#literally what am i supposed to do here. it's not even giving me an error message it's just. not loading at all.

[mabaris]

i feel like im always complaining about this but i just think it's stupid that. when i try to open a game i have paid for and own 100% legally. it routes it through steam and then the EA app instead of just, opening.

[hoshinasblade]

im going to need you all to send me happy thoughts please because i am having a very bad week and it's only monday lol anyway here's some angst. i know i have written a lot of stuff here already but so far this one is my favorite (despite me literally drafting this in my phone so expect some grammar errors or spelling mistakes), so if you can, let me know what you folks think. likes, replies, and reblogs are appreciated but i will bonk you in the head if you repost or copy any of my writings. THANK YOU ANON FOR THIS ASK!

you could bring a numbered kaiju into submission but it seems that your heart is an entirely different monster.

you should have known better than to fall in love with a colleague, and you should have known better than to fall in love with the third division's vice-captain. your own commander, gen narumi, threw you a dirty look when he found out about your intimate relationship with the bowl cut bastard, and as much as you want to come up with a good enough excuse, the best thing you were able to give is a cliched the heart wants what the heart wants. narumi scoffed at you upon hearing it, following it up with a personal vow to never be romantically involved with anyone in the force.

it didn't have to be said but hoshina still did the honors - there's not a lot of ground rules in your relationship but the first one is this: you and he are soldiers first, lovers second. you pondered if it was supposed to hurt you, and you asked yourself what the hell is wrong with you to say yes to such a set-up: all those love advice by your family and friends about how you should not settle with the bare minimum flew out the window. "i have a responsibility to my division. but i also know i love you," was what hoshina told you. in hindsight maybe you did not care about anything else he said except the part where he confessed he loves you.

you convinced yourself that nothing is more important than being loved by hoshina soshiro. and you persuaded yourself that if he could place you second in his priorities, you would be able to do so too. "i mean, i was a defense officer before i became your girlfriend," you agreed with him.

but there's no worse lie than the one we tell ourselves, you realised too late.

hoshina soshiro took you to dates almost every weekend although he is also almost always late. but you guess being one of the highest-ranking official in an anti-kaiju division burdens him with a heavier obligation than the rest of the officers so you did what a good girlfriend would do: you tried to understand his situation and offered him comfort whenever you catch him overly stressed or fatigued in his tasks. "i'll make it up to you," he would promise, and you would kiss him on the lips.

but after a while he stopped asking you out entirely, blaming it to his busy schedule - and yours - and a month after that, you would see hoshina soshiro only when there are inter-division conferences. narumi gives you his ugliest frowns everytime he spots the vice-captain walking towards you. "get a room," the first division commander rolled his eyes at you and your boyfriend one time.

to be fair, hoshina is good at making you disregard his misgivings. may it be with his tongue or his fingers, even for just a fraction of an hour, you cannot deny that hoshina makes you feel loved and taken care of. hoshina would tell you he loves you and nothing else matters again in your world but those three little words.

you could have perfectly proceeded in your charade of being fine if hoshina only remembered your anniversary. the straw that broke the camel's back, disappointment and frustration and heart wrenching pain consumed you when it came clear to you that hoshina was not planning for some surprise for you after not giving you a single greeting throughout the day - he simply forgot.

"so it skipped you that today's supposed to be our day, but you had time to go to lunch with okonogi," you accused him, feeling a bit guilty that you are involving another person in the argument. the trip to tachikawa base was not short, and your muscles are already killing you, but you made the effort to see hoshina in hopes you can salvage the occasion. the guilt died down after several seconds when hoshina replied.

"how is okonogi-chan a part of this?" he defended her. it did not escape you how he seemed to not be answering you at all.

"okonogi-chan?" you mocked hoshina. "jesus, i am so tired of this!" you did not recognise the sound of your voice when you shouted. "i - i know what i signed up for when i compromised with you, soshiro. you said duties first, i just did not expect i would be at the bottom of the things you care about. that's if i was even in that list at all."

"that's not fair -"

"what's not fair," you gritted your teeth, "is that you keep treating me like shit." you held back your tears; you refused to cry in front of hoshina - you had already given him the power to hurt you, it would have been to much handing him the knowledge that what is happening is effectively breaking you from you within. softly, you determined to get the bottom of things - fuck your dignity, the most you can get from this scenario is hoshina's honesty. "do you still love me?"

"you know i do," he declared too quickly. hoshina strode towards you, crossing the three, four feet distance to reach you. grabbing your cold hands and attempting to cradle it with his own warm ones, hoshina looked sincere and sorry, and you regret that you cannot for the life of you remember the last time he was this tender with you.

"actually i don't." you did not know how you're supposed to bridge the sea between you and hoshina as you withdrew your clammy hands from his touch. you chose to ignore the sudden sadness that crossed his face when you stepped away from him.

the loud ring of the alarm announcing a kaiju attack echoed in your ears. "i have to go, we'll talk more later," hoshina offered, his stare at you was surely meant to glue you in your spot but you did not let it so. "i love you."

"no, wait." you are a defense officer, and a good one at that, and you thankfully did not have to remind the third division vice-captain of that. "i'm going with you." even on the verge of heartbreak, your response is to stand beside hoshina. you almost winced at the implication.

you did not wait for his approval. narumi will be pissed, he joked after seeing you in a battle suit, helping you out a bit as you pick your weapon of choice. "hey." his grip on your elbow distracted you. "be careful out there," he whispered.

bodies break in the strangest of ways, you found out while fighting a considerable strong honju alone in the sector where you were assigned. you weren't officially in the area to be on duty, and protocol says you cannot be under hoshina's command so you had to be borrowed as a back-up to another platoon. your tenure and experience could easily place you as a team leader, that is why you were confident to face a number of those monstrous creatures at once. that is until the suit you were wearing - just a spare one that hasn't been used yet by a recruit - overheated.

"retreat to somewhere safe," you heard hoshina in your in-ear comms, out of breath. "that's an order." you wanted to assert that he isn't really your commanding officer, that he is not upon him to command you in any way but air feels like liquid in your lungs, the exhaustion catching up to you. in a minute or two the suit will lose its integrity after overheating, and you will be vulnerable to attacks of even the smallest yojus. "stay there and i'll send someone -"

you hoped you were not making a habit of interrupting hoshina as you mustered your strength to speak in a firm sentence - "the mission, is to neutralise the kaiju, sir." you screwed your eyes shut, ignoring the searing sensation of the wound in your shoulder.

throwing caution in the wind, hoshina did not relent. "i will come get you."

"soldiers first, soshiro." the static in your in-ear comms was deafening after you had called the vice-captain by his given name, and knowing that whatever you say will be broadcasted to the other officers, you continued. "to hell with what happens to us, right?"

you couldn't say you recall what happened next. dizzying darkness claimed you as your suit gave out, your combat release putting your body to too much pressure. when you came to consciousness, it was at a hospital - in a white room too big to cater to only one patient. tubes were attached to you, needles poking at the delicate vein in your wrist. it hurts to move, it hurts to discover you woke up alone.

the hours passed, each tick of the hands of the clock racing against your own thoughts. a nurse found you awake while in a roaming duty, and alerted the doctor. it was not after that when you saw hoshina again.

"how are you feeling?" you could sense his awkwardness from across the room. you saw his hesitation to come close to you; you cannot decided whether to feel satisfied that he seems to be in pain seeing you like this.

"i can't do this anymore, soshiro." your throat was dry from not speaking in ages, and your words sounded hoarse, as if you had to scrape yourself for them. "i almost died, and i can't do this anymore."

a piece of you wanted for him to tell you to shut up.

"i could have died, and you weren't there. and my god, this entire time i had to assess if i am just selfish, or greedy, and i know there are people to save, but soshiro, it's tiring to be the one who loves the other more," you exclaimed. "maybe it's my mistake that i am in a relationship with the third division's vice-captain but i fell in love with hoshina soshiro."

"i'm sorry." you didn't miss the slight tremble in hoshina's voice, and your chest tightened because after everything, he couldn't say you what you needed to hear.

"i would have died trying to save you, you know," you added weakly.

"i'm sorry," he repeated like a chant, like some mantra that would cure everything damaged for you and for him.

"me too," you replied, because there was nothing else left to say.

[aliesbienish]

A study of wolves - part five

chapter one ✩ chapter two ✩ chapter three ✩ chapter four

Your legs ached from the hiking, and your arms were definitely slightly sunburnt but otherwise your first day on the job had been a success.

The sun was starting to set as you and Paul drove back into the Rez. In no mood to cook you had already decided a trip to Sue’s was in order.

“Paul thank you for today, especially for getting me there and back in one piece.”

“No need to thank me, it’s literally my job,”

“Still, you put up with my relentless questions, and teasing, and impressively slow walking without complaining…much. I know you weren’t that keen on helping out today but I’m really glad you did.”

“Me too. I was just hesitant to get to know a new person, an outsider especially, so I’m sorry for making you think I didn’t want to be here. Maybe that was initially the case but I promise that went away very quickly,”

“I’m pleased, can’t have you thinking I have anything less than a stellar personality.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,”

“If you wouldn’t mind could you show me where Sue’s is? I think I’ll go straight there for dinner. You are absolutely more than welcome to join me”

“I’d never say no to Sues’ burger.”

The idle chit chat continued across the table as you and Paul finished your meals. The diner itself was small and cozy, with tribal artwork splashed across the walls and delicate wood carvings etched into the furniture. The food too was delicious, and definitely worth coming back for throughout your stay.

Paul was also proving to be just as good company inside as he was outside.

He happily chatted about the tribe, and the natural forests around the error. He was clearly linked to the land he grew up, despite the earlier comments about moving away. However he did seem to steer clear about his upbringing, never mentioning any parents or siblings.

It was hard not be nosy, you had an intrinsic desire to learn every little thing about him, but you managed to hold off.

“So how about tomorrow, did you get the short straw?”

“The short straw?”

“Being my babysitter.”

“That straw isn’t short. I initially didn’t, Jared was suppose to help out tomorrow. But I may have already texted him to let him know that I am taking over. There’s no way I’m letting him have the satisfaction of seeing the first wolf sighting.”

“Should I be honored, or is this purely to one up your best friend?”

“The latter for sure. If I knew how to operate the camera I’d ditch you as well and head up there myself. Steal the glory.”

“Well at least your honest. But just know I will be sending a heads up to everyone in my phone contacts. Wouldn’t want you to get rid of me once we have the photo.”

“Darn, you foiled my plan.”

Your chuckling was abruptly interrupted by a nasal voice piercing both your ear drums.

“Paul, fancy running into you here” A blonde haired, pink sweatsuit clad, lady declared from the edge of the table.

“Oh. Lauren, hi,” You could hear the drop in Paul’s voice, seemingly just as upset at the intrusion as you were. “What are you doing on the reservation?”

“I was spending the day on the beach with my friends, just thought I’d stop in for a coffee before I drove back to Forks. I’m glad I did!”

“That’s nice, well it was lovely to see you. Looks like your coffee is ready so you’d better get it and head off”

“Don’t be silly, I can drink it here with you ,”

“I’m really sorry Laura, but we’re actually busy at the moment. I’m sure Paul can talk to you some other time.” You interjected, not comfortable with the intense stare she was giving Paul. The girl hadn’t even looked in your direction once. Hopefully you weren’t misreading Paul’s feelings on the girl, but the grimace on his face seemed like a good indicator.

“It’s Lauren, actually. And who are you?”

“This is [y/n], and we were actually having a private conversation.”

“I can wait! Then we could go out….or stay in. Up to you,” Lauren playfully pouted. You almost groaned in the second hand embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen Lauren. I’m not interested in you like that,”

“Are you kidding?” She hissed, “and you’re interested in her?” Pointing a sharped clawed finger in your direction.

You prepared yourself for a polite no, but when Paul opened his mouth you thought you had misheard him.

“Absolutely.”

next chapter

[atlantis-just-drowned]

Solar Lunacy’s Y/N can be dangerous and powerful when Eclipse is around

Content warning: this is a theory post using all available content about Solar Lunacy’s universe. There will be several spoilers. Also I’m not saying that I’m right but I have a tendency to guess a story’s end before it happens and spoil everything to everyone so please beware and don’t hate me if you decide to read that post, I am not responsible for your hatred, you did that to yourself.

I saw a post about how Sun also deals with the glitch’s “intrusive thoughts” toward the reader (even though I do not agree with everything in this post because I like to think Sun’s fidgets could be from some sort of robotic ADHD), but I haven’t seen anything about Eclipse yet. Probably because we’re lacking a lot of context, but I’m going to use the bonuses + doodles of Solar Lunacy here.

It is explicitly said that Eclipse won’t hesitate to kill for the reader, we have little crumbs that prove they already did (or will, considering the canonical timeline).

If you want more context and explanations for this, I think you could resume it in two points:

Sun and Moon are affected by the glitch at different levels but they still have moral values and boundaries, whereas Eclipse do not. It haven’t been explained yet where Eclipse comes from in the SL universe, but if it’s linked to the glitch or the fact that the Daycare Attendants are sentient, and he haven’t been programmed/isn’t supposed to exist, it could explain some things. What we already know is that Eclipse is a sort of fusion of Sun and Moon, and I think the fact that Sun and Moon’s filters have been affected at different levels and on different points by the glitch could play a role in Eclipse’s lack of moral values. If the filters’ errors got mashed up, it could result in a total lack of boundaries.

Eclipse is completely in love with the reader. Like, take a normal living being’s level of love for their partner, and double it. That’s literally it. Sun and Moon’s love for the reader got (one more time) mashed up, and it give you this kind of unconditional love Eclipse has for you.

So, take a very, very tall sentient animatronic, with inhuman strength, no moral or care for others’ lives, and a probably unhealthy level of love for you. I’m not saying that you will use it badly, but if you were an evil little piece of shit and you wanted to, you could basically get him to threaten or kill anyone you want, just by using the right words.

So yeah, extremely dangerous and powerful. It’s kinda like having poisonous skin and anyone who tries to touch you die. Except they’re not poisoned but rather dismembered by a tall as fuck hijacked celestial jester.

What I still wonder is whether or not @bamsara will make the reader aware of this fact (but I strongly think they won’t because it would mean making the reader aware of the DCA’s love for them and at this point they would rather suffer an eternal agony than making Sun and Moon confess), and in the scenario where they would, how would the Y/N react.

Also, I’m thinking: if Eclipse could do basically anything for the reader, it may means that Eclipse’s weakness… is the reader? And we know that Glitchtrap will erase the DCAs memories,

but I think at some point Vanny will also kidnap the reader or something, and that might be what she's talking about in that doodle:

Or maybe I'm wrong and Vanny's talking about the Daycare Attendants' memories. I'm not quite sure on that part yet.

But anyway, thank you for listening to my ted talk, now that this is out of my system I can finally die in peace. One more time if you hate me for guessing half of the plot remember that I warned you and you chose not to listen so take your responsibilities and leave me alone.

[humbledragon669]

S2E2 - The Clue Write Up P1 - Land of Uz (2500 BC) and London (Present Day) up to the credits

Ooh it’s been a while since got to use an in-screen caption as one of the headers and I am delighted to be able to do it again! I may well just use the same two headers as we switch between the two time periods in this episode, just for simplicity. Sue me.

There’s a tiny detail that’s been applied to this opening shot that I absolutely love – the video here has had an of effect applied to it to give it a vintage film feel. Sorry, that’s as close as I come to describing it with any sort of eloquence – I’m referring to the “fake” black marks and scratches that appear on the image briefly (you can see a couple on the header above). It doesn’t last long (only until Crawley finishes his first line), but I think this subtle little effect sets us very firmly in a cinematic (cinematographic?) context. I also feel like the colouring of the image has been altered for the same purpose – it puts me in mind of one of those historical films from the 50s and 60s, like Ben Hur and Spartacus (which I suspect is probably the whole point).

There’s something else interesting about Crawley’s appearance in this scene – his sunglasses. Cast your mind back to episode 3 in the first season (Hard Times), in which we saw him appearing without sunglasses all the way up to (and including) 33AD. I did comment on the appearance of the sunglasses in the 42AD scene in the write up for it:

I’m not sure I actually find this sudden appearance of sunglasses some 2500 years earlier all that interesting. There’s a part of me that feels that they have probably been included here because we, as an audience, have come to expect Crawley/Crowley’s costume to include a pair of stylised sunglasses by this point. I’d actually be strangely satisfied with that if it was the case – I feel like the reason behind his choosing to wear them could be so much more interesting if this was simply a “continuity error”.

Just wanted to include this because I am thrilled Aziraphale finally gets a really bad-ass entrance. How many times have we seen Crowley sauntering his way into a scene, looking like the coolest thing on Earth (and knowing it)? So glad the angel gets a turn at that here. That said. Why exactly is it that Aziraphale has happened to show up at this place and time? As we will come to find out shortly, Crawley is actually acting with Heaven’s authority so I don’t think the angel would have been sent there. It would present an interesting parallel to Crowley’s supposed knack of knowing when the angel is in trouble, but also resurfaces the suggestion about them being aware of the other’s whereabouts more often than not. I have to say, based on the conversation between them here, that seems unlikely – this exchange feels nothing but businesslike to me, cold even. Aziraphale even goes so far as to apologise (unapologetically) for having to do his job. We do learn that it has been about 500 years since they’ve seen each other, which is a nice little piece of backstory to have. I also consider it interesting to see Crowley providing a prompt to Aziraphale on how to complete his task, which provides a loose mirror parallel to what we saw Before the Beginning, that time with Aziraphale prompting his newfound friend that the incantations (for want of a better word) were not complete.

Side note: don’t you just love those little goats for staying exactly where they’ve been put? Pretty sure most animals would have scarpered extremely quickly when a huge flaming ball appeared above them, never mind having another being literally appearing from thin air in a really spiky portal of light. They must be some very calm goats.

Given the light show that Aziraphale has brought with him to make an imposing entrance on a demon, I’m pretty impressed with the restraint Crawley shows when he responds here – I mean he’s not exactly known for his patience is he? I also wonder if Aziraphale’s comment about jokes is meant to be a throwback to Hastur’s vehemence that he doesn’t like them, but the line is so throw-away that I can’t see what relevance it would add at this point. What I do find interesting is that, now we’re no longer in the “present day” of this season, we see Aziraphale struggling with his preconceived notions of right/good and wrong/evil. It’s something we saw quite a lot of in the first season, in both historical and “present” timelines. In the second season though, what with Aziraphale no longer working for Heaven, we tend to see it a lot less. We saw it in the first episode in the Before the Beginning segment, and we’ll see it again in the coming episodes, but predominantly in the historical scenes. There’s something about the fact that Aziraphale appears less conflicted about morality once he has been removed from the morality-defining authority, become more connected to humanity, and is found to be exercising his free will that I find deeply profound. No wonder the poor guy took 6000 years to realise that being Good isn’t just about following orders, especially when you consider that instruction is tied to his very existence. That whole thing is a big concept, and I struggled to put it into any words that made sense, so I hope I’ve at least been kind of clear. Basically, what I wanted to say was that I love that the historical scenes are being used as a way to remind us of the character development that Aziraphale has gone through over the millennia – they show us where he came from. And it’s not just the angel that gets this treatment:

We haven’t seen this version of Crawley/Crowley for quite a while, have we? The one that takes such delight in his mischief. And in case you missed it, we really should have known what he was up to – you can see two birds taking flight in the background behind his head, with an accompanying “caw” to draw attention to their presence.

I’m including that gif for no other reason that I find it Muriel’s impersonation of a goose adorable. I do wonder what exactly would have been deemed important though, if Job’s farm, camels, goat, oxen, children, and geese are all disposable. I’m not going to go into the underlying subtext of the bet that has been made between God and Satan here – the story itself is little changed from its original biblical source so I feel like it’s a bit out of scope for an episode write up. What is interesting to see is that the item on the list that Aziraphale balks at is the same as the one that Crowley has previously demonstrated (on more than one occasion) is his “line in the sand” for unacceptable acts – killing children. This will also be the first time, chronologically, that we see Aziraphale take his doubts to other angelic beings (some of whom are his superiors). I’m assuming his way of doing things is a little more diplomatic than Crowley’s was when he was in his angelic state, even if it is just as (un)fruitful.

This attitude towards Sitis and Job keeping their existing children rather than having them replaced with new ones says a lot about the Heavenly standard when it comes to understanding humanity and its eccentricities; his reasoning here being that it shouldn’t matter if Job’s existing children are murdered senselessly, as long as they’re replaced with an equal (or greater) number of different children. There is no appreciation of the complexities behind human relationships, desires, or emotions. I feel like it makes the fact that both Gabriel and Michael claim to understand the difference between the subtle technical differences between “killing someone” and “not stopping someone from killing someone” pretty ironic, particularly when they are taking advantage of this technicality to maintain their stance of being the good guys. And all said in such a convincing (and convinced) tone. Gabriel’s stance really only makes sense when you take it out of humanity’s context, which I think is why it’s just not something Aziraphale would ever be comfortable with.

Alright, we’ve jumped back into the present day to find Aziraphale apparently deep in thought about something. My take on it, and I think it’s a fairly common one, is that the whole Job sequence up to this point is a flashback as seen through Aziraphale’s eyes. (Side note: a cash register ringing noise is an interesting sound effect to employ to highlight the placards here, seeing as we all know the angel never willingly sells a book) There are a couple of things I picked up on during this delightful little scene, the first of which is this line:

AZIRAPHALE: I just didn’t see you coming.

I don’t think it would be a huge leap of faith to say that this line is probably not meant to be limited to this scene, but to Gabriel’s appearance on the whole. I don’t think it’s a huge revelation, I just love that it’s dropped in there so casually. And just as a quick note, I had previously wondered where Gabriel had been that he was able to sneak up on Aziraphale so easily, but it turns out that he would have been in plain sight as he approached the desk:

I love the way Aziraphale is bothered that somebody is bringing order to his chaos. It’s my belief that those books are likely arranged in such a way that only he knows how to find anything. After all, customers can’t buy books if they can’t find them, can they? The idea that somebody might actually be bringing some order to that must be distressing. It’s alright though, seeing as nobody will ever find anything they’re looking for using Gabriel’s sorting system anyway.

We also have the first reference to the Buddy Holly song “Everyday” in this scene. I’m really pleased that it was included in the second season – apparently it was something Terry was really keen to use as a device in the first season. The script book even includes stage directions that the soundtrack for most of the end credits should be stylised versions of the song. The story goes that when David Arnold presented his version of the theme tune for the first season, it was deemed to be so appropriate that the “Everyday” theme was dropped. I do absolutely love the theme tune we got. I also love that “Everyday” was brought back in for the second season. Both things can be true 😊

Last point of interest for this scene. The book that Jim reads from is “A Tale of Two Cities”. I will confess I haven’t read it, and used Wikipedia to summarise the plot, which as I understand it revolves around a central character who is compelled to disassociate himself from the wrongdoings of his family. There’s a drunken man that testifies on behalf of the main character and helps to get him acquitted of a crime. There’s a trip to Paris in 1792 that sees the main character imprisoned in the Bastille and the same man that helped acquit the main character travels to Paris in 1793 in an attempt to rescue him. There’s also a character called Gabelle, whose request for assistance in a prison escape leads to the capture of the main character.

It’s vague I’ll grant you, and I am sure I have missed a lot of the finer plot points. With that said, I don’t think I’d be alone in feeling like there are more than a few similarities to the 1793 Paris scene from Hard Times. Paris, the year, a prison rescue, and that name that’s awfully similar to Gabriel… It makes me wonder if this might be a Clue as to Aziraphale’s true purpose in Paris, and I suspect there might be a nice little project here to look at parallels between the novel and the 1793 storyline, but that would probably involve reading the original novel. In case you had missed it, time is not something I have a lot of right now, and classics bore the living shit out of me so it’s not something I can commit to so if anybody wants to take up that mantel, please feel free.

Don’t you just love that this is the first time we actually see Crowley sleeping in the show at all? There was a scene that didn’t make it to the final cut in the first season that saw him sleeping (in a bed/against a wall/on the ceiling), and one from just after he got out of bed. There is also explicit mention of his love of sleep in the book and we as a fandom have taken that cannon well and truly to heart. Yet this is the first confirmation we have in the show that he does in fact sleep. It’s a nice little touch for us to have – there really is no denying that this demon sleeps from this point on.

I made a note of Michael referring to Aziraphale as a “former angel” at the end of the first episode, and commented on how this feels like an inaccuracy. Interestingly Crowley makes an identical inaccuracy here in referring to himself as a “former demon”. To recap:

I feel the same way about Crowley and his status. I also note that Shax doesn’t correct his use of the past tense, but perhaps that’s because she’s confused at his use of sarcasm. What’s also of note is that she appears not to have any knowledge that Beelzebub and Crowley have already discussed the matter of Gabriel, likely because the former is trying to keep that under wraps. It makes me wonder if Crowley might have noticed that discrepancy had the discussion not turned to talk about the miracle that was performed in the bookshop the night before. And now we can briefly turn to the controversy that I raised from the last episode about whether Crowley actually had anything to do with said miracle:

SHAX: A miracle of enormous power happened last night. The kind of miracle only the mightiest of archangels could have performed.

So from her perspective, it looks like she believes Gabriel (as Supreme Archangel) performed the miracle himself. My theory about Crowley not playing his part in it gets pretty shaky at this point, because Aziraphale supposedly wouldn’t have been able to perform a miracle of that strength on his own. There is a “but” here. Or rather, an “unless”. What if Gabriel contributed to the miracle that was performed, but unknowingly? Possibly even unwillingly? His power, either alone or being added to that of another, might explain the colouration of the plume we see originating from the bookshop on the globe at the end of the episode. Yeah, that’s right, I’m not dropping this theory yet! It’s such a shame we don’t see any other example of plumes, because that would really either lend weight to it or completely discredit it. Shax clearly doesn’t think much of Crowley’s claim to the miracle regardless – she doesn’t even respond to him when he offers the possibility that it was him that did it.

It's also notable that Crowley makes no protestations about Shax’s label of “friend” when referring to Aziraphale. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see his face when she says it, but we do see that it’s unchanged when the close up returns to him. I’m not saying this is a denial of his true feelings, merely pointing out that this would have been hotly refuted prior to the body switch incident. Whether Crowley doesn’t care that Hell knows about his “friendship” or just can’t be bothered to argue isn’t clear at this point. What is clear, is that Shax’s threats are convincing enough that the plants are frightened – you can see (and hear) them shaking in the background:

I’m sure Crowley probably starts the car in a pass-agg response to his being threatened, but there’s a big part of me that believes he really does it because Shax has had the audacity to frighten his beloved plants. I don’t have any evidence to suggest that’s the case, but I won’t be swayed on that regardless. As a final point of note: this will be the second time Crowley has been offered the “opportunity” to help Hell and refused. He clearly has no interest in helping them – his bridges are well and truly burned as far as he’s concerned.

And with that, we’ve arrived at the credits, which feels like an excellent place to wrap this part up. I don’t think this instalment has been quite as controversial as the last one but as ever: questions, comments, discussion, always welcome. See you for the next one! 😊

[neonluardon]

An Uncanny Dream

Now, I have dreams, some of which tend to involve a character or two. I am a Genshin Impact fan, and I especially like Kaeya. But the dream I had about Kaeya was so uncanny and equally majestic that I never wanted to forget about it. So, I prepared some visuals. I will be using the notes I took the moment I woke up. These notes help me a lot, as I have already forgotten almost all of the details.

Plot: I was the player but instead of controlling the Traveler, I was controlling Kaeya, the story itself was from his perspective. Because of a reason, I cannot remember, Kaeya ended up stuck between the line of truth and delusion.

Kaeya was aware of his existence, his world was pitch black and white. Everything he used to find beautiful now looked horrible, all voices were gone but a music that kept repeating over and over. As Kaeya, I was supposed to run around and ask for help. But no matter where we went, we couldn't interact with a person.

I remembered I had some resin (even in a dream I'm worried about not using resin lol) and decided to fight in a domain. Somehow, although we couldn't interact with humans and animals, Kaeya could harm Hilichurls and other Abyss-related creatures.

Upon defeating the enemies, Kaeya got an artifact. But this artifact didn't have relic bonuses.

The artifact's name was changed to "Memories From Afar". When I tried looking at the description of the artifact, instead of writing a story or giving an explanation, it simply said:

"You cannot go back now. Memories are out of your reach."

It said "Fatal error." too in very rare cases, because I was panicking so much that I kept reloading the screen and expected something else to come. After obtaining this artifact, I never managed to earn another one no matter how much resin I used.

I decided to use this artifact on Kaeya, but when I opened the character screen, all of my characters were gone and only Kaeya existed. And, well, he didn't look very well.

All of his talents were set back to one. His name didn't exist, instead, there was something akin to "X" but not exactly the same. He was a shadow, an "absence" on the game's screen. And his profile icon didn't exist as well. During this moment, I noticed that Kaeya couldn't interact with the others because he literally didn't exist anymore. He was conscious, he tried everything, but all that was left of him was his absence. And for some reason, no one in Mondstadt seemed to notice his sudden disappearance either.

Did the Irminsul Tree get corrupted and erase his information or was he not cared for at all? This was the question Kaeya asked. I was shocked since I didn't expect him to know about the tree and information could get erased from there.

I kept controlling Kaeya but the vision was so vague that the map barely helped, and no, the main menu wasn't opening either. No Paimon, no settings, just Kaeya and his absence.

Then, I remember seeing Dragonspine. Kaeya was here for some reason, lost and confused. But since he didn't exist anymore and all he could talk with was me (the player, not the traveler, he broke the 4th wall) he suggested taking some pictures.

This especially crept into me a lot because, in one of the fics I wrote, Kaeya went so insane that he needed pictures to make sure he did things right. I can somehow feel that by telling me to take pictures, he meant it in a way to "make sure everything is real."

He got mad when he saw the photos and how even they were colorless. He thought that by using an object that "exists" he could get rid of the terrible darkness. The photos also proved that what we were seeing was correct since not even the player could outrun the colorless screen. Yes, he said that. If even I can't change things, there is nothing Kaeya could do, according to him.

This was one of the scariest scenes, to be honest. The map was there but I couldn't understand a thing, everything looked too dark, once the elegant and magical Dragonspine was now sheer nightmare material. We fought multiple monsters. Kaeya was trying to find his way into reality, thinking for some reason that someone could bend his curse, and bring back the colors. It felt cold, too cold. I could physically feel the sheer chillness hitting my face. I remember moving in my bed as the dream continued.

But it came to an end. Kaeya was attacked by a Mitachurl with a cryo shield. We tried outrunning it but the cold killed Kaeya before the monster. I woke up after he died, the "sheer cold" screen was the simplest but most uncanny thing I have ever seen. It doesn't look that terrifying in the gif but imagine seeing this in a dream.

And a silence followed, Kaeya said nothing. I clicked the revive button but it simply said "Fatal error: Character files missing"

But as I stared at the screen, I could also think of a way that could have saved Kaeya. It was Diluc. For some reason, Diluc's flames could cut through Kaeya's corruption and the tides of reality itself. That little cut between truth and delusion could be his escape. But we never found Diluc, and it was already too late when I realized what we could have done. I felt guilty, knowing that he died because of me. And it wasn't a simple death either, he was deleted or his information in the Irminsul Tree got corrupted beyond fixing, erasing him from existence altogether as the only remains of his presence were his consciousness. He died in darkness, in the sheer cold he despised so much.

I woke up. I was mesmerized by this dream and wanted to write it down. But now that I looked at my badly written notes and the scenes I tried recreating, I feel terrible. This dream was one of the greatest things I have ever experienced, it showed just how creative my brain could get but also... how horrifying it can be. I will never forget the sheer cold screen and the artifact of "Memories From Afar".

[cto10121]

Twilight Clown Takes—Part 10

Featuring “Twilight is badly written,” “Meyer did not intend to write X thing she definitely wrote,” “The series is über Mormon,” and other chestnuts. Fortunately, I do love nuts of all kinds, so om nom nom

The writing was so gibberish it was a bestselling phenomenon on par with Harry Potter.

The only thing bad about the writing in Twilight is that Meyer got a very bad editor. There are stray typos and errors in my original copies. Sadly, book editing has gotten worse since then, and I have found many modern books with similar errors.

Bella is not like other girls, all right. So much so that she constantly claims she is. Like here:

“Well, look at me,” I said, unnecessarily, because he was looking at me. “I’m completely ordinary.”

IF the dialogue in the books is like the movie dialogue…IF

“This main character is such a main character!!1!1” 😡 “Also big words make my wee lil brain hurt!!1!1”

Bella is literally so expressive around Edward and the Cullens, to the point where Alics mentions sourly she had “forgotten how exuberant” she was. Emmett and Jasper have a bet over how many people Bella could kill in her first year just on her temper alone. And re: Edward, Bella has no problem arguing and pleading and crying and ranting to him.

Also, Jacob is a different, much more immature character than Bella, so of course his POV would be different.

“Deeply desperate for sexuality” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣And these clowns claim Meyer is a bad writer. Don’t go throwing stones with your glass house, hon.

Anyhoo, Edward is the one who pushes for marriage, not Bella. Rosalie and Emmett get married every decade or so, but that’s only because Rosalie loves weddings—as in, being the center of attention. Do Alice and Jasper even have a wedding ceremony??? I don’t even think they got married in the traditional sense even once. No doubt they did, but they aren’t portrayed as a conventional married couple at all.

Other vampires that are not the Cullens do not marry at all—they are mated, which is an actually a greater and more permanent commitment than marriage in the Twilight world.

Also. The Twilight series, fearing sexuality? The Denali sisters literally went vegetarian because they loved fucking human men too much. And they are considered not only good vampires, but the Cullens’ extended family. And Renesmee nor Claire are child brides.

Twilight isn’t explicit about sex purely because Meyer realized her first book would be targeted to a YA crowd. But it is a romance through and through.

Ho boy, where to begin?

“Edward is supposed to be creepy, he is a vampire after all—” Would you like a cookie for this very obvious reading, Clown OP? That is some elementary school-level reading comprehension there.

“Failed to write an arc where the character recognize the problems, learn, and then overcome them—” Edward literally went from “She is my prey” to “I have her blood on my lips, and I am laughing at a joke she just made” in the first book alone. In New Moon, Edward made the disastrous decision to leave Bella, ramifications of which he was still dealing with in Eclipse (and he explicitly said it was the worst mistake he ever made). In Eclipse, Edward finally learns to trust Bella, fight for her love, and even decides to give her what she wants (i.e., sex) because he felt that he had been fucking it up the whole time. By Breaking Dawn, we have an Edward who finally accepts himself for who he is and learns to be happy in his vampire life.

As for Bella, she went from an introverted parentified teen so neglected she felt she had to cook and clean for her parents in order to feel less of a burden…to the powerful member of a coven who loves and supports her, saving the lives of said coven and mate from the Volturi. By the end Bella finally learns that what she wants is important and to fight for it. She learns to accept gifts and attention. She even finally describes herself as beautiful…as a human. That’s so big! That is an arc.

It is glaringly obvious, that I must question whether Clown OP has read the series or not. Most clowns do not, of course.

“The story never digs deep enough into him being a real danger to Bella—” Bitch, that’s all of the story. It’s literally 80% of Edward’s personality right there! He is too bad for Bella, it would be better if he weren’t in Bella’s life, it’s literally never-ending. A whole chunk of Bella’s motivation for becoming a vampire is because his world is too dangerous for her as a human. The whole plot of each book is Bella being hunted by a vampire, who are consistently the villains and described as monsters.

“Trying to turn Stephenie into the new J.K. Rowling—” When I picked up Twilight in ‘06 it was labeled as “Romantic Suspense.” The whole series was explicitly marketed as a paranormal teen romance, which was and is a subgenre of fantasy, with the whole Team Edward and Team Jacob thing riding strong. Twilight never tried to be something it wasn’t, and Meyer has never tried to make it out to seem like some epic fantasy. On the contrary, it was the anti fans that preferred the lore to the actual romance.

Nowadays the series is shelved under YA Fantasy, but that was after the series was completed. Breaking Dawn was perhaps the deciding factor.

Sure, Meyer was not aware of something she absolutely 100% wrote.

Bella’s parentification was canon before Midnight Sun was a twinkle in Meyer’s eye. And sure enough, when that landed, Bella’s neglect became downright glaring. But go on espousing sexist biases about female writers “not intending” certain things, Clown OP. It’s not like that isn’t a page taken from the Suppressing Women Writers handbook. When you know, you know.

Sigh. *schedules Movie Bella vs. Book Bella post*

[midnightshard06]

Fictober Day 11: "Well, that went great"

You can check it out on ao3 here if you prefer.

Summary: Tails is ready to test out a device which should help Sonic be able to actually get some sleep at night. Sonic isn't sure it's going to work but he's happy to let Tails try.

Set in my Bound by Fate AU

Warnings: None

Word Count: ~650 words

“Everything feel comfortable?” Tails’ eyes nervously darted over to Sonic. 

“Like I said the first five times you asked bud, it feels fine.” Sonic sighed fondly. Currently Tails had him hooked up to… well one of his inventions. Tonight was the night they would see if the machine could help drain some of the excess energy that came with his nightly transformations. Admittedly Sonic didn’t have much confidence it would work, but he wanted to give Tails a chance.

“Ok.” Tails sighed as he nodded. “Ok let’s do this then.” The fox began typing away and Sonic sat there patiently. He admittedly had no idea what Tails was doing but he trusted his friend. “And there. Just sit still for a bit and we’ll see if it works.” Tails took a step back.

“Am I supposed to feel anything if it is working?” Sonic tilted his head, so far it didn’t feel like anything was happening. He felt the same as he did every night. The odd energy still thrumming under his skin.

“I’m honestly not sure…” Tails brought a hand up to his chin. “This is all new to me, and being entirely honest I’m not even sure what this energy is. I’ve run enough tests to know it is some sort of tangible thing but… it’s not like anything I’ve seen before.” He glanced over at Sonic again. “Give it a little bit to work. If nothing happens in a few minutes I’ll turn it off and make a couple adjustments.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Sonic did his best to relax. Watching Tails start to pace and mutter quietly to himself didn’t really help though. He was about to say something to break the spiral his friend was going to get himself into when he felt a jolt run through his body. It wasn’t like anything he’d felt before, but it felt wrong. Wrong in the sense that it shouldn’t be happening right now. There was barely a moment to contemplate that feeling before Tails’ machine began to spew smoke. Tails’ fur fluffed up in a panic as he dove for a nearby fire extinguisher. Sonic felt the odd jolt again and instinctually dove to get Tails to safety. A moment after the two were on the other side of the workshop the device exploded. Both of them stared at the charred remains of the device in silence for a moment before Sonic slowly turned to look at a still shocked looking Tails. “Well, that worked out great.” He said, chuckling.

Tails walked back over in silence and began to inspect what was left of the machine. “How did that…?” He trailed off.

Sonic came up behind him. “Sorry about that… wasn’t uh expecting it to literally blow up on us.” Based on Tails’ current reaction he was actually starting to feel sort of bad about unintentionally trashing the device.

That seemed to break Tails out of his surprise. “Oh! No, it's fine. Neither of us knew that was going to happen.” He smiled. “This is far from the first time I’ve had something blow up on me. There’s a lot of trial and error when you’re mostly self taught.” His tails swished behind him. “Even if this might be a setback in some ways it’s progress in others. I know I need something stronger to take the strain of that energy now. I’m sure by the next time you come around I’ll have a new version to test out.” 

The determination coming off Tails was infectious, and Sonic shot him a confident grin. “Well if anyone can figure it out it’s you.” He messed up the fur on Tails’ head. “For now though we should get that cleaned up and head to bed.”

Tails looked like he was going to protest before Sonic gave him an unimpressed look. “Alright, I guess you’re right.” His shoulders slumped. This kid…

[tobiasdrake]

A hopeless confrontation with a hopeless demon.

Quarble, he's too fast. I've tried to dodge and weave and watch for openings but he nails me every time. No matter what I do, it's like he's right there, waiting for me to do it. I can't get away from him.

"Look, man. This is just a job. I'm not your therapist. Figure it out or don't."

You really don't have any ideas? You don't know anything or... have any suggestions I can use here?

How am I supposed to beat this guy, Quarble? Eleven times. He's gutted me eleven times. Yeah, okay, lesson learned about underestimating people, but I've been trying really hard. Was I wrong to think I could actually do this?

Maybe he was right. Maybe I'm at my limit. Maybe... this is where my journey ends.

"...push... through...."

Did you say something, Quarble?

"Yeah, I said 'If I don't get any Time Shards soon I'm bailing. Have fun getting dissected again.'

No, there was something... like a flicker....

"Hallucinations may be an occasional side effect of being gruesomely butchered, revived, and butchered again repeatedly in a short time period. I say 'may be' because most people give up and accept the sweet embrace of death well before it ever gets to this point."

"It's a mistake to rely on speed alone; It's too easy to push through. I figured that out early in our training. Zale learned it shortly after."

We go through.

I've been letting this job get in my head. Trying to be more cautious. Trying to be mindful. But the answer was right there in the fable. I need to stop running.

Luana spent her whole life sparring with a Blade Dancer. It's a style eerily similar to Brugaves's new demon style. To the point that it almost seems like a cruel joke for Aephorul to forge him this way.

Nobody knew better than her how to counter that style. And she wrote it down. You don't run away from a Blade Dancer. You go through.

If he's too fast for you, then he may just as easily be too fast for himself. All you have to do is stand your ground and let him strike himself upon your weapon.

I've been getting in my own head. Worrying about stupid things like safety and protecting myself. When I should have been asking the obvious question from the start.

What would Luana do?

Hey! Goat-licker. Imagine selling out the people who love you so you can be the Acolytes' gofer. I can't even be vindictive about it 'cause having to live like this is punishment enough.

Sure, you used to have respect, admiration, kids looking up to you with stars in their eyes, and a dedicated life-partner who'd do anything for you. But you're right, kissing the foot of a four-headed butt-chugger every morning is just as fucking good, isn't it?

You're a coward and a fool, Barma'thazel. You were barely any good as a Solstice Warrior. And now you're a bottom-feeding parasite living in a hellhole, clinging desperately to the one gift his master graced him with.

The goddess forgot about you long ago. She's over you. And I'm done running from you. Because I'm better than you.

It's called crippling overspecialization, ass-weevil. You'd think a general of an armed forces would be able to grasp a concept as basic as that. But I guess you're just too slow.

Hold up. Do you mean that in the figurative sense? Like, we are all pieces in a larger game that cares nothing for winners and losers, and so in the grand scheme of things we are all doo--

NOPE LITERAL SENSE VERY LITERAL SENSE GODDAMMIT

SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK FUCK SHIT FUCK

WHY

WHY CAN'T I EVER JUST WIN SOMETHING

I LOOKED SO COOL BACK THERE

MY HAT WAS SET TO MAXIMUM AWESOME

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

YEEEEEEEEEES Holy shit, thank you prophesized Lifesaver. Wentworth, you are a sight for sore eyes.

...wait, what?

...

Errors have been made. You know, I thought you looked a little small to be the colossal dragon that Luana wrote about but I just figured she'd embellished.

In any case, THANK YOU DRAGON BESTIE WOO FUCKING HOO

Let's blow this shithole and go home!

*deep breath*

In your name.

[nonsenseparts]

Probably best to keep scrolling, or alternatively go listen to literally any song from Buckethead's album Colma. It's beautiful. All of it. Heck listen to the whole thing. I'm just here to turn thoughts and feelings to words and maybe practice openness.

Frustrated with how easy my friends make it to figure things out. I would like to be as able to offer the same in return. I feel like I've fallen behind. I want to be a better friend and more of a person.

I want to learn what they know so that my requests for support/guidance feel more substantial, more worthy of their time. I stand by "there's no such thing as a stupid question", and so my guilt points to a sense of emotional self-sabotage with regard to my personal growth. Even now I feel so locked into mental rules I didn't even consciously choose. So were I to be more independently competent as a person, what would I be more independent of? I'd know to ask for help, so it wouldn't be a matter of individualism. It's not about denying myself the right to basic comforts, so it's not about feeling like I deserve less than others, or that nobody should have such comforts. It's not about feeling like a slave to instinct, instinct is valuable and important. I don't have a sense of being watched for errors or sins. It's not even a matter of coping mechanisms, I don't believe I get to employ my coping mechanisms as often or effectively as I would like. It is as though I have decayed, and in doing so ceded ownership of my brain emotional and cognitive sediment, and that sediment has taken on a life of its own. I'm not talking about other identities operating within my brain/mind. It's more like a million tiny remotes from the click movie. Tiny emotions and significances and connections falling to the wayside, throwing errors, failing to get across gaps or accumulate in the recursive cycles that constitute my being. I'm supposed to be starting CBT in a few months. That should have some value here, as should what it encourages me to get done. But aside from that, I don't know. I want to read more. I want to learn more, faster. I want to participate in things whose skills will give me a clearer reflection of my inner workings, the outer world, and the relationship between the two. Meditation, foreign languages, art, singing, programming, math, crochet, physics, animal husbandry, writing. Fervent learning is so core to my identity. I think that's what it is. I've been learning more and more slowly. Even with the medications that felt like breaths of fresh air. And maybe I ought to feel this way, regardless of how engaged I am with learning. Maybe this is what happens when fatigue accumulates. My sleep schedule used to be chaotic, but in a week I used to get a lot more. Now it's 2-4h a night, 6 if I'm lucky, none if I'm unlucky. 8-12 if I'm physically fucked up from exhaustion, and then back to 0-6. My sleep meds increase the quality of my sleep *f I can get it, but the vivid dreams at the cost of needing more emotional self/external care during my waking hours. My adhd meds calm me, and increase my connection to activities if I can start them... focus, stamina, patience, at the cost of needing better sleep and more relaxing downtime. But making the sleep happen? I don't know. I'm becoming less able to take care of myself and participate in my interests and responsibilities, which is increasing my stress levels, which is further impacting my sleep. It's a cycle. My mental health appointments mean missing classes, or having less time to study or relax. I've already dropped half of my interests since starting this semester and cut my social contact in half along with it just to maintain this sliver of a chance of catching up to my peers. I need more rest, a change of pace, and help. The grief of these last few years' losses have been so heavy. I want to be there for my loved ones. As the saying goes, I want to be able to keep people warm without setting myself on fire. Maybe I could catch up at uni if I had a spare two weeks. Maybe I could recover my energy reserves if I had a spare month. Maybe I could be okay if this all wasn't so overwhelming. That's not even getting into my finances. I can't wait those away. I need a real grip on things before this Winter when the Nordic dark months/super short days - I don't want even more cards stacked against my brain chemistry. Some peace shouldn't be too much to ask for.

I'm so tired of the decay. I'm so tired of being tired. I want to feel real again.

[thetriumphantpanda]

TRIAL AND ERROR HAS TURNED ME INTO THE MOST FERAL GREMLIN EVER???? JESUS CHRIST??? That was the most perfectly written smut I’ve ever seen in my entire life…. So primal, so flirtatious??? SO PASSIONATE??? You are truly helping me in discovering kinks I had no idea I had before but maybe always… had a feeling? My ex boyfriend was a twin and I literally had lowkey fantasies of doing it with BOTH of them and this fic just brought all of that back to the surface again LMAOOOOOO

(2/2) AND THEY KISSSSSSSSED!!!!!! OMGGGGGG and the ending of that chapter… reader is so sneaky bestie I love it so much… as she should be 🫶🏽 idk how to move on after reading that chapter… I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I’M SUPPOSED TO GO TO SLEEP!!! THEIR CHEMISTRY???? IS UNREAL??? I LOVE TOMMY BUT GIRL…. girl…. wtf are we gonna do

Oh BESTIE THIS IS DELICIOUS. First of all, I, as the writer, am also just incredibly feral over this whole series. Every time I think I've gone far enough there's this little line that pops into my head where I'm like OH WELL GUESS I CAN GET EVEN MORE DEPRAVED THAN I THOUGHT and I'm like.... I LOVE IT?! The fact that people are over here finding out they've got kinks they didn't know they had through my writing is just insane? Like, don't worry girl I GOTCHU.

Also, I'm gonna tell you what we're going to do... hold my hand.... you ready? We are going to get four more parts of utter delicious filth and then I'm going to give you the best damn ending to this series that I could possibly think of.

and then maybe Tommy is going to decide he wants more than one kid and we might get a season two. WHO KNOWS. But thank you for being here, thank you for being so kind about my writing and for supporting me. ILY.

[mollish-art]

HOW DO YOU WRITE SO AMAZINGLY WOULD YOU HAVE ANY TIPS I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF UNPERSONS IT'S SO GOOD

eeeEEEEE thank you so much!!! That's really sweet of you to say - I'm so happy that you're enjoying the story so far!!

This is honestly the first I'm I've even attempted to write anything of this length before, so I'm amazed it's been received so positively.

I am by no means a professional writer, nor have I taken any creative writing classes or been to any workshops, but I'll just let you know what I tried to keep in mind, as that seemed to work for me! Take this with a grain of salt, though :)

When I was in the midst of writing, I was absolutely hyperfixated. The story was literally all I thought about. I only listened to the playlists I curated for it on repeat, even when not writing or drawing concept art for it. It was honestly a little unhealthy lmao but it gave me the stamina and inspiration I needed to sit for long hours and just write.

First things first: I wrote a really rough plan of how I wanted all of the scenes to play out, color-coding the headings by perspective. I even gave each segment heading names that were eventually removed from the final draft of each chapter. For example, here are the perspective titles for chapters 2 and 3:

And here is a random screenshot of some of the plot outline from Chapter 3:

I'd put random keywords in there along with media references and links to concept art etc to jog my brain as well.

This helped me to keep overarching goals in mind when I actually began to write the chapters themselves. I also wrote everything in order - I never skipped over writing certain scenes. That might work for some people, but not me hehe

What's very important to note though is that as I was in the middle of writing each chapter, I simply wrote what felt right. If something seemed to just work better, even if it went against my initial outline, I would write that instead.

Additionally, I constantly assessed my strengths and weaknesses. I feel far more comfortable describing physical and emotional reactions than I do writing dialogue, so I would always pay particuarly close attention to the dialogue I wrote when editing. I would often read whole segments out loud so as to avoid as many cases of "he-would-NOT-fucking-say-that"-syndrome as possible.

Also, I would take frequent breaks. If a scene I was writing just was not coming together, I'd stop writing for a while rather than burning myself out.

I tried to take into account some advice I heard from somewhere else as much as I could, namely to balance descriptions of the environment with dialogue, both internal and external. I tried to catch myself whenever I noticed I was dedicating a huge, uniterrupted chunk of text to only dialogue or only environomental description.

Another thing: I like using figurative language. A lot. Probably a little too much. But I like being dramatic and artsy (a bit like my characterization of Hetch, I suppose), so I would include a lot of metaphors and similes within my writing. I feel like it helps to paint more of an abstract picture and let the reader fill in the gaps themselves with their mind rather than to give too many minute details, as that can get boring pretty quickly.

Lastly, I revised my drafts many times before I sent them to my beta readers, checking mostly for continuity errors, flow, and any grammatical/spelling errors. I'd often do my revisions aloud to myself, as I tend to catch more awkward sentences that way as opposed to just reading it silently to myself!

Hopefully some of that is helpful :) Honestly, the biggest piece of advice I can give is to just get out there and write. I didn't know I was capable of pulling this off until I sat down and did it. And, most of alll, I was writing more for myself than anyone else. In other words, I just had fun with it! I didn't really care if people would resonate with it, all that I knew is that I enjoyed writing it myself. Thankfully, that seemed to come across! I'm still blown away by how Unperson has been received so far. I'm really looking forward to getting the chance to get back to writing it again!

[bearpillowmonster]

Virtue's Last Reward

In some ways it's better than 999 but in some it's worse. 

The characters are pretty memorable, I was afraid it'd be staler than the eccentric personalities of the first game but it remains. A plus is that our new main character, Sigma, doesn't talk. (Well, he does, but he has no audible dialogue so he's not as annoying.) It carries over that problem from the last one too where they overexplain things like it's a children's game but it's rated M otherwise. Visually, it switches the 2D sprites with 3D models, which can be considered a downgrade in some ways but it's easier to navigate the rooms though with proper 3D environments versus simulated for the DS (it's the 3DS now) but it's put on this nice collection on the PC so it looks smoother and cleaner.

The one complaint I have about the port in general is that it could've cut some things out. I imagine the transition scenes were made to mask loading screens but we don't need them anymore and they're more tedious than Resident Evil's. While not as often, they take longer because they'll go somewhere and it shows them as a blinking dot on the map and the route they're taking (not that it matters most of the time, when it does matter, they reiterate the sequence anyway) but they'll show them going across an entire floor, go to the elevator, stop, show them pressing the button, the elevator comes, wait for the elevator to descend, beep, open doors again, back to map, show them moving to their destination again, it's just meaningless. And there's a skip but it's only for stuff you've seen before (in any route) so it usually doesn't include the transitions and when it does, it needs to be activated before it starts because it doesn't give you the option during.

And also (...) they have a tendency to (...) whenever (...) there isn't anybody (...) saying anything and (...) they'll show it (...) for each character. There were some parts where my experience was an error but I couldn't find proof of others being that way. Gaulem Bay for example, there are rows of (nonspoiling here) "lights" that some are on and some are off and you use that pattern to activate a puzzle, however, mine spelled out something different than what it was supposed to, I double and triple checked in game even after I looked up the result and the same answer got back to me every time.

All that remained was the ending. Would I find the outcome better than the last one? Because the other one reached a little too far in terms of what you could've predicted with the face thing. Well...this ending isn't much better. I actually had this game pegged as "great", I even accepted as far as the Phi ending and would've given it a 3.5/5 but it was afterwards that reversed everything.

Literally. It's like Meet the Robinsons but not as a good thing. It takes the time to explain every aspect of it and it's boring, because it's a large infodump and exposition for the next entry in the series...as an ending. So yeah, it seems like it's going to be a complete package but it's not a complete story, while 999 was at least contained enough to seem satisfying. And I mean it really threw the kitchen sink at you too. It has the regular endings and then two hidden ones before credits roll but then two more after credits roll so it never really knows when to stop either. People complain about Kingdom Hearts but that's nothing, this is the real menace, overcomplicating and recontextualizing everything. Kingdom Hearts explains its way over a whole series of games, that's people's only problem and it's an outdated problem now that all the games can be bought in one package for the same system but imagine taking the plot and obscurities of those games and doing it all at once at the end of just one game. "Imagine a cat. Imagine a truck. Imagine a line. This is my name. This is my actual name. This is what I am. This is what I actually am. Let's review our history. Just use E = mc2. Imagine the relationship between classical mechanics and modern physics"....You think I'm joking? You think I just pulled all those out of my ass?!

So I don't think I'm going to play Zero Time Dilemma anymore.

[ndnaw]

Let's be real- Tokyo Drift was not good.

DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST THE ACTUAL ACTORS, JUST THE STORY AND THE CHARACTERS.

From the beginning of Fast and The Furious- Tokyo Drift, I could tell the main character was reckless, risky, competitive, and woman obsessed. Still, I believed in the series and was thrilled to see his character development throughout the movie. Sean was the embodiment of a teenager written by an adult, he was annoying, to say the least. After being a continuous disappointment to his mother, he was sent to Tokyo, Japan to live with his father who clearly was not a good father figure hence, Sean himself stated that his father 'ran away from his problems'.

In Tokyo, Sean already gets caught up with this girl, Neela, who is dating Takeshi aka DK (Drift King) who is our supposed antagonist. Now, Neela and Sean were talking and Takeshi got upset and approached. At first, I was all against DK not giving Neela the freedom to talk to whoever she wants but then I realized, 'Why is Neela so obsessed with Sean?' Firstly, he could not drift, he was not rich, and he wasn't even funny. I mean he compared his parents divorcing when he was three to her mother dying when she was ten. So it was between two things; she wanted a friend or she wanted another man and I am definitely going for the latter because he has nothing you are lacking in a friend. So DK has the right to be worried, Neela even saw Sean and left her boyfriend to be with him. Not even a, "Oh DK, my friend is here so I'm going to go talk to him," So already, I could tell there was some error in the script because DK has a right to think this girl might be a little like her mother. Neela was one of the few people who wronged DK and she had the nerve to say DK changed. He did not change, girl. You changed for that Gaijin.

Then there was Han, I loved Han when I first met him. He was smart, calculated, and everything the main character was not. This was until he started to feed Sean's delusions. Calling him 'DK's Kryptonite', teaching him that learning how to drift would get him girls and we all know what Sean thinks about girls. In no way was Sean, DK's Kryptonite. The only thing scary about Sean was how stupid he was. Now Han was one of DK's close partners, but guess what, he still wronged DK by stealing from him. DK's uncle is in the yakuza so this is kind of a big slip for DK, he even cried because of it. He even went to Han and said, "I put my reputation on the line for you. We were partners." Excuse me? Then Han had the nerve to say, "Its what we do." Han is a LIER and a THIEF because when he was working with Dom, I know he ain't stealing anything from Dom Toretto.

From this point, I was completely on DK's side. He has a girlfriend he can't trust, a partner that betrayed him, and his Uncle's reputation to uphold. DK has so much to lose. He built his whole life in Tokyo. So when Han died, it was kind of a, not relief but it was indifferent.

Finally, at the end of the movie, they decide or Sean decides to solve this with a race. Personally, I think Sean wanted to race DK because he wanted to restore his fragile masculinity and beat Dk so he used this as an excuse. Sean said before, he races just to prove he's faster than the other guy, so clearly we can tell- this dude is trash. Then plot armor and all and Sean wins the race and Dk has to leave Tokyo.

Honestly, the only good thing about this movie was that it introduced Dom Toretto again and the music. Twinkie and DK were the only good characters.

3/10

- It even got this much because of Twinkie and DK's baggage that we did not uncover, because there has to be something to DK literally tearing up and shaking from the thought of disappointing his uncle. Was he abused? Is his Uncle his only parental figure? Is he scared just because his uncle is yakuza?

[whentherewerebicycles]

okay sigh I slept on the job despair and feel a little better this morning. I think my despair has to do with feeling like I was misled a little bit in the interview process… or maybe I wanted to hear certain things and wasn’t listening closely enough to other things. my impression was that stuff like preparing briefings was going to be a very small fraction of my job, and that the bulk of my time would be spent on instructional work: planning and facilitating workshops, coaching staff one-on-one, and helping design & implement a comprehensive new professional development program. I love working with people and I love that big-picture strategic thinking curriculum design work, so I think I’d be reasonably happy in this role if it was the one described to me in my interviews. but the reality of this job is that I work alone 97% of the time—and most of that time is spent either on clerical tasks I could’ve handled in high school or on things I have no skillset for or interest in (like graphic design work). and while I get along much better with my team lead now and like her a lot as a person, I still feel really frustrated by the way she prioritizes tasks for our team and by the way she manages my workload even when I’m practically begging her to let me take on more (meaningful) work, like planning a writing workshop or developing a cohort-based leadership training series. I feel like she doesn’t want to take on extra projects as a team, which fine, but I’ve literally said to her multiple times that I don’t have enough to do and I don’t feel like the work I am doing is utilizing the skills I was ostensibly hired for. I don’t know how else to communicate that I’m desperate for purposeful work and would gladly take on those projects even if she wants to be minimally involved. and then as I’ve said before in my journaling about this job… I just hate the way that giving 10% of what I’m capable of makes me feel. I hate feeling like a person who’s content with just skating by, doing the bare minimum, not applying myself with any kind of focus or energy. it makes me feel Bad about myself and just lowkey demoralized all the time. blahhhh.

but okay. I’m not powerless here. I set up some new job alerts and am going to start updating my materials over the next couple weeks just in case anything comes up. there’s one job I’m looking at that would come with a pretty hefty pay cut, but I should be able to close that gap a bit if I start tutoring again and/or teach a couple classes a year. I’ve reached out about a couple of volunteer positions and will submit a few more applications this weekend. I might also apply for a tutoring job so I can start socking away some extra savings as a cushion if needed. I did a bunch of calculations last night to try to figure out what I need to cover rent, childcare expenses, etc. I think I can make do just fine on a lower salary—it’ll make things a little bit tighter with less margin for error (or unexpected disaster), but it should be possible.

anyway enough of that. it’s the weekend and I have three whole days off!!! my sister’s coming over tonight for a NYE sleepover… we’re going to watch glass onion and cook a delicious feast (aloo gobi, chickpea curry, homemade naan). today is supposed to be cool and cloudy with no rain. I would like to do the following things today:

HOME TASKS: empty & reload dishwasher, wipe down shelves and counters, clean out fridge, vacuum kitchen rug, take out recycling, give dogs their flea/tick meds

ERRANDS: get gas, drop off UPS packages, drop off USPS packages, do home goods return & look at pans, drop by target to grab groceries and a pan if home goods doesn’t have any good ones

EXERCISE: take dogs to a new neighborhood trail on my list and go for a short run after. or I’ve kind of been itching to rollerblade again… maybe I’ll try this paved trail near my house?

CREATIVE: read 30 pages of book, write at least 500 words

[goddamnwebcomics]

Okay, let’s revisit what I had to say earlier, because boy oh boy do I have I been thinking about this a lot. I guess my opinion depends on how (un)charitable I’m feeling.

As a furry myself, I can confirm that yes, [the designs] are in fact ugly.

This varies from page to page. Sometimes they look good, sometimes they don’t. Django is obviously meant to be ugly, but I guess Duran is fine. I was definitely too harsh on his design. I guess it also depends on your tolerance for “yassified” werewolves, I personally don’t really mind them.

I can even forgive this being out-of-character for [Misty], the comic does give a sufficiently good explanation for it.

And the actual plot it devolved to is good too, so far.

This is not a character arc, it’s just another excuse to shit on capitalism. It’s “housing market” again with a fresh coat of paint.

Let’s re-think this from Misty’s point-of-view. They’re upset that they’re never getting a promotion… and that’s literally it. That’s their entire reason for hating their job. Considering how much veterinarians make, I don’t think money is the issue; if Duran and B.B. can live well in this dystopia, so can Misty. So I suppose them wanting the promotion is about validation? Would’ve worked better if we’d actually seen them being taken for granted by the boss/clients/etc. That’s the most charitable read I can give this, and I feel like it’s a stretch. What do you think? Does what I just said hold any water?

Or is this meant to be an allegory for suicide?

It’s not.

Now that we’re on the last chapter, what even is the general plot to this comic?

Considering that the next chapter will conclude this story arc, probably fighting Django? It’s the most interesting of all the conflicts so far, I’ll admit.

So overall, is this comic getting better? Well, we still have to deal with images like vomiting, sex scenes and busted genitals, so it’s not good yet. But I’m liking this narrative better now. In particular, I really liked Misty’s reaction to becoming a werewolf, like I said in the previous reply, it’s one of my favorite tropes.

I’ll leave off with one more question. If B.B. had bitten Misty, how different would the plot have been?

(Also, only four pages today. Did Tumblr’s filters eat one, or was it just a scheduling error?)

Nothing wrong with changing your opinion, it has happened with me too, and oops, that always happens when I am riffing at the same time as pages are going up, the missing page is up now.

Yeah Duran ranges definitely depending on how he is drawn, he looks pretty dumb on the page where he is going “BUH” though. B.B. still looks awful. That’s why Misty’s design being so good came across as such a shock to me.

I think it’s still commentary on modern american society, it’s so out of place and it’s never brought up again. It just serves as a purpose to show Misty hates their current life and to act as somewhat blatant mouthpiece for authors opinions, similar to Abe here. Again, this would have worked better if Misty worked in retail or some other shitty job.

I def think the comic is getting better now that there is some focus given to Misty’s transformation. I still feel like it could have been achieved without Misty throwing that embarrassing temper tantrum.

Also, to answer your question, the only change it would have done is that Django would still be imprisoned, and thus they have no reason to go to Abe’s. It’s one of those damning “because plot demands it” situations, but still didn’t make B.B. look any less of a hypocrite.