#page 358

[sharry-arry-odd]

Mrs. Corleone herself opened the door and greeted Kay with a warm embrace that surprised her. Then she surveyed Kay with an appraising eye. "You a beautiful girl," she said flatly. "I have stupid sons."

The Godfather, by Mario Puzo

[beautifulbookishdisaster]

"As you get older you hear mostly about people you knew that died. I guess that is the way of the world."

John Steinbeck, East of Eden (Adam Trask)

[mariaashby64]

Digging up something from donkey's years ago.

So if some of you remember, the person responsible for me getting into Kingdom Hearts was @lynxgriffin back when they streamed their playthrough of the games leading up to KH3. I really enjoyed those streams and all the FPFN steams since!

These are a collection of some of moments that made me laugh. I wanted to do more, but they never happened. So here I am posting half decade old art.

[corfidbizna]

KHIII Chapter 35 (Eng): https://www.mediafire.com/file/x9bwpgt8ucsswr3/KH3_Ch35.zip/file Chapter List

I think this is the first time where Gangan Online and I made the same decision about what's the most iconic moment from the chapter XD.

[sharpmouth]

From a partial transcript of “What Some Have Thought” by Karen Green, of The Navidson Record

[mindfulwrath]

OW OOF MY HEART

[heahven-2023]

dec 25, 2023

today i spent the day at my bf’s house. i helped make dumplings for his family LOL. it was nice to see everyone gathered around for good food and company. this weekend was really about family. so it was a lot, but i enjoyed it. after all the mingling and getting to know his family- the bf and i went home to have stir fried pork and anju. the best kind of quality time

[heahven-2022]

dec 24, 2022

i spent the day with my grandparents. we had jjajangmyun for lunch and spent quality time together. it was a good christmas eve afterall. 🥹

[ameba-from-space]

ATTENTION PEOPLE WHO LIKE NIMONA

Netflix just released the full 358-Page Multimedia Art Of Book For ‘Nimona’ and its free and online and right here, so if you're an artist who really likes the style or just a fan who cannot stop obsessing with it go check it out its really cool

Here are some of my favorite parts of it:

And theres so much more, please go check it out it is very much worth your time

[cooking-with-hailstones]

Statistical analysis of the most popular A:TLA fics on AO3

(All of this is accurate as of May 27 2024)

I like numbers and statistical analysis and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So last night I made this spreadsheet!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the A:TLA fandom on AO3. I was genuinely surprised at some of the results!

Observations and analysis under the cut:

TL:DR, the fandom fucking loves putting Zuko into Situations.

Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of results from the most kudos'd, commented, hits, and bookmarks tagged under the Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon, 2005) tag on ao3. I am deliberately not including any larger multifandom flash fiction or drabble collections because I don't think they're super relevant. This ended up including 38 fics in total.

I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!

Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:

Salvage - MuffinLance

Fractures - EvieNyx

Embers- Vathara

Towards the Sun - MuffinLance

The Art Of Burning - hella1975

Max: 1,407,170 (Salvage -MuffinLance)

Min: 78,168 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 349,442

Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:

Salvage - MuffinLance

The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris

where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor

Fractures - EvieNyx

The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain

Max: 59,947 (Salvage - MuffinLance)

Min: 3293 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 19,868

Top 5 most popular fics by number of comments:

The Art Of Burning - hella1975

Salvage - MuffinLance

Fractures - EvieNyx

Towards the Sun - MuffinLance

War Games - Lovely_Elbow_Leech

Max: 13,469 (The Art Of Burning - hella1975)

Min: 358 (Hallowed - Haircrescendo)

Average: 3634

Top 5 most popular fics by number of bookmarks:

absence of heat, excess of destiny - theycallmesuperboy

Salvage - MuffinLance

where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor

The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris

The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain

Max: 150,317 (absence of heat - theycallmesuperboy)

Min: 430 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 9297

Highest kudos/hit ratio: Safety First - Haircrescendo (20.36%)

Lowest kudos/hit ratio: My Heart Burns For You - alwaysZutarian (0.89%)

Average kudos/hit ratio: 8.25%

Fic Ratings:

G: 9

T: 18

M: 6

E: 2

Unrated: 3

Popular authors (people who showed up more than once):

Aloneintherain (3)

Haircrescendo (5)

MuffinLance (4)

WitchofEndor (2)

Characters:

Literally all of these fics are Zuko-centric. Not all of them are Zuko-pov but every. single. one. focuses on Zuko as a main character. At least one of the following tags is on every single fic in this list: "The Gaang & Zuko", "Zuko & Zuko's Crew", "Zuko & Iroh" "Zuko & Azula" and "Zuko & [insert gaang member here]"

Relationships:

Ok this is what actually shocked me the most. I fully expected to see more Kataang, Zutara, etc in the top rated fics, but NO! Only 21 out of the 38 fics had any relationship slash tag, and of those, 20/21 were Sokka/Zuko (shoutout to My Heart Burns For You as the token Zutara fic to make it into this list). I did NOT realize Zukka was so popular! Now I'm super curious about what it would be like to run these numbers on FF.net because I know so much A:tla fanfic was written before ao3 existed and most hasn't been cross-posted, and Zukka wasn't a popular ship until more recently.

Other random observations:

There seems to be a pretty even split between post-canon firelord Zuko fics and canon-divergent "Zuko joins the Gaang early" fics.

Only one modern au as far as I could tell! (shoutout to "The Good Vanilla")

We all seem to love a Dadkoda fic

There is a very strong correlation between one-shots and a high kudos/hit ratio.

Seemingly no correlation between word count and number of kudos. The top kudos'd stories were mostly under 10k words, while all the other catergories were dominated by fics in the 100k+ word count.

I didn't really see much correlation between hits, kudos, and comments overall.

There were LOTS of fics that only showed up in one category, which was really interesting! I figured each list would look pretty much the same, and there were several fics that did show up on the front page of every category (Salvage definitely sweeps the board for overall most popular fic), but there was a lot of variation between each list! Some fics had TONS of hits but very few comments, some had truly wild kudos/hit ratios, some were just massively bookmarked.

Thank you for indulging in my nerdiness, and feel free to tell me what I missed or anything you're curious about!

Update: I did it again, this time with Legend of Zelda

[manonamora-if]

From the Itch page:

Palestinians are being persecuted from their homes in an ongoing genocide. Due to the armed actions of Israel, they lack access to essentials such as food, water, electricity and medical care. 

In response to this crisis, all proceeds from the Palestinian Relief indie bundle will be donated to the PCRF (Palestine Children's Relief Fund). PCRF describes itself as "the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, delivering crucial and life-saving medical relief where it is needed most". By donating to the PCRF, Palestinians will have better access to medical relief, food and water. 

Want more TTRPGs? You can donate $15 to TTRPGs for Palestine.

Not sure where to start with the bundle? Check out randombundlegame.com or Dominic's list.

Contact

For further queries: email: gamedevsforpalestine@gmail.com | twitter: @vgforpalestine

[homestuckreplay]

psychoanalyzing rose’s mother (because rose won’t do it)

(page 903-910)

The Skaianet Laboratory Unestablishment countdown ticks from 1:43 down to 1:34. I see those 413s being snuck in. I am genuinely at a point where if I see a number that isn’t 413 I get suspicious.

I love Rose so so much. And I love that she’s into psychoanalysis (kind of). But her saying ‘this incongruous thing? I pretend I do not see it’ is just like her saying there is ‘nothing to psychoanalyze’ about her mother’s love of wizards (p.360). She’s going in with preconceived expectations and not willing to interrogate the unexpected.

Like. Let’s look at the facts. In this massive, empty lab with thousands of twinkling boxes and no people, somebody has left a pink plastic table and chairs, a tea set, a scarf, a pink and white bed with cat, flower, heart and paw print designs, a princess themed dresser, cat stuffed toys, and WIZARD DOLLS. Pretty pink masters of the arcane with their long beards and pointy hats. Kind of a giveaway as to which local wizard-loving woman might own all this.

Rose’s mom has brought all this down to the lab, where she either works or just spends time. And she’s probably lonely down here and trying to recapture a childhood, whether that’s her own or Rose’s. We know from the pretty princess doll (p.363) that Mom likes to buy traditionally girly gifts for Rose, so this could even be old toys of Rose’s that she doesn’t even remember, her mom still playing with them to remind her of when she used to play with Rose. If Mom works here, then she’s up at this meteor terminal thinking about how one day, her daughter and anyone else they both care about are both going to be in danger from this upcoming apocalypse. And maybe she wants to hold on to the time she’s had with Rose before everything changes, or maybe she wishes she could be the one being taken care of, miles from the nearest town and with no partner or other family at home. She’s looking for comfort, she may well want to escape her own daughter’s judgment, and ultimately she has to parent herself as much as Rose does.

All this very important content is immediately overshadowed by the tiny kitten. There is a kitten hiding in the teapot. A TEAPOT SIZED KITTEN. I thought I was over this but I am not. A SMALL KITTEN!

Page 909 is composed similarly to Jade’s furry thoughts on page 797, but with the opposite emotion behind it. But clowns is clowns, and I don’t think John is scared of finding a bunch of regular ass harlequins like Dad might keep downstairs. That also wouldn’t explain why John’s always been kept from going in Dad’s room (and I could be wrong but it seems uncommon to not even know what’s inside a parent’s room). I think John is scared that his dad has a different secret. Based on the contents of Dad’s safe (p.544) I wonder if Dad is an amateur investigator who’s been looking into some of the strange phenomena associated with Skaia. Maybe John is about to encounter red-string cork boards and more tidbits about meteors, and find out that his dad is way more involved in current events than previously thought.

In page titles, ‘ascend’ first appears on page 660 and ‘descend’ not until page 840 (though the word is used in passing on both page 358 and 361). ‘Ascend’ also appears on page 759 in Nanna’s prophecy, where she states that ‘together [the Heir, Seer, Knight and Witch] will Ascend’. On page 909 the narrator treats ‘descend’ as an expectation, but it’s a fairly recent one. It’s one of my favorite things about serial fiction to see these tidbits of patterns and lore be dropped in and then woven through the narrative as if they’ve always been crucial, until it’s impossible to divorce the two. But it’s still possible to see that Homestuck characters weren’t ascending on day one.

> John: Examine room.

[beautifulbookishdisaster]

It's funny, I thought, how the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.

Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

[alittlepassionfruit]

The Stare

Page 267

Page 358

Page 439

[tailschannel]

New zones, customization options, and Emerald Powers: a recap of the Sonic Superstars cover story

Issue 358 of the Gameinformer magazine was published this Tuesday, and its 12-page column on the upcoming Sonic Superstars revealed a new look into its development, and previewed a number of in-game features and zones.

Here's everything you need to know.

Major takeaways

New zone names: Sky Temple, Pinball Carnival, Lagoon City, Sand Sanctuary, Press Factory, and unannounced Golden Capital.

New Emerald Powers: Avatar, Bullet, Water, Ivy, Vision, Slow, Extra, Super.

Expect vast character customization options in the brand new Items shop.

Select stages in a Generations-style World Map.

New zones

Characters have the choice of going through a normal act or a character-specific act. For example, finishing Act 1 of Speed Jungle Zone as Sonic allows you to choose between either playing the second act of Speed Jungle or an "Act Sonic," an alternate act of Speed Jungle where you zoom as Sonic, running away from a terrorizing Fang the Sniper.

There is reportedly a World Map similar to Generations where you run in a 2D-plane to select a stage.

There is also an items shop where you can trade medals in for customizable parts. Apparent, you can customize your "head, body, arms, legs, accessories color, and something called prototype."

The third zone of the game is reportedly called Sky Temple Zone.

In the zone, there is a mini-game similar to the game "Breakout," where you turn into a ball and aim to break bricks.

The climax or the ending of the zone is a massive storm.

The fourth zone is called Pinball Carnival Zone.

As the name suggests, "a giant pinball arena and fast sequences with fireworks setting off."

The fifth zone is called Lagoon City, which is filled with submerged city ruins and water slides.

Act 1 is mostly above water whereas Act 2 has several underwater sequences.

Amy's character-specific act of Lagoon City is fruit-based, with several gimmicks like a fruit based robots and such.

Sand Sanctuary Zone is the sixth zone of Sonic Superstars and a seventh zone reportedly called Press Factory Zone.

Filenames in the newly released screenshots also disclosed the officially unannounced Golden Capital Zone.

Emerald Powers

Emerald Powers were inspired by the Wisps mechanic from Sonic Colors.

Every stage has a giant gold ring and a giant blue ring. Completing the giant gold rings rewards you a Chaos Emerald and the the blue ring rewards you a medal.

Both special stages have the same central gameplay mechanic: swing from floating bubbles toward the moving objective.

Emerald Powers can be used by using the right stick and operate on a cooldown, with each star post checkpoint replenishing your cooldown meter.

Avatar (Blue Emerald)

Allows you to create clones of yourself.

Useful for defeating any enemy that lies on you path.

Bullet (Red Emerald)

Allows you to direct and shoot your character at a specified direction.

"It's an extremely useful action; it's probably the most useful action for this kind of game," Iizuka said.

Water (Cyan Emerald)

Allows you to interact with any body of water, like swimming freely underwater or climbing up waterfalls.

Ivy (Green Emerald)

Allows you to grow upward vines.

Helpful in reaching higher areas.

Can also be utilized to help your teammates in co-op mode.

Vision (Purple Emerald)

Allows you to see hidden objects like platforms, rings, or items found in the level.

Slow (Yellow Emerald)

Allows the player to slow down everything on screen.

Helpful in tighter platforming sequences or boss encounters.

Extra (White Emerald)

Unlocks character-specific actions.

Sonic – Homing Attack: Unlocks the Homing Attack from the modern titles.

Tails – Tornado Spin: Unlocks a devastating tornado attack that can destroy enemies in front of you

Amy – Hammer Throw: Unlocks the ability for Amy to throw hammers instead of the usual Hammer Swing.

Knuckles – Punch: Unlocks the ability to punch for Knuckles.

Super Form (All 7 Emeralds)

Characters can turn into their Super form after collecting all 7 Chaos Emeralds.

Characters won't have any specific abilities outside of being invincible and becoming faster.

Emerald Powers can still be used in Super form.

Development

The concept of Superstars came from a Zoom call by Naoto Ohshima during the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Ohshima and Iizuka held producer roles for Sonic Superstars.

Despite hinting at a short development time than expected, Ohshima was impressed by Sonic Team and Iizuka.

"Though Arzest and Ohshima led development efforts on Sonic Superstars, Sonic Team collaborated frequently, with Iizuka and Ohshima constantly sharing ideas of and production duties."

There were talks between Iizuka and Whitehead's team following the release of Mania where concepts were considered, but the project fell through; however, Iizuka does states that he is "pleased that the next generation of Classic Sonic that we talked about with them has been achieved with Superstars."

Iizuka said that the programming for Superstars "is completely unique and done from scratch by Arzest."

(Story contributed by Spectre and Scarlett from the Tails' Channel Newsfeed)

[a-cipher]

NETFLIX LISTENED TO US AND RELEASED A DIGITAL, MULTI-MEDIA, NIMONA ART BOOK!

the art book

it's absolutely gorgeous, so much awesomeness. this art book is such a big win for us. netflix heard us and saw that we wanted more, and gave it to us. free, no less.