

biggest thoughts on skyward sword link?

aight. get ready. because I have many thoughts about him.

So, first off, yes, he is a silly sleepy doofus of a sky boy who is extremely soft and adorable and deserves everything. But, while that take is 100% correct and should not be overlooked, he is also a feral rabid gremlin who can and will tear your face off with his bare hands if the need arises (such as if you threaten Zelda).

(I mean. there's your proof right there...)

Now, a lot of people think that Link from Breath of the Wild is the strongest/toughest/etc.

Politely, I disagree.

So then who is the strongest? None other than Sky Link.

Let's start with the basics. He might not have been raised on a farm or in service as a knight for the royal family, but at the same time, he's attended an academy specifically for training knights his entire life. At the start of the game he can lift and throw massive barrels, is stated and shown to be an excellent climber, is a natural at Loftwing flying and at catching Zelda when she throws herself off of Skyloft, and is already excellent with a blade. Later on he can lift and throw small boulders, and push large wooden crates and metal carts.

But like I said, that's just the basics.

Sky Link also fights/defeats the Imprisoned and Ghirahim three times. Both grow stronger with each battle, but he defeats them nonetheless. Ghirahim at first sees him as just a silly little child who can't possibly defeat him; he quickly learns Link is anything but that and in all three of his fights becomes so humiliated that he rages at Link and on two occasions leaves instead of allowing himself to be defeated further. "You think I can't defeat you? You think I can't win? What are you, boy?" he asks in the final fight. He's afraid of Link, because Link is too powerful for him. He's the silly soft sky child, but three times now he has claimed victory over the Demon King's right hand man.

Then there's the Silent Realms, of which Link goes through four. Each one becomes increasingly more difficult and dangerous, and yet he completes all of them. Not only that, but he finds each Sacred Flame required to strengthen Fi and ends up forging the true Master Sword. He also earns and wields the full Triforce, which only a tiny handful of other Links have done. He also survives getting crushed by boulders on numerous occasions and is imprisoned (probably with a concussion) but escapes; battles a massive army of Moblins, Stalfos, and Bokoblins; and with each Silent Realm, his spirit grows, signifying he is not only strong physically, but mentally.

Anything I'm forgetting, besides the fact that Hylia specifically chose him to be her hero and defeat-

Oh yeah.

Demise.

Yup, in case anyone forgot, Sky Link kills Demise, the literal embodiment of evil itself, the original villain from whom Ganondorf comes. Demise is the most powerful enemy in LoZ who not only destroyed Hylia, but nearly all of the Surface as well; according to him, humans cower and quake upon seeing him; none but Link have ever dared to even consider standing up to him. Fighting Link, to Demise, is a casual, lighthearted ordeal where he believes he can take it easy before going off and destroying the world.

But yeah, that doesn't quite happen.

In the end, Link defeats Demise utterly on a battlefield of water and lightning, charging his own blade with it and striking the killing blow. Demise perishes and is absorbed into the Master Sword, directly after threatening that his hate, never perishing, will follow Link and Zelda throughout time.

And there you have it. Sky has just defeated the original incarnation of a cycle of endless hatred.

(while looking like this 90% of the time. he is babey. but stronk and dangerous babey who could kill u with a look).

[halfusek]

Memory Joey’s Intangibleness

Sooooo I think it’s probably just one of those things that the developers didn’t think too much about but it’s been driving me up the fricking wall

If Joey is supposed to be “just a memory” and “ghost-like”, as it is established the first two times we see him-

then how come does this happen??

Like really he doesn’t have to take that at all, he could just phase out of existence or whatever...

...or can he?

I’ve given this some thought and came up with two versions I found most interesting:

1. He can phase out but he doesn’t do that to be there for Audrey. Maybe he’s hoping that seeing him get absolutely deaded will somehow help Audrey “snap out of it” and take control of this weird fusion she’s having with the Ink Demon...? I’ll be honest I don’t really understand how they’re supposed to be fused and why. But she sure does take control after Joey gets crushed, so I assume she needed that mental push. Joey could have known that or not, maybe he just wanted to be there for her, which would be kinda wholesome. I guess making a sacrifice like that in a circle that revives everyone every time it restarts is not that big of a deal so he could afford to give that a chance even if not knowing if that’d actually help or not.

2. He became tangible after retrieving The End reel from The Pit. Yeah. You heard me right. Theory time babey.

Honestly, it’s something easy to miss, I’m sure I did while playing because I couldn’t remember what the goal is at any given moment, but in this part of the game you are supposed to get to the Pit. Except... we never do.

When we get to the entrance of The Pit, the security system kicks in.

And we get got by the Keeper here and escorted to Wilson.

(Though “The Pit” could be just the name of that hole the Keeper crawls out of but either way what it guards the way to is not accessed by us and that’s where The End reel is supposed to be.)

"That's where the ghosts live. Just beyond that door. The Keeper's prison. The Pit. No one ever comes out. At least, they're not quite the same."

We don’t know much about the pit aside from this one quite peculiar fact: that’s where the ghosts live. Maybe even Joey, despite being one himself, can’t just go in and out of there without any repercussions.

And - watch out guys here is something I like about BATDR for once - it is quite cool that Joey is the one to retrieve it as it seems like a very dangerous place, so if the gang (Audrey, Henry, Allison, Tom) tried to do that, they’d very likely be badly affected somehow. Good job game, I like when you establish something and then follow it up logically, very cool.

So, yeah, my theory is that going to The Pit to get The End reel did something to Memory Joey making him less of a ghost than he was before (at least until his death in this cycle, I suppose).

[rist-ix]

Ask Game #3: 22. What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

33. Give your writing a compliment.

40. Write a 9-word fic.

22. What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

Familiarity breeds comfort I guess. But there's also always this feeling of wasted potential, even if the scenario is IMPECCABLY GOOD. There's always other choices that could have been made, other feelings that were unexplored, other outcomes to battles and conversations. You can never write all of it, but you can write a LOT OF IT, and in doing that, the pool of possible what if's gets drained just a little bit, which makes the pairing feel more fulfilling? Completed? Idk. Of course, writing more what-if's leads to MORE potential what-if's, an eternal cycle of fanfic and serotonin.

Valtor and Bloom specifically just have that gorgeous mix of chemistry, history, and unexplored intensity that hits the spot for me, and the show gives us enough to feed the imagination while not really touching on anything precise. We got AAAAALLL the vibes and NONE of the confines of canon, babey! And that’s just the sauce I want in my life.

33. Give your writing a compliment.

I love the generous use of alliterations. Have I mentioned my love for alliterations yet?

Srsly though I really like going back to my fics once I’ve forgotten most of the details, I think I'm good at adding reread value and little innocuous bits that feel much more meaningful the second time around. Tbhtbh more so than sparked, I think I’ve gotten a lot more focused and deliberate with time. Mostly thanks to you guys’s feedbacks and questions! I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the fog in chapter 3 on Linphea I only added in because BloomV made that edit of chapter 2 where she decided to make it rainy, and that made me realize I hadn’t done much with the weather yet. And there's so much drama and subtle mood that can be added through atmosphere and weather! I feel like that’s made me improve, and I'm proud of that.

40. Write a 9 word fic.

“I won’t fall for you this time.”

“This time?”

[most-tragic-character-tournament]

anon's wording is awful (like you said, we don't do that here!), but the ani propaganda is deeply disappointing. it leaves out a lot of the more tragic factors of his character. it's essential to the concept of traditional tragedy that the character dooms themselves but could not have done otherwise due to circumstances, and that's a major piece of his story. i also think his paranoia and the self-fulfilling prophetic nature of his dreams are essential to calling him a tragic character, as well as the fact that he watched his mother die in his arms because he doubted those dreams for too long. he caused his wife's death and destroyed everything he cared about because he was so scared of repeating the mistake that killed his mother. he's in the fucking cycle, babey!

all he wants is to secure a safe place to raise his family, and instead he loses everything he's ever loved and kind-of, sort-of destroys organized society as the galaxy knows it. losing all four limbs and burning half to death means he gets turned into a puppet shell incapable of experiencing any worldly pleasure -- even consuming food is beyond him. this is intentional on palpatine's part, who has groomed anakin since the he was nine and now keeps him as a vicious guard dog of sorts due to the fact that anakin can't survive without him. he's permanently stuck in a torture device of a suit that forces him to constantly call on the force to even stay upright. functionally, as vader, he's nothing but a completely inhuman cog in a machine that hates him until his son-- who he believed died along with everyone else he loved-- shows up.

in summary, his story really wouldn't be out of place in a greek play if you discount the space travel. sorry for going off on a tangent in your ask box! please vote anakin. he's much more than some guy with a glowstick: he has really severe space bpd 👍

[Propaganda]

[leporellian]

it is my belief that a character does not have to be a baritone in a verdi opera to be a Verdi Baritone. it is also my belief that a character can be a baritone in a verdi opera without being a Verdi Baritone. here are i think the actual requirements to be a Verdi Baritone:

— thirst for vengeance — has some kind of bizarre grudge — can only think about one thing at any given time — weird about the cycle of creation (Oh You Know) — self destructive or passively suicidal behavior to some extent or another — at once loathes and is obsessed with the self — only makes friends in the strangest possible circumstances — some weird neuro shit goin on in there

if a character has most or all of these traits? that’s a Verdi Baritone babey. donna anna is a Verdi Baritone even though she is a soprano in a mozart opera. scourge warriorcats and the rat from mad rat dead are Verdi Baritones. etc

[hostilecityshowdown]

“  you can make me bleed all you want,  i’ll never scream for you.  ”

adam cole + jay white and/or hangman adam page

notes:

• takes place immediately before forbidden door 2022

• "phil never happened" AU my beloved. hanger still lost the belt, but to [checks cagematch.net] takeshita (at DoN a month prior) because i say so. i simply won't accept that finlay loss to him either so we'll say he hasn't wrestled since losing the belt

• actual tangible frame of reference: two months before forbidden door/one month before DoN, page defended his title against cole in a texas deathmatch. jay white is IWGP champ, and the fatal 4-way (basically) happened because he kept being a brat about contendership for the belt

• okada isn't here because he has better things to do. like harass gedo (jay white's ringside accompaniment for the 4-way)

• while irrelevent, this is a no concussion timeline babey, but white still retains - he just gets slaughtered doing so

• read mango's slightly related ficlet :3

-

Fingers laced, elbows propped on his restless legs, Jay White stared out the window of his second floor hotel room. Facing west, he peered into the last brushstrokes of the fading sunset as if it held all the answers. Cole wasn't (usually) a problem on his best day, Page was just another tree to chop down, and Okada - well, if he could just keep his focus on the Adams and Gedo, Jay should be golden. It was the risk of Cole and Page teaming up that made Jay bow his head, fingers tangling in his still wet hair, leg bouncing so hard the shoddy hotel chair creaked and groaned.

The pair bested him once before, technically, and that- that right there was moral building for them, that was encouraging. That was a problem.

He hated rooming on the lower storeys.

-

"-and whose smart idea was that Texas Death match, again? Funny, because I distinctly recall you shrugging death off like a-"*

Snapped out of watching the coffee drip, Hangman glared through the doorway into the hall. He was sick of hearing Jay White talk, downright fed up with his apparent inability to shut the hell up. Looking forward to grinding his face into the mat in a few days. Looking forward to getting back on the horse, knocking the breath right out of him.

And pissed the hell off by Jay following Adam Cole around for days, talking incessantly. They were so far down the hall, he couldn't even hear Adam's responses. Screw him too, for even enabling Jay this long, actually.

Hangman took his acidic venue coffee black, found the nearest exit sign, and plunged into the sticky summer heat to get some air.

-

Whoever decided to room Jay White between two of his three upcoming opponents had a deathwish. Gedo and Okada were spread out elsewhere, both a curse and a boon, but at least the ice maker was on his floor.

The third floor, of all places. This hotel had ten.

His window faced north. The door to the room east of him was pulled shut, heavy bags dropped to the tacky carpet with muffled thuds. What was Hanger packing, bowling balls? To the west, Cole cycled his television's volume up then down then up like clockwork. Maybe he should get his hearing checked.

Maybe Jay should run some interference.

-

Out of habit more than politeness, Adam Cole clicked the TV off when he heard the first knock, hauling himself out of bed and throwing his hair towel behind him. He almost didn't check the peephole and, seeing the reigning IWPG champ pacing outside his door, seemingly having a silent conversation with... Himself, Cole was relieved he did. Jay had been chewing his ear off for a week, pulling up old BTE clips on his phone just to interrogate or, worse, critique him, cornering him in catering even when White had every reason to hit the gym or rest or do literally, sincerely, absolutely anything else.

It was like he was trying to annoy Adam into backing out of the fatal 4-way and, to his credit, if he wasn't long-term friends with some of the most obnoxious people alive, it might've worked. He tried a smile, then a frown, then scowled and, steeling himself, opened the door. Jay stopped pacing, turning on his heel so suddenly he had to throw an arm out to stabilise himself, expression somewhere between delighted beaming and a shitty smirk. Instantly, he was in Adam's personal space, jabbing a finger into the loose fabric of his shirt.

"You probably think this-" he flapped a hand in his room's direction and repositioned the IWGP belt slung over his shoulder, "-gives you some kind of advantage, huh? You think you can enact psychological warfare against the Switchblade?"

Adam opened his mouth to respond, but Jay just kept going, raising his voice to an alarming volume. "Well! Let me tell you something, Adam Bay-Bay Cole, there is nothing you can do to me to shake my resolve; you can make me bleed all you want, I'll never scream for the likes of y-"

"What the hell are you yelling about now?" Neither of them noticed Hangman's door open on the other side of Jay's, not until the man was stalking towards them. Panic twisted Cole's gut, drawing out a nervous half laugh.

"Let- let's, ah, take this inside-" Adam seized Jay by the collar and dragged him into his room, hip checking him into the wall as he scrambled to shut, lock, and latch the door. He could hear the other Adam's footsteps pause, the bases of his chaps' zippers no longer jangling against the jump rings on his boots. Jay allowed Cole to usher him further into the hotel room, snatching a Twizzler off the entertainment unit and biting a length off as Adam pushed his hair out of his face. "You- you can't make scenes like that with guys like Hangman next door-"

"*Actually,*" Jay said, still chewing the candy as he held up his belt and slapped the gold plate. "I can do whatever I damn well please, no matter who-"

"Open the door, Cole."

They both froze. Adam Page's voice was deep, cold, dangerous. They locked eyes, Jay slowly lowering his belt, the drawn curtains darkening the room.

"I'm serious, Adam. Let me solve this problem."

Silently, Jay took one creeping step backwards towards the door, only pausing when Cole furiously shook his head. He mouthed 'no,' motioning 'cut' at neck level with one hand. Bad idea.

After another minute, Page banged his fist against the door once before stalking off, Jay jumping as if the sound were a gunshot. Cole kept his hands raised, placating now, voice low.

"I don't know what your game is, Jay, but this is your grave to lay in," he pushed his hair out of his face again, wet strands sticking to his cheek, frustrated. "I just hope there's something left to bury after we beat the crap out of you."

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

After watching the latest episode I just have to say...Babey having to leave her babies is going to absolutely destrooooy me! Her flashbacks to Brella leaving her all alone and how now she is having to do the same to her kids. She doesn't want them to ever feel as alone as she felt as a little hatchling. I know it's war, but hopefully there is time for her to lay down and sob her heart out as soon as they are out of her sight. 😭

I knooooow, I'm so anxious about getting to that stage of the story!!! It's going to be fecking horrible to revisit that cycle of trauma, but I suppose it's necessary in keeping the BABIEZZZ safe. No idea what'll come out when the time comes to actually write it, but I know it'll make me upset and spiral lol.

[weirdoldstans]

Omg the Stangst potential of poor little Stanley, broken, alone in the world, full of heartache having this little secret of his. He doesn’t keep much stuff on him, poor baby is living out of his car, he’s got no space or money for that matter. Maybe he does find a person or two that he makes the mistake of opening up too and is met with ridicule. He was already shy enough about this side of him. Purge cycle after purge cycle he always crawls back. By the time he’s in Gravity Falls he’s decided to just keep it to himself and stops purging because damn it all he feels pathetic when he caves and buys more things anyway. Might as well just stick everything in a box somewhere for when the urge to toss everything flairs up again. I like the other anons idea of him feeling so bad about indulging after Ford disappears. Maybe he finds a box of similar stuff in Ford’s house and is just gutted because he’s bother might be out there all scared and alone wanting his toys and diapers while Stan’s still here.

WAHHH BABYYY...

in any context stan getting burned for showing his soft side is SO SAD, it is EXTRA SAD when he's babey :(((

AND HIM WORRYING ABOUT FORD NOT HAVING HIS BABY STUFF GAHHH I CRY!! stanley pines i care you

[sloaaaa]

MY POKEMON BRAINCELLS HAVE BEEN REACTIVATED!!!!!! i kinda wanna open trainersona + pokemon team comms but i still gotta finish my current queue shjkdfg n i would be posting this on my art acc but i made the draft in my main so :((

also watch me ramble about my dream team under the cut

alRIGHT YOU CLICKED THE READ MORE AND YOU’RE IN FOR A WORLD OF WORDS BABEY!!! let’s start w my trainer sona yeah? :]

enterr Sploo from Petalburg city! :D he/they. our trainer starts out in petalburg city of hoenn where his pokemon adventure begins! since the professor’s lab is just a few town away it doesn’t take much for them to get his hands on his starter pokemon treecko! the babey boy ;; he catches lotsa pokemon to fill out the dex, sometimes keeping them on his team, and other times letting them go. he doesn’t like having the pokemon all crammed in the pc boxes :( some pokemon stay for a few battles and others maybe a few days, but things change after defeating his first gym. he meets an electrike at route 110 under the seaside cycling road, she’s just a lil puppyyy a lil babeeeyyy ;;;; super fun playful lil guys sticks around the team! -w- after his fourth gym badge his parents give him a gift pokemon for making it halfway through the gym challenge! a klefki! :3 a tame n helpful lil guys who just enjoys holding keys -w- sploo then continues on to complete two more gyms before his family moves to alola.

now on the boat to alola with grovyle, manectric and klefki sploo kinda just stays by the side of the boat watching the waves go by -w- also trying not to get too seasick shjkdfgl a lone shiny fletchling perches by them and he tries real hard to keep the excitement in and offers the fletchling some sunflower seeds! and asks if the fletchling would like the join their team! i mean who wouldn’t wanna pass up the opportunity of having a shiny pokemon on their team? after docking at akala island sploo travels around and catches some more pokemon to register to the dex, releasing them after as usual. then upon exploring diglett’s tunnel he finds a cover fossil! after cleaning up the rocks and dirt off the fossil spectrobes origins wii style he brings it to the fossil restoration center just along the route and meets the fifth member of his team :] and finally the sixth member of the team! a jangmo-o found in poni canyon, sploo came across the jangmo-o with its head scale stuck in the branches of a fallen tree. he freed the jangmo-o and excpected it to run back to its herd but it kept challenging them for a battle. after a long fight the jangmo-o is worn out, and sploo helps it back up on its feet with some potions and a plate of oran berries. sploo sets up a little picnic in the canyon! :3 helping nurse the jangmo-o back to health -w- the lil dragon sneaks into sploo’s bag and brings out a pokeball in its maw, determination in its eyes. and that’s how the team get together! :D but if u think i am done u are soo wrong sjhkjdfgd now i’m gonna go more in depth with each team member >:]

let’s start with mister! the sceptile -w- he is a grass/dragon type even without the mega evolution bc we were robbed and it’s not fair that swampert and blaziken get double typings while sceptile stays just grass >:[ chill and laid back, my baby boy ;; starter pokemon! he has a sceptilite in the friendship bracelet sploo made for him! :3 when walking through forests and jungles and very tree dense areas he’s always out of his pokeball darting around through the trees while sploo walks through -w- sometimes sploo stops for a lil break so sceptile can take care of sick trees in the forets! when having picnics out in the wild he can be found sitting and photosynthesizing when not playing around the trees. and since sceptiles are cold blooded mister stays in his pokeball when travelling through colder icy areas and he also enjoys having flynt resting atop his head or nesting in his tail leaves -w-

next up is storm! the manectric! a playful steadfast and loyal companion -w- she likes being out of her pokeball a lot and walks with sploo through towns n stuff. she has the manectite embeded in her collar :3 and also sploo charges his phone, pokedex and pokenav+ by just stuffing the charger cable in her mane jshkdfg sploo keeps a pair of sturdy rubber gloves in his bag bc of her :P

steele! the klefki. a very mild mannered pokemon -w- the one who’s always out of its pokeball! other than holding sploo’s house keys it also holds his multitools! since they’re also made of metal and has more mass than keys it has more metal ions for klefki to feed on -w- sometimes sploo will punch holes in bottlecaps of drinks so steele can have more metal to feed on and to enhance its threatening jingle :] steele enjoys playing around with flynt a lot! flynt n steele ;-; they fly around a lot but don’t stray too far from sploo -w- steele does not participate in battles unless it’s to use fairy lock on a wild pokemon that sploo wants to catch

then there’s flynt! :D my shiny!!! >< flynt perches on sploo’s shoulder when travelling through frigid area to keep him warm ;-; also flynt uses fly to deliver handwritten letters to sploo’s friends! :D it lets flynt fly free and enjoy the wind when the pokeball starts feeling cramped -w- flynt finds an everstone as a fletchinder and starts sitting on it like an egg and gets really attached (like that eagle that’s sitting on a rock jshkdfg) so she just holds the everstone now :P

koopa! the tirtouga -w- a bit hard headed, koopa needs a while to warm up to new trainers. he was a bit hard headed to train but after a while things went more smoothly :] koopa loooves the beachside! :D he knows dive and surff and helps sploo travel through water terrain! it’s a lot like how koopa shells worked in super mario galaxy where you hold on to a shell and it propels you through the water :3 stays in his pokeball most of the time unless it’s by the beachside or lake or any body of water

and last but not least rookie! the jangmo-o, a trusty and honorable battler! >:D much like ash's riolu from pokemon journeys! it takes a bit for the rookie to get used to the feeling of the chip in his head scale. but sooner or later rookie gets the hang of it -w- rookie loves getting to battle, but since sploo is a casual trainer and more focused on completing the dex and dragon types need more battling than usual to evolve dragon types rookie just stays as a jangmo-o :c not that he minds but yeagh

mister, storm, and rookie are the ones usually out for battles, flynt and koopa sometimes come out for battle too either when they get the urge or when they’re needed for certain type matchups! okay thank you for reading about my silly little guys they mean a lot to me and means a lot that you’d wanna read about them ;-;

[larkthorne]

[Image ID: the cover of a book: Laundry Love: Finding Joy In A Common Chore by Patric Richardson with Karin B. Miller. The title is in rainbow letters on a yellow background with a stylized drawing of a front load washing machine with a heart on the door in the middle of the cover. /End ID]

Hello to all of you with laundry on chairs, etc, whose executives also fail to function, hope you're well, etc.

Just want to recommend this book to anyone who dislikes laundry or can't keep on top of it! I listened to the audiobook a couple months ago and it has changed the way I do laundry. Here's a TL;DR summary but if you can get this book from your library or whatever it's a charming, easy, quick read.

The basic gist of this life-changing laundry method is, you look at your week. You pick a day that works. That's laundry day babey. Six days a week, don't worry about it. On laundry day, do something. (Caveat: my laundry day is nominally Wednesday but well. It does shift around! For my two person household, as long as I don't go longer than 10 days between Laundry Day we're fine. Your mileage may vary.) Laundry!

Laundry Day, per the method in Laundry Love, is a celebration. One puts on a fun playlist. One watches a trashy romcom while folding. One has a disco ball in one's laundry room, etc. Laundry Day is for enacting care on the things that go on your body everyday.

(I've not quite got that far, but I do try to make it pleasant. I like an audiobook or a podcast.)

The method has you split your clothes into lights, darks, warm colors, and cool colors. I don't think this is like, totally necessary - I like to do it, but if it was a very low spoons day, just sort of making two to four mid-size piles regardless of color would be fine. It is handy to have more smaller piles rather than one or two big ones, in my experience - more on that later.

Before you wash each load, ideally you pretreat stains (the book goes into detail, i mostly just scrub soap onto stains with a toothbrush which mostly works).

(There are also ways you can process silky fabric and wool fabric to allow it to go in the machine instead of dry cleaning or just chucking it in and hoping for the best! Basically: laundry net bags. Silky things in them. Roll up wool sweaters or w/e tightly, then put in the net bag, and pin down the excess. But also, if you don't have silky or wool things, like. Don't worry about it.)

Each load of laundry is washed on warm, on the quick cycle, with extra/high spin. Use like. A tablespoon of eco-friendly clothing detergent. I use a tablespoon of washing soda in the detergent drawer of my front loader and 2 tablespoons of castile soap in the drum of the washer, because Nancy Birtwhistle from Great British Bake-Off told me to, and it's very cheap per load and very effective. But it is better to use eco friendly stuff where you can because it leads to less irritants and pollutants and, this is key, less buildup on your clothes. And use less -- a tablespoon is plenty.

The short cycle on warm is enough to get your clothes clean! Without letting them get too beat up for longer than they need. The extra spin gets them dryer so they take less time to dry.

It is ideal to dry things by hanging them on a line or whatever! That's the platonic ideal of laundry. Clothes last longer and smell nice if you dry them outside. But I've had a Month Or Two and I've been using the dryer. It does wear your clothes out faster and uses up not-strictly-necessary energy but you gotta make it out of the laundry chair cycle somehow so do what you gotta do.

The good thing about the three or four small-to-mid piles of laundry is, as they come out of the dryer, you can fold it and put it away promptly, and it can feel far less overwhelming than looking at Mount Laundry.

Rotate through the piles you made earlier - quick cycle in the wash, dry them somehow, put them away. Only one day a week! The book suggests this takes 3-4 hours. I get tired if I try to do it all at once so I tend to let it take all day, taking breaks as necessary, but it's like, my only chore to do that day. (I still sometimes leave the last load of laundry in the dryer...)

The book offers tips for if you use a laundromat too! I don't, so can't speak to that. I think, though, having the same mindset: one day a week (ish) everything gets done. Some weeks that's aspirational, but there's always another go.

But, crucially: if it's not Laundry Day, simply do not worry about laundry. Put it in a hamper and that's that.

It's not perfect and it won't work for everyone I'm sure, but I learned a lot from the book (despite having a background in costuming and being a hobby sewist - I know about taking care of fabric! And I learned a lot). I really enjoy assigning a day to be For Laundry, and just allowing it to fall off the radar the other days. I always know another Laundry Day is coming.

Anyway! That's me done being bossy on the internet today. Happy laundry!