#my beloved mary-sue. fly free

[windupaidoneus]

hildegarde has a really neat design! Do you have any more lore for him?? (I realise I’m saying this that the answer is probably “yes”, but I’d be curious to find out anything more!)

I hope this is alright to ask~

omg hello!!! thank you so much, & ofc ofc! i love to talk about him much to the detriment of anyone who followed me before i got into ffxiv LMAO

he's. so much. gestures broadly. raised in garlemald (adopted by a high-ranking family, this did Not go well for him), deserted during the 7th calamity at a whopping 21 years old & stuck around in gyr abania for some time on his own before making his way to the black shroud. stayed there for some time, got picked up by bremondt, & that's how his adventuring journey ✨ started! WOO!!

ok im gonna put the rest under a read more its a LOT of paragraphs bc i write a lot of paragraphs about him always. i still have a few unanswered asks that are unanswered bc i type too much & i had to go to bed before i could finish. it's scary down there

ALSO IM BAD AT BEING CONCISE one day ill have his lore doc written up all pretty & nice & itll be actually digestible. but for now!!

notable things about him: - strong affinity for magic (especially white magic for a long time. blm/rdm are now pretty much on par though) but can do anything. he learnt Everything so he could be able to help others in as many ways as he could - omnicrafter but strongest affinity for alchemy. bc of course - system, which honestly might as well be canon to the wol anyway like ardbert is right there. different headmates have affinities for different classes & all of them have dealt with emet at some point in their lives, directly or indirectly - hes! currently 38. started arr at 26. i try not to worry too much about the npcs' ages but there WAS a 4 year timeskip between 7.0 & 7.1 in his timeline - sibling dynamic with nero due to having known him since they were kids (well nero was a teen but same thing) - shapeshifting that is more out of his control than anything, remnants of the effects of the corrupted light on his body (also why he's got white hair & blank eyes, as well as gilded/whitened scales. which. i only recently added to his ingame design bc i was too lazy to work it out before OOPS) - oh also he has a prosthetic leg & a cybernetic abdomen. due to his um bad self care tendencies. his legs are digitigrade

at the start of arr & for a very long time hildegarde views himself as a fundamentally bad person as well as a monster, & to make up for it he needs to put himself in service of the "good people". he's a beast his allies can sic on their foes, & anytime he puts his wants first he is doing something Bad. he feels responsible for any deaths that happen in the sense that people who get too close to him just... seem to die. this is deeply rooted in his mind due to the siblings he lost back in garlemald, which were invariably pinned on him as the oldest of them. & it doesn't help that people do just keep dying on him!! & so yeah he puts himself in service of others at his own expense & anytime he "makes the mistake" of letting someone get close, or doing something because he wants to, it reinforces a subconscious belief that he will pay for it some day. (cut to shadowbringers) oobh he paid for it (joking. but he really felt it) [ now all of this is really funny juxtaposed with the fact he did go through the hildibrand quests as they were happening so he had like, these bouts of absurd & whimsy that were completely fine but the moment he hit the quest complete sound he'd return to lamenting his existence. it is how it is ]

oh and he did necromancy. up until mid-shadowbringers he was doing necromancy. well. researching it for the most part, as he was trying to find an Ethical way to bring back the deceased (haurchefant.) but because it utilised his own aether he gave up when said aether stopped being viable for much of anything & never came back to it. because the shock the events of shadowbringers caused him prevented him from ever going back to it. he also researched tempering & was trying to find ways to revert it but msq took care of that for him so he doesn't have to worry about it anymore ✨

im sure ive posted about shadowbringers specifically before for him but. gist of it is that due to his studies relating to tempering & magic in general, & the fact he is a white mage by trade to begin with, he realised something was very wrong very quickly. not the specifics of it but he notices the enemies happen to be casting the exact same spells as him, it gets in his head very quickly & he keeps doing it bc well he has to & it's fine if he has to be a sacrificial lamb of sorts teehee! (skips & hops) it also means he withdraws more than usual. doesn't talk much to ardbert about how he feels because he considers ardbert has gone through more than enough at this point. & this leads to himmmm leaning ontoooo emet. the most.

the entire arrangement sucks but by mt gulg he feels emet is the only one who sees him for what he is (a monster) & he's just about ready to give in & try to get to the tempest on his own. which i don't even think would've been possible but emet's suicidal tendencies are a topic for another post. amaurot is fucking agonising, as someone who can't deal with grief At All himself it's like seeing exactly the kind of shit he would do if he had the power to, it's the realisation emet & he are a lot more alike than he'd thought, & realising there is no way this won't end in Someone dying. & god. he's so tired. he's so damn tired of everyone dying on him. for him, because of him, he's sick of it. but it happens anyway. & while everyone celebrates he's so struck by it he ends up getting

really bad nightmares (unconventional approach to breaking down my paragraphs)

that very much could've killed him had emet not dragged himself back from the aetherial sea to play the role of himself in them. the emet present in these nightmares was extremely harsh & cruel, would've led to hilde hurting himself in his sleep. not necessarily something emet was happy to do but he did basically tell the scions they had to take care of his legacy or whatever so it would've been counterproductive to let the wol die. this is how they end up bonding with less like.. weight to it somehow, though it's very one-sided since hilde is not aware this is actually him for real inside his head. its a whole thing. thats already too many words. um well that gets resolved with the end of post 5.3 & um cut to post endwalker & emet is back to life through the 🔥POWER OF LOVE 🔥 (soul subconsciously pulled back into one of the remaining solus clones bc of the want to be there to experience life again this time with hildegarde. CORNY MAYBE. but ever the sentimental. it suits him.)

nowadays he's doing a lot better. he's fine with himself, he even allows himself to get angry sometimes! he's capable of recognising when he's not in the wrong, when he can say no, he even Has Fun. crazy stuff. !!! oh & he's also dating hancock. quite possibly one of the funniest things about him. he has kids. that's without counting all the ones he unofficially adopted or considers himself guardians of throughout the game. he needs to eat a lot bc shadowbringers fucked with his ability to absorb aether & he happens to really like food so it's another thing that brings joy into his life. dawntrail was real good for him in that regard.

um. ! yeah. that'ssss hildegarde. ! i left out a lot probably but this is already so much he's just so much 😭 my most specialest...

[tinyravenfeathers]

Ceremony! By TinyRavenFeathers, your celebrant and ministeroni

Dearly beloved, who are all descended from pirates, we are gathered here today (while wearing colanders on our heads to prove our faith) to join chronicoverachiever and hug-them-trees in the semi-realistic and 45% holy bonds of matrimony under the auspices of Great Big Meatballs Itself, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may Its Noodly Appendages never whither in vain.

Chronic and Hug, you have come here today of your own free will and, in the presence of your narwhals and space coconuts, have declared your love of Charlie Cox and commitment to this ongoing joke that is now, like, a month old.

As you know in the Pastafarian religion, there’s a beer volcano in heaven.  And you know who else likes a beer volcano?  Matt Murdock! You cannot tell me that Josie's beer wouldn't make an awesome Beer Volcano! And Matt Murdock, who is played by Charlie Cox and coincidentally, was the subject of a gif I added to a comment about keeping one’s temper that…and here’s where it gets weird!  caused these two awesome people to plan this trading of pasta-rings or at least of pixels, would definitely approve.  If that’s not pirate-y enough for you, chomp on this:  Beer Volcano Matt Murdock.  Bam.  You see what I’m cooking here?  It’s like the Flying Spaghetti Monster dripped marinara all over this!

And that’s what tumblr and Pastafarianism is all about!  It’s the pure serotonin that happens when mutuals get on the same wavelength and keep a bit going for about 100 posts. I don't know if it's actually been 100, I wasn't keeping track. Do you think I type like this all the time? No! No one else will read this, especially that dude from 20 years ago that I had a crush on who insinuated he'd like to read my fanfic and I really hope he doesn't, because it's a mess. There's no way it's going to make a good impression on him. Seriously, just an absolutely directionless three-legged dog of me trying to find myself as a writer. I'm just writing it to make myself happy.

It limps along but you know the thing about dogs? They never feel sorry for themselves. We see a three-legged dog and go 'awwww, poor puppy!' and the dog is like 'hey, I'm still moving and doing my thing, everything's copasetic!' And likewise, no one else has to read my stupid and ill-conceived double-derived drivel. It's mary-sue-esque, half-insert fluff and smut (and thanks for the encouragement in that area @jenksel ! You will be my downfall. Much love!) that probably tells people way too much about me and I'm constantly 20 minutes from nuking my entire online presence from orbit. Kill it with fire!

And hey, speaking of killing things with fire, I really do want to go to Burning Man, where apparently there's a metric ton of skinny people throwing an art show and being wacky in the desert. That's enough for anyone who's ever enjoyed a sammich to eventually have an existential crisis. They ought to fly the Samaritans out there just for moral support and occasional free rub-downs with SPF 80+. And now please notice that this nefarious plan will put elderly British people in the middle of the Nevada desert; if the juxtaposition of Burner culture and Colonizer culture is not comedic gold waiting to happen, I'll eat my stylish pirate hat. I'm hoping for Are You Being Served? but with sunburn.

Seriously though, deserts are dangerous on all levels for humans, which is why most of ancient humanity spent a ton of energy on leaving the freaking desert.

But one thing my extensive research about Burning Man has turned up: You are responsible for your well-being. Eat the strawberries if a tiger is coming for you, babes. Write the words, dance in the moonlight, drink the mead, crush on the person you might have had a chance with, or the ones that will never know your name. Take responsibility for your own happiness.  Whatever you decide to do, the Flying Spaghetti Monster hopes you will maximize your well-being and the well-being of all sentient beings, on this, your 45% of a special day and every day.

Thus, by the powers vested in me by the interwebs, webber-netters, Charlie Cox although he doesn’t know it, Matt Murdock who knows it even less,  AskANinja, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster Itself, I now pronounce you person and other person and maybe Charlie Cox even though he's already married and Catholic to boot, we won't hold that against him. You may now trade pasta-rings if you got them, pixels if you don’t. The shoes and Cadbury eggs are for everybody.

Rock on. R'Amen!

-----

@chronicoverachiever @hug-them-trees

I'm scheduling this for as early as possible on August 13th so it will appear first thing on your dash. Right now it's 11 PM on the 12th for me, so I'm going to bed!

Much love,

Tiny

[jswdmb1]

Learning To Fly

“Well, some say life will beat you down

Break your heart, steal your crown

So I've started out for God knows where

I guess I'll know when I get there”

-  Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

I used to find it odd when a celebrity died and mourners would show up at their house or wherever crying and acting as if they lost their best friend.  I would dismiss it as either someone seeking attention or a person with some sort of emotional problem who has lost their grip on reality.  I still think that both of those things are true in a lot of those cases, but I have become a bit more empathetic to these folks as I get older and think about death a little differently.  While I still don’t get showing up in front of someone’s house and placing flowers on a sidewalk, I do understand why people emotionally react to someone famous passing because I have experienced it myself.

Of all of the things that will make a person anxious, death certainly tops the list.  It seems to me when you are younger, unless you experience tragedy, this is not a prominent source of anxiety.  For me, however, as I creep well past forty, I have begun to think about it more and definitely through a different prism.  Not so much in regards to my own mortality, but recognizing that a lot of the people I loved are getting older along with me and it becomes a much more real possibility that we’ll be losing them at some point.  For me, it hit first not with a person, but the death of my first dog.  I didn’t have pets as a kid, so I didn’t know how attached you got to them and that their eventual passing can be as hard to deal with as losing anyone.  I also didn’t realize I would be the one making that final call, which layered on guilt and second-guessing over the grief.  I rarely cry, not because I’m trying to be “tough”, but there is something in me that doesn’t seem to be able to do it.  Not that day, however, as I bawled the whole time at the vet until I got home.  

Then my dad passed away three months later.  Obviously, that took my grief to a whole new level.  I did cry again, but only once shortly after I found out and then no matter how hard I tried, I could not get it back.  Now, I’m not comparing the loss of a parent to the loss of a dog, but having the two happen so shortly apart was a bit too much for me to process.  After a couple of weeks my grief manifested not so much into depression but rather a deep numbness.  I couldn’t feel much of anything at that point.  I pretty much stopped working as no one was looking for me (I had just started the business and only had a couple of clients at that point) and spent a lot of time feeling nothing.  When I got bored or sick of not feeling anything, I would drink or pop an Ativan (or both).  It was usually just a few beers or a bourbon or two, but it started to become habit as I conditioned myself to respond that way to my inability to feel the pain I was repressing.  But more about that later in the week, let’s get back to the celebrities…

During that summer I went to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers for the first time.  I have been to hundreds of concerts, and it is my favorite one of all time.  He played hit after hit and made me appreciate him and his music after years for taking him for granted.  A couple of months later, my wife came to me with this shocked look.  Shivers went up my spine as I braced for more bad news.  She told me that Tom Petty was found dead.  At first, I was relieved as I was certain the news was about someone close to me.  But, soon after, it morphed into shock.  I had just seen him that summer and he was so full of energy and life.  It was one of the few happy moments I had experienced at all throughout that year, and now I’m hearing that he is gone just like that.  The shock quickly turned into grief and then some anger.  What the hell was going on in my little world and what could I do to keep it from falling apart?

I wouldn’t dwell on it for very long.  Within a few days, my kids would lose their second grandparent in six months as my mother-in-law Sue passed at the too young age of 70.  Any feelings I had about Tom Petty were quickly brushed aside and I didn’t revisit them for a while.  It wasn’t until the first anniversary of his death that I really reflected back on what it meant to me and why anyone in general would be upset about the passing of someone they never even met.  It brought me back to the pictures and memories all of those grieving people that showed up at Graceland after Elvis died, or came out for Princess Diana’s funeral, and how I didn’t understand why they would do that.  I guess some people develop an attachment to certain celebrities, healthy or not, that makes them feel like they know them.  Whether they actually have met is not relevant as there is an emotional connection that has been created even if it is only one-way.  I think this happens even in close relationships.  How many estranged sons and daughters have experienced grief over losing a parent they haven’t seen in years?  Even my example of losing a beloved pet qualifies.  As much as you love them, they are just an animal and cannot reciprocate that love in the same way.  Yet, that doesn’t take away the bond you have forged that is broken when they are gone.  

Today was the second anniversary of Tom’s death, which gives me one more chance with a little more clarity to reflect on what it means to me.  I now know that my reaction was all part of the larger picture that was a year from hell for me.  As much as I enjoyed that concert and his music, the emotional connection that was broken was more about all of the things I was losing that year and not simply the death of a person I did not know.  I still miss him, but the strong feelings I had on a deeper level have subsided, and his lasting legacy of a brilliant musical career lets us continue to enjoy his life forever.  His death instead resides in my memory a bit more like the one of John Lennon or Jerry Garcia, both of which saddened me but not to the degree that Tom’s passing had on me.  I find their relatively young age at death sad, and leaves me to wonder what they would have done with more time, but I don’t focus on it any more than that.  It just seems to me to be healthier to compartmentalize it that way versus lumping it in with the other events of 2017 which had so much more significance on my life.  

As restless as I am feeling right now, talking through what was going on two years ago at this time really puts things into perspective and gives me some insight into what really drives my anxiety.  I guess that is going to be the theme of all of these posts this week as you are never going to eliminate anxiety or the events that come along with them.  Instead, you have to accept these events and the feelings that comes along with them as a price of being alive.  Ignoring them, or not letting the emotions involved break through prevent getting at the heart of what it really is that is making you uncomfortable.  Certainly, death is never going to be a topic that you are going to grow accustomed to (if you do, you have bigger problems), but it is a fact of life that eventually can mesh in with all of the other things that make you who you are.  I am starting rather small with getting through my feelings about Tom Petty by writing this blog and spending some time with his music throughout the day.  It’s not going to be easy to get through those other things, but the best I can do is keep working through them and the task I set for myself to write through this week is part of that journey.

I sure have been a barrel of laughs lately, huh?  I mean really, writing about the death of your first dog?  I know some of this is a bit of a downer, but I promise that it is leading somewhere and we’ll start moving things back up the later as the week goes on.  Until then, check out the P.S. to this post for my 10 favorite Tom Petty songs of all time.  

Cheers,

Jim

TOP TEN TOM PETTY SONGS

10. Refugee

9. Face In the Crowd

8. It’s Good To Be King

7. Breakdown

6. I Won’t Back Down

5. Mary Jane’s Last Dance

4. Time To Move On

3. Learning To Fly

2. (tie) Crawling Back To You / Wildflowers*

1. Free Fallin’

* I know this is cheating to get in an 11th song - who the hell cares?

[the-books-we-read-blog]

Lost Boy by Christina Henry (spoiler free review)

Lost Boy written by Christina Henry is a re-imagining of Peter Pan and Captain Hook that's suppose to connect to the story we know and love. Jamie (captain hook) was Peter Pan's friend, and would go on many grand adventures with him on the island as a kid. Until he realizes maybe the island isn't the paradise he thought it was, and maybe Peter isn't truly his friend either.

Starting with the good, the concept was what really drew me in. The idea isn't crazy enough to be unrealistic within the confines of the original story of Peter Pan, so seeing a beloved character slowing warped into a monster interested me, but that's not what we got. (more about that in the negatives) Another positive it that the story itself is coherent, while not very descriptive (more about that in the negatives) the story was very easy to read and a quick one too —taking only 2 weeks to read the 400 page book casually.

These two things alone makes it deserves more than one star in my opinion.

Okay, now let's start with the negatives. I'd like to begin by saying that most the negative reviews on this book is due to the violence involving kids. I disagree with this as a complaint because you should of had an idea about this beforehand, looking at the cover alone should give you a hint of the violence to expect. I also think it's unfair to rate an artistic choice such as more realistic brutality so harshly. Rating a book one star for that alone seems unfair. I'd also like to point out that I didn't feel like it was violent just to be violent, but rather to have a point made. Now on to the real criticism.

I will start with the the story itself, what I expected was a slow descent into Peter's madness as the island slowly revealed itself to not be a haven, unfortunately that's not what you get. Right off the bat Peter is crazy and the island is very apparent in its danger. The fact that it takes any kid longer than a week to find the place miserable is beyond me. There is an argument to be made that the kids themselves were worse for wear when found by Peter, but I don’t know, least they weren't in danger of dying constantly. This story could of benefited from a slower buildup to the crazy world these people lived in.

Although this story could of had a slower burn into the insanity of Peter and the danger of the island, what we got was equally as slow, but infinity less interesting. I would say that the first three fourths of the book had really nothing going on, and most of the last fourth was the same. Now don’t get me wrong, things happen but it just feels like nothing really happened. Most of it was just filler, but since it wasn't descriptive the filler didn't even do a good job at world/character building. And in the end it just felt pointless.

Speaking of description there wasn't a lot, leaving many thing to the imagination which isn't necessarily bad but when you give so little then try to describe for example an action scene, it can get very confusing. There are also characters that get no description at all, this doesn't bother me as much but I can see it being a huge negative for others. With the book being so non descriptive it was really easy to fly through the whole thing in only a couple weeks without trying.    

While on the topic of character description, let's talk about the ones that do get described. They are very one dimensional, all of them, and their voices are indistinguishable. The author just cranked the good guy/bad guy dial in the direction she wanted. There is no middle ground, there is no complex characters, and there is no questionable morals at all. Its either good, or bad. Now this doesn't have to be a bad thing necessarily but with the topic and idea this author was going for I feel like it's essential.Now since this is written in the perspective of Jamie, you could say that it's an unreliable narrator, but I very much dislike this argument and I'll explain why in my last point.

Now my final piece of criticism is a big one. The author decided to tell more so than show. Show don't tell is a very important rule and it was broken many times throughout the entire book. Here's an example, the author consistently uses the phrase "gave me a look that's says" or a variation of such. Now doing this is very lazy, because instead of showing the expression or implying the thoughts of said person through action, the author would rather just tell exactly what they are feeling or thinking through a look given to Jamie. Making it sound ridiculous and ruining the immersion many times. The author also liked to use a phrase "knew what BLANK was about," nothing to really say about that, I just thought it was annoying—and don’t get me started when the author said "gave me a look that said that he knew what I was about" ugh. A separate but also very present example is about the characters personalities. Jamie is the protagonist, he is also a Mary Sue. Hes the best fighter, the nicest person, hes fast and smart, and has a heart of gold. Now, why do I say this? Not through his action (although he does act this way most the time) but because he tells you it constantly, over and over. It's not just him that tells you, literally every character in the book let's you know this, even the narcissist Peter Pan. I was so sick of hearing how great Jamie is, I honestly feel that one fifth (if not more) of the words in this book are actually just people talking about how great he is. And its not just him, everything in this book is just repeatedly told to you many times. Is Peter going to do something bad? Well let me tell you many times in one page how I hope he doesn't. Now since this is written from the perspective of Jamie I understand that it could be written like this on purpose, (although it doesn’t make it less annoying to read) Jamie would clearly be bias about himself and how awesome he his right? I disagree and if this was the idea I would be more disappointed in the book than I am already. It would go against what little character development Jamie actually had. Jamie constantly takes on responsibly, and to see him rid all blames and mistakes back on Peter alone, and talk about how great he himself is feels cheap. Especially when I think the message (although not conveyed well) is about how being a grown up is about owning your mistakes and living with them to be a better person.

In summary I unfortunately found this book to be nothing better than a fan-fiction of Peter Pan, was it a bad fan-fiction? Maybe. But it definitely isn't a good one. The theme of the story felt flat and lost and seemed to contradict itself constantly and was never fleshed out satisfyingly. The ending felt forced and rushed, making the ultimately uninspired journey to get there even more disappointing. There’s many more complaints I have with this book, but much of it goes into spoiler territory so I'll end it here. I ultimately don't recommend this book. (3/10☆) 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoyed my thoughts.