#obviously its a work in progress and a very long journey

[demonicangxl]

im just gonna rant for a sec in the tags 🙃

[blue-likethebird]

Reusing the memory system from botw for the tears of the dragon storyline in totk was such a terrible decision on so many different levels that it’s honestly kind of impressive.

While the botw memory system had flaws of its own, there was one small but significant thing that worked in its favour: botw’s memories were largely separate from the main plot in the past, and have absolutely no bearing on the story being told in the present. Aside from a few specific instances (ie the calamity striking, the ceremony, Link and Zelda becoming closer) the memories are all self-contained moments that emphasize character development over driving the story. Because there’s no major narrative throughline between them, it gives players more freedom to discover in any order regardless of how much they’ve progressed through the main quest without running the risk of stumbling across a memory that ruins something else later on in the game.

(This got long so the rest of my analysis is going under the cut.)

The biggest change between the memories from botw and the dragon’s tears from totk is definitely what kind of information these cutscenes relay to you as the player. Botw’s memories are primarily snapshots of small interpersonal moments that hold very little significance to the greater narrative taking place in the past. Totk’s memories are the greater narrative. With only one major exception -that I’ll touch on in a sec-, every cutscene in the dragon’s tears shows a crucial moment of story development with no time left to explore the characters driving that story forwards. There’s no organic moment revealing, say, a quirk of Rauru’s that Mineru finds annoying, or Sonia’s sense of humour, or any of our literal Main Villain Ganondorf’s motivations for going to war with Hyrule. If there’s any moments of character focus they only happen in ways that advance the plot (meaning the only real character focus is on the characters totk wants the entire universe to orbit around, namely Rauru and Zelda), and as such it’s harder to bring myself to care about what happens to anyone.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make here, compare the memories of the champions Link regains during the divine beast quests to the conversations with the ancient sages at the end of each temple. The memories make passing mentions of the ongoing preparations for the calamity, but the real purpose of those scenes is to showcase who the champions were as people before their deaths and give us a reason to mourn them, even though we know at the start of our journey that they’re all long gone. In contrast, the conversations with the ancient sages are all about the events of the imprisoning war and their promise to Zelda that their descendants will come to Link’s aid in the future, very obviously copy pasted for each of the five times that cutscene is brought up (which is a particularly egregious moment of bad quest design but that’s a rant for another time) in such a way that none of the 5 incarnations of that cutscene reveal anything new about the ancient sages as characters, to the point where none of them even show their faces. I care about Daruk because the game shows me that he cares deeply about the wellbeing of his fellow champions and brings out the best in others. So why should I care about the nameless, faceless sage of water? What’s there to move me about their struggles if my only interactions with the sages are a series of exposition dumps? If the game can’t give me a reason to sincerely care about its main characters, the whole rest of the story is meaningless.

(As an aside, I get the feeling someone on the dev team caught on to the issue I’m describing here, because the tea party memory sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the dragon tear cutscenes. It’s such a jarring change of pace to have the otherwise plot-heavy dragon’s tears come screeching to a halt for a scene where Sonia sits down with Zelda to have a cute little tea party and talk about absolutely nothing of significance that the whole thing almost seems like it was hastily tacked on to the story later. Given that the next (chronological) memory sees Sonia fall victim to an unceremonious death by chiropractor, it feels like someone realized that Sonia really doesn’t do or say much in the scenes before she dies and threw together the tea party scene so players would have at least one moment to look back on fondly when she’s fridged. But I digress)

The story told in the dragon’s tears is a highly linear one. But the open-ended nature of botw’s memory system remains, meaning that these tears can be found and viewed in any order. At first this doesn’t seem so bad, since the first two tears you’re likely to find if you follow the game’s intended path are also the chronological first and second of the memories you can discover through these geoglyph tears. But after those first two, the game kinda gives up on guiding you towards these tears in a way that flows well with the story they wrote: the closest tear geographically to the two the game initially guides you towards correlates to one of the penultimate scenes of that entire storyline, while the next scene chronologically is found almost halfway across the map. As such, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll spoil yourself in some way without using either a guide or the (somewhat unintuitive and never fully explained by the game) little map in the forgotten temple. Finding memories in order didn’t matter so much in botw because the scenes you could find still worked well as standalone scenes before you discovered every memory and pieced together the full picture, and the game is never trying to surprise me about the characters’ fates at the end of this storyline: hell the first memory you’re guided to shows the calamity striking. But in contrast, viewing a dragon’s tear at the wrong time can completely ruin the story they’re trying to tell in those cutscenes. During my playthrough, for example, the first tear I found after the game stopped guiding me to them showed Ganondorf removing Sonia’s stone from her dead body. At this point I had known Sonia existed for all of like an hour, so every subsequent appearance she made was ruined for me by the fact that I already knew she was nothing but cannon fodder to be killed off for the sake of another character’s pain (Rauru and Zelda a-fucking-gain). I expected to be pissed that it was so easy to spoil myself, or maybe sad in passing that a character with her potential was so underutilized, but instead I just felt… tired. I wasn’t even halfway to the first settlement and already I was completely numb to the story the game was trying to tell.

But the worst was yet to come. And oh boy was it ever a low point for storytelling in the Zelda series. Remember how I said up above that the memories in botw had no connection to the story in the present? Let’s just say the same cannot be said for the dragon’s tears.

It’s May 2023. I’ve just finished the sage of wind questline. I still have hope that the story the game is trying to tell will be good. Deciding that I’ll go to Goron city next, I head towards the Thyplo skyview tower to expand my map, catch a glimpse of a nearby geoglyph from the air, and glide over to check it out. This geoglyph shows me a memory that not only recaps the entire dragon tear storyline, but also ends on a bit of foreshadowing about Zelda’s fate that’s about as subtle as a brick to the fucking face. By exploring -the thing the game claims it prioritized above all else in the design of its world and quests- I’d once again been hit with spoilers for a major story detail.

My main objective in this game is to find Zelda. It’s the only driving factor behind my journey towards all these different regions. The current big mystery I’m supposed to solve is why Zelda’s causing so much hell for the people of Hyrule. I now knew exactly where she was and what the deal with her appearances in other parts of Hyrule was, and I’d found it completely by accident by doing something the game says over and over again that it wants me to do. Unlike with Sonia’s death, this time I was a mess of emotions. I was pissed the fuck off that this open-world game had punished me twice already for trying to explore. More than that, I was disappointed that a game I had been so excited to play, from a series I had so many fond memories of, had let me down like this. With every subsequent quest where the sages and I chased a Zelda I knew was fake to our next objective, and every NPC wondering where she was that I couldn’t tell the truth to, that disappointment grew. The entire rest of the main story was ruined for me before I had progressed past 1/4th of the regional quests and a third of the dragon’s tears. There was no more sense of anticipation or mystery. I finished the rest of the game with a bitter taste in my mouth and haven’t touched it again since.

Do I think this story could have been good? Honestly, I don’t know, and by now I don’t really care either (that’s a lie. I care so so much and that’s probably why I hate totk as much as I do). But it’s all irrelevant, because like Cinderella’s stepsister cutting off her own heel so she can cram her foot into a glass slipper that’s never going to fit, totk is sabotaged by the devs’ insistence that everything fit itself into a world they custom-made for botw. This isn’t a new formula that the series is following, it’s Nintendo slapping a new coat of paint on an existing skeleton, and I’m not optimistic to see what this particular approach has in store for the Zelda series. Especially not at the price they’re charging for it.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Hey, what is the reaction of some Class A students (especially Bakugo and Deku) to the fact that s/o got into the hero course and scored about the same points as Bakugo. (at the same time, she doesn't have any quirks). She was humiliated all her life, so she decided to prove to everyone that she could become a worthy hero and help people.

(I will be glad if you answer, but you can ignore it.. I just had these thoughts for a very long time)

Strong Quirkless Reader | Yandere Boku No Hero Academia

Ft. Katsuki Bakugo, Izuku Midoriya, Ejiro Kirishima, Shoto Todoroki

Katsuki Bakugo 

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

He takes a similar approach to what he does with Midoriya and totally puts you down

Not nearly as harsh but he believes this will keep you safe

Instead he’s gearing you to join UA in a support course

“You’ll obviously want to be the secretary of the number 1 hero! So you better become worthy by the time I get there!”

That all gets thrown out the window when Aizawa congratulates you on your high score as their first exams begin 

Whether its your speedy swordsmanship or just insane strength 

You are just built different

And bakugo is having an absolute crisis

‘How can he be a protector if you're too strong to yield to him!?’

He low-key is plotting to cripple you from this point further

“I’m not letting you get any farther! I’m doing this for you so just fall already!” 

Izuku Midoriya

“Wow y-you really did it!…You really did it…”

He’s happy that your doing what you talked about since you were kids

Surpassing so many without a quirk

But now he has to figure out how to do this 

“Icanalwayscripplethem.Butthenthey’dhatemeforever.eveniftheydidn’tknownowthey’dfindouteventuallymaybeifigotthempregnantbutthatssoembarrassingcouldweeverdothis?OrmaybeIcanjust–”

“Midoriya!”

“S-sorry!”

He’s not going to knock down all your progress…just yet

He knows how much you want this 

But he wants to protect you just as much if not more

He’ll congratulate you 

Train with you 

All while planning the perfect future for you both

…without you being in danger

“Great job (Y/n)! I can’t wait to be a hero with you! I’ll watch you closely!”

Eijirou Kirishima

“Way to go (Y/n)! Let’s be heroes together!”

He’s your biggest cheerleader

He definitely wasn’t expecting you to do so well

But he doesn’t mind

“I’m your rock, (Y/n)!”

He supports you through and through

….in the beginning

As the year progresses and you face more life or death situations he’s less excited about you working in this field

He knows your not weak but he worries

He has a while before he’s strong enough to protect you 

And he’s currently not strong enough to stop you 

So for now he’ll settle to stand beside you

Until he can tuck you safe and out of sight 

“I believe you’re going to be a great hero alongside Red Riot!”

Shoto Todoroki

“Y-you must have some quirk right? Right?! You wouldn’t keep that away from me for all this time, right?!”

Guessing that you two were well acquainted with one another before the first test 

He expected to begin his journey in UA alone

Brooding all the while

Not only does he hate his father and his connection into oblivion

But he had to spend the time he typically had with you to train even harder to be a hero

It was the pinnacle of despair

But now this turns into an anger that has to do with his growing obsession with you

‘How can he claim to love you if he doesn’t even know you can do this!!!’

Oh he’s not mad at you 

not at all

But don’t stare too hard when he overdoes it in the following mock battles

He needs to know everything if he really is in love, right?

“That is amazing…why didn’t you mention something sooner? I could have been of some help. I thought I was worthy enough to know that side of you”

[the-black-manor]

WIP Sunday because why not

Demon x Trans Male Priest

The young priest didn’t arrive to the old stone church until well after dark. He was exhausted from his long journey, but there was nowhere nearby to rest, and he certainly wasn’t going to rest in the church until he was certain there were no malevolent entities present. He stepped out of the cab and stretched before he grabbed his luggage and kit and made his way through the crumbling, overgrown courtyard. The front door was unlocked, and he was silently grateful to the family that lived here that they’d remembered to keep it open to him before they fled.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. The foyer was dark and foreboding. Previous owners had begun renovating the church into a home years ago, but progress had been halted when strange activity began after unsealing a walled-off room in the cellar. Scaffolding, canvas, tarp, rope, and all sorts of construction equipment had been left behind when the family and crew abandoned the location. There was a large industrial light nearby, and the priest switched it on. The room was no less unsettling bathed in white light. 

Dust was kicked up and made the air hazy as he moved through the church to find the dining room. It would work well enough as a sort of “home base” while he investigated the claims of demonic activity. He was no exorcist, just a young priest sent to validate the claims. If he found evidence of activity, he would send for an exorcist. For now, though, all he had was himself, his bible, his crucifix, and his faith.

He started in the cellar, in the newly-excavated room the family claims must be a “door to hell”. He scoffed and shook his head. Not likely. A gas leak, perhaps, which is why he had a mask and detector with him. But the detector stayed silent, and when he felt comfortable enough to take his mask off, the air was clean, if a bit stale. He worked his way through the house slowly, paying great attention to each room, making mental notes if anything seemed “off”. 

The only thing he found unusual was that the crosses and crucifixes the family had put up were still in their place on the walls, unbothered. He shook his head. This was a waste of time. Still, he had a job to do, and he was going to see it through to the end. He kept going. The church was huge, more a castle than anything, and he eventually found his way upstairs into the bedrooms. The doors were all closed, except for the one at the very end of the hall.

If there was ever a place to start up here, he supposed that was it. The dusty old runner beneath his feet muffled his footsteps, and he peered into the room as he approached. It was dark inside, but he could make out the silhouette of a bed with a canopy. He hesitated for only the briefest moment before stepping over the threshold and into the master bedroom. The window beside the bed was open a crack, letting in a crisp, fresh night breeze that sent the linen curtains fluttering. This room was different from the rest. 

There was no dust on the plush red duvet, no cracks in the stone walls or gunk on the windows. No tattered rugs or moth-eaten curtains. Whereas the rest of the church was obviously abandoned, this room looked well cared for. Lived in.

The door closed behind him and the lock fastened with a “click”. He whirled around, and his blood ran cold as his tired gaze met the burning red eyes of an undulating shadow figure. He took a step back. At points, the figure looked almost human, and then its silhouette dissolved and melded with the shadows around it, moving like ink in water.  It was both tangible and intangible, solid and smoke, man and monster.

It glared at him with those fiery eyes, and then he thought he saw, for only the briefest moment, the hint of a sharp-toothed smile. 

“Hello, priest,” it greeted him. 

Its voice was deep and seemed to burrow into his chest and reverberate around in his ribcage. The priest gripped the crucifix around his neck and lifted it, wielding it like a shield against the darkness. The entity laughed, low and menacing. And then it was gone. Or so the priest thought. He gasped and nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt arms snake around him from behind. The demon pulled him close, pressing its chest against his back, and ran its shadowy clawed hands all over the priest’s chest and stomach. 

“Release me!” the priest insisted, writhing in its vice-like grip. 

“Cute,” it cooed, its breath hot on the shell of his ear.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to- mmph!”

The demon forced two thick fingers into his mouth, silencing him.

“Hush now,” it breathed as its free hand slid down his stomach to his crotch. 

It grabbed him hard and pulled him back into its bulge. He could feel it hardening against his ass. 

“What’s this?” the demon asked as it felt between his legs. “No cock? Does the church know about this?” it chuckled. “No, I think not. They wouldn’t let you be a priest if they did.” 

The priest held his crucifix so tight that the edges of the cross dug into the soft flesh of his palm. He repeated all the prayers he knew in his head, over and over. He wasn’t afraid, but he couldn’t speak with the fiend’s fingers against his tongue, so he couldn’t fend it off. All he could do was pray. Its claws dug into the flesh of his inner thigh, and then he was in the air. He landed hard on the bed, and the breath was knocked from his lungs. He propped himself up on his elbows, ready to run, and saw the demon approaching slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. This was the most tangible it had been. It looked like a man, around six feet tall, with a slim body and long hair that flowed like smoke. He could make out no facial features except for those glowing red eyes, eyes that burned into his very soul and held him in place, like a deer in the headlights.

[dragonroilz]

Hey there! I've come across your art ever since I got into Risk of Rain 2 (better late than never, I've been sleeping on this game for years, jesus), and I'm enamoured with it, to say the least. Is there any advice you could perhaps give for an aspiring artist?

you're getting an essay whether you like it or not.

tl;dr of it if you dont want to read

- learn how to take critique

- dont skip fundamentals

- tracing is okay*

- be mindful when drawing

- you wont see good results for a long time

ok firstly, glad you like my art! i try my best on pretty much everything i make so the compliment is greatly appreciated!!

secondly, you have NO clue how much i love yapping about how to draw. im not an expert on how-to-draw-ology but i like to think i know enough to help other people not swing in the dark when it comes to getting better.

learning how to take criticism is THE most important part. not getting butthurt or at least listening to peoples critiques when they mean well is critical to improvement because its specialized advice for you. you have no clue how many young and/or new artists have gotten mad at me for giving critique when they specifically asked me for it. if youre looking to improve you gotta bite that bullet. not all criticism is valid(dont listen to people who are just tryna make you upset), but good and valid criticism can come from anyone. dont unvalidate someone's critique just because theyre not an artist or "not as good" as you. try and get as much feedback as you can and move onto the next piece instead of fixing something to perfection. you will get obsessed in a very destructive way.

learning fundamentals is another step to getting better. that means actually learning perspective, hands, anatomy, and all of the other stuff people hate drawing. its like lifting weights. most people dont like it but if you want to get stronger you need to put in the time to do the painful stuff.

chris christodoulou(ror's composer) actually made a similar comment about the topic of improvement in his field that was along the lines of "if you want to write music, stop playing video games and read a book". he got a lot of shit for saying that but honestly its true.

you need to treat art as a discipline if you want to get better at it. draw as much as you can for as long as you can before it becomes a health hazard. when im not resting i tend to draw at least three hours a day, not counting the 3 to 6 hours additional hours a day i draw during college. obviously a beginner doesn't need to draw that much but drawing daily is a good start.

if you want resources on where to look for fundamentals, Sinixdesign and Ethan Becker were who I turned to for advice that is relevant to the industry. There's definitely others out there but I tend to do more self studying so i don't know the more recent stuff.

something that they'll bring up is that tracing isn't bad AS LONG AS YOU DONT POST IT AND CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN. it's a good way to see how other people deal with stylization, but its absolutely not okay to post that stuff online. treat it like how traditional painters do master studies. its for your own education, not clout. and you shouldn't be drawing for clout anyway.

last but not least, draw what you love and you'll always love drawing. dont be afraid to hyperfixate and lose interest in things. it will help you continue your art journey. a lot of people in my art school have little to no motivation to draw outside of college because they have no interest in drawing outside of assigned work, which is not a great relationship to have with art if you want to pursue it in the long run. draw what you want to draw when the motivation hits you. if that motivation is risk of rain? draw it. if it's leg muscles then fuck yeah draw that too.

you can stick fundamental practice into your casual art by being mindful of what you are drawing. that can be done by asking questions about what's going on to further the progress of your art. its kind of hard to explain in text, but its basically just keeping in mind how your lines influence the piece.

in the beginning youre going to have ideas and none of them are going to translate to paper. its going to take years before anything will ever compare to whats in your brain and thats just the sucky part. ive been drawing seriously for about 5 or 6 years and theres still a ton of shit i do NOT wanna touch but i have to if i want to improve.

we're all sisyphus pushing that goddamn stupidass boulder and the only thing we can do is acknowledge how far we've come while still knowing that there's more work to be done. but thats kind of the shit that i live for.

[chimerafeathers]

thinking about Frieren and Dungeon Meshi today and just remembered seeing a post/comment or two saying that people have no reason to compare the two stories since they have nothing in common except being non-isekai fantasy. different tones, different pacing, different themes, etc.

i don't know if whoever said that were dunmesh manga readers or not, but i kinda assume they were making judgments based purely on however much of the anime was released at the time, because i think about how similar these stories are a LOT, actually.

[spoilers for the dungeon meshi manga below, and a little bit of frieren manga]

i think that's a pretty fair assessment to make based JUST on the "prologue"/setup arc leading up to the red dragon. while some of the main themes are very in-your-face, others are still being woven into the characters and established much more subtly, and we don't get the full weight and payoff for that early work until later into the story.

Frieren establishes its identity within the first episodes and never drastically deviates from that first impression. on the other hand, dunmesh takes its time to build its foundation...but instead of using it as groundwork to build a house above, it then leads you into the depths of the dungeon below.

the stuff about conflicts between long-lived and short-lived races seem like just jokes/banter and a touch of political worldbuilding, in the beginning, but that tension is absolutely central to both Marcille and Kabru's arcs. both Frieren and dunmesh are about elves facing their (near) immortality in contrast with the brief mortality of their companions.

I think about the ways Frieren, with a thousand years of life behind her, carries the memories of those she's outlived along with her and all the ways she emulates them to preserve their lives and values. I think about the way Marcille, with a thousand years of life ahead of her, clings so tightly to the people she holds dear and fears the future she sees beyond their deaths.

I think about the way Serie talks about training Flamme on a whim, casually dismissive of short human lifespans. I think of the way Kabru resents the way elves treat short-lived species like children and fights so desperately for their agency and right to speak on the same level as the rest, fully informed of the dangers that threaten them all instead of being left in the dark.

beyond that, too--you can really feel that these series come from a place of love for the genres that inspired them. dunmeshi's speculative biology for the monsters and the ecosystem they're a part of, the exploration of how and why different races get different "stat" bonuses (dwarven constitution, half-foot perception, tall-man versatility, elven/gnomish magical affinity), the side comic about "Grease" as a starter spell--all obviously come from deep knowledge and affection for D&D and/or similar rpgs.

meanwhile, Himmel gives thoughtful weight to doing "side quests" for paltry rewards--they help because they're heroes, but they accept scraps and useless items for rewards because no one wants to feel pitied or indebted to anyone. he says they "went the wrong way" if they find the stairs to the next floor in a dungeon, because the "right" way is to explore every nook and cranny first before you progress. it would be very easy to mock how annoying fetch quests are, or make the dungeon bit a pure joke--but this is a story that relishes the process and the journey of it all, down to the smallest detail and silliest quest.

flashbacks to Falin being achingly kind and gentle, and also strange and awkward. flashbacks to Himmel being blindingly heroic and noble, and also vain and goofy.

these are both stories about the weight of death and loss and the things we'll do to see our loved ones one last time, when we are destined and doomed to outlive them. they're about the joy of the journey even when it's painful, thriving on silliness even when things are "serious," and loving the people in your life knowing you will lose them, and how you carry them with you when they're gone. dunmeshi is heavier on the comedy side of things, but both have their fair share of emotional gutpunches, and their themes and values mirror each other.

all this to say, these stories are holding hands.

[the--highlanders]

thoughts on the star beast!! under a cut bc spoilers

first of all just. as someone who really did not vibe with the chibnall era at all. dear god it feels good to be excited about doctor who again

it was FUN. it was great bouncy silly charming fun and that is exactly what the show needed at this point I think. I can really imagine kids tomorrow running around pretending to be the meep

also the meep was great and I'm SO glad it was practical effects, it looked so good

setting aside the doctor-donna plotline, the callbacks to the rtd era were fairly low-key (resonating concrete!) and fitted in with the episode but they were fun if they meant something to you

on the other hand the glass divider between the doctor and donna and him raging at having to kill her really felt like a kind of. reverse of ten and wilf and the radiation chamber. which HURT. ten raging over having to save wilf vs not-ten raging over not being able to save donna.

rose was lovely!! I really hope we get some more substantial stuff with her, I think she'd be a great companion

seeing unit again was fun, and I really liked shirley actually!! I hope she's a recurring character, I thought she worked well with the doctor and her gadget-y wheelchair was fun

also kate sorting out a place for wilf to live 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I did think the solution to donna being able to keep her memories was pretty creative, and the acknowledgement of the doctor being outside the gender binary made me yell

that being said I really didn't like the line about a 'male-presenting time lord never thinking of [letting go of power]. I feel like that was rtd trying to be too hip-with-the-kids progressive, which like. obviously I want the show to be progressive!!! but it's the sort of thing I hate

like, first of all, we've just established that the doctor is more or less nonbinary - and the show has been very obviously referencing time lord society as genderless since like, twelve's era. time lords feel that they are /genetically/ superior - it's a species thing, not a gender thing. a 'male' /or/ 'female' time lord is going to have a tough time giving up power. and this felt especially incongruous when we've just had thirteen, a doctor who used her white privilege to hand the master over to the nazis. doesn't seem like she was very interested in giving up her power there.

imo one of the doctor's whole character tensions across the whole show is them trying to break away from time lord superiority, and again that's species-based, not gender based. and it was literally established in journey's end that the doctordonna could think of things the doctor couldn't because of her human part! there was already a solid logical grounding for donna and rose to give up their time lord powers /because they were still part human/

there were a few thematic things I would have liked the episode to dwell on a bit more, like the whole cute-appearing vs frightening-appearing thing with the meep and the wrarth warriors, and how appearances are sometimes deceiving; or the stuff with the doctor and gender; or even just rose's character as a whole

that being said, this was an episode with an awful lot to do, and also an episode which was there to be a fun romp. it HAD to be a romp. so from a sort of metatextual point of view I can understand and forgive

overall I really liked it!! it really recaptured the magic of doctor who for me after so long not feeling it and I think it's going to do a good job of its most important task, which is getting the show afloat again in terms of casual viewers.

also SO glad they've gone back to a confidential-style program, unleashed was so fun

[n7punk]

"the long way down" Fic Notes

TLWD is done now so I get to be a little insane about it. I’ve had meta about Outside of the War fics before, but this one… is certainly something Else, so I’ve enough to say to need the structure of a fic notes post.

Chapter 1:

⦁ Off the bat, the Mara thing: again, I’ve said this a couple times, but I don’t think her surviving in the portal is canon. I’m not sure what the timeline of the Heart going off and Mara moving Etheria was, much less what was up with the first version of the portal (something happened from what Razz said, but who knows it if it was the exact same thing), so it’s hard to say if she even would have gotten suspended like that in the first place. It was fun to write that fic, but I didn’t want to carry that continuity into this one. I wanted this idea to stand on its own and Mara being alive would have complicated the hell out of this. She would have known stuff, and either wanted or really not wanted to see the ruins of Eternia, and it just… would have been so many complications, especially if she didn’t go with them on that journey, because then they would have had to debate going back for her or not and…. Yeah it’s just Too Much.

⦁ The little italic preview (something I use so sparingly I think this might be my first time ever) at the beginning of the fic is obviously from the scene in chapter three, but cut down to size because again, sparing. It’s contextless here and half-context wouldn’t have served it.

⦁ It has come up a lot in my fics, but Adora being into cartography is something Aimee (her VA) mentioned at a con as like, a headcanon, and my brain immediately accepted that and went right that’s canon now lol. It just fits really well so it’s come up in my post-canon fics a lot as a hobby, but this is the first time it has been plot-important.

⦁ Catra getting jealous of paper is from a previous OotW fic, return from civility.

⦁ George and Lance literally have a 3D-projection star chart in their library that they show off in the season 2 finale, but the star charts Adora pulls out are very different from that because it’s a 2D inscription of flight paths between systems rather than a chart of constellations, so it wasn’t blatantly obvious what it was until they could start translating things with Adora’s help.

⦁ Let’s talk about the chapter art because you cannot imagine how much work that took! Like it’s stupid! I wanted essentially an “arrow” made from First Ones numbers pointing in the direction of Eternia. I went through a lot of rough drafts before I decided, for simplicity’s sake (my sanity) instead of it literally saying “One thousand four hundred and sixteen” it would say “1416” because god is that a lot to cram into a small space and stay readable, much less connected. I’m like 95% sure what I produced is correct by the guidelines of the language, but it’s a lot of lines to track, so if it’s wrong… I don’t want to hear it. Some details, though. The shadowy background compass has an “indent” in the center of it — that’s actually the letter E, standing for “Eternia,” in the First Ones’ script. Each of the numbers/words gets progressively smaller as it goes on, which isn’t in the rules, but in my opinion it makes it easier to read because you can intuit that you’re supposed to start at least one of the ends, and Clare approved, so I’m keeping it. (Yeah, if you know what post I’m talking about, I’ve been sitting on this fic idea that long. I wrote half the fic then and got distracted by shiny new things lmao). It was really hard picking colors for the image that would show up well on various site backgrounds, but in the end I decided it was impossible to accommodate for most skins, so I should focus on the two most-used ones instead and ended up with the blue and gray that show up decently on both the white and dark mode site skins. It’s not perfect on either, but it’s pretty good on both, and that’s the best I could ask for. I purposefully picked numbers that were one syllable so I didn’t have to deal with multiple syllable branches since making this image do what I want was already so much work lmao. I tried to figure out the words by myself first but I always double-check my First Ones script work with the translator on itch.io so thank you to whoever made that you have been a life-saver multiple times for me <3

⦁ I went back and forth on whether they’d be wives by the time of this one, and then I remembered it’s somewhere around two years post-canon and they’re lesbians. I think they probably got married shortly before leaving. I also stand by the idea of Glimbow getting engaged first but married way later (royal wedding nonsense, it came up in either "to make a home," or "her heart on her sleeve." Maybe both) and since they were getting married right after this trip, that would mean Catra and Adora are married.

⦁ Trolla is a planet in the MOTU. It’s where Orko is from… which means nothing to you if you haven’t watched the original He-man, but google an image of him, because somehow that exact character design pops up in so much shit. I’m pretty sure there’s a character like that in Kingdom Hearts, which means there’s also a character like that in Final Fantasy, but don’t quote me on that. I feel like he and Loo-Kee were pretty equivalent to me when I was a kid and Loo-Kee was at the end of every damn She-ra episode with his little “today’s moral” shtick.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Honestly, part of the reason Catra is wielding a staff in the cult scene is because I did all the research for the dolls and her accessory in that line was a staff. Which… okay sure, but she does use them in canon. Like twice. But it felt right here with the potential flashback stuff.

⦁ I made sure to include mention of the two moons originally shown around Eternia in my Children of the Crystal series. Just a little bit of consistency.

⦁ I thought about the… manufactured planet thing from Mass Effect Andromeda (listen, I haven’t played the game since it came out, I don’t really remember) while describing Eternia, and it got me thinking about how in sci-fi and stuff, structures like this are always in grayscale. They’re gray, or maybe white, but never like… yellow, and certainly not rainbow. The First Ones ruins we’ve seen have all been very colorful, so I thought a vibrant, rainbow planet, indicating life and art and culture, but still from this destructive society, would really be interesting.

⦁ The “ruins incident” is the impotence for a fic I’ve never written and probably never will but damn has that not stopped me thinking it through every few months. The timeline doesn’t even work out because that’s supposed to happen like five years after this but it’s mostly a reference for myself lmao.

⦁ I know Catra and Adora have “memes” personal to them dating back to their time in the Horde and still forming to this day, but I imagine Catra and Melog have their own jokes too that no one else has even the faintest idea about because it all happens in their heads.

⦁ Originally I explained it in the fic before I decided the Gatekeeper wouldn’t know it, but the reason there were only signs of evacuation deep inside was because part of Protocol Zero’s mandatory evacuation was evacuation tiers. It’s the highest threat level possible and that means everybody needs to leave and could clog the skies, making it impossible for anyone to really escape. There’s also bullshit prioritization of “well, these people deserve to get out more than others” so it's stratified to ensure some people (the most important) get out first. First in line was royalty and the highest ranks of the military (to coordinate rebuilding efforts once escaped), then the highest ranks of state-sponsored scientists and nobility, followed by the mid ranks of state-sponsors scientists and high rank state-sponsored artists, and then concurrently mid-level military, more scientists, and high-rank citizens. Finally, the rest of the artists and citizens (aka free-for-all tier).

⦁ The Citadel is a reference to Mass Effect.

⦁ A whole decade ago I saw a post on Tumblr claiming a “moment” used to be an actual measurement of time (roughly 90 seconds) that I never forgot and it turns out that was actually true (this was the era of Alexandria’s Genesis so you know… easily could have been bullshit I never bothered to google) so I threw it in in this fic as a fun fact about medieval sundial measurement.

⦁ Almost nothing works on the planet because it all ran on wireless power, and the transmission towers for that were completely destroyed by the Horde’s invasion. The Horde them pulverized everything else it could find, tracing down every last electrical signal or sign of life and snuffing it out. The only thing that survived were bugs that were hibernating underground or in the rare piece of plant life that wasn’t destroyed. Seeds in the earth also sprouted later, leaving those as the only survivors of the massacre. The Horde occupied Eternia for a while making sure nothing else would pop up, but eventually Prime was satisfied and got the fuck out of there, afraid of their integration of tech and magic and tired of losing clones to lingering mechanical boobytraps.

⦁ Okay the meta for Mara’s painting is that one of the quickest paths to state sponsorship was art depicting the planet. The Eternians really did view it as the ultimate art piece. Mara did something groundbreaking for her time and portrayed it as it originally was before all the terraforming. The establishment didn’t like that. Even worse, she used an ephemeral medium involving a mix of materials that would break down over time, and while it was good and above average, she was far from the most impressive artist that year alone. Mara really did think the transformation of Eternia was awe-inspiring at the time, but doubt set in after she was assigned to the brand-new (not even begun, really) colony on Etheria and started falling in love with its vibrant nature. Eternia still had plenty of it, but it was carefully cultivated through landscaping and terraforming. Ironically, it has become a lot closer to Etheria’s untamed state by the time of the fic, thanks to the lack of direct intervention and partially-damaged terraformers. (Side note: the terraforming system ran on its own network with a million safeties in place because, you know, if they ever shut off the path of the planet around the sun could permanently be altered from its irregular shape. It was Very Important they survive anything, and Horde Prime didn't try to destroy them while occupying it because he also needed it to not be flung into the sun)

⦁ Being a state-sponsored artist basically means you get a salary instead of living commission-to-commission, access to grant programs to create big pieces of art, essentially advertising and general public approval, and access to exclusive display locations, especially in architecture or high-traffic areas (think the mosaics they found). Mara wanted to try, so she applied to the symposium basically fresh out of high school with the plan that if it didn’t work out she would follow in her parent’s footsteps (military family) and join a colony exploration program. If she got approval or even just a grant she would go to art school, but, well, she didn’t. So she ended up training in military academy, bouncing around a few colonies, and then making her way to Commander rank and Etheria.

Chapter 3:

⦁ The “three workshops that they know about” thing is because Catra is sure Entrapta is hiding more questionable experiments from them in the walls. And she’s right.

⦁ The data crystal art says “Final log” on its front and “Distress” (as in, distress signal) in the background. I never really translate that in the fic but it was also going in the final chapter when the fic notes were about to be posted so I wasn’t too worried about it.

⦁ My idea for the crystal was that it would be really hard to find any logs of what happened because, well, everybody who would have made or kept those logs was dead and the Horde destroyed a lot of what they found. This was a transmission that was intercepted at long-range on this smaller mining planet and was basically a portent of their imminent doom to them, the Horde arriving shortly after they received it, leaving this as one of the few logs the Eternians managed to preserve.

⦁ I didn’t actually reference a data crystal from the show for my drawing, I just ran off my memory of what it looked like, so it’s probably a little off, but I thought that would actually fit with the “artistic representation” thing like the planet had. The downward slanting of the words (and especially the descending of the sounds in the word “Distress”) are a visual representation of the signal dropping off and the “long way down” metaphor.

⦁ I didn’t actually intend to have an illustration per chapter for this fic initially. It was just supposed to be the first one. I drew that all the way back in January/February when I first started working on this fic, but as I was describing Eternia, I was like… this would actually be fun to draw. And then it seemed weird to have a drawing for 2 out of 3 chapters, so I added the data crystal, and I like how that worked out since I got to do the “subtle” stuff (so subtle it needs to be explained lmao) with the distress signal in the background.

⦁ Yeah so what’s up with that metaphor, right? I don’t know. Like, okay, I kind of do, but basically that song latched onto this fic and then they fed off each other and I have NO idea why. Like, it fits, but it’s also like… why this. For the people who don’t listen to songs when fics link them (I’ll be honest, I rarely do, even though I discovered my favorite band in the world that way), “Long Way Down” is a song about going to hell. I think the specific story is supposed to reflect preachers and religious folk who espouse how everyone else is full of sin and going to hell, but really they’re just going to end up down there too (“I’ve been fucking around while you’ve been saving the world... from nothing”). It’s not a direct fit in that way, but in the hubris, where you think you’re giants but you’re actually going to fall like all the others? Yeah, seemed fitting for the First Ones.

⦁ Tellus is earth in Latin. Being that the originals are 80s cartoons, Earth is of course canon and there was a Christmas special set there. As I remember it, Earth was some #Isekai shit (okay not really but) where it was just the normal modern world and then He-man and She-ra showed up to take teens on adventures so Americans could teach them the true meaning of Christmas or something. I haven’t watched it since I was a very small child so I could be wrong. I got sidetracked. Yes Earth went kaput in this universe. Yes that had consequences. Yes he was saying “Commander Adam, signing off.”

⦁ Having just come off of CotC where I finally really went into my time travel headcanon… Yeah a lot of people knew this wasn’t going to end well. Honestly, when I initially planned this fic, I had this idea that Adora would touch the console and it would greet her as the lost princess — or even that she would find a recording from her lost twin brother — but either way she would find out that she probably came from the past. The problem was… that also doesn’t match my headcanon? (Refresher/If you didn’t read CotC: my headcanon is that since dimensional portals were cut off in Despondos, only time portals worked, so Light Hope pulled Adora through after spending a long time building one and trying to figure out where to open it to get her. This is why she popped out in the middle of a field: that’s just where she was physically located in the past.) My headcanon is that Adora was a regular child to settlers on Etheria when the Horde attacked and Light Hope eventually made the time portal and snatched her away before she could die. The system back home on Eternia probably wouldn’t recognize her as a random baby in the colonies, so it just didn’t track (especially the princess thing. That was something I thought about when I was first forming the headcanon in 2020, but it didn’t stick. Adora being “normal” is what made sense to me). I did consider having it be some thing where like, well maybe she was still born on Eternia or some major colony where she would be registered in the system, but honestly, that was all too definitive, and I liked the idea of it recognizing She-ra and them learning a little more about Mara.

⦁ Honestly, I don’t think Adora and Adam are even twins in this verse for me. I think cousins makes the most sense here (especially since he was like 20-30 in the recording and Adora would have been Very Small). If he were her sibling, that would make him some random twin she doesn’t know and never learns much about, but this way he’s still important to present Adora because his recording is the one that really made her accept what happened, and isn’t that the kind of thing that older siblings are supposed to do? Take care of their siblings, loving them and telling them the hard truths, through losing their family/home/way of life, etc? Idk, this somehow felt closer to the spirit of the OG canon than giving her a random twin that she didn’t know much about. Her finding a living twin who lives somewhere out in space didn’t feel like the spirit of this SPOP either (especially since they were expressly forbidden to even consider Adam/He-man), so we ended up here.

⦁ This is gonna sound weird but — canonically — I don’t think Adora has parents unless they make a movie. Like the time travel theory still makes sense to me, and if they ever made a movie I feel like finding her parents out in space would be an obvious plot point to get a bit more of a “happy ending” and tie up loose ends from the show, but like… I don’t think the show — in isolation — intends for them to be out there, and I think her not finding them is more tragic if they’re alive somewhere than the time travel thing where they’ve been gone for a thousand years so there’s no chance of recovery.

⦁ After some discussion with a Science Person I determined that it was possible for the DNA changes to be passed down in people who constantly produce sperm, and for people with eggs too if the process also affected the eggs inside of them (since they're only produced once). Also, magic bullshit is floating around helps and all of this is all theoretical anyway so I’m doing what I want lol.

⦁ Edit: Somehow I forgot to talk about this but. The First Ones. Yeah so, in this... I mean they are basically human. Their terraforming (and general tech) processes changed them into something distinguishable, but not all that different. After a thousand years, any First Ones that did survive the original genocide would have to have intermixed with humans to survive. The changes from terraforming would long be diluted and mutated away until humans really are all that's left. Catra's speculation about resettling an old colony planet is the best chance for them still existing, and like she said, they wouldn't even know that they're secretly picking up the genetic signatures of Eternians. I've never been sure if the First Ones are actually different from humans, or just a nationality, or perhaps an ancestor/divergent race from them (I think that question is purposefully left open-ended), so I did... this, which is kind of a combination. IDK, I just thought it was a cool possibility that would explain their humanness while still making them distinct in a (fairly) plausible way. The materials our modern world is made of are causing changes to our bodies (from lettuce insecticide in our blood to earlier hormone development) so something as extensive as terraforming would produce changes that could diverge them enough to be detectable. This leads to things like Adora's puberty being a bit different (unnaturally fast) and her alcohol tolerance being wild (I mean, that's something that varies between people already without a genetic splinter) but leaves her still - essentially - human. First Ones and humans started from the same place but splintered eventually. This isn't like some other things where it's my firm headcanon, but I do think it's a cool idea, so it was fun to do here and it both acts as another hint to the time travel possibility while also explaining how Adora could have parents and there could be "surviving First Ones" in the present. It wasn't part of the original plan for the fic, but I'm really glad it developed as I wrote because it's really interesting to me.

⦁ Catra is right about the cycle wearing on Adora, but it’s a little more than that: Adora could only convince herself to leave Eternia by turning her attention back to their mission, and the moment there was a real pause in it she realized that she didn’t want to keep doing this after all.

⦁ Adora will have questions for a while, and wonder about it occasionally, but she has kind of accepted that what really makes her happy is Etheria. She wishes she knew the answers, but not enough to abandon where she's actually happy and search for them. She doesn't want to fly for a year to some location in far space for answers, she wants her true family, and that's Catra and her friends.

Meta:

Compass art (1416)

Eternia art

Data crystal art

Upcoming:

Uhhhh I really don’t know right now? Could be a lot of things. My brain can’t settle on anything long enough to choose right now so it’ll probably be a week before I’m even sure enough to tell y’all. Check back here I guess lol

[limited-fish]

Should I put some of my WIP on ao3? because I really want feedback. (Friends are too busy to read or give very vague feedback lol)

If you're interested in stories with unique world building, dragon-adjacent creatures, gender trouble, time travelling, shape shifters, many unreliable narrators and gods with bad tempers from whom magic users gain their power, then you may enjoy The Divided Door (working title) (may also be under The Analogy of the Divided Door). And yes, the two main characters are both trans.

Fiorel, a low ranking faerie, is forced to work with Jassid, a seemingly normal human tailor, while trying to uncover who killed nar father, why the eelems disappeared and why no new fae are being made. Meanwhile Temmin, a powerful sorcerer and his apprentice, Olia, daughter of the Emperor's favourite Imperial Hunter, are intent on ridding the world of barbarians, fae and monsters. Fiorel and Jassid's search for the truth takes them to weird little towns, forests deeper than glaciers, sprawling cities, wide open plains and far underground, each scene bursting with characters to help or hinder their journey.

It is still a work in progress and the plot hasn't completely solidified (and neither has the world building if I'm being honest) but that is why I need some one to help iron out the kinks (or put some in if needed). If anything is unclear, please tell me so that I can try to make it more intentional.

Trigger warnings include

- cheating

- blood mention (I haven't written any gore yet but it will probably be present later)

- fictional racism

- child death

- sex mentioned (m/m, m/nb, probably more later)

- possibly transphobia

- death

- murder

- torture

I'll have to check that this list is complete, but if its on ao3, the tags on that should cover everything.

Some characters use neopronouns (more accurately, their culture and language does not consider gender that important) so if neopronouns annoy you this may not be your cup of tea. Fiorel uses nai/nam/nar.

Fae is just the word I'm using to describe the undead shapeshifting servants of the penjagai, the demiurges, guardians of nature. It has very little to do with fairy tales although they are not completely disconnected.

I'm slightly worried about people and AI bots stealing my ideas - and whether it will be less viable to publish if I ever finish it. That's not a big fear however, as I've read Joy Demorras work and it seems she had no trouble getting published. Another anxiety is obviously people being callous or hateful with their comments but I am sure my mutuals will be lovely.

I have worked on it for about two years now, on and off and has many influences, one of them being Discworld although I am aiming for maybe a different tone.

Remember that all of it is subject to change.

My ao3 handle is limited_fish so it shouldn't be too hard to find... I just have to find the courage to upload it.

Hope you enjoy 😁

🐟 Signing off and hoping I can find a fabled beta reader 🤞

Corey 🖋️ヽ⁠(⁠｡⁠◕⁠o⁠◕⁠｡⁠)⁠ﾉ

(he/him)

PS I would especially like ppl who are native Greenlandic to help me out a bit because everything revolves around a people group that are partially inspired by real life Greenlandic people. I need to do more research (I've only read Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow and am not sure how accurate it is especially considering the guy who wrote it isn't native Greenlandic.) so if anyone could help me out, I would appreciate it 🙏

(This people group is also partially inspired by the Romani people having made a long journey from India to Europe. The Kutkuallahns (may change name later) travelled from the equivalent of the Antarctic where they had lived for thousands of years to a large southern continent, where they had to change their way of living quite drastically as they were no longer in a perpetually freezing climate. Again, I need to do more research and probably consult with anthropologists, but if you have any ideas for customs that might continue even once they are in a different climate, that would be awesome.)

PPS I know I use too many parentheses.

[dolloshub]

Everything is as it should be-OS & Echo-

This doll isn’t going anywhere- long overdue updates within!

And she’s back! This doll is still here and still making progress! It’s apologies for such an extended delay, everything is okay but it’s been hard few months medically speaking.

As those that have been following know, the body and brain that this doll inherited came with many many health issues. This not wanting to spend the last years of their life In a hyper aware and intense physical and psychological trauma state was a primary driving force behind this journey.

Just because the journey of a girl to programmable doll was started does not mean that it’s health issues vanished. These health issues are, as of now the biggest barrier to being able to be programmed to the extent that both doll and Owner would like.

To remove this barrier, doll needs to simplify the dozen or so conditions, and prevent them for interacting too much with one another. Getting to the point where “sure there’s multiple health conditions, but they are straight forward enough that doll doesn’t have to rely on its ability to advocate is necessary for doll to simplify its mind and existence. This has been one of the top goals for 2022 and 2023, and is the reason for doll’s recent absence abs the subject of the rest of this post.

So what’s been happening with doll? Let’s discuss!

Over the past year or so doll has had multiple eye surgeries, has had to relearn how to see, how to perceive the world, and get used to this new feature that it guesses, comes installed by default, called depth perception‽ Who knew 3D was a thing?

This brain that doll’s software runs on also came with drug resistant epilepsy, one could say the cpu was defective on arrival. It started having breakthrough seizures again late last year, that continued to get worse.

At this point, the body and brain have broken through over a dozen different seizure meds, which means there is a 99.99999% that it will continue to break through any seizure medication in the future.

Good dolls of course are low maintenance, reliable, and don’t have their programming corrupted by unpredictable electrical activity across it’s wiring. So obviously, a good doll aspires to such a state- after all its purpose is to make Owner’s life better, less stressful.

This unfortunately has not been the case over the past year, and it’s programming has become increasingly glitchy, causing electrical storms nearly everyday- making additional programming both difficult and unpredictable, and making doll increasingly erratic and difficult to maintain.

For this reason it has started the work to determine if this brain is a good surgical candidate. For those of you that have read doll’s previous journal entry, the post on ptsd triggers- ghosts in the shell, epilepsy and seizure activity is the biggest as it connects to almost every health issue doll has, and is responsible for the most of doll’s current health issues.

For the sake of clarity, this doll’s health issues are very much like a Russian Nesting DollI.

If epilepsy is a result from cerebral palsy and the brain damage it caused, all the other health issues are a result of epilepsy. These include many many unusual seizure presentations, and long term physical and neurological damage, including additional scarring of the brain, and six or so rare, complex conditions ranging from everything from not being able to produce tears, to not being able to regulate body temperature, excess adrenaline, and the inability to maintain normal blood pressure, heart rate, electrolytes, and even stand up without fainting- among others.

All of these have been caused and made worse by years of hard to diagnose and control epilepsy. Including extended periods, sometimes years of daily seizures, often in the 15-20/day.

These past couple of months were mostly spent in preparation of and then a “visit” to an epilepsy monitoring unit, where seizure activity was intentionally provoked.

This visit was a one week stay during which seizure medications were stopped cold turkey, and 30 hours later this doll’s brain was in a full on electrical storm- with 30+ seizures recorded by eeg, and countless others deeper within the brain where the eeg couldn’t detect, most of them very severe, and the worst of them being clustered with 72 hours.

Due to the severity, even trained neurologists had great difficulty on getting the seizures back under control, after failed attempts, even with rescue meds given via IV and with increasing risk of additional long term permanent brain damage looming something else has to be done.

This doll suggested it go into a state of ketosis, the only treatment that has been able to control seizures nearly completely.- but rarely used for seizure control in adults.

Fun fact: This doll helped create the adult ketogenic protocol for epilepsy control a few years back. One of the big reasons it still exists. Now it’s thinking of that doctor strange timeline reference again.



Okay, back on point Echo- So, the result of the seizures getting that out of hand that quickly, and not even two kitchen sinks being tossed in for good measure helping calm the electrical storm that is the brain between doll’s ears was…

instead of it taking 1-24 hours to get the seizures under control, it took nearly four days, and new medications.

The toll on doll’s brain also affected its vision, central/autonomic system. Up until last Friday this doll was seeing double vision, couldn’t stand up without nearly fainting and was on the edge of being non-functional.

Fortunately doll has stabilized, and is continuing towards baseline, likely another 3-4 weeks out. Due to all the changes, and the additional knowledge that doll’s brain has been seizing nearly every day for at least a year we are not sure what it’s new baseline will be.

Now, OS is pretty sure that anyone who’s made it this far is wondering.. alright that’s a lot, so how the Hell is “Everything is as it should be‽”

The shortest answer is that the hospital stay was a treasure trove of information. We’ve been able to determine cause/effect that seizures are both responsible for causing the start of most conditions downstream, and have caused those issues to continuously be flared up anytime it has a seizure. We’ve also been able to determine that is extremely likely the origination point of all seizure activity is within the scar tissue from the cerebral palsy (see didn’t doll tell you girls are better with broken brains?) This means that the majority of its erratic behavior and going off script, fluctuating response to programming, erratic physical issues fluctuating, and the increasing nature of ptsd transportations to other pages has been if not caused by, then at the very was least made worse and more frequent by ongoing daily seizure activity, including while in sleep mode.

This in turn means that with the new seizure medication, 20-40x more effective than the one it was on means that it’s new baseline is likely to be much much more stable, low maintenance, and more predictable in terms of programming and progress.

It also means that it’s emotional regulations and all of those issues that keep getting flared up downstream from seizure activity are very likely to calm waaaay down.

Although it’s unlikely that any of those conditions doll’s body has acquired will ever go away, it is very hopeful that this new medication will allow increased functionality and prevent additional conditions to be acquired, and should keep doll steady until a permanent solution can be found in the next year.

Doll and Owner are planning on using this time to continue down the very long path of testing for epilepsy surgery and hopefully surgery, removing this variable. Of course in the meantime having stable wiring and electrical activity will allow continued programming, hopefully even more effective than before.

As time goes by, as it tends to have a habit of doing, especially in the lack of any infinity stones close by this doll is likely to continue to have health impact it’s ability to post.

As Owner has written about previously, doll’s mental functions are being affected, and not just by seizure activity, primarily through its programming. It’s ability to write up something this complex is a testament to previous programming safeties ensuring functionality in dangerous situations.

For the immediate future, this ability will be allowed under the safety chest protocols.

Additional updates as to how doll and Owner are addressing the necessity of “peak performance” and high functionality while still making programming progress within the apps on short and long term goals will be upcoming in a Doll OS app design update post.

In the meantime this doll wants to thank everyone who reached out to check on doll, the past month has been intense for both doll and Owner. Even if doll hasn’t responded, it is so grateful for everyone’s support.

The ability to share this journey is such gift, so thank you my friend, for coming with us on this adventure of a lifetime, of an existence.

Programming doll at least doesn’t involve brain surgery- phew!

…oh wait, never mind..Never Mind

-Doll- OS & Echo

[sapphic-scylla]

THEY ARE MINE

The world of Cor Varias had known its fair share of hardships. The gods, caring for the people they watched over, stepped back from the world to watch from afar. As civilization grew around the scars of the Disparity, the world and its inhabitants began to progress the world due to their own cooperation and ingenuity rather than leaning on divine powers too much. And the gods wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The prime heads of the deities had issued the Law of Direction. Divine beings could not directly interfere with mortal progress. They could appoint clerics and paladins and influence many other heroes, but even with them, they could not directly intercede in any way that would dramatically alter mortality’s development. Any choices or efforts or any discoveries could only be influenced by divine help if directly called on by mortality and, even then, the deities could only offer minor aid unless it was to intercept any malevolent divine force.

Mortality grew and, eventually, a lot of the gods faded into obscurity, though still watching from afar. The world grew its own conflicts and mortality continued to rise and fall with each decade. No one new the threats that lay within chains or deep within the abyss were stirring.

In a tower beyond space and time, a cloak battered against the pace of her walking as she entered the meeting chamber where several demigods like herself stood around a table. Her eyes red and lavender as she took her seat.

“Feels weird to call us a council, so I won’t. Especially since we’re all married. In any case, Cor Varias is in trouble as you all know and as much as we want to do this for ourselves, the Law of Direction limits our ability, even as demigods.” Petra spoke.

Haley smiled. “I’ve been doing some research and I think I found us some candidates for eyes on the ground. We obviously can’t bless them like gods, but we can help steer them in the right direction.”

Marasenna, in her intimidating glory, nodded. “We also aren’t as bound by the law so we can actively fight these threats. But these three will have to take the lead.”

Lyria restrung her bow. “Well, then I guess we have our work cut out for us. Who do we have?”

Verity placed out three dossiers on the table. “One is a sorcerer. A diplomat of the Tabaxi Order. Incredibly powerful. Nearly impossible to kill and has a twinge of dark in them.”

Emily, eyes still closed in meditation, agreed and continued. “There is also a tiefling. Deep hemocraft is woven into her blood, but something stole her memory. She knows nothing of her past, but she has a fight in her you can’t match.”

Aerin continued. “And finally, a cleric like you, Petra, but this one harbors an aura of death. The Mistress, Malathriel, has taken a special interest in her. Loving family, but she also houses something ancient. Malathriel loves, cherishes, and cares deeply for her clerics and has always honored the Law, but this young aasimar also harbors power from the deep. We suspect Zigguridan and his cult had a hand in it.”

Petra drifted her hands over the dossiers. “Well, they all fit the part. They have a long journey ahead of them. Especially if the hope to catch us and our thousands of years of experience. Nonetheless, we can’t let our foes know we are making moves. Senna, Em, and Haley, I think you should go wake them up. Cor Varias is about to get very interesting indeed.”

@ebevkisk, I spite wrote this. Also, an introduction to my new world I’m building and I think you’ll love who protects this world. Consider this a reminder of my darling lovelies as well as my D&D characters written as the SHOULD have been written.

[vitalphenomena]

@meansfriendship // @freekzout asked for: 5, 9 and 14 for your choice!

What was the moment your muse first realised (or began to realise) their gender roles didn't match up with who they were or wanted to be? // alex 

Alex grew up in a household that was very open about gender non-conformity and very loose in its adherence to gender roles. Ezra often cooks, cleans, takes care of the children in a more nurturing way; Spirit worked hard, long hours while the babies were very young; Ezra themselves expresses their gender uniquely and confidently. 

I think Alex and Theo were raised in a way that didn’t really assign them a gender identity or require strict adherence to gender roles. I think Alex has fallen into their own picked and chosen blend of masculine and feminine traits while being fully supported by both of their parents from a very young age. 

Talk about a key moment in your muse's journey towards becoming their more ideal self. // rachel 

Rachel, quite frankly, was too busy for many years to consider something so elevated on their hierarchy of needs as gender. 

So I think one of the first times they confronted their own gender non-conformity was as an older teenager watching their new parents — Mackenzie, Cass, and JM — interact. Cass occasionally presents in a more masculine manner and is always referred to in gender neutral terms by their partners (as is JM obviously). 

I think Rachel entering the workforce and developing crushes are also key moments that they begin to realize they’re not strictly feminine / a cis woman. 

Did your muse experience a grieving process at the beginning of realising their identity, or was the revelation wholly positive and affirming for them? // gabriela 

Gabriela transitioned at a tumultuous time in any young individual’s life. SHe was a young tween/teenager. I think she was more concerned with mourning her childhood as a whole than mourning any sort of boyhood or masculinity. I wouldn’t call it positive and affirming, but I would call it relieving her for to begin transitioning. 

Gabriela’s parents — whether I’m talking about her mother Jenny (who Gabriela relates to very little except when it comes to womanhood) or her father Cain — have presented little obstacles when it came to her transition to girlhood/womanhood, which also made the experience less full of resistance and strife in her immediate circle. 

Having grown up in a relatively progressive/leftist part of New York, her larger circle was also affirming and uplifting — either behind her back or to her face. This also helped. 

[rationalpassion]

Elder Memories

I'm getting older, and sometimes I think that my memory might not be what it used to be. I'm not so worried. When I need to remember the past I just use my personal search engine. Do you do this? I journal using my phone a lot. I add pictures, the works, but mostly it's a normal written journal. I'm writing using it right now. A bit meta-weird. Anyway, I use a searchable journal app, called Journey on my phone. It reduces my need to commit things to long term memory. I don't really want to remember everything anyway. I just hit the little magnifying glass, pop in a few words... and bam it's there, better than I could remember it.

There was a time when we actually had to remember things. We also had photographs and video tape recordings to help us remember. But even they aged and faded. Some people made home movies on Sony Handycams, played them back on their Betavisions, but then engineers and designers, despite the corrupt patent offices, always found some way of making improvements to the recording and playback systems. You know the story, the big switch to VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and gigabit/sec internet streaming. They were called improvements because they tended to improve the user's experience of a familiar and popular technology while still being accessible and affordable. Electronic devices were particularly prone to quick obsolescence due to frequent science-based discoveries, developments, and the ability to engineer things on progressively smaller scales. Noticeable improvements in the quality of audio-video recording and playback, but also in ergonomic ease-of-use, and ability for a memory device to last and be playable for years to come. In the area of video recording, optical discs are not susceptible to being erased my magnetic fields. They typically allowed people to enjoy a better product using a more pleasant, novel or familiar, and possibly more intuitive interface. The analog era was an exciting time.

The digital revolution changed everything.

We slowly realized that that making a common digital recording medium that many devices could use was the way to go. Like a Swiss army knife, amalgamation and ergonomic improvements put a powerful computer in the vast majority of everyone's pockets and hands.

Ergonomic improvements often meant that a person's usage of the product was more intuitive and familiar. The user could rely on common and familiar manual skills or gestures to control the machine. It's easier to go from riding a horse to a motorcycle than a jet airplane. Hand gestures have been used for millennia to accomplish non-verbal communication by humans. Using hand gestures to move a mouse or interact with a touch screen is an easy step for most. Also many technologies require that a written symbolic language is already developed and used by the vast majority of the population. As is almost always the case for most cultures in the world. But the real advancement came when world wide wired and wireless data connectivity with several layers of technology, hardware, protocols and languages allowed for ubiquitous access to information.

The Journey journaling app works very well. I think I pay $4o/year for it. It allows quickly publishing a journal entry as blog post to Tumbler. It's has a great search engine. I also like that it's cloud-based, and automatically synchronized so I don't have completely rely on my phone for its existence. It's works via a PC too. When I look up really old entries I can see how some memories stand the test of time better than others. Many memories are interesting or cherished because they are old and foundational, elder memories. I'm fine if my memory storage is externalized. It'll very likely last longer than my brain-based memories anyway.

P. S. This blog post, obviously the ramblings of a slightly stoned 40-something tech guy, may not be everyone's cup of tea 🍵. : )

[novavirus]

Album Opinions: A Lot Like Birds - No Place

I have a LOT of feelings about music, and little to no outlet for these feelings. So I’m forcibly clawing out a horrible little hole in the sand to sit in and scream about my horrible little opinions for a while. 

Also here’s a notice that I don’t really know what I’m talking about most of the time, but I do my best to give important context surrounding my horrible little opinions.

That context part I was just talking about

A Lot Like Birds, baseline, has a history that is slightly more complicated than your average band.

Their first album, Plan B, is very unpopular compared to their later works, their second album especially. In between their first and second album, they saw the loss of many of their more “wacky” instrumentalists, and the addition of a new vocalist. 

Kurt Travis joined the band after being kicked out of Dance Gavin Dance. This change led to a big boost in publicity which was multiplied by a shift in style to something more traditionally “Swancore”. These changes lead to Conversation Piece (the aforementioned second album), being their most popular.

Their third album, No Place, takes the more accessible sound of Conversation Piece and blends it with the band’s original more chaotic progressive roots (not to say that Conversation Piece wasn’t proggy, it was just less-so). It’s slightly less popular and most fans tend to prefer Conversation Piece (afaik), but it is definitely the album I prefer for a few main reasons.

Things this album does well!

Album “Flow”

This album manages to have a huge variety of feelings expressed throughout its conceptual journey through an abandoned house. It primarily explores the pain of “growing up”, looking at the main character’s relationship with various elements of their life by assigning each room of the old house to a song, and each feeling explored has an appropriate musical energy to match.

Even beyond the story-line of the album, the songs flow really well together. Each song in the album works really well together, with multi-song build ups and climaxes with poetic spoken-word sections to split them up (i’ll get into that in just a second).

Overall, it’s hard to get bored listening to this album. Even with some of the parts being a bit “boring”, every part fits together and makes a front to back listen very satisfying.

Song writing

Moving past the long term concepts of the album, a lot of the individual songs are just very well written. (Here’s where we get to the part where I really don’t know what I’m talking about! Don't worry about it tho). They are pretty much everything you can want from a good progressive post hardcore album. Technically dense, emotionally charged, huge amounts of variety both in between separate tracks, and within the confines of just one spot. It never feels like one vocalist overstays their welcome, both of them are constantly participating and when they take a backseat it makes sense. (also there’s a really good trumpet part somewhere. I think it’s in Recluse but I don’t remember)

It’s hard to find specific examples in this album because so much of it is so good. However, I do think the stand-out track is Connector. Connector takes everything I love about this album and condenses it into six minutes and ten seconds. It has a comfortable spot in my favorites playlist (as well as Next To Ungodliness, but I have less to say about that one).

Weird Spoken-Word Sections

A lot of the emotional climaxes of this album are separated by brief spoken-word sections from the band's harsh vocalist (from what I remember, he writes a lot of poetry in his free time). partially, I like how they affect the flow and feeling of the album. I also just, think they’re neat. Myth of Lasting Sympathy especially is such a cool track, and does a really good job letting down the energy of Connector into the slightly more subdued second half (ignoring Recluse, obviously, which is just a ridiculous track)

I imagine this is an aspect of this element that less people are gonna like, but it’s a huge plus in my opinion.

Things this album does poorly!

Not Very Much

The only thing I can really challenge about this album is that, especially in the second half, the strength of the individual tracks are kind of lacking. 60-70% of this album is not written to be enjoyed on shuffle, or listened to on loop. However, I don’t think it takes away from the album, considering that this was very obviously written with the full album in mind more than anything.

Conclusion

Overall, this is an album that has recently crept its way into some of my absolute favorites. Pretty much ever since I started getting into these styles of music, I’ve preferred the more out there progressive approaches to Swancore (bands like Hail The Sun, Eidola, Dwellings, Closure in Moscow, etc.), and I think that A Lot Like Birds has the best interpretation of this style. I really like their fourth album as well (DIVISI), and I enjoyed the projects both vocalists got into aftwards (Cory Lockwood in Sufferer, and Kurt Travis in Royal Coda), but I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if A Lot Like Birds continued off of the momentum of No Place.

Anyway, this album is just really good, and is probably one of the 5 or so albums I would consider a genuine 10/10. Listen to this album.

I put too much effort into this, but it was fun and probably something I’ll do again. 

[glenngaylord]

Girls Gone Wilde - Film Review: Don’t Worry Darling ★★★ 1/2

The very first film I critiqued for The Queer Review was Olivia Wilde’s wonderful feature directing debut, Booksmart. In it, she showed off her ability to generate an infectious energy, riotous humor and a refreshingly frank look at strong female characters. I couldn’t wait for her follow-up, and when the trailers for Don’t Worry Darling first appeared, my jaw dropped at the stunning look and feel of what came across as a creepy mind bender along the likes of The Stepford Wives. Flaws and all, and this film has its share, this film continues to establish Wilde as an exciting cinematic voice.

While on a surface level the movie seems to veer off in a completely different direction from its predecessor, it shares a lot of the same DNA. They both feature vibrant, vivid performances from their female leads and have some of that messy energy Wilde seems so adept at cultivating. While not entirely satisfying in the way Booksmart delivered as a teen comedy, Don’t Worry Darling has its share of secrets and a twist, which I’ll admit I’m a sucker for when it comes to thrillers. I always want to know the big surprise, even with films I’ll never see. What can I say? I’m a moth to the flames of this genre.

Without spoiling anything, Don’t Worry Darling finds married couple Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) living in a 1950s private community called Victory. With its Edward Scissorhands-esque color-blocked aesthetic, courtesy of the very talented Production Designer Katie Byron, we’re dropped into an idyllic patriarchal setting where the men all dash off to work at the same time in their finned cars while their impeccable wives with their styled hairdos and hoop skirts blow them kisses and head inside to vacuum their floors. What the men do all day at their jobs is a mystery beyond the stated manufacturing of “progressive materials”, but as long as the wives don’t ask any questions, and definitely do not go anywhere near their headquarters, they can all live in a sex-filled, heavy-partying land of plenty in a “Make America Great Again” kind of way.

Obviously, all is not quite right in this world, and through Alice’s eyes, we start to see the cracks. This leads to several stunning set pieces including Alice fighting against a glass window in a collision course with her face, disturbing sequences involving KiKi Layne as an increasingly unhinged housewife, and a visually breathtaking car chase. It all leads to the aforementioned big reveal, which truthfully feels somewhat like a been there/done that letdown.  If you’ve ever seen any of the films this one seems to reference, you’ve seen this plot point done better. It feels strange to say that Wilde tells the third act too visually when a little more dialogue would have given this section more layers. The screenplay by Katie Silberman, with a story by Carey and Shane Van Dyke, leaves the viewer with too many questions and would have benefited from a tad more backstory for our leads. It also feels repetitious at times, but that’s unfortunately baked into the concept. I also grew tired of the constant needle drops on the soundtrack, an issue I had with Booksmart as well. Wilde will hopefully shy away from overstuffing her films with music in the future.

These problems notwithstanding, I had a good time watching this gorgeous looking film, expertly shot by Cinematographer Matthew Libatique. Pugh carries the movie with every emotion clearly visible on her face and a sense of urgency you can feel. She reminded me of Kathleen Turner here, a natural born star. Styles also does well with his underwritten role, nicely traversing the physicality of his character throughout his varied journey. It’s a quiet, unfussy performance.

Pine has a creepy command of his community leader, oozing a nefarious charm, easily justifying how he has everyone under his spell. The biggest standout in this talented cast, aside from Pugh, however, is Wilde herself. She lives up to her last name with a ferocious, unpredictable energy only to surprise us later with some unexpected depth. Same goes for her directing style, fluid, exciting, and visceral. While undone by its problems in the end, Wilde remains a directing talent to keep watching as she expands upon her already impressive cinematic vocabulary.

[secretsofblackthornhall]

Kieran to General Winter

General Winter,

Three sunsets. I told you, I have three sunsets. I will be back in just that amount of time. It is not a very long amount of time. And yet you have written to me, spent your valuable time and mine because you could not wait three sunsets to know whether I prefer velvet in midnight blue or one in more of an eggplant, I believe was your phrase.

Forgive me my temper. I am not really angry with you. I am only somewhat out of sorts this morning, after a night of merriment and whimsy on the streets of London-Town, along with my Nephilim friends. Now, obviously any faerie revel contains such dark delights as mortals can only dream, and so on. But after the previous night I must concede a grudging respect for the reveling capacities of an unexpected group: London businessmen of late middle-age. In our journeys we encountered what is known here as a “Retirement Party,” a kind of movable feast in which these businessmen traverse the city in celebration of a chosen one. In this case I knew him only as “Kraig.”

We met his Party thrice last night! The first time, at the Tongue & Grapes, we shared only a mutual acknowledgement of fellow celebrants passing in the night. The second time, at the Inn of the Shaved Werewolf, there were mutual roars of recognition from both parties, and a ceremonial exchange of beverages, as is custom. And the third time, at the Pigeon & Spoon, we were welcomed and—a great honor—inducted as honorary members of the Party, whereupon we were bestowed with festive hats and jersey-cotton smocks proclaiming the majesty of the great Kraig.

So you will understand if I am shorter of patience than I would like, this day, for I have a vile headache engendered by too much of what mortals call “shandy”, a repellent beverage with a kick like an angry kelpie. It quite left my darling Cristina asleep on a rather sticky table at the Pigeon and Spoon; Mark and I had to carry her back to the Institute. She is awake now, of course, and demanding coffee with rather more force than usual. Given that my time is short, I shall endeavor to answer your queries as well as I can.

I like the midnight blue, for the throne room. I think it sets off the creeping vines well, and also I think that you were hinting you prefer it as well. Next, I am in general agreement that the overall aesthetic of the throne rooms should move in the direction of an opulent Gothic feel, rather than its previous occupant’s preferred mood of “blasted hellscape.” Let us remind our Court that we are the Moon, as the Seelie Court is the Sun; rather than that they are Beauty, and we Tackiness.

However, I disagree about the skulls. I think they should remain. Skulls are perfectly appropriate in an opulent Gothic setting. In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of a style in which skulls would not be an improving presence. If such a style exists, it would definitely not be a good choice for the throne rooms of the Unseelie Lord, let us at least agree upon that.

Lastly, I am disturbed to hear that the Seelie Court continues to rebuff my requests for a summit of peace. You were right when you noted your suspicions earlier; they have become more secretive in this past year, even for them. We will see if our scouts manage to learn anything, although in my experience our scouts mostly seem to fall into forbidden romances with Seelie scouts and then they run off together; we lose something like four out of five that way. I suppose what I am saying is that I am not exactly holding my breath. (A charming human expression, is that not?)

You do not need to suggest to me that I contact Adaon; he is my own brother and I speak with him often. Whenever I bring up the possibility of a united court, or a meeting between myself and the Seelie Queen, he says the same thing: now is not the time for a summit that might lead to discord — now is the time to preserve the fragile peace between the two courts by leaving well enough alone. He has the Queen’s ear, so I must trust he knows what I do not. Still, you know it is not in my nature to do nothing and call it progress.

Speaking of that fragile peace, I must inquire—have your redcaps learned any more about the strange presence that has been noted in Faerie, and whether it is beneficial or antagonistic to our interests? I feel it through my connection to the Land — I am woken sometimes, feeling that presence I cannot define, knowing it is both of Faerie and not of it, and that the Land itself is afraid.

Enough of that. I trust that you can manage to keep the Court in working order for the thirty-six remaining hours I will be gone. If more color selection is necessary before my return, I trust you to go with your instincts, which have always served you well.

Until then I have the honor to remain Your Eternal Sovereign, Master of the Hob and the Domovoi, Breaker of the Broken Lands, Crown Under the Hill, Dark Star of the Evening, Friend of Kraig, and King of the Unseelie Court —

Kieran