#much like those magnus archives blogs going around when i first made this

[thishappenedinsmt]

I’ve played SMT IV and V, what other games should I play to better understand the references you reblog here

ooooh good q

saying "all megaten games + persona" would be a huge copout and VERY tedious so I'm just gonna say:

SMTIII (Nocturne), SMT Strange Journey, Apoc are the big ones (other than IV or V, obviously) I post about. Though honestly, you don't really need to play much of anything to get stuff like major plot beats. You could do some light wiki digging also to get a read on a character/event/place if you want to understand a joke without having to play an entire game. No shame in that. It's a very "hold on lemme google something. yeah this is funny" kind of thing. Hopefully it'll get more folks to be like "damn what happens in these games?" and gets them to play or at least know about them! i love spreading awareness of things i love through stuff like silly jokes

I make occasional refs to I and II also but I think you can get the gist of them without playing (SNES titles are simple like that).

my fave persona games (i.e. the ones i reference most, though they all have importance to me) are the P2 duology and 4. Getting into 3 more also because Reload is coming out soon. Those too, maybe? I dunno.

I'm not as versed on Soul Hackers 1 or 2 as the other games but I might drop a ref here or there.

I have yet to really get into DDS or Raidou's games but all the cool megaten fans i know seem to think they're awesome so I still have work to do.

Anyways, that's my blurb. Hope this is at least a little helpful

[averys-nightmare-zone]

since landing is closing down soon, i decided to take a quick break from SUPERSTRUCTURE (although i will be back don't you worry two fans) and made some fashion moodboards for the 14 fears from the magnus archives to accompany this post there will be some notes and insight on each collage under the cut.

the buried: the buried was really underutilized in the podcast imo. some of my favorite episodes revolved around the buried like lost john's cave and we all ignore the pit. i really hope this did it justice since jonny sims did not.

the corruption: oh my god this one was so hard to make. my google search history is full of terms like "bug infested dress", "moldy clothing" and "yucky fashion" the corruption girlies really seemed to like my last post so i felt obligated to get it right. i think i did okay.

the dark: making a black on black collage look decent is really hard 😭 I was originally going to go victorian for this one but ended up doing nu goth instead since I thought victorian fit a lot better with the end.

the desolation: this is one of my favorites. there's somthing so satisfying about combining ashy greys and black with orange it just tickles my brain. other than that, i don't really have any notes

the end: as mentioned earlier, i went with victorian mourning wear for the end. i mean queen victoria herself was in mourning and only wore black for forty years. that era is so synonymous with death it only felt fair to work its customs and fashion into my end board.

the eye: eye avatars are legally required to wear academic fashion. it just comes with the job description. i don't make the rules. have fun being jonathan sims

the flesh: this one really took me down a rabbit hole. first:, i could only find those anti-vegan shirts that your unemployed uncle wears to the family barbecue and then i came across this fashion designer and spent like an hour on her shop trying to figure out how she got her clothes to look like that. after that it took me another two hours to find all of the accessories. pinterest has been both my best friend and worst enemy over the course of this project.

the hunt: i am so sorry the supernatural gas leakage returned to my home when i made this and I age regressed into being 15 again. when i was making this i pictured it more as the trevor and julia flavor of the hunt instead of say, daisy. god breast america.

the lonely: this one was pretty easy to make once i got a handle on the color scheme. the aesthetic of the lonely has always striken me as a romanticization of the melancholy. think wanderer above the sea of fog. So i gave this one all the things i would romantasize about my life at my loneliest, which is why there's a teacup and a heart locket. the book was also a part of that, but it also doubles as a recreation of a leitner by theponderingalpaca on reddit.

the slaughter: yeah yeah i know the slaughter is supposed to be about war as well as murder, but forgive me for not making a fashion collage about military uniforms. that's really boring. i had just watched woodstock '99 before i made this though and decided to go more for that angry punk/metalhead fashion that korn was wearing in that concert. them and limp biskit are the closest we'll ever get to irl grifters bone.

the spiral: i made this moodboard twice. i know its crazy that the fear meant to represent insanity is hard to pin down, but i think i did it better the second time around. the first one read too much as regular kidcore/decora for my taste.

the stranger: i had to do this one last. i could not for the life of me figure out how to make a circus/uncanny fashion board without just doing clown fashion. i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about how it turned out, but at least the masks are cool.

the vast: vast avatars rise up!! this is a mike crew fan blog and i only wanted to base the fashion around him. he's in the top three list of guys i'm autistic about with elliott stardew valley and daniel powell from archive 81.

the web: not much to say here except if you are a web avatar you have to wear a cunty dress. it is simply non negotiable

thank you to @artmadval for giving me the idea to do this with your amazing fashion archives art, along with everyone else who went through all my yapping to get here. love yall!

[greetings-humans]

introductory post (includes some interaction boundaries, more details on me (ao3 acc, etc) & a dni under the cut)

yeah it's about time I made one of those ig (disclaimer: I'll edit this, if/when the need comes)

hello there! im deelay! you can call me dee, if you want! [btw if you know my irl name, not here you don't unless we're DM-ing]

gender is so weird and I'm okay with any and all pronouns (barring it/its)!

for details on what to use when talking to me or about me (like pronouns and gendered terms etc) you can go here

-im a young adult and that's like all imma say age-wise. however please take that into account when interacting with my blog! some of the reblogs/posts here might not be what I'd have been okay with seeing when I was like under 14 or something. so yknow. exercise some modicum of caution please.

-currently in uni, studying to get an english degree (every new thing I learn about teaching makes me want to yell at some of the teachers I've known/had, did they even study in uni? did they even keep in touch with pedagogical studies?? definitely not, form what I can tell)

-I'm technically a writer? like I write,,, supposedly lmao. like all the greats, the one thing I never seem to do is yknow write-

I write sometimes, let's say. and I'm also really interested in writing my own crime fiction novel one day. but that's for some day in the future lmao

-definitely a reader tho (yes ao3 and i are in a committed relationship)

~

-im also very very aroace, so like, blanket disclaimer, even if you might think I'm thirsting over a character, im really not and it makes me uncomfortable when others think so (and tell me that) so yeah lol

my interests and fandoms are. a lot. for example (and in no particular order):

merlin (bbc): im watchin s2 rn(August 2024)! i finally decided to pick this up again and properly watch it! esp since i really wanna read The Once and Future Kings by tjmcharg & And like the cycle of the year, we begin again by katherynefromphilly and i can't do that if i watched the show lmao

the magnus archives: my first podcast! as of September 2024 I've started s4 and all I want is to relisten to really see how much everyone has changed in the span of 4 seasons🥺🥺 mind your spoilers, I don't always tag! and if you're in s1 frankly just persevere until halfway through s1 or s2 at least before interacting, there's a lot of spoilers for the setting going around because the actual explanation doesn't come until quite later even if u kinda figure some things out on your own

DC (the bats, mostly)

windbreaker (satoru nii): im constantly reading the new manga chapters as they come out so beware spoilers! the anime is really cool too<33 talk to me about my children (sakura, tsubakino, umemiya, kaji, hiragi, suo) and all of the other children ofc anytime!

riordanverse (pjo, hoo, magnus chase, a little bit toa, pjo show [which was def better than the movies but needs more screen time to fix up the pacing and add more depth in the appropriate moments])

fullmetal alchemist brotherhood! (i used to have roy on my pfp, he's my favorite character! i also wanna write a huge character analysis essay on him but uni responsibilities mean that's very slow going). im collecting the hardcover editions of the manga slowly, and i plan on reading the manga properly as i buy them!

star wars (prequels, kotor, clone wars)

criminal minds: (im at early s14 as of July 2024, so mind your spoilers humans)

jujutsu kaisen! (I'm just about to finish s2 as of April 2024 but I know what's happening by the end of s2 and I've given up on the storyline so spoil away, I'll just ignore you and live my life in my fanfic sandbox:] )

yuri on ice is an old love of mine (ice adolescence😭😭 one day😭😭 oh one day😭😭 so that was a fucking joke, mappa count your days and also im stealing viktor you can't have him, im gonna write iceado WITHOUT YOU) (well imma write it with a friend but like most importantly WITHOUT MAPPA and I urge all creative yoi fans that think they wanna try doing their own version of iceado to go ahead and give it a go!)

haikyuu!!: I'm all caught up, manga and anime-wise! also patiently waiting for the last (😭) movie that should've been a season but anyways they better not fuck this up too much- (update: battle of the garbage dumpster was wonderful even if they couldn't animate everything... it was just so short)

bungo stray dogs is also an old but semi-revived interest of mine (im pretty much up to date with the manga, just haven't read the light novels)

tian guan ci fu / heaven official's blessing (as of June 2024, I've finished s2 and tgcf is amazing it's wonderful, I've started book 1 and am currently procrastinating on reading it)

there's like. so much more

sooo muuuuch moooreeee

so I'll just let you figure the rest of it out

If you wanna see some of my thoughts without infinite scrolling, you can also search for the tag "deelay words".

Another tag of mine is "deelay's tbr" (which stands for "to be referenced") which you'll find at posts that really make me Think™ and that I want to keep in mind when I do anything creative with the characters involved.

When interacting with my blog, if you want to avoid spoilers at all costs, I suggest blocking the fandom tag because what you consider spoilers might not be what I consider spoilers if we're at different arcs of whatever that media is.

That said, I'd also appreciate it if you gave me a heads up on spoilers in any asks.

~

if you're here for any of my fics then well.

if you're here for pjo, um. those fics are truly discontinued/on indefinite hiatus. that hasn't changed. I watched the show and I'm actually reading pjo fics again from time to time so if I get inspired enough and manage to plan out a decent fic out of Percy Jackson Revealed,,,, then maybe there shall be a fic. But!!! I have no idea what the ending is gonna be, and without an ending I'm doing nothing because the chances of me dropping the fic (again) would be higher than my anxiety during exam season (aka very very high)

if you're here for the man behind neal caffrey tho!! hi, there. I am working on that sequel, don't worry. it's just long (im at like 7k or so iirc? and im not even halfway through yet) and I'm also working on uni and this other writing project I have going on. feel free to send me an ask with any questions or comments or whatever. august 2024 update: this project is very slow going tbh! i think i need to recalibrate some of my plans because it's so tiring to keep writing some of the stuff I've planned for. white collar crime cases are more tedious than expected. im also like on and off working on a double homicide case fic for criminal minds (that I think I'll rework to become an original thing) and it's coming out much more easily😭

unnamed grishaverse project: yeah so, I have a project going with my friend noel @fifteenth-entity, we're fixing the darkling! this fic will take place like around 50-100 years pre-alina, and will feature the darkling doing darkling things while that generation's most prominent grisha (aka a bunch of queers) also do things that may or may not affect the darkling. and his views. and personality. there may or may not be character development in the works. (there is, he gets better). this fic is canon divergent before canon even happens. the entire plot of shadow and bone will be eventually reworked. (also, no darklina, no darkling romance, in general, this boy needs to get mentally healthy first and foremost and I'm also writing him as aroace sooo) [for more info on this just search "unnamed grishaverse project", it's the tag I've used in like the only post about this. do feel free to send me an ask about this tho!!]

ice adolescence-esque fic: mappa fucked up majorly with canceling iceado and im supremely annoyed, mad, and upset. it just so happens that I was in the middle of my yoi renaissance era when the news came out so with my obsession going strong, I really wanted to try doing something with iceado. and then @athenov got roped in a la "be my coach co-conspirator/co-writer, viktor(ia)!". this is not going to be a very linear story, we're going around and about in different points in time. the first narrative follows viktor at 17ish deciding to try to ratify the quad flip and it includes some insight on his friends and family (who are OCs, im not sorry, his backstory is so barren, we had to!) and on how he ended up so alone by the time yoi was happening. the second narrative is post-yoi viktor coming back to russia ft yuuri, yuri & yakov. this is not a russian gov-positive fic. russian culture is very interesting and some russians are wonderful people —diversity is a thing, after all— but to be perfectly clear, fuck the russian government and everyone supporting their actions. what they're doing is inhumane. [posts about this project will be tagged as "dee & athenov's yoi fic"!]

~

Another thing: If you have a genuine, not malicious or mean-spirited, question, feel free to send me an ask. Keep it chill, though! if you try to pick a fight i will delete the ask for the first time, but on strike 2, you're blocked.

i like to think that I'm open to discourse on some topics but not if you're starting out all aggressively cause if you're aggressive, I will be defensive (while privately having a panic attack) and we're not gonna get anywhere. Not that I can't get aggressive sometimes when I'm annoyed/offended or sth, like I'm not perfect but this is a general rule of a thumb yknow. Try not to be aggressive. or prepare for an aggressive conversation if you are.

so. once again for the people in the back

If you're here to pick a fight with me then gtfo please.

I don't like fighting, it makes me anxious, so save us both the trouble and be as civil as you can be if you have a disagreement with me. don't forget to check my dni tho. I'm not gonna sit around having basic arguments about my rights to queerness as an aroace person or some stupid shit like that.

that said, unless I'm literally at your post saying shit you disagree with. don't come at me. literally block me. it's fine. I quite literally do not mind or care. like, if you saw my post or reblog and decided I suck then just block me will you?

~

Moreover, if you ever want fic recs for a fandom I'm in, you're definitely welcome to send me an ask! but if you don't feel like talking, anything I will ever tell you is straight from my ao3 bookmarks. sooo, feel free to hunt around those! [in case the link isn't working for you, my ao3 username is Justice_not_Revenge]

ao3 disclaimer: anything before 2021 is not necessarily something I claim. So like don't think I'm into this thing or that I'm passionate about this ship just because in 2019 I bookmarked 100 fics with it, people tend to grow and change so yeah.

some generic DNIs

if you're anti-lgbtq+ in any way (cmon im queer myself this one should be obvious)

if you support AI art or AIs stealing fic content (if you're the type to use other people's OCs in character.ai with no permission, then like go away and don't you dare touch my OCs without talking to me and getting my explicit permission first)

literally anyone who thinks violating someone's concent is nice and fun and quirky

racists, ableists, sexists/misogynists, incest shippers, pro-shippers, etc

okay that's all! thank youuu-

[heraldofzaun]

This is my “Viktor has never been a stereotypical evil villain, you guys are just mean” post.

Hi. Well. That says it all, really, but I guess I should elaborate. I think that Viktor has always been a victim of society [cue Joker meme], it’s just that what society has shifted over the course of his lore update.

With new lore, it’s very clearly Piltover casting him out for his (in my opinion, pretty unethical from the get-go) ideas on free will/worker safety/etc. and that subsequently making him worse. But with his previous lore - what I run off of on this blog - I’ve seen a lot of commentary about how he’s always just been “evil”, or that his motivations weren’t defined, etc. And while I can agree that his old lore certainly has less of a word count (5x less, actually) and doesn’t make his motives crystal-clear, it’s just not true that his original incarnation was just a villainous scientist. (Nor is it true that he was perceived as one by his old fans!) It takes a little bit of looking at Blitzcrank’s lore, and the Journal of Justice (hey, remember that?) to see, but it’s there... So, here goes. I’m sorry for how long this ended up being (2k words!) - it ended up touching on a lot more than just Viktor.

Viktor’s always been stolen from. (Except for Blitzcrank’s newest lores, which contradict Viktor’s new lore, which... That’s a topic for another time.) It’s always been Professor Stanwick Pididly (now Professor Stanwick) who’s done the stealing - originally, he was a professor at Zaun’s “prestigious College of Techmaturgy”. In new lore, he’s a professor at an unnamed academy in Piltover. I think the best way to track the new/old changes is bullet-points, rather than writing this all out. Tumblr doesn’t allow T-charts, sadly.

Professor Pididly in old lore:

Zaunite professor.

Stole Blitzcrank (well, the accolades for developing Blitz’s sentience) from Viktor and Viktor’s doctoral team. (While this is headcanon, I’ve always assumed that Stanwick was Viktor’s (and Viktor’s team’s) doctoral advisor. I can’t quite imagine how else he’d pull off stealing a group project like that.) Viktor subsequently withdrew from the college and “barricaded himself in his private laboratory”. (Which is his house in my personal take, because really - what sort of doctoral student can afford a lab?)

Blitzcrank’s case reached Zaun’s legal system, resulting in a “legal maelstrom” (Blitz’s original lore) that ended with Stanwick presumably being legally declared Blitzcrank’s creator.

Blitzcrank’s lore states that “most now know the truth” in regards to who his creator is. This is important for later, so stick that in your back pocket.

Pididly is referred to as “Professor Pididly” in JoJ issues 3, 18, and 23, which are given the dates of August of 20CLE, March of 21 CLE, and June of 21 CLE.

Side note: According to Orianna’s judgment, which is dated May of 21 CLE - stay with me here, it’ll make sense - Blitzcrank entered the League “years before”. As League at this time was mostly running in time with the real world, this makes sense - Blitzcrank was a 2009 champion and Orianna was released in 2011. Judgments seem to be dated to a few days before a champion’s release, in order to tie with the lore - one had to be “Judged” before made a champion... but I’m rambling. Anyways, years before, back pocket.

Is referred to as “Chairman Pididly” in JoJ issue 27, dated August of 21 CLE. “Chairman” seems to be a title given to those in political power in Zaun. Another example is Chairman Magnus Dunderson, Zaun’s “Chief Executive” (issue 5). (I could’ve sworn that there is canonically a “Board of Executives” in old lore Zaun, but scrubbing through the JoJ on the wiki hasn’t turned it up - just Blitzcrank’s lore mentioning the “Council of Zaun”. Maybe it was fanon? Anyways.) Back pocket!

Also stole some work from Viktor in order to revive Urgot. Urgot’s revival was reported on in issue 3 of the JoJ, and the confirmation that it was from Viktor’s work is in Viktor’s original lore.

Professor Stanwick (Pididly? I feel like they ditched his last name because it was “too silly”, also because Stanwick sounds British-adjacent anyways and that’s Piltover’s “thing” - but anyways) in new lore:

Piltovian professor.

Stole Blitzcrank from Viktor alone, who made the robot to help clean up a specific chemical spill. Viktor went to Zaun for a few weeks and came back to find that Stanwick had “held a symposium on Blitzcrank and presented Viktor's research as his own”. Viktor subsequently continued on his studies, culminating with him later being expelled for “violating basic human dignity”. Viktor returns to a laboratory that he had in Zaun.

Blitzcrank’s case is solely a university matter. Viktor petitions Jayce to help support his claim, but Jayce is Jayce and doesn’t help out. The “matter [is] decided in Professor Stanwick’s favor”.

Blitzcrank’s lore doesn’t really say anything about if people know that Viktor made him (them, technically, but Riot doesn’t get to make the robot non-binary), but I guess it’s implied in the 3rd iteration? (That would be the first new one, after the IoW retcon making most champions’ 2nd lores being the same lore with any reference to the titular League of Legends removed.) He works with Viktor in that one. It doesn’t fit with Viktor’s updated lore at all, actually, because it mentions Stanwick absolutely zero times. (A post for another day...)

Has nothing to do with Urgot, since Urgot’s different now.

So, the general plot of “professor rips off a student” is there, it’s just got an added layer of “professor rips off a foreign/out-group student” in new lore to tie into the overarching idea of Piltover exploiting Zaun. (Is Zaun considered foreign? Yes? No? It’s sort of textually implied sometimes to be another city, but can it actually be when it’s physically underneath Piltover? Is the metaphor in new lore a class thing, then? Is it both? Am I supposed to take Viktor’s Russian accent into account when reading this text? I don’t know.) Anyways, so far so... same, in the broad strokes. Unless Viktor’s villainy in old lore is specifically because someone from his city ripped him off, I don’t know how you can compare new/old lore and say that old painted him as a villain.

But what about the everything else I put there? We’re getting there - that’s part of Viktor’s in-universe stuff. I’m taking a quick detour out of universe, to Jayce’s very first lore...

Which had Viktor stealing a techmaturgical device from Jayce. While I can’t cite this, sadly - thank you, Riot deleting the old forums and me not having the patience to look through archives at the moment - there was a backlash around this on the forums. Why would Viktor, a character who’d been stolen from, steal in turn? So Jayce’s second lore, the one that most people were familiar with before the new lore update, was made. Now Viktor stole a crystal after trying to partner with Jayce, Jayce was less well-established as an inventor, he had a bit more character... All good things. (Also, this is probably where the new lore direction of them being former college colleagues come from.)

Also, as an aside: this is the first use I can see of crystals specifically being described as arcane power sources... The only other discussion of magical crystals was the Brackern... which was then merged into magical crystals having to be from the Brackern... Which means that...

But anyways! Clearly Viktor fans didn’t see him as a villain in 2012, or at least not one that would victimize others in the same way that he’d been hurt. They made such a fuss about it that Jayce’s lore was changed to paint Viktor more sympathetically! (When’s the last time that there’s been that much backl- oh. It’s Seraphine again. Anyways.) So, again, Viktor’s perception as an evil scientist mostly seems to have come from people who weren’t really familiar with his lore. So... case closed?

Except that I also want to talk about in-universe things! Everything that I told you to put in your back pocket! Because this post is already over a thousand words and I have thrown myself firmly into this vortex.

Viktor’s victimization by society [Joker meme] is actually probably worse in old lore, which is a fact that I think has been pretty overlooked. While new lore Viktor gets kicked back down to Zaun and gets his work stolen in academia - with Stanwick presumably never being questioned on whether or not he made Blitzcrank, because there’s that whole “Zaunites are bad” thread that is both in and out of universe... Old lore Viktor sure does get it worse, although I admit that this requires some interpretation of canon. His thing with Blitzcrank was, again, a “legal maelstrom” - and with Blitzcrank being considered a Zaunite celebrity before this court case, it seems relatively easy/logical to infer that this maelstrom was a very public case.

So all of Zaun gets to see Viktor crash and burn in court. I’d say that’s a bit worse than just academia seeing it, as is the case in new lore.

And then there’s Blitzcrank’s lore flat-out saying that “most now know the truth” about who made him. (While this lore does predate Viktor’s existence - isn’t it odd to think about a Blitzcrank made by a faceless team of generic doctoral students, rather than Viktor... and a faceless team of generic doctoral students? - I see no reason not to take it as canonical for Viktor’s original lore. There’d been minor lore touchups before, so if Riot wanted Viktor’s creation of Blitzcrank to be an unknown... they could have edited Blitzcrank’s lore.) But Viktor’s still on the fringes, and nothing in his lore (which, again, was written years after Blitzcrank’s) seems to acknowledge that by the time he enters the League we have confirmation, date-wise, that it’s been years since the truth came out. (Orianna Judgment, etc.) That’s to say: people knowing that Viktor made Blitzcrank does nothing for him - he gets no apologies or anything like that.

Of course, if you take League lore as happening concurrently and nix the Judgments and the League, I guess that this is tenuous - but working within the framework of when he was released, it seems clear to me that the implication of all this lore is (whether it was intended by Riot to be read this way or not) that no one in Zaun cares that Viktor was stolen from. It’s an open secret. No one’s seeking justice for him. But it gets worse...!

So, it’s generally known that Stanwick didn’t make Blitzcrank by the time that the JoJ is running. And he’s just a professor for most of the run of that part of the lore, until... Issue 27. In which he becomes Chairman Pididly, someone who is now implied to have political power. (I have to assume he gets the position due to the political goodwill from Noxus that his revival of Urgot must have brought Zaun, but that’s just interpretation.) But! Even though most people know that Stanwick didn’t make Blitzcrank - that he stole Blitzcrank - he ends up not losing his university job (he’s still Professor Pididly for most of the JoJ, after all) but... gaining political office!

All of this is to say that Zaun is so crooked that you can have the fact that you stole from someone and ruined their life revealed... and get a promotion to government! You can shatter an idealistic man who had a “hope to better society” and make him into someone like the Machine Herald and face absolutely zero repercussions. I think that that is significantly worse than how new lore Viktor’s victimization by Piltover consisted of an academia-only dispute that left him with just some bitterness... New Viktor was, after all, kicked out of Piltovian academia for ethics violations, not for Blitzcrank.

Everything surrounding old lore Viktor is a bit harder to piece together, since you have to look through a few lores and make a few inferences, which is why I think that people don’t realize exactly how bad he had it... (That and time erasing memories, or people being new to the fandom, or people not being interested in Viktor, or...) But he had it bad, and I’m honestly disappointed that we never got to explore much of Zaun’s particular brand of corporate corruption in canon. Now they’re the perpetual underdogs, both victims and villians, and Riot isn’t quite sure how to write them beyond constant exploitation from Piltover. (Even the chem-barons have taken somewhat of a backseat lately in new lore, from what I’ve seen - Piltover seems to be the primary cause of Zaun’s ills, because the combined region is now an upper city/lower city metaphor about class. The chem-barons just seem to be written as a result of Piltover’s ignoring of Zaun - because Zaun seems to be more of an undercity than a sovereign city or state, but that varies depending on whatever piece of lore you’re reading and... Another post, another time.)

So. TL;DR: Viktor’s always been a character who was victimized by a city, be it Zaun or Piltover. Viktor’s always been a character more complex than just a maniacal villain, although it takes more work to see that in his old lore as compared to his new. (His new pretty much screams “we are trying to make him and Jayce morally grey”, after all.) This victimization is arguably worse in old lore, as it’s implied that he went through a very public legal case that ended with Stanwick taking credit for Blitzcrank. In addition to that, Stanwick’s subsequent shift to politics implies that Zaun is so corrupt that most everyone knowing that he’s a thief isn’t an issue at all. He’s untouchable.

Viktor’s always been the result of an idealistic man being crushed by a society that doesn’t care for him and his dreams. That’s nothing new.

[kore-arts]

Moth Jon shenanigans Pt 1

“Look, Tim, this is all very sudden and I think we should be trying to fix things before we just sit around and record-”

“Martin. As much as I hate to say it, the documentation might help us if we.. I don’t know! Just do it, please. As a favor or something.”

“Fine.” 

Statement of Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, concerning the newfound state of Jonathan Sims. Statement recorded direct from subject, October 10th, 2016. 

Statement begins.

So, I suppose I should start at the very moment I left the Archive Friday night. We were- Tim, Sasha, and I were going to clock out a bit early, at Jon’s insistence. Honestly I should have seen the signs then, should have looked at his skin and the way his teeth were stretching his jaw in a way that if I had only looked closer…maybe I could’ve-

“Martin, focus.”

Sorry, anyways, we all left and Sasha went wherever she goes nowadays, Tim went to get on the tube as usual, and I started my usual walk back to the flat. This is another thing that evaded me: the moths. They were everywhere that day, clinging onto the streetlamps and tangling themselves in my jacket’s hood every time I got my phone out to check the time or to quickly answer a text, their dusty velvet wings brushing lightly on my skin. Another thing I just let go of, because really, It was just moths. I should have been paying more attention, seeing the patterns they had. I remember now, in my peripheral vision, the fractal patterns in their wings. 

So I got to my flat and did the usual ritual: dinner, shower, bed. The weekend passed easily enough; what really got this whole thing going was Monday. It’s almost comical, really: the stereotype that Mondays are the worst finally coming to fruition. 

Sound transcript: A tight small laugh comes from the speaker.

So we all clocked in. Sasha was there first, of course, like she always is, and Tim followed soon after I got there. We all got our beverages: Tea for Tim and I, and coffee for Sasha. I made sure to make some for Jon, ensuring it was how he liked it. So here we have this picture: myself, tea in hand, Tim, likewise, and Sasha all walking down to the archive. I remember vividly reaching for the archive door and hearing the strangest sound I’ve ever heard in my life. It was like sheets rustling, the crunch of plastic as if fed through a shredder, and a strange, well, chirp, reverberating through the empty archive. 

As soon as I put my foot down to step into the archive, I heard a similar sickening crunch. I looked down, Tim trying desperately to look over my shoulder, and saw- 

“Those scales, right?” 

Yes, Tim, the damn scales. They littered the ground, a strangely beautiful dusty amber color, and they seemed to stick to everything. My clothes, my skin, the bookshelves, the tapes, everything. We all barged in, and I set to finding the source of all the damn sound as quickly as possible. 

Sound transcript: Speaker gulps, hiccups once, and then regains control of himself. 

We- we didn’t have to look for long, since I checked the offices first. The chirping grew louder as I ventured into Jon’s office, as well as the other accompanying sounds, but as soon as my foot fell upon the ground of the office the crunching and the chirping stopped short, although the rustling remained. But, I thought to myself, where’s Jon? Shouldn’t he be here at this ungodly hour, droning on? His coat was there, and his chair hadn’t been pushed in as though he had never left- and he hadn’t. I looked around the entire office, casting my eyes over every surface from my vantage point in front of his desk. Then, of course, since I’m a person who finishes what he starts, I made sure to check under the desk, and suddenly I saw two large, black staring eyes like static-filled TV screens filled with an ever shifting rainbow blinking up at me. I-

Sound transcript: Speaker stutters as he breathes deeply 

I saw Jon. Well, what he had become. Slowly eating a long strip of record tape. He had blinked up at me as what felt like an hour, but it was probably just a minute. After he squeaked in this… this most terrified and tiny voice. He was...so small. Maybe only a meter tall? A clear change from Friday, when we had left. 

“Martin?” As he suddenly dropped the tape, I heard Tim coming up from behind me. Jon’s eyes, somehow still perfectly fitted to his now miniature glasses, widened and he barrelled into me, sent me rolling, and opened up a brand new pair of velvety, eye-dappled wings to fly up and above me, careening into the shelves outside of his office. 

I couldn’t believe my eyes, really. Tim was gawping, his jaw nearly on the ground, Sasha was nowhere to be seen, and Jon was attempting to pull himself together and get on top of the shelves. 

“Jon?” I said, clear confusion in my voice. He balked, a new pair of arms fidgeting with his old ones. I had never seen him that scared in my life. He seemed so unsure of what to do, like a teenager who’s just woken up from a growth spurt, or a de-growth spurt I guess? A shrinkage?

“Martin, help- I don’t know what to do!” This was a change, for sure. Jon always, always knew what to do before this. It was the thing that scared me first, honestly. Slightly- adorable -height changes, elegant dusty wings, et cetera were nothing to me at this point, but seeing him so unsure was the first thing that really struck a chord in the symphony of my confusion-addled brain. 

Sound transcript: A muffled chirp from outside the door right as the speaker’s companion snickers. 

Quiet. I managed to coax him down, promising we wouldn’t hurt him. Tim was of course no help, seeing how he and Jon had been getting into rows the last couple of days before Friday. And that’s how we got...here. Everything is relatively stable, but I don’t know what will happen if anyone else sees him, or what happened to him. He still won’t tell. His behavior has changed, as well. He’s more- well, I hate to describe it as affectionate, but that’s what it is. Like a cat. Even his chirps. He’s still “old Jon”, but with...differences. Besides the physical ones. 

Er, statement ends. 

Sound transcript: Door creaks open, tape clicks

Credit to me, @choyaheart and @onelonelyghost

Taglist @quillmas-blog

[hoardcloneheadcanons]

The Season 1 Villain: Mr. Blackwood

Summary [ A time travelling Martin Blackwood accidentally bullies his past counterpart and a young Jonathan Sims into getting together in order to gang-up on him]

 Yesterday Is Here is a time-travel fix-it fic of the Magnus Archives by CirrusGrey found on AO3 that I highly recommend. It helps emotionally cope with the tragedy of the actual series and it’s very well written.

I have my own ideas on what would happen in the fic if the time travel went slightly different and Martin showed up first, which now lives rent-free in my head as an AU to an AU. I’m hoping by writing it down I can free myself of it’s grip over me. If you don’t want spoilers for the fic, or seasons 1-4 of the Magnus Archives, stop here.

 In the fic Jon and Martin from the Archives have been married and survived the apocalypse together. Both use the Helen’s doors to travel back in time to season 1 of the Magnus Archives and prevent most of the tragedies from happening. Jon uses his spooky Archivist Powers to threaten Elias, extorting him for money and preventing the appocolypse. And both Martin and Jon dispose of the main villains of season 1 and 2.

But some shenanigans happened in Helen’s doors that make it so Jon shows up first and Martin doesn’t show up until two months later. Here’s my idea of what would happen if those positons got reversed.

-The Archival Staff call Future Martin Mr. Blackwood to differentiate him from their present-day Martin. I will also be doing so, from here on out.

-Jon is, of course, skeptical, and keeps insisting that this must be some long lost brother of Martin’s who is trying to scam them (Or even his father, despite Mr. Blackwood not looking much older than Martin). Mr. Blackwood proceeds to list small intimate details about each of them (how they take their tea, things that happened their last birthday. Stuff that would be very essentially Martin to know) but also sounds very impatient the entire time. He does not have time for Jon’s feigned skepticism and denial and does not hide it.

-It becomes clear very quickly to the Archival staff that Mr. Blackwood is a lot meaner than Martin. He doesn’t make tea for people unless he’s trying to corner them to talk to them, He’s willing to kill spiders rather than release them. Murder doesn’t seem that out of the question for him. And while both Martin and Blackwood are big people, Matrin Hunches and keeps his voice soft and tries to seem smaller. Blackwood does none of that and will push his way through people and/or loom sometimes.

-As a result Tim starts jokingly referring to him as the Anti-Martin. When Mr. Blackwood starts mentioning that there should be a Mr. Sims showing up, Tim insists on making a list of traits that he bets  Mr. Sims will have based on him being an “Anti-Jon”. The traits include: Wearing only bright colors, not-giving a fig about archive policy, believing all the statements (even the dumb ones), smiling, being nice to Martin, being social and (on a day where Jon was being particularly annoying) being cool.

-A few of them are totally off the mark, but many of them are actually frighteningly close to the truth.

-He ropes Sasha into it too. They decide together that Sims and Blackwood have a one-sided relationship where Sims is absolutely besotted and Blackwood either barely tollerates him or is seducing him for his Head Archivist pay.

(It’s funny because Jon isn’t making much more than any of the Archival Staff)

-Blackwood is fairly nice to Sasha who is reasonable and listens to relevant threats. Tim appreciates him for confirming and advancing the research he’s done on Robert Smirke and the Circus. But Martin and Jon hate him. He bullies them both in different ways.

-Blackwood keeps trying to convince his younger self to grow a spine, make some boundaries. He keeps trying to tell him that he can’t fix things by being nice to everyone. Martin does not appreciate it.

-Mr. Blackwood will occasionally talk like Martin’s Mum and it makes it hurt more. Not exact sentiments or sentiments but familiar phrasing and tones. Blackwood doesn’t know he’s doing it.

-Meanwhile Blackwood takes away all the “real” statements from Jon (the ones that won’t record on the computer) and spreading them out amongst the archive staff. He insists that reading them will turn Jon into an eldritch creature that feeds on human trauma and gives people nightmares. Jon thinks this is a load of absolute bull. (If you must read them, Jon, at least don’t read them outloud. Type them up or something. Don’t be stupid.)

-Jon’s the type of person who needs to know and asks all the uncomfortable questions, so having someone take away the only real information bothers him. Even if Tim, Sasha and Martin have the information it still bothers him to not know.

-Jon is also really insecure about deserving his job, and desperately trying to prove himself. So having a man burst in and tell him how to do his job stings.

-Mr. Blackwood also isn’t delicate when pointing out Jon’s skepticism is dumb. He says all the things Martin thinks but is too polite to say.

(”I’m sure there’s a very natural reason for Carlos Vittery to be wrapped up in spider webs upon his death”

“Are you serious? Jon, if you keep up this ridiculous denial you’re going to walk yourself right into something’s mouth just to prove a point. Or worse, send someone else into it. And you of all people should know supernatural spiders are dangerous.

“What do you mean, I of all people?”

“I think you know what I mean, Jon.”)

-Jon and Martin actually end up hanging out because they bond over their mutual dislike of Mr. Blackwood.

-Jon defends Martin agains Mr. Blackwood and vice-versa.

-The first time it happens, it’s Jon defending Martin and Mr. Blackwood acts surprised.

-(I don’t know why we should trust you. Even if all this supernatural nonsense is true there’s no reason we should take you’re word on how it works! You barge into the archives telling everyone what to do, fear mongering with tales of secret societies trying to cause the apocalypse, you upset Martin all the time “for his own good, you-”

“-wait, wait wait- Martin?” “When did you start caring about Martin?”

“What do you mean? He’s one of my archival assistants, of course I care about him.”

“Jon, you bully him more often than I do.”

“I-No I don’t.”

“You make it very clear what you think of his work and competence, Jon. And you send him to all the worst assignments. He let’s it happen because he knows he’s not the best at research, and he knows you’re under pressure from Elias, and he really tries not to take it personally, but it hurts him Jon. It builds up and it hurts him, even if he never says it does. So yes, forgive me if I think you’re being a bit hypocritical.”)

-Jon apologizes to Martin after that and really tries to be nicer because he does not like the idea that he’s as bad as Mr. Blackwood. He watches what he says around Martin a lot more closely after that, and keeps an eye on Martin’s reactions.

-Jon will tell Martin that he thinks he’s nothing he’s like Mr. Blackwood. He doesn’t see how they could be the same person. Martin is so caring, and helpful, and kind, and warm, and Blackwood isn’t. Jon is so wrapped up in his frustration that he does not know Martin is blushing as he says this. Martin suddenly has to go make a cup of tea. Right then.

-The next time it’s Martin defending Jon against Blackwood. Blackwood is happy that Martin is starting to assert himself but is exasperated that it’s only occuring because of his own failed attempts to get the archive staff to trust him. He suddenly wants his own Jon to come back so badly so he can tell him how ridiculous this entire situation is. So they can laugh together at how Blackwood advanced their younger counterparts’ relationship progress by at least 3 years by accidentally becoming the villain of their story, so Jon can tease him about it.

-The third time it’s Jon once again defending Martin, saying that Blackwood went too far, that he sounds like Martin’s mother and he made him cry. Mr. Blackwood realizes that, yeah he does absolutely sound like his mum and he has to leave and reasses his actions. He hadn’t realized he was picking up her specific way of critisizing-well-himself. It’s just how he talked to himself in his own head- which- well- which wasn’t great.

-Jon is so surprised that he managed to actually get one-up on Mr. Blackwood that he takes everyone out for drinks and insists on paying. Which is a nice distraction for Martin. 

-It also, Blackwood notices, means Jon is getting closer to his archive staff and hanging out with them. It gives him a bittersweet hapiness. He’s so happy that they’re all closer in this timeline, that he managed to force Jon into socializing and Martin and Jon to get close. But he realizes he did it by being the outsider and interloper that they’re defending against, and he’s not quite part of this new group of the archive staff. He’s happy for them, just lonely. Even Sasha and Tim, who he gets along with more than Jon or Martin, are wary to trust him. He’s not telling them everything. He has to fight against Elias without the aid of spooky Eye powers and he’s unsure of when Elias is listening, so he’s not mentioning everything. He’s not telling them who killed Gertrude Robinson. He’s being evasive on the reasons he does not trust Elias, and about what power succeded at causing the apocalypse.

-As the days go by with no sign of His Jon/ Mr. Sim’s coming back his old connection to The Lonely intensifies and he becomes able to turn invisible and go by unnoticed again. The archive staff notice that he becomes spookier and sadder and- slightly less human and it decreases their trust in him.

[Check My Blog for a Part 2. I am writing this in one sitting, but this particular document has become long enough.]

[haematicmagic]

Oh no, i’m stuck at home! – a guide

So, i know that i’m probably telling this to the wrong people – most of us artists, poets and various fandom dwellers know how to keep ourselves occupied when stuck at home, but especially for workaholics, those with anxiety or those of us dependant on feeling productive to keep out depression (and for the normies), i feel like a extrended guide on how to be home properly could be useful.

By now, everyone has seen checklists on how to behave during quarantine and lockdowns enough to give us all a collective anxiety attack, but what, i feel, is neglected, is the fact that staying home spontaneously for 5 weeks, sometimes involuntarily, can be a terror in its own right.

So, from someone that has been sick for months with almost nothing to do, here are some tips and tricks to not succumb too much, if you’re the type for that

1. Stay active

Yes, i know, nobody is surprised, but its serious. Netflix and chill might keep you occupied for a few days, maybe two weeks, maybe the whole time, but if your mental state depends on feeling busy, stay active. if you have a local forest or park that you can safely visit, go, atleast every two days for atleast two hours. if you have a balcony, sit there.

2. Make your home liveable

keep your rooms ventilated, let sunlight in, take Vitamin D if you have it. Do workout at home if you can. Going stir crazy might not be an issue in your every–day life, but it gets everyone eventually. Eat your veggies before they spoil, eat regularly and with conscience. After work, if you must go, shower and desinfect your stuff, wear clean clothes even if you stay home and keep up woth your chores (if your mental state allows it, of course. There is another thing to be said about those of us that have a harder time to keep up with themselves in general, but this is mainly about not letting daily life disintegrate).

2. New content is your friend.

Podcasts, DnD online, Netflix or Prime from friends – if you’re like me, you most likely have a watchlist the size of east texas. I recently posted a Podcast Rec. List on my blog that has more than a year of pure audio content altogether, many of these are also great for falling asleep or on the go. For podcasts, i recommend Spotify if you have Premium or the Podbean app (which is free and allows you to download podcasts). The obvious big streaming sites exist and now is the time to share them with your friends, see if they have discounts or get those free trials. Also, your local news might have some free documentaries on their websites. There are most likely also books you haven’t read or reread. If you don’t know where to start, you might not like my taste but let me drop a few names:

Podcasts: Welcome to Nightvale, The Magnus Archives

Shows: Good Omens (prime), Preacher (prime), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), How To Sell Drugs Online Fast (Netflix), Obviously Supernatural and Dr Who for a rerun (on Burning Series.to)

Also, because i know Tumblr: If you are taking this opportunity to find every single slash fic on this planet and consume it, in gods name, appreciate the creators and writers that took the time to bring you content. Leave kudos, credit artists, leave nice comments, etc.

3. Do not despair.

Yes, the news are terrifying and staying updated is important, but your mental health is, too. I recommend „Squid“, an app that summarizes news around the world. They have a daily report function with which you can inform yourself quickly and hopefully without fake sensational headlines or panic. I also recommend „Good News“, a news app specifically for positive reports if you feel like giving up on humanity. I am not saying you should ignore the news or the reality of the situation, but the last days or weeks have been honestly depressing and if you already struggle with an outlook on life, dwelling in the bad will not help.

4. Socialize. No matter what.

Discord is free and they have extended some lifestreaming features to match the demand. Amino has communities for any interest with Chats, Voice chats, Community–made Quizzes and more. Mastondon is a (apparently) more secure twitter alternative if you dont wanna use twitter. Twitch has live streams to almost any topic (i reccomend the one that shows Bob Ross shows 24/7) and even a live stream can make you feel less alone. Scedule meetings with friends over there, regularly, just don’t succumb to the loneliness this situation might bring.

5. Learn

Sign up for Duolingo or take it up again and have an adorable owl threaten your family while learning some spanish. Get Mimo, an app much like Duolingo that teaches the basics of programming. Get into ASL, Write a DnD campaign, try that hobbie you haven’t had time for, write motivational messages for your friends that need to work, whatever it is. Try something new, if school or work aren’t keeping you busy enough.

Additionally, try to do physical stuff too. Get into knitting, sewing, wood carving, cooking, baking, prep meals, reorganize your room, paint your stuff, start a bullet journal, start a group, get addicted to tik tok, volunteer,

6. Sleep

Now, this is probably the most important point: Keep a scedule! Especially if school just closed for you and you aren’t already sick, just sitting at home, do not give into the temptation to live nocturnal. Yes, free time is fun, but dont cut yourself off. Get up at a reasonable time if you can, dress and shower and have a scedule. Try not to loose track of time and under/over sleep. If your body demands more sleep the first few days or weeks, that can be just stress compensation but try not to loose yourself too much.

7. Help if you can.

Still healthy and of good financial status or immune sytem? Others arent. Especially the homeless and unensured are at great risk. Find your local organization and donate your time or money if you can spare it. Try to support friends by informing them, keep unreasonable cases out of the hospitals and look after high risk people in your life (those can include but are not limited to: elderly, small kids, pregnant people, trans men/nbys that bind, those with autoimmune disorder, those with a weakened immune system, those in contact with a lot of people in their job)

Many organisations are also looking to either find shelter to animals or other people. If you can take them in, you are doing humanity a favour.

also, if you can, dont be that person to panic buy. This only forces other people into panic buying too. Buy reasonable amounts of what you need and be humble in your choices, if you can. Be mindful of other people. If you can afford/know how to cook at home, dont take the readymade meals from people that cant. In gods name, dont buy up food for people with special needs, like stockpiling gluten free flour just cause you’re on a diet and leaving nothing to those with allergies.)

8. Know your rights

Keep contact with others in your line of work and what procedures they are taking. Dont let anyone bully you into working in hostile environments, if you can. Find out how/when to take sick days for this and when/how your work or school will continue again. This is a special situation and in many cases, there are special rules implemented to help. Dont let anyone fuck you over.

[jigensass]

Here we are (this is very long so TL;DR this blog is getting archived)

It’s been over a week since I’ve taken a hiatus and a few close people know about what has happened. And I have made a decision in response to an insight meditation retreat I took over the course of this weekend. 

 I’m going to be dropping roleplaying Stephen and possibly roleplaying altogether. 

First, after 5 years of this blog, you’re probably wondering why. Well, I woke up. 

Yes, I’m a talented writer and I can weave your fantasies into realities. Yes, I enjoy every single person I have written for. You’re not the problem. My writings are the problem that is hurting my lifestyle and it leads to toxic behavior. 

Ever since I decided to go into this hiatus and a few days prior, I’ve been peeling back that I am more sensitive than others to certain situations and at sometimes have the ability to as previously stated, weave fantasies into realities and make them feel as real as possible. This can be problematic when I get in too deep. So much as I have in the past without even realizing, begin to dissociate the line and my own reality and the one I made that I have fallen in love with. The two begin to crossover and I don’t even realize I’m doing it until it’s too late. This had led to multiple people getting hurt and I didn’t even know I was doing it.  Why has this been happening for so long and I’m noticing it after 26 years? Well, no one kind of stopped me or I didn’t notice because when I was younger I lived in my own little world. And that own little world became the internet and then the internet started converging with the little world and I didn’t know what to do except the one thing I knew best: make up stories and not even realizing it, they became my own little world. It’s how I coped and got away from the actual reality that I lived in (school, work, family, etc). 

Now how did Stephen come in? Well, (holy shit I’ve been in the sphere of Doctor Strange for 7.5 (8 years in the Marvel sphere) years now that’s the longest I’ve stuck to anything). There was a game on Facebook where I heard of him and at the time in 2010, there were only comics and the movie from 2006(7?) (I remember actually SEEING the commercial for the movie and asking ‘how is this guy a superhero he’s a doctor’ oh how my 13-year-old self was foolish). 

I fell in love with Stephen’s character for one reason: he had all the powers of a god, yet he was still human. It would take me another 5 years to realize where my path was actually headed with this magic man and the actual man named Benedict Cumberbatch. 

Along the way, since this blog was created and many rp threads later, there were many times I felt so absorbed into my work that even though I had an external life with friends and people I knew. It became...a problem. It was obvious when I began to piss off my friends in college for trying to gain this...atmosphere of Stephen Strange and then try to be myself. 

But I didn’t know who ‘Crystal’ was for...like ever. Only until after this weekend did I find out this answer (stay tuned). 

I kept trying different things, nothing felt good. I didn’t feel like a human being unless I was by myself clacking away at a keyboard and being absorbed with the Sorcerer Supreme who I (for the longest time) considered a reflection of who I was or what I wanted to be (at some point Magnus Bane got thrown into the pot in 2014 so that’s just a lovely stew...). It ate at me for years and I wasn’t even aware during points where I became lost that the parasite was there. The parasite was my power to get lost in worlds I created and then believe the world was still there in reality. And it (probably) hurt many real human beings in the process. 

And just recently I yanked that parasite off and threw it away. Realizing that seeing Stephen as a reflection is dangerous and will get me pulled into the looking glass if I don’t stop. 

So as of today for the sake of my mental health, this blog is being archived.

I’m not saying it was all bad. I wouldn’t be typing this because of roleplaying with one person in particular who, even though my coworkers were slapping me in the face (metaphorically, of course) and concerned for my life during the nine months of suffering I held at my new job, was AT THE TIME, the only person who could get through to me and wake me up. The reason this journey started because of a very deep wound that was still scarring, but this person was the one to be my guide on the path to just finding what I needed to figure out what the heck was going on. 

About a month later after this realization, I joined a sangha and began meditation on a weekly basis or when I could. This (and to this day) practice has unearthed a lot of stuff that I’ve buried so deep that it blew my mind how messed up my childhood was. Why I was so...sarcastic...and had to make a joke to every serious detail...and impulsive...and...determined to get out of this hole. Like a certain....doctor

(No joke when I watched Doctor Strange in theatres in 2016 when this line was said I died laughing because of the tone and manner of how it was said was something I would do. I’m a sassy piece of shit IRL) 

Back in late 2016/early 2017 right after I watched this movie, I remember wanting to embrace MCU Stephen with open arms. I felt the pain he was feeling, having to give up his mundane life to become the guardian of the Earth, and I wanted to take him down that journey of suffering, of realizing that he chose for the sake of his hands, provided him with....the power of a god yet he was still human (also I was stunned because he was (I BELIEVE right behind T’Challa) the FIRST Marvel main character to actually DIE on camera. As in no pulse, not coming back dead. 

But instead I got female OCs wanting to bang and marry him, and the funk kicked itself right out the door. And this is when I got into experimentation. Demons, Mermen...the list goes on. 

This is where it became obvious that Stephen was leaning towards men and less towards women and the relationships were slowly becoming....uninteresting. Either for me or the other person. Around this time this was when the shit hit the fan hard and I had a mental breakdown and contemplated suicide (it wasn’t the first time). Yeah, surprise~. The package gets nastier. 

At this point, as many of you know, I was diagnosed with Attention Hyperactive Association Disorder (or ADHD) and I began taking medication which helped, but with the meditation beside it, this was where a nasty load of stuff boiled inside including:

Emotional and some Physical Abuse from my Parents

My mother almost killed me once. She nearly snapped my neck.

Emotional Abuse from Teachers and Peers in School

I was given a nickname that I just passively went with and in the end, I hated it. When I tried to change it, people didn’t listen to me. 

I gave my opinion about how I did not enjoy Glee on Facebook. I was shunned by nearly every music department student. 

Trust Issues that supported the Anxiety because of said Emotional Abuse (and for a point in my life, pretty sure I had Avoidant Personality Disorder)

I’ve been at the same job for over 2 years now and just last Friday I had to balls to tell someone my life was a dumpster fire. 

Depression because I couldn’t hold/meet expectations that I had imagined as being next to perfect standards because of past emotional abuse to be under the impression I could meet nothing less (thus over the years I lowered my expectations, yet nothing changed). Sometimes I had suicidal thoughts and the only reason I didn’t do it was because I thought felt good to suffer

In turn, because I was abused emotionally in a certain manner that I thought that it was okay to do so when I couldn’t get a grounding of having things in my control as well because of my conditioning or just try to be noticed. At the time, it was the only way I knew how to put the board in my favor. It was when I did this and my boss wrote me up that I just...became silent. People wondered why I didn’t talk and then when I did, it was (and sometimes still is) in the most passive tone of observation. Over time I did learn this was one of the most unwholesome things I could do and I have still lost my footing in times of despair that I go back to this way of talking because I’m conditioned to beat myself up when something bad happens (and even during this weekend’s retreat those unwholesome thoughts came up). 

So sorry for anyone I’ve hurt in the past because of this. I’ve disconnected with many because of my ignorance.

Thus the result of this toxic upbringing and my choice to follow it blindly led to a misunderstanding of relationships to the mundane level (romantic or platonic). Every situation that failed, I tried better. But it only felt worse since till this day every single one has failed, minus one or two, have all ended in some kind of disaster merely due to, what probably was my destructive behavior. 

Even now typing this dumpster fire was difficult. Because I have 3 ways of responding

1. I’m a Bot Beep Boop How are you? Good! That’s Good! 

2. I have a mask and there’s no one else here behind the ask

3. You sure you want to talk to ME? You sure you find me INTERESTING? You? Find me attractive?! Kay...Just warning you....*reveals the dumpster fire* You can go backward out the entrance door

So...yeah. I’ve never ‘felt’ until recently that my life “mattered”. That I was just...kind of an empty sponge. Day in, day out. Paying off debt for a job that I don’t even do anymore because I’m better at other things, like deduction. And working with data and information. 

But anywho....if you’ve made it this far in “My Journey to Find out Who the Heck I Am” Congrats, you made it to this weekend’s insight meditation retreat. Because it was both terrible and uplifting at the same time. 

yesterday we meditated for about 8ish hours and I wanted to kill myself (literally) from all the pain in my back. I questioned if I had to go see a chiropractor after it was all said and done. And then something came up that I noticed that I always was aware of.

The teacher kept referencing other teachers before her and near the end of it all when she would keep talking, the references were driving me nuts. Like, she just kept telling us to follow the Buddha like he was some holy person and it clicked: I don’t like organized religion because I’m being told how to do my practice. So when we went outside to walk, it all just kind of clicked when I found a bench off to the side of the business complex (our retreat was at our local sangha and non-residential). I sat on that bench and stared at the fence and the rain and said to myself ‘I am the River’, meaning I should go with the flow and acknowledge and be aware of any ripples made in me. 

And that everything that was being instructed on this retreat had been told to me from another source: all of my coworkers who probably have not sat on a cushion in their life. 

Today when we the teacher did a talk this morning about ‘self’ and ‘not self’, she, in short, repeated what I said from a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh (monk from Vietnam) about how we are not a river, but an ocean. 

And even though the teacher’s story was relatable, it clicked who “Crystal” was and where Stephen stood in Crystal’s life.

Crystal is made up of many individuals parts and is just...Crystal. Stephen is not a reflection, but one of those many parts. 

Even though I acknowledge this wisdom, I currently believe I do not (and might not) have the ability to return to my writings because of why I previously explained. It’s not you, it’s the current in the river. 

So thank you to everyone who has befriended me along the way and helped me down this path. 

Namaste.

*two minutes later* lemme find a Benedict Cumberbatch Buddhism gif to close this story, show me the money Google

GOD DAMN I-

[mapbotofficial]

I've been wondering how this happened from the start honestly

~Mouse

OK. full blog lore time. buckle up this is is long

sooo. friends were making fnaf blogs, and it seemed like fun + id always wanted to run an ask blog since i first heard about them when i was younger!! so THIS WAS IT. my chance to make an ask blog. ask soon as i made the first post i had a realization.

there is. little to nothing you can do with mapbot. theres no character. just 2 lines of dialogue and congrats. you got a map. soo. i carried on the bit for a while, but it obviously got boring. theres not much you can do with just "please take a map" .

so the reasonable thing to do was to mess around like the other blogs had! add something interesting to add to it, have something else be there.

now, at the time my hyperfixations were the magnus archives, and inscryption. so i thought. "wouldnt it be funny. if i made a whole story getting inspiration from those 2 things."

SO. what i did was have mapbot find a stoat. it at first was supposed to be a bit where "oh look! inscryption stoat on the fnaf blog! how silly!" but . for some reason i backed out on that. so: now there was a weird stoat.

then i started to imply that the stoat was a wizard and gave them their name for a joke: geography, or gg for short because , this is still a normal mapbot ask blog i promise. but then i had an idea. i love character design, and why not make a story? just for this blog? so thats what i did.

so, i had gg go into a weird door. and find a weird place. pitch black, and mazelike tunnels. originally, for the character in the tunnels first appearance, they had no name, (referred to by gg as dice). they were ORIGINALLY supposed to be just eyes in the dark, playing some spooky role. that didnt happen. they ended up being irritable and tired, as well as terrible at childrens board games.

when i had gg leave, i started working on proper story concepts. starting with the concept of caretakers.

the concept of the lamplighter was the first role made. acer paraffin maple, with acer and maple being trees that burn well, and paraffin oil being something that is used in oil lamps!

so, fun naming choices. now at this time, id named all my characters.

holly ilex, (hollyberries), laurel noble (bay leaf scientific name. its a water pun for the boat captain), martin carver (he was never seen, but hes a marten. i was tired of making names by the time i got to him)

the last 2 were interesting to design for the caretakers. fir castell, a librarian/archivist? i wasnt sure, and they were named after how fir wood is used for paper, and the faber castell ink brand. but the last caretaker always stumped me. i refered to them simply as 'the stranger', and left it at that.

so by this point, i had all my characters named, but needed personalities as well as designs so i got to it .

holly was inspired by hollyberry cookie in cookie run and a bloodborne outfit??? (yea.) he was the first one designed actually, and his initial appearance and personality are a biiit different from how he looks and is now, being more fancy, as well as more mean.

the stranger was actually the second one designed, despite having no name. a chess computer. they were based on animatronics, and with my love of object head characters, had a screen for a head. this made them unintentionally resemble p03, which is funny

laurel was the 3rd design, and fir the fourth. design wise? these two had the MOST changes compared to everybody else. personalities remained the same but. im gonna doodle a quick sketch for comparison.

lefts the current design which. i think people recognize, and the right is the original. laurel originally had flatter, straighter hair, a MUCH fancier coat (not shown obviously) as well as mime makeup, instead of more clownlike. this actually got changed ONLY when laurel was met in story. i drew what felt right and . now we have laurel as they are presently.

fir however took the longest to get a design for, and it was made on the go. fir was originally not only and object head, BUT, a mongoose?

i dont know what happened for these designs to change in all honesty. dont ask (also fir lost sweater vest permissions. oops)

,,back to the other designs however.

martin, has actually always looked the same since concepts? the only thing thats really changed was his last name. but even then, only by a few letters.

now to acer. despite them being the first character named, they were the last for a design. they were based on a joke character design (who never got named), and overall, hasnt really changed designwise! hell, even the hair color being inspired from toasted marshmallows hasnt changed. there are some design aspects that didnt make the cut, but did actually go to a DIFFERENT character later on. (youll see them in the reboot)

so by the time gg had gone into the factory in the story, and onto the boat, the story had been written. for the most part? i was writing whatever i wanted. but the story that HAD been written was fully and entirely, ignored. it was more of a guideline. and next came the first character who wasnt originally designed to appear: sacha

acers sibling. its hair was actually styled similarly to acers, mostly for the hell of it. if i remember right, it was mostly to imitate acer, much to their annoyance. sacha actually got the mime makeup that laurel was originally supposed to have, but in a different style. now while on the boat, i tried to push more for a proper story on the blog (it didnt work), so instead i just. posted. a lot. i also had character background for gg vaguely at this point. and at this point, the archive was about to be visited but there was an issue:

i didnt have a personality or design set for fir. so i had sacha push for rumors about them being 'dangerous'. which now in current lore, is super funny, because those two are close friends, as well as laurels cousin. so to sacha, its a silly joke. to gg? who knows. they might die??

but i cant kill off the main character, i did that in my other story already . so, gg was going to reason with them (somehow). but when writing fir they turned out to be pretty cool so. yea whatever. but something else had happened. i implied that caretaking had some other role. so! i ran with that concept.

now came the concepts for past caretakers. i believe the first one who had a concept was halcyon, the old captain. their original concept was given to a different character (and then a different one later). the second lewis, whos design was given to ANOTHER DIFFERENT CHARACTER. and sydney. who stayed the same.

its hard to describe the original concepts i had with those 3. it was so specific in my head that i really didnt know what to do with them. so i didnt do anything. easy fix.

another lore thing was: gg didnt like holly, or more specifically, the woods. they didnt want to go there, but they didnt want to go to the other location . so they chose to go to the woods.

the other location, being THEIR HOME, they didnt go to because uh. they didnt exactly want to be known. they didnt like their family, and felt overshadowed by them. so they left to be an apprentice for holly, maybe to replace him someday. but, now heres the interesting part.

so, holly, as the hunter, hunted. obviously. its in the name. now gg, had set up traps in certain areas, unknown to holly. holly, when messing around and basically playfighting with another caretaker, who never had a name . for some reason.

the other caretaker fell into a trap, and you can take a guess how well that went.

holly, having frequently lied in the past to help cover other peoples mistakes, wasnt exactly believed. seeing how gg had left for the woods, and was never seen by anybody again? it didnt look good for him . so at that point, none of the formerly VERY close caretakers got along that well. gg, was infact. syzygy. thats what their name was. it just happened to be that geography being shortened to gg worked out in their favor.

is the above being kept in the new lore? kinda! youll see lol

now some other characters were written in concepts, being

swilla, magnus, gunpowder, sycamore, willow, and two characters who would later be named cesar and merlot.

NOW. then we have the OLD caretakers. the original ones. they were written in later (with the concepts changed.) around when this blog was SUPPOSED to be in temporary hiatus (its getting rebooted. yea.)

sycamore, amelia, lucas, charles, miriam, and fern. of course, those characters have been changed for the reboots lore and plot but. thats about it really?

here in a bit i miiight make a different post showing assorted concept art of things . like THE REAL behind the scenes YIPPEE

anyways. thats about it???

IN SUMMARY: it was a joke that got really out of hand and now im attached to these characters

[cantskank]

LET’S WRITE A FUCKING POST

i’m just feeling just VERY bad about things, mostly about one thing in particular

and maybe i would think about bringing it to spaces where i could vent with the people i have been spending time with online

BUT some people there are doing the things i am complaining about and i don’t think i can get the subtleties of my frustration across and it would come across as complaining about them

and i think the thing with this issue is that people are supposed to be quietly ignoring it if they disagree because to bring up and argue for this point comes across as anti behavior!  and like i would like to be able to trust that i could bring this up in a good-faith discussion but i just don’t think that’s possible with the climate of this discussion/topic.

SO.  let’s talk about aspec identities and aspec rep.

AS AN ARO ACE, there are just a lot of ways in which the world is not built for me.  which is fine!  sex and relationships are a big deal for a lot of people so to some degree i can accept that they are just always a thing that are going to be something i have to deal with.

however, my identity is still really important to me.  realizing that i was ace (then aro) was a HUGE fucking deal to me.  all of a sudden i realized there were these ways in which i was alienated- these things which were just assumed to be so foundational and human were things i didn’t experience.  because of that i dove into online community with other aces.  i spent just so much time on aven- i wasn’t like a huge poster on there (or at least it didn’t feel like i was) but i was always on.  i still think of that as a huge part of my identity and a huge part of my online participation.   however, after the 2016 election i was in just a horrible headspace and kinda pulled back anyway.  there was kinda just a general leaving of aven around then anyway- a couple of the really super active people left in the winter of 2017.  then there were just like a few really active, really vocal conservative members??  who were around??  and i just stopped going on there entirely which was the right move for me!

all this is to say, i basically had this space for me to share and understand my identity and now i do not.  i have been back on recently and it’s just not the same- the conservative voices have pretty much left but there are still just some people and ways of thinking i just can’t get behind and i haven’t been on since i tried rejoining in the spring.  the other communities online are not really my thing- mostly tumblr, right?  and tumblr is NOT a community space, it’s a ‘say whatever the fuck you want and defend your fucking point and call other people out and be generally aggressive and self-righteous’ space, right??  and i don’t want to say this per se (because it’s fucking mean) but i will- tumblr ace activism is WAYYYY more about conforming to the norm than aven ever was.

like aven, when i was on, was a space where you could acknowledge your identity as different and explore what that meant and how that affected you.  ace tumblr?  is mostly ‘i’m an ace and i want a partner, can i have sex and still be ace?’ (and the response being ‘yes you can be ace and still have sex’) and it’s like!! WHAT THE FUCK!

i think my issue with this comes from a few things.

first, i HAVE to acknowledge that i have some small internal prejudice against aces who want to have sex.  i respect and appreciate those who do and would never call them invalid (and the people on aven who do are the reason i didn’t stick around when i came back in the spring) but there is a small part of me which thinks that it is a bit harder to call yourself ace and still have interest in sex.  such a big huge factor in my feelings of alienation and the solace i’ve found in identifying as asexual is my disinterest in sex.  i personally think about aces who are okay with having sex and i wonder what the big deal is about identifying as asexual in that case because you are conforming to the norm.  something which must be a huge focus of asexual activism in my mind is normalizing lack of interest in sex.  i personally think that having the message ‘okay respect asexuals who don’t want sex but some of us will have sex with you’ is just a lot and makes it harder to be sex-repulsed. (this will come up later as well i think)  anyway i MUST acknowledge that because it DOES inform my feelings about this and it is not a fair way to feel about things, i completely agree.  i will not be disingenuous about it.

okay second, i am just NOT a fan of telling someone whether or not they ‘can’ be asexual.  i think this comes from aven but!  your identity is your own!  and telling someone ‘oh you can still be asexual’ is making it seem like the choice to identify hinges on someone else’s approval.  when it really, really doesn’t.  if you want to have sex and you are asexual, then decide that is the case and just fuckin live your best life!  don’t go to some big-name asexuality tumblr blog and make THEM the arbiter of your identity.  have some self-insight and self-awareness, if you can’t do that then you.....honestly probably will have a harder time overall identifying as asexual.  aspec identities are just the hardest to hear about, the hardest to relate to.  it takes effort to find out about and do the work to decide/realize you are asexual.  relying on someone else to tell you that you ‘can’ identify as asexual?  you’re ignoring the work and imo your self-identification is ultimately built on unstable ground.  have some insight!!  do your own work!

okay so that’s my feelings on ace communities since.  i just ultimately haven’t found a good fit for ace community since and i think my overall feelings and understanding of my identity has suffered for it.  i don’t have outlets for thinking about it so i push it to the side.  and getting older has made me feel worse about things, i’m on a slow march to progressive loneliness.  i absolutely go through periods of feeling like shit about my identity and periods where i feel okay.  

and recently (well, during quarantine) i have decided to seek out more representation in media.  which brought me to magnus archives and then to rqg.  and these are the reason i’m feeling like shit today.

basically, there are people who want to write asexual characters having sex.  and that’s fine!!  fucking do it!!  do whatever you want!!

the problem is that there are people who don’t want to read that, and i am one of them.

and i feel weird about it, right, because the people who are vocally against it more often than not are antis.  so while i would never argue that it shouldn’t be written i at least theoretically agree that i don’t like seeing that dynamic.

and like the people who write it who are asexual i get because like, if that’s you and you want some rep, go for it!  if that’s not you but you’re still interested in exploring an ace person who has sex as an asexual, then go for it!  things are complicated and shit sucks!  i still won’t read it but you do you!

i do have a problem with allos writing sex-affirmative ace characters though.  and not necessarily when done in a respectful way but like.   all i want is for their asexuality to not be handwaved off like it’s not a big deal because it CAN be a big deal.  the number of people i’ve seen in ace spaces who are like ‘do i tell my partner i’m ace?’ ‘should i have sex with my boyfriend?’ ‘when should i tell them i’m not interested in having sex except maybe under the right circumstances?’

for some it’s not a big deal, sure!!  but for many it IS a big deal and i just can’t deal with people who don’t understand it (by virtue of never having experienced it) acting like it’s a simple 30-second conversation of ‘yes i’ll have sex with you because i love you’ it’s FUCKING BULLSHIT

and like this might be absolutely anti reasoning but i can’t help thinking that this is perpetuating misconceptions about asexuality (i’m referring specifically to asexuality because both characters in question are biro ace).  and misrepresenting asexuality to asexuals

and honestly here’s my big gripe with the situation: YOU HAVE LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF CHARACTERS YOU CAN WRITE SEX SCENES WITH.  I HAVE BASICALLY NEVER HAD A CHARACTER WHO CAN REPRESENT MY ASEXUALITY AND I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER HAD A CHARACTER IN A FANDOM WHO HAS FULLY REPRESENTED MY IDENTITY

(as an aro ace person.  jughead from archie comics is literally the only one i’m aware of and they FUCKING REMOVED THAT from riverdale (which is a steaming pile of shit anyway))

i just am very sensitive about compulsory sexuality and i ABSOLUTELY think that ‘i’ll have sex with you because you’re my partner’ is compulsory sexuality and while people are ultimately able to make that decision i am just worried that not being aware of what compulsory sexuality is and how it works (because i legit NEVER see it discussed in asexual spaces apart from having seen it a lot on aven, like i think it’s a term that has limited recognition outside of that space) means that there are a lot of asexuals out there who think it is expected and reasonable to have sex for their partner and that there is no such thing as a system where you’re effectively brainwashed into thinking that having sex MUST be fucking prioritized over not having sex (and that sex is a signifier of ultimate love, blah blah blah, all that shit).

all of that is to say.  if i’m being completely honest with myself, i’m realizing more and more how traumatized i have been by just existing in the world as someone who is not interested in sex or romance, to the point that i’m honestly constantly feeling at a breaking point and references to sex and/or romance can be just too much.  and especially shipping, and especially fiction where an asexual person has sex.

and i really really should not have read an argument in the discourse channel of this stupid 18+ fandom discord that i’m technically on but have muted.  because they were discussing with an anti basically how they are ‘allowed’ to write whatever pairing and whatever explicit scenes they would like to write.  and they’re right!!  write whatever.  i just wish that there was a way other than on here that i could share my frustrations with ace characters written as having sex without 1) seeming like i’m attacking people who have posted explicit material with that character in that server (:/) and 2) seeming like a fucking anti when i literally disagree with everything else

this was supposed to make me feel better and it really didn’t but i’m done with it and just posting it anyway.  FUCK THIS!  FUCK THIS!  FUCK THIS!

okay done thanks

[inverted-sheep]

I’ve been to Shetland six times and Orkney four times. Each time I’ve travelled a lot round the islands and during those travels have popped in and out of their respective capitals numerous times. So I feel like I know Shetland’s Lerwick and Orkney’s Kirkwall pretty well. Well enough, anyway, to have formed opinions on them.

People expect them to be similar, but they’re not. They each have their own distinctive look and particular vibe. I like both for different reasons and when asked which was my favourite was a bit stumped. Of course, my instinct was to say Lerwick seeing as how I feel Shetland is my soul home and all, but with only a second’s thought I started to come up with lots of wonderful things about Kirkwall too.

How to choose? How to compare Lerwick with Kirkwall? I decided to come up with my own Lerwick vs Kirkwall version of Top Trumps and give them both a score on lots of different aspects.

My point scoring will consist of a mix of facts and my own personal opinions. I’m the final judge, though as always, I’ll welcome your thoughts in the comments.

Kirkwall was the first place I visited in the islands. That was back in 2002 when I went up to Orkney for a week during the St Magnus arts festival. I didn’t have a vehicle at the time and so travelled up there by train, bus, ferry and another bus. I stayed in a tiny hostel near the town centre.

Coming from Manchester and having only just left London after living there for years, I couldn’t  get my head round how tiny Kirkwall was. I’d have a ticket for an event starting at, oh say 2pm, and wouldn’t want to be late so I’d leave my hostel in plenty of time. I knew I didn’t have to allow a couple hours like I did in London and I didn’t even have to allow half an hour like I did in Manchester. But I couldn’t get my head round only having to allow 2½  minutes. Consequently I did a lot of waiting around outside venues waiting for them to open.

Commercial Street in Lerwick

In 2010 I went to Shetland for the first time. I remembered Kirkwall and so expected Lerwick to be small, which it was. Fine. Then in 2013 I went back to Orkney and to Kirkwall. Having got used to Lerwick and having already been to Kirkwall I wasn’t expecting to be surprised by Kirkwall. I expected it to be the same as Lerwick. It was not. It felt like a huge metropolis when compared to Lewick. The roads seemed busy, the main street (Albert St) was full of people, there were wide roads and a huge car park. If I now thought this about Kirkwall, goodness knows what I’d have thought of Lerwick if that had been the first place I’d gone to back in 2002!

Anyway, lets get on with the scoring in the Inverted Sheep Top Trumps of Lerwick vs Kirkwall and see how Lewick compares to Kirkwall. Which do you think will come out on top?

Ease of navigating my way down the high street

Albert Street in Kirkwall – it gets a LOT busier than this!

Kirkwall is bigger than Lerwick. It’s 3.63 km² and has a population of 9,293 compared to Lerwick’s 3.15 km² and 6,958 strong population. Okay, so not hugely bigger, yet it feels it. It might be because it’s flatter and so has a more open feel. Lerwick is built into a hill with lots of tiny, narrow lanes which climb steeply from the high street. This gives it a smaller, more closed-in feel. And although both get lots of visits from cruise ships in the summer months, it’s in Kirkwall that you really notice it. The town is completely different on the days when a ship is in (sometimes more than one) and it can get so crowded on the high street I might as well be on London’s Oxford Street. It can be just as difficult to make my way down it. If I want lunch on one of these days I’ve learnt to not even bother trying to get in any of the cafes and just grab something from the supermarket to eat in the van instead.

Although Lerwick can get busy it never feels as stifling as Kirkwall does. So for my scores (drum roll) I’m going to give Kirkwall one point because it is a nice street and I do usually enjoy wandering up and down it. Lerwick will get one point for the same reason and a second point for never feeling so crowded.

Amazing, beautiful, stunning, old buildings

Lodberries in Lerwick – this is the one ‘Jimmy Perez’ lives in

Lerwick has got rather a nice old town hall with some interesting stained-glass windows and of course there’s the row of lodberries (old houses built out onto the water – Ann Cleeves’s character Jimmy Perez lives in one, so you will have seen them if you’ve ever watched the BBC’s Shetland which is based on her books).

St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall

Kirkwall has got a blummin’ massive ancient cathedral built out of striking red rock. It towers over the town. Next to it are the ruins of not one, but two palaces built in the times of the Earls.

I think that makes it 3-2 in Kirkwall’s favour.

Museums

Shetland Museum and Archives in Lerwick

One of my favourite museums ever is the Shetland Museum in Lerwick. It’s a place I can lose hours in. It’s so good I’m going to give it two points. Kirkwall also has a pretty good museum and a rather interesting little wireless museum. Neither of them can top the Shetland Museum, but because it has two museums I’ll give Kirkwall two points as well.

The museum in Kirkwall has a very nice garden at the back.

Coffee shops and cafes

Thick, home-made soup at the Peerie Cafe in Lerwick

One of my favourite cafes is the Peerie Cafe in Lerwick. I love going there for home-made soup and cheesecake. Their scones, muffins and sandwiches are pretty good too. Lerwick also has plenty of other nice places to eat or drop in for a coffee.

A toasted teacake in the Strynd Tea Room in Kirkwall

Kirkwall has plenty of cafes but I haven’t tried as many as I have in Lerwick (see the point above about them being too busy to get inside) and actually the Lerwick ones just seem more appealing to me anyway. Though I did rather like the tiny Strynd tea room in Kirkwall.

I’m awarding three points to Lerwick and one to Kirkwall in this category.

Shopping

The Orcadian bookshop in Kirkwall

Kirkwall has a few more ‘chain’ stores than Lerwick, but neither has many. What I love about shopping on both streets is that they are filled with independent retailers – something that is becoming really hard to find in modern Britain. Both towns have a really good bookshop which sells a good selection of books on Orkney and Shetland. They both have really nice shops selling art, knitted goods, homewares, locally made jewellery, fancy fudge and chocolates, handmade soap, and so on. Kirkwall also has a couple of nice deli shops. Both have banks and a post office. I love browsing along both streets and always find something nice to buy.

Mirrie Dancers chocolatier in Lerwick

I’m going to award two points each for this category.

Supermarkets

Lerwick has a Tesco and a Co-op. Kirkwall has a bigger Tesco, a Co-op and Lidl. That makes it 3-2 to Kirkwall.

Leisure Centre

Working in the leisure centre in Kirkwall gave me the chance to finally get a photo of my laptop by a pool – I feel like a real blogger now!

Both towns have a leisure centre which has great facilities including pools with water slides,  gym, saunas, exercise classes, squash courts, etc. They both also have a cafe. I use them for the showers which are fine as leisure centre showers go, but not anything fancy. I think I slightly prefer the showers in Lerwick, but there’s not much in it. I did find myself using Kirkwall leisure centre for the internet this year when the library let me down.

I’ll give them both one point for facilities and Kirkwall an extra point because I had a nice area to work in AND the showers were only £1 compared to £1.85 (!) in Lerwick.

Library

The workspace in Lerwick library

Both towns have a very good library. The library in Kirkwall is in quite a new building and bigger than the one in Lerwick. It has a large quiet workroom upstairs, a computer room downstairs and a coffee machine in the lobby. I tried working in the library this summer, but had a problem with the internet – for some reason I couldn’t access my blog on my laptop or phone and neither could the librarians. Yet it showed up fine on their computers which were using a cable to get the internet. After a lot of messing about we decided it must be something with the wifi. They gave me some credit so I could work on their computers, but as everything I need is on my laptop there was only so much I could do. I ended up in the leisure centre which was actually a really nice place to work and my website loaded fine.

Lerwick’s library is smaller, but it’s in an old church and has stained-glass windows. Upstairs there’s a great Shetland Archive, sofas and a little work area. There was a problem with the internet this year which was quite frustrating, but that wasn’t the library’s fault – an undersea cable coming north from Orkney had been broken which cut off the internet to Shetland and Faroes. I did manage to get quite a lot of work done though. The other problem I had this year was the coffee machine, which uses those pod-thingies, ran out of coffee and they were unable to get any more from their supplier. Once I knew this I brought my own coffee in so it wasn’t a problem.

Both libraries are lovely and the staff are really helpful in both so they’ll each get one point for that. I’m also going to give an extra completely biased point to Lerwick just because it’s one of my favourite workspaces (even with the internet and coffee problems this year).

Parking

Car park with a view – this one’s in Lerwick

Parking is easy in both towns and free in both towns. Very close to the centre there is pay parking or limited time parking, but as the towns are so small you don’t have to walk far to find either a free long-stay car park or free street parking. That’s one point each.

Campsite

The old Clickimin campsite in Lerwick, sadly no longer there. This was taken in 2010 when I travelled with a car and tent rather than a van.

Lerwick used to have a nice campsite close to town which had plenty of space for campervans or tents. It closed a few years ago so a new school could be built on the site and as far as I’m aware there are no plans for a new one. The nearest campsites are now miles away. Bad enough if you have a vehicle but terrible if you have a tent (or a big motorhome you don’t want to drive every day) as public transport is pretty limited. What people end up doing is having to find somewhere to park up each night or a bit of ground they can pitch a tent on. As the public toilets close each night as well it’s really not ideal. (Tip: (not a great tip, but the best I’ve been able to come up with) park by the Knab as it’s really quiet at night and you won’t be disturbed. There are toilets but they are locked at night. Tesco is open from 7am till 11pm and they have toilets so you can drive round there. I have seen people in a tent here as well, but it would be a very long walk round to Tesco for the loo).

Kirkwall still has a campsite that looks very nice and is close to the centre. I’ve never stayed here so can’t really comment on it, but will give it a point for being there.

Lerwick – you get a big fat zero for this category.

Cinema

A new complex called Mareel opened in Lerwick a few years ago and includes a cinema as well as a cafe bar. The cinema in Kirkwall is in the leisure centre. Both cinemas show a good range of films so that’s one point each.

Nightlife

A taste of the nightlife in Kirkwall – this was actually early evening so I assume it gets busier later on.

Yeah, right! If you’re after a clubbin’ and partying Ibiza style holiday these probably aren’t the places for you. Both towns have pubs and you can often find live music. But a ‘big’ night out? Not really. Though actually, one of my best night’s out EVER was in Lerwick. But that was at Up Helly Aa which happens once a year in the middle of winter and you have to be pretty lucky to get an invite to it. So I suppose I can’t really count that here. I’ll give each town one point because they do have pubs.

So, twelve categories and numerous points. I deliberately graded each place without keeping a tally because I was afraid I might have swayed it in favour of Lerwick if I thought Lerwick was going to lose. Once I’d got my scores I put them all in a table. See below to find out which town wins the Inverted Sheep Top Trumps of the North Isles’ Capital Towns.

That wasn’t a fix, honest! And actually now that they’ve both scored equally it makes it even harder for me to answer the question about which town I prefer.

So now it’s over to you. What else do you think I should have included? Do you agree with my scoring? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. 

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Graemsay – A Perfect Day on a Perfect Island Shopping and Eating in Lerwick Up Helly Aa – the night

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Lerwick vs Kirkwall? Which is better and why? New post: I've been to Shetland six times and Orkney four times. Each time I've travelled a lot round the islands and during those travels have popped in and out of their respective capitals numerous times.