#my commitment to the story is MUCH bigger than my commitment to myself and i WILL gut my counterpart completely to hit the proper beats

[mallahanmoxie]

the thing with being an incredibly boring person with very exciting tastes is that you cannot actually put yourself in the shoes of the magic protagonist because, firstly, you would never agree to any quest even if they kidnapped you and, secondly, they'd never pick you anyway you have no skills nor discipline nor mettle and, thirdly, if somehow hell and heaven coordinated their coparenting duties enough to muster up a wretched enough prophecy where you, of all people, was the only one who could fulfill it... then we're all fucked gentlemen because you're getting killed the moment you step out the door

[justjudethoughts]

Lessons in Divine Mercy

Necessary Context: Very early on in my journey with Religious OCD, extremely well-meaning mentors would often tell me the story of the Prodigal Son, and end it with "you just need to trust in God's mercy! He wants to forgive you!" But you see, for me, that was never the problem. 14-year-old me KNEW God wanted to forgive her. She also knew that if she committed a mortal sin, she was supposed to go to confession. And, well, um, she thought everything was a mortal sin. Literally skipped brushing my teeth once and thought it was a mortal sin. What scared me the most was the realization I couldn't literally spend 24/7 in confession. And if I was committing a mortal sin every few minutes, then how was I ever supposed to stay in union with God? To me, absolutely none of this had to do with trusting that God was merciful.

I was wrong.

It took a while to come to this conclusion, but I eventually realized that trusting in God's mercy had more to it than simply trusting He wanted to forgive me. It meant trusting that He knew me better than I knew myself. That He saw my heart and my mind and the absolute agony I was going through, and more than that, that He cared. I had to trust that His mercy was bigger than my illness. That He wasn't scared of my scruples. In practice, that meant I had to trust that even if I somehow managed to

— 1) Commit a mortal sin 2) Convince myself afterwards that it wasn't a mortal sin and I was just obsessing and 3) Forgo going to confession in an attempt to not perform a compulsion— that God would not hold that supposed mortal sin against me. Of course, now I realize how unlikely that entire situation is to even happen in the first place, but at the time it was my reality. It was my fear every single day, and that leap of faith was a terrifying one to make. But when I did, I could finally begin to do the things I needed to heal (aka, avoid compulsions, trusting that God is going to take care of it even if I mislabeled and avoided something I actually should have done as a compulsion).

You see, what I hadn't realized at the time is that God's mercy doesn't just mean He forgives your sins— it means He has a tender, bleeding, broken heart for you. For you and for everything you have been through. For you and for every hurt stored in your chest. For you and you alone, as though you were the only one to ever exist. His mercy does not simply say "go and sin no more," it stoops to write in the sand, and while doing so, finds you at eye level. Looks you in the eye, takes your hand, and raises you to your feet. Calls you by name. The Jesus who meets you in the confessional is the same Jesus who wept when Lazarus died. Whose heart was moved with pity for the crowd. Who dropped everything to raise a little girl from the dead, and the first thing He said when she was awake was to make sure she was given something to eat.

Divine Mercy means that God sees where you are, knows where you are, and pursues you there. Meets you there. Why else do you think He came down to earth as a baby? We got ourselves in trouble by trying to build a tower to heaven because that was never what we were supposed to do. God stoops to us. The confusion of Babble was undone by the descent of the Holy Ghost.

He sees you. He knows you. And He cares. Oh, how it hurts His heart to see you hurt! And how much more it hurts to see you scared of Him. Do you not think the Hands that crafted you know every crevice of your heart? Do you not think that the God who became a baby, whose heart was pierced for love of you, could hold anything inside that heart beside tenderness at the thought of you? For all of eternity He has had a simple wish — to wash your feet and kiss your wounds. Will you trust Him enough to let Him?

[so-much-for-the-seashells]

The Strawberry, The Sheriff, and the Cartel Sheriff Beau Arlen (Big Sky) x PI!Reader

Chapter One: Welcome to Big Sky, Mt!

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~Before we Begin~

A/N: this is part one of an ongoing series. If you like the story and would like to be part of a tag list: please let me know, either through dm or comments. Still looking for a beta reader, dm if interested! :) Icons are by me! As always, any and all interaction is appreciated!

I really love Big Sky, even for all its faults. And to be honest, I was genuinely hoping for a season four. Since we aren’t getting that, I’m writing this. I’m no expert on PI/Detective work, but I’m doing my best. This is a work of fiction after all.

Anyway, I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’m not going to give any background and let the story speaks for itself. :)

Content/Content Warning: Nothing too crazy yet, but I’d rather a 16+ audience on this series for what might happen later. References to drugs and kidnapping. Cursing. Canon typical violence will occur.

~Without further ado, Welcome to Big Sky, Mt!~

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Who commits real crimes in Montana, anyway? I guess I’d always figured that there wasn’t enough of us to do so in the first place. But, as it turns out, no place is too small for shitty people. Go figure.

Part of me has always hoped for a big case. Something high stakes, something that might actually make me think. I had always been resigned to the throes of missing pets and cheating partners. Maybe a B&E or a purse-snatching here and there to spice things up. Sure, those are still crimes, but a kidnapping tied to a cartel?

Now we’re talking.

Wait. That sounds bad. Of course I feel bad for the victims, I’m not a jackass. It’s just that this is where things in my career finally get interesting. Where if I solve the case, I’m solving something bigger than Whitefish. Which would really make me feel better about myself, if I’m being honest. I don’t really feel like I’ve made a difference with any the cases I’ve solved. Sure, it’s good to see Mary-Jane get her cat back or tell Kathy-Lee that James was in fact cheating on her and seeing her so liberated after breaking up with him. But none of that is bigger than Whitefish, where I’ve been since I was born. I needed something important, something big.

And this certainly is that something big.

Something big enough that I’ve had to travel almost seven hours from my hometown to Big Sky. Bertha, my truck, needed to get out of the house anyway. But seven hours… damn. Especially considering Whitefish could be renamed ‘Small Town’- I don’t think I’d had driven more than two hours till then.

Something big enough that literal drug cartels were involved.

No one would expect Montana to have so many ties to cartels. It’s so random, right? I mean, who even thinks about Montana in the first place aside from hikers and outdoorsy people? I know I wouldn’t if I didn’t live here. But I guess that’s the draw for these weird mob families. There’s not much of a radar to be on up here.

Big Sky had barely cleared out the Bhullar family maybe six months ago. A friend of mine, a fellow PI named Cassie Dewell, had told me all about it. She had been involved; her friend Undersheriff Jenny Hoyt had been one of the major players in taking them down. But in the end, as I understood it, the family had more or less taken themselves down. Serves them right.

But when one pot empties you’ve got to fill it with something new, I guess. That’s where I come in.

See, I’m a PI because I couldn’t be bothered with the how rule-abiding proper detectives have to be. Rules don’t get things done in the justice system, in my opinion. I’ve seen too many people either go down or get off when they shouldn’t because of it.

Rules are good guidelines, but just that- guidelines. Something to guide you, but not something that’s always right. If you want to get things done, you need a little more independence.

But with that independence comes cases that folks in the Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t even have come across their desks. Like the cheating, or the missing pets. So be it: I get paid more; and anyway, sometimes the “dumb” stuff is what’s best to get you ready for the “good” stuff.

María Almería had been the one to reach out to me. Her and Felix, her husband; as well as her three kids, Anna, Josue and Carolina; are neighbors of mine. They’re good people, and I’m pretty close with the family. I like them a lot, from the parents to the kids.

Usually I get hunches about people- its why I’m good at my job. When Kathy-Lee asked me to investigate her husband, I could’ve told her off the bat that he was cheating. Not because I’d explicitly seen him, but for whatever reason I could read it on him. It’s like a sixth sense.

That sense must’ve been dormant every time I went to the Almerías’, though, because I had never once gotten a bad vibe about Felix. María’s husband was always kind, a good father- his kids would attest to that, a good husband- María never once had anything bad to say about him, and he actually carried his weight around the house. Cleaned dishes, did laundry… yes, the bar is low, but he is certainly better than most of the fish in the world’s hellhole of a sea. Not to mention that he was always genuine: never a bad word about anyone or anything, not even about cockroaches (those damned things are my mortal enemy). And you could see that genuineness his eyes, which are usually what gives someone’s story away if you know how to look at them.

Honestly, he was the last person I was expecting to go missing. I couldn’t even fathom the thought of him having enemies. With most people in cases like these, there’s at least one aspect about them that makes their disappearance make sense. Maybe it’s in how they act, or maybe it’s in the people they were most often around. I could rule out the first one: Felix has never had any senility issues, nor would be one to be prone to just run away from his family with no explanation. But that leaves the second option, the harder one.

When you know your client and the person that’s gone missing, things are immediately both easier and harder. Easier in that you know the client, and they know and trust you. Sure, that’s not every case, but in this case I was 99% sure that María nor her young children had anything to do with his disappearance. You’ve always got to have that slight doubt though, even if it’s just one percent. That’s detective work rule #1.

But in the same breath, it also makes it harder- the expectations and the stakes are higher. And also, you realize just how much you don’t know about people.

I had exhausted my every resource in Whitefish for a week, but there was absolutely no trace of Felix. María had even called him in missing to me before she could to the police- damn the wait 48 hours rule- and yet I still couldn’t get the jump on the blues.

The story was that María had taken her daughters clothes shopping while Josue was staying over at a friend’s for a sleepover. When they came home, Felix was gone. However, his phone was sitting on the table and his wallet and keys still on their kitchen counter, and the idea of him not taking any of those things was preposterous. He was one to always have them on him. That was why she called him in as missing after he didn’t return for a few hours. Her and her kids’ alibis checked out with both me and eventually the Whitefish Sheriff’s Department.

While researching Felix I had come across the name Bobby Ramirez. They had been in a news article together, set in Big Sky. And something about this Bobby, even from the pictures, didn’t seem right. His smile was just a little too crooked, his eyes betraying something stronger than mischief.

When I had asked María about his next of kin, she had said there was no one. But this Bobby looked so similar to Felix, to the point that I just had to ask. Apparently Bobby Ramirez’s real name is Roberto Almería, and he’s Felix’s estranged brother who lives in Big Sky. Never would’ve guessed.

Apparently the brothers had had a terrible relationship because, in María’s words, Bobby is “a nightmare.” I didn’t really get much more information than that, but the look in her eyes told me more than enough, along with the fact that she was visibly trembling. And the last time she saw him, before she even had kids, he had talked about going into a lucrative business (presumably drugs- fentanyl, maybe?) and promptly dropped off the grid. He’d asked Felix to join him and he had given a hard no, and I guess the falling out was so bad that the kids didn’t even know they had an uncle on their dad’s side. Once she had even gotten the feeling that Bobby could be involved in this, she begged me to back off. Even though her beloved husband was at risk, she begged me to back off. But I couldn’t: this family had shown so me far too much kindness in the past for me to just give up on Felix.

Bobby Ramirez apparently owns a repair shop in Big Sky. Bob’s Motors. Super creative, I know. It’s been open for about ten years- probably since around the time of the falling out. But from the shitty reviews online I have a good feeling it’s a front, since it’s still open, and the best lead I’ve got. María had mentioned that Bobby was in with a weird crowd, and that he was friends with Kory Jefferson. That’s where the presumed drug involvement comes in.

Kory, or KJ as he’s known on the streets, was and is bad news. He’s managed to weasel his way out of at least five arrests despite being a part of multiple drug cases. You know how? By being a CI for the police against his own employers in exchange for full immunity. It’s honestly impressive how many times he’s gotten away with the stunt, but I guess people wrongly figured him to be unimportant. Bobby being tied to him and Felix going missing just as KJ was buying mass property in Big Sky… it’s too much of a coincidence not to investigate.

Hence, the seven hour drive in the truck I’ve had fifteen years. Got it at the end of high school, a gift from my dad. But she was only supposed to last ten years. Emphasis on supposed to, cause my intention is to run her until she drops dead.

Thankfully my dad was a mechanic and he taught me how to fix just about any problem with the engine and the car in general. So, just like a truck that’s actually within its warranty, the only thing I usually have to worry about is me being a dumbass.

And a dumbass I am.

I had wisely decided to test the limits of the infamous last bar of gas- look, I only had to stop once so I was thinking maybe I could make it.

I thought wrong.

“Whoops,” is what I most definitely did not say when my car actually stopped just a few miles beyond the “Welcome to Big Sky, Mt!” sign. What I really said was a string of profanities so colorful and vulgar that I genuinely would rather not repeat them. I had smacked the hazards button, and then stepped outside and kicked the tire with enough force to almost break my toe, because one dumb decision wasn’t enough for me that day.

So yeah, that’s about where we are right now. I’m standing outside of my car with one hand on my hip and the other holding my phone, weighing my options. The nearest gas station is naturally twenty miles away, and one thing’s for sure is that I’m no marathoner. It would probably take me until tomorrow to get there. On the other hand, I could do the normal thing and call a tow truck. But if there’s anything my frugal mother taught me, it’s that you shouldn’t pay for anything unless you absolutely have to. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s sort of ingrained in me, and in this instance, I don’t really want to call a skeevy tow trucker.

Of course; there’s always the third, very rational option: I turn into the Hulk and push the truck. Obviously that’s the most plausible of the three.

Just as I’m getting ready to be a normal person and figure out a towing service to call does a sign of life appear. Up until now, somehow, literally nobody had passed through this road. It’s another truck, burgundy and bulky.

I wave, my face still stuck in a scowl as the driver approaches. It rolls to a halt near me on the opposite side of the road, before the hazards flash and the driver steps out.

“Car troubles, I’m assuming?” a strong Texan drawl greets me.

“You’re assuming correctly,” I smile sarcastically, taking in the stranger. He’s handsome, classically so, and he sure does fill out those Wranglers. Looks straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie, sans the cowboy hat.

“What seems to be the issue?” he cocks his head cordially, taking a step closer. Normally I’d be one to back away, but I don’t have a bad feeling about this guy. He’s wearing sunglasses, so I can’t read his eyes, but something tells me I don’t have to.

“Ran out of gas,” I mumble, more than a little embarrassed to be admitting it out loud.

“Hey, we’ve all been there,” he assures me. “Do you want me to take you to get gas?”

“I don’t usually step into stranger’s trucks,” I tell him warily. As kind as he seems I can never be too sure. Ever.

“Well if it helps any, I’m the Sheriff around these parts.” He pulls his jacket to reveal more of his belt, showing off his Sheriff’s badge pinned to it. He taps it once, for emphasis. Oh, wait, this must be… “Beau Arlen,” he introduces, interrupting my thoughts. He outstretches a hand and I shake it. His hand is huge compared to mine, callused but still soft somehow.

“Your reputation precedes you, Sheriff Arlen,” I tell him, letting go of his hand.

“That so?” It’s endearing how he perks up at that.

“I’m friends with Cassie Dewell,” I explain.

��Oh! Cass is the best! How do you know her?”

“I’m a PI- we all know each other.”

“Huh, y’don’t say.”

“What, you sheriffs aren’t like that?”

“Can’t say we are.”

“Shame,” I say melodramatically. He chuckles.

“Can’t all be PI’s, now can we?”

“True that.”

“Soo, that ride?” he tilts his head towards his truck.

“Yes, thank you,” I say sincerely.

“Anytime.” I follow him back over the middle line of the road to his truck, where he opens the door for me and offers an arm to help me step up. Huh, chivalry. Refreshing.

He stars his truck and drives a little down the road to make a u-turn before presumably heading towards the nearest gas station

“So what brings you to Big Sky?” he asks, making small talk.

“A case, actually… it’ll probably be on your radar soon enough. I’m thinking cartel, not a hundred percent sure yet.” I decide to keep the details to myself; there’s just too much at stake here.

“Another cartel? In this county? Y’know the last one ended with the boy killing his pops. And the pops had left the kid for dead too. Not to mention that the daughter was a pain in our ass, moonlighting as a real estate agent… but don’t get Hoyt started on that Tonya ‘cause she still can’t stand the sight of her… sorry, I’m ramblin,’” there’s a faint blush on the apples of his cheeks, and it’s adorable. But frankly I don’t mind his chatter, he’s nice to listen to. I like how he gets lost in his own stories.

“No worries, I like listening,” I shrug. My dad always said ‘listening lets you hear the things you wouldn’t’a heard if you weren’t.’ It’s sort of a ‘no shit’ phrase, but it’s true.

“There’s a first- Cass and Jenny like to get on me for talking too much,” he muses, no offense in his voice.

“That’s ’cause they don’t know ‘too much.’ I once had a client who told me his entire life story from birth to present day,” I reminisce, not even hyperbolizing. “I learned all about the std he got from a prostitute back in the 60s at Woodstock, and about his five wives: Maryanne, Georgia, Gina, Kevin, and Sade.”

“Kevin?” he laughs incredulously, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at me.

“Yep. That was during the eighties though, so apparently it doesn’t make him gay,” I laugh, knowing how ridiculous it sounds.

“Wait, what was the STD?”

“Chlamydia,” I answer, without missing a beat.

“Wow, you have a good memory, huh?”

“Just for cases.” Which is true: in my daily life I would probably forget my head if it wasn’t attached to the rest of my body. I genuinely couldn’t tell you what I ate yesterday, but I do know that at 11:25 am I booked the motel I’ll be staying at. You know why I know that? Because I had just made the KJ break. See?

“That’s damn useful in your line of work,” he compliments.

“Yeah.” We ride in silence for a little bit because my dumb ass can’t hold a conversation. It’s not my fault that my only friends are my mom. Well, and Cassie Dewell, I guess, but I don’t see her all that often.

“Okay, so the accent- Texas?” I ask. Trying to bring back the conversation.

“Born and raised,” he confirms, emphasizing his drawl. I smile at the effort. I like his drawl, it compliments the deep and roughness of his voice.

“Cowboy country, nice,” I say.

“Hey, not all of us are cowboys!” he defends playfully.

“The first thing I thought when I saw you was ‘cowboy,’” I tell him matter-of-factly.

“Touché,” he laughs. “Truth be told I was literally raised on a ranch, so I can’t really be talking. Y’know, I had a really nice dog named Juniper. She herded the cattle, while I would pretend to “help.” By “help” I mean stand towards the side, scared of getting stomped on cause I weighed little more than a plastic bag from the grocery store.” More stories- I have a feeling he could write a book.

“Puberty must’ve hit you like a truck,” I mused, referring to the last part of his story.

“That or the gym,” he laughs.

“You a gym rat, Sheriff?”

“More or less,” he takes one hand off the steering wheel to flex his jacket-covered bicep. I wolf whistle, and he laughs. He’s a very large man, from his stature to his statuesque physique.

“Is there even a gym around here? I feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I’m from fucking Whitefish,” I joke, referring to the fact that the only signs of life we’ve encountered are the gorgeous trees bordering the open road.

“Preaching to the choir,” he smiles.

“So, why’d you stick around, then? I heard you were just an acting sheriff,” I inquire, wondering why the cowboy-or anyone, for that matter- would want to stay here.

“I’ve got my ghosts in Houston,” his voice turns subtly melancholic, telling me not to pry. So I don’t, knowing the feeling. “But back to your question, there is a gym,” his tone returns back to its lightheartedness.

“It’s abandoned, isn’t it.”

“Well, there’s me. And uh, me. And sometimes Denise, who I think just wants an excuse to see my ass,” he laughs.

“Denise Brisbane? From Dewell and Hoyt?” I only know the name, nothing more.

“Yeah, she’s sweet- she cooks for me too, even though I’m a grown ass man.”

“Someone’s got a fan club,” I tease.

“Population one,” he retorts.

“Well maybe I’ll see you or you and Denise there at some point.”

“I’d like that… hey, you’re not joining the fan club are you?” he raises a brow from behind his sunglasses.

“In your dreams, Sheriff,” we both smile, and sit back for a second, the silence less awkward this time, at least for me.

“Y’can call me Beau, y’know. If you want to, anyway,” he tells me, breaking the half a second of quiet.

“Mk, Beau it is.” I like the way his name feels coming out of my mouth. And what a fitting name it is… he is objectively gorgeous.

“Hey, I just realized I never got yours,” he says suddenly.

“Huh? My what?” I say confused. Look, the road trip’s got me exhausted.

“Your name,” he clarifies.

“Oh. It’s Y/N. Y/N L/N.”

“Y/N- that’s a really nice name,” he compliments.

“Thanks,” I can’t help but be flattered.

“Where’s it from?”

“My dad- it was the name of some book character.”

“Cool! That’s a lot more creative than how my kid got named,” he laughs.

“You have a kid?” I ask, mildly surprised. Not that I think he’d be a bad dad after the half hour of knowing him, but just because since I don’t have kids I don’t usually expect people my age to either.

“Mhm. Emily- she takes after her mom, though.”

“You’re married?” I don’t see a ring, that’s the only reason I’m asking.

“I was.” There’s that melancholy tone again… something tells me there’s more to this cordial cowboy than meets the eye.

“Well in any case, Emily’s a pretty name for what I’m sure is a beautiful daughter,” I say, changing the subject.

“You callin’ me handsome?” he teases.

“All I’m going to say is that your mama was real on the nose with the name… Beauregard.” I decide to mix the compliment a little bit.

“You really think that’s my name?”

“No,” I confess, giggling.

“Good, I was hopin’ I didn’t come across as a”-he shudders comedically-“Beauregard.”

“Cmon, it’s not the worst name,” I chide.

“Well it’s certainly far from the best,” he retorts, and I shake my head with a smile. “Alright, we’re coming up on it now.”

I look up ahead, taking in the sight of this gas station that’s literally the only building in sight. It’s a bit on the dinghy side, half of the letters in the neon sign don’t work, so it says “De Ass Ton” instead of Del’s Gas Station. Go figure for this town.

But wait…

“What the fuck?” we both say in unison, taking in the sight before us.

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Until Part Two, dear reader! <3

[comicaurora]

Hey Red!

I have a writing question I’d like to ask, if that’s cool with you!

When it comes to starting a new story, big or small, pantsing or structuring, with black tea or chamomile, do you have any tips for, er, actually pulling the trigger and beginning? I don’t mean the “accusatory blank page”, I mean in getting to the “I genuinely believe this is a story worth telling and that should be told by me” mindset sufficient to commit. (Insofar as there’s a difference.)

Asking you because you’re someone who has excellent and proven skills in showwomanship, creativity, execution and all-round good storytelling vibes. Cuz while I’ve studied story structure and writing advice aplenty… It’s hard to take the dive when you’ve only ever been in the kiddie pool, so to speak.

Thanks either way!

Aw shucks!

I kinda feel like there's an intermediate stage here that I usually hit first, which is when I've been telling a story for myself for so long that I start feeling like I don't want to keep it to myself anymore.

A lot of the stuff I write or draw is just for me - stuff where I enjoy the act of creation or use it to flesh out and play with a concept I've been toying with. Sketchbook stuff that doesn't have an outside audience in mind, just stuff that I like. These aren't stories that have the end goal of sharing them - hell, half of them are just comic or prose adaptations of story beats that stuck with me that I wanted to play around with as practice and for fun. The rest of it is sketch pages of characters, doodles of scenes or snippets of prose writing built around a single scene or concept.

I think that the creative urge, when examined, should be subdivided into two extremely distinct subsections for clarity; the desire to make, and the desire to share. Not every person shares both in equal measure - in fact I'd say it's much more common for them to exist independently. The desire to share isn't limited to art you yourself created, either - fandom is constructed from a massive excess of the desire to share, passing around a story for examination and discussion because it is inherently fun to share the experience, and most of us can relate to the burning need to talk about this thing that's in my brain. And there's plenty of art that results from the desire to make that has none of the desire to share, ref cit everything in a sketchbook or every private writing exercise done for the joy of it. Neither element can be forced, and there's nothing wrong with either one existing without the other.

For me at least, the desire to share builds slowly for the larger projects. I might be eager to share a doodle or a sketch I think people will get a kick out of, but something bigger and more complicated will stay in my brain for much longer, and might never make it out. For me, Aurora started as just a playground for me to write and draw in, but over the years it built up to something I wanted to share - something I felt I'd be betraying if I let it sit in my head. It kind of just grew naturally, and if I'd tried to force it beforehand I would've felt self-conscious and uncomfortable rather than getting any joy out of the act of sharing.

[cerastes]

i have not gone through the stream vod of arknights, but did you enjoy eblana and her not-quite-that-much-fucked-up-evilitude?

We didn't read that in the stream but I did read that after the stream by myself and I Liked The Event quite a bit!

It goes without saying that I went into it with a lot of enthusiasm because I've loved Reed as a character since her release, and I really wanted to know What Was Her Deal. We get some of it in the main story, since she's tied to the Victoria arc, but her getting an event specifically as a new character in another class is fascinating because it would, logically speaking, serve as a character piece more so than a big stakes event. This is what was delivered, so I couldn't be happier.

It's not that I dislike big stakes or grander scale stories in Arknights -- the Abyssal Hunters arc and the Sui arc are my favorites! -- it's just, sometimes, I really want to know more about the characters more so than everything that surrounds them. Character pieces help understand the grander scale with a lot more emotional weight, because if done right, I'm now emotionally invested in the character and their overarching goal, not just the goal as the framework for the story. For example, 'Maria Nearl' was first and foremost a character piece, which then informs the overarching Kazimierz arc, so by the time Near Light rolls in, not only do I know what we're fighting for, I know who we're fighting for and why we are doing so, I know Maria's motivations, efforts, struggles, and trials, and so, I am invested in wanting to see her succeed. 'Maria Nearl' being a character piece doesn't mean it ONLY centered on Maria and nothing else, it sets up the scene and the cast, but through the lens of someone in the story as opposed to through the effects of events in the story.

What The Firelight Casts does a little inversion in the overall structure compared to 'Maria Nearl': It's a character piece after the bigger scale narrative. We know what the bigger picture is... But what about this key character in the whole story? And will knowing about this character recontextualize or add even more meat to what we already know? With this in mind, let's talk about it:

Reed detests her circumstances, because Reed had very simple, domestic desires: She wanted a simple, quiet life reading and writing poetry, immersing herself in words and stories. She didn't have any grander aspirations, experiences, or desires beyond "loving poetry" because she was a simple child when she got her head pushed under an ocean of conspiracies and was drowned in them. Since she didn't have the strength of character to really do anything in such a horrifying world, her sister, Eblana, endowed with far stronger character, made her her body double. Reed never questioned it, because she had nothing else going on for her, but the more atrocities she was forced to commit as "The Leader", the more she hated it, and herself for not having it in her to stand up to Dublinn.

Hence why she attempted suicide via standing in an open field that was currently being bombarded. In a turn of events she couldn't have predicted, she was saved by Outcast, and was sent to Rhodes for recovery. She then spent some time in Rhodes Island, recovering, but also, learning. It's noted in her Files that she'd spend a significant amount of time pestering the medical teams in RI for knowledge in the clinical fields. She also requested a new weapon to her specifications, because she hates her spear. This may seem a matter of preference, until you realize that the spear is just Eblana's old weapon, just furthering exactly how much of an un-person she was. She'd use her sister's name, her sister's title, her sister's reputation, her sister's authority, even her sister's damn weapon.

Her chosen codename, "Reed", comes as no surprise: She explicitly says it's because that's how she is: Bland, an accessory, unremarkable, insignificant, like reeds by the river. In this event, we also learn another reason why "Reed" is apt for Loughshinny: Uncontrollably flammable if set ablaze.

Reed was terrified of her own powers. She is a direct descendant of the Red Dragon of Tara, and has insane innate power, namely, power over life itself: The way her flames work is explicitly not fire-aspected Arts: Her Arts allow her to inject pure life into objects and creatures, and the consequence of overcharging skin, muscle tissue, etc with so much life energy so fast and strongly is that it becomes unstable and explodes into raw energy, generating fire as a consequence. It's also why parts of her body, like her tail and her chest, seem to be constantly "ablaze": She is literally overflowing with the essence of life at all times, to the point it hurts her, and coming into contact with her means exploding. She is an almost perfect weapon. She hates it. Even her Rhodes Island evaluation files basically describe her as a stupidly powerful individual.

There's only one thing she doesn't regret about her time in Eblana's Dublinn: She really does care for Tarans, and wants to do anything in her power to help them. The reason she put up with being used and abused in Dublinn (about the only person that showed Reed any kindness in Dublinn was Harmonie, and even then she claims it's because she's interested in Reed and that she may have use for her) was because, Reed told herself, "at least it's for the Tarans". But Reed is not stupid, and over the time, realized that Eblana doesn't mind sacrificing countless Tarans that trust her if it means securing an advantage. That's when Reed decided she'd rather get blown to pieces by artillery rather than continue doing horrible things for someone that doesn't even care about the people that she claims to fight for.

Reed in the event is trying to help this very "little guy", this very scorned Taran, find a foothold. Her story here is, by all means, low stakes for the most part, but it's important in understanding who Reed has finally resolved to become: Her time in Rhodes Island and her new Arts unit allows her to far, far more precisely control her Arts, and now she can use VERY controlled bursts of her Arts to inject life into others without sending their living tissue into disarray, effectively becoming a potent healer. The wounded Tarans even remark that while she didn't give them the most involved treatment for their wounds, they still felt as good as new: It's because Reed isn't doing more than basic first aid, and using this as a disguise to her carefully injecting their wounds with life energy. For Reed, this is massive: She's finally able to like her innate Arts, an intrinsic part of herself, for the first time, because she's finally not using it to turn people to ashes or make them violently explode. She can finally do things differently, and without Eblana pulling her strings, she's finally able to do as she wishes. She ends up creating her very own "Dublinn", with a few Tarans, and looks to the future to do what she never thought she could do, and that's what I really loved: It's a small scale event, but it makes it very clear that from here on, Reed not only has a purpose, she has agency over herself, and finally, finally, she is her own person.

The final "map" of the event was fantastic, narratively speaking: It's a fight with Eblana entirely within her mind, with Eblana wearing a mask in the first phase. Eblana's mechanics involve killing her own units to empower herself, representative of how she's completely willing to kill Tarans for the purposes of Dublinn without any regret, then, in the second phase, she discards her mask and sets every reed in the map ablaze: No matter how much Eblana speaks of loving her and saying she's important to her, Reed has finally come to terms that Eblana WILL simply sacrifice even her when the moment comes, just as she has no issue setting the world on flames if it furthers her desires. The entirety of the map is just Reed finally coming to terms that if she wants to help the Tarans, in her way, she inevitably will come to blows with Eblana at some point, and that there's no space for hesitation, because Eblana sure as hell won't hesitate.

What The Firelight Casts is ultimately a high-impact bildungsroman in which our protagonist finally finds herself, perhaps for the first time ever since she was a toddler, and finally has agency over what she does and why she does it.

There's other parts to the event that I'm not covering that I think were great as well, such as Bagpipe's characterization being pretty damn good and once more winning me over (I started not really caring for her in any way, but her writing is something I like a lot) with how she's clearly not book smart, but is sharp as all hell, and most would call her "naive", when in reality, it's that she has a rock-hard moral compass and will NEVER stop going where it tells her to go, as well as the Taran survivors having plenty of nice scenes, including the incredibly chilling scene where the older lady that can't see in the dark is holding onto Selmon's hand and suddenly she can feel Selmon's blood all over her arm... We just never know what actually it is that killed her in that night skirmish. Fionn's characterization as this cowardly but good chum that will take responsibility no matter what is... Honestly, man, if you hang around sectors with low education and wealth, you know a Fionn or two. Especially when it comes to oppressed and displaced peoples... And the way the narrative portrays the opportunistic and almost callous nature of a bunch of the Taran runaways at times without vilifying it? It's great, the narrative immediately points out, through Reed and Fionn, that yeah, it's just natural because of how awful they've been treated their entire life, there's always people like that in such groups, doing it not out of cruelty, but simply because, damn, they have to survive, and nothing guarantees to them that this stranger with good intentions actually had good intentions. Trying to survive does things to people. This all becomes water under the bridge after Reed properly bonds with them.

I focused on Reed with this post because she's a favorite of mine and I'm happy to see her growth and where she's aiming for, and how she's grown narratively through her experiences and how that reflects on her Arts: True, Arts are a cool power in the narrative, but for Reed, it's more about how her Arts are intrinsically to her self-loathing in the past, and how they reflect her growth as a person: She went from a reluctant walking nuke who could only destroy and justified this by simply saying "it's because my sister knows better and she's doing it for the end goal of the well-being of Tarans... The end justifies the means" to someone who uses her almost unique powers to soothe others after learning some control over them, control that causes physical pain to her, as controlling her immense power feels as if she's searing from the inside, as if her organs were on fire, and comes to believe that, no, the means do in fact matter a whole damn lot, and that she'll one way or another achieve the end while being mindful of the means, even if it means suffering, if it's for her people. Eblana, who also can control life, uses her powers to 'resurrect' and control the dead like puppets, whereas Reed now sears herself from within in order to precisely control this power in order to help those she wants to protect, and drive away those who would hurt her or her friends. In what's a bit of a segregation of narrative and gameplay, whereas she's known for Explosions in gameplay, in the event, Reed exclusively fights with martial arts. In fact, the only time when she actually uses her Arts, she has to suppress them instantly or she was going to just completely incinerate everyone around her. She turns her surroundings to ashes so quickly that Ch'en can only just stare, wide-eyed, at how she completely incinerated a complete installation of military tents in less than a second, with just a small release of her power.

It's great! I love Reed! I wanted to see her growth, a piece focused on her, and it's what I got. I want to know more about the most loving and caring walking nuclear missile in the world with the most hypnotic tail swishes.

[icedsodapop]

By pausing time on October 7th and excluding its aftermath, the tours reinforce that myopia, consolidating a focus on Jewish victimhood and a refusal to see Israel as the perpetrator of Palestinian suffering. In the process, they succeed in bolstering American Jews’ sense of identification with Israel. As one rabbi who participated in a Federation mission from San Diego wrote upon her return home: “I saw the result of evil. I feel more committed to Israel and its future than I have felt in a long time.

(...)

Scholars have explored the ways in which visiting sites of atrocities, however disturbing, can also be “a means to affirm and reproduce particular identities,” in the words of Duncan Light, a professor of tourism studies. Visiting the 9/11 memorial—which drew 37 million people between its opening in 2011 and 2018—can bolster Americans’ sense of patriotism, even in the face of the long and deadly wars that followed; visiting the beaches of Normandy can inspire pride not only in the Allies’s World War II victory, but in the US-led world order it produced.

(...)

Death camp tours “make the victim so much the object of identification that one comes to see oneself as if one is at the gates of the crematorium, instead of [Israel] being a country with nuclear capacity,” Feldman told me in an interview. “It becomes impossible to identify with anyone other than the victim, and the victim is me, and this is our eternal condition.”

(...)

Not unlike prior forms of Jewish “dark tourism,” the trips I joined seemed intended to reassure participants that they could support Israel while retaining the moral clarity of the victim. For example, at the end of the Kfar Azza tour, Shpak, the kibbutz member, explained that the community had once been invested in peace and co-existence efforts, “but everything was broken and trampled in our children’s blood.” Shpak told our group that in the past, he had found it painful to witness the suffering of the other side. “I admit and confess that not this time. I have no sympathy for what’s happening on the other side,” he said. Other leaders on the trips I witnessed frequently glorified the war effort. In one case, a group’s Israeli driver boasted about having driven bulldozers bigger than our large bus into buildings in Khan Younis. Various guides echoed well-worn pro-Israel talking points arguing that Palestinians are not a people, or that the Nakba—the mass dispossession of Palestinians in 1948—was not a case of ethnic cleansing. This messaging has clearly affected participants. “There aren’t a lot of ‘innocent’ Gazans,” one member of a rabbinic trip wrote in a blog post. “After hearing the stories from those who were there, I am truly sad to say that this is the reality.” Greg Harris, a rabbi from Bethesda, Maryland, who led a trip for his congregation, told me that while, in the US, “it is perceived that Israel is retaliating against the Palestinian people,” in fact “that is not what is happening”—a truth that participants grasped “just by being there in Israel.”

(...)

As I walked through the festival grounds, the earth was literally shaking beneath me. The artillery fire and explosions from Gaza were the loudest thing I’d ever heard in my life, and everyone, myself included, instinctively jumped at each blast. Just two words into the kaddish that one tourist recited for the festival victims—yitgadal veyitkadash—an explosion sounded so closely and powerfully that I felt the vibrations in my spine. And yet, aside from their reflexive flinching, the tour guides did their best to ignore the din.

When trip leaders did acknowledge the sight of Gaza on the horizon, it was usually to emphasize how close danger lies to the Gaza Envelope communities. Standing at a lookout point over the enclave, Ehrlich, the tour guide, gestured back at the Israeli city of Sderot behind us, saying, “See the beautiful houses being built despite years of attacks?” And when trip leaders made note of the sounds of death all around us, it was only to assure us that we were safe. “Don’t worry too much about the booms. They’re our booms. They’re not coming in on this end,” one group I followed was told. And, later: “You’re going to hear a lot of booms. There’s currently something going on in Khan Younis, literally across the border here. It might shake you up a little bit, but don’t worry, it’s us, not them.”

(Emphasis mine)

[a-student-out-of-time]

5 Years Later

So...I admit I didn't really have anything big planned for today ^^;

But today- September 12th, 2024- is the 5th Anniversary of when A Student Out Of Time began. I started this blog based on a simple whim, after I'd completed playing 999 with a friend and read H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out Of Time. I asked myself "Hey, what if Hajime went back in time and tried to prevent the Tragedy?"

Now, this wasn't the first story blog I'd ever written. I had a couple early ones that I'm a little too embarrassed to share or discuss, but my biggest one was The Starship Hope, which also began on a whim all the way back in 2018. I was on a walk through the second neighborhood I lived in back in California, and I asked myself "What if the V3 Cast were actually in space?"

While I still have some fondness for that one, I don't believe I really found my footing as a writer until we got deep into this one. I had a tendency to just write whatever sounded cool or I got a little too shippy about some things. Then I really sat down and started planning out arcs, and we built things up from there...

...And now here we are, five years later, and I'm still doing this. Not only that, it's become so much bigger than I ever thought it would. Early on, I had one anon tell me that they weren't convinced that this blog would never last, because story blogs like this never do. I still think about that person now, and I really have to thank them because that was when I decided I'd commit to it.

Thanks to that, I've met so many new friends, been introduced to great things, inspired others to pursue their own stories and creative ambitions, and we even have a whole set of pages on TV Tropes. Almost 1,200 have decided to follow me, and that's not even counting how many have read this story and simply not made their presence known. In short, it really has helped change my life.

It hasn't been easy, and there have been times where I've thought about quitting or deleting the whole thing. There have been some dark moments, some bad arcs, some ideas that didn't pan out as I'd hoped. But even so, I always took them as learning experiences and chose not to quit.

More importantly, I've helped inspire people to check out one of my favorite series of all time, I've given them a work they can enjoy, and all this has in turn helped me refine my own writing skills and figure out the sort of writer I hope to become one day. Seeing people enjoy what I do or just curious to hear what my thoughts are, it really does inspire me to keep going.

It's also so wild to see how much Danganronpa has evolved as a series in time since I started all this. I got involved in the DR Tumblr fandom back in early 2016, before Danganronpa 3 was even out yet. I remember how much we were clamoring for it and V3, how controversial their story decisions were, and how many people didn't want it to end. They wanted to tell their own stories and do their own spins on the concept, and that's how we got so many different fangans in so many mediums- other games, videos, instagram, fanfics, and some here on Tumblr.

Danganronpa Another, SDRA2, DR: Rebirth, Despair Time, Blowback, TheAfter, Rocky Restarts, DR Mauve, DR Lapse, Brave DR: Coward's Paradise, Eternal Endings, Shattered Hope, Heartless Deceit, Eden's Garden, Antebellum, and so many others.

I got into both Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files, both great series in their own right. And now we have another SC game on the way, The Hundred Line- Last Defense Academy, which looks pretty interesting too.

In short, it's been a long 5 years.

Do I plan to keep going? Uh, yeah. We're nearing the conclusion of Season 2, and I have many ideas for Season 3. I intend to keep doing this as long as I'm able and as long as people want me to, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

More than anything, I'm just happy people enjoy the work I do. The support I've received over this last half a decade have been nothing short of inspiring, and I'm glad that people are always happy to see me update no matter how long it's been.

My life has had many ups and downs in the time I've been doing this, but being able to look at all this and say that I helped create a community and inspired people to pursue their own ambitions? It makes it all worth it ^^

What happens when it does all eventually conclude? I wouldn't worry about it. I do have an ending idea in mind, but we're nowhere near that yet. Season 2 has had some of our best arcs so far, and I think Season 3 could even turn out to be even better, but I won't get too ahead of myself.

I'm glad I'm still doing this, and I'm glad for every single person who decided that this silly little Danganronpa fanfiction blog was worth their time to get invested in. When I get things together a bit more and I start publishing my own original stories, I hope you'll follow me on my journey there as well.

Thank you guys for everything!

Here's to another 5 years ^^

[dangerously-human]

In the latest way I am perhaps slightly Not Normal about my current special interest (but like, I think in a quite healthy way): realized today I'll be celebrating 13 years clean from cutting in five weeks, which is, dude, wild. This happens to coincide with Lockwood & Co Appreciation Week, and as a treat for me, I'm thinking of ways to perhaps weave the two celebrations together. After all, this is the story I wish I'd heard then, although I'm glad it found its way to me now, too: I can't think of themes that I needed more as a desperately depressed teenager than the triumph of hope over despair, light over darkness, meaning over emptiness, life over death. A story where the siren song of the grave is loud, yet love (of many kinds) is ultimately louder. A story where the grief is made tangible and the hauntings are real, where evil has a face, where it all matters, where it's heavy and still, you don't have to do it alone. The theme that day may or may not work well for self-reflective intent, but maybe - it's "favorite underrated moment," and though a lot of my favorite ones relevant to this topic are common favorites, I do love picking at the thematic threads that are easy to overlook, too.

Maybe I won't write anything specific for it, just spend the time pondering, idk. Some years it doesn't feel like much of an occasion to mark, but I hold to it anyway because it's an opportunity to thank God and give him the glory for carrying me through another year safe, like the way the Israelites were instructed to set up a monument of stones after crossing the Jordan River to remind them and future generations of what God did for them. Some years it feels bigger; this is one of them. I've found myself drifting into old temptations, and sticking to my commitment - while still easier than it was when I first quit - feels a little more like a victory this time around. So it might be nice to mark that somehow, and pouring gratitude and reflection into something I love, something that means a lot to me for similar reasons, just seems fitting.

Or maybe. Maybe. I'll finally get a poem out of this; it's been so long. That would be fitting, too; I used to pour out so much of the self-harm experience into poetry, and it would be rather full-circle to address the healing in that format too. Food for thought.

Anyway! 13 years! Wild.

[bestanimatedmovie]

Choose your favorite!

Vote in the other polls!

What fans say:

Beauty and the Beast:

This is the only animated film ever to be nominated for regular best-picture*. It literally is responsible for the creation of the best-animated-feature category. It was Howard Ashman’s last work and his biggest passion project, and I would argue that there’s a strong reading of the film as a metaphor about the stigma and shame of aides and Visual Queerness that Ashman was experiencing at the time. It’s also one of the best works of hand animation that’s ever been committed to film before or since. In the ballroom scene you can watch the dynamic camera angles they move through and the way that all those ruffles on Bell’s dress swirl so perfectly and naturally. That shit is so complicated, most animators wouldn’t even bother, but it was all hand-drawn(!!), cell-by-cell by James Baxter, yet another absolute titan of the industry that had his hands on this film.**

Soundtrack fucks and the animation pussy is poppin

*Mod note: it was the first but two others have been nominated since (Up and Toy Story 3)

**Mod note 2: I'm leaving the videos for next round, but because submitter wrote so much about the scene, I'll leave the link here

The Prince of Egypt:

First of all, don't let the fact that it's a religious film put you off, because there is SO much to love about it. Gorgeous animation? Check. Amazing soundtrack (composed by Hans Zimmer)? Check. Wonderful scene composition? Check. A compelling take on the classic religious story that does much to humanize and expound on the characters in a way that brings them to life? Check. Powerful scenes that will take your breath away and can be appreciated regardless of whether you're religious or not? Check. Dreamworks' passion project at the time with a lot of obvious effort and love poured into it through all stages of the production process? Check. The Prince of Egypt has done so much to rewire the brains of 2-3 generations of children who grew up in religious families, myself included, and damn it all if it doesn't go hard with it. Vote for the Prince of Egypt.

The animation is GORGEOUS! The music is FANTASTIC! It makes you want to CRY!

The first time I watched it, the opening theme was playing ("Deliver Us") and I realized it was the first time I'd ever heard my culture's music in a major film. Also, the animation is simply beautiful.

It's a thoughtful adaptation of one of mankind's oldest stories. The music slaps.

The music? The script? The animation? Everything? How they blended the 2D and the CGI, how they animated the water and fire, the songs, the 3D sequence where Moses becomes a hieroglyphic carving on the wall, the imagery matching the gods invoked in "Playing with the big boys" sequence, the last plague being animated as mist that gets bigger the more lives it takes, how they managed to make the featureless desert SO pretty, the parting of the red sea animation that took 2 years to make (and looks amazing!), how it's a very respectful adaptation of (the first part of) the book of Exodus, how they managed to have ALL the people consulted for its religious importance agreed on at least one thing (Moses saving a random person rather than Miriam), Tzipporah (all of her), how Miriam has her timbrel on her last scene (and it's even Miriam's song playing!), how they researched how blood was slathered on the doorposts (hyssop) and how the script on the tablets for the 10 commandments would look, how it doesn't shy away from the blood and death. That part on the bridge of When you believe where the children start singing in Hebrew (Mi chamocha)? 11/10, no notes, fantastic, amazing, showstopper!

It's the only religious movie I've ever enjoyed. The creators consulted with multiple leaders of different religions to make sure it was as accurate and representative as possible

It's a well knwon classic that tells the story of the Exodus without being fucking boring and has legendary songs. Literally it's the Prince of Egypt. My favorite scene is the one where he parts the sea obv

The perfect storytelling structure, the voice acting, how you can tell what a character is thinking by their facial expressions alone (not everything must be said aloud), how very much HUMAN each character is, the use of color and lighting, the music and incredible lyrics, the style of animation...favorite scene impossible to choose! Yocheved's lullaby when she sets him adrift in a basket? When Moses meets Miriam again as adults, and she sings the lullaby, the same lullaby he always hums, triggering his memories and causing him to remember? The song Through Heaven's Eyes as he fits in with Tzipporah's people and falls in love with her? The PLAGUES?! Btw. This is based on the Exodus story with artistic liberation used to stay true to the message, but you can be of any faith (or lack of faith; I myself am agnostic) to enjoy the movie. In the end, it is simply a compelling ans human story.

That opening, god the song “deliver us” goes so hard it immediately hooked me. The scene of crossing the red sea is universally loved and iconic because of how beautiful it is but the rest of the movie goes so hard too, especially with the wall paintings depicting children being killed like.

I love the scene with the plagues song

Oh my god it's such a gorgeous film and a wonderful retelling oh my god and the music is also amazing

Banger music. Banger animation. Jewish. What can't she do? I feel so strongly about this.

Combined 2D animation with early 3D animation beautifully, and has an amazing soundtrack. Also the Plagues song slaps.

[wool-f]

I'M QUITTING MY 9 - 5 TO FOLLOW MY DREAMS

Hello my beautiful internet friends,

Tagging onto my sentiment from last week regarding following your dreams with complete reckless abandon and vigour, I thought I would follow on with the obvious next step (for me anyway).

I am quitting my job without a real concrete plan or a backup option to follow my dreams.

If you enjoy your job and it's the dream career pathway for you, this blog post is not meant for you. By all means keep reading of course, but I'm reaching out to my fellow dreamers who have fallen into careers that are not their callings - the people who are dreaming of something else entirely.

If I'm being completely honest I don't hate my job. But I don't love it either. It's most certainly not what I thought I would be doing at 30, and truly not the career stepping stone I imaged it would be when I was first offered the role two and a half years ago.

I'm a local news reporter in Melbourne, working for one of (if not the most popular) newspaper in the city. Day to day is very mundane, there isn't all that much jazz with local news.

While I dreamt of being a writer and Melbourne's answer to Carrie Bradshaw or Andie Anderson, my current job couldn't be further from that (I do feel Andie's pain when she wants to write something that matters and her editor is so limiting!!!!)

So last week after writing my post about committing to yourself, I was journalling and came to a realisation. In order to commit to myself, I need to fully commit to my dreams and aspirations, and to do that, I really need to quit my job.

Now thinking pragmatically because let me be one hundred percent honest, we are in a cost of living crisis and I'm not going to cold quit my job without a little bit of savings and backing to myself - I won't be leaving immediately. I think we can all agree that kind of rash decision making is for rich people who have no stress factors in their lives apart from happiness.

What I plan to do is a little but more strategic than that.

I've given myself three months to build up as thick of a foundation as possible, to get all my figurative ducks in a row and to make myself a plan for the following time frame that will constitute me following my dreams and actually succeeding. I'm trying to put my best foot forward to achieve exactly what I want and not need to take a step back into something that I'm not passionate about.

Sometimes I think people really hesitate to do the things they really want to do, whether it be because of the stories we tell ourselves in our minds, the stories society tell us about success and what it means to be fulfilled, or just because we think our dreams are out of touch from reality.

I don't want to be that person anymore. I don't want to be held back by these invisible, non-existent barriers that only stop me from reaching my full potential in life and happiness.

I have been working very hard to change the stories I tell myself in my mind, and after an incident at my current workplace (not with me, but with my colleague and management), I understood that my time at the company is coming to a close and I need to move on to something bigger and better; on to something that just in general, is a better fit for me.

I know that being self-employed is not a lifestyle everyone can achieve or that everyone wants - but I think it is the lifestyle change I want for myself, at least for now.

I obviously will keep writing this blog as a way to track how I'm going and to continue the development of my own writing.

But for now - I'm going to quit my job and follow my dreams. I definitely think it's something everyone should consider doing at least once in their lives (obviously make sure you're not going to send yourself into homelessness please, this message is not for every single person in this moment of time, prepare yourself!!).

Let's be the generation of people who don't take no for an answer - the generation of people who make things happen for ourselves and find the joy that we desire from doing the things we love and turning them into a profitable way to live!

These are my thoughts for the week, I know I'll be back next week with something just as crazy I'm sure, but for now, all the love in the world to whoever has made it this far down.

Love always,

G xx

p.s please support my journey to self employment - follow me on my other platforms (they're all free) and engage with me <3

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kweenofthieves TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kweenofthieves?lang=en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kweenofthieves

[moriamori]

Even now I feel the ghosts of muscles and nerves wishing to induce pain, as my upper torso works on healing missing skin from ripped kinetic sports tape used in recovery.

The words "Do what you love while you still have the bodily means to do it" rattles through my bones, I'm not that old by human standards but the sense of a countdown remains regardless. Comics are a deep love of mine. They're also the medium to tell a story very, very slowly.

With an average life span of 80 years, knock off my current 30, that's 50 years left. A completed series could take about ten years, many have taken longer. The manic could commit maybe five stories. Realistically, most manage half or a quarter of one. Maybe complete one. Maybe two. And my arms hurt, my spine pinches. My fingers tingle.

With my current funds, I choose between one physio session for the month, or hope to save up enough for an ergonomics assessment of my awful workdesk-setup in a slanted apartment, with a chair too big and items eternally too wide, too heavy for me. "This time," I say, "This time, this will help me get closer to drawing again".

I had wanted to be a freelance illustrator, when I realized my day job would never financially reflect the amount of work I do or don't put in. I wouldn't be able to increase my funds if I took on more work. My job will only realize they can expect more work out of me for the same pay. Getting hired elsewhere, while a possibility, would likely involve obtaining a new job that is twice as stressful and pays a tiny bit more. I don't even want this career.

I used to do commissions. I used to draw like I breathed. The irony of working in an art school is that the continuous exposure to technique and "how to get better", mainly makes you able to see your own mistakes and your own shortcomings over and over again. It's always about improvement. Find the faults, do better. Do better. Do better.

Don't sing this way, sing that way.

I feel like I've lost my voice. I feel like my voice hasn't much to say, actually. I know people loved it, once. People even demand my return.

"I want to see the next pages." "Where's that comic you said you'd do?" "Made any art recently?"

Positive attention doesn't pay bills, doesn't give me lunch, doesn't offer insurance for my physio therapy bills. It almost did. But I would have to keep performing. Keep producing through the burn. And I want to. I do. That's the awful thing in the end. I also want these pages done.

I want to love to create again. I remember I loved. I loved fearlessly. Made fearlessly. I embraced bad art. Minimalist art. Shitty art.

"I know you can make better than this." "You didn't put effort in this one."

Please put effort in me.

I am sorry the previous conditions I worked in were not enough, and the past support was not enough. I did have patreon. I did have some support. I had people willing to pay me for my time and effort and they even had patience. It was almost enough. Almost.

A flower still wilts if only given a slice of the sun it needs. It can try to grow in those conditions but it isn't going to be good.

"It used to be enough before!"

Maybe I grew. Maybe my appetite and my needs got bigger. Kids' meals don't fill me anymore. What right do I have to ask for more, when I have nothing to show for it? When what I make, may end up being terrible regardless?

"Remember you will love," I tell myself once more. Maybe I'll love regardless, in the end. Pages or no pages.

I do love terrible comics, in the end.

[runwayrunway]

No. 50 - All Nippon Airways Airbus A380 "Flying Honu" Livery

Happy 50th Runway Runway post! I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do for it - after all, it's a pretty significant number. I already sort of know what I want to do for the 100th post, but I hadn't put much thought into the 50th, and I had to scuttle any plans for something long and interesting after a rather stressful week. Instead I decided to do something both fun and requested!

source: ANA Stories

One (well, three!) of the most beloved special liveries out there, All Nippon Airways' turtle-themed "Flying Honu" Airbus A380. These three friendly giants fly from Japan to Honolulu, delighting anyone lucky enough to see them.

Actually, I love the Flying Honu so much I have one myself.

I would describe myself as a bit of a magpie. I collect useless things, be they historical ephemera, horror movie memorabilia, old books, pretty rocks, or way too many fountain pen inks given I mostly use them to take notes. I even have a bunch of my old teeth in a pillbox. Surprisingly, though, the things my talons have lodged in don't include many model airplanes. I have...a few. I've actually, though serendipity, gotten two more since I started this blog, expanding my collection to a startling five. Maybe seven if you count my Starscream and Brainstorm figures, but I don't think I even remember how to put either of them in their alt modes. The fact is that while they aren't a fortune or anything plane figures are expensive enough that it's a commitment to buy one, and I usually only do when I stumble on a good deal for a model I really want. And one of the few times I've actually decided that I just needed a model of a specific livery was the "Flying Honu" A380. Specifically, the one I have is the airframe registered JA382A, Kai. (She's the 1:500 JC Wings diecast model and is around the size of my hand.)

I just needed to be able to gently tap her nose in person, okay? She can't fit up on the shelf with a lot of my other miscellaneous trinkets so she sits on my desk and sometimes I explain things to her while trying to figure them out, like a coding rubber duck. She makes me happy.

All Nippon Airways (全日本空輸) is a major Japanese airline. In fact, in terms of both fleet size and number of destinations they're bigger than flag carrier JAL. They're consistently described as being among the best airlines in the world for the discerning well-to-do business traveler, and let's just say that's not me, but what I am is a reviewer of airline liveries, and ANA sure has those! In addition to their standard Triton Blue livery they do all sorts of special designs, particularly crossovers with properties like Pokémon and Star Wars. All of these are something I would like to someday feature, but none of them matter at all to me when compared to the Flying Honu, introduced with the A380 fleet in 2019.

A couple of times when I've told people I know about this livery they asked me if 'honu' is Japanese for 'turtle'. That's a reasonable question, but the Japanese word for turtle is 'kame'. 'Honu' is the word for turtle, though - in Hawaiian.

image: ANA

In fact, Honolulu is the A380s' only destination. ANA didn't really want A380s to begin with, but ended up stuck with them while acquiring another airline. The thing about the A380, and the reason it failed commercially and so few were ever built, is that the use-case for a massive plane is pretty limited. It goes as such: you have a passengerbase of people who have to travel from one giant hub that can land an A380 to another frequently enough that you can actually make money on a plane with four entire engines.

Okay, so the use-case is that you're Emirates. ANA might be expensive, but they don't really have the central location or sheer amount of regular business travelers that Dubai does. 'Three' also isn't really that many A380s, which creates a bit of a question of reliability. So instead they fixed the problem in a way that's honestly pretty genius: they made it turtles.

image: ANA

ANA seems to be generally invested in Hawaii, with a fair amount of partnerships with local organizations. A lot of Hawaiian real estate is owned by Japanese companies, and those of Japanese descent are the second-larget ethnic group in Hawaii at 16.7%, so it makes sense that a lot of people would want to travel there. Tokyo to Honolulu is a nice 9-hour flight with no possibility for a stopover of any kind (unless they invent civilian aircraft carriers for A380s), so it's the perfect route for precisely three really huge planes.

images: ANA

They can fit 520 passengers across four classes on one flight, seated across both decks of the massive planes. There is also a section of seats which convert to couches, marketed for families. Those who fly this route get to enjoy rainbow lighting and the ability to buy a duty-free 1:500 model of the plane (not the same model I have, though, I'm pretty sure) or a set of Flying Honu plushes.

Ra looks like she's plotting something. Lani looks like she's never had a single thought in her life.

And they do make money off this, because people absolutely love these planes. People have apparently had their weddings on these planes, and I would too! They make ten weekly flights right now, but in December that will be increasing to fourteen weekly, or two daily.

Okay, so, the actual liveries.

Here's Kai in full-size! The light in my room make her look way cooler toned in the photographs, but in real life she's this color. It's frequently described as 'green' or 'emerald green', but I think it's definitely turquoise and would go so far as to call it blue. Whatever the case, it's meant to represent the color of the sea near Hawaii. Kai is also distinct from the others because of her eyes, which are closed as she smiles from ear to ear. That's why she's my favorite - she just looks so happy!

...a bit weirder looking from upfront, but look how even the ventral fairing is painted! That's part of the flippers where they curl around, tucked into the shell. Unlike the Transocean Air Jinbei Jets, the cockpit windows blend in with the 'scales' of the Flying Honu, looking rather natural.

'Ra' is a beautiful orange, meant to represent the Hawaiian sunset. She has a bit of a peach undertone if you look closely, but her details are done in an extremely vivid reddish orange. Her distinguishing feature are those gigantic eyelashes, similar to Sakura Jinbei's. The actual mouth shape on all three planes appears to be the same, but I find that the eyes still give them distinct 'personalities'. Ra has always looked very thoughtful to me.

Just look at her in flight! I've never understood why people call the 747 stately or graceful, and same for the A380 - double-decker planes are just inherently goofy-looking, and that's great, but ANA managed to make one look pretty elegant. I think it's because turtles are already regarded as large and slow creatures, so fitting like for like just makes it seem as natural for this absolutely gigantic aircraft to be flying as it is for a turtle to swim.

Finally, Lani, the turtle everyone agrees to be blue, represents the Hawaiian sky during its brightest color in daylight. If you look closely, you can see her blue 'eyeshadow', which I've always thought made her look relaxed.

This picture gives a good angle of my only real critique of the Flying Honu, which is that the shells and heads don't entirely look aligned, as if the head is in the process of being retracted. That said, I think that's just a fact of working with the shape of an airplane. There's just no more space below to fit any more shell.

Rather than being just one turtle, though, each "Flying Honu" has two fully rendered baby turtles following behind their 'mother'.

I think this is adorable, and beyond that it solves a crucial problem - the tail. Turtles do have those, but not in a way that maps onto a standard empennage. Instead, ANA makes the smart choice to end the shell at a certain point and add these two extra turtles make-way-for-ducklings-ing their way across the fuselage for more visual interest, leaving the tail empty for an ANA logo without making it jarring. This is a huge improvement over the Jinbei Jets, which again serve as a point of comparison as the other major Japanese marine life planes. (Amakusa Airlines is way smaller and thus not going to get caught up in this.)

I mean, it's hard to find too much to say about these that isn't just "oh my gosh, look at them". The Flying Honu are vividly colored, with clever shapes used to make them immediately recognizable as turtles. I smile every time I see one, including the little one on my desk!

And in case you weren't already delighted, there's two extra bonus turtles!

I think it's pretty obvious I'm giving these an A+. Come on, just...just look at them. The fact that ANA bothered to make three distinct ones with their own names and faces is just icing on the cake for me, but I do love that they did.

I can't believe I didn't find a way to fit this in earlier into the post, but I really love turtles. If you have an aquarium near you, and that aquarium has turtles, I really recommend stopping by to see them. My local New England Aquarium has had Myrtle for more than 50 years. As they describe her, 'the 550-lb Queen of the Giant Ocean Tank is large, in charge, and ready to receive your adoration'.

True to form, although a lot larger and dealing in a different type of fluid dynamics, the Flying Honu jets get plenty of my adoration too.

[ran-orimoto]

[ Looooooooong time ago, in March ,I reckon, I posted a The Rescuers Junzumi AU sketchdump I’m very affectionate to and it wasn’t really something that unpredictable I would eventually write something for it soon. In truth, I initially wrote this very small oneshot just for myself in my free time (I stupidly feel cringe while writing about AUs and that’s a very stupid part of me I’m trying defeating just like the fankids one), but then a friend convinced me I could share it with the world as a prompt for Flufftober. I mean, why not, I told myself. Am I commiting some crime throwing stories I put 0 efforts in into the net🤣🤣🤣? Mind you, I did polish this ,tho. It used to be terrible ahahah. ]

{ Intermezzo you wouldn’t expect } aka a short one-shot for Fluffoctober about a The Rescuers AU -> •Stormy night

XXX

“Signorina Izumi, keine Sorge! No need to worry! I’m an expert in reading maps and orientating myself even in the thickest mist, ah!” The stocky man opened a piece of wrinkled and yellowish paper. His brown eyes, darkened by the blackness of a rainy night, were apparently scanning the drawings before them as he frantically searched for something he would never find. Of course.

Actually, Izumi had noticed it from the start: how he hadn’t paid a crumb of attention to what he was doing, attracted and distracted by who knew what else he might think it was more interesting than their invaluable mission. For example, if he had been focused on the map he was holding for real, he would have noticed it was upside down from the unnatural shape the venetian calle and the lagoon had, making it seem a whole sea was going to overflow and swallow the entire city.

Due to her usual courtesy and politeness, she had been wondering how she should tell him about that, if she should at that point since, after all, she could rely on herself and let him play those detective games in his silly world.

Who had ever needed a companion in a first place? She had been travelling around the world for ages knowing she could only trust her own strength, her determination no one else, -modestly speaking-, owned with such an intensity, her spirit. The only mate she had ever needed was the voice of the wind, as kind and reassuring as always, immutable, no matter where she was sent to.

Did those people from up there really believe she couldn’t deal with that situation on her own, she couldn’t take care of herself, she needed someone by her side, a man, nonetheless. From her perspective, from what she had been able to grasp so far, he was the one clearly needing help the most between them, not even being able to speak italian properly and messing it with japanese and german words.

And yet, she had chosen him when they had allowed her to do that, -at least!-. She had, though she had just assisted to a scene in which he was about to get electrocuted after he had voluntereed for the job. She didn’t even know who he truly was, now that she thought about that…Not that she had ever felt that need, either: to socialize with others from the society.

It was enough to be aware they all were adults wanting to help unlucky kids in the best way they could, through money or other types of support, -even, yes, those kinds consisting in sticking your nose in issues that were much bigger than you actually are-. What their life was like out there, who they actually were had never been important. Nobody cared, -and should know, in her opinion-, about the fact she was a flight attendant who would often find herself on modelling magazines or cat walks. And ,in return, she would survive in the obscurity, not ever finding out who he was, where he came from, how old he was, if he was married or not, - without doubts, the latter option held the predictable truth in itself-.

She had always been la Signorina Orimoto, but he had been quick at cutting to the chase and calling her la Signorina Izumi, showing no decency but not surprising her with that in the least.

And he was…Junpei-San…? He had introduced himself like that and she had also heard others addressing him in that way or with a simple Junpei. Against all the odds, he seemed to be known by many members and some seemed to appreciate him a ton, despite the clumsiness he had never managed to hide.

”Junpei-San,” A gloved hand on her chest, she finally interrupted his mumbling, which was the reason why she had eventually decided she couldn’t just let him be like that. The incoherent noises coming from his mouth were so annoying they were interfering with her own stream of consciousness. “Junpei-San!”

”Yes, Signorina Izumi!” Like a soldier, he abruptly straightened his back, but managed to strike a clumsy yet sweet smile at the same time. Slightly puzzled, she blinked for an instant, taking a step backwards without wanting to.

”The map is upside down,” She said, as dryly as you would expect from such an expert at keeping her temper under control. That was one of her good qualities she exploited to promptly make that sudden emotion making her heart beat at a weird pace, even if, again, for just a second, slip in the background of the most trivial of her thoughts,ready to be forgotten and, consequently, soon fade.

In response to her comment, Junpei didn’t immediately react. He stood still, lowered his gaze to the panorama of streets and squeezed his orbs to find that detail, that very little detail, -of course, she is attempting to be sarcastic, santo cielo!-, he had been missing. And then…

“Ja, du hast Recht. Ehm, you’re right, Signorina Izumi, it’s…Upside down.”

”Yeah. It is.” Feeling the time they had at disposal slithering away from her grip, she struggled not to add a pinch of rudeness to her tone, so rare when it came to her, a blonde woman in her fourties enwrapped in a long purple dufflecoat; the symbol of elegance and refinement; a complete oxymoron next to the man in a baggy raincoat.

But Junpei-San‘s fashion tastes were not the main problem concerning him.

”Then…Let’s fix it,” He had begun stuttering and shaking, hiccuping too, but not because they had been wandering in the chilly rain for a while. Her remark had provoked a row of side effects on his body that might have been funny to observe, -she admitted it-, could have made her even giggle in amusement, if she hadn’t been counting each second flying away from them just like that kid, that poor kid.

They couldn’t allow themselves to indulge in more foolery. No.

Her eyebrows twitched and she pulled the paper away from him, accidentally dropping the umbrella he had asked her to hold in his stead go, -it had incredibly dawned on him he couldn’t read his map, if he continued on keeping the umbrella above her head like a true knight would, and per Dio!-.

The umbrella fell on the slippery ground and let heavy drops pour their cascade on their hoods all at once, on the locks of their hair escaping from their shelters. Her legs shaking due to crawling waves of cold, her fists clenching more and more in growing irritation, Izumi couldn’t help gasping: that was it! That was the end! That was the straw breaking the camel‘s back: he was blatantly influencing her with his manners! She would absolutely have to call the SOS society and come up with a valid justification to explain her decision to give up.

”Signorina Izumi…”

“I…I…I just…”

Her exasperated yell cut through the curtain of humidity and ,maybe, -she sensed without being able to explain-, a veil made of something else as well.

She didn’t look at Junpei, whether he had been startled or had grown disgusted by that display of utter embarassment. Indeed, she didn’t even want to. May he believe she had gone nuts and wasn’t the admirable Signorina Izumi he had been staring at with dreamy eyes for the whole day: she wouldn’t be touched by a change of heart happening inside him at all. If he left her in the freezing atmosphere of the incoming night, it wouldn’t make any difference.

But maybe she had always known he wouldn’t, as it suddenly dawned on her the one who would have run away from him, the person who had found himself in front of that side of hers, would have been her herself in other circumstances.

Instead, she had remained there and had silently, unconsciously waited. She waited for that sweaty yet warm hand to defeat the low temperatures of both outside and inside, at a first and single touch of her shoulder. It sent all those nagging shivers and tremors away with who knew what kind of magical trick, and, most of all, succeeded in reminding her Izumi Orimoto, la Signorina Orimoto never threw in the towel, never let stress dominate her clear logic, no matter how hard it was to find a lead, to operate as quickly as possible to rescue an innocent soul.

”Here,” There was another kind of rain that was falling that night. Quieter, more reserved, shyer, it let itself be seen and felt only by Junpei‘s hesitant thumb. She couldn’t help sighing in relief, leaning her cheeks towards that pleasant sensation. “Let’s go home. We will be luckier tomorrow when the Sun comes out again and…The lightnings go away. They are approaching…And very fast.”

”Home?” She echoed, covering his gulps with her suspended reticence.

”Yes,” As if not wanting to let her be carried by the mistral, he grabbed her hand before bending to pick the umbrella up. “I will prepare a good hot chocolate for you. To be honest, I can’t read maps that well, but I‘m not lying I’m good at preparing those. Someday I want to bring a whole tray for the society ah ah.”

…

Chi mi salverà ?

Who will rescue me?

…

I will, no, we will. Wait for us, endure, wherever you are. Give me a little time to…To…

…

Through storms, rain and black nights, never fail to do what’s right.

But ,why not, let yourself sip a good mug of hot chocolate while looking at that mess from the window, as well.

[shai-manahan]

Hi! It's been a while since I've talked about the upcoming updates, but I finally had a chance to actually sit down and make plans! (the life of a corporate slave, am I right? 🙃)

It has something to do with the changes I will be implementing on my patreon, though. I've thought for a while how to give content that's worthwhile of subscriptions while also making sure I can be comfortable with them, and in all honesty, I had a tricky time doing it. HM is too personal for me, as I used to talk about before, and some of the patreon benefits I promised before eventually felt too revealing - of my own thoughts and people whose lives were a huge inspiration for this story.

I will be talking about these changes and the update schedules as well below the cut.

UPDATES

I aim to finish at least half of HM's Book 1 this year. It seems to be a more realistic goal than forcing myself to finish everything right away (which tbh may have been a huge pressure I put on myself the past few years), though admittedly, things are unpredictable in the field I'm in; my job is full of overtime hours, and I spend most of my weekends trying to recover (or sick).

Still, I gotta finish it one way or another, and it's not going to write itself (though I wish it would!), so yeah, set realistic deadlines, pull out a few all-nighters, and maybe I'll actually get through it, who knows?

I do hope I'll have steadier finances by the time Book 2 starts so I can put more focus on writing and have sufficient energy for it, but that's a conversation for another day.

Changes in Prologue - Chapter 2

Okay. I know I promised not to make revisions until I write more chapters, but changing how some game mechanics work and reworking the stats made it a necessity, and I underestimated how much rewriting I'd have to do. A few scenes ended up not working well anymore, and I couldn't resist from revising a few clunky sections while I was at it.

Dialogue options were one of those that were significantly affected by the stat changes, but no worries, nothing is changed in the story -- meaning Wesley still fucks with the Ripper's life (oops), Richard still goes off doing whatever non-sus thing he's doing, you can still punch Bale (it's even a lot funnier this time), Bertrand remains a bitchy cop, and you'll still have your sad flashback with your former best friend/lover/crush or whatever they are to your MC.

The plan is to release the updated version of Prologue and Chapter 1 to patrons by the end of March (I will have a few days off work that week) and release it to the public once the new content is also ready, which I presume will be available next month (I will keep you all posted but I really hope I can get it done by then because it's been forever 🥲).

I might tweak Chapter 2 a little so the available portion can stand on its own rather than be divided into two parts, because it's just too long lmfao and is harming the pacing as I keep worrying about the length. I'm also incorporating a few suggestions a few folks gave me these past few months.

Succeeding chapters

I've probably said this before but things are bound to get more insane in HM once we're past the first three to four chapters. But also quicker to write in a way. They're the kind of scenes I thrive in, and while they have bigger variations, they're a lot more fast-paced, characters start being manipulative little shits, and the threats are more prevalent than ever. Your Ripper will not have a good time, but I certainly will (I say as I look at my outline and get sad doing it). There will be a few "breaks" in between, but this is not and will never be a light-hearted story. Anyway, I'm inclined to believe I'll be more consistent with updates when that time comes, so bear with me for now :')

PATREON CHANGES

This is getting long, so I'll just list the updated tier benefits and end the day with it. I'll be posting a schedule that I will be committing to (here and on patreon tomorrow morning), with the below details as well (so if you wanna stop here that's totally valid) but for now, here's the tentative list:

Tier 1

Early access - 4 days before a public update (this month will be an exception and you'll get the update as soon as the other tiers get it, too).

Sneak peeks and deleted scenes - I included the latter because apparently I delete a lot of great scenes

Hints for future revelations in the story - the categories will depend on results of polls; the hints may be about Bale's death, about Ripper's family, Pharos, Cyro, the ROs themselves, or the nightmares that the MC is getting, etc. Might be in form of vague conversations/dialogues between unknown characters, might be me dropping subtle info about those involved. Either way, it will be fun :). The polls and these hints will be given monthly.

Tier 2

Early access - 1 week before a public update

all the other benefits for Tier 1

monthly RO snippets - I'm still experimenting with this, but I might simply write MC x RO snippets (with different kinds of MCs for different scenarios because I deeply hate writing blank slate MCs, sorry)

a choice to see the POV of a character, decided through polls, for every chapter/update.

Tier 3

Early access - as early as it's available and goes through testing stages

all other benefits for previous tiers

Non-RO short stories

Previews on unintroduced characters :)

That's all for tonight! I am so tired lmfao but I hope you all are having a great weekend so far! See you tomorrow :)

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER Unpack the “Story of Growth” in New Album The Name Chapter: FREEFALL

"I thought about how far we’ve come," says Beomgyu

In the music video for TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s new single, “Chasing That Feeling,” Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Hueningkai quite literally crash-land back on earth. It’s an apt visual for the focus track off their latest project, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, which brings the boys back to reality after their spring EPfeatured a dreamy stint in a Neverland setting.

While TXT’s discography has explored young love and other narratives, so much of the group’s music hovers around themes of growing up in an increasingly complicated world. “We want to talk about the experiences that are unique to our generation,” Hueningkai tells Consequence. The Name Chapter: FREEFALL is the group’s first LP in over two years, and their longest collection of new music since 2021’s The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE. There are a few new angles to this project — a harder commitment to rock along with playing around with Jersey club hallmarks — but it’s a TOMORROW X TOGETHER project through and through.

“Happily Ever After,” like 2021’s “Ice Cream,”sounds bright but contains more serious themes in the lyrics . There’s also a song dedicated specifically from the members to their beloved fan base, MOA, titled “Blue Spring.” With more lyrical contributions than ever before from the members themselves, it’s exciting seeing TXT continue to develop as artists and creatives, and Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Hueningkai are back to reflect on the process. Read the full interview with the members below, and catch the music video for “Chasing That Feeling.”

I feel like this album goes bigger with ideas you’ve played with before. Where “Good Boy Gone Bad” and “0X1 LOVESONG” played with rock sounds, “Growing Pain” dives all the way in. Meanwhile, “Chasing That Feeling” is straight-up 80s synth. What are some words you guys would use to describe this project as a whole?

Soobin: I’d call it a story of growth. It looks at the growing pains of our generation and picks up where we left off in our previous album. The main backdrop for the previous album was this beautiful but irresponsible Neverland. This album is about leaving this Neverland and facing the real world. Growing pains are inevitable in this process, and we wanted to delve into that in this album.

Yeonjun: I’d say a soundtrack for today’s youth. We wanted to talk about the courage and determination of today’s youth to face reality head-on.

I feel like you guys have accomplished so many goals we’ve talked about over the past few years. In 2022, you told me you hoped to perform at bigger venues, and to do well at your first appearance at Lollapalooza. You’ve since crushed a stadium tour, dome concerts in Japan, and headlined Lolla! How does it feel to see those things happen in real time? 

Taehyun: As you said, this year has been a really big year for us with our Lollapalooza headliner set, first U.S. stadium tour, and most recently the “Back For More” (with Anitta) performance at the MTV VMAs. It’s an incredible honor to perform at such iconic venues and events and be able to share our music to connect with a wider audience. I’m very proud of the hard work we put in, but we won’t be able to do this without our fans’ support, so we are truly thankful for them.

To that point, now that you’ve accomplished a few really huge goals, what do some immediate next steps look like for you? What are some smaller goals you have for finishing out 2023?

Hueningkai: The new album is another opportunity for us to connect with MOA, so I just want to enjoy myself and cherish each moment. As it’s our first studio album in a little over two years, we really gave our all into it. I hope that the album resonates with as many people as possible around the world.

I’m obsessed with “Deep Down,” it’s easily my favorite on the album. The synth-pop direction is so fun. Do any of you have special memories from being in the studio, for this song or others on the album?

Beomgyu: It was a lot of fun recording “Deep Down.” “Deep Down” talks about how a “horn,” something that you try to keep hidden, can actually be a crown, or a source of hope that represents who you are. There’s a clear connection to our debut single, “CROWN,” so while recording, I was reminded by those times as a lot of different emotions came to mind. I thought about how far we’ve come, both as individuals as well as artists.

Which song on the record do you feel is the most quintessentially TOMORROW X TOGETHER?

Hueningkai: I’d say “Happily Ever After.” It’s a song about coming to terms with the fact that there are no fairytale endings in reality. And with that realization, instead of giving into despair, you can decide to write your own story. That’s something that we as a group have tried to do with our music over the years. We want to talk about the experiences that are unique to our generation. I’d say that it’s a song that really speaks to our DNA as a group.

I know how much you guys love the song “Blue Spring,” and it’s so different from some of your other songs dedicated to MOA, like “Sweat” or “MOA Diary.” Why do you think the song fit with the concept of The Name Chapter: FREEFALL?

Beomgyu: This album looks at the pain and challenges of reality, but within this reality, there are still magical moments that we share with one another. On “Blue Spring,” we compare our fans to spring that brightens up a blue world. Our fans have always been part of our magical moments that fuel our spirit, so it felt right that this song was included in the album.

I love seeing you all becoming more and more involved with lyric writing with each project. Do any of you have something you’ve learned about your songwriting process during the making of this album that you’d like to share?

Taehyun: I think we have become better at putting our honest thoughts and emotions into our lyrics. This comes as a result of many hours of writing that we put in over the years, but I think it also has to do with the fact that we have become more confident in the kind of message and music we want to share with the world. I hope many people can feel that when they listen to our music.

All five of you wrote for the lyrics in “Blue Spring.” Do you have any dreams of someday sharing an entirely self-written project?

Yeonjun: That’d be amazing. Manifesting that for the future! I do love working with other songwriters. I’m always learning a lot from them. We also feed off each other’s creativity, so it’s an experience I very much enjoy.

Is there anything else we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share?

Soobin: This album talks about reality as it is, which is also reflected in our visuals for the album. We shot the music video for our lead single at Universal Studios, but it looks as if we land somewhere in a real city like New York or London. We wanted to show a world seen without a filter, so I think that’s another element that our fans can enjoy along with the music.

[chuluoyi]

Hi there Chu! This has been on my mind for a while and I'm curious to know your thoughts. How do you see Gojo being in a romantic relationship? Realistically speaking with his character and all.

Because the way I see it, I can see Gojo being loyal and fully committed to his relationship. That is, after realizing closing himself off will just hurt his partner.

Looking at the bigger picture, I realized how much Satoru MIGHT change if he had a partner. This man has been alone for a long time, the one no one can reach. The only person who did reach him left, so for him to learn to trust and potentially fall in love with someone can change him for the better. But it really depends if he's willing to open up and change to a better version of himself.

I usually see people make GojoxReader or GojoxOC scenarios, but I rarely see any of them try to dig deeper and show how GOJO changed because of the relationship. I have one writer in mind but I'll keep that to myself.

Again, this is just my opinion, and I'm curious to hear yours. Have a great day/night!

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hello hello!🥹 sorry for taking a long time to answer this! :’) hmm how do i see it… honestly i see it just like how i write it in love entries🥹

i really think he’ll be open and not really take his relationship that seriously with reader at first before geto left. he feels too secure, that’s why. and i agree with you, after geto left, some parts of him will be closed off, and it will take time to make him open up again

that’s why, when he eventually recovers, he will be devoted wholly to the reader—bordering on lovesick even🥹 that’s how he changes for the better (at least for me, fics-wise) and i think it’s so hard to characterize gojo bc of how enigmatic he is, so that’s why stories often dwell more in the conflict rather than characterization🥹