#now this is not heinously difficult

[airandangels]

Julia just exclaimed "Fuck a duck!", a lovely expression that I feel deserves greater currency.

[invinciblevalentine]

okay concept. gaia is FCUKED from the Everything that’s happened and all life is dying. cloud eventually dies and aerith+zack meet up with him, going “ya so. unfortunately,,,,, this is still an us problem. we’re time traveling and this is the pla—“

cloud, used to being the planets hammer for a very Calamity’s-son-shaped nail: kill sephiroth, on it

zack reaching into thin air: SPIKE WAIT SEPH WASN’T—

but it’s TOO LATE. through the power of shear hatred and a desire to be DONE with this bitch, cloud has hurled himself directly into the lifestream that’s in the middle of reversing its flow, sending himself back in time before they finished explaining the plan.

aerith intended to rewind to before the jenova project, possibly before shinra even started on the mako reactor grind. but thanks to cloud not letting her finish the process, cloud drops into reality somewhere after both angeal and genesis defected but before zack had to kill angeal.

he wakes up in a pool of mako, his sword in hand and still in his haggard, apocalypse wracked form. cloud doesn’t know the plan, because cloud doesn’t CARE. He marches his ass down to midgar to kill sephiroth or die trying, and gets all the way to sephiroth’s apartment undetected.

this is in part thanks to the fact his normally distinct SOLDIER eyes are dull enough to pass for a trick of the light, which in turn can be credited to the aforementioned apocalypse wracked body and general malnutrition. all his enhancements are currently dedicated to the losing effort of keeping cloud’s bitchass alive, an effort the man himself is completely unconcerned with.

anyways, sephiroth’s quarters. Cloud’s holed up there, waiting, when he hears sephiroth approach and has a second to prepare himself before the door gets kicked in.

while fighting and trashing the apartment, sephiroth probes for information, which cloud is obviously not giving, until sephiroth manages to sus out that clouds not just a random type of trained or enhanced— he’s SOLDIER enhanced. More than that, while Cloud’s fighting style is a mish mosh of a lot of factors, the most prominent style Sephiroth can identify is a weird form of Angeal’s own style. With that conclusion drawn, Sephiroth quickly draws several follow-up conclusions:

1. This stranger is injured or sick to the point where the mako in his system is completely occupied with keeping him alive

2. the stranger doesn’t care about dying

3. He isn’t part of SOLDIER, not any that Sephiroth’s ever seen.

4. He knew Angeal.

Sephiroth, right now, is fresh off losing his two best and only friends. Genesis defected rather loudly, convincing a good deal of SOLDIERS and scientists to follow him while he was at it. Angeal defected much more quietly, but defected all the same. Something was off about both of them before they left, and he’s still got hope he can bring them back.

The strange attacker that moves like Angeal HAS to be related to the issue, and that’s a resource Sephiroth can’t afford to lose. So he fucking hits the stranger with chair and Cloud goes DOWN.

- seph keeps cloud “prisoner” in his rooms as cloud heals from the concussion and apocalypses damage on him and cloud goes from belligerent to suspicious to getting the dawning feeling that zack might’ve been trying to tell him something important.

- sephiroth is just proving to be a wet and pathetic human experiment missing his friends and like all basic forms of socialization, and is desperately alone. like CLOUD is his only constant friend at this point. the guy he’s practically holding HOSTAGE.

- (btw zack comes back during this time and is frantically looking for cloud. zack’s younger self is sharing a body with zack, and there’s a period of time Zee (Little Zack) is convinced he’s like, possessed. which he is technically but only by His Future Self. it’s making zack’s life heinously difficult bc zee WILL NOT LET HIM DITCH SOLDIER TO HUNT DOWN A BLOND TWINK.)

- also at some point modeoheim happens and zee is sent there, angeal is like Kill Me and Zack shoves his way into control, casts the strongest sleepel he can and goes AWOL to grab aerith and waterboard his once-mentor into mental+physical stability. Zee is horrified by everything happening. btw every problem that comes with ANOTHER soldier first going AWOL and carrying around the unconscious body of ANOTHER defected soldier first and HIS FORMER MENTOR AT THAT, is happening rn. good luck babe.

- Aerith’s busy haunting genesis bc she’s incorporal and with her limited power/control, she can do BARE minimum life stream shit and ghost shit, which, out of all the enhanced people still kicking, only genesis is alone enough and uh fanciful enough to believe that he’s being communicated with by a divine being to listen to her in the first place.

- Aerith is trying her best to be understanding of Genesis’s circumstances but she draws the line at turning people into genesis clones and literally rains on genesis’s parade with her magic gaia girl rain which does cure genesis of degradation! However it has the unintended side of effect of genesis seeing Aerith’s ghost as, like, Gaia jesus which creates numerous problems on its own.

- all culminates in The Nibelheim Incident (SOLDIER Firsts No Longer Required) where cloud zack and aerith combine their incredible avoidance powers to result in… something really scuffed regarding jenova and sephs origins. i’ll figure it out Later.

- cloud and zack and aerith are in their Darkest Hour of personal development when sephiroth stumbles in and on his hands and knees begs them not to leave him. zack tries to be like, ehhhhh we don’t belong here or something and aeriths like look at what you still have, what you won’t lose anymore, you’ll be okay, and when sephiroth grasps the leg of clouds pants, cloud jerks away and is like you can’t force me to do anything w a whole tirade and sephiroth raises his head and cloud is taken aback to see sephiroth’s CRYING, as the general chokes out “i know”

- they do stay. aerith realizes she’s grown so distant from the world that she doesn’t recognize her own personal importance or impact on it and that, Zack realizes that it’s not selfish to want something more than what you’re given, and cloud realizes that circumstances can make you a monster as easily as choice can.

[cruel-hiraeth]

i know this is heinously belated (i.e. too on brand for me), but i finally sat down and read everyone’s notes on my christmas tree.

i’m tearing up right now because i feel undeserving of everyone’s love and well wishes. this year has been incredibly hard for me, and i know i haven’t kept it much of a secret between moving blogs, countless emotional posts, and random hiatuses. but, in spite of it all, each one of you has stuck beside me. i truly can’t articulate how much your mere presence means to me. i feel adored beyond compare; i feel warm; i feel at home. and i will never be able to thank you enough for seeing me and my flaws, and loving me all the same.

moving into the new year, i have many resolutions and goals. one of them is to be more present for all of you. i want to return the kindness you have shared with me, because—and i mean this from the bottom of my heart—you have changed my life for the better. as difficult as it can be to exist peacefully on tumblr, i have met so many incredible people, and i have had creative sparks that i never thought possible. i can’t imagine my life without each of you.

all of this rambling is to say that i love you—yes, you—very much! and i’m looking forward to a wonderful 2025 with you in it ❤️

[theladyofdeath]

Lady Death's Lover {VI}

Lady Death's Lover Masterlist & Summary

19th Century Period AU Nesta x Cassian Secret Affair / Enemies to Lovers / Forbidden Romance Fanfiction / Characters from Sarah J Maas / ACOTAR Based on a prompt sent in by anonymous

A/N: Oh my word...I have had the most difficult time getting this up this week! I'm sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoy! Thank you to everyone who reads, comments, likes, and reblogs! x

TW: marital abuse, sexual content, language, depression, alcohol abuse

This story is for readers 18+. Mature readers only. Content should not be read by anyone under 18.

Dear Cassian,

I must admit that I am completely miserable in Adriata. It has rained all week so I cannot go to the ocean, which is the only thing worthwhile to do here. I have also found zero romantic partners which has brought the boredom to a new level of heinousness. I do not think I can stand this place for more than a fortnight. By the Cauldron, I do not think I can stand it for another day. Perhaps I will cut my trip short. 

Do have enough diabolical fun for the both of us in my absence, will you? If I know you are causing chaos, that is enough for me for now.

Your Favorite,

Mor 

P.S. Try not to attempt to philander with any more married women. It’s very ungentleman-like. 

Nesta

My gowns are lovely.

The modiste has truly outdone herself. There are four in total and each matches the other but has its own personality. The fabrics are all deep blues and grays, meant to bring out my eyes. They are the colors I am most comfortable in. In fact, most of my wardrobe consists of blues and grays but no one has complained about it thus far. 

After transferring payment, my gowns are loaded into my carriage. Before making my way back home, I take advantage of the time alone and make my way down the street to my favorite bakery. I’ve never been one for sweets but they make the best macarons in Velaris and I cannot help but buy a box whenever I visit the modiste. 

It is when I’m coming out of this bakery that I see him.

For a moment, I forget how to walk. Every elegant thought vanishes from my mind and I am suddenly all too aware of the giant box of sweets in my hands. 

I pray he doesn’t see me and for a moment I feel I will get away with it, but then he turns from where he walks across the street and halts when he catches my eye. For a moment, we both stand there, staring at one another. 

Then the world around me comes back to life.

The city streets around me resume, full of life. Carriages hurry past and people rush in and out of the shops. The sky above, recently clear and bright, opens up and the softest of rains falls down upon me and my macarons. 

He still stands just across the street, watching me, although his head has since cocked to the side and a grin has begun spreading across his lips. A sudden sense of embarrassment floods me. I must look foolish, standing here in the rain with a box of baked goods while everyone around me starts to run to safety from the turn in weather. 

Oh, gods. 

He’s coming towards me.

“Lady Nesta,” he begins when he’s halfway across the street, “your dress. You should find cover.” 

I find my voice. “Ah, Mr. Nazari. Yes, I, um…yes.” 

I go to turn on my heels but, in true Lord Cassian fashion, he steps in front of me just before I can get far. “A lady should never be caught in the rain.”

“If it were not for you blocking me I would be well on my way to shelter, my lord.” I try not to sound too demeaning, but I cannot help myself. Every now and then that tone just seeps out and there is nothing I can do to stop it. 

He finds this funny, apparently. A chuckle escapes him and he nods. “Apologies. Good day, Lady Nesta.”

Not Lady Mandray.

Lady Nesta.

I somehow like it better coming from him, like it better than the title the rest of the ton refers to me as.

Lord Cassian steps aside and I go to stroll past him, but I stop when he begins to walk behind me. Turning, I lift a brow. 

He stops and rocks back on his heels. “Do not fear, I am not following you. I walked here and now must walk home, which is this direction. That is all.”

“How far do you have to walk?” I ask, the rain picking up. I worry more for the well-being of my macarons than my hair. 

“A little more than a mile, it’s no worry,” he says, shrugging, then continues on his way.

I hesitate, knowing I shouldn’t ask what I’m about to but asking it anyway. 

“Would you care to join me?” I ask, and he freezes, his back to me. “It seems we’re going the same direction and you should not have to walk in the rain. It seems a storm is brewing. You wouldn’t want to catch a cold.” 

Lord Cassian looks up at the dark clouds, the rain falling directly onto his face as he squints. He looks back to me, his face searching mine, but then he asks, “Are you certain? I don’t mind a little rain.”

Thunder rolls and lightning strikes, and I nearly drop my macarons. I swear it’s purely for my benefit when he clears his throat and says, “It would be a pleasure to join you, Lady Nesta.” 

I nod quickly as a downpour begins and hurry to my coach up the street. By the time I throw myself inside, my dress is drenched and my hat is drooping. Lord Cassian is in no better condition as he slides onto the bench across from me, his jacket drenched and his trousers sticking to his thighs. 

My breath catches at the sight of him and I suddenly feel foolish. It should be impossible for a man to look more dashing sopping wet, but he somehow manages to. That ridiculous, shoulder-length hair of his is soaked and dripping into his cravat. I don’t realize I’m staring until I meet his eyes, and suddenly I’m all too aware of every inch of my body and his. My cheeks turn pink and I have to clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking. 

The carriage jolts as it begins its journey and it makes me jump, which makes Lord Cassian grin…although he tries to suppress it. This was a mistake. That’s what I get for trying to be nice. This very thing reminds me why I do not do nice things often. Nice things always come back to bite me in the ass.

. . . . . . . . . 

Cassian

Lady Nesta looks equally stunning and uncomfortable, although her discomfort is not the type of discomfort that causes alarm. No, it’s the type of discomfort that tells me she does not do this often.

I do not know much about this woman but I do know that she’s not exactly…personable. I’ve heard what other women of the ton think about Nesta — Mor brought the gossip to our recent Monday tea time and I have a feeling Rhys put her up to it — and it’s not good. In fact, the ladies of Velaris think Lady Nesta to be brutally honest and permanently bitter. I, however, value honesty and think a certain level of self-hatred and introverted nature can be mistaken for anger or bitterness. 

Not that it should matter.

After my last encounter with Nesta, I vowed never to be around her again. Especially alone. Yet, the second I saw her stepping out of the bakery with a box-full of what seems to be macarons, my feet decided my thoughts should be damned and acted of their own volition. Before I could fully comprehend what I was doing, I was standing in front of her.

Now, I’m alone with her yet again, stuck in a coach as it rattles down the cobblestone. Outside, it’s pouring as it often does in the spring, and all I can think about is how her eyes keep drifting to me. 

I’m trying to also be inconspicuous about where my eyes are wandering, but from the way her pale cheeks are turning pink, I don’t think I’m doing it properly. 

Her light blue dress is clinging to her skin and I can’t ignore how her breasts are even further on display behind the soaked fabric. It doesn’t help that her chest is rising and falling, rapidly, as if she’s had a difficult time catching her breath since entering the confined space that surrounds us.

“You’re having a ball soon,” I say, because I’m not sure what else to say but I know that we can’t keep sitting here in silence, me trying my best to avoid the swells of her breasts, the way I can see her peaked nipples through the wet cotton.

“I am,” she says, voice soft but firm. “Will you be in attendance?” 

I clear my throat. “Yes. Thank you for the invite.”

I neglect to mention that I originally did not plan to attend, that being in the same room as her is too tempting and I’m currently going mad, but my brothers coaxed me into going. 

She gives me a curt nod before taking a deep breath and letting her eyes wander towards the closed window. I swallow, cursing as my eyes take another dive to her chest and back up again. Once the silence becomes too heavy, allowing my thoughts to run rampant and inappropriately wild, I ask, “Do you do this often?”

Nesta’s eyes snap to mine and she blinks. “Do what?”

“Come into town on your own,” I say, and I watch as she swallows and clenches her jaw. “Not even a maid with you? Isn’t that unbecoming?”

Her eyes narrow and if it wasn’t for the quick rise and fall of her chest, the way her skin is flushed, I would think she was offended and not something else entirely. “Are you implying that I do not live my life as a lady should, my lord?” 

“I’m implying that it is simply not safe for you to be traveling alone,” I say, and she watches as I run my hands down my thighs, trying to eliminate my sweaty palms. It does not work. “You never know others’ intentions when they see a woman alone.”

“It is the middle of the day,” she says, meeting my eye once more. “And I have my driver.”

“Still.”

We stare at one another for just a moment, but that moment is filled with so much silent, skin burning tension that I feel the need to loosen my cravat, shrug off my coat, but I don’t. I let it suffocate me, let her gaze strip me bare instead. 

If I slouched in the slightest, my knees would nearly graze hers. Suddenly the space between us seems so short, too short to make any rational decisions. This was a mistake. I should have stayed on my own damn side of the street. I should have walked. 

“Is that what this is, then?” she asks, and I blink.

“Pardon?”

“Do you have poor intentions, my lord?” she asked, clasping her hands on her lap. I swear they’re trembling.

“Need I remind you that you were the one that offered me a ride in your coach?” I ask, then add, “my lady.”

Her lips part, and it’s so slight that one has to be watching them intently to have seen it, which I am.

She shifts on the bench, words seeming to have left her. It’s the silence that makes me say, only because I cannot stand silence and I’ve already seemed to have dug myself into a hole of wickedness, “Perhaps it is you that has poor intentions.” 

Her head leans to the side, which is somehow unladylike and beautifully cunning at the same time, and the smallest of smiles plays on her lips. There’s no joy in this smile, only a cruel seduction that has my trousers holding back my hardening cock. Now it’s my turn to shift, and she notes it, those dark eyes trailing down until they’ve settled on my lap. Her eyes flare before snapping back up to mine.

“I am a lady,” she says, simply. “Ladies do not have poor intentions, only charitable ones. What kind of lady would I be if I were to let a gentleman walk through a downpour?” 

“Indeed,” I say, and I cannot even help how rough my voice suddenly sounds. 

This is ridiculous. I feel like I have never been around a woman before, or like I am once again sixteen and around a woman for the very first time. Furthermore, she’s married. This is highly inappropriate, but I seem to have lost control.

No.

That’s not entirely true.

If I had lost control her dress would be torn to shreds and I’d have her lying beneath me on this bench, worshiping every inch of her body beneath. 

“I am grateful,” I add, and she nods her head politely in response. I stay in control until a wheel hits a dip in the road and our bodies jostle, and we touch.

My knee hits hers and her foot lands on mine as she tries to stop herself from toppling forward. I don’t even realize my hand is on her leg, just above her knee, until we both look down at it.

I don’t move it.

She doesn’t ask me to, nor does she move at all. All that moves is the rapid rising and falling of her chest — a chest that my eyes are in perfect line with. Mustering every ounce of self control that I have, I go to lean back, to settle myself once again on the opposite bench until this torturous ride is over, but I don’t make it far.

Just as I move, Nesta places her hand on top of mine and I freeze. She’s looking at me wildly, searching my eyes for something. I don’t think I’m breathing at all. I have no thoughts in my mind whatsoever. All I can focus on is her intent eyes, her hand on mine, my hand on her skirts, her lips that are parted and begging to be kissed.   

Neither of us says a word.

“Just—“

Whatever she’s about to say evaporates as the coach slows and when it jerks to a stop, reality steps back in.

Nesta snatches her hand from mine as if she’s been burned and I take the hint, pulling myself back just as the door opens and I’m looking at the front door of my townhouse.

Not wanting to keep the poor lad standing in the storm, I take my leave and hurry to my front door, drenching myself further. I don’t look back at Nesta. I have a feeling she doesn’t want me to.

I have a feeling that whatever she was about to say, whatever would have happened if we just kept driving, would have surely led to utter regret.

Before I shut my door behind me, I watch Nesta’s carriage roll away, gone into the storm.

Calling for my butler, I beg for a drink to calm my still pounding heart. 

[trailerparktombombadil]

June 13

RIP The Mystery. You will forever haunt me. What were you????

I'm actually quite angry, but the fact that I got so angry is worth noting. Radical acceptance. Maybe I'm still a little dehydrated this morning (or it's the bipolar 🤷). Maybe I should pretend it was something I definitely wouldn't have wanted. 🤣😬

Okay plenty of good things to report as well.

The volunteer transplants look AMAZING this morning. The little darlings are doing so well!

I still need to research how to harvest/prune the amaranth, but I'm getting intimidated at this point.

Like, that could fight me. And it would probably win.

Now for the most exciting thing. That which soothed the fires of my wrath - my green eggplant!! This thing was a sprout 🌱 forever (because I didn't do good with my seedlings, in fact some might call the things that happened war crimes). It was in a suspended state for the longest time. It's been in the ground about 2.5 weeks at this point and it suffered some bug munching that I thought was its death knell. But no! More leaves began to sprout and today the little bastard looks like this! I seriously think I have a chance at green eggplants this year!!

Here comes the okra!

A nice, peaceful morning with Arwen and Minerva-Sparky.

A very good fur friend unexpectedly said good bye this past week. Molly Moo was my best friend's (Gothic garden) basset hound. She was the utter empress of her home, the matriarch if you will. She was a cyclops (a recent transition), a bed hog, a loyal gardening companion to my best friend's mother, and one of the best dogs I've had the pleasure to groom and know. She wasn't my dog and I'm perhaps grieving a little too hard. But she deserves to be spoken about. My best friend went through some heinously difficult times just before Molly came shuffling into her life and I know things would have been much harder without her.

Hug your pets and love them well!

[graysonflynn]

Title: subterrane Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Pairing: Gale/Astarion (though more pre-ship)

Written for the first prompt for Whumptober 2023. Enjoy my lovelies!

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Gale can only barely make out the sentence over the heinously loud ringing in his ears. The cave ceiling is an ever-worsening blur, the edges of his vision fading in and out of darkness. For a long few moments, he cannot be certain whether or not he’s going to pass into unconsciousness.

Blessedly, he somehow manages to hold on. However, the ringing in his ears is quite persistent – which is just as well, because his companion is just as much.

There’s an all-too-rough shaking of his shoulders, which jostles his vision something awful. Gale manages to remember that ah yes I’m not in this alone before he manages to, more or less, roll his head into a position where he can just make out the pale blur that is likely to be Astarion’s face.

Gale manages to follow what he hopes is the dark line of Astarion’s shoulder, down to yet another pale blur that he assumes to be his hand. What should be alarming to him – but only registers as a faint sense of distress – is that he cannot make out at all how many fingers that Astarion is holding up. Likely in some effort to ensure that Gale’s faculties are intact.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Gale tries to focus. But it only amplifies that his entire body aches as it hardly ever has. At least, in a purely physical sense. It should still be far more alarming than it is. His head throbs rather violently, and he can feel the pressure of the orb within its containment behind his ribs, his heart hammering wildly in a sharp staccato. In his ears, if he tries to push back the ringing, he can hear the rushing of his pulse.

However, luckily for Gale, when he manages to force his eyes open again – something that is alarmingly more challenging than it should be – things come into better focus. He can just make out Astarion’s eyes – bright, bright red and shining in the faint light. Gale blinks again, slower than should be natural, and tries to focus on the man’s hand.

“... four?”

Gale’s voice sounds ragged. His body seizes up in a dreadful cough. Wetness stains his lips in its aftermath.

Even with Gale’s vision being as terrible as it is, he can make out how wide Astarion’s eyes are. If only because the red vanishes completely.

“Idiot,” Astarion hisses. “It was two, by the way, but that’s really not our biggest concern right now.”

And Astarion sounds so… tense. It’s unusual. He almost sounds as though he’s forcing the words out from where they have become stuck between his teeth. So unlike the typical Astarion that Gale has come to know over their scant few days of acquaintance. He never seems to be at a loss for words – even when he should be.

“What’s… wrong…?”

He hates how difficult it is to focus on the words long enough to form even such a simple question.

Astarion lets out a sharp huff of air, “You really have to ask? And here I thought you were considered some kind of prodigal genius.”

Gale’s sluggish brain can barely take in the words, processing them takes far too long. Thus, he loses the chance for a sharp comeback. Or a comeback of any kind. Some distant part of him can recall being pushed out of the worst of the explosion. True, his current state means that things are only marginally better, but he isn’t dead and so, he counts it as a positive. No need for the emergency protocol.

Even with his mind being supremely uncooperative – and his body even more so – Gale is able to blink slowly and manage what he hopes to be some semblance of a reassuring smile.

“Th… thank… you…”

“Don’t go thanking me yet,” Astarion says, voice oddly soft, almost tender. “You may regret it.”

Gale tries to shake his head, but it only makes his surroundings spin violently and his stomach churn. His vision begins fading rather rapidly, too.

He only manages a single word before unconsciousness claims him.

“... never…”

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Giant-Size X-Men 1 (May 1975)

Len Wein/Dave Cockrum

Here we...here we...here we fucking go!

This is the most important X-Men comic ever published: more important than the very first issue, even. This is also going to be a heinously long post, so strap in.

Notwithstanding the last, uh, six months of posts, this is where X-Men really starts, with it re-starting. In the mid-70s, the team had been without a book of their own for years but sporadic guest appearances had kept the characters present in the minds of readers: many of those guest appearances had been written by Len Wein, who in 1974 became editor-in-chief at Marvel and decided to revive the X-Men, but cautiously: he was going to put out a special large-format issue introducing a new team, and then follow it with further occasional large-format issues, maybe three or four times a year. He wrote the first issue, and got Dave Cockrum to draw it, creating a number of new mutants for the team's rebirth and introducing them all in a series of virtuoso sequences. I'm trying to resist the urge to just post this entire comic, but snippets will have to suffice.

Right away - this is page 1 - we see that the issue of prejudice and fear is back at the centre of the X-Men story, where it has always belonged. Not all the characters were totally new, though: one of the had been seeded a few months ago in Incredible Hulk, as we have seen.

Banshee, meanwhile - who, as we know, is canonically a country music freak - was also returning (slight sigh).

That's an interesting start - three characters and none of them Americans - but what about some non-white characters, huh?

So. The introduction and framing of the non-white, non-Western characters in this issue - and in this run of X-Men, to some extent - is obviously, shall we say, heavy-handed.

And yet, here they are - the characters exist, and I think it's important that they are drawn from all over the world: the comic is working hard to emphasise that and in doing so slips over and over into caricature in the interests of foregrounding diversity. It's not great - it's aged pretty terribly, in isolation - but with the knowledge of where these characters (particularly Storm) end up it's difficult to read any of this as actively bad, I think.

Certainly the clunkiest of these introductions is that of John Proudstar, the Apache, and it's surely no coincidence that...well, we'll get to that.

So, there they all are.

And here is someone you do recognise.

This is a long section of set-up, (re)introducing Cyclops and explainign where the others have gone: Jean, Bobby, Warren, Lorna and Alex have all gone missing on a mysterious island that seemed to house a super-powerful mutant (Beast, the X-Man we've seen most of during the hiatus, is now fully off doing his thing with the Avengers and is not involved).

There's so much going on here: we of course are all totally familiar now with the original X-Men, but some reader picking this up in 1975 very likely wouldn't have been, so here they are crammed in and then immediately disposed off. Shout-out also to Cockrum's art here, of which we'll have much more to say as we go on, but it does a huge amount, packing in character designs, costumes, action and plot while still leaving room for effect and emotion that, at times, ism almost Neal Adams-like (here, as you can see, Cyclops was briefly depowered when escaping the island, though he gets them back).

Also, here's our next big theme: infighting, introduced when Sunfire quits and then re-joins the team in the space of a single page. This is both foreshadowing and a sign that this issue was maaaaybe trying to do a bit too much.

But fuck it, this issue is great. Can you imagine the sheer richness of picking this up on a newsstand as a kid. All these characters! All this lore! All this potential! And then we get to the action of the issue, as the team fights its way across Krakoa, which is a kind of pulp nightmare landscape.

Enjoy the drama, the design, the style of this whole page: the looming temple, the strange angles, the sinister greyness of the final panel. Everything here is at the top of its game.

And then the big - if slightly obvious - reveal that the mutant is the island itself. This art kicks ass, and in the meantime introduces another thematic strand in the whole nuclear testing/cold war/mutation angle.

The final action sequence is bersekly brilliant, full of ambitious layout choices and complex storytelling that pulls of the goal of showcasing all the various disaparate X-Men and getting them to work together.

Eventually the fire the entire island into space (??) and the issue finally runs out of room and ends.

So, yeah. This issue was so obviously great, and such a success, that plans changed, and instead of occasional big stories like this, X-Men was revived as a regular monthly book: or rather, because it was still being printed but only with re-runs of original era stories, it was revamped as a book with new stories, starting with issue 94.

That's where this read will go next - and, guided by my trusty reading guide, we'll go right through for about 50 issues with only occasional guest appearances in the meantime, returning us at last to the one long on-going soap opera that is X-Men at their peak. Can't wait!

[starbuckaroo]

ok in the spirit of not dumping a huge rant into the tags of someone else’s post I’m gonna actually make my own for once. Unfortunately or not, without the tag limit, this got really fucking long. And ended up being about more than just what that other post was talking about so.

from my pov the frustration with Eddie is in large part due to the nebulous (and frankly ridiculously long) time frame. 3 mos is better than 6 mos but the show hasn’t been clear about that and knowing Chris is there during the school year? And for how many months missing doctor appts and friends and whatnot? idk.

My biggest issue is that Eddie HAS a lot of other parent friends/coworkers/whatever and he has family in LA and Chris has a big support network in LA. For Eddie to let him go for more than a few weeks? To me?? That’s bonkers. especially given his age and the fact that as far as we know, Chris hasn’t been back to El Paso at all since they moved. (Now that’s a leap and it wouldn’t be surprising if they have made visits together but not canonical ones.)

So for him to go and stay for that long? Unprepared? Did Eddie change his will again? Write out new legal documents giving his parents temporary guardianship? those would be necessary for Chris to get medical care in another state (some insurance will allow ER visits but not PT or any routine care) and would be necessary to enroll him in school out there.

Which I’m sorry but if Eddie is serious about getting him back he would be back in therapy and reaching out to his support system for help. And I refuse to believe that chim and hen and Bobby and Buck and Pepa and Carla and a licensed therapist collectively forgot to give him good advice. idk.

The biggest problem I have with this storyline is that it fucking blows and this show was NEVER going to be able to handle it well. and showing Eddie getting through 8 episodes and 3 or 6 months without his kid and only having a handful of conversations about him and then deciding without talking to anyone that he will buy a house???? And move away?????????????? In order to try and talk to Chris again??? what the fuck happened to flying out for a few days when he’s off work?? What happened to bringing Chris back and getting him some sessions with his established therapist who he saw during the other seriously difficult moments in his life? What happened to “no Chris you can’t fly to Texas indefinitely with zero warning but you can go stay with Pepa for a week and then we can talk about you visiting your grandparents after that”

and frankly it’s out of character for Buck as well, in my personal opinion but I agree that the text of s6 did distance him a lot more from making parenting choices (though my blood pressure is gonna shoot through the roof if I think too hard about all the ways s6 did the characters dirty wrt their character arcs/growth as pertaining to parents and parenting).

anyways. I’m not actually criticizing Eddie exactly, I just think the writing for this storyline fucking blows, and regardless of the actor’s lack of availability, there were 100 better ways to tell a story about Eddie and Chris that involved Chris not being onscreen for half a season that didn’t fucking obliterate their relationship and write Eddie (and tbh the rest of the team) heinously out of character. By which I mean “incongruently with previous major character traits as expressed within the text of the show itself” and trying my best to steer clear of fanon. Tho I’m likely failing at that. But an attempt is being made.

I’m also coming from a standpoint of someone actively living through some fairly serious family trauma not wholly dissimilar to this storyline and yeah it’s got me way too heated up about it. It’s very different in a lot of important ways but my teenage brother experienced some trauma at home and didn’t get the support he needed (bc our mom didn’t have the support SHE needed in order to support him). He also doesn’t have anywhere else to go (coz his dad refuses to take him), so in that way it’s not comparable, but tbqh if my horrible abusive grandparents had offered to take him I would have argued against it!!!! Even if he wanted to!! And I’ve spoken with a half dozen mental health professionals about my situation with my brother in the last 2 years and none of them have ever suggested that completely removing him from everything familiar (including his school and friends and other family members) would in any way help the situation.

but whatever. In my opinion it’s first and foremost a failing of the writing, but from a watsonian standpoint, yes, I do not think Eddie has done enough. But also his friends have also fucking failed. Unless the answer is that he’s lied to all of them about what happened with Chris, in which case there we are again back at it being Eddie’s problem. Which really sucks for him, like I’m not unsympathetic here, but if the options are “humiliate yourself in front of your friends and therapist to get good advice and support for how to bring your child back home” or “downplay what’s going on to everyone around you and wait for your teenaged child to stop being stubborn and ask to reconcile and come home” GUESS WHAT THE RIGHT ANSWER IS.

now I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the awful emotional saw trap Eddie is in that’s led to him making these poor decisions, bc he’s always predisposed to thinking he’s a bad parent and making the wrong choices, ESPECIALLY when faced with his own parents being in the mix, and the situation that upset Chris DID happen bc of a bad choice he made (tho again arguably seeing Kim was another narrative trap he would really have struggled to get out of any more gracefully than he did). And he already struggles with self worth issues and blaming himself for everything etc. but that’s why 8A has been such a bummer bc imho Eddie should have been a fucking wreck this whole time a la the beginning of 5B!!! He should be facing down the worst psychological torment of his adult life, and for some reason feeling so bad and gross about it that he’s refused to even tell anyone that anything is wrong or ask for help! But I’m sorry that should be pretty obvious to his friends who know him well by now!!!

ITS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ENSEMBLE FOUND FAMILY SHOW. I even used to swallow my disgust and just look away from the copaganda shit bc it was such solid chosen family storytelling!! And it just fucking isn’t, anymore, which is why this storyline sucks so bad. Whatever. The show has been leaning this gross ass direction since s6 and I got caught up in the bi buck enthusiasm but truly even if buddie went canon in the next episode I will never forgive this show or be able to actually love it again, not after this. Yes I got into the show right away bc I loved Buck from s1e1, but I fell in love with the show as soon as Chris was introduced. Eddie and Christopher’s relationship (and later on them w Buck as well) was the main reason I fell for this show. (That and the grant-nash dynamic before s5). Single parent of a disabled kid, learning to build their own chosen family??? Hey, that’s MY family story! Of course I loved seeing it on tv. But they broke it with the bullshit about forgiving the parents so the children could have grandparents in s6 and then obliterated it with 7.10. I could have forgiven them the grandparent shit if they hadn’t fucked with Christopher and Eddie.

[cthoniian]

moving hadn’t been nearly as terrifying as he’d expected. breaking up with sarah had been, shockingly easy in the end. living without flannery o’connor was difficult. but existing without poppy wright incandescently lighting his life? nearly unbearable.

maybe it was this that had led to the move to new york. oh who could he kid. they hadn’t spoken in over eighteen months. two summers had passed since croatia. but still. he’d packed up his life ( which was shockingly pathetic it all fit in his car ), and moved to new york. he was teaching. and selling his short stories on the side.

it wasn’t perfect. he hated the amount of incessant noise. he was often over stimulated by the number of scents assaulting him. his apartment was heinously expensive that he rented by the month. and most of all, he somehow, never happened to just… bump into poppy.

which, one of the worlds largest cities, it shouldn’t be a surprise. it should simply be a fact. one person in a city of people was impossible to bump into. but fate has always seemed to draw them together. but he’s sworn off waiting to bump into the woman he’s been in love with for over a decade. instead, he joins tinder.

it is, to no one’s shock, a personal hell for him. there’s a carefully crafted profile. sure to answer all of anyones question. and a photo of him and a few friends before he’d left linfield. one of the few photos where he isn’t making some egregious face. that profile has sat for weeks now. he never gets matches, and he swipes negatively for almost every girl he sees.

until. a friday night where for once his work is graded and completed, where no words ache to get out of his head and on paper, where he’s sitting there sipping a cheap beer while rereading one of his favourite books. where he takes a break an decides to idly flip through tinder again.

this time. he does swipe right.

or should he say — wright.

it’s her. somehow. on this forsaken app, in this forsaken city, he did find her. but then as soon as he’s swiped he’s second guessing himself. the phones set aside, the pacing begins. short laps easily eaten up by long legs. he grabs his phone, finger hovering over her contact. he just has to, apologise. say surprise. act nonchalant.

but alex nilsen is none of those things. he is wholly and completely possessed by her. and instead of texting, he spends the rest of the evening reading her profile and flipping through her photos. somehow she’s even more beautiful than he remembered. somehow she’s funnier too.

and at last his heart has returned to a normal pace. until an unfamiliar sound is summoned from his phone.

you’ve got a match!

alex and poppy // @sparelove

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

From the ask game if you want to play!

☁️ Where does your username come from?

🍓 How did you get into writing fanfiction?

🧩 What makes you immediately click away from a fic as a reader?

Hmm. Let me take the 3rd, which I don’t think I’ve ever talked about before…

It turns out to be really difficult for me to come up with a hard and fast rule for this (setting aside the obvious of stuff that’s bigoted or exploitative). For each other story choice I can think of that I usually really dislike, I can also think of a time when I saw a fic that did the hated thing in a way that I ended up liking somehow or at least found interesting enough that I’m glad I read it.

That being said, I’m not actively seeking out fics that are graphically violent, tagged dead dove, make my most beloved characters behave in heinously awful ways (Éomer the abusive husband, for example) or give unearned redemption to characters I hate (Éowyn CHOOSES Gríma because “he’s different now”???). And if I found myself reading any of those (which I have, when they’ve been written or recommended by someone I trust), the story would have to make a pretty quick and compelling case for the narrative necessity of the thing I dislike as well as offer excellent writing, thought provoking characterizations, etc., or I would definitely bail.

I’d be interested to hear if others have very firm, clear yes/no rules on fics. I’m not sure if I’m an outlier here or not.

[inflammatory]

( @deactivated1987 ) LOL it’s time for my eternal sunshine treatise. I think the premise made me expect way too much of it cause it sounded up my alley - memory stuff, unconventional structure, the whole brainscape thing, and most importantly I’m really into messy breakup plotlines. but i feel like a lot of the potential was squandered

Main offenders imo were the script and the score, i hate to use the word “cringe” because I’m tryna be credible here but to me it was. You could write it off as the awkwardness of navigating relationships, but I think with the heinousness of the first few scenes of them and the non-linear progression it set for me a weak foundation for the skip to them broken up and her memories erased. Kate winslet said “I apply my personality in paste” and i went naoooouuuuuurr noooaaaaoooo this cant be happening. I get that for most people it seems to work though judging from the 4.2 on letterboxd. However i get secondhand embarrassment really easily and cant deal with persistent awkwardness

I also feel like the emotional core of the movie hinges on the chemistry of the relationship and i couldnt see a single thing either of them might like about each other. He’s a white man with a journal and she’s a girl who dyes her hair, ok. Script comes into play again - with relationship dramas I attest that it all depends on how your leads talk to each other - just straight up talk yknow. Both Winslet and Jim Carrey were quite definitely cast against type and in my opinion it shows because the line delivery rarely hits smoothly. Here it’s difficult to skilfully portray a relationship breaking down if your justification for them being together in the first place is poor - breakups hurt because of love, and most of that is done through scenes of them lying together on the frozen river (pretty scene, I liked it at least), being physically intimate, and, again, the weird timeline conversations that I loathed. So i wasn’t sold on their connection beyond the surface level. Felt like when my friends have boyfriends who are bordering on invertebrate organisms

With a connection that’s weak I think the punch of the argument scenes falls short. And there are so many of them, so to me they just fall out of the sky like birds. And that’s crazy of me to say because arguments are probably in my top 3 best things in the whole world. I feel the autobiographical nature of the male lead keenly in his regular just some guy eyes. His contributions to the supposedly vicious arguments are mediocre. Because I think the movie leans towards the vilification of the lady. Where she’s the unreasonable one, claiming she’d be a great mother and everything when she’s like deeply fucked in the head et cetera. I support the sentiment of manic pixie dream girls asserting their personhood and autonomy (but i also prefer my off putting women with swag and self awareness). Overall I don’t think she’s well written per se, but she’s definitely the most written out of everyone else there. If pressed i can respect that they made her thoroughly unlikeable on purpose and leave it at that. It’s still a paean to the age old story lick that goes “this pretty and interesting young woman approaches you, yes, you, ordinary man, and is interested in you, you, journal writing white man who is a vehicle for the man writing the journal of this story, and your breakup will be 90% her impulsive fault and not yours”.

Bits of the movie that are also meant to be comedic i think? Really didn’t work for me either. When the medical staff were partying in his house I was too deeply scandalised to suspend my disbelief. When he was his toddler self under the table I had to politely avert my eyes. The score exacerbated all of this

Before this movie I didn’t have a rating system because i felt bad rating movies and the reason I have one now is because I wanted to rate eternal sunshine 1 star. In all fairness the 1/2 star is because i realised i could make it even lower and did so out of the rage of freshly finishing it. Retrospect I’d maybe add a star for the scene where he lifts the pillow up from smothering her and she’s disappeared. But i won’t because i think my vendetta is set in stone by now

[llatimeria]

So, basically, for much of Tetris's history, people believed level 29 was the "last" level of Tetris, as the speed of the blocks would get so high that no human could do anything but lose; the blocks would go so fast that human hands physically could not control them. However, Tetris does not get any faster beyond that point, so if you're capable of playing level 29, you're capable of playing hypothetically infinitely.

Except Tetris, the original version for the NES, is not a hypothetical. It's a physical object, an item you can touch and hold, and it has limits. Many classic arcade-style video games have honest-to-god killscreens, where the game breaks so badly that it becomes completely unplayable. Pac-Man, famously, has a killscreen that garbles half of the playing field and doesn't spawn enough dots for the level to ever end. Tetris was assumed to be no exception, but because of the presumed-impossible difficulty of level 29, the community considered that to be Tetris's killscreen, and all high-leveled Tetris play centered around level 29 being the absolute end of your run, no matter what.

But, and if you've heard literally anything about people getting insanely good at retro games, you'll know what comes next. Of course, someone figures out how to control the game past level 29. In 2011, Thor Aackerlund discovered a technique now known as "hypertapping" (which is exactly what it sounds like, tapping very very fast) - and became the first person to play level 30.

But hypertapping wasn't enough. It was still stupidly difficult to get to, let alone past, level 30. Then this guy named Cheez shows up and finds that using an even more absurd technique, called "Rolling", which was even faster than hypertapping. People weren't just hitting level 30, but then 40, then 50, and then all the way into the 90s. Since all post-29 levels have the exact same speed, once they mastered rolling, they were pretty much good to play forever.

With levels 29+ conquered, now players could face the real killscreen of Tetris. A Tetris-playing AI got the first crash, but since it was playing a very slightly modified version (to show a larger score number, because the vanilla score counter didn't have enough digits), it only kinda-sorted counted. So the community picked apart the game's code to find where the game could hypothetically crash while completely unmodified - and found the current human record was not that far off.

So the entire community fucking scrambles to be the first person to crash Tetris, but then were confounded by another technically-not-game-ending-but-still-pretty-much-impossible-for-a-human bug; after level 138, the game stops choosing the colors for the blocks from where it's supposed to, leading it to display some truly heinously color palettes. Most of them are just ugly, but a few make the blocks you're placing next to invisible. (This was actually known about before the AI even crashed the game, and part of the reason the AI could get so much further than humans; it didn't need to visually see the blocks.)

Just next to invisible, though. You could still sorta see most of the blocks, and when you pass the level, the game pulls a new color palette, so if you can tough it out long enough to get 10 lines, you're probably gonna be able to continue your game for a while after that. It's annoying as hell, but not impossible. So, of course, the runners start getting past them and brushing up against the crashable levels.

And by runners, I mostly mean a 13 year old boy who goes by the online handle Blue Scuti. He'd skyrocketed into fame in the Tetris community relatively recently by achieving scores and levels that most adults couldn't even dream of, so of course he was among the first people to get past both impossible-palette levels, and he was able to keep going.

The game doesn't always crash in one specific spot, though. It just starts having a chance to crash after a certain point. You might have to perform some specific actions in specific windows of time to get it to crash on purpose, and it's much more likely that you'll lose control and lose your run before you achieve that goal.

Blue Scuti missed the first crash opportunity in his run. He was the first person to get that far at all, so it'd be a record regardless, but he was determined to win. He somehow keeps his cool, despite being a literal child with thousands of eyes on him (this was streamed on Twitch, of course), and never loses control of his stack, all the way until he reaches the next crash opportunity all the way on level 157.

And he fucking does it. He gets a single line clear in the middle of level 157 and the game just stops. It completely crashed. A 13 year old boy nicknamed Blue Scuti is the first human being in history to crash Tetris in this way. He is the first person ever to see Tetris's real killscreen. This game is over twice his age, and he is the first to kill it dead.

This kid fucking rules.

(if you want more detail, I learned basically all of the above from this video by aGameScout, please watch it!!)

So apparently the pro-Tetris scene is exploding right now because a 13 year old nerd just reached the game's true killscreen for the first time ever

[tojisun]

how we break (pt.02)

[pt.01], [pt.03]

toji x fem reader

word count: 3.5k

tag list: @fiona782 @witchymermaid12 @naoyailoveu @tokyodarlng

you do not remember much of the fallout. 

you do not even recall clambering about at your friend’s house, heinously wiping at the tears, telling them what happened within choked words. you do not remember much, just the sight of toji’s back moving further from you and growing smaller as he leaves.

you cry the moment you wake up.

it almost feels surreal that the thing you have with toji is over. there were times that you thought it was inevitable, but sometimes you remember the way he holds you—tight and sure, and grounding in a way that silenced all your fears—and think that toji would never leave you. 

maybe if she did not return, he wouldn’t have. toji liked you, that at least you knew, it’s just that he loved her.

he loved her in the way that you weren’t, and it breaks you. 

it shatters you into pieces; feeble fingers desperately grasping at the scattered remains of your heart, trying to save yourself from more pain. but it is futile. you weep at his abandonment. 

you keep feeling the emptiness pawing at your chest, never truly knowing how to be whole again. you gave what you are to toji, and now you have to rebuild who you are in his absence; to leave behind the person you used to be. 

it was difficult. you thought it would be easy since toji surely made it look like so, and yet here you are, unable to leave behind the part of you that yearns for a love now unrequited. you shape yourself around what has been, distracting yourself from the pain, and stepping over the cracks to patch yourself anew as though it would help.

it does not.

it takes so much of you to move on – not like you were able to; you just rather fill up your mind with things unrelated to toji.

you try looking for a new place to move into because you do not know how to live in your old apartment again when it is filled with memories of you and toji, and your little pretense of a family with megumi.

you do not know how to live without toji, you learn, you do not know how to fall out of love.

your friend helps you at finding a new place, and yet nothing ever feels right. one night when you both exhausted yourselves from browsing, they turned to you and asked where you want to ideally move.

you tell them that you want to move far away where nothing has been touched by memories with toji and megumi. 

where the grocery store is not by the street corner (the one you and toji frequented at for groceries. sometimes you’d wander in different aisles and always felt giddy when toji always managed to find you, the frown that creased his face easing as a small smile sliced through the mask he usually adorned);

and the pachinko is not open on mondays (your and toji’s day offs. often you both visited the place and spent hours betting and giggling like drunkards when you guys win);

and the primary school is not three bus stops away (you remember picking megumi up from his school, hugging him the moment he runs to greet you, and urging him to say goodbye to his friends. his teachers do not know that you are not megumi’s mother and there are times that you wish to correct their assumptions because megumi is not yours to call, but then megumi shyly looks at you when he clings onto your hand, and you choose not to).

you want to move far away, but you also do not want to lose any more of them.

she can take toji and megumi back. she can rebuild her family with them again, truly it no longer matters—not like you had a choice—as long as you can keep the memories that once made you whole; as long as you have a reminder that you have been loved.

even if it was this much, it would have been enough.

but it isn’t, and it would never be.

you tell your friend this and you both do not mention the forlorn look in their eyes. they usher you to the room you’re currently in and bid you a gentle good night.

you both know that there is no sleep for you again.

you lay on the bed and pretend that you know how to save yourself; pretend that there is no pain within your cracked heart and that there are no tears pooling in the corners of your eyes.

they fall in silence.

just like you.

just like you.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

there is a missed call when you wake up.

it’s been two weeks since the fallout and numbness has taken over the agony. you blink the sleepiness away, hands wiping at your foggy eyes, before an overwhelming coldness envelops you in whole.

you stare at the name, frozen, feeling a myriad of emotions flooding you like an angry current. and then, like a balloon popping, your heart is bleeding at the seams again.

you want to return the call, to hear his voice once again even if it’s through the phone. you want anything he has to offer. even if they are just misplaced shreds, you still want it. you want him.

it’s terrible how just because of a single missed call from toji, you are back to being young and stupid for him. back to yearning for his embrace and missing his voice and remembering every good thing about him; back to justifying all of his bad habits because of love.

you breathe in sharply, shaking hands dropping your phone as you try to collect yourself. it’s a struggle. every inch of you yearns for him, but the pit in your stomach is a reminder: he is no longer yours.

your phone lights up once again. you turn to it slowly, heart thudding within your chest in staccato. you are afraid to know what he sent, but a bone deep anticipation curses you.

you pick up your phone and read the message. and then reread it once more.

and again.

and again.

and again.

you reread it until the words are seared deep into your mind as though this was the salvation you’ve been looking for. you know it is not.

and yet it does not stop your pining heart.

[from: toji-san

we need to talk.]

you pretend that your heart is not soaring once again; pretend that it is not readying its own descent in a hopeless and fruitless love.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

you meet them by the breakfast diner that you frequented at before heading to your work. it's the same one that megumi is so fond of, the boy always silently vibrating in joy whenever you bring him there for breakfast before his school.

a rush of memories floods you like a raging storm: you remember having to wipe pancake syrup from megumi's chin, the boy unconsciously becoming a messy eater despite the care he puts in chewing. you remember toji’s little crooked smile when tasting the waffles that you ordered for him. you remember the jealousy that clawed at you when some of the workers flirted with him, trying their best to steal him from you.

(it never worked because it was not them who would take him from you; they were not the ones that toji would choose over you.)

you reign in your emotions, swallowing the lump in your throat and blinking the stinging behind your eyes, willing the unshed tears to disappear. you are not naïve enough to think that this meet-up is for a rekindling of your relationship. you know it is not.

toji will never come back to you because you remember the way he looked at her and the way he left you for her. you remember seeing the gentleness of his touch, big hands—ones that you miss dearly—cupping her jaw as though she is made of glass, before engulfing her in an embrace, one that must have been so warm and tight and loving. you remember the rejection which is why you know. you know that he is not coming back because he doesn't want to.

very well, you tell yourself, i will move on too.

you enter the diner and it is so laughable how your eyes easily found him. 

he looked just like you remember: beautiful. he is so breathtaking that you had forgotten why you two were meeting up. the telltale of a smile graces your lips, gentle and warm, before the façade is broken when he meets your eyes. 

the eyes that you love dearly are empty of any emotions; there is no sense of nostalgia at seeing you or even an inkling feeling of remorse at your hollowed state. there is not even an awkward strain in his eyes that shows the signs of his distaste with the situation.

there is only indifference. and that, for some reason, hurts more.

you want to leave. you want to just turn around and hightail from the diner, and never cross paths with him again. sure, you want to know why he wanted to talk to you, but a part of you also thinks that he does not deserve to explain himself. you do not owe him this.

and you are right—you don’t.

then you see megumi. 

you see megumi and the fight that had simmered in your veins leave. the anger and the hurt and the bubbling feeling of unfairness that you felt at seeing toji is replaced with nothing but a stuttering silence.

megumi looks at you shyly as though he no longer remembers how to be with you and you are crushed.

you do not resent him, oh gods you never would, but could anyone blame your heart for breaking? 

it’s there, standing by the doors of the tiny diner, that you finally realize that there was never a space for you.

not beside megumi, and not with toji.

a stuttered breath escapes you. it almost sounded like a cry.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

toji watches as you walk to their table with an emotion simmering within his chest that he cannot describe.

there is something new in your gait—your heartache so prominent that toji almost wants to look away. it’s like watching the strongest woman he knows feasibly trying not to shatter right before his eyes, and toji doesn’t know why there’s a spike of something in him that just wants to-

leave.

he’s always been good at running away; leaving when things get too complicated and feelings get too tangled up. toji thinks maybe he should have just left without meeting you for one last time. 

he’s moved on. when she came back, they have been steadily rebuilding their lives together. they have talked about so much of their present, often bypassing the past as to not unearth memories of (them. you. you. you.) their separation. in this new phase of toji’s life, there is no more space for you.

toji’s not really the best lover, that at least he knew. he flitted from one relationship to another because he does not know how to exist without being loved. he remembers feeling that he lucked out when meeting you.

you loved toji in the way he never was.

sometimes it scared him. sometimes he’d feel the warmth of your love, always giving without asking for an inkling affection from him in return, and thought you were so foolish for trapping yourself with a man like him.

(don’t you know? i am the man your mother warned you about.)

and yet, as he looks back—one that he does so often these days—he realizes that your love made him-

well-

it made a better man out of him.

as you sit in front of him, he thinks that maybe he should have loved you as fervently. but guilt and remorse aren’t toji’s strongest suits so he dismisses the emotions in favour of studying you.

you look miserable—his absence weighing down on you in measures he would never understand. you look like the weight of the world is dumped on your shoulders and you are trying your best not to buckle and break. the healthy glow of your skin has faded and toji realizes that he’s seeing what is left of the person he used to love.

gone were your sparkling eyes and bright smile and tender laughter. gone was your soft voice and the rosy blush high on your cheeks. there is no more warmth emitting from you when before, you were the personification of the sun tucked by his side. you are a ghost-

and he is the one who killed you.

are you here to haunt me? toji thinks.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

silence greets you when you sit down. megumi is fiddling with the paper wrapper of his straw, body tensed beside toji. he’s always been a smart kid, so no wonder that he knows something is wrong with the situation. 

“how are you?” you ask, eyes trained at the boy than at his father. you feel toji’s eyes bore onto you and you try not to tremble at the attention.

since when was toji’s presence associated with fear? you do not remember anymore.

megumi peeks up at his father as though asking for permission. you do not know what he sees, but megumi turns to you and sends a shy smile your way. 

“i’m doing okay,” he replies, voice quiet as though he does not want to break the tense silence. 

you smile back at him. you know it is not as bright and you feel your chapped lips sting at the action, but megumi’s shoulders relax and that is enough.

“that’s good,” you say to him because it is. she is good to them both, who are you to covet that?

a waitress arrives and asks for your order. you say the usual, smiling when she nods and walks away. there is silence again, but this time it is less overwhelming and more hesitant.

toji refuses to open the conversation, so you do it for him.

“how are you, toji-san?”

your voice is quiet and your eyes do not meet him. any other day, you would call this cowardice. but not today. today this is protection—you do not wish to hurt all over again.

he grunts but he does not answer. you do not probe anymore, simply nodding and waiting to pass time.

the diner fills up with more people as you wait for your order. a family sat three tables from yours are talking in loud voices. a couple sits by the windows, hands intertwined on top of the table. a woman is furiously typing away on her laptop beside them, half of her face buried on the fluff of her scarf.

the diner is full of life and even for just a bit, it distracts you.

the sound of paper sliding on wooden table catches your attention. you zone back in, eyes focusing on the envelope toji’s pushed towards you.

you know what is in it. rage simmers from within your chest, almost suffocating in the way it bubbles and fills you up.

you turn to him, body pulled taut. “no,” you say, voice firm.

how dare he. how dare he.

“toji-san,” you utter, voice trailing off when the waitress comes back with your food. she nods at you and sends a heated look at toji. toji responds with a small smirk of his own and something like a knife drives itself to your heart. she giggles as she walks away. 

“he’s playing with you,” you imagined telling her, “he will make you fall in love with him. then he will leave when he’s got his fill.”

when toji turns to you, the smirk is still on his face and a visceral ache overtakes you. you want to hurt him the same way he’s hurt you. you want him to hurt; to cry for days and scratch at his aching heart. you want him to miss you. 

he rolls his eyes at what he saw in yours, leaning back onto his chair. “just take it,” he says, voice gruff. 

“no.”

“stop being difficult. take the payment-”

“i didn’t love you to be repaid, fushiguro-san.” 

he starts at the sound of his wife’s surname, body instantly tensing. he glares at you as though you have desecrated his lover. he parts his lips, but you do not give him the chance to talk.

“i loved you for what little love you gave to me. i loved you as lovers do, fushiguro-san. i loved our family.”

toji sighs and for a moment, it is like you are seeing the toji you remember. this is the man who you knew loved you. the one whose eyes look older than they really are, and whose hands tremble when he thinks you are looking away. the one who called for your name when his nightmares got too much, and the one who promised you that you have nothing to worry about when finally meeting his son. this is the man who looked at you with kindness and compassion; the one who pressed i love you’s at your lips.

he calls your name and you turn back to him. you feel your lips quiver as tears blur your eyes. you miss the man he was.

“take it,” he says, voice quiet, “take it and we will leave this as it is.”

“fushiguro-san-”

“doll, it doesn’t mean like the way you think it is, okay? it’s– fuck– i’m sorry.” your breath hitches at his apology. “i’m sorry for wasting your time when you could’ve found someone better than me. i’m sorry for all the things i—we—burdened you with. i’m just,” he pauses, throat bobbing as though this is new to him, “i’m happy now. happier. you should be too. be happier, i mean.”

your tongue feels heavy inside your mouth, and there is a lump in your throat that burns. “i didn’t waste my time with you,” you mutter, “you two were not a burden. i loved us, toji-san. and love is not unkind.”

he nods. “i know,” he replies.

“because of her?” a part of you wants to ask, but you see megumi sniffling from beside toji, trying to hide his weeping eyes behind his hands, and you do not wish to make it a competition. not for megumi. not for youself.

you lean forward and slide the envelope back to him. “thank you,” you say, “but i still won’t accept this. i didn’t love you and megumi to be repaid. please, allow our past to stay untouched.”

please let me remember it kindly.

the air around him shifts and you know he acquiesced.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

he lets megumi crawl beside you. it might be the last time they’d see you and toji wants megumi to remember you for as long as he could.

you wipe at megumi’s tears and press him softly to you, hugging his shaking body as you whisper comforting promises to his ears. the familiarity of taking care of his son bleeds out from you, and toji thinks—and he would not admit this to anyone—how motherhood looks good on you. 

toji tries imagining you married with a faceless man standing tall behind you and a child cradled in your arms. toji imagines the way the man would embrace you from behind, tucking you to his chest as you both gaze at the sleeping bundle you hold. toji imagines many things about your family: the sleepless nights that would be worth it, the lullabies that would spill from your lips, the way your husband would always be beside you through everything.

a tinge of jealousy courses through him, and toji’s never hated himself more.

he turns back to you and megumi, watching in silence. you are feeding the boy your food, occasionally wiping at his chubby cheeks as megumi continues to sniffle.

toji wonders how long it’ll take for you to move on and find someone new. someone who would love you more than he ever did. someone who would want to marry you.

an overpowering aura, one that toji remembers clearly, sends the hairs on his nape rising. he turns, body rigid, trying to find where the bastard is. 

late. too late. 

“yo, long time no see,” gojo satoru greets, fake smile and all. flanking the heir of the gojou’s is a boy no taller than toji himself whose black hair is gathered in a bun and a girl with a sharp look sucking on a lollipop, all three bearing the familiar jujutsu high uniform.

from the corner of his eyes, toji sees you turning to look at them, one hand still embraced around megumi. gojo’s heir bastard shifts his gaze to you and something flashed within his annoying bright eyes.

“oh,” satoru whispers. 

no, toji thinks, not her-

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

“satoru, what was that?” 

silence.

“satoru?”

a heartbeat. and then, “nothing, suguru! nothing at all!”

[astoldbygingersnaps]

HARPER’S 2022 FIC WRAP-UP

WELL GANG, WHAT A YEAR IT HAS BEEN!

first off, i know i’ve fallen off A Lot on tumblr in the last year, so my deepest and most sincere apologies for that. 2022 was a chaotic, frustrating, and overall deeply transformative year (for both better and worse) for me, and with all the changes/struggles in my professional and personal life it’s been difficult to maintain a decent posting schedule along with like. continuing to talk to people and function as a human being lmfao.

alas, another year has come to an end, and though i considered not doing my annual wrap-up, it’s become something of a tradition for me at this point, so fuck it, we ball.

without further ado, let’s talk fanfic:

projects i updated/completed in 2022:

oceans between us (shiita; 38,737 words; complete)

it’s a testament to how heinously long and strange this year was that when i sat down to draft up this wrap-up i genuinely fucking forgot i finished this fic in 2022. wild!

like a lot of fics i write (or want to write, and then do not) this fic was born from an attachment to a particular image or idea that inspired inspiration and then i had to pull a whole plot out of my ass to justify its existence. this was very much the case with the first chapter of ‘oceans between us’ aka atonement au, where the spirit of doomed historical romances and period-typical repression and sexual tension possessed me like a ghost and caused me to cough up the first chapter of that fic in like two days. i also wanted to write something that was very different than the typical character interactions and tone that existed in my previous works, and even looking back on it now i still think it’s a really unique and interesting addition to the works i’ve published thus far.

like i’ve said before, originally this was going to be a oneshot that ended where the first chapter does, i.e. with shisui going to jail and the relationship between him and itachi purposefully left without resolution. but that idea reeeeally much did not go over well when i discussed it with other people (aka my wife), which left me with the very real problem of how to conclude this goddamn fic. and that’s where itachi came in.

hilariously, i feel like this fic ushered in an unofficial (and accidental) era of itachi pov takeover where nearly everythng i wrote last year (and definitely everything i published in 2022) was in itachi’s pov exclusively. that said, after the events at the end of the last chapter, it felt necessary to have itachi tell the final chapter because i knew i needed to have a good explanation for his lack of action at the conclusion of chapter one and i also needed to get people back on his side for the end of the fic to land successfully.

in terms of structure, the switching of tenses and time periods was both incredibly fun and incredibly annoying in terms of editing and consistently, but i do feel like it added an immediacy and level of fear to the fic that enhanced the reading. if you’ve read the original book, you know that the characters itachi and shisui are (loosely) based on (cecilia and robbie) both die and never have their happy ending in real life, only in fiction. so i wanted the reader to feel real concern that these two crazy kids might not make it after all.

overall, i ended up being really, really happy with how this fic turned out, and some of my favorite scenes i’ve ever written (namely, the reunion scene between shisui and itachi in the cafe) are in this story. more than anything, it was just nice to start the year by finishing something.

lazarus taxon (shiita; 38,256 words; in progress)

quite frankly, this fic was the bane of my existence in 2022 for a variety of reasons.

first off, this chapter was an absolute Nightmare to write. as many of you may remember, initially i had planned jurassic world au as a three-part fic, whereas now it is... not quite that anymore. having written and published the first two chapters within a pretty short timespan, when i sat down to seriously work on (what i thought was) the final chapter, it rapidly became clear that there was no way to successfully wrap this shit up in one more installment. and as i was writing, it was pretty obvious that i was rushing from plot point to plot point trying to get the fic finished rather than taking the time to make it a story i was proud of and would want to re-read. once i realized that, it became a guessing game of what i was missing, and once i thought about it, the answer was obvious: conflict.

(we will have this discussion again next year when i tell the tale of how, in january 2023, i ended up scrapping almost the entire (actual) last chapter of this fic because i had to learn this lesson all over again.)

narratively speaking, blue’s injury served a few important purposes. first off, it’s a chance to see shisui--who’s been something of a handsome and charming enigma--soften up and appear a lot less composed and in control than he’s previously been. that vulnerability was necessary if he and itachi were going to push their relationship to another level, and also necessary to motivate itachi to take a real, genuine stand against fugaku and all his fugaku-ery. (it was also, admittedly, a chance for me to continue to play in the sandbox i’ve created where i get to use a lot of my real world knowledge and skills--namely, animal behavior and veterinary medicine, the two things i do for a living.)

once i unlocked that piece of the puzzle, everything started to fall into place, and then i knew that i would need an entire chapter to devote to itachi and shisui as a couple--what their relationship would look like, how dating would change them, and if, given the differences between them, it was possible to even sustain a relationship in the first place. which is why i ended on the confession scene, so everything that came after would be something of a blank slate and the finale could just be the--pun intended--evolution of their bond.

all that said, by the time i was finished with this chapter i had spent so much time, effort, and energy trying to wrangle it into something readable i was kind of drained by it, and that fact along with the knowledge that it’s never been my most popular fic (and that the reception to this update was a little quiet) left me burnt out by fanfic for a bit. it also didn’t help that, as i’ve previously discussed, this was around the time my entire life was uprooted by losing my job so there were just. a lot of factors working against me that really zapped my inspiration. if only another project could have come along and truly inspired me...

pack up (don’t stray) (shiita; 63,923 words; completed)

hilariously, i had way more Profound and Meaningful shit to say about this fic, but tumblr ate a chunk of my post when i was trying to save it and i’m too annoyed at this stupid website to try and recreate all of my previous comments in depth. 

what i will say is that, if there’s any fic that stands a chance of surpassing star trek au as the fic i’m most known for, i’m really, really happy it’s this one. i love this fic from beginning to end, i think it’s one of the strongest pieces i’ve published, and i’m honored that other people have become as invested in the sad, weird little world as i am. honestly, it’s been so touching to see how many people have connected with this story and how it’s gone from a piece i mentioned in my 2021 wrap-up as really loving but being kind of sad about the lack of traction to a fic that developed a really dedicated reader-base who provided some of the best comments and feedback i’ve ever gotten. and since the two updates were so different from one another (and the final chapter is so, so long) it only feels appropriate to give them each their own sections.

chapter two:

to be blunt, there’s a really good chance that the second chapter of band au is my favorite thing i’ve ever written, full stop. part of the reason i think i have such fondness for this chapter (besides the fact that that i accomplished all my goals for this section of the story with this chapter and i feel like the writing itself is pretty good) is the fact that i wrote almost all of it in the span of about six or eight hours like a madman. in doing so, it was really easy to stay focused, maintain a tight grip on the pacing and narrative, and let everything flow from there.

like i said in my 2021 wrap-up, part of the appeal of this story was to push itachi and shisui to the brink of likability and test how many crappy things they could do to one another while people still had empathy for them (the answer turned out to be: a lot!) i think part of why so many people have reached out to tell me that this fic affected them so much is because, in some ways, all the pain and misery is just so mundane. there’s no spaceships or magic ninjas or genetically-modified dinosaurs; it’s just two people breaking each other’s hearts, over and over again, the same terrible shit that happens every day and there’s something really relatable about that. (for more on this point, see my answer to this ask.)

(speaking of relatability--as someone who has struggled with substance abuse for the entirely of their adult life and is always working on their sobriety, the prospect of dipping into that well was incredibly daunting, and i’m happy that it felt authentic to people who were reading.)

i don’t want to gush over my own writing because that seems tacky, but man oh man. there’s just so many things about this chapter i love and i’m just so happy other people felt the same way. anyway, time for the finale!

chapter three:

in some ways, the final chapter of band au was one of the pieces i was most nervous to write. after spending two chapters taking a wrecking ball to the shiita relationship in this fic, the prospect of piecing it back together in a fashion that felt genuine and respectful of the trauma they both experienced seemed kind of impossible.

like most of my projects, i knew from the beginning what the end of this fic was going to be. i actually knew the ending to band au better than most of my other stories, because before i even finished chapter one i knew the last chapter would end with the airport scene and i knew the specific lines of dialogue that would conclude the fic itself. the problem was how to justify even the possibility of shisui and itachi considering getting back together after everything they did to one another in the last chapter.

the first step seemed to be presenting how much they’d grown (itachi is sober, shisui got married--and divorced!-- and had a kid, both of their careers had progressed in different directions, etc.) to show that perhaps they were evolving to a point where they could learn to be in each other’s lives again. i really enjoyed re-imagining this characters as, in theory, older and wiser and adding in newer characters and original details to flesh out the lives they had created when they were apart from one another. honestly, my heart is so soft for both millie and heather, and i’m genuinely so happy that my ocs--always a dicey prospect in fic--got such a warm reception. i also really loved getting to show the band as a functioning, familial unit and all the different relationships that existed amongst the four of them. and how can i not love mean little sasuke with his suburban chickens and burning hatred for shisui. 

the second step, as it often seems to be for me, was making peace with the fact that this chapter was going to have to be approximately eight hundred thousand years long if i wanted to stick the landing. if i was going to trace itachi’s journey from suspicion and lingering mistrust, to warily allying himself with shisui, to realizing he actually enjoys being around shisui again, to realizing how much he still misses and loves shisui, to taking a risk and giving shisui a second chance despite literally every reason not to do so, i was going to have to take my time and earn that decision. even though writing this one chapter ate up the majority of my writing time this year, i’m really happy with the length of this chapter and the different locations and events it followed, because i feel like it gave the story a lived-in quality that was necessary given how over-the-top the second chapter was.

on the other end of making this reunion functional and believable, inevitably this chapter also had to be the shisui redemption tour. i’ve made it clear in the past that, as shitty as his behavior was post-break-up, i don’t think he’s entirely responsible for the nuclear end to he and itachi’s relationship. that said, i knew it was going to take a lot to get both itachi and the reader back on board with Shisui and Itachi: The Sequel, which is why we get to see so much more of him than we did in previous chapters: rather than itachi quickly summarizing events or the narrative presenting small bits of dialogue, we actually to spend a lot more time with shisui the flesh and blood person now that he’s not the idealized or villainized version that lives in itachi’s head. and it wasn’t until he was a fully realized person again that there was any hope of him and itachi making things work, which... let’s talk about that ending.

i knew from the very beginning that i didn’t want to end this fic with shisui and itachi officially getting back together. considering all the shit they’d gone through, it didn’t seem realistic to have them suddenly live happily ever after. this was always a messy story about messy people and i didn’t want to give it an easy ending. i always wanted to end this story on the idea of a new beginning, of a better future, rather than a tidy resolution to this relationship, because it seemed so much more authentic to their journey and, to me, more meaningful. and, though i’ve had people tell me they wish i’d written a better ending, it’s a decision i still stand by 1000000000000% as the right choice. that and i’m writing a sequel oneshot as we speak so it’s not even really the ending anyways

i really could talk forever about this au. of all the fics i have, published and unpublished, it really does stand out as one that’s special and so very close to my heart, and i’ve spent so much time thinking about these washed up losers that i think i could keep returning to this ‘verse again and again for as long as i continue to write fanfic.

so, that’s it! it’s kind of hilarious i had so much to say given that i fell far below my own expectations for 2022 in terms of writing, but what can you do.

in the spirit of being a little more productive (and certainly a lot more positive), let’s set some goals for 2023:

i’m finishing the last chapter of jurassic world au even if it kills me

I AM ALSO FINISHING THE NEXT STAR TREK AU CHAPTER EVEN IF IT KILLS ME

after, like, three years of hibernation i actually dusted off my pacrim au and yep, you guessed it--i want to finish that sucker, too

finally, since i’m hoping to take two (2) fics off my plate, i’d like to finally get serious about publishing the first chapter of the shiita enemies to lovers vampires and werewolves au i’ve had in the works, which i’m very excited to share with everyone

if you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! if you’d like to find me elsewhere, i’m a lot more active on twitter, so feel free to stop by and say hello.

see you soon!

[thatgamefromthatad]

Ads vs. Gameplay (Zen Match Review)

Ads on the left, gameplay on the right. 

This is a tile-matching game somewhat similar to mahjong. You start out with a board of overlapping tiles and when you select tiles from the board they go to the row at the bottom that can only hold a certain amount of tiles at once. Tiles are cleared from the bottom area when you match three of the same tile and you lose if too many tiles accumulate at the bottom. Similarly to mahjong, some tiles are trapped/hidden under other tiles and you can’t select them unless you clear the tile(s) on top of them first. 

Something I really like about this game is that it’s actually pretty challenging and makes you think ahead and select tiles carefully. The most obvious selection (ex. choosing two of the same tile in a row) isn’t always the best move, you want to pay more attention to the hidden or grayed-out tiles trapped under other tiles so you can ensure you’ll be able to clear enough tiles a few steps ahead to avoid failing the level. The boards get more challenging as you progress through the main levels.

I also like the simple straightforward layout and the nature-y backgrounds of the levels that change as you progress through stages - along with the background music, it does give a very “zen” atmosphere. You also unlock new tiles as you go along which adds additional variety to the levels. I originally thought this was the game with the ad showing someone playing on an iPad/tablet with an Apple Pencil/stylus although now I’m not sure because although the ads I found for this game are very similar I didn’t find the Apple Pencil one in my search for this review. Either way, I originally started playing this game on my iPad with my Apple Pencil but then I switched to my phone and I actually think it’s better on the phone, especially with the haptic feedback features of my iPhone 11, which gives a satisfying clicky feeling when you select tiles. The game also lets you sync progress between devices which is a plus. 

The only downside I really had from this game was the interstitial ads, which are skippable after a few seconds but still annoying. I understand games have to make money but I’ll never be a fan of these ads that pop up between levels. I’m not as opposed to ads that just display in the menu or on the edges of level screens (the latter of which this game also has), as well as ads that you can watch voluntarily to earn some coins or stamina or what have you. In fact, reward ads would have been really helpful in this game since it runs on a stamina system where you lose a heart every time you lose a level, and if you love all five hearts you need to wait at least 30 minutes to regain at least one more heart. I looked around to see if I could watch an ad to earn a heart but you can pretty much only regain hearts with money or maybe coins (which you can buy with money or only gradually save up from completing levels). Kind of a nitpick but the frustration of having to wait 30 minutes sure messed with my zen lol. 

As for the ads, I would label them partly fake, the levels do not contain this endless mass of tiles filling the entire board. Some of the ads also show tiles with different designs like dice or numbers, I’m not sure if these show up later in the game but after 100 levels I’ve only ever seen the nature-themed tiles. The closest things to the ads might be the daily challenge levels which still aren’t the same as the ads but involve larger, more complex boards and a time limit. (P.S., I suggest playing the daily challenges at the end of any play session because they’re a lot more difficult to pass and will quickly eat up your hearts lol.)

Ad Honesty Rating: 4/5 (not heinously fake but not fully accurate to the game)

Overall Rating: 4/5 (pretty good game and fun to play, just not perfect or amazing)

Thanks so much for reading to the end! 🥳 If there’s any specific type of content you’d like to see on this blog feel free to make any suggestions! Have a great weekend!

[thistransient]

- Today I went to my school (which has not had classes in ages) to pick up my passport (having handed it over with a certain amount of cash and trusting that it would come back with a visa extension- five years ago I used to throw a fit if a hostel wanted to hold it overnight, now I just let it go god-knows-where for a few weeks). There was a foreign guy there trying ineffectually to get some kind of information from the Thai office lady, and when she abandoned him to fetch my papers he decided to try his luck with me instead. He had entered the country on a certain special edition covid-times tourist visa that was evidently “impossible” to convert to anything else, had some kind of dubious history that made it difficult to get into countries in general, and was really hoping maybe I (or anyone, really) had some kind of connection with the right people to clear this up. While I don’t mind some shady evasion of bureaucratic hassle now and then, I had to admit this was beyond my level of shadiness. I encouraged my desperate interrogator to shift his attention to the foreign office lady coming back from her lunch break, and sidled out the door.

- It’s worth noting that every time I go to the school office, more of the sidewalk is missing. Will it ever return? Is this perhaps actually...an improvement? (“People are turning explosive Bangkok paving slabs into Minesweeper“ is an actual headline).

- Thailand is having the third wave, with no sign of relenting. Essential businesses are still open, but not much else. There’s been some civil unrest in Bangkok but I can’t really imagine anyone in Pattaya doing any kind of protesting. I continue to mostly stay inside or on the balcony, cultivating an increasingly warped sense of time, the creeping feeling that my dreams are more real than waking life, and an asymmetrical sunburn. It’s been over a year now since my fateful rejected visa application to Taiwan. If I were a less heinously stubborn person (not just about Taiwan) I might have gone back to the US by now. But it is how it is. I have decided if nothing changes by the fall I might as well look for an ESL job here (which probably would have been my fate in Taiwan anyways once I qualified for a student work permit). Maybe Thailand has kind of grown on me?