#or like a downgrade from my usual stuff D:

[booigi-boi]

Hope I did the song justice ❄️👻 You should definitely listen

[frankenwolf1564]

Transformers ONE Optimus Prime and Megatron: ONE shall stand, ONE shall fall

Trying another little something this week, kind of a blend between a photo gallery and a full review. Not as in depth or with as much background as a full review but more complex than my notes on a gallery. Hasbro Deluxes are like… the default transformer toy? So there’s usually nothing exceptional to say about what the actual figure can do. “It has a waist swivel, it has a bicep swivel, it has an ankle tilt.” Standards have risen substantially over the past, like, decade, especially post Siege, so while there are standouts, the context of a toy will usually be a meatier discussion. I’ll still mention accessories and stuff but I’m not going over every point of articulation.

Starting with Optimus, he’s a fine little lad! He’s on the smaller end of the deluxe scale, not quite mini-bot, but close. That might be a bit small for some people’s taste, but it does leave him as the perfect size to work as cogged Orion Pax, especially when stood next to the Studio Series Optimus. It helps that most of the elements that distinctly denote him as “Optimus” are his accessories. The smokestacks can unpeg, the axe is completely optional, and the matrix isn’t even visible tucked away behind his thinner, opaque chest window. Nearly everything else that feels like Prime is just from the two forms looking fairly similar. The biggest thing that’s baked in is his face, which is molded with the classic mouth plate. Given the scale and some of the styling at play, he works wonderfully as the Autobot Leaders younger self. I’d even be willing to look past the SS’ weird color choices and get him too if it weren’t for something we’ll get into later.

Rounding out Orion, he’s a little lacking in articulation thanks to his slightly lower price point, with no ankle tilt and slight clearance issues in his arms, but you can still get him into a wide range of poses, no problem. It might just take a little more balancing. I love how the fingers are sculpted into the axe. It’s close to how it works in the film and is just fucking cool, innit? Optimus feels incomplete without an Ion Blaster but it’s not a deal breaker. You can use the smokestacks as guns if you really want anyhow, though they are a bit dinky. The axe tucks away neatly on his back, and the matrix is as nicely sculpted as ever. I like the more Prime styled handles, though they are mostly just to let him hold it.

His truck mode is cute. It rolls fine and does the job. I said Deluxes don’t have much to talk about when it comes to what they can do.

Moving on to Megatron, he’s similarly splendid! Like SS ONE Prime his colors are a bit off, having used an off grey compared to the movies shiny silver, but it’s much more at home on Megatron, and it doesn’t look like it’s just yellowing, either. The rest of him looks great anyhow! He’s well sculpted and the muted red pairs nicely. It’s a great rendition of the character but… that fusion cannon is seriously hurting selling him as Megatron. The tri-barreld cannon didn’t have quite as much screen time, but it is a huge visual distinction that clearly sets him apart from just being D-16. The sculpting and such are absolutely that of his final form with the harsher angles, but like Orion and Optimus there isn’t a massive visual shift between the two forms and the cannon isn’t doing him any favors.

He shares many points of articulation with Optimus, with a few improvements and one or two downgrades. He gains a second hinge in his elbows, his wrists swivel, his ankles tilt and his feet can rock, but he can. Not look up. Like at all. His head swivels just fine, and he can look down, thanks to the transformation, but that one thing really hinders what you can do with him. You’re forced to stick with more static poses unless you want him looking at the ground all the time. Or at least. I was.

The tank mode is fun! There’s also more to talk about here so- Nothing’s coming undone once it’s all pegged together and it’s a dead ringer for what we see in the film. It’s definitely one of my favorite tank Megatrons in recent years and in general. The turret is just “alright” though. The swivel is located above the hinge so it’s hard to point it up in any one direction other than straight forward and have it look natural. It also unpegs a tad easily…

Megatron has a couple things that could have used a little more work, but they’d probably require bumping him up a size class to get more parts. Things like the head, maybe his shoulders and hips, a few minor bits that we’ve seen done better elsewhere. He could have easily gotten the triple barrel cannon as well. I really like him at this size though? I wouldn’t want him any bigger, and none of those things are a deal breaker. All of this comes with zero kibble, too. Honestly my biggest complaint is that there isn’t a mainline Deluxe version of him. I’d have gladly gotten both Orion Pax and D-16 and Optimus Prime and Megatron, but they didn’t release a Prime Changers D-16. I have no reason to also get the SS Optimus, as I’m happy with the Prime Changers and that doesn’t have a direct Decepticon counterpart, so the whole set would forever be incomplete. Hasbro I want to give you my money please-

[youcouldmakealife]

LBTE: Jared (118-121)

We head to Vancouver! And Joey makes the news.

If you want to follow along, the series page is here.

TW for a homophobic slur in here.

118. Niceties

Jared calls Bryce back, and manages not to cry on the phone. He packs with the help of an even quieter than usual Julius. He calls his mom, and promises he’ll talk to his dad tomorrow, because he can’t yet, he knows his dad being furious on his behalf is going to be just — too much.

They’re often so united on a hockey standpoint — remember Don’s gone to hundreds if not thousands of Jared’s games over the years, accompanied with almost as many debriefs — that talking to Don about stuff, especially stuff that they’re both angry or upset about, is often hearing his own thoughts from another person. And when he’s trying to suppress some of those thoughts so he doesn’t burst into tears, talking to Don is unhelpful.

He’s got a text from a 604 number when he gets off the phone. Hey, welcome to the Canucks! This is Gabe Markson. I’m probably your new centre. Sorry about the downgrade. Let me know if there’s anything you need. Whether that’s a ride from the airport or help finding a place, we got you.

Gabe!!!

It’s nice, especially since Jared’s used to being basically the only person he knows who uses proper capitalisation and punctuation in his texts, with the exception of Raf and Grace.

Love that Jared immediately approves of Gabe thanks to the magic of punctuation use.

hi new teammate! it says, followed by a slew of hockey related emojis and four blue whales. Jared guesses there aren’t any orcas.

Dmitry! Who forgot to identify himself.

“I can’t believe my mom gets to see you tomorrow and I don’t,” Bryce complains.

Which one is he more jealous of, I ask?

“We’re going to talk shit about you behind your back,” Jared says.

“Pft,” Bryce says, with the certainty of a man who knows his mother would never, even though his husband totally would.

Elaine is a Saint, and you can’t tell Bryce otherwise (or Jared, honestly)

He grabs a smoothie at Booster Juice, can just see Raf’s judgmental eyes, since it’s like, okay, only a smoothie in the loosest sense — chocolate almond milk and banana and frozen yogurt, a vaguely more socially acceptable milkshake for breakfast. Whatever. He deserves it.

The Funky Monkey is delicious. It also contains 67 grams of sugar. But jokes on Raf, the ostensibly more nutritious one he ordered after loser bought the winner a smoothie in their rookie years? Has 73. (and way more protein, but!)

Jared’s kind of figured out the standard of lying about his and Bryce’s marriage is that lying by omission: cool and also often necessary. Lying by lying? Not okay.

The current status of their compromise.

“I think you just jinxed me to get injured like, my first practice,” Jared says.

“Please don’t, our LTIR is literally just a list of all my former linemates right now,” Markson says.

Gabe is unfortunately not exaggerating. But on the bright side, their D is very healthy!

Raf says Oleg Kurmazov tells him not to take anything his brother says seriously, and between that and Markson’s surprise at how tame the text Jared got is, he’s getting a faintly terrifying picture of what to expect. If he got away from Jacobi just to play on a line with another Jacobi, he swears —

Jared is going to suffer and I will enjoy every minute of it.

That seems like the kind of thing the hockey gods would do. Not that Jared believes in them in a non-joking way, but the irony of Bryce and Jared swapping hometown teams feels exactly like something those non-existent hockey gods would do.

I am the hockey gods. It's a fun job, honestly. And also truly is hard to avoid a bit of sadism, I understand the not-real-but-also-don’t-wash-that-jersey IRL hockey gods.

Jared writes ‘Bryce Marcus’, and, in case there was any doubt it’s just a weird name doppelganger, Bryce’s date of birth probably cancels that out.

It’s not like the Canucks can trade him until the season’s over anyway.

Way less scary to write it in a form than tell your GM in a face to face meeting, but still pretty big.

“The leftovers are the best part,” Elaine says serenely when Jared questions her judgment on portion size. “Just pick whatever you like.”

What Jared apparently would like, is everything. Elaine may have made a good call, because he’s famished.

Her mom sense extends to you now too, Jared. And she’s right about leftovers.

“How jealous are you right now?” Jared says.

“I want to be there too,” Bryce complains.

“We had Chinese,” Jared says. “I’m sleeping over.”

“Stop rubbing it in,” Bryce says.

He's so pouty right now.

19. Acclimation

Jared’s nervous, walking into practice. It feels like the first day of school, but more — maybe the first day of school after you transfer. To a school of your enemies.

Evil Orca High.

Jared doesn’t ask what she needs to be downtown for, because he suspects the answer is ‘so I can drive you home’ but she’d make an excuse, so.

I mean, yes, but also: she's going shopping. Bryce didn't get that from nowhere.

but Elaine’s like Bryce — doing nice shit genuinely seems to make them happy.

Jared does not understand.

“We do not do this last names bullshit here,” Kurmazov says sternly, before tossing him a roll. “Dmitry. I don’t care if you pronounce it wrong, everyone does.”

Unlike his poor brother, stuck being referred to solely as Kurmazov by his own adopted hockey child for literal years.

“Please tell me you’re not like doing a Riley-Lapointe, married to a rival thing though,” Foster says.

“Um?” Jared says.

“Okay!” Foster says. “Okay. I. That’s fine!”

Poor Brian has not learned a key GM duty: keeping his inside thoughts on the inside.

“Good,” Foster says. “Maybe have a chat with Gabe? If there’s anything you’re concerned about, or — he’s good people, he’ll listen.”

Brian leaning so hard on 'please talk to our queer player about this' without actually saying it.

“Have I told you how happy we are to have you on the roster?” Brian says, and Jared has the sudden urge to hug him, but he’s pretty damn positive hugging your GM is not appropriate.

As far as GMs go, he is pretty huggable, despite the fact he could still likely snap Jared in two.

“I redecorated your room a little today,” Elaine says. “Bryce told me which mattress you guys like and they delivered it right away, it was terrific, and I’ve put Bryce’s spare clothes in storage, so there’s space in the closet and the dresser for your things, and in the bathroom too — I got a shower caddy, and the medicine cabinet’s —”

Count is at 3 magic beds now. Also she's nervous, bless her: she really wants Jared to feel welcome.

She’s taken the Canucks stuff out too, which he appreciates, because it was funny when he was visiting with Bryce, giving him shit about it, but feels faintly weird now that’s playing for them.

Can you imagine how much shit he would get. Can you.

“It’s like ten years old,” Bryce says. Jared wonders if Bryce and Elaine rehearsed the ‘override Jared’s protests’ together. “Need to play at your best, you know?”

Well, Bryce had to prepare her for Jared's tendency to turn down gifts.

The Canucks aren’t the Oilers, and if Jared wants to stay in the roster, avoid getting sent halfway across the continent to Utica, there’s no slacking off here.

The Canucks' AHL team is now in Abbotsford, which is a mere 70 km from Vancouver, but for literal years it was in upstate New York and boy were emergency recalls of players a fucking mess. Only arrangement I can think of that was less convenient was Montreal's farm team briefly being in Newfoundland, less because of distance (though there was plenty) and more because of weather and lack of alternate forms of transportation if Canadian winter was being Canadian winter (inevitably, it was).

Anyway, Jared has nothing to worry about: those cursed former linemates are all pretty far off from rejoining the roster.

“Okay, we’re both equally awesome,” Jared says.

“You’re more awesome,” Bryce says huffily.

Even their arguments are gross.

120. Machiavellianism

Jared has now seen a lot of Joey Munroe. Like — all of him.

Joey is not having a good day, everybody.

“You and Bryce don’t send each other nudes, do you?” his mom asks instead of saying ‘hello’.

“What!” Jared says. “Mom!”

“It’s a valid concern!” his mom says. “Just tell me you don’t and I’ll drop it!”

The cold fear that went through her body when she saw that article.

“How was your day?” his mom asks.

“Well, no one leaked nudes of me, so better than his,” Jared says.

“You said there were no nudes!” she says.

“I meant it hypothetically mom, oh my god,” Jared says.

They're both actively shrieking at one another at this point.

Greg’s sent him an email with no subject, the body reading ‘Would this be something to worry about? Greg’ because everyone in his life is collectively trying to murder him with embarrassment.

Greg also had the cold fear moment.

Jared’s too mature to respond with ‘No, oh my god’. Well, he clearly isn’t, because that’s exactly what he said to his mother, but he responds to Greg with a simple ‘No, nothing to worry about’, then, after a moment of thought, cc’s Summers in the email so hopefully Bryce doesn’t have to deal with the mortification too.

This is why Jared's Dave's favourite.

Maybe Jared’s too dumb to be Machiavellian. It’s distinctly possible.

I like that Jared has this thought and then later just goes straight back to schemes, some of which work out…poorly

“You see the thing with the Scout?” Jared asks before their game against the Golden Seals, voice carefully pitched low so Dmitry won’t overhear.

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “That was super fucked up.”

“That he’s gay, or—”

I know Jared's fishing. You know Jared's fishing. Gabe just hears a dude saying 'yeah it's fucked up he's gay' when he's already in a clenched stomach bad mood about this.

He feels even more off when he notices Gabe talking to Munroe at centre ice, both of them looking serious. Maybe they know one another, but Gabe wasn’t talking about him like he knew him personally when Jared brought it up. Gabe skates away, skates back when another Scout calls his name, and Jared watches warily. It doesn’t look like a fight, or like Gabe was giving him shit? But then, there’s no way to tell.

Gabe's a good boy. Reminder that the other Scout was Scratch communing with Gabe, as he is obligated to do with every other Torontonian, while Joey silently sighed at him. Already married.

“What’d you tell Munroe?” Jared asks.

“That I was really sorry that happened to him,” Gabe says. “And that I don’t know what he’ll deal with from other teams, but that none of the Canucks are going to be assholes about it.”

“You can’t exactly guarantee that,” Jared says.

“I know our room,” Gabe says, then frowns at him. “I don’t need to tell you not to be an asshole about it, right?”

All members of Canuck leadership would lose their shit if someone was an asshole about it. Well, that's not true. Gabe would do 'I'm really disappointed in your behaviour', and that would hurt the most.

Oh great, Jared’s just — really hitting his accidentally appearing homophobic stride with Gabe lately.

He could not do better if he tried.

The loss isn’t his fault — the Scouts terrifyingly talented first line is responsible for every single goal

Stupid sexy Willy. Stupid shitty Shithead.

“But would you be cool about it?” Jared asks. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to be cool, he’s the YCP rep—”

“Casterley’s the YCP rep for the Flames,” Bryce says. “And he calls the refs faggots every time we get a goal disallowed.”

Hey remember when Andrew Shaw got suspended for calling the ref that exact thing and became the Canadiens' YCP representative after? Because I do.

Also: you may recall Casterley as the dude low-key cheating on his wife in Luke's narrative. He sucks.

“I get it,” Bryce says. “Good luck?”

Jared’s faintly concerned at this rate he’s going to somehow come off as homophobic when he’s coming out, so he probably needs it.

I mean, if anyone could…

“Elaine and I hate it,” Jared says. “No more fights.”

“You can’t just team up with my mom against me,” Bryce mutters.

“We’re an awesome team, though,” Jared says. “The best team.”

Way to shut Bryce down. Man can't argue that.

121. Confession

“I can—” Jared interrupts, because if he doesn’t get it out soon he knows he’s going to balk. “I’m um. I’m married.”

“Okay,” Gabe says, frowning the exact same way Foster did, like he’s confused by the nonsequitor. Which is understandable.

Generally the wedding ring speaks for itself.

“Dude,” Gabe says. “I’m not kidding. You met Stephen. Like, for a minute, but you met him.”

“Your roommate?” Jared asks.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Gabe says, and the living arrangements suddenly make way more sense.

To be fair if there was anywhere someone making NHL money would require a roommate, Vancouver’s near the top of the list.

“Dmitry, all of the vets know for sure,” Gabe says. “Pretty much everyone who’s been here since before this season. I think the entire roster has figured out he’s my boyfriend. We’re not shouting it from the rooftops or anything, because the media—” he makes a face Jared wholly agrees with, “— but we’re not hiding it from the team.”

Stephen routinely hosting wine parties for the WAGs is a pretty big tell, there.

“I don’t think they’d be adopting my husband any time soon,” Jared says before he can stop himself.

“Stephen’s like the grumpiest person alive sometimes, if they adopted him I’m sure your husband will be part of the crew in a day,” Gabe says.

Yeah, he'll do okay.

“I told him you guys have the same sense of humour and view of the world and stuff,” Gabe says.

Jared is no less confused, and now he’s kind of curious what Gabe thinks Jared’s sense of humour and view of the world is.

“Like —” Jared says finally. “Snide? And — cynical? Or—”

“Yeah, he’s going to love you,” Gabe says with a laugh.

A minion of his very own?! Gabe, you shouldn't have!

Schmid’s in the shower when Jared gets back, and who knows when he got in it, how long that’ll last, but he’s a bathroom hog, takes forever with his whole grooming thing — Jared has no clue what takes so long, dude always looks unkempt, but maybe that’s a purposeful look? — so Jared’s probably safe.

Poor Schmid doing nothing but minding his own business in the proximity of the most judgmental man alive.

And that’s on top of Jared getting to play for Bryce’s childhood team, to live in his childhood home with Bryce’s mom. Jared’s pretty much living the life Bryce would have wanted growing up. Except not even, because Jared’s probably living the life Bryce would never have dreamt he could have possibly have when he was growing up. And there wasn’t a hint of resentment in Bryce’s voice when he told Jared he was happy for him.

“I love you, you know that?” Jared asks.

“I know,” Bryce says, which Jared needs to hear more than ‘I love you too’ right now, though Bryce says it immediately after, because he’s Bryce.

Bryce <3

“Chaz could come, it could be like,” Bryce says. “Chill. Like, we could grab drinks or dinner or something somewhere. Maybe not like — I don’t know if I’d be ready for him to like, know who we are to each other, not when I don’t actually know him, but like — meeting him’s the first step, you know?”

Chaz will not find this chill. Chaz will find this the opposite of chill, in fact.

“Because I’m snide and cynical,” Jared says. It maybe comes out a little snidely, because seriously, how is Bryce still confused.

“No you aren’t,” Bryce says.

“Bryce,” Jared says.

“But like in a good way!” Bryce protests. “I like it from you!”

<333333 Bryce

Though it’s faintly worrying that Gabe picked up on those things within weeks of meeting him, especially because Jared has been on his best behaviour the whole time. Apparently Jared’s best behaviour’s still noticeably snide.

Such a lack of self-knowledge. And actual good behaviour. Jared is admirably true to himself, though!

[heybaetae]

Actually, your answer was really interesting because I did not know any of these things! :D Also can I just say, even though you very rarely talk about your experience with cameras/film, it's so nice when you do! I love seeing people talk about something that they are passionate about and/or have relevant experience in.

If I remember correctly, even their bangtan bombs/eps and run bts episodes used to be better quality a few months or years ago. They obviously do not need to be as good as their docus (i love break the silence's quality AND editing so much!), but I noticed a few CCs talking about how it got worse. Why do you think they switched?

oh good i was kinda worried i came off a bit snobby with that response when i totally didn’t mean to 😭 i’m really only just speculating and applying my own knowledge of cameras to what i’ve observed, but i’m no expert and could of course be wrong. i definitely don’t claim to know better than a professional film crew, but in my experience working on sets and learning about what types of cameras work best for the overall product and will provide the best results, it’s been interesting (and frustrating as a cc lol) to see the quality steadily reduce in things like run bts and bangtan bombs. my theory as to why they’ve downgraded to cheaper cameras for those types of media in recent years? besides it being cost effective, well…frankly, they don’t have to hire people with previous experience on any type of film crew to do it. and i’m not saying they don’t have people around who know what they’re doing and are using great, high quality equipment when a situation calls for it—but i think they ALSO have inexperienced staff who they put in charge of the “b-roll” cameras for content that isn’t as prioritized as what the bigger documentary cameras pick up. so like youtube stuff for example. or even most stuff they release on memories dvds. that inexperience comes through a LOT in those videos these days, especially when it comes to simple camera settings like adjusting the white balance to the light in the room or changing the ISO to give a slightly brighter image. really simple fixes that are instead consistent nuisances. i hate to say it so bluntly but i really don’t think some of these staff are taught to use a camera properly at all seeing as they have become a bit careless about it. if you’ve ever seen fan videos from afar of the boys and you notice like one random person trailing behind some member with a small camera in one hand, that’s the kind of thing i’m talking about. proper film crew members are usually distinguishable by the bigger shoulder cams and extra gear they’re wearing, especially if there are extra bodies around them with lights and better mics. that candid footage is fine and it works in certain contexts, i’m not trying to completely disregard certain job roles because i’m sure it’s not easy trying to catch everything all the time, but for a company with so much money it’s a bit laughable how lazy, for lack of a better word, they’ve become when it comes to providing decent footage of certain moments. but sometimes it later turns out that a professional doc crew caught those same moments from other angles! i’ve noticed that happen and we’ve already seen it in one of the disney trailers with the moment they were nominated for their first grammy.

bangtan bomb, cheaper HD camera:

beyond the star doc series, 4K movie camera:

another example…

love yourself concert dvd, cheaper HD camera:

bring the soul doc series, 4K movie camera:

different qualities, aspect ratios, white balance, color grading, just overall better version for the content it was used and intended for. :)

[e-adlirez]

Heyyo! Soo thanks to your thea sisters posts, I decided to try reading them again :D! I manage to read two of the treasure seekers series on the internet archive (because im poor lol :'))and is really good as you said and I also have fun reading the comics again despite the changes. I read some of the new ones from the mains series as well and so I wonder, from the newer ones, which one do you think is the best? ( for me is the venice masquerade. I end up liking it waaay more than I thought)

Hiiii, nice to see you got into the series again haha :D glad to be doing my service as a fan of this underrated series

Glad to know that Treasure Seekers lived up to your expectations! When I read it, it was such a wave of nostalgia for the action and thrill of the older books. Nice to see you're able to enjoy the comics despite the changes, too! If I remember correctly, the only reason I completed my comic collection of the series was for the novelty and the knowledge that I will forever be irritated by the possibility of missing a book that isn't available, I never got over the downgrade in narrative and visual quality haha :'D

Now for the main series books. Well, I would say that the books up until Venice Masquerade were bangers with a few meh outliers like uh Frozen Fiasco (sorry bestie you were basically a Professor Layton-Thea Stilton crossover without the good storytelling to carry). The books after that are kinda eeehhhhhh.... while Roman Holiday and Fiesta in Mexico were bangers, everything else after Venice Masquerade are kinda meh. Good for fluff and light shenanigans I guess, but meh in A plot, that is the mystery. Venice Masquerade is really cool, as a fan of Now You See Me the book tickled me in one of the best ways out there-- it's like watching the movie but in the perspective of Mark Ruffalo the entire time except progress is being made :D What would the Polizia di Stato do without the girls' braincells? Nothing but blunder the crap outa catching the mask thief like David Warshofsky, that's what. (Tho uh I'm smelling a hint of Scholastic's editing in the scene where Marco and Nicky trash up the magician's glider. Seriously Marco, mi caro, a magician never telegraphs their magic tricks vocally, and in the span of time you're whispering to Nicky about trashing up the glider, the magician would've already snapped out of it and wiped away all that soggy sweaty bits of confetti you picked from the floor with your sweaty-ass palms--)

I would say that Venice Masquerade is the best of the newer series, but Roman Holiday is also good in terms of shaking things up with the usual formula. Please for the love of everything holy do not touch Rainforest Rescue. If you're Southeast-Asian, do not let the Malaysian setting of the book deceive you into SEA pride, that book is one of the most mid books out there and it irritates me as a Southeast Asian. It's like Prince's Emerald without everything that made Prince's Emerald cool. Like Riddle of the Ruins without any of the nerdy archaeological stuff that appealed to all the nerds out there. Rainforest Rescue? More like MIDFOREST RE--

[werenotadulting]

Routine Procedure - Finale

Author's note - Hope you enjoyed!

Part 7 - Kate

If you'd asked her, Kate wouldn't have been able to tell what exactly had gotten her interested in it.

Maybe it was the idea of the power dynamic. She had always been one of those girls labeled as 'bossy' growing up, which was a misogynistic way of saying that she wasn't afraid to speak up and speak her mind.

Or maybe it was the subversion of expectations of a traditional relationship that did it for her. The idea that she was the one in control, the one making all the decisions.

Maybe it was the fact that it was so taboo and kinky that appealed to her. It didnt really matter, whatever the reason.

Kate was into being a Mommy Domme, and Kate found nothing hotter than having a diapered little bitch boy to call her own.

The ultimate fantasy was teaching the boy to love and trust his diapers. Make him associate orgasming with wet diapers and diaper changes. Create a leaking "accident" in public so he learns that while thicker diapers might increase the risk of being noticed, they save you from the embarrassment of wet pants.

Of course, she had considered bringing up her desires to Mike, but based off of past experiences, she didn't want to chance it. Mike was just too perfect of a guy to risk blowing it like that.

She had always been the dominant one in bed, with Mike eagerly submitting to her every whim, so she knew they were sexually compatible. It had never gone past light bondage though, and Kate was starting to get an itch that handcuffs and blindfolds just wouldn't scratch.

────────

It had come up entirely by chance, one day while she was scrolling through an obscure ABDL forum.

The post read: "Biomedical engineer here, and I think I've figured out a way to induce instant, semi-permanent incontinence."

The post was over 3 days old, and only had two comments on it. The first was from a mod, basically saying to take everyone's posts with a grain of salt. The second was from the OP, about 24 hours after the original post.

"I know it sounds like a fantasy, but I'm pretty confident it will work. I've had a career in medical devices for the last 8 years, specializing in the urology space. I don't want to get too deep into the details on here, so just PM me of you're interested."

Kate rolled her eyes.

Everyone in this community is so hooked on the 'I want to be instantly incontinent' thing, and all it ever ends up being is some silly fap content, she thought to herself.

"You know what, let's feed the troll and see what bites," she muttered.

Liv2DomU: ok spill, what's your magical method?

PrinceOfPadding: this for you, or someone else?

Liv: hypothetically, let's say it's for a boyfriend

Prince: Ahh okay. Very interesting. Well, like I said, I've worked in med device for awhile, and I've recently started my own company. I primarily work in the urology space, catheters, scopes, that kind of stuff.

Liv: hmm hate to break it to u bud, but catheters kinda already exist

Prince: oh sure, catheters exist, but my idea is to bridge the catheter world with the stent world

Liv: sounds idk...sketchy? illegal?

As she read more, Kate was beginning to think that this guy might not be as full of crap as she had initially thought. He had his own start-up, which had already launched a Foley catheter to the market. It was all above-board and legit.

Prince: so, for the aspiring incontinent-person-to-be, the ring is positioned with a catheter, and stays in place once the Foley is removed. Then overtime, probably a month at minimum, depending on the chemical makeup and customer desire, the ring breaks down and is naturally absorbed into the body. And they all sign a consent form saying they accept the risks of such a procedure.

Liv: so then once it's dissolved they are back to being being able to control their bladder?

Prince: that's the theory, yes

Liv: theory?

Prince: well, dissolvable stent technology present state takes like 18 months to break down, and the manufacturing of it is patented and kept under lock and key

Liv: so basically all you have to offer is a catheter lol

Prince: well no. I've got some good leads on dissolvable compounds, but I've got to do trials of the rings first to see if it would even work. I've promised free diapers for the first few months if people sign up, but it's been hard to get subjects

Liv: so these trial rings wouldn't dissolve?

Prince: nope

Liv: meaning my hypothetical boyfriend would be....?

Prince: permanently diaper dependent, yeah

────────

In the end Kate was curious enough that she was willing to hear the guy out.

He'd asked for a mailing address and her phone number. The first was to send proof that his company was real, and the second was just to keep in contact should she decide to proceed.

It all made sense, at least in theory. Foley catheters were safe, provided they were inserted by a trained healthcare professional. A normal person would get a normal catheter just like everyone else. But an ABDL would be signing up for what was essentially an intentionally faulty catheter.

Assuming they knew they were willingly signing up for it.

When asked about 'accidental' ring implants, Prince had basically said, hey, people really need to learn to read the fine print.

────────

I walked out to the mailbox. I've been expecting test results back from the scan I'd had a few weeks back. Opening up the box, I noticed a large envelope with my hospital's address on the front.

About time, I thought, grabbing the envelope and the rest of the mail.

I walked back into the house, where Kate was making herself a cup of tea.

"Anything good in the mail?" she asked, taking a sip from her mug.

I listed them aloud as I started to flip though the mail, "Looks like some junk mail, an internet bill, a brochure for some UroVention medical thing, and last but not least, my test results."

I dropped the rest of the mail on the counter and started to open up my scan results. As I was reading, Kate walked over and began sorting through the other mail.

"Oh good, they said it's benign, but they're still worried about the location. They're recommending removal, just to be on the safe side."

"Removal for something benign? That sounds odd, but whatever," Kate said, tucking something into her back pocket.

"I'm not too worried. It sounds like it should be a pretty routine procedure."

────────

Part 8 - Mike

I sat down on the couch, my diaper squishing underneath me. Kate had taken to putting two stuffers in my diaper, even though these Tykables could already hold a lot. The warm, comforting feeling of my wet diaper started to turn me on, just like it did every time I realized how wet I was or if I was about to get a change. Not that I could do anything about it, though.

I flipped open the laptop and signed in. It would probably be a good hour before Kate got back from the store. Apparently I was being downgraded from sippy cups to bottles.

Once logged in, I noticed that the screen was still up to the site where Kate had last been. It was another diaper order, this time a case of Megamaxes. I felt my cheeks start to heat up, seeing that Kate had chosen the pink color for the whole case.

I opened up a private window, and navigated to KinkLink. My profile on here was pretty bare. It always had been, just containing my age, gender, and some basic interests. I hadn't even bothered to post a picture when I set it up. I preferred to look at other people's profiles rather than post things of my own.

I was always intrigued by people's locations and how close they were to where I lived. One such person who I came back to check the posts of daily was a mommy domme, who it happened lived in my town. Her first posts, from nearly three years ago, were what had first caught my attention.

'Every night I dream about finding my perfect diaper slut. He will wake up to me rubbing his thick, soggy padding, the little bedwetter that I turned him into.'

'Picture this: You, in a wet diaper and nothing else. Me, in my black lingerie with a strap on. Do I have any volunteers?'

'Have no doubt, if you date me, it's diapers forever. There's no "only at home" or "but my parents are coming over". Maybe I'll just find a way to make you incontinent. Then you won't have an excuse.'

And then there were the pictures. She never would show her face, but she didn't need to.. She wasn't lying about the black lingerie. It left very little to the imagination. Then the next picture, where the bra came off, and she was just in her lacy panties, her pierced nipples and tattoos on display. Maybe it was the octopus tattoo on her arm, my favorite animal, that made her stick out to me.

But there was one post that I always came back to and was entranced by. It was a picture of her holding an ABU Kiddo, right below her breasts. She wasn't wearing any clothing.

'Aww baby, did you wet the bed? I think we should probably put you in some protection.'

────────

I stood in line at the coffee shop. It wasn't too busy for a Tuesday at 9 a.m., only two people were ahead of me. As the first person in line got her coffee and the second lady stepped up to place her order, I checked my phone. Still a half hour before I needed to be at work, I had some time to sit and enjoy my drink. I got my usual and went off to a booth in the corner.

"Excuse me, but do you happen to know what the Wi-Fi password is here?"

I looked up to see the woman who had been in front of me in line.

"Oh um, yeah it's....oh I think they just changed it. Try 'PINTO'. They always pick some sort of bean, I think they find it amusing, but it's never a coffee bean..." I trailed off.

She smiled, "Oh thank you so much, yeah I'll try that."

My mouth fell open is shock.

"I uhhh...I like your tattoo," I said. "They're my, um, favorite animal."

"Oh mine too! Isn't the octopus, like, the coolest animal?"

"D-definitely. Hey, would you like to sit with me? I'm just hanging out while I wait for work. My name is Mike by the way."

"That sounds really nice. Thank you, Mike. I'm Kate."

[robotslenderman]

I'm gonna be without a comp for a while longer...

Am currently backing everything up to dropbox. Comp would not recognise either of my monitors so I hauled Kynareth into the office and connected her to one of his. (He's in IT. He has a lot of monitors. There's three more in the hall to try lmao though I'm sure one of them is dead.)

Before I did that though I had fun and games trying to get Kynareth to run. While I was trying to get her to play nice with my second monitor she shut off and wouldn't turn on again even after I removed the new RAM. Luckily when I dragged her into the office she decided to play (mostly) nice.

The motherboard visual ports don't work at all. The GPU has three ports for monitors - one is HDMI, one of the display ports don't plug in at all for some reason, and the second DP was the pink monstrosity in my last update. Like, everything just went pink. The third DP port worked fine... except for some reason the computer then thought she was hooked up to two monitors, not one, and I couldn't do anything on it because it treated the Pink Monstrosity as the main "monitor". But the Pink Monstrosity thought it was the *only* monitor, and wouldn't let me push windows over.

Problem was, I wanted to upgrade dropbox so I could back up Kynareth as I had no external hard drives and didn't want to risk the storage drives borking, and I couldn't see payment checkout options on the Pink Monstrosity.

But luckily tinkering with "detect other displays" on the Pink Monstrosity fixed the duplicate ghost monitor issue so I was able to switch to the only port with proper colour and actually do shit on it.

Don't want to spend too much time on cherry picking files to back up so I went "fuck it", uninstalled a whole bunch of my fattest games, and just copy pasted the entire C-drive onto dropbox. It's been copying for over an hour and is only about a quarter done. D drive is over five times as big and is gonna take even longer.

So far she hasn't crashed again and is still running. I'll stay up until C drive is done, then do D drive and hopefully she'll run through the night.

In the meantime, I've put the new build list together and I'll order the new parts tomorrow. The IT guy, whose name I STILL don't know lmao, went through the parts list with me and gave me feedback. He gave me some still good, but lower cost alternatives and we shaved $700 off the price without even really downgrading anything. If I'd taken his advice on the motherboard we'd have even got it under two grand, but I decided to stick with it.

His biggest suggestions were to change the CPU for one that's still really good for games, but the one I'd picked was overkill because I'd misunderstood the numbering convention. Another piece of advice was on storage - I was going to buy two NVMe SSDs, which are the fastest storage drives you can get, but the big one was pretty pricey. His suggestion was a small NVMe for the operating system, an SSD for my games and a hard drive for everything else that doesn't need fast loading speeds.

So I did that and now have more storage for less money! \o/

Or I will, rather, once everything is ordered.

The new computer will be named Arkay, and I've got no more gaming until he's set up. So, well, gonna catch up on my reading in the meantime.

The place I usually order from tends to be quick. I'll put in the order tomorrow morning and everything should be here in a week at the longest. (Yes, that's quick down here.) More likely stuff will start arriving Tuesday or Wednesday, but I vaguely recall Kynareth arriving over a few days instead of all at once, so.

Til then, I'll brush up on comp building skills and do a lot of reading. The shop I ordered Kynareth's parts from will do computer builds, but even if they had all the pieces (as I have some of them) I wanna do it myself. It was so rewarding last time, minor mental breakdown over the internet drivers notwithstanding...

[fmdjaewonarchive]

hi there folks, excuse my flakey activity i’m currently in the middle of taking exams which means i’m asleep 70% of the time and studying the other 30%. regardless, i would love to get some event stuff going for jaewon/yuanjun/minah/yena so i’m just gonna leave some real vague directions and ideas i had in mind below the cut (but truly, i’m down for anything). as usual, just like this post if you wanna plot or feel free to hmu on d*sc*rd: goth gf kim minji#5703 . 

jaewon: 

jaewon has been needing a break for the past... 7? 8? months at this point so bless it’s finally here this bitch rlly need to do some (initial wary) self care and i’d love to have ppl drag him into some healing activities and eventho he complains at first it def shows to work like... 5 minutes in. think hikes, spa, meditation, anything and everything that comes to mind rlly. this bitch just needs to take care of himself for 5 seconds.

parental death tw // i don't think this is very known information but jaewon has an INCREDIBLY reluctancy towards camping, it’s something he used to do w/ his parents when he was younger before they passed and they’re some of the most direct memories he still has of them so he kinda just, doesn’t touch upon that. i’d love to have someone who’s just like ok but u can’t pass this opportunity up tho and convinces him to go camping one of the nights. we love friends who encourage healthy development in jaewon!!!

god the other two plots r so serious but also i’d laugh my ass off at someone taking a coffee brewing class w/ jaewon, just cuz he inhales coffee like it’s his sole driving force. see, sometimes i offer fun plots.

yuanjun:

 first things first. who signed off on letting yuanjun near any place that has a climbing wall? that’s a safety hazard in itself. i’d love to do a thread centered around that, whether they’re hyping this idiot up or are generally concerned for his wellbeing, i’m here for it.

also a failed attempt at taking yuanjun to meditate. like we all know this kid doesn’t have the attention span for this, neither can he keep his trap shut that long. anyone down to get kicked out of a meditation class with him? 

maybe someone go hiking with him? we all know he’d be bouncing along the hiking trail, it’d be a good way for him to blow off some steam and get some off that energy out of his system. warning: be aware they might probably have to remind his annoying bitchass to for the love of god, just stay on the trial. little red riding hood is quaking under yuanjuns stupidity truly. 

the open mic night could be iconic. whether it’s just them (playfully, w due respect for everyone) judging the performances or them having a performance of their own i’m here for it (just saying,,,, yuanjun lalalay cover or a wish cover... iconic, showstopping, never done before, we love to see it, i’m speaking it into existence)

yena: 

we know miss nam yena is not here to be on a journey to self-discovery. that would be entirely too functional of her for once. if anything, she’s just gonna be making a lot of backhanded comments ab how the companies downgraded going from hawaii last year to some secluded gangwon resort in the mountains somewhere. someone indulge her, shit talking can be a healing activity too no?

i’m not saying yena smuggled alcohol in BUT yeah no that’s definitely what i’m saying. bold of you to assume she’d stay sober for 3 days in a row. either way, if someone wants some of that, hit her up, y’all know where to find her, sharing is caring and all that. (concretly she’s probably casually spiking her drink and those of anyone that wants some at the bonfire, just saying)

but for real, most of this yena is gonna spend by the poolside looking cute, maybe getting a nice spa day or a massage in, just doing as little as possible, you know how it is. that’s not a lot to work with but if anyone else is looking forward to doin as little as possible pls let me know.

minah:

first things first, i’d love to have someone take one of those cooking classes w/ minah, whether they both share an interest in cooking or maybe they are very prone to sticking around minah’s place for dinner usually and minah thinks it will be good for them to learn some skill of their own, either way could be really fun. 

secondly maybe someone to take a yoga/aerial yoga class with her? whether minah dragged them into or they genuinely thought it was fun. i’m not saying this idea is sponsored by the image of jung eunji in a sports bra and sports leggings but... that’s exactly it, oops.

last one honestly this whole retreat is such a lovely setting for a good heart to heart conversation, i’d love a good conversation out on the terrace in the evening or something like that, be it due to past bad blood between them or even just them talking over personal matters of their own. just ah, some nice bonding

all:

all 4 of them jaewon, minah & yena also still need roommates and honestly i’m down for all kinds of dynamics, people who don't like each other rooming, people who do get along rooming, people who rlly don't know each other that well rooming getting to know each other, anything

but also like i said i’m down for anything so if you have an idea feel free to toss it my way or if you have a post of your own PLEASE let me know and i’ll gladly read that over too!!!

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Hey! I recently found your blog and saw you believed in N+A=D, which is a theory I read a few years ago and really enjoyed,, I plan on reading your more in dept analysis on your site when I have time, thanks for putting it together! I really like this theory since it mirrors J and D even more and it also removes the rape and Aerys' madness in general from D. Now a question: do you believe this theory will be discussed in the show (only 2 eps left) or is it gonna stick to the books if it is true?

A woman after my own heart!  This theory is the dearest to my heart! @ktwrites and I have expanded the theory much more than wherever you last heard it, I assure you. (For anyone wondering, this is our site)

First, thank you SO much for recognizing that this theory mirrors Jon and Dany even further!

That’s the part that hooked me in, too. If Jon is rumored to be born of rape but actually born of love, shouldn’t Dany be, too? I think the pair of them having parents with star-crossed, tragic love stories is actually perfect for a pair that comes together to break the wheel that drove their parents apart in the first place.

All of the anti arguments about Daenerys vanish, since let’s face it, they usually come from (homogeneous) Stark stans. Dany gets the blame for what Aerys did before she was born, gets accused of sharing his madness, and also, the incest. If this theory is true, Jon and Dany are downgraded to cousins rather than aunt/nephew. Fucking everyone in Westeros are cousins. Rickard & Lyarra, Tywin & Joanna…

Also, then these lines about “I am the last Targaryen,” and “A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing,” and “The last dragon.” Then actually mean something literal.

I do have a page on the site about show clues, but fuck it - I’ll add some here.

The Dragon and the Wolf?

But… Jon’s a dragon. I don’t make the rules. He is Aegon Targaryen - Dragon, fire. Sure, he has Stark blood. But if Jon is a Stark, then Sansa, Arya, and Bran are Tullys (I don’t make the rules). So… who is ice and who is fire? Right now it’s more like The Dragon and the Dragon and A Song of Fire and Fire.

Curiously, the new Mother’s Day card (I know, I know it has Targ symbols) features an icy border:

And okay. Dany’s aversion to fire, which many relate to her being a Targaryen… maybe it has more to do with the ice in her veins? After all, we see Jon burned by fire:

And later wearing a bandage on his hand:

Meanwhile, we have Jon able to survive a deep dive in freezing cold water that probably would’ve killed a normal person - maybe the fire in his blood? This is all wild speculation now, so I’ll stop lmfao. One other thing though, in Fire & Blood, Alysanne’s dragon Silverwing refused to go past the Wall, it sounds almost like there was some sort of magical barrier there. Meanwhile, Dany has no problem getting past it. Which could just be plot convenience, admittedly.

Like in the books, the fallen direwolf (symbolizing Ned) at the beginning of the series has six pups. Ned has five children (so far as we know).

Dany and the color blue:

Now, I know what Michelle Clapton says about Dany always wearing blue - “Dothraki power color” Which is strange to me, since blue is one of the rarest pigments during this time period. I know, it’s just a show. Dany looks good in blue. Maybe that’s all it means.

But Stark women have a tendency to wear blue, likely as a nod to the blue ‘winter rose’, in which the Stark lady in the Bael the Bard tale is literally referred to as a winter rose.

Likewise, Dany wears greys and purples (if she is Ashara Dayne’s daughter, then purple would be her mother’s house color):

The Starks have a tendency to ride white horses. White is a Stark color. Jon has always ridden a black horse, which is a Targaryen color.

(Yeah, Dany rides a black horse beside Jon in S8, but she also tends to wear red colors while in his presence… bride of fire, eh?)

While Ashara Dayne is never mentioned on the show (I don’t think Rhaella is, either… despite Dany always wearing that ring, which is never explained in the show proper, rather in BTS stuff or interviews). Ashara Dayne is mentioned in the history and lore for the Season 6 DVD Extras.

Daenerys’ costume also shares similarities with Ned’s, in the way she wears her cape as well as the diagonal chain across her chest:

Ned has interesting reactions toward Dany’s assassination attempt. He doesn’t seem to give two shits about Viserys, telling Robert that if he makes it to Westeros, they’ll throw him back in the Narrow Sea, meanwhile Ned is chin-wobbling upset after hearing it’s too late to reverse the hit on Dany’s life. Arguably more upset than he was after seeing the dead body of a freshly murdered child, Mycah (though that’s debatable, I’m sure). There are some interesting transition scenes between Dany and Ned, particularly my favorite:

And then there are early promo photos where Dany and Ned are put together:

In season 7, Daenerys says Dragonstone does not feel like a homecoming, and she goes and touches Dorne on the Painted Table immediately thereafter:

There’s a curious line from Cersei during the Dragonpit meeting, saying basically she couldn’t trust Dany’s word, but could trust Jon’s word because he’s Ned Stark’s son. The shot hangs on Dany as she speaks the line about Ned Stark’s son (watch the clip here):

We’ve got other lines too, about how when Jon is elected King in the North, Lyanna Mormont says, this:

“I don’t care if he’s a bastard, Ned Stark’s blood runs through his veins.”

(But it doesn’t…) Even Dany is talking about Ned:

“I was born at Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert’s Assassins could find us. Robert was your father’s best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew his best friends sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib. Not that it matters now, of course.”

Varys knows damned well Ned tried everything in his power to prevent her murder (I wish he’d fucking tell her, whether or not she’s Ned’s secret bastard).

There are rumors we’re getting Robert’s Rebellion/Tourney at Harrenhal flashback next episode (I don’t know whether I believe it), but Wilf Scolding did have a mysterious deleted Instagram post indicating he was filming - so maybe we’ll see Ned and Ashara, too? Fingers crossed.

If everyone is talking about how Jon and Dany parallel Duncan and Jenny, which is a pairing comprised of a common girl and a dark-haired Targaryen prince… then just maybe Jon gives up his claim for say, a bastard girl? Dany being a Stark bastard and associated with flowers/roses, possible CotF relation via Stark blood… might make her have more in common with Jenny than if she were a Targaryen? 🤔

There may be more, I haven’t done a full, proper rewatch in a while, I admit. Probably too late now, lol. I’d say that there is a big “WTF” twist coming so there’s a chance - many attribute this to a leak involving Tyrion but… I feel like that was something that was foreshadowed, unlike Hodor/hold the door.

All that said though, I’d say the likelihood of this ending up on screen probably is slim. But again, we have a wealth of evidence on our site that must mean something. GRRM basically admits that the lemon tree mystery means something (and no, I don’t buy that it means the betrothal to Quentyn because he was more or less a non-issue anyway).

And there may be a chance GRRM is saving twists for his book, especially considering this:

My best guess would be Barristan Selmy, since in the books, over in Essos, nowhere near Jon, he’s bringing up that Dany looks like Ashara’s daughter, and by this point we don’t really need a red herring for Jon Snow’s mother, since most readers had figured it out.

[grizzlegreertrash]

Top 5 OTPs

So I get tagged in things like these like once or twice every few months, and I usually never do them because I don’t have time or the motivation, but this is something I can get behind because, well? I’m a sappy romantic at heart (though I don’t like showing it)

I was tagged by @koinekid, so here we are :

(gonna add a read more because I rant)

1. Krillin/No. 18 (K18) from Dragon Ball Z

This was actually my first ride or die ship. Like I’ve been in love with this pairing for nearly 3 years running, and since then I’ve met great friends because of this pairing. This pairing is also particularly special because it was my main driving force through my first viewing of Dragon Ball Z back in 2016. 

2. Sanji Vinsmoke/Nami (SaNa) from One Piece

Okay, so I feel I need to explain, because there is a lot to unpack with this one. 

1. I do not speak about One Piece pairings publicly because it isn’t a series that has any major romantic themes. Like every pairing is speculation at this point, and Oda usually doesn’t pander towards particular pairings like people want to believe. I have my reasons for shipping, but I think it’s more based on references to One Piece’s inspiration (*cough cough* Dragon Ball)

2. Like any anime, yaoi is the most prevalent form of shipping in the One Piece community, so it’s a kind of a given that this pairing isn’t that rampant on tumblr (but I’ve found my fair share of Japanese artwork on pixiv and twitter)

3. I normally ship what is canon, and this is one of the exceptions because to me, it is plausible. Why you may ask? Well, I think it’s already established that One Piece is heavily inspired by Dragon Ball. The protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy is heavily inspired by the iconic Son Goku. In a similar fashion, Nami seems to have been inspired by Bulma in some ways. Vain, materialistic, intelligent. I could go on about Nami’s importance to the series, like Bulma was in Dragon Ball. So in a similar fashion, she is too good to be downgraded to s/o of the protagonist if Oda decided to pair her with Luffy. Also, Luffy has gone on record saying that he has no intention to commit to anyone, so that takes him out of shipping entirely for me. Meanwhile, Oda has been writing Sanji busting a fat nut over her for 21 years. Like I’ve been getting this suspicion that though Sanji loves every woman, Nami is his one and only. I also think that the marriage/wedding symbolism between them is too obvious. 

4. This is actually not a pairing that influenced my viewing/reading of One Piece. This came after the recent Whole Cake Island arc, in which it honestly seemed to me like Nami is startin to feel some type of way about her personal love-slave (as Sanji calls himself). 

Okay, enough of my ranting...

3. Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell (Edwin) from Fullmetal Alchemist

Love the childhood friends to lovers trope, but this is extra great because both are strong and well written characters (at least I think so).  Like we can’t ignore that Winry literally gave Ed a leg to stand on, which is just wonderful.

4. Aang/Katara (Kataang) from Avatar: The Last Airbender

They were meant to be together from the start, and it’s canon that they fucked, so that’s all I need to say. 

(This is another ride or die pairing right here because I think some are too unfair to the creators over this one)

5.  Izuku Midoriya/Ochako Uraraka (Izuocha) from My Hero Academia

This is another plausible one, and I want to be honest about this list. I chose this based off of how much fanfiction/fanart I have enjoyed. And while I am currently caught up with MHA and enjoy it, I don’t think it’s the godly series that everyone makes it out to be. Regardless, I like the pairing and I just want these two cinnamon rolls to be happy and live their best lives.

So this took me nearly an hour, but that’s fine, since this is something I care about immensely.

Gonna tag @toomcflyforawhiteguy @shounenchild @jay-sherman @rinokumuraegin and  @elby-the-megnet (I feel bad for never responding to the stuff you tag me in(

[northofthecosmos]

The Bazaar Breakdown

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way, shape or form a Bai Yu stan.

Okay now that that’s dealt with, here it finally is! 

The Big Bazaar Breakdown; a Bai Yu Meta post. 

In this discussion, we’re going to talk about Glasses!Bai Yu from the iconic Bazaar photoshoot, and why it is my favourite photoset of Glasses!Bai Yu probably of all time. Basically, I’m going to break down the reasons why I absolutely live for the Bazaar photoshoot.

Before I begin, it is important to note that I am not a professional. I’m just someone with myopia and an amatuer interest in how glasses work as accessories. As such, this is in no way a guide to picking out the right pair of glasses or how glasses work, it’s mostly my own preferences in regards to spectacles and such. So don’t take my comments too seriously. 

Now, my personal belief is that there is no hard and fast rule to picking the right pair of glasses.

As a whole, glasses are very versatile and flexible accessories. And they can be easily personalized to oneself. This really means that there is no concrete guide to picking glasses that suit you because the design choices in one pair that happens to compliment you isn’t going to apply to all glasses. And similarly, the details in one pair of spectacles isn’t limited to just one effect.

Articles and guides may tell you to contrast the angles of your face, and others may tell you to soften them. But the rule of thumb is to do whatever the fuck you want.

I mean, there is an overall line of logic to follow, but deviating from it in favour of whatever you like is strongly encouraged. It is essential, even. Glasses are super adaptable so they can work in so many ways. The only thing you have to know is:

To compliment, you have to Contrast and Accentuate.

Anyways, I digress and now it’s time to return to the Study of Glasses!Bai Yu. If you don’t know what the Bazaar photoshoot is, I’m talking about these:

Yes, this photoshoot is the absolute best. 

Most of why I love it so is attributed to my own personal preferences, but also how good those glasses are objectively. In other words, the Bazaar glasses work wonders because it’s a break from Bai Yu’s usual style, and the design sompliments his face in an unconventional but stunning way.

To really get this, I’m going to zoom out here and talk more generically. I’m going to provide some preface.

And here’s where it gets long so have a cut out of mercy.

The reason why I love Glasses!Bai Yu on any given day is because of his varying pairs of commonly worn glasses. And they all look fantastic on him because damn, does that guy know how to accessorize. However, do not make the mistake of believing that it looks good because Bai Yu can make it work. He can, of course and he does, but it’s mostly because Bai Yu knows what he’s doing.

I used to think he would look good in all glasses until I saw the cases where he didn’t. Again, debatable because he still looks cute but that might be a biased opinion. 

Such moments includes this:

I don’t know about you but compared to how he looks on an average day, that’s a downgrade. I can barely see his glasses at all. The bridge is kind of interesting but that’s about it.

You can see more of this here too:

The lack of rims don’t look good on him and the frame design is clunky, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe it’s the stache, maybe its the lack of stache. Who knows?

My point here is that the choice in glasses matter greatly. There are glasses that look good on you, and there are glasses that don’t. 

(There’s also this guy called CaoGuang who just straight up looks ugly. I don’t want to talk about him or have him here so please hunt on your own. Thanks for understanding.)

Anyways, to put this into context and apply it, let’s talk about Bai Yu’s face!

— The BY Face Shape

After flipping through a whole lot of Bai Yu’s barefaced photos, I’m fairly sure that his face shape falls under the diamond category. His hair obscures the shape most of the time but it should be quite obvious, regardless.

And you can see it quite clearly here:

Having a diamond-shaped faced is usually determined when the widest part of your face are your cheekbones. Scanning from the top to the bottom of the face, the forehead will expand out around the eyeline and the ears, before it finally narrows back down to the chin. Naturally, it resembles a diamond and that’s what you can observe through Bai Yu’s face.

You can see it here as well in lower quality:

See how his cheekbones jut out slightly from the sides of his face? And the way his forehead and chin are thinner in width? Yeah, that’s diamond-shaped face.

I hope that’s clear to all because it’s pretty important.

Moving on!

— The BY Jaw & Chin Shape

From further browsing of his many photos and videos, here is my conclusion. 

From the front, Bai Yu’s chin shape is rather angular and squarish. You can see this from the photos above about his face shape. Observe the shape how his chin ends. 

I think its fairly obvious that it ends in a slight extension down vertically and then stops in a straight, vaguely horizontal line. Hence, the angles and the squarish quality.

From his side profile, on the other hand, Bai Yu’s jaw falls under the pointed category. 

You can observe this here:

It juts out ever so slightly from his profile and it’s pronounced. Not too much, but just enough to qualify under having a pointed jaw. The mango jokes originate from this, more specifically the curve of his jaw and how it makes his profile look.

— Key Takeaways & Application

Now to sum up what I’ve just explained, here are the main points:

Face Shape: Diamond

Jaw Shape: Pointed

Chin Shape: Angular & Squarish

These are all pretty key, even though face shapes do take precedence over jaw shapes when it comes to glasses. Regardless, they are both features to be discussed.

Going along with Bai Yu’s face shape, the recurring details about what will compliment him are as follows:

Glasses with curvy brow lines

Top heavy frames in general

Wide glasses

These would all create a nice aesthetic for his face and emphasize and contrast his features super well. 

What he should avoid are as follows:

Narrow frames

Thin rimmed frames

Rimless Glasses

Rounded frames, especially those shorter in height

To put it into application, the two best glasses that Bai Yu rocks both in theory and in real life are:

D-shaped glasses

Browline glasses

And what I love to death is that Bai Yu follows these rules and then goes to add stuff to them that are so great. They’re his common glasses so there are loads of photos of him wearing them across the years, but I’ll try to narrow it down to some favourites.

— The BY Styles: D-shaped Glasses

I’m talking about this amazing pair of D-shaped glasses with the gold accented bridge, and those holder straps that he wears almost all the time:

The glasses are wide, you can see how they extend a little beyond the width of his face. And that’s great because it covers his cheekbones and brings attention away from and further up to his face instead.

The full-rims and the D-shape of the glasses help to accentuate his eyes and brows. The full-on dark colours of the frames definitely bring out his eyes and hair. The angularity of his frames mimics the shape of his chin so wow, yes, very nice. Similarly, the slight slope of the top of his frames mimic the shape of his brows. Amazing, I live for it. I’m just super weak to these details because, y’know — personal preference. 

The gold bridge is even more of my subjective opinion because its a good splash of colour in the black, and it contrasts so well. The slight differences in the design of the bridge itself to make it a little more unique is also great.

All in all, I love this pair of glasses on Bai Yu. He did so good on picking them, the first time I saw him wearing them I think I screamed. And I will continue screaming in a similar fashion everytime someone shows me more of such Glasses!Bai Yu.

— The BY Styles: Sunglasses

Now, these are a little different because as compared to his usual pair, Bai Yu doesn’t really wear the same pair of sunglasses most of the time. Also, usually it’s part of a photoshoot where he’s most likely given the sunglasses instead.

But there’s no way I’m making a Glasses!Bai Yu post and not talk about him in sunglasses, so here are some highlights:

The angular shape is so good, and the bridges too. The aesthetics are fantastic and I dig the way it divides his face so hard, it’s perfect. I love the cool extra lines of metal in the bridges too. Bring my gaze up to his eyes, brows and forehead, thanks.

The thickness of it also makes for a juicy side profile. Very nice. Also, bringing it back to complimenting his hair colour which it does so very well too. With facial hair, it’s such a bonus.

All in all, sunglasses are good, and he looks very nice in them. 

That’s it. That’s the sunglasses meta.

— The BY Styles: Bonus Oldies

He doesn’t wear this pair of glasses anymore so these are just special mentions. Just like the sunglasses, not entirely valid but they substantiate. And I love them so they must show up. Hence:

Low quality browline glasses that he never wears again! I love them and the brow accentuation comes back in full force, they’re such underrated glasses for Bai Yu.

Similar to his current pair, the full rims are there. The wideness is there. Mimicking the brows and chin, it’s so there and it’s good.

But the real highlight here are those awesome, awesome bridges. They’re gold and elevated! What a fucking King, I’m so happy I got to see him in those in my lifetime because wow, they’re hitting all the right spots for me. Unique bridges are so down my lane.

Also hair up with glasses is A Look. I hope it’ll return soon.

And... 

That’s it for the preface! It’s long, but that’s how it must be I suppose. Now that you have an idea of what Bai Yu looks good in, let’s round this up with the Bazaar talk.

— The Bazaar BY

In very concise terms, the Bazaar Photoset is special because I never would have thought they would look good on Bai Yu if you described the Bazaar glasses to me, and I’ve never seen the actual pictures. But in reality, the shape, colour and design choices made it work in such a pleasant way.

Firstly, let’s talk about the thin black rims.

As I’ve mentioned above, usually thin rims don’t work on Bai Yu. They blend into his face and don’t really do much other than give weird refraction-like effects. They’re really not the best, and they don’t appeal to me that much.

But it works so well in Bazaar because they got creative with the filters.

It’s not a conventional choice to give him thin rims but with that monochrome effect? Stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. 

With the filter, the black frames come out more boldly and they don’t blend away as much. It’s basically the same effect as a full on D-shaped glasses with full black rims. It compliments his facial hair, the hair on his head, his brows and his eyes! It also contrasts and pops from the greyish hues. They end up looking just right. It’s a nice medium between being light, but not too blended or heavy. 

I love it.

Secondly, let’s talk about the unique frame shape.

Here are some closeups and refreshers in case you don’t remember what the Bazaar glasses look like:

Look at them, my god. They’re not round glasses. 

The Bazaar glasses are rounded on the bottom but they’re angular and almost geometric on the top with that sharp twist downwards. It’s a subtle design and also unique as hell. There are no cool bridges but the frame design definitely makes up for that.

It creates this dip in his brow before it reaches the bridge, forming this curve that mimics the shape of his eyes. And in these photos the gaze is piercing and he’s looking striaght at you, so. Nice. It’s super pleasing and satisfying.

I love it.

Lastly, let’s talk about the prolonged temples.

You can see that at the ends of the frames, the arm of the glasses begin and the temples are extended. This makes up for the issue I usually have with width in a really unexpected way. Similar to how the D-shaped glasses are wide and do well on Bai Yu, the prolonged temples kind of have the similar effect.

It widens the glasses without extending the lens, so we can still keep that vague round shape that fits his eyes. And it makes the dimensions of the second photo way cooler, where he sort of looks up from behind the glasses.

In general, it just builds this aesthetic and look that is exactly what I like to see, so.

I love it.

�� Final Thoughts

This is just a really long way of screaming how much I love Glasses!Bai Yu. Thanks for making it all the way here. It’s long and pretentious, but I hope someone had fun reading.

Special thanks to @seventh-fantasy for feeding me, like, literally all of the photos here and their sources. And thank you @GuardianDiscord for enabling my glasses-related nonsense. Here y’go guys.

Thank you, and I hope you have a good day.

:: Mark 

[curestardust]

if you want: boi this is some Grade A yaoi dom/sub shit > this is a review of both the 1992 and the 2012 versions

So upon seeing this anime in my PTW i was thoroughly confused. I like yaoi from time to time but I don’t actively look for it. Then I suddenly remembered; one of my friends in like 8th grade was bugging me constantly to watch this because it’s “so HOT NGHNGHGH”. Well Fruzsi it’s been like 7 years now but I finally watched it!

The story is set in some futuristic world in another planet. The society is ruled by machines and the Blondies that were created by them (I think, I actually read this part on wikipedia). There’s a district where men with no official government identifiaction live and they’re called “mongrels” and are considered the lowest of the low.

In this society the Blondies keep certain humans as pets and furnitures (basically sex slaves and worker slaves). Our main character Riki is a mongrel and has a run in with a Blondie. NSFW things happen and Riki becomes the Blondie’s (Iason’s) pet for 3 years after which he is allowed to go back to the Slums for a year.

So let me begin with the original 1992 version. The animation and art are as you would expect from anime from this time. The Slums are mostly dark with vivid colours giving the neon and futuristic feel. Tanagura (the “capital”) is mainly shades of white to give the feeling of purity and perfectionism. The characters are wonky however. Actually good character designs basically stop at the 3-4 main characters with secondary characters basically being indistinguishable. 

Just like the colours, the music also plays a big role. The lack of background music can actually be distracting at times but the anime only uses tracks when it really wants to give another layer to the events happening on screen. Voice acting is decent but with more emotional scenes some of the performances were uhhh....unintentionally funny.

The pacing is off. The 1992 version consists of 2 almost 1 hour long episodes. In the first one we join in at the time when Riki is let back into the Slums by Iason and we follow him in the present. Then the second one is divided between flashbacks and advancing towards the ending. You’d think that Ai no Kusabi would be giving you steaming hot yaoi action but in reality there’s barely any NSFW content in the first episode; the majority of it is spent by fleshing out the world.

While quite a lot happens, the character development is lackluster. The anime feels more like just events happening after each other because the plot demands it and not because of a natural flow of the characters actions.

The 2012 version is an improvement in certain areas and a downgrade in others. The most glaring change is obviously the art and animation. It’s GORGEOUS. Not only is the animation fluid but the character designs of the secondary characters got a huge haul-over. They no longer look like clones of each other but like they have their own character. They went to extreme length with this; even the facial structure of characters were completely different.

Somewhat of a downgrade would be the music which is...fine. Just fine. The OST sounds like it came off of “free-copyright-music.net”. 

The 2012 version consists of 4 25 minute episodes. It is much slower than the original version and goes much more in depth on the story. It also doesn’t have an ending....yep. As it turns out this was supposed to be 12 OVAs long but they discontinued it due to financial reasons (seems like creating HQ sex scenes dries up money fast).

It is dissapointing as I was just getting into the groove of it by episode 4 and then just bamm, it’s over. Oh and one thing to mention; in one of the episodes there’s just a random conversation in which Riki tells his age and he says that he is 15...UMMM??? SO i know that the Blondies don’t really have ages or whatever but this made me immENSELY uncomfortable so I’m just choosing to think that Riki has been like 18-20 when the story starts, alright? Alright.

SOOOOO...I don’t really know what else to say. You like yaoi and this dom/sub slave whatever fetish thing you’ll probably enjoy this? It is unfinished...but the episodes made are still great quality and there’s always the manga? [6/10] (x) [6/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: something really edgy that doesn’t have a purpose besides being edgy

Mahu Shoujo Site is godawful.

This “dark magical girls” trope is starting to get on my nerves. They usually have no point besides giving enjoyment to sick fucks who enjoy seeing little girls in horrible situations. Oh and also to the people who think “dark, depressing and gorey = d e ep”.

So, I obviously caught notice of this the first time I saw it as I’m always interested in magical girl stuff. And if you’ve read my previous reviews you know that this usually doesn’t go very well. Anyway, even from the summary I knew that this was going to be edgy but how much? Well I read the first review on MAL on it and lowkey scarred me into ignoring this anime. In the end, curiosity won out and I really wanted to see how much of a trainwreck MSS actually was.

I feel like a summary of the first episode would scare a lot of people away as it shows a lot of really cruel stuff that many people are sensitive to. Which would be: the apparent murder of a kitten to fuck with main character (not actually shown), the main character getting severely bullied and beaten at school by 3 of her classmates, her big brother tying her up and beating her (and punching her in the stomach) at home and at the very end some dude almost rapes her. Oh and the main character is like some 14yo little girl.

Whew. Ticks off all the “ew wtf” boxes, doesn’t it? Well rest assured the anime NEVER goes into this level of cruelty again. There are no animals in the anime after episode one. *Spoilers* happen to the bullies which also mostly takes them out of the picture after episode 2 and our main character is barely home or if she is then she is with friends which makes his brother unable to beat her. 

All this was just used to show how “unfortunate” she is so that she will be made into a magical girl as in MSS only girls who have had to deal with a lot of pain are eligible to become magical girls. OOOO edgy.

Then they have their weapons which are stupidly all named “sticks” even though they can be whatever (gun, phone, yoyo, panties...). And speaking of sticks, using them eats up the girls’ life forces...OOOO edgy. Have I mentioned that whenever they “transform” they HAVE to bleed from somewhere? Like eyes, nose, head...OOOOOOOOO edgy!!!!

We’ve a main cast of characters who get some personality but then we’re introduced to a second set of characters who literally have one personality trait each, plus their powers which makes me give approximately 0 fucks about whether they live or die.

The animation is quite poor, the OST is unremarkable and they seem to use the same 3 tracks in every episode (the OP and ED songs are bangers however) and the voice acting also leaves much to be desired but the VA’s did as much with the script as they could. 

The worst part is that the anime kinds of ends on a cliffhanger. Even from the opening I was expecting some grand battle but nope. There’s a plot twist which made me go “HMM” but that’s about it. So you sit through this shitfest and don’t even get a proper conclusion. Any enjoyment you could take away from this is seeing just how much bullshit they can put into these 12 episodes.

The characters you can grow to care for. Mostly because they’re SET UP to be pitied and babied, but my thought regarding them is “you didn’t deserve to be in this pile of garbage of an anime”. (x) [2/10]

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[marcuschan]

Some of the most interesting wireless routers are the handful of odd models where the “number on the box” (i.e. “AC1200”) undercount the actual number of antennas/wireless streams in the device.

Now, if you’re not familiar with wireless, you should know that these numbers are a joke. To get the theoretical bandwidth to a single device from our hypothetical “AC1750” “1750mb/s” router, we need to divide it into its two bands, which we can only connect to one of at a time (450 and 1300), then divide that by two because of encoding overhead (225 and 650), then work out the difference between the number of spatial streams in our client device and the router (in this case, 1/3 or 2/3, so 75 and 217 or 150 and 433, unless you have a 15” MacBook), then understand that this speed is with perfect signal strength, i.e. ~3 feet of unobstructed air between the router and device, so real world performance is anything up to that (0-75 and 0-217 or 0-150 and 0-433).

So our “AC1750” router is properly described, charitably, as an “up to 433” router. Ethernet cords, on the other hand, hit over 95% of their rated bandwidth number in regular use as a rule. I didn’t even mention 256-QAM, which bumps the number on the box a bit higher for no reason (”AC1900”).

The rule is, of course, that your WiFi need be no faster than your ISP’s connection unless you’re moving stuff between PCs... but as you can see, the box number doesn’t really help tell you that. At all.

So... why do these numbers even matter to someone who knows about routers? Well, a) they don’t, and b) they can provide information about the actual layout of the router’s internals if you memorize them. For example, an AC3200 (tri-band 3-stream) router is substantially different from an AC2600 (dual-band 4-stream) router. Doesn’t matter why for the sake of this discussion, but you get the idea. (The first is kind of like two routers in the same box, the second is like a single stronger one, if you’re curious.)

So, back to the topic at hand: on some routers, the number on the box is 100% meaningless instead of mostly meaningless... but it’s lower than it should be. This is usually the case presumably because of manufacturers needing to fill a spectrum of price points, but the investment of making an in-between chip or product not being worthwhile.

For a quick example of why this makes sense, say there are two models of something, and some customers are willing to pay up to $1, some up to $3 for more performance, and some up to $5 for even more. With two models at $1 and $5, the “I’d pay $3” customers will only pay $1, and the company loses some potential profit margin. With models at $1 and $3, the “I’d pay $5” customers will only pay $3, and the company loses some potential profit margin. The solution is to charge $1 and $5 for the cheap and expensive models respectively, then adapt the $5 model’s hardware to an in-between $3 model via software. This maximizes profit, minimizes extra cost, and the $3 customers get a slightly weird ‘this hardware is capable of more’ model.

This is how computer processors work, by the way. Intel has a set of like 10 physical CPU models, and it sorts them by efficiency, then enables and disables features and selects speeds in software to make tens to hundreds of separate models. Nvidia and AMD have like 5 physical chip types each. Same thing.

Wireless router companies, though, live in an amusingly nebulous space where almost no one has any technical understanding of their products. So rather than disable or downgrade features for their middle-tier routers, they often take a high-end device and change the number on the box to be lower... and then do absolutely nothing to the router inside to reflect that change. It’s not like anyone will notice.

However, if you’re familiar with the typical on-the-box numbers, this can be an immediate tip-off that something is odd. My family went to a computer parts warehouse to buy a modem, and while we were there, I noticed an “AC900” Linksys router, which... isn’t a thing. Lo and behold, I discovered this phenomenon while confusedly googling the router model in the store, then bought it, because it’s effectively an AC1200 router in a different box for less money.

Not every basically-reboxed router has a unique number, however. The D-Link DIR-878 “AC1900” router is identical to its “AC2600” 4-stream ‘big’ brother despite having a number that indicates 3 streams. The tip-off here would be seeing an ostensibly 3-antenna device with 4 massive antennas on it.

The weirdest one I just found is the Asus RT-ACRH17/RT-AC42U, which is apparently marketed as AC1700 (a weird number) but in actuality has vastly different radios on its two bands (a weird thing) and should therefore count as AC2000 (another weird number). I have no idea why this thing exists, but it actually sounds pretty decent, since the high band really benefits from a high-end radio and the low band doesn’t really.

I don’t have an actual reason to write about this. I just think it’s interesting.

[cassiecantyousee]

Evacuation Nation

Exactly two weeks ago, I got in my car and drove out of the Florida Keys. It was a bizarre experience, and I’ll probably be processing it for a while, but I wanted to get at least some of my thoughts down before they become too hazy. So this is part diary entry, part reassuring everyone who has spent the last two weeks saying “oh my gosh don’t you live in the Keys are you okay?!?!”

So to start off: yes! I am okay! And I can now check “survived a hurricane” off my bucket list. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what happened:

I went to bed on Sunday, September 3rd not really giving a second thought to Irma. The storm looked like it was going to head up the east coast, like Matthew had last year. And Matthew had barely affected the Keys at all; I had spent the evening Matthew “hit” painting and hanging out with friends. I assumed Irma would be more of the same. So I went to bed without a care in the world, and calmly drove to work Monday ready to start my week (yes, I worked on Labor Day. I take care of live animals, remember?).

The news that greeted my coworker and me when we booted up the computer that morning was…not great. Turned out Irma had shifted in the night, and was now headed straight for the Keys. It had also grown insanely huge, and was expected to reach Category 5 sooner rather than later. In case you aren’t familiar with the Keys, we’re a bunch of tiny rocky islands and anything higher than a Category 2 can be pretty devastating. That being said, hurricanes usually skirt around the Keys, either heading up the Atlantic coast or looping through the Gulf. We haven’t been hit by a major storm in a long time, but everyone still clearly remembered the damage from Wilma and Andrew. By noon Monday, it was pretty clear we were going to have to evacuate. I called my parents at lunch, reminded them I had a good car with brand new tires, and that I knew lots of people in Florida I could stay with. In the afternoon we started strategizing and prepping all the fish tanks, thinking that we would have another few days at least before we really had to leave. We also spent a lot of time refreshing spaghetti models and sort of laughing hysterically (hysterical laughter became a reoccurring theme throughout this whole process). I drove home at the end of the day, and started half-heartedly sorting through my clothes, telling myself I would really start making decisions on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, we had a mandatory staff meeting. While I work in Key West, I live near the lab and the most recent models had Irma headed straight for us. And it was now EVEN BIGGER. There were talks of breaking records, and a few hyperbolic rumors of creating a new “Category 6” (these proved to be false, but not as far fetched as we might have hoped!). Priority one was making sure we all had a way to get out of the Keys, and somewhere to go once we reached the mainland. At the risk of getting too sappy, it was really heartwarming to see everyone I work with step right up to support each other. There were offers of rides and food and places to sleep, and before we knew it everyone had a plan. Then we moved into full on hurricane prep mode, and I drove down to Key West.

Probably the most surreal part of the whole thing was Tuesday morning at the Eco Center. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to give all the tanks their best possible chance of surviving through the storm. Meanwhile, we were still open, and tourists kept coming in and asking me for things like restaurant recommendations. Cue more hysterical laughter. At noon, we finally officially closed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon prepping the Eco Center and making phone calls and trying not to freak out. My coping mechanism of choice was blasting the new Kesha album (a coping mechanism I 100% recommend, because that album is incredible). My inner monologue went something like: “Where are the D batteries …yes, Mom, there’s gas in my car…I HOPE YOU’RE SOMEWHERE PRAAAAAAAYIN’…should I move the lionfish to the big tank or will it eat everybody…I HOPE YOUR SOUL IS CHAAAAAANGIN’…is that fish acting weird or am I acting weird.” And repeat. For hours. Then, I drove home.

Sorting through my stuff at my house is an experience I never want to repeat. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but reliable sources were forecasting a Category 5 storm headed directly for my house, and my house is ground level. It didn’t look good. So I had to decide what I wanted to load into my car, and what I wanted to leave behind. Most of my clothes quickly dropped in priority, as I realized that I seriously need a wardrobe overhaul. I’ve worked at field stations too long and most of my clothes are free souvenir t-shirts with paint on them. But all my books went straight into the back of my car, as well as some craft supplies and favorite wall art. Some of the books I didn’t even care about that much, but the idea of leaving them to be ravaged by a hurricane was so horrifying to me that I took them all anyway. Once everything was packed, I took a shower, put my betta fish in a gallon jug (really), and got in my car. I took a long look at my little blue house, trying to absorb it and prepare for the worst, but I’m not sure it really sunk in.

As I drove up the Keys I caught myself thinking things like, “Will that house still be there? Will I be able to go to that restaurant again? Will this bridge hold up?” Then I would snap myself out of it for a little while, and tell myself not to be so morbid. I’m a positive, happy person! What was wrong with me? But I didn’t want to miss appreciating the Keys as they were, just in case. It’s a strange line to walk, and I’m not sure I walked it well. So I talked to my parents, listened to music, and tried to think of it as a vacation. But the guilt at leaving all my critters behind was hard. I knew that I had given them the best chance, and that trying to move them would be worse for them than the storm, but I couldn’t help but feel that I abandoned them. Every time I passed any of the various and numerous animal centers in the Keys it was like a punch to the gut.

I spent Tuesday night with some wonderful friends in Boca, where we watched the news and laughed hysterically some more. Then the next morning I headed up to my aunt and uncle’s house in Orlando. By Wednesday afternoon, I was officially evacuated. As of Monday night, I hadn’t even planned on STARTING to evacuate until Thursday morning. Irma got serious real quick.

This is the part of the story where I start feeling guilty for a different reason: I had a really nice time in Orlando. I know a lot of people (most people even) had a very stressful time, and were couch surfing and staying in hotels, but I got an actual bed and got to hang out with family. I spent the week eating really good vegan food, watching documentaries, and reading books. We even went to a play! Then on Sunday morning, Irma hit the Keys.

I had already watched Irma pass over the Turks and Caicos, where I studied abroad, and that was hard enough. There was extensive damage, but thankfully no fatalities. At this point Irma had changed tracks a couple of times, so we weren’t entirely sure how directly the Keys were going to be hit. As it turned out, the eye of the storm passed directly over my house. That experience was surreal. After all the uncertainty, all the hopes, I had to sit on a couch in Orlando and watch one of the biggest storms in history go exactly where I hadn’t wanted it to go. I kept thinking of my little blue house, and how much I loved it, and how much we had all worked fixing it up over the last two years. I got weirdly focused on the fact that I had left my giant bottle of mouthwash in the bathroom cabinet (I just bought it! What a waste!). By Sunday evening, I was a mess. I was tired, stressed, and going a bit stir crazy. And Irma hadn’t even hit Orlando yet.

In the end, that may have worked in my favor. Irma was downgraded to a Category 2 by the time in reached Orlando, and at that point I was sort of done with emotions. I’d spent them all already. I was a little concerned about tornadoes, but honestly? I just wanted to go to bed. So if you were hoping for a vivid personal account of the actual storm, you’re out of luck. I essentially said “Only a Category 2? Whatever.” and passed out (after more hysterical laughter, of course). Seriously, I slept through the whole thing. Apparently a tornado touched down about four miles north of me, but I didn’t even know that happened until days later. We lost power, and had some downed tree debris, but the whole neighborhood got together to help clean it up. It was actually kind of nice. Plus, my uncle had bought an inverter for his electric car, so we had power without having to worry about a generator. We could power the fridge, fans, charge any and all electronic devices, and even set up a wireless hotspot to get online. We had a pretty sweet setup.

The rest, you probably know. There was widespread devastation in the Keys, and they closed the whole county. I ended up flying north to see my parents (and reassure them that I was alive!), waiting for things to reopen. I’ve been watching everything secondhand, just like everybody else. I will say that social media has been HUGELY helpful in all of this. Those safety check-ins helped me sleep at night.

Miraculously, my house seems to have escaped serious damage. I’ll finally get back to the Keys Thursday morning, and I know seeing the destruction first hand is going to be hard (even through there has already been a lot of recovery!). I may write another post once I see everything for myself, but for now, know that I am safe and well. I still have a place to live (even if it currently doesn’t have any power or running water!), and I’m headed back to work.

Stay safe everyone, and think about donating to various recovery funds. Especially Caribbean islands getting hit again by hurricane Maria.

[sevensity]

RFA + theme(?) park day

The reason why there’s a question mark is because I don’t know if all of these count as a theme park... I’m so sorry but I just couldn’t think of anything for Jahee!! ;__;

-Sevensity 

YOOᔕᑌᑎG:

ofc y’all are gonna end up going to a zoo

but not one where the animals are treated like shit

it’s more of an animal conservatory than anything, so they help endangered species and provide a habitat necessary for them to live (honestly some zoos are so atrocious it makes me want to claw my eyes out)

spends hours petting alpacas

“Can we take one home?”

 Yoosung as much as I agree with the idea I think kidnapping an alpaca counts as a felony

You guys have a really wonderful little train ride around the different habitats. There’s a pleasant breeze, which rustles through Yoosung’s hair as he gazes far out across the land. There is no noise other than wind, the rattle of the train on its tracks, and the sound of your own heartbeat, which grows stronger when glance at the man you love

 Yoosung’s face is brighter than the fucking sun he’s such a happy marshmallow

he’ll often start talking all animal anatomy to you and sometimes he just blinks and stops himself because whoops? you probably have no idea what I’m talking about?

but then you tell him he’s really cute when he becomes so passionate about a topic, and he sorta just blushes a little a giggles and says he can teach you more so you guys can have discussions about this sort of stuff

 hoo hoo private lessons with Mr. Kim I’m sure he’s a great tutor wink wonk

Favorite Attraction:

The more peaceful stuff, like carousels and trains

Attraction to keep him away from: 

Roller-coasters (because baby bean is actually a bit afraid of heights) though he will join you if you promise to hold his hand the entire time 

ᘔEᑎ:

he’ll 100% want to bring you to a festival

and people there will 100% try to hire him a a last minute performer so make sure you keep him close to you,  unless you want to see him dress up and parade around in a sparkly outfit that sounds really nice tbh

He’s going to buy a couple of those masquerade masks and make you both wear one but lord are they so extra

He looks like a prince from the medieval ages

Zen is all too eager to show off his strength using the hammer at the strength meter. Finds it adorable when you try to beat his score bonus points if you actually manage to

Is impressed by your skills at Whack-a-Mole, and is kind of embarassed when his own skills are sup-par

You guys share an enormous ball of cotton candy. Usually he doesn’t like sweets because it’s bad for his skin, but now he loves it since it makes your kisses all the more sweet

You ride the Ferris Wheel at night, and Zen makes a point to kiss you when you get to the very top also bonus points if there are fireworks going on

Favorite Attraction:

House of Mirrors (for obvious reasons) can probably smell mirrors from miles away so don’t even try to hide this place from him

Attraction to keep him away from:

House of Mirrors (for equally obvious reasons) yeah so good luck getting him out

ᒍᑌᗰIᑎ:

You guys would probably also go to an amusement park

but good luck getting him to change out of his normal formal attire

“Jumin casual wear. Casual wear.”

“Yes, this is what I wear during a casual day. Is there a problem with my outfit? Is the colour not appropriate?”

“Jumin the colour is the least of my worries. You’ll actually get a heat stroke if you go like that.”

Anyways it takes about a solid hour for you to convince him to downgrade to a dress shirt and jeans

but oh is is worth it because he looks fkn H O T

however, he will not tolerate standing in line for a ticket, to he uses his rich boy powers to be the first one in the park 

Has never been to an amusement park before, and although he does understand their purpose from a business perspective, cannot comprehend why people bother going to them

ok Jumin I’ll show you why commoners come to these places

You don’t even start with the tamer rides to ease him into it, instead, you grab his hand and precipitate yourself towards the biggest, craziest ride there is. 

We’re talking about loops, twists, massive drops...oh, and it goes backwards too

Jumin keeps mumbling to himself as the ride slowly started climbing higher and higher.  You know what to expect, but Jumin doesn’t. You know that the ride hasn’t actually started yet, but Jumin doesn’t.

He grumbles about how useless this is, what a terrible way to pass time, are commoners so desperate for amusement they consider this to be adequate entertainment???

But then you get to the peak, and the only thing keeping you guys from falling straight down are the safety straps

Jumin’s eyes widen just a bit, and he lets out the smallest “Oh” as he realizes his impending doom

You don’t have time to react before you’re both launched into the abyss

Also you’re 128% sure Jumin screamed the whole time while you half laughed at him, half also screamed, though he will deny such a fact for as long as he lives

When you both get out, Jumin’s hair is a complete mess and his cheeks are flushed a delicate pink

move over Zen, there’s a new god in town

You still giggle occasionally at the memory of the ride, so Jumin, wanting some revenge, wraps an arm around your waist, and pulls you closer.

“My, I never knew you could be that loud,” he whispersd in your ear, making you shiver,  “tonight, how about I make you scream like that for me?”

Daddy yes

Favorite Attraction:

Surprisingly enough, he is very fond of water rides - especially those with water guns where you can shoot others with - as well as bumper cars. 

Attraction to keep him away from:

The food court. This man will complain about everything from prices to the quality of food and services, he will go on for hours.  Make sure you go buy your food by yourself. 

ᔕᗩEYOᑌᑎG:

Is an actual ten year old

probably more excited than you are, and you have to keep him from running around in circles while you wait in line to buy tickets (he also wanted to hack into the system earlier so you two could get in before opening hours but you said no)

letting him eat all those chips and soda for breakfast was probably not the best call, since now his energy levels have increased threefold

he’s such a high maintenance boyfriend jfc

at first you think it’s normal because let’s admit it, he’ll always be a kid, and who doesn’t love a good old amusement park outing?

as soon as you get inside, Saeyoung, eyes sparkling with all the mischievious ideas of someone half his actual age, begs you to let him choose the first ride

you agree, because his excitement is getting to you too and honestly you know you’ll have fun together no matter what you do

wow what a terrible idea

of course this tomato choose the water ride, where all the passengers get s o a k e d

now you understand why Saeyoung was so excited, and insisted that you both wear a white tank top that day

but it’s too late to back out now

you have to admit, it’s pretty refreshing after waiting under the scorching heat of the sun for such a long time

you also have to admit the white tank tops weren’t such a bad idea cuz damn this boy has a nice body

though on the other hand, he was hoping to be able to see more

better luck next time ya loser

Favorite Attraction:

Roller-coasters or haunted houses, whichever one it is, he will make a point to scream as loudly as possible, and as obnoxiously as possible. 

Attraction to keep him away from:

Literally any ride during which screaming is not considered appropriate.  He will not hesitate so scream his heart out during a carousel ride, pretending to clutch onto a horse for dear life someone save this boy from himself

[ryttu3k]

Robo-Syrneas, vaporwave-Syrneas (can't remember their proper name, whoops!), and Modern AU Link! ☾ - sleep headcanon★ - sad headcanon☆ - happy headcanon■ - Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon☮ - friendship headcanon♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon♒ - cooking/food headcanon☼ - appearance headcanonൠ - random headcanon

For reference, vaporwave!Syrneas is the one in these pictures, and modern AU Link is my BotW daughter (with a few changes, since I drew this pre-canon). For robo!Syrneas, going to go with the AU where, between cycles of Xerneas being awake and active, Kalos builds a robot version in their image to maintain the land.

Sleep headcanon: Robo!Syrneas - well, robot, haha. That said, they’re solar powered, and so usually take advantage of that fact to go into sleep mode at night. It’s useful both for maintenance and for appearing more… organic, I guess?

Vaporwave!Syrneas - he gets energy from living energy, so living in a city, he literally doesn’t sleep. He’s a little more low-energy at night, but there’s still plenty of activity around the place to keep him going, so no sleep there.

And Link is just a regular human who needs sleep like anyone else, and while she’d rather be up and about and doing things, she does like sleeping in XD

Under a cut, this gets long!

Sad headcanon: Robo!Syrneas - just going to go with Robo - is, well, lonely. There’s no one else like them in the world - there are other robots, but they alone were modelled after a god and given this huge responsibility. Friends would be very nice!

Vaporwave - let’s go with that - isn’t so much sad as angry and frustrated. The world used to be so goddamn lush and now there’s concrete everywhere and it’s uncool. He used to be a deity of forests, now he’s a deity of, well, weeds, and it’s kind of a downgrade, y'know!

And Link (no name change there, whew) is a resiliant, tough teenage girl, but she still has those moments of insecurity; her father still very much wants her to join the army eventually, he thinks she could be brilliant in it, and she just. Wants to be a chef.

Happy headcanon: PLANTS MAKE ROBO HAPPY. FLOWERS. SUNSHINE. BEING OUTDOORS. Like tbh even if they weren’t programmed to replace Xerneas they’d probably still end up as a gardener or something.

Vaporwave also loves plants and sunshine but it’s more of this sense of almost like? Smug satisfaction? Like “fuck you concrete my plants can kick your ass”, haha.

Link is made happy with food. Please give her nice food. Or cookbooks and ingredients, it’s like food with some assembly required. And she actually enjoys assembling it, so there is that!

Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon: Robo lives outside :D Don’t worry, they’re waterproof! They just sort of roam from natural environment to natural environment, and take shelter anywhere necessary during bad weather.

Vaporwave also roams a lot, but he does at least have a sort of home. …It’s an abandoned mall that was once very classy and had marble statues and shit, and then it was industrialised and got full of neon, and now it’s abandoned and full of plants. Somehow, the muzak is still playing. Plantwave af, basically!

And Link, again, has the most normal home - she lives in an apartment with her father near the military base where he works. Her room is full of photos (mostly taken by Zelda) and a general colour scheme of blue and white, with lots of potted plants and… usually a few plates, bowls, and glasses that she needs to take to the kitchen :|

Friendship headcanon: Robo has plant friends :’) Honestly, no, it’s a pretty isolated life, and they don’t communicate with a lot of people, unfortunately!

Vaporwave has one friend, and that’s Diantha/Diancie, who’s sort of a sibling, too. They’re familiar with the other fairies (the Tapus and Magearna), but honestly Magearna legit wigs him out because she’s an artificial fairy what is this fuckery and the Tapus have their own territories to protect.

Link makes friends easily and happily - while Zelda is her best friend, she’s also really good friends with Mipha and Sidon, Riju (who’s like a little sister), Yunobo (who she babysits sometimes), and sees Urbosa, Daruk, and Kass as older siblings, almost. She, uh, doesn’t get on well with Revali, too much of a rivalry going on there, haha.

Quirks/hobbies headcanon: Look, don’t tell anyone, but Robo actually really enjoys reality TV. Shhh.

‘Fucking with humans’ isn’t really a hobby for Vaporwave, it’s more a career description ;D But really, he’ll often go to human-habitated areas and sometimes? Play tricks? Mostly benignly, but he is a fairy, I mean come on. Trickery is in their blood.

Link is sporty! She likes horse riding, she likes archery, she likes swimming, running, climbing… always on the move, basically. She’s on the school track team, although there’s sometimes a bit of legal fuckery in interscholastic meets because not all the schools accept her as part of the girls’ team even though she’s been on puberty blockers since she was eleven and is now on estrogen and doesn’t have any ‘too masculine’ characteristics and is short af so why can’t she compete with the girls, huh? Totally rude.

Likes/dislikes headcanon: Robo loves plants ;D But really, they’re kind of singleminded in that they weren’t really programmed for much else, so it’s like PLANTS ANIMALS NATURE some other stuff NATURE PLANTS bits and pieces NATURE ANIMALS PLANTS. The bits and pieces do have individual likes and dislikes that have nothing to do with their programming, though; they like reality TV shows, especially interior decorating stuff, and the smell of coffee, and they really, really dislike cars. Not because they pollute, but because they’re too noisy! >:(

Vaporwave likes the wilderness. Which mostly no longer exists in this AU. He tends to watch nature documentaries to feel better, then gets upset at the lack of them, and it’s. Complicated. So that would be both a like and a dislike, probably! For more straightfoward likes - coffee and food.

For Link, see lead image :D

Cooking/food headcanon: Irrelevant for Robo. They’re solar-powered! They do like the smell of some foods, though, especially coffee.

Vaporwave doesn’t need to eat, but enjoys doing so, he just hasn’t bothered to learn how to cook. He tends to trick humans into giving him nice foods, stuff like that, since, well, being a nature fairy doesn’t really pay that well, haha.

And Link’s greatest love :’) Her father taught her the basics, and she taught herself the rest, out of cooking shows, cookbooks, and her own intuition. Her favourite ingredients to work with are fruity dishes and mushroom dishes, although she also makes a damn good risotto, and a fruit cake that Zelda would go to war for.

Appearance headcanon: This is easier with visuals! For robo!Syrneas, just pick and choose from this tag tbh it keeps changing. The usual standards are a floral-print sweater, shorts, and gumboots, though. They range in colours and patterns but that’s the general theme, and they like modifying their appearance with floral decals!

Vaporwave is linked above. He always covers his eyes, though, since… well, fairy. It doesn’t show so well in the pictures, but he has rainbow strands through his hair, like random hair that’s just the colour of Xerneas’ canon horns.

And Link… Link is short :’) Why is everyone else so tall. Why. Riju, get over here and stand next to Link so she feels tall. She also usually has hair clips, thanks to Zelda. While she does like pretty dresses, since she’s so active, she’ll usually default to pants and t-shirts she can run around in, and saves the prettier stuff for more formal occasions.

Random headcanon: *collapses face first on the post*