#maybe to a point of making products and things like stickers and what not

[the-rxven-king]

ok well. the 100% consensus of my lil poll is to pls post art and after i finish crying over the support i will reblog some of my other recent things i posted end of last year and then ill post some of the stuff i never did as well as the stuff ive been doing recently

thank you guys i know there aint a lot of you that interact with my personal content but i still love you regardless and it means the world to me

[lonely1sthemuse]

my guide to wonyoungism, improve your life, glow up, be THAT girl:

🎀 have a routine: this is something I learned from being on therapy for so long. It is really important to have a routine because if not you can have bad sleeping, be tired all day, get bored easier, you won't be able to finish your responsabilities, it can bring you bad self esteem and in general is a complete mess.

🎀 work out: always do what's best for you and do what you feel comfortable doing but please! work! out! I'm such a lazy person and at some point it was really hard for me to have motivation to do anything, but once I put my mind into it, and force myself a bit and started with 10 mins of pilates everyday (since it was something easy to start with) my life and my self esteem improved a lot. Working out is another way to have schedules and a routine, also improves your self esteem by making you feel capable of doing stuff, and ofc is good for your body.

🎀 have a good skincare routine: first, do some research about your skin type and see what products can work better for you (you can also go to have a skincare treatment and ask the beautician or search on internet) but always do what's more comfortable and affordable for you, don't use stuff that influencers recommend bc you can alter you skin type based on the products you use too (as a beutician I know) Also don't DON'T do it everyday, some products can be used everyday like the cleanser but others not. As I said just do a good research. Besides skin stuff it's really interesting!!

🎀 improve your diet: with diet I don't mean to specifically have a diet, actually I'm a bit against them, since being strict about what we eat can cause stress and guiltiness, it's really important to have a balance, eating healthy at the end of the day means nothing if you don't enjoy it. And you can enjoy it by having fun creating new healthy recipes, doing a journal about your fav healthy recipes, buying new cookware (pink plates, pots, pans, etc) or eating a hamburguer, a chocolate cookie sometime

🎀 journal: this is something I do since 2014 lol it's without doubt one of the best things the human has created. It has helped me to improve my writing skills, to get to know me better, to vent about stuff idk how or whom to talk about, also make it fun! In my journal I vent and write about my feelings,fears, dreams, goals, etc but also write down my travels, concerts or fav kpop artists, decorate with stickers, a piece of confetti, even dried flowers!

🎀 hobbies: this is something I also learned recently on therapy, I mean we all had hobbies from time to time but do we know about the importance of having them? I spent this whole year doing nothing since I can't work or study, and without hobbies I can tell you life is too boring, and it can lead you to bad self esteem too I mean, I kinda got crazier for spending so much time alone with literally nothing to do. So find new and fun stuff to do just for the pleasure of doing it, you don't have to be the best at it. I bet you can find hobbies ideas on YouTube as well.

🎀 be more femenine: this is ofc an optional step but I think it can be important, since always either wonyoung or it girls usually look very femenine. Don't forget to make it a fun thing to do! Finding your aesthetic, maybe trying a new one, enjoy going shopping..you can be femenine with your clothing, with your skin care routine, with your jewlery...this is just about feeling beautiful and also powerful.

🎀 improve your behaviour towards other people: with this I mean basically being more open. To meet new people, to make new plans...also fixing your body gesture (at least mine is shit and It always end up hurting my back and shoulders)

🎀 affirmations: good affirmations are a thing, this I learned in therapy too. The way you talk to yourself is important and changing the mindset too. If you tell yourself "I won't be able" then for sure you won't. This is not an easy thing tho I know, but is a necessary thing. Forcing yourself to change your mind every time a negative thought pass by is a hardwork but is well payd, cause the price is your happiness. For this is VERY important to have some help and work things up in therapy. But to give you a little tip, surround yourself with good energy, put some pictures of good affirmations in your room, as background of your phone, even on a shirt!

🎀 enjoy and trust the process: as I kept saying in each step, making it something fun to do it would help you to don't feel it like an obligation cause it's not. It's ofc a responsability to improve your life so you don't fall in depressed behaviours for example, but by making it something fun, then you won't feel guilty if someday you don't feel like functioning and need a lazy day in bed. And by trusting the process, we keep motivated to keep going.

🌼hope this works for you, please let me know if so, have a great day and a great life! 🌼

[ct-multifandom]

Big day for annoying people (me)

The two new eps of ML were good? Like wow it’s been great so far except ep 3 was comparatively a flop imo. Werepapas was so, idk, enticing lore-wise but I don’t have much to say that other people haven’t except that they’re clearly NOT neglecting past plot points, making the tone too silly goofy all the time, nor retconning important stuff like some people worried they would. We have been FED. I’m sure Felix is involved in that ring bs somehow, but idk if his intentions are pure or not.

Warning for the only salty thing I’m gonna say on this post: I’m so tired of going into the fandom tag and seeing people whining about “bad writing” problems that literally never happened based entirely on their own incorrect predictions they made up to make themselves mad. Ugh anyway. This post is gonna be about small details I latched onto in Daddycop!

We got to see glimpses of Sabrina and Max’s rooms this ep! Max’s room looks like a Star Trek spaceship but the books on his bookshelf are kinda giving those reference books at the library of like, archived government documents or research papers iykwim whereas the books in Alya’s room look like manga. An interesting thing I noticed in Sabrina’s room is that she has a line of framed certificates on the wall, maybe academic awards or something similar

Did they ever say if Markov can see Kaalki or not? I’m sure they will eventually but idk which option I like better. It’d be cute if they were friends but it’d be pretty funny if he had to watch Max talk to the secret floating ghost who lives with them now and not question it

List of things Sabrina dumps in the trash: yellow nail polish, the brooch Chloe gifted to her/bribed her with in season 1, the cat ear headband from her Chat Noir cosplay when she and Chloe were roleplaying as him and Ladybug in season 3, a beret, maybe the one Chloe tried to bribe her with in s1, Chloe-style sunglasses, a Queen Bee doll, a photo of them together in the old animation, and a mug/tumbler? Maybe a gift from her as well idk maybe they’re selling Queen Bee-themed Stanley cups over there.

:((((( Aw Sabrina nooo I hate seeing her so sad and the way she lied to her dad so he would think she’s happy and has friends

I think this might be the first time the show referred to Fire Captain Hessenpy by name?

Marinette’s scooter has the T+S logo on it and a sticker that says Boulangerie Paris

Between eps 2 and 4 I’m getting the sense that Sabrina uses Miss Hound as an escape kinda like CN where she feels like she can become instantly likeable, trustworthy, helpful, and useful through the inherent credibility of being a superhero. She has anonymity, can sort of start over on a blank slate, and is automatically implied to be a good person since Ladybug entrusted her. I’m guessing we’re gonna see more of that blank slate idea with other characters and what they’ll do with it, but it’s telling that Sabrina decides to transform to resolve people’s minor inconveniences, especially when she’s feeling bad about herself. It’s like she’s proving a point to herself but also giving herself something productive to do.

The GIRLS Ahhhhh let’s go lesbians

Noticing a clear absence of Alix. Ik the special implied she has to keep hiding in the burrow from Lila but she’s all normal-looking in the intro and they can’t shelve her forever. I feel like something is gonna change to make her be able to return.

^^^ ALSO she’s the only hero with zero design updates and my theory is that the purpose of that is so she can do contrived time nonsense like going back to earlier seasons and going forward without contradicting anything or revealing which time period she’s actually from

I gotta say the side character writing has progressively been better and better throughout the show. Atp they really feel like actual people with their own opinions and motivations. In the early days they felt more like lovable NPCs who talked occasionally but now they’re real characters? With free will? I feel like I just watched Pinocchio get turned into a real boy

The pro-healthy eating censorship/propaganda/whatever in this show is so funny omg. Juleka: I brought fruit tea Mylene: wow that’s so much better than the sugary soda we had last time LMAO. To balance out Rose holding a bag of popcorn they gave Zoe two burlap sacks full of oranges which tbf I’d rather snack on those during a movie than popcorn but still. I saw a vid recently about gravity falls adding random bowls of fruit next to characters eating junk food because they were getting flagged as promoting unhealthy habits. I keep thinking about that moment in Ikari Gozen when Mari asks Kagami out for “juice” when any normal teen would’ve said “coffee” like nope no caffeine in my good Christian miraculous

Love Kagami being a pretentious film nerd go hang out with Nino

RED ALERT YOU GUYS Mylene has an inclusive pride flag pin on her overall strap. Like the rainbow flag with the trans triangle and the black stripe. It’s not subtle or anything it’s just right there wow. Damn

The pin above it reminds me of Timebreaker’s logo. I wonder what some of these pins mean

Ok last season they seem to have established that Sabrina became friends with Marc and Nathaniel who were both explicit Sabrina Supporters since their akuma episodes, so it feels sort of convenient that they were written out of the narrative for this ep. I do see the whole Girl Squad thing and how she feels excluded when all the girls in the group hang out together without her, doing traditional girl things like movie night sleepovers, so I do think it’s totally valid. Her having absolutely zero friends is hyperbolized though.

On that note I have to wonder if the school might have several lunch periods because none of the male characters expect Adrien and Nino were there. Or maybe they just stage the scene with whoever is convenient. They might have flexible lunch schedules and all the other characters are off somewhere else.

Rose mentioned a girl whose name I didn’t recognize and after rewinding i can’t tell what she said. Aglie? New character? Maybe she’s that black girl with pink hair who was sitting with Adrien, Nino, and Sublime at lunch

KAGAMI AND ONDINE ARE CANONICALLY FRIENDS this is like the Superbowl for me. I’m so excited for Sleeping/Princess Syren I need to see her.

God the girls were so messy in that scene where they didn’t want to invite Sabrina lol I kinda love it I can’t even be mad

Zoe, your lab safety is atrocious. Not only are you taking your goggles off while still in the lab, but then you *leave the room* and *touch someone* with your gloves still on?! Diabolical. What are they even doing, soldering computer chips?

Marinette when I catch you Marinette

Roger’s relationship with Sabrina is actually so cute even though he’s kinda misguided as a person GOD when he’s on his way to console his crying daughter and Lila enters his mind space and he’s cradling his arms like he’s clearly seeing her as his baby 🥺 nobody talk to me

Alexa play I bet on losing dogs by mitski. Myyyy baby my baby…

We got a glimpse of the baddest bitch in Paris Xavier Ramier I’m so happy

Sabrina shapeshifted her necklace into a brooch. Huh. I guess you can just do that

The power of believing in herself allowed her to yassify her own character design into a cuter and more fashionable superhero! This is basically just like real life if you think about it

Her ball has a doggy nose on it awww

Lila telling Roger to turn around so she could back him up and fire the anti akuma was badass okay

I’m not sold on the loud ass makeup they have a lot of the characters wearing so I’m glad we got to see the girls with clean faces at the end there. Wow they look so normal! I’m also loving the pajama designs. I had to pause and look at all of them.

Zoe had to stop and hit Sabrina with that rizz stare to make sure Sabrina wouldn’t be coming up with any platonic explanations for her behavior

I never thought I’d say these words, but I think a love triangle between Sabrina, Zoe, and Max would be fun. Imagine Zoe is into Sabrina, Sabrina isn’t exactly catching the hint and sees Zoe as a really nice friend, Sabrina kinda likes Max, and Max is like damn these bitches gay. Good for them.

The end card is so baby omg

I TOLD YOU GUYS Sabrina was gonna get a makeover and people were like uH No iTs JUsT An aNimATioN eRroR oF a ScRApPEd DeSiGn girl why the hell would they leave a scrapped design in the intro, and there’s no way they would accidentally not notice that much less repeat it

Mark my words white haired Caprikid is not an error either he’s real and he’s gonna collect all the chaos emeralds to get that way

A new diabolical twink has hit the scene. Ray’s pompous ass immediately reminded me of Preminger from Barbie. He looks like he rides horses. Like he tells people he’s into sports but then you find out the sport is just horse riding. Immediately invested. Who is this diva. I want him to get hit by a bus.

Ooooo Zoe was up to some Delinquent Shit in America this is so juicy. I looove when suspiciously perfect characters get revealed to be secretly fucked up that’s the best. I’ve always loved those types of headcanons, that she was expelled from her last school and moved to a different country all of a sudden for her mom’s PR. If you think about it, that’s exactly what happened to Chloe damn. Daughter commits PR disaster, do zero parenting about it, relocate daughter far away to start over with little consequence! I wanna see some parallels. I feel like she made it sound like she moved because she was getting bullied at her old school, but what if that was a lie, or at least a partial lie? You know shit’s serious when the exposition is in the post-post-endcard scene

The pacing of these episodes has been satisfying compared to previous seasons, especially 5. They aren’t trying to shove too much in, but there’s still a lot happening and fiiiinally a nice mix of plot and fighting. I was getting irritated by how rushed a lot of the fights were last season like might as well just not have them at all

Late edit: back to the pajamas because I forgot to analyze them, I have noticed that Juleka’s pants have bats on them :) frickin bats. They also have like… a crescent moon with something sitting on it? idk what that is. It’s like a pattern of cute spooky Halloween imagery. But the pants and her black lace tank top versus Rose’s sparkly pink unicorn onesie is adorb.

Zoe has a yellow tank and seems to be wearing her usual leggings under running shorts um? Outside clothes in bed? And her pink slides give the whole thing a sans undertale vibe. Oh what the fuck why do the feet of her tights have individual toes lmao. The horror. I hate it.

I can’t tell what Mylene is wearing except a black t-shirt that might have something white on it. OMG EDIT 2 ITS IVAN’S T-SHIRT FROM HIS OLD DESIGN YOU GUYS SHES WEARING HER BF’S OLD BAND TEE AS PAJAMAS. This is headline news myvan nation. She has maybe pink shorts and her slippers look like Uggs.

Kagami’s silk pjs look luxurious. I love how her clothes this season went from just preppy to being very obviously EXPENSIVE like she’s blending in with the gang but she’s still clearly rich af.

Sabrina’s pjs are a classic set with her usual argyle pattern on them. 10/10 would give her a warm glass of milk and read her a bedtime story. I wonder what she needs eye drops for because she told Roger she needs to pack them.

Excited to see more yay! I love the little details. It’s kinda a bummer that Sabrina spent most of her hero focus ep sobbing but we ball (see what I did there) and the end was so cutesy. So excited to probably watch episode 11 before episode 6

[greenandbreathing]

just read your maddie/caitlyn fic and ohhhh????my?? god??? life changing. i know you said you probably won’t write for them/arcane ever again (ooooo 🌀🌀🌀 you wanna write more maddie/cait fic so bad) but id love to know if you have any headcanons for their relationship dynamics 💕

hey omg thank you so much for reading !!! do i have headcanons…… oh my friend. you doubt me

(i'm gonna keep these sfw but if people want specific nsfw ones i couldddd be persuaded. speaking of which, this is the fic in question)

first of all i wanna start off with this. if you think they were ever “in a relationship” or “girlfriends” you are making your first mistake. here we have a woman who has just lost her mother and the real love of her life within a week, and then immediately she is handed more power than she even truly knows what to do with, try as she might to make it seem like she has it under control. she’s grieving and heartbroken but she doesn’t have time to manage anything  because she has a war to deal with. and then we have her subordinate, her coworker. imagine you are a girl with a raging hard on for power who has just witnessed a very hot officer ascend to leader of her house and your commander. she’s also in such a vulnerable position that it would be impossible not to offer her your shoulder to cry on. caitlyn is not herself, maddie is a horny twenty year old lesbian. i don’t believe that maddie was a traitor from the beginning, but i do think she was being remarkably selfish and did not care that caitlyn was using her. furthermore, i think she was into that part of it.

more under the cut!

THAT BEING SAID! there is nothing wholesome about what was going on between the two of them. maddie’s smart, and she feeds cait all the praise and validation she needs to create a bandaid on her heart, and caitlyn takes it all in because nobody else is around to take care of her. at a point where she has never felt more unloved, here is a girl willing to smother her. fine. 

i do think that the deleted scene where maddie approaches caitlyn at a bar and has a heart to heart with her did happen. i think that’s how it started. i think they shot the shit and had a few too many drinks and caitlyn invited maddie home with her, and it startled her the next morning when she realized she didn’t feel any regret about it, only a dull sort of. well. that happened. it was kind of cathartic? i actually think she had a spring in her step following the first time, which pissed her off because it meant for sure that this probably wasn’t going to be a one time thing. and it wasn’t. 

maddie loves it. she sees it as being useful and helpful, but she also folds so easily for a girl who will boss her around. she’s a follower to her core: when someone’s in charge, she has to be the best for them (i.e. gold star sticker — good job, maddie!) 

maddie lovesss getting to stay the night at cait’s. her sheets are soft and always clean, there’s no risk of being interrupted or overheard, and she will take every opportunity to use her fancy shower (and maybe— no, definitely— all of her expensive products. you can’t convince me that she isn’t secretly having everything showers with cait’s stuff) 

maddie is an abhorrent bed sharer— blanket stealer, toss and turner, the works. the only way cait is able to get under the covers fully is if she snuggles up to maddie, which maddie occasionally (unwisely) mistakes as genuine affection. its not, really. (although, cait will sometimes relish in the comfort a little more than she should, too. but she’s more aware of herself) 

i wish i had a clear answer on how i think maddie switched sides, but it’s so difficult to sort out in my head because i do think season 2’s writing is really flawed in a lot of ways (not an unpopular opinion), one of those being maddie’s whole character. i think ambessa manipulated her though, i don’t think maddie turned on cait on her own. if anyone has thoughts on this i’d be interested to hear them! 

[fuck-customers]

Fuck being a manager. It sucks. Is it worth the pay raise? Unsure.

Side note I'm the kind of manager who is also like fuck management, fuck corporate, the employees deserve more recognition bc they're doing the work, that kind of thing.

But customers will find out you're a manager and instantly complain about whatever bullshit they pick that day.

Some dumb shit I've heard:

1. Cashier was too fast

2. Cashier was too slow

3. Cashier wasn't fluent in Spanish (we are in Connecticut) the cashier in question knew enough to get by.

4. The fish was too expensive and I specifically should mark it down bc its "just fish"?

5. The ground beef was too bloody (???)

6. Not enough parking spaces close to the doors cuz I def have control over that

7. Someone who does not have a handicap sticker parked in the handicap spot (pls don't do that but also wtf am I supposed to do)

8. A baby is being too loud and I need to kick them out (no way. At this point the baby was singing the ABCs and not screaming so it was cute actually stfu)

9. There's dust on this shelf so everything here must me expired (the bottom shelf gets dusty bc sweeping.)

10. The card reader is too loud

11. The construction outside is too loud

12. We don't sell (insert product here) and I must have control over orders (i dont)

13. A customer smells like weed and I should kick them out (no)

14. Its too hot. Or too cold. Or too dry. Or too whatever.

15. The cream cheese was too high on the shelf

16. The red light in the intersection outside takes too long

17. A customer smells like they haven't showered in months and I need to kick them out (no)

18. We don't sell loose lemons only in the bag of 5. Cuz I have control over our merch.

19. The carts are too loud and squeaky

20. They don't like seeing employees cleaning anything how dare they sweep during open hours.

So many more but I hit 20.

Like what is it that makes a customer want to bitch about anything at all to a manager? Why can't you tell me that the cashier was nice so that I can leave a note for my boss? These things don't fucking matter at all usually. I'll handle a co plaint if its valid. If its bs like this I'm gonna just ignore it. Maybe write it down to send it to this blog.

Fuck. I'm over it. Tell me what we're doing right for once okay?

Also sorry if some shit didn't make sense I currently have a fever and nothing is coming out right

I hope you feel better soon.

-Rodney

[pinkypromisepascal]

get to know your moots!

thank you @almostempty for tagging me! I love this!

what's the origin of your blog title?: I suck at coming up with cool sounding usernames and mostly come up with super weird shit, but for this one I had some friends help me out! And I LOVE the vibe of it.

favorite fandoms: atm I guess the Pedro fandom, Stranger Things- now that I think about it I'm not even sure how many fandoms I'm really in?

OTP(s) + shipname: think the only real ship that isn't self insert fan fiction is Jopper lol. Omg I love them so much.

favorite color: blue, but also black when it's about clothing

favorite game: my ALL time favorite: Destiny, because it's been living in my head ever since it came in 2014 and I got to try it on a friend's ps4, this game is my Roman Empire

song stuck in your head: omg there's always a rotation of like 5 stuck in my head, but currently it's All I Need by Radiohead

weirdest habit/trait?: telling people where they might know actors from, and recognizing one specific dub actor in several productions

hobbies: drawing, writing, video games, music, going to concerts, yapping

if you work, what's your profession?: I'm a student!

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?: working in video game development! Like as a character designer

something you're good at: procrastinating, making a funny comment here and there, seeming like I have no interest in anything that is happening around me

something you're bad at: responding to people in time, time management, standing up for myself

something you love: my pookies, cats, dogs, warm sunny days

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: odd niche fan fictions that I randomly read about people I never expected there to be fan fiction off

something you hate: overly extrovert people that you can't take anywhere without them knowing every second person they see and being besties with everyone

something you collect: stickers, Pokémon cards, merchandise bought at concerts

something you forget: time, texting people back and then it turns into months of them being left on delivered

what's your love language?: touch and buying stuff that I think they will giggle about

favorite movie/show: movies I grew up with like Spirit or Blues Brothers, but newer stuff?? Don't know. Maybe the Joker movie. Friends and The Last of Us if talking about shows

favorite food: pasta and pizza, pretty basic

favorite animal: CATS. Also love dogs and horses, but omg, cats.

are you musical?: I like to imagine I could make some ambient music if I had the equipment for it. And

favorite subject at school?: English, specifically the high school years because my teacher was the weirdest and funniest dude and every book he read with us left a permanent mark on my soul (1984 is one of them!)

least favorite subject?: probably Chemistry and Physics. My teachers were good, I just didn't understand shit at some point.

what's your best character trait?: I like to think I'm easy to talk to and I'm not high maintenance. Like we don't talk in weeks because we were busy? No hard feelings.

what's your worst character trait?: ghosting people if I feel like I don't vibe with them anymore and easily forgetting about them

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: changing the time from pm to am

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: my past self

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!): there's so many fics by people I love that I just haven't found the time to read yet :(( but some old classics for me are Cup of Sugar and For Science by @strang3lov3 (listen, I know these are on your shame master list, but I love them so much) and Fixed Up by @the-ginger-hedge-witch

no pressure tags: @strang3lov3 @umnitsa @bitchesuntitled @beefrobeefcal @noxturnalnymph @heartfairy

[lore-of-the-mushroom-kingdom]

Miyamoto Banned Mario Using The Peace Sign Because He Thought It Was Too Kiddie

So in an interview that can be found Nintendo World New called Shigeru Miyamoto Speaks: An Interview Between Itoi and Miyamoto from 1999. In this interview it's revealed that there's been a ban on Mario using the peace sign. This is why in Super Mario 64 DS Mario can be seen making it, but in later games like Super Mario 64 DS Mario does not make it at all.

So in this interview Miyamoto reveals that the reason he put a ban on it is because he believed it would make Mario seem too kiddie. and he didn't like people thinking Mario was just for kids. "First off - that he doesn't give the peace sign. Also that he isn't always smiling and laughing too much for no good reason. About that 'peace sign ban,' that’s something I've been saying for a looong time. (Laughs) Our Tezuka-san, he likes that so he's put it in the games from the beginning, but in the later games it's permeated too much - to the point where when you think Mario you think that, 'He's the guy that gives the peace sign for his winning pose.' So I'm saying now, let's get rid of that sooner rather than later.

Well, and part of the source of that is that Nintendo is generally said to be 'kiddie.' But even if that's a promise we want to keep to our audience, I don't think it means at all that making Mario do the peace sign is going to bring in the kids. I dunno, maybe the company being in Kyoto is another detriment."

In addition, in this very interview Miyamoto talks about how he envisioned Mario, and his thoughts about Mario being a kids thing. "I created Mario when I was 27 years old. At that point in time he was in no way something that I would feel embarrassed about - I mean, he was already this older guy, like your uncle or something! (Laughs) It was meant to be the kind of game that 18 year old guys would be able to play together and enjoy, so I felt this disconnect when he started being forced into this more elementary school focused, narrowed role. If, for instance, you're talking about Yoshi in a product like Yoshi's Story, it makes sense to narrow the target age group for that, and I think that's fine, but for me, I felt like Mario was something a bit different. So I feel like I want to bring it back to that point, that I don't want to limit the age group of the game from our end."

This interview explains many things, and is also something I like. It has become a very common notion amongst people that the Mario Tales is just a kids thing, just the funny wahoo man jumping around rescuing a Princess from a turtle. Often being considered by many people on not having lore or any actual story to tell, and if it does have a story then it's basic. People often compare Mario's story to the story and lore of the Zelda games or Sonic Games. With the only time people treating the Mario Tales like they have any lore is in hypotheses of what if Mario is the bad guy.

But on the other side you have people who acknowledge the lore and deeper aspects of the Mario world as seen in the RPG games, but completely disconnect them from the Canon of the Mario Tales. Or in the case of Paper Mario they place the blame on the Paper Mario series shift on Miyamoto. When in reality it was solely Intelligent Systems, and Miyamoto told Intelligent Systems the gameplay of Sticker Star wasn't fun and that they should change it. Or when people simply claim Miyamoto hates story when he says he puts gameplay before story, ignoring what he means by that as they misusing what Yoshiaki Koizumi said.

This interview shows people's beliefs about the Mario Tales and Miyamoto are just wrong. In addition this explains all the various mature and dark themes that show up throughout the series, the kind of thing that makes people say "they put this in a kids game?"

[noonaishere]

Music of the Heart[J.YH] - thirty-seven | gotta let the fans know

You looked at your merch page. You didn’t have much, some stickers, some buttons, a shirt… you wondered if you should get more. The art for them all was kind of old, maybe you should find a new artist and get some updated stuff. You had a bit more money now, so you’d be able to pay for some better stuff at this point. You leaned over to the notepad on your desk and wrote it down. It might take you a bit to find a new artist and decide on something you like, so you could think about it later.

You had to write an update for your channel.

Hey everyone,

I’m really thankful you’ve all been following me and enjoying my videos for this long. 

If that first sentence scared you, don’t worry, I’m not leaving. This isn’t a goodbye letter or anything like that. 

Actually, I’ve been keeping a secret from you for the past few weeks.

My uploads miiiiiight be a little slower since… 

I got a job in the music industry.

For all of you who commented things like “You need to be hired to make actual music!” or “Any company would be lucky to have you!” well… we’ll find out if they are, lol.

Don’t worry, when something gets released that has my name attached to it, I’ll let you know (or I’m sure someone will find it and post about it before I can) so you can tell me what you think. Lord knows you haven’t been shy about that this whole time, lol.

So this isn’t “goodbye” this is just “less 4am mashups” since I do actually need the sleep now, lol.

Let’s all be excited for a bright future!

-Nero

You posted it and saw a few comments pop up immediately of people being excited for you and wishing you well, that sort of thing. 

You went to check your emails and found one from your editor with your newest mashup edit. You had just posted that your productivity would be slowing down a little, so you couldn’t post it yet. You thanked them for their work and made sure they got their payment, and saved the file for a later date.

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[fourseasonsfigs]

Building Block Figs - Catching Light

Continuing on from the last Building Block Figs - Basking in the Sun and Building Block Figs - Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake, Part 1 and Part 2, we have this wonderful set.

These figs make me laugh - I love them so much! I don't know why, I just find them ridiculously charming.

This building block set is 1,544 pieces, measures 8.4 x 17.6 x 15.6 cm, and is rated 10 hours. I did indeed take all 10 hours to build this, if not a little bit more.

Here is the sales pic of what the finished product is supposed to look like:

Cute, isn't it? As usual, sellers do a much better job of setting the scene than I do. I will say, though, that I did make two little tweaks to the set to make it a bit more canon compliant. Can you spot them?

It'll be easier to tell as we get better pictures, so I'll get into it!

First, here's the box of doom bricks. Like the others, this came in a generic sales box, with a super handy little unsnapping tool, and a sticker with a black and white image of the set and QR code instructions.

Once again, you'll notice my line up of extra bricks from the previous sets hanging out in quasi-neat little rows. Originally I figured I'll leave them all out in case I ran short of any, but in reality, this set maker gives me extras of each color every time. Which is handy, as you will see for later posts, when I make some adjustments to the fig sets to make them a bit more canon compliant.

As you can see, there's a LOT of extra bricks left over. To be honest, there shouldn't be so many white bricks - those are from another set that I made a major change to. I'll post about that one tomorrow.

Here's the different order of assembly - I went ahead and started with the base and tree, as they suggest.

As you can see, this is a very beautiful terrain here. I did not remember this area being so green and flowery from the show - in fact, I remember it being kind of sandy and desolate, but my memory is pretty lousy, there might be a scattered flower or so. Let's check.

HUH. There is not a flower in sight, is there. Hmmm. Well, this is kind of gonna bother me. Maybe I should have looked up the inspiration before putting together the entire 10 hour plus set, huh! Well, the little flowers are easy enough to lever off.

Hmm, anyway, moving on (for now).

So a couple things here. First, as you can see, there are only two green colors. I mean, one normal color really - the light green here is actually a neon green. It's brighter than it looks here. It looks great here, don't get me wrong, but now all I can see is the very sandy terrain of that screenshot.

Second, I tried something a little different here. It actually takes a long time to sort all the individual bricks, so in an attempt to shave off some time, I decided to experiment with this set. As you can see, I dumped the entire bag out to the right and am just picking out individual pieces as I go.

You'll note it's now evening. This tree took a LONG time to build. I actually timed myself up to this point, and to get to this mostly-done state took 2 hours and 58 minutes. I was pushing hard, too, because I really, really wanted to get the whole tree done that evening before I went to bed. But there was no way. I was too tired and was hitting the point where it was less fun and more work. So, despite really not wanting to, I summoned my inner adult and called it a day here.

Fast forward through time to the next day, and I'm all bright eyed and ready to bust this tree out. And it's done! I like this tree a whole lot...I think they did a beautiful job modeling it. Imagine if they had the full Lego suite of colors and special pieces! It would be really something. I kind of like it this way though (although I would take more colors, I can't lie). It really has an old-school style charm.

You can see the grey rock there where Lao Wen will be propped up against. And of course, the cheerful greenery and pink and yellow flowers.

Feeling VERY accomplished, I put the tree aside, and moved on to A-Xu.

Yep, looks pretty good. I was a little surprised they picked the medium blue color instead of the dark blue color, considering how bright the dark blue color actually is. But this looks fine too.

I am going to proudly say that I did, in fact, knock this fig out in record time. I've put together two and a half A-Xu figs by now (the half is going to be explained tomorrow, I promise!), so this third one went like a breeze.

As you can see in the back, I couldn't help myself, I was starting to make a few little piles of the colors I was working on. The big messy pile of bricks was kind of a pain, and I had to keep resisting the urge to sort them out.

And here he is! All done. He has a very solemn no-expression on his little brick face, which is appropriate. Can you see how there's a little bit of a neck (nothing too saucy or anything), the thin white layer of his under-robe, and then the lighter blue layer? I love it. Very charming. We also have his black belt with a bit of the tails.

It was yet another evening by this time, but since I did manage to finish him before I went to bed, I did indeed sleep the sleep of the righteous.

I woke up even brighter eyed and with pep in my step, ready to rock this last fig out. 10 hour assembly time? I don't think so!

I had now made three Wen Kexing brick figures, so the fourth one was gonna be just as quick as A-Xu was, no doubt. I pulled up the instructions on my phone, and got ready to go. 95 steps for our battle-weary Valley Master, huh? Huh. That's kind of a lot. But considering A-Xu was 85, not too bad. The tree was 119, by the way.

As I looked at the picture, however, I noticed that they had Lao Wen's (virtually) omnipresent hair wispies here. Given that this red wedding costume is the one outfit where his hair is pulled back all the way, it kind of bugged me. Which is funny because I've never liked how he doesn't have the wispies with this hair style on the show. It's my least favorite look on him, which is too bad, because I did like how they at least mixed his hairstyles up some. In my defense, I feel like I'm right (so right!) about how much better he looks with the wispies with this hair style, because you could see it at the concert. And he looked spectacular.

Anyway. Warring between my extreme desire for him to have the wispies and the simple fact of it not being canon, I started to build.

I got the first big chunk done very quickly indeed. Many of these figs are done where you do a big piece, and then set it aside while you work separately on the next piece. This is where I was.

And that's where I stayed, for a long time. I built this piece three times. I had to completely disassemble the entire thing the first time I built it, because I was off on my brick count, and the second time I had to disassemble it down to the first third.

Part of the problem was the way the directions were. As you can see, they still have the first "set it aside" part showing up on the directions directly under the new piece. Unfortunately, all that red blended into each other when I rotated the image around, and it was very easy to accidentally think I needed more or less pieces than I actually did.

I went ahead and built it with the wispies, as directed...and then just couldn't do it. I disassembled half the head and re-built it again without them. I also think that this fig, just like Lao Wen, does not look as good without them, but canon is canon.

Unfortunately, it was so late and I was so tired by the time I finished him (and yet also pretty jubilant), that I forgot to take a pic of the finished fig! Yes, I literally finished this set late last night, despite my best intentions of finishing it up and then triumphantly posting about it on the same day. It did, in fact, take longer than the 10 hours build time.

It took a long time, in general. My finger tips have actually toughened up a bit, so they don't feel sore from snapping the bricks in place, but my neck isn't all that pleased with me from hunching over these various sets for so long. So, I've been taking a few more breaks to stretch and do other things.

But, I woke up early today, and very happily took this set's beauty pics in the clear light of the morning. I love it!

I love how this set all fits together. We have the tree growing over the edge of the base, and Lao Wen there leaning up against the rock. A-Xu is standing with his elegant posture, and their little brick hands are reaching out to each other. Cute cute cute!

Wow, this light is great. I clearly should get up early to take fig pics more often.

The tree looks great, I think (and not just because I spent hours building it!).

This is a good view of the rocks behind Lao Wen here, and his big ponytail (I do like this part of his hairstyle).

The green doesn't look so bad on the ground, I think. I'll pull off the yellow and pink flowers, and maybe make a brown patch on the corner closest to A-Xu. That'll keep it colorful but make it a bit more like the show.

A-Xu's hair looks great, as usual. You can also see how I removed the wispies on Lao Wen's hair. I'll get a close up later so you can see it better.

Shoot, not my best pic - can't really see any of the detail on A-Xu's glorious night-black hair.

There we go, now you can. Oops, I see I knocked a tiny piece out of kilter on the bottom of his hair, I'll have to fix that. But! Here you can see both changes I made from the instructions - the lack of wispies of course, and then I made Lao Wen's guan gold instead of white. This took a while too, because I didn't have enough yellow pieces. The only yellow I had from any of the sets was literally from the yellow flowers here and the few extra they gave me of it. I actually pulled a few yellow flowers off the base there and replaced them with green or pink, just because I needed them for his guan. I then also carefully checked to see what internal yellow bricks were covered up by the black of his hair, and replaced them with black so I could save the yellow ones for the parts that did show. I'm very happy with how it turned out! It looks just like the white one, except, you know, yellow.

I don't know why they didn't originally design it with yellow, given that it is gold on the show, and they had already included yellow bricks with this kit. Maybe they felt the white stood out more or something. Anyway, it was bothering me it was white, so I'm glad I was able to figure out a way to make it work.

Alright, we're back around! And a bit of a different angle here, so you can see the poses a little bit more clearly.

Alright, a true top-down pic here. May I just say one more time how much I like this tree! The detail in A-Xu's guan is really nice too.

The bottoms-up pics are always tough here with the bases. Not a flattering picture, sorry A-Xu!

A close up of our noble shixiong with his little hand outstretched...

...and our weary shidi. What a great set, I love it! I'm so delighted by it, I can't even tell you.

Alright! come back tomorrow, for the much hinted at next set. And the last one, for a while - I have to wait for the remaining sets to be sent to me.

(Come back tomorrow, she says, as she still has some assembly on the last fig to do! I'll wake up bright and early tomorrow, and hopefully finish up).

Material: Plastic bricks

Fig Count: 506

Scene Count: 35

Rating: They're actually both reaching for their light

[link to the Master Post Index]

[shevathegun]

sometimes I'm just going along minding my own business reading a post agreeing with it entirely and then it suddenly takes a turn – and I say this while actively trying not to be the "tiktok guy". actively I am attempting not to be tiktok guy. but if you're writing a post about how young artists, inexperienced artists, artists in general should not be rushing to commodify their art or their artistic labor (great point 👍🏻), should not experience their art as building a brand or selling a product (yeah love the energy 👍🏻), and you then take a left turn and suddenly you're talking about how they should never post their work on an app full of other artists getting their work seen moreso than ever before on any other app, like, I'm sorry to say but you have completely lost the plot.

tiktok was (is? was?) to date one of the best apps ever created for not just sharing art but also connecting meaningfully with other artists. deviantart, tumblr, twitter, and instagram have all occasionally (or often in deviantart and tumblrs case) billed themselves as sites/apps for artists. but if you're an artist and you've posted your art to any one of those sites, you know creating art for social media is a huge time intensive process with usually very little reward. most people who post art on any of these sites will never be seen. the algorithm (if it exists) will never circulate their in any meaningful way. getting lots of eyes on your work or making art friends is a complete and total crapshoot.

the ease of content creation and intense level of customized feed curation on tiktok made it so much better in comparison it's crazy. like, what do you think "kids back in the day posting on deviantart" were looking for? just to file their art away in the internet archive, never to be seen by anyone? artists (and humans) generally want people to see the things they make. the majority of artists on tiktok are not trying to sell you anything, except maybe commissions or the occasional sticker or brush pack – which by the way is exactly how artists on da used to use that site as well. maybe that is a mindset to push back against – stop turning everything into a grind! you're allowed to just have hobbies! but at what point are we demonizing people for just trying to make a little extra money doing something they love?

i don't know a single tiktok artist with a mass media empire. I do know several who, for the first time since they started posting their art online when they were 17, can actually make a living off art commissions they receive on tiktok.

I think there's plenty of space to talk about how all of us over commodify our hobbies now, how you shouldn't always be trying to sell yourself while you're doing something you enjoy, how easy it is to get sucked into making art for attention instead of making art that you enjoy making. but tiktok is not the problem. and the problems surrounding making art on tiktok are not...tiktok based problems, except in that tiktok is so much more effective at making sure art content gets SEEN that people are likely to get a lot more attention than they have anywhere else, for good and for ill.

but when you say "back in my day people just posted on deviantart like normal people," you tell on yourself as an Old Complaining About the Youths. yeah, back in your day, that is what people did. now, people post that same content to tiktok, and it gets way more attention, and people are way more able to turn their art making process into content than ever before, and way more able to connect far more easily with other artists and also to people who might appreciate their work. it means the problems of deviantart – chasing attention, trolls, imposter syndrome, feeling competitive/jealous of other artists, and self-commodifying – happens much faster there and at a far higher rate. all that shit happened on deviantart too. but there was another part of most people's experience of deviantart too which you're not mentioning, which is that it was really isolating and demoralizing for a lot of people, because there weren't nearly as many ways to get seen or connect. and that has some pretty severe effects on young artists too.

I guess my point is, y'all have got to stop derailing good points with deranged tirades about how the most popular social media app ever created is actually satan. just... just talk your talk about commodifying art, man. stop being weird about tiktok. I don't want to be this guy.

[blamemma]

journal flip through tonite queen?? I love seeing what people are working on. I started journaling years ago, but I don't do it much. a lot of my pages are ok at best, but I feel like I can never make them come alive, you know? everything looks bland or even sad, even when it's full of color. it's like something's missing, but I don't know what it is </3

ahhhh i wish i could but a lot of my spreads ft. pics of me and friends/family and i am not keen to be doxxed x x x x

honestly tho, the biggest thing that kinda eased my journaling last year was do it for you. and maybe counter-productively, that's led me to acc have 3 journals this year. i have my junk/scrap journal for all my memories or fun-artsy stuff, my book journal for my reviews because my junk journalling would be so messy and fun but i always wanted my book reviews to be clean and tidy and i hated them being mixed together in the end, and then just a write-my-thoughts-and feelings-down-in-an-utter-whirlwind journal. for me its v much dont aim for perfection, i do this for fun and for my own memories and because i enjoy it.

maybe my practical tips are craft paper has saved me so many times. stick that on as a background and you've got something funky and fresh. or old newspaper. or old leaflets. or menus. just anything that kinda makes the background a little different. or if u search on pinterest for junk journal stickers i print off a load of stuff like this and cut them out and stick them around.

there's a load of great online stationery stores (or etsy) you can buy stickers and stamps and washi tapes from, but i really dont use a lot of those kinda things because the point of junk journalling for me is collecting random shit and culminating it together in something random but warming. my first pages are so so ugly in the eyes of "junk-journaling standards" because they're really bare and mismatched, but they're some of my fav pages because i love the memories of them???

honestly my biggest advice is just dont take it too seriously. yes people post these perfect pages on instagram and tiktok, but ur doing this for you so if it illicits happiness and nostalgia, thats all that matters!! oh and also more is more and more is great. i dont care for minimalism at all. i think im done and then i keep adding extras !!

---

wee little add on 5 mins later oops. i can show u this double spread. one of my favourite pages. stare at it often. but probably the most boring page. it doesnt have to all be loud and bright

(i have a daniel helmet sticker on the way that i'm gunna put by max's print when it arrives)

and i've posted this one here before so im happy to post it again x

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 3792

merry crismis

it's crismis!

merry crisis

merry chrysler

today was a damn good day.

i did wake up early because we were supposed to start doing stuff before 9:30, but i woke up early enough to talk to leo for a while. that was nice.

i eventually got up and threw on a bra and robe and made my way downstairs. of course the lights were on and everything was exactly as i left it last night since i was the last one up (as per usual), but it was daylight and i was less sleepy so that was good.

i went to bother chels and james when they didn't show up at 9:30, and they made their way out to the living room and we dove right in.

we always start with stockings first, and so i got up to hand them out from their location on the stairs. the additions to them in terms of stuff i got when i went out last night were exactly what were needed. beef jerky for chels, a giant kitkat for james, macadamia nuts for mom, goobers for dad. of course, when i got stuff for myself i just got a couple things because i didn't need a whole lot, but i wanted to spoil everybody else because they all have different tastes and it's nice to spoil them.

gifts went well! i got mom a potato ricer, a mug warmer, a new mount for her phone for her car, and a planner. james i gave fleece lined beanies with lights built in and a waterproof bluetooth speaker. chelsea i gave cowtales and a sticker of caitlyn from arcane as a mongoose, and i gave my papa a book about the production of a war movie that he likes.

i received a BUNCH of woobles kits that i wanted and a few extra accessories (yay!) from papa. mom got me a new northeastern sweatshirt because at some point in the last year and a half i lost my original one. but momma got me an identical one and i was so pleased to receive it. and the gift i got from chelsea and james was both hilarious and perfect:

a rice cooker.

a month ago or so, chelsea and i were making dinner. i'm fairly certain it was stir fry, so we had to make rice. but we've been the people who use a regular-ass pot to cook rice on the stove like normal, i guess. but i looked at this, and i said to chelsea, "how white does our family gotta be to not have a RICE COOKER." and she laughed because it's both hilarious and true.

and so she and james got me a rice cooker.

so now we have a rice cooker.

and it's fucking awesome.

after we finished with our gifts, i went and showered and got dressed and put on my new sweatshirt (which fits perfectly). i got myself together and i grabbed a big box at the table that had gifts for aunt wendy and gramma in it, and mom and i headed to manchester.

aunt wendy is a little bit miserable being back at gramma's since she's sleeping in gramma's den because it's the only place aunt wendy can sleep sitting up. but we brought the gifts over and were there while they opened stuff. mom and i made a christmas quilt and we gave it to aunt wendy. she loves it.

every year mom gets aunt wendy a snow globe from the san francisco snow globe company. it's a tradition from their dad who passed in 2001. it happens every year. and every year they both cry. christmas was grampa's favorite holiday, so it's tough on them.

but gramma gave me some gingerbread cookies which i'm thoroughly addicted to (the recipe is 302 years old, homie. this shit's been like crack cocaine for generations), but this time she made them into piggies!! they were delightful. what a great shape for a gingerbread cookie.

after being there for maybe 20 minutes, mom and i had to leave again. she was NOT feeling good, and being in gramma's company drains her quickly. so we headed back home.

the rest of the afternoon consisted of playing uno show em no mercy (which mom has dubbed "uno mega kill" because she can't remember the name), eating cookies, and watching battle bots. eventually i got up to make dinner.

yesterday i made the executive decision to make chicken taco salad for dinner. it was the right call.

i cut the chicken first, into little pieces that were often too big, but i had so much that i had to cut and cook in batches. thankfully, one batch took the same time to cook as the next batch did to cut. i started with putting the salsa into a crock pot, turned it on high, and then as the chicken got cooked, i dumped it right in to keep it hot and cook it together.

when that was all done, it was time for the ultimate gift:

the rice cooker.

i pulled it out, washed it and dried it all, and then got to making the mexican rice. the packages filled just over three times of the little cup that it came with. filled it with water to the line, plugged it in, pressed the buttons, closed the lid. and away it went. fucking superb.

i left the slow cooker and the rice cooker on the stove while i went and talked to my sister who showed me her gifts and stuff. i went back and forth between the kitchen, the eggs' space, and the living room. it took about half an hour to finish totally, which gave the chicken enough time to get salsa juice, cook the rice completely, and then get some beans heated up.

dinner was perfect. and there was so much choke i cooked that there's PLENTY for leftovers. james, chels, and dad will be very happy with their leftovers. there's enough of all of it.

i did, however, fuck up when cleaning the rice cooker, but i fixed it by disassembling it further lmao. i put it back together without issue.

after cleaning up after myself, i grabbed some stuff from my car and came upstairs. i watched an episode and a half of ncis with mom and moved my shit into my room.

i checked in with joel while i was cooking dinner. he's been chillin. i'll probably see him on friday, which will be nice. but that means i gotta wrap all the gifts i have for him and his family, since their christmas is saturday.

and all day i've been talking to leo. leo, who is as incredibly sweet as he is incredibly horny, is simply very cute. i am planning on seeing him next week for the standard sleepover, complete with vidya games, drinking, dinner, dick, and diner food in the morning. it's a great arrangement, but i wish i had more money so i could see him more often. he's one of my very best friends and i love hanging out with him.

but that leads us to now. i am in bed, my eyes are tired, and i have to get up at a stupid hour tomorrow because we have someone coming to deal with our heating. at 8am. which is rude.

but that's all. merry crimbo to all and to all a happy hanukkah and happy kwanzaa. :)

[fatuismooches]

icb anon left out the most important part about the lovers' notebook: it's delivered by luna's puppy, umbra 🥺🥺🥺

but fr that's been one of my favorite concepts since ff15 came out. i remember noctis being so shy he just filled the page with stickers (lol) so i can def see the more shy/quiet harbingers attaching pictures they took instead (capitano having a hidden talent for scrapbooking? ok king)

also LOVE LETTERS!!!! *swoons* when yelan said snezhnayan ppl use scented paper to make their letters more romantic? yeah, that's such a pantalone thing to do 🥴 his handwriting is so elegant and maybe he even has a custom wax seal for his love bc he's extra like that

OH MY GOSH UMBRA IS SO CUTE 😭😭💖 I don't know how to describe it but characters having an animal companion is always so. Freaking. Cute. 🥰 😭 AND OMG UR SO RIGHT??? Capitano fills the pages with his photos and the captions being so straight to the point. "Landscape of Natlan." "A fox followed me to the camp." "I think you would like this dish." Sandrone too, she's not the best with words either so she tends to send pictures of any interesting machinery she encounters on her missions. But she doesn't put captions. She likes to hear your ideas on what you think the machine is used for.

YOUR BIG BRAIN IS SO 💖 SCENTED LOVE LETTERS HAS PANTALONE'S NAME WRITTEN ALL OVER IT (i had to google when yelan said that since it's been so many months since her story quest 💀) But omg. Pantalone definitely has different kinds of scented ink specifically made for him as well just so he can use them while writing letters to you. And the best part you can actually smell them (cuz yk he's rich as hell getting actual high-quality products 😭) and you just fall in love all over again ;)

I cannot stress enough Pantalone has one of the most beautiful handwriting like.. you'll never get over it. Plus he definitely has a custom wax seal... he's not using a Fatui seal for letters to you. He's so extra he probably has a bunch of them at his disposal for whatever mood he's in (flowers, plants, symbols, even tiny words, whatever they are, it's fancy af)

[tryslora]

ND Creative: Time, Focus, Organization

Time, focus, and organization can be complicated things as an ND creative.

Objectively, I know what I need to do. I know all the steps. I even know that in order to get it done, I have to list out all of those steps, note how long each will take and their dependencies, then reorganize them into a timeline.

Then I stare at the screen, or the piece of paper, and my brain just stops. Says nope. Hits the mental and emotional back button to get the hell out of that mode.

Makes it kind of hard to get anything done.

I’m currently struggling with this exact thing on multiple levels. Why am I blogging about it? Well, I’m hoping that if I talk about the places where I’m stuck, maybe I’ll become unstuck.

Oh, the funny ways we try to trick our minds, yeah?

Big List Things I Need to Do:

Publishing stuff with DPP (timeline not under my control)

Publishing stuff for independent book (oh hey, a release date would be nice and I’m the one who has to set that)

Plotting and outlining the next PHU novel (is it over a year overdue? I’m sure no one noticed…)

Plotting and outlining the next 7Lakes novel (because when the first one comes out, “where’s the sequel” will hopefully be the obvious first question)

There are a million other things on my list in various sizes from small through medium and even large, but none quite as unwieldy as all of those.

I’ve been blocked on these timelines—both for publishing and for plotting—for a long, long time. I feel like I’m trying to do too many things at once, or attacking things on too many fronts. I worry about well, what if one thing overlaps with another—are the people who want to read my work going to be like “nah, I can’t buy two books” and just nope out of everything? Am I screwing it all up?

I keep telling myself I need to let go and just Do The Thing.

Seriously.

Do The Thing.

So, let’s break down what needs to be done at the highest of levels for the writing-related things (and ignore all the blog posts, TikToks, video editing, etc that also needs to be done).

For publishing with DPP, there is: 2nd edit on book 2, large revision on book 3 before it goes to first real edit, then 2nd edit on book 3, and final edits on all of that. Plus cover reveals, blog posts, teasers. Pulling out quotes I want to use for stickers. I am pretty sure I’m forgetting things. The nice thing is that all of the big overhead things like planning a campaign has been done for me. YAY Duck Prints (Seriously, they are AWESOME). I think my sticking point here is that I have no realistic expectation for how long each editing round will (or should) take, so I’m not sure how to slot it in. Plus I know it’ll be overlapping with the other book.

For solo (independent) publishing, I have so much more to do. I have to create accounts with both the private and public profile information that’s required on publishing platforms. I need to create a logo and develop a description of my “publishing company” (me, it’s just me) and I need to business work for that company, like buying ISBNs. I need to finish the final book editing, then do the layout so I know what the spine width is. Then I can contract for and get a cover. After that it should get easier, right? Pull out quotes, do blog posts, cover reveal, announcement of the release date (probably not in that order). Get the news out. I can set a release date once I get everything else on a calendar. And if the bulk of the editing is done sooner rather than later, my editing energy can be spent on the DPP books while I’m doing production and marketing for the 7Lakes book.

Okay. This all starts to feel like something I can get my arms around. I’m going to let the high level/low level plotting go for now, and come back to it in another post.

So—why is this a blog post anyway?

I mentioned before that I was trying to unstick my mind. By talking out loud to someone else—even though I can’t see that someone, and who knows, maybe I’m shouting into the abyss—I feel like I’m being held accountable. I’m working through it in public. In plain sight. It means I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, considering every word. It has to get out of my fingertips and onto the page because I am here, not just trying to make notes privately for myself.

I can’t back button out of it.

Sometimes that’s how I get things done.

Will this translate to me taking the things I’ve said above and moving them into something where I can add timeframes, and schedules, and put it all on a calendar with due dates and start breaking it down into even smaller tasks?

Gods I hope so. It’s a goal, anyway.

Getting back to where we started… time, focus, and organization can be complicated as an ND creative. 

Time—I spent thirty minutes and a thousand words of chatter.

Focus—It’s like body doubling—by talking to you, I got something done.

Organization—I think I have a list. Or a start of one. It’s more than I had!

It’s a complicated way of doing things, but fingers crossed that my next step is getting to cross off the first part of my timelines task.

[pendragonthegreat]

okay so. i haven't made a real post about seeing dj in hollywood last week because it was really last minute that i decided to take the trip. and it was really different than when i saw him a few months ago (that i talked about here) and it was kind of crazy so i needed time to process it. i'm not going to put every detail in this post but i want to tell you guys the big thing that happened so here we go

the biggest difference between this event and creature feature was the amount of people there to see dj. there's probably more factors than the relative popularity of pendragon vs ayaotd (advertising, location, etc) but the difference was a lot. i mean there were maybe 4 other people who talked to him. which meant i talked to him for much much longer

i was determined to talk about stuff i hadn't heard dj talk about before but i also know at this point that dj is able to take control of the conversation and come up with stories to tell so i didn't really have a plan. so first of all he recognized me but i had to remind him from where. so then i had at admit that i am actually not from california and actually the entire opposite coast and he was so shocked. i showed him the pictures of my collection and i think that and the fact that i came from so far away has shattered any idea dj might have had that i'm a casual fan. but yeah he seemed flattered and not totally weirded out which i was a little nervous about

sooo we talked about pendragon of course—somehow got back onto book 10 (must every conversation about pendragon end up at the soldiers of halla somehow?) but as i said i didn't want to rehash old topics so i was like "you know when people talk about book 10 it always seems to be about either solara or the epilogue, but a lot of other stuff happened in that book" and he was like "you know what? you're right!" so we talked about spader and nevva and the general adventure in book 10 YAYYYY

we talked about sylo and the sylo movie and he told me some more about why they didn't go through with making the movie. basically the scripts were bad. i can say more detail if anyone cares. and then we talked about f29d which i think he was excited about because people don't talk to him about that show as much so i heard a few stories i've never heard before! the biggest thing was that the production of f29d was much closer to lost than i thought—both in terms of the crew and literally, physically, the filming locations were basically on the same beach. he told me sometimes they would go and steal props from lost (lmao) and they kept the lost airplane wreck and the f29d wreck in the same hangar!

okay enough rambling VVV THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART VVV

we started talking about his new book (if you don't know, his next book is going to be a continuation of the last story in Beyond Midnight) and i was saying i'm excited to read it and i'll be sure to look out for it. he said the book is written but he's not sure yet if he's going to self-publish it or not. then he told me this: that just for me, because i came from so far away and was a huge fan, he would send ME the manuscript for the book early. holy shit lol i can still hardly believe it. but i'm telling you this so you know dj really is such a nice guy. he talked to me for so long and he did not have to give me anything but it's such a wonderful special gift to have. :)

anyway the book did just have a sticker on the cover. but it's doubly special now with dj's second signature and personalization :D

[kitekki-khaos]

A Year of Khaos: 2023 Review

Welp. 2023 is officially over and we're onto another year. I wanted to put together some kind of year in review thing and since I didn't get a chance to do it during my final stream of the year, I thought I'd just put it all together into a blog post. So here's an overall look at the year:

2023 was my "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" year in an attempt to really feel out what I wanted to do with streaming. So my plan was to pick a Thing for each month, really go all-in on it for the month, and make something focused around that by the end. Then change for the next month, rinse and repeat.

I've always been a Jack-of-all-Trades, which is as much a blessing as it is a curse. I CAN do just about anything if I decide I want to do it, but that also means there's no One Thing I'm really good at. The only One Thing I have is something that's borderline impossible to stream, which is writing. So... Project Year. Try everything, see what sticks.

So I present, the various skills I attempted to build throughout the year and the final product they produced:

Projects Completed:

January: Fashion Design - Ironmouse Outfit Contest Entry

(List continues under Read More)

February: Blender - New VNyan Throwables

March: Variety Streaming - Trying different Stream Categories

April: Game Development - Ludum Dare

May: Sewing - Summer Wardrobe

(horrible failure, just ended up making things in blender, instead)

June: Traditional Painting - Minis

July: Minecraft Redstone - Basics

August: Minecraft Map Building - Halloween Adventure Map

September: Stickermaking - Sticker Chat Banner

October: Dance / MMD - Halloween Transition & Halloween Stream

November: NaNoWriMo - WIP

December: Thankmas & 3-Year Debut Anniversary - Charity Streams and 3.0 Reveal

In addition to the projects I was working on throughout the year, I was also working on the 3.0 model at the same time. Throughout the entire year. Which, I came to realize was kind of a mistake trying to do both. I just barely got the model done in time because my time was so heavily split between so many things. Especially when you add that I was ALSO still editing videos for Youtube all the way until September. (which was a full 12-hour day, twice a week) So I was working on completely rebuilding my models from scratch in a program I was wildly unfamiliar with (blender), doing a new project every month, streaming 3x's a week (usually upwards of 6 hours), AND editing 12-hours a day twice a week to post 2 videos and 2 shorts every week.

It was... a lot.

Last year was a lot.

Too much. Even for me.

There were even a few more things on the list that I wanted to try out this year, but ended up not being able to figure out how to stream it. Baking, for example.

But I'm hoping to find something I can really focus on for the coming year and lessen at least some of my constant uncertainty about what I'm doing with life. And maybe ease up on the work, in general. If I was awake, I was working last year. I was so burnt out and exhausted by the time December rolled around, I had no energy left for my biggest event of the year. Honestly, I'm still exhausted. I wanted to get this post out ages ago but I just had no energy to write it.

I need to ease up a bit next year. Figure out what I actually want to do. But I feel like I have a slightly better handle. Maybe.

We'll see how it goes.

As a final note, here's a list of every game I played throughout 2023, which was honestly a lot. I try to finish as many games as I can, especially the horror games, with the exception of co-op games or sims. Some unfinished games (like Hollow Knight and A Hat in Time) I plan to finish at some point. Others, like Digimon Survive, I've decided to drop for good. Whereas yet others, I'll probably finish on my own as an off-stream game. (Slime Rancher 2 I'll probably play by myself but I've played through Ni no Kuni like 3 times in the past so I'm fine leaving that one where it was).

Games Played - 53 Total

( * - Finished / + - Co-Op/Sim )

My horror game backlog is massive so Indie Horror Nights are guaranteed to return in 2024. Obviously. Horror is kind of a thing. Variety Night is also guaranteed to return because I like having a day where I can just do what-the-fuck-ever.

However, I don't know if Project Night will be a set thing in the future. Additionally, I'm considering adding a fourth stream day but I haven't committed to the idea yet. I want to get back to fashion design but I don't think I'll be picking the seasonal collections back up for this year. Maybe just do themed outfit sets, instead. I may also try making them in blender instead of VRoid this year, as well.

There are a lot of decisions to be made about 2024 still.

I'm not sure what I want out of this coming year yet. But thank you to everyone who puts up with my perpetual indecisiveness, there will be more in the future.

Here's to a new year and new possibilities.