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galene-gothic · 1 year ago

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𝖧𝗈𝗐 𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝖾𝖼𝗈𝗆𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖻𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖿?

୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ I hope this reading found you in good health, every reblog is appreciated and thank you for everything :) ˖♡ ˎˊ˗ ꒰ 🐇 ꒱

˗ˏˋ༻ʚ♡︎ɞ༺ˎˊ˗ PAID SERVICES

⸼ ۫ ︎︎⊹ ! 🪡︎ Pile 1 ꒱

Let's look at what your best self looks like first, your best self is selectively honest. They don't tell others what they want next. They evaluate themself and are self critical to a certain extent. They are sort of self absorbed. They understand that ignorance is bliss and know how to ignore things or people when need be. They are especially really good at ignoring people that they can't have or people from the past. They are still quite fearless though. They understand that it's better to be attacked than ignored. They meditate often and know how to relax. They need and prioritise peace, and their actions align with that. They never bite more than they can chew, they know how to step away from situations that they cannot handle. They try to stay away from conflict and choose themself first no matter what. They know how to become the bigger person. They take care of themself, self reflect and know how to heal properly. They know how to not make rash decisions. They're wise and detached. They've surrendered, they know that if they cannot control it, there's no use worrying and if they can control it, it's better to do so rather than worry. They've released old beliefs and patterns. They have a faith that things will work out, be it faith in themself, faith in god, faith in life or faith in the universe. They're mindful, intentional and know how to let go. They know how to grow, they're also successful. They believe that the pain of discipline is better than the pain of regret. They're quite passive and know how to let life happen for them, they're still someone who takes necessary action though. So, how do you become them? You need a rest, not gonna lie.

Some of you might be drained out to the point where you cannot focus in school or on work. You need to address your self esteem issues. Supposing, you are really self conscious when it comes to performing, you always feel like your body won't look good if you put too much energy so you end up putting less energy in but when you do so, you feel disappointed at yourself for not doing well. In that case, you should try to improve your dance skills. You're someone who has an understanding that being pretty doesn't do enough for you, it's the same with being rich, and the way you are as a person and the way you present yourself are all very important to you. I think it's important for you to build certain skills to a point where you can be really proud, it'll significantly boost your self esteem which will in turn help you for the better. It requires consistency though, don't be lazy !! You need to release negative thoughts, feelings, habits and patterns. You might have gotten really comfortable with your pain, it's important to heal. Your deepest traumas are either already surfacing/resurfacing or will soon, that's when it'll be the easiest to change. You need to stop stressing like just know that "what happens, happens." You need to face life and have a total break down first. You should withdraw from stuff. You'll go through something very humbling, you'll be left feeling really put down. You'll not even have it in yourself to look strong anymore, you'll be exposing weakness because you'll just not have the strength to conceal it. You'll have to accept defeat first and things will get better soon. You'll have to have a lot of anger, pain, shame, guilt and regrets in order to completely change your life, all the best, it'll probably come in soon.

⸼ ۫ ︎︎⊹ ! 🪡︎ Pile 2 ꒱

Let's look at what your best self looks like, your best self has unlimited potential and sees it. Your best self has freedom in some sense, be it financial or something else. Your best self is someone who had to let go of who they were in order to become who they're meant to be. Your best self has a carefree attitude. I just heard 'be yourself'. When I say this, some of you might think that you're doing it already but if you think about it properly you'll notice that you tend to either act childlike even though you're very mature, dumb even though you're very smart, don't express your values as articulately as you think about them, etc. Some of you could be really good at written expression of your thoughts, ideas and feelings but when it comes to talking, you're not the best. Your best self is not scared of being unique. Your best self takes risks because they understand that most of the times not taking a risk is the biggest risk. Your best self has a thirst for life and is passionate. You might be really passionate as a person (most of you seem to have that side of you diminished though). Your best self has fun regardless of what others say. One quality that you already have is your ability to analyse yourself, you are not the type to avoid accountability and blaming external factors for every little thing. You have some sort of an inner guidance, your mindset gives you the capacity to be completely alone if necessary. I feel like a deep part of you desires or used to desire solitude, peace and spiritual enlightenment. Most of you have started your spiritual journey already, some of you haven't though. It doesn't have to be something too deep like 'light candles every full moon, meditate every morning, light sage and incenses often' but instead that you feel like everything that happened was for a reason or even if it feels like it wasn't.

You learn and make something out of it, you know how to live life and try to grow as a person, and have faith (be it in the universe or in yourself). You might be quite philosophical too. You have a lot of wisdom, people who are slightly older than you and see you for who you are might say things like "you're so mature for your age". Ofcourse, there are some things that you'll have to get rid of in order to become your best self, I feel like most of you have mostly/only had short term unstable relationship/s which have caused you to have a lot of baggage. You could have poor health (I heard a poor immune system, bad sleep schedule and poor gut health). You might also be financially dependent on someone else or just not be financially stable, it's causing you to not be able to gain certain skills or knowledge, etc. Even if you do not notice it, you have a tendency of getting stuck in your head often. You lack spontaneity and need mental stimulation/challenges/someone who seems to be equally as intelligent as you so you could have been stuck in toxic friendships/relationships with people who think that and act like they know everything. You're a very fair person, so being with people who don't share the same values or reasoning as you will be frustrating, I'd advise you to not interact with such people to the point of forming am emotional attachment. You'll have to find a source of motivation or something that just reignites the passion in you. Stop being lazy, simply just planning isn't going to get you anywhere. You need to find a new purpose basically. Focus on a purpose, money, drive and having fun. It's important to learn how to be true to yourself and not get easily influenced. You should go out and have some fun too. All the best, I'm rooting for you but you need to be rooting for yourself ten times harder.

⸼ ۫ ︎︎⊹ ! 🪡︎ Pile 3 ꒱

Your best self holds pure intentions towards others and has a good nature. Your best self is also very attractive and follows their heart. They're driven and have a great imagination. They romanticise life and are in love with love. They listen to their intuition and take action towards their goals with a hope in their heart. They have a creative hobby that they might have suppressed that they choose to enhance. They're charming and friendly with people. One thing that I'm getting is that they're someone who everyone has a crush on to a certain extent. They receive a lot of jealousy and envy from others. They don't let anger get the best of them. They think calmly and orderly. They accept different beliefs and paths. They could be someone who's tired though, like really tired physically (they could do a lot). They're accepting of other people's differences. They find solutions to issues instead of going around blaming others. They prioritise peace and don't lose sight of the path. You need to face yourself instead of quick fixing issues that lead to long term detriment. If you're having fights, etc. the moment you forgive them (whether it is at their face or by yourself, without letting them know, that's up to you) and resolve conflicts (including your inner conflicts), you'll start developing into your best self. You have convinced yourself that you have certain beliefs that don't align with you and you need to get rid of them. You're not seeing the brighter side of life and that's hindering you from becoming your best self too.

I feel like what's led to this mild-extreme pessimism is your over optimism in the past. A happy and exciting event seems to have turned wrong. It's going to take you a lot of work to become your best self. You'll have to take up a lot of responsibilities and be really loaded with things to do if you want to become your best self. You'll have to be serious about life and will be stressed quite often. I just heard 'too busy to even eat'. There are excessive requirements and conditions for you to become the best version of yourself. You'll have to put yourself through intense pressure. You'll have to take up a lot of responsibilities too though, try to improve your own character alongside working on building something for yourself. It'll be really easy to burn out though because of how much you'll be doing. You need to mean how to not commit easily to others. You need to challenge others instead of just letting them into your life. Your best self follows their heart but is not easy to get. You need to become hard to get and easy to lose. You need to learn how to make quick decisions and take quick actions. It's important for you to be on a dedicated mission to succeed. Discipline yourself and build confidence. Build so much confidence that when someone you love does you wrong, you know that you can just let go, and find better people and treatment. Become self assured. It's important for you to just go for the things that you want. If you try, you'll get there little by little, all the best.

#intuitive readings #pick a card #pick a deck #pac #pac reading #astro notes #pick a photo #astrology #astro observations #pick a gif #pick a picture #astrovations

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juliasgoodusername · 2 years ago

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Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.

Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT

Exterior

Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.

Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.

Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.

I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘

First floor

"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30

Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.

“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.

I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-

Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.

... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.

... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue

Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.

The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13

There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)

The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.

- The Raven King, Chapter 9

Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.

I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.

The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).

Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.

Second Floor

When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11

Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.

Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.

- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49

We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.

Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).

Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.

As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.

Attic

Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.

... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34

Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!

Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!

Mud Room/Cellar/Basement

This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.

My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.

This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.

Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.

#happy hyperfixation friday everyone #January was a weird month for me ngl this was one of my more hinged projects if you can believe it #please don't let this flop tho like this definitely took longer than any drawing I've ever posted here #trc #the raven cycle #the raven cycle fanart #300 Fox Way #Blue Sargent #the raven boys #my art #trc unraveled

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cerastes · 4 months ago

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When Schwarz was new did people complain about her being too overpowered?

See, I've had this ask for two days, and I wanted to have a good chance to sit down and answer it properly, because it's a good springboard into something I find interesting, the zeitgeist back then and how it has evolved into current, modern Arknights. Let's do a little retrospective.

No, that didn't happen. As to why it didn't happen, well, there's a few factors, the first of which being Schwarz is not overpowered, she's a character with very evident flaws and very evident strengths, and these were, depending on the player, immediately understood or not really considered in depth.

See, Schwarz was the fourth 6* released after launch -- After Skadi, Ch'en, and Magallan, in that order -- and the absurd powerhouses back then were all launch Operators and arguably Ch'en: SilverAsh, Eyja, and Exusiai were the most popular back then, with Ch'en being a conditional potent burst damage dealer (her S2M3 was her main selling point, being an instant helidrop burst of damage that also hit air units). Schwarz was in a place similar to Ch'en in that she was conditional in how she blasted things; she has superior firepower but poor, strict range for a Sniper (back then, we had no such thing as categorized archetypes, so we just came up with nicknames, like "duelists" for what are now Dreadnoughts, "Schwarz-types" for Heavyshooters, "Enmity Guard" for Musha, and many others), and if you wanted to use her big killer skill, S3, she was only going to have a straight line worth of range to hit things.

See, the thing is, being strong wasn't an 'issue' back then. We wanted more and stronger units so we could break the monotony of SilverAsh swish swish, Eyja Volcano Hour, and Warfarin's Apple Pie Combo. A monotony that wasn't a monopoly, mind you, because it definitely wasn't the sole end way to deal monstrous amounts of damage and tackle hard content -- I myself was a dedicated Specter, Saria, and Angelina user -- but it was what practically all guide makers and tier lists suggested. Either way, the demand for Cool Strong New Units was definitely healthy back then, ESPECIALLY by the time of Schwarz' release, since Skadi and Magallan had been rather disappointing for 6*s; Skadi was the sole Abyssal Hunter buff that existed back then (Guard Specter had no Module, thus, no AH Buff), and without Modules or other AH buffs, all she could do was basically S2 Helidrop to kill something or use her S3 probably once per stage to become a raid boss and then sort of just stand there, offering nothing that other units couldn't since things back then were patently not strong enough to need her, as her 3* equivalent, Melantha, was pretty much enough to deal with anything that required a Dreadnought specifically, and you had other, stronger options that did more than JUST deal with strong enemies if a bomb of Skadi's caliber was needed, while Magallan suffered the unfortunate fate of being an early Summoner in a game where super instant DPS came free with your Xbox, leading to the vast majority of people to not really want to learn to play around her expensive Deployment Slot costs and dynamic gameplay, which also necessitated Mastery investment to put out numbers, investment that was not easy to make back then, as Masteries were something you REALLY rationed.

Another very important part as to why Schwarz didn't have to deal with this was because she was the only one of her type. She was a new way to play back then, so no one felt their favorite was threatened; Schwarz and Exusiai filled very different roles, with Exusiai being able to wreck high HP low DEF enemies with ease (which was basically 95% of enemies back then, notably All Bosses Except Big Bob, who has a DEF of 800) while Schwarz had HUGE chunky single hits that were meant to squash enemies even if their DEF was huge, but who ultimately would have less DPS than Exusiai in most cases. What's more, you would use Schwarz in plenty of set-ups anyways because she brought DEF Shred with her kit. People celebrated Schwarz back then because not only was she a cool new unit type, she could bring value to pretty much all sorts of parties with Physical damage, in a way that another unit I've omitted so far could for Arts damage, the support powerhouse of the early, mid, and modern game, throughout the years: Saria.

I make the specific comparison with Exusiai because eventually, the zeitgeist would change: Ash, from the R6S collab, made waves because she was strong, but also because it seemed like she'd steal away Exusiai's place as the Fast Shooter DPS Wrecker Supreme. Time would go on to prove that, no, she would not do that, because Ash is more of a Burst damage unit compared to Exusiai, with immense damage tied to a shorter window and the Stun condition, while Exusiai's DPS window isn't contingent on anything except "Does she do real damage or chip damage". But that was an early sign of things to come: Upstaging.

The initial fears of very strong units had more to do with "this unit is powercreeping an older unit" more than anything. Powercreep is inevitable, doubly so in gacha games where they gotta sell you the PNGs one way or another, and I'll always argue that Arknights has been incredibly good with handling powercreep compared to its peers (and just, as a game in general), but again, it's inevitable, so you end up with situations like Degenbrecher existing and Doctor Manhattan Exploding Ch'en and Irene right into niche uses (Ch'en nowadays being at her best as a support sub-DPS with her Module allowing for great party Offensive/Defensive SP charging, while Irene still has her powerful S1/S2/S1 loop combo with Dorothy) or, you know, Texas the Pale and Yato In A Fur Bikini completely obliterating Phantom out of the face of Terra.

All of this, in my opinion and perception, holds true nowadays: When a unit of a new archetype or playstyle releases and they are very strong, you only hear few people complaining about them being very strong, but when a unit could possibly powercreep an older unit, especially an older favorite, that number increases exponentially. Of course, creatures like Wisadel, Degenbrecher, and Ling exist, which blow other units out of the water entirely, and you've also had units like Surtr or Mlynar who aren't really directly powercreeping any specific units as much as powercreeping entire roles and concepts.

Arknights also does have more content creators now, which I also think worsens matters because they have an obligation and a blood oath to the algorithm to always make a video that goes something like "NEW OPERATOR EXTREMELY BROKEN?????" with a crappy clickbait thumbnail and since [GRUMP ALERT] most Arknights players hate thinking for themselves and love looking at The Content Creator to form their opinions on whether Unit Is Strong Or Not [/GRUMP ALERT], these sentiments, whether legitimate or not, tend to flare up more often. By the way, that's also not a good idea, because everyone thought Gnosis was an easy skip back when he released, and then it turned out Gnosis was cracked, and a shitload of CN players regretted not rolling for him, so hey, sometimes this does result in pretty funny things to occur, as it were.

But yeah, this has been a little retrospective of the zeitgeist throughout the years.

#long post #arknights #schwarz

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oikoraart · 3 months ago

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I might explode if I don't share this, so here goes an unhinged rant/theory that has to do with the Book of Bill. brace yourself!!

ALRIGHT SO background: yesterday I read a post talking about Silas Birchtree being one of the best iterations of "Bill using a human body as a flesh puppet" (agreed), and somewhere (I can't recall if it was op or a comment I'm sorry) there was this joke about Bill having a thing for people with tree surnames. and I was like haha funny yeah, and then moved on with my day.

but NOW IT HIT ME.

IT'S NOT SIMPLY TREES, OR LIKE, ANY KIND OF TREE.

HE FIRST WENT FOR A GUY WITH THE SURNAME BIRCHTREE. BIRCH. YOU KNOW, THAT WHITE TREE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS EYES ALL OVER???

AND THEN, OH THEN HE WENT FOR PINES. A PRETTY TRIANGULAR-LOOKING TREE IF YOU ASK ME.

AND- OKAY I'M PROBABLY JUST REACHING HERE BUT HEAR ME OUT.

DOES HE,, DOES HE HAVE SOME SORT OF STRONGER INFLUENCE/PULL TOWARDS THINGS THAT SOMEWHAT RELATE TO HIM?? (not really sure why he'd go for trees* twice but- TRIANGLES, EYE(S), BILLS?, CIPHERS)

AND YOU MIGHT BE THINKING "nah he's just that badly egotistical, he picks like that on purpose" AND AT FIRST I WAS ALSO GOING TO JUST SIT WITH THAT CONCLUSION (and not write this post) BUT LIKE ACTUALLY NO THAT'S NOT IT.

BECAUSE alright let's say for the sake of argument that Bill could've had anyone else with a big brain and self-esteem issues construct his portal (debatable) and he just happened to choose Ford because "ehehe surname relating to me and birth defect too"...

BUT HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN SILAS???

THE GUY JUST RANDOMLY DIED. HE CHOKED ON A COIN THAT HE TOSSED AFTER FAILING TO MAKE BUSINESS IN THAT TOWN. JUST THEN DID BILL KICK HIS LITTLE CULT-FOR-PORTAL-CONSTRUCTION PLAN INTO MOTION, WHICH, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, WAS DESTINED TO FAIL FROM THAT CHOICE ALONE.

HERE it is WAY harder to make the argument that he could've picked anyone from the town because, unless he was planning to fail on purpose, why would he choose a rotting body as a host?? it makes no sense: it puts a time limit to get it all done before the body is completely useless. it doesn't make any sense unless that was his only option. maybe he was already planning on entering the guy's dreams but then he just dropped dead and Bill went "ah shit. well, time to work with what we have, I guess!"

SO! in short, I believe that whoever Bill uses as his puppet/anchor to this world has to meet the requirement of somehow relating to him (his imagery and/or motifs), not just out of preference, but because it's a must, some sort of limitation or arbitrary rule that he has to follow, for him to be able to get to you.

...and personally I think that THAT'S SO COOL AND INTERESTING OMG MR. HIRSCH YOU ARE SUCH A BIG BRAINED MAN-

SO YEAH. I might be going a little insane. perhaps. cheers to that!!

now I have to figure out how/if this rule checks out with Alex Hirsch himself because (canonically? I think?) Bill has controlled him before and (iirc) is implied to still be tethered to him in some way

*the only explanation I can think of for trees would be the fact that [tree -> three -> triangle] but like idk that might be too far. or maybe that's precisely why he can only go for things related to specific trees, like [birch = tree + eyes] and then [pines = tree + triangular shape]. maybe the rule is even more complex than I first thought... hmmm

#ramble #BIG ramble #theory #the book of bill #gravity falls #bill cipher #silas birchtree #coincidence? I think not #oikora yaps #hyperfixation-fueled yapping #ascending tbh #lalalala #wonky formating I think #sorry?#:3 heehee

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followthebluebell · 9 months ago

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what were q's issues? i tried to search your blog but tumblr is tumblr

Oh, that's because I never really went public with the extent of his problems. I didn't want to deal with the potential 'just euth him' comments, especially since I genuinely don't think a compassionate euthanasia would have been wrong.

Anyway, his butthole didn't work.

That's the short version.

I'm gonna put a more full history under the cut because it's really gross. Like fair warning. There's a lot of discussion of this cat's butthole, poop, and health issues. If you just want to keep imagining him as a cute little fluffball, maybe go look at his pictures instead.

Specifically, his anal sphincter didn't seem to function. His anus was just open and loose. Whatever was wrong with him ALSO seemed to affect his scrotum. Cats tend to hold their testicles pretty high and tight but his were super loose. I'm genuinely not sure if there's an actual connection there, but it was weird enough that it made its way into my notes about him.

He also had loose stools so he was just kinda constantly dribbling all over himself, whoever was holding him, his bedding, the floor--- you get the idea. He required frequent baths: he'd get a bath at the start of my shift and at the end, at the very least. Most nights had an evening bath as well. That way, he could at least stay somewhat free of excrement. This was terrible for his skin, of course; that's an excessive number of baths. It was just one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. Considering the alternative was letting him sit in his own waste, we decided that baths were better.

He also wasn't gaining any weight. He wasn't taking in ANY nutrition from his food at all. Whatever went into him seemed to come right back out within a few hours. He was being tube fed for two weeks; he didn't seem capable of eating without grinding his teeth terribly. I genuinely wasn't sure how much sensation he even HAD in his anus until I caught him on camera squatting in a box.

That gave me hope more than anything else did. It at least told me he had nerve endings back there. It was just the sphincter or maybe the last inch or so of his intestine that seemed defective. Since he was such a sweet kitten otherwise, we decided to give him a chance to grow. The plan was to get him to UC Davis or a similar teaching hospital in the hope that they could extend his good intestine and sort of construct an artificial sphincter.

And then he just got over it. I picked him up to give him his morning bath and his butthole was just SLIGHTLY puckered. Over the next few days, I took a series of the grossest pictures in my fucking life and confirmed that his sphincter was sphincting. He started eating voraciously on his own. He started growing. He also stopped tooth grinding-- again, I don't know if this is significant, but it's another thing that made it into my notes.

I have no idea what happened, but I'm glad he's healthy. He just needed time to grow into his butthole or something.

#Q #cat #persian

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utilitycaster · 2 months ago

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Do you think this new option could lead to a break up in the party and some of the characters leaving the group? Because I can't see everyone agreeing that this is the best solution, but I also think Ashton is stubborn enough to refuse to consider anything else

This is going to be a very long answer for what is a pretty short question that could be answered in one sentence, and here's why.

I've gotten a lot of questions in the past week or so that are specifically asking me what I think the future will be - for campaign 3, and for Critical Role generally. And I've gotten a little frustrated by them, which is somewhat uncharacteristic of me because I love having opinions, but the fact is, I don't know and I don't even have strong opinions. So I dug into that, and why people might be asking these things more than usual, and I really think it's because the narrative of this campaign is so constantly under threat of derailment or going in the same old circles that pretty much anyone in the fandom with any sense of narrative structure, and what makes for a well-crafted story is like "so...what's happening." Which is translating as coming to me, a person who is very good at sounding confident and knowledgeable.

I do not fucking know. I share this frustration, and I cannot be the person to clear it up. i am not even the best at narrative or analysis in this fandom; as I pretty frequently state I took the hard STEM option with regards to my education so while I read a lot and have a pretty good sense for the lay person, there are actual like, trained and published writers. For what it's worth several of them are my mutuals and while I'm not putting the rest of this post on them I do feel safe saying they agree that the lack of narrative direction is at the heart of most people's frustrations with this campaign, even if they enjoy the characters. But getting back to the point, I do not know.

Here's where I stand on the actual plot before I go back to the bigger picture. I think that unless Bells Hells decide on their course of action pretty quickly, no ending will really feel satisfying due to that sense of directionlessness - and there are arguments for Bells Hells to take either the Arch Heart or the Accord's plan, though I think the Accord's is far superior, but they need to pick one.

Because of the ongoing issues with this party lacking perspectives that tied in well to this story and having to hinge everything on either one singular interpretation of one single instance in extraordinary circumstances (eg: Dorian), or stuff that feels, as I've said before, retconned, I have generally been extremely amenable to Bells Hells losing party members either through a split or through character deaths. This is not out of any sort of vindictiveness or dislike of characters, but just a hope that now that they know the vibe, the cast will make a character who has a perspective that is relevant to the story (which, FCG is not an ideal example because they happened to be the character who had perhaps best grown from their original concept to fit into the themes of this campaign, but Braius obviously is a very strong character informed by the story as well). I also think that a lot of the indecisiveness is part of the characters' various natures and that will also be a factor, especially since a new character can be both decisive, have a clear point of view, and be a lot more comfortable pissing off the rest of the party to assert it. So: if Bells Hells as they currently stand can decide what to do quickly, no need to break up! But if they can't, yeah, it would be to their and the story's benefit to do so. That's before we get into, for example, the sacrifice required from specifically Imogen or Fearne for the Arch Heart's plan; Ashton is not the one who has to risk their own autonomy for the rest of eternity. They might die in battle, but they will not become a husk housing an ancient hunger. I think the people who might have to do so get to decide.

Now: it may seem counterintuitive to demand a clear direction from a TTRPG, when part of the appeal is that we don't know how it will end, but the thing is, with the past campaigns, we did not know if the party would succeed but we knew that they wanted to do. Vox Machina could have fallen to Vecna but we always knew they were going to fight Vecna. The Mighty Nein's decisions not to get involved with the war are not indecision but rather a very clear decision (do not get involved). Their later reversal of that decision similarly follows from who they are and the richness of their pasts.

Bells Hells does not have that, and the endless circular conversations are both circular in game and a vicious cycle out of it; because we've always been focused on this plot from very early on and because the characters were not developed as strongly, we have a lot of very indecisive people who are too trapped in this crisis to develop and become decisive. In a way, it feels like Matt's been something like the Arch Heart here: saying "oh, THIS would be interesting, I wonder what will happen" at everything when it's like "ok but consequences are like, important, and maybe you should let things play out. I mean, two cycles isn't great but it is still only two; maybe you should actually let your children/players figure this out, even if it doesn't fit your idea of what should happen, instead of throwing yet another new thing at them."

So: I don't know and I don't have answers about Campaign 3 events at this point because, again, as someone who has a pretty good sense of what makes for a satisfying narrative, it has frequently subverted those requirements (which, to be clear, is bad - it's not genre subversion or a masterful play on expectations, it's subverting actual satisfying narrative beats; as someone said on one of my other posts in not quite so many words, it's like storyline-baiting). I know I tend to present my points with confidence, and I am pretty confident about a lot of things like CR lore and said sense of narrative, but like...maybe this guess on the fandom vibe is incorrect, but I think I'm getting these questions because people are saying "hey, do you know where we're going? I think I am reading this map wrong" to me and I'm here to say "no, you're reading it fine, we've gone off the road and are just kinda crashing through underbrush, and maybe we'll hit another road and continue on that and I can give some insight, but also we might go off a cliff, no way to tell."

#answered #minxie-the-sabertooth-kitty #honestly the metanarrative of the arch heart as matt slaps. good job me.#also i kept this remarkably diplomatic given some of the moronic ThIs CaMpAiGn SuBvErTs ThE oThErS posts #cr spoilers

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silly-writes · 1 year ago

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Hi! I love your work! Can you do a Mike + alters, Scott, Alejandro (seperate) x reader where the reader has really bad sensory issues, especially with loud noises, and can have panic attacks from them? if your not okay with writing this then that’s totally fine /gen. it’s important to take care of yourself.

Contestants with reader who gets overstimulated.

Aaa thank u for this request anon! Yes i'm totally comfortable writing this kind of stuff! Thanks for being so kind about it! As an autistic person with really bad sensory issues myself I actually find it a thearputic, lol. Okay enough about me, enjoy!

Mike

dealing with a traumagenic disorder (DID) I would imagine he's honestly kind of in the same boat.

He's no stranger to panic attacks, and is pretty well versed by now in how to deal with them.

The first time it happens though he's sort of an anxious wreck, he's just nervous that trying to help might make it worse, but he doesn't want to leave your side.

He gives you lot's of words of encouragement, and helps you through breathing exercises, and gets you plenty of water.

"It's okay, breathe with me, I'm right here," he assures you gently.

If you require pressure/physical contact during your panic attacks, he's more than happy to give you that.

He gets good at catching them too, he'll always be able to identify when you're about to spiral because of too much noise or too bright lights, and he'll find a quiet secluded room so he can work through it with you.

"Sorry you have to deal with this too," you said, after a particularly bad one, you still felt dizzy, and tears still stained your face, but you had come out of it now, and felt a little guilty.

"Hey don't apologize, I don't mind. Not at all."

He's just very caring with this kind of stuff in general.

Manitoba

Maintoba is similar to Mike, and I would think he likes to carry around a backpack whenever he is fronting (you never know when you're going to run into treasure). So he always keeps noise canceling headphones and a pair of sunglasses in there just for you.

Honestly I headcanon him as the caretaker of the system, so I imagine he's used to caring for people during panic attacks.

He's very observant, probably even more so than Mike, so he's better at avoiding them all together by identifying what situations you can handle and what you can't.

He always does a little research before the two of you go out in the environment to ensure that it doesn't seem loud/bright/overstimulating.

However sometimes these things are just unavoidable, and inevitable.

He'll provide you with whatever physical comfort you require, if any at all.

Anything you need, he's there to get for you.

"Take all the time in the world treasure, I'll still be here," he said.

He's all around good at keeping you grounded, and just good at being there with you.

Svetlana

I would think Svetlana is probably the protector/gatekeeper, most of her comfort comes from her just being fiercely loyal.

She'll be there no matter what, and you take great comfort in that fact.

She's not as good with being traditionally comforting, since it's a little out of her element.

Not that she doesn't try of course, she really cares about you, and she wants that to come across.

(I would think she would panic a little and ask Manitoba and Mike for help from the inner world).

But she would absolutely stay with you, coaching you through breathing exercises, talking to try and distract you.

Eventually if you let her know what you need (be it space, a distracting, physical comfort, quiet, dark) you name it, she will get it for you.

She's much better at caring for you after the panic attack honestly, when you feel really tired and put out, disoriented and just overwhelmed.

"Svetlana's here now to melt all your worries away," she smiled at you once.

She'll almost always bring you home, or take you to a secluded room, and just hangout with you. She'll turn all the lights off and sit in silence with you so you can have basically zero sensory input for a little while.

She'll absolutely stay with you until you feel yourself again.

Mal

Okay things with Mal are a little tricky.

He's for sure a former prosecutor and after a bit of system healing, definitely prosecutor turned protector.

Don't get me wrong though, he can still be a little nasty and snarky sometimes, but he's working on getting better.

Which is why he feels sort of out of his element when he's with you when you're having a panic attack.

He's not good at being comforting, and he barely knows what to do when he has a panic attack, so the first time it happens he completely freezes up.

He might even let someone else front to help you out instead of him.

After a while he gets better at keeping up with your triggers, and while he remains pretty awful at being comforting, he's good at grounding you.

He's glad sometimes that being there is enough sometimes, he doesn't know what he'd do if it wasn't.

"Sorry I can't do more..." he said one day.

You smile at him "You being here is enough sometimes."

Scott

Scott is also somewhat of a wreck I would imagine.

Growing up fairly isolated on a farm he's understandably really rough with being intune with people's emotions, he's not really all that good at reading you. Or anyone for that matter.

The first few times, he's shocked everytime.

What could be making you feel like this? He had no idea.

He would definitely need a list of all of your triggers, you have to tell him what helps you and what doesn't outright. Scott doesn't really like playing guessing games, especially when it comes to your safety and comfort.

Clear communication becomes pretty important for the two of you in all honesty, and the two of you work at it all the time.

Eventually he gets better at serving you during panic attacks, or meltdowns, he knows what to do after a little while.

Again I would think he's really good at protecting, so I think he's super good at keeping people away when he sees you're overstimulated.

"Don't touch them!" he huffed when someone was trying to tap you to get your attention.

Overall, he's really really trying for you, and knowing that is comfort enough.

Alejandro

It's no secret that Alejandro is very intune with people, just one of his many skills.

So he can tell right away from his very first meeting you, any loud noises, bright lights, things like that just don't mix well with you.

He steers clear of them when around you, always guiding you more towards quieter, much calmer and secluded dates.

When driving he turns the music down, and makes sure that all audio input looks like its helping you and not harming you.

Plus I feel like (and this is totally me projecting btw) he would carry around stim toys for you to distract yourself with, and headphones for when things are a lot.

But again, sometimes things just happen, and try as he might to protect you, it's not always possible.

He can always tell when things are getting to be a lot for you, he's good at reading everyone but you in specific.

He's really good at covering for you, if someone is asking where you are, or needs/wants to talk to you when you need to be alone he'll keep them away from you.

He'll spend as much time as you need helping you.

"Are you feeling better mi amor?" He would ask.

"Almost-" you said, voice a little course and shaky "-sorry," you said softly.

"Don't apologize, I don't mind at all."

Alejandro can be really nurturing when he wants to be.

He might deny it, deny it to the ends of the earth but he's very good at taking care of you.

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starmada4546 · 19 days ago

Text

Kamala Harris deserved to lose.

That’s a controversial statement, so let me get something out of the way right out the gate: I am not a Trump supporter. I fucking hate Trump’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, fascist guts, and I will until the day I die. I voted for Harris, I volunteered for her campaign and several other local campaigns in my area. I did everything a politically active person should do to participate in our democracy.

And yet I, and anyone who was paying attention knew how this election was going to go ahead of time, for one very simple reason. What were Kamala Harris’s policy positions? What did she actually run on? What did she say she was going to do differently? Building a million homes for working-class people who have had their salaries so undercutted by inflation and price hikes that they can no longer afford the kind of long term saving required for that? Increase child tax credits when grocery prices are so high that nobody can afford another mouth to feed? Raising taxes on billionaires? She’s the Vice President of the current administration, why are they not already being taxed? And furthermore, where is that tax money going? Clearly not Medicare for All, or Student Debt Relief, or anything that could actually constitute benefits for the average citizen.

Discussing which demographics are “responsible” for electing Trump is a fucking stupid discussion, and anyone engaging in it should feel absolutely fucking ashamed at buying into more crap that the oligarchs put up to divide us. Except for a few exceptions, the demographics were coin-flip toss ups. What happened was that Kamala Harris lost 15 million votes. Not to Trump, but to apathy. Trump got 3 million less votes than he did in 2020, and still won, because people didn’t vote for Harris. The battle was in voter turnout, like we always knew it would be, and the Democratic Party lost it. Why?

Because Kamala Harris ran, like Biden did, on being the anti-Trump. And regardless of whether or not you think that the Democrats are responsible for current woes, (and I do not,) that's not a winning strategy when the "Anti-Trump" is the one in power. Being the Anti-Trump isn't a policy position. It's not a solution to anyone's issues. It's merely a hope that people think Trump is worse, and as we've seen, regardless of whether or not it should, that does not win elections. When gas prices or grocery bills are so expensive people can barely afford to survive, saying "Well, those will be worse under Trump," is not a solution. It does not provide confidence that she has plans to fix the issues. It is a shrug of the shoulders, and a dismissal, and that's why so many people stayed home.

In 2020, when the problems could be blamed on Trump without any sort of understanding of the complex issues that caused the problems, because Trump was simply the one in power and The President's Job Is To Fix Everything, so being Anti-Trump worked. When Democrats have been in the white house for four years, and people feel like the problems still aren't fixed, they lose confidence that the democrats will fix the problem, so they don't vote.

When food prices are spiking, you don't say, "The other guy will make it worse," because that's what any candidate would say, and it's not particularly different than just purely mudslinging, and its a claim that Trump will deny vehemently, so you can't win that argument. What you need to say is "I'll subsidize agriculture," or, "I'll increase the accessibility and power of food assistance programs." Regardless of whether or not those things would actually work, what they are is some kind of solid plan to actually fix the fucking problem. It's said that people don't vote on policy, and that's true a lot of the time, or at least more than it should be, but people do vote on confidence, and having policy of any kind builds that confidence. Regardless of what you think of Trump, the man has plenty of plans to implement policy. It's terrible, awful, nation destroying policy, but that's getting into the details and the facts, and that's where the voters' eyes glaze over and they stop listening to you. The fact that Trump has plans to change the status quo and Harris does not is how she lost this election.

When the status quo is untenable, people will vote for whatever breaks it, and that wasn't Harris.

It also doesn't help that Harris has pretty much refused to significantly differentiate herself from Joe Biden, who has plenty of his own problems, and again, is the status quo. Joe Biden refused to step aside and relegate himself to being a single term president because of his personal pride, and the Democrats absolutely refused to consider not backing him until he was forced to step aside when his problematic degradation was put on full display for the entire country to see and mock. Then, instead of holding an actual primary, where voters could choose who they wanted to see on the Democratic ticket, they decided to simply coronate Kamala Harris, a historically unpopular candidate with historically low approval ratings, and force anyone who was against Trump to rally behind a candidate they didn't choose and statistically speaking don't like. Is it any wonder that her ticket hemorrhaged 15 million votes from 2020? That's before getting into her incredibly strange choices during her campaign, from again having essentially no policy positions, to picking a Tim Walz, who while being imo a good person, is from an entirely blue state and not a swing state, and has neither experience running against serious mainline GOP candidates, nor any real nationwide appeal beyond his personality, and we've already established that vibes don't turn out voters.

Kamala Harris, and on a larger scale the Democratic Party, deserved to lose this election because they have almost entirely abandoned any sense of being the progressive option. They've completely abandoned the progressive wing of their party, because who else are they going to vote for? Trump?

I don't like being the guy who says, "Harris hasn't earned the votes," because if you didn't vote, fuck you, you're nearly as culpable in this as the MAGAts, but is it any wonder why progressives are abandoning the democrats? After being ignored, fucked over time after time for nearly a decade at this point, literally screaming and begging for people to care about genocide, fascism, and the literal end of the world and getting a pat on the head and a vote sticker, what the fuck else did anyone expect? Harris cozied up with Liz Cheney and tried to court the votes of a few thousand moderate republicans, while tens of millions of progressive votes were expected, and then you're all trying to to blame them when those votes don't come? Shame, shame on you, ye moderate democrats who'd rather get into bed with the center-right than any kind of progressive, you get what you fucking deserve.

Normally, I'd laugh at establishment democrats fucking around and finding out, but this time, it's not just them finding out, it's the whole of America finding out with them. I don't really have any advice, because I'm just as shattered as anyone else. Hunker down, spend time with your loved ones, and maybe learn how to use a gun in case some neo-nazi decides to try to hate-crime you. I'm hoping that the Democrats learn their lessons from this, but honestly at this point, I'm not sure they're capable of learning, if there'll even be a democratic party to speak of come 2028. Right now, I'm gonna go stare at the election results and feel my faith in humanity crack a little bit more.

#us elections #kamala harris #donald trump #politics #us politics #election 2024 #jd vance #democrats #republicans

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jackiepackiee · 7 months ago

Note

What if, hear me out, Chuuya wasn't left to suffer alone after Dazai left the PM? What if he had someone that would really be there when he went to hardships/silent breakdowns.

Chuuya xmale!reader (patiënt reader)

𝒞𝒽𝓊𝓊𝓎𝒶 𝓍 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇

𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒟𝒶𝓏𝒶𝒾 𝐿𝑒𝒻𝓉

It’s gn reader, I don’t do male

Life without Osamu Dazai in the port mafia was different

Not better, but not necessarily worse

Less people died, Mori became self sufficient without the prodigy

But Chuuya felt strange

Even if feeling the same as the general consensus of his absence

He wasn’t better or worse because he felt nothing

Then there’s you

Patient with him, understanding

Throughout every stage

Denial

Chuuya Nakahara was fucked

And so was the port mafia is any larger than life issue happened to come by

He could no longer use corruption safely, not without dying

So when the moment comes when a mission requires that sort of strength, only you can save his life

“I have to! You don’t understand, half our god damn organization will die if I don’t!”

Quick words shot from his mouth to your ears, aimed for you. His gloves being removed from his hands will he glared at you. Why were you so stubborn?

“No Chuuya! You’re going to die! You’re going to die and leave me all alone. What if it happens again? What if you can’t save me?”

That was plain cruel, using yourself to convince him. Making a hypothetical of you in pain, but it was necessary. He wouldn’t listen otherwise.

“Fuck… Fuck! Alright, fine!”

Anger

Why would the one person in this world who felt similar to him leave? Get taken away

One who didn’t feel human

He never blamed Dazai, no

He knew it was for the better, he needed help

But your empathy could only go so far

Verlaine didn’t count, because they weren’t close

You didn’t count because you were fully and wonderfully human in his eyes

But Dazai, he was off the same vine of pain

A creature other than

“Chuuya? Hey, I just wanted to check up on you”

His apartment was the place you knew he’d be in not at work. No more late night motorcycle rides or wine galleries. He let you in, of course he did.

“Well, I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie to-”

He cut you off.

“I’m. Fine.”

“Chuu, this place is a mess. You’re clearly needing help.”

He didn’t even look at you. Still glued to the glass infront of him, sloshing his wine.

“Do you ever just mind your own business?! I mean fuck! You come into my place, and judge me? I’m sorry I’m not perfect enough for your bullshit standards.”

He was being short with you, uncharacteristically so. Usually this rudeness was reserved for particularly stressful days, in which he’d apologize for after. But for now it’s best not to push.

“…I brought you some chocolate covered strawberries?”

Your meek voice caught his true attention. More than that, the kindness of it. The kindness in you. And guilt ran through like a damn train.

Every little thing was seemingly ticking him off, but you weren’t “every little thing.” No, you deserved better.

He walked over to you, took the container of sweets you offered into his hands, and stared.

Why would someone ever be so kind?

He ate one, wincing at the taste of love you had put in. Pain on his tongue from the unfamiliar feeling of care.

“…I’m sorry, thank you.”

Only you could calm that storm of anger now, and calm the storm you did.

Bargaining

Chuuya’s office was soundproof just like every other room in the headquarters

Locked only on certain occasions

But you knew today was nothing special, and he hadn’t answered to your insistence knocking

So with your key, that he gifted you, you entered his office

To find this

Chuuya was looking through every phone number in the most recent phone record kept by the port mafia.

All across Yokohama, he called every one without a name attached.

“What are you doing?”

He snapped out of it, and stared at you. Confused and a bit hazed after such a long time of silence.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing is nothing, this is psychotic.”

You could tell what he was doing, of course you could. You knew him well.

“What?”

He was no longer snappy as he usually would be with one of your insults, but struck. He knew you meant it this time.

“He isn’t come back, Chuuya. He left, for himself. He didn’t leave because you or I, he left because he needed to. You know that, don’t be a fool.”

Your stern attitude scared him straight, and he stood up. Then walking over to you before giving you a hug.

He seemed so desperate for a reason. You gave him that, and he was grateful.

Depression

Late nights sometimes meant sharing a bed

Staying over each others places after a mission if it was closer

So him turning up at 2am was not shocking

But that fact he looked so down was

His eyes looked dead, and his body trembled. He held nothing, not even a wallet or phone.

Just standing at your door, looking abandoned.

So you ushered him to your bed, and let him settle. You never questioned his moods, but were always there. Petting his hair, in silence.

The silence he needed, only from you.

Acceptance

A glass of wine always represented a victory for Chuuya. A celebration of something. This something though was confusing him.

But if you bring him a vintage bottle and say congratulations, he won’t complain.

Half drunk, bottle half gone, night half over. That’s when your conversations always got the deepest.

“Say, why’d you bring this bottle over anyways?”

“To say congrats, duh!”

You laughed, and smiled at him teasingly.

“No no, I mean seriously. What for?”

“For grieving.”

He stopped. Noticing his expression, you continued.

“You got over Dazai, believe it or not. Even if you’ve been a real bitch about it.”

You giggled, drunk. But a certainty clarity reached your mind. And you looked at him happily, with content.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been terrible”

“Shh, don’t apologize.”

But you let him, he needed to speak.

“I don’t understand why I’ve been so damn wild. He’s a dick, but he’s my ex partner.”

“Because maybe the world didn’t end when Dazai left, it just kept spinning.”

Not proofread

#bsd x reader #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya x reader #bsd chuuya #bsd fanfic #chuuya nakahara #chuuya x fem!reader #chuuya x you #chuuya stormbringer

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pinkandpurple360 · 13 days ago

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the reason I suspect that leak is true unless Viv has seen sense and changed like with Ghostfuckers (though it's not a storyboard leak so it didn't nearly the reach and didn't get to attract the same amount of backlash) it is that it's just the sort of hacky writing s2 has had all the way through. if true then it's trying to kill two birds with one stone, right? first give Blitzo a love epiphany, second find a way to make Blitzo completely let Stolas off the hook. it's just the sort of thing a writer who made Stella cartoonishly abusive would do

of course it will suck if it is true, it'll be the worst moment of the show

but on the other hand I sort of want it to happen because if we do end up getting Owl in a Cage then I don't think the fandom can cope their way out of this one. the people still insisting 'Stolas will get his own Stolas Sucks party!' will struggle to deny Viv's intentions any longer

if it is true, it basically means Viv thinks the answer to Blitzo conquering his issues with intimacy and fear of losing people and Blitzo deciding Stolas never meant to hurt him when he coerced sex out of him is... Stolas is being abused. Just like Stolas is being abused was her answer to why Stolas' cheating suddenly wasn't cheating, because he said so.

not only is that a cartoonishly embarassing solution when it shouldn't be so hard just to have Stolas self reflect and apologize like an actual person would do and have Blitzo find something he likes about him

but it's just sad. it's admitting the only thing getting these two together and making it so Stolas never has to take accountability is the fact that he's pitiable. there is nothing good to be said about him, he's just a sad void that the world has dumped on so it's fine that he mistreated everyone around him in turn even when they're much younger and in his care or haven't had a fraction of the advantages he's had

and the tide is already starting to turn. Conversations on the Reddit revolving around whether Stolas is seeing any consequences soon are increasingly including comments like the following:

We've had 'oh this thing that is actually both sides being kinda wrong but we're all going to dump on one guy while the other is easily forgiven and babied' depressingly often. There is a subset of people, of which i am one, that responses to this 'trust me bro' talk with. 'No. I will not trust you. Either put up or shut up.'

and they're not being downvoted to oblivion any more. for a community that used to aggressively police negative sentiment, that's a real turnaround

Everyone has a limit and honestly I think this will be the last straw for the remaining critical thinking or should I say free thinking people. On Twitter the take is “i don’t care about the story or the criticism or the characters! I’m not listening!! My ship is sailing and it’s my community’s moment I don’t care!” But it isn’t, vivzie is dragging this out until the end of the show guys, making merch and teasing breakups to squeeze money and engagement. Lets wake up already.

Blitz isn’t to blame for what Stella does. Stolas shouldn’t be mad at blitz for not saving him from striker, he shouldn’t be solely mad at striker for taking the job, he should be mad at the woman who called the hit. And he should be mad at the man who forced him to marry this woman, and be upset at the fact he, his father, never loved him, his son.

But that would require departing from infantile romance cliches to satisfy your 14 year old and stunted 30 year old viewers, and instead actually confront class issues in your story.

he's just a sad void that the world has dumped on so it's fine that he mistreated everyone around him in turn even when they're much younger and in his care or haven't had a fraction of the advantages he's had.

Oh anon you cooked well here. Stolas is pitiable and pity is the same as innocent in vivzies eyes. Even his malicious moments are hand waved as one would do a four year old child who doesn’t know any better. I mean think about it, this may be the biggest stolas pity party yet, stolas sings is a self pity song, blitz sings is another pity stolas song. It proves this writers bias is terminal, and that she’ll say any lie to shut you up and keep you quiet or watching. But most importantly, purchasing.

She really thought making him as wimpy and pathetic as possible as a PR move would stick. But it really didn’t. You just can’t slap on a poorly thought out abuse story to brush everything aside.

But no she’s having them cuddle for the Christmas card beside their child counterparts who only spoke to each for a few hours under duress and false pretences…..She’s fully endorsing the idea that Paimon did a good thing there and that they were in love as children.

And they get together at a child’s expense and see her as a bitch for getting in the way of their triumphant story. Gross. May this all go up in flames, amen.

#stolitz critical #helluva boss critical

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pumpkinsplots · 1 year ago

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Writeblr Intro

Hello, writeblr! I finally caved and got tumblr, mostly because I love rambling about my wips and hearing other people ramble about theirs and all of that lovely stuff, so this seemed like a great platform to do that. With that being said, I plan on posting about my wips and ocs, as well as art related to those things, so if that interests you at all, I’d love to see you stick around. Also feel free to call me either Pumpkin or Maria, it’s entirely up to you!

About my writing

I’ve found that I really enjoy writing in a variety of genres, so hopefully at least one of my wips will tickle your fancy. Though I’d say a common thing for me is that I really like to world build, so my wips tend to be sci-fi, fantasy, or magical realism of some variety. Anything where I can put my own spin on the setting is something I’m bound to enjoy writing about.

I write in third person, usually with multiple povs, and I really enjoy character driven stories.

I often like to have a wide variety of ages in the cast, and if I had to pick a favorite trope it would be found family, so that’s usually present to some degree in my stuff.

Tonally, I always include light-hearted moments here and there, even if the wip is very bleak. It provides some levity, and I think it makes the painful stuff hit a lot harder. This is probably partially why I put some thought into each character’s sense of humor.

Most of my wips are geared towards older teens and adults, but I’ll get more into content warnings when I talk about each individually, because it really varies.

I’m one of those writers that kills off a lot of characters, so this is your warning not to get attached /j

I’m demisexual, so at least one character being on the ace spectrum is like a requirement for me at this point.

I’m a plantser, and pretty bad at staying motivated to actually finish first drafts.

About my wips

Falling Up

Falling Up is a sci-if story set in the future where Earth is a utopia where inhabitants experience little to no hardships throughout their lives. The deceased are replaced with AI created to replicate them, and everything is automated to the point where people no longer need to work to make a living. This lack of struggle results in dull, perfect lives and skewed morals. The people crave entertainment, even if it means making others suffer for it. Quasdom, a miniature man made planet initially intended to be used to separate deviants from the rest of the perfect society, is used as a catalyst for entertainment. The people of Quasdom believe that those on Earth are superior to them, and that Earth is a place where any wish can come true. This leads to the tourney, a death game between groups of ten on Quasdom, being viewed similarly to winning the lottery. The winning team gets to go to Earth, after all. Being chosen for the tourney is the luckiest thing that can happen to you. There’s no hard feelings between participants, death is completely painless, and the afterlife will welcome any participants to a better life than they previously had. There’s nothing to fear, so smile and put on a show.

A large cast and lots of character deaths

An exploration of why we get so attached to fictional characters, and how fiction can have an impact on reality

Probably going to be a trilogy

Content warnings include language, some unsettling themes, depictions of mental health issues, and generally things that are more psychological. Despite it being a death game, there’s no gore, like at all. The people on Earth may be desensitized, but they aren’t accustomed to seeing blood, so the tourney is designed with that in mind

Facade

Facade is set in a world where the living world and the spirit world coexist. Due to some actions by the main antagonist, about 20 years prior to the current story, spirits started getting aggressive and sort of going haywire. They possess any person they can, turning the individual into an uncontrollable killing machine. The best defense to this was the invention of a certain kind of mask that prevents possession, and masks quickly became widespread. Since there’s no known way to reverse spiritual possession, the only solution is to kill those that are unfortunate enough to meet that fate. A group led by an anonymous vigilante known as K9 seek to find a way to reverse possession. Many enemies are made along the way, and there are countless obstacles to face.

Its setting is based on Singapore and set in the 90s, though there are many creative liberties taken

The wip is currently pretty no plot just vibes

Themes about individuality vs equality

Content warnings include language and some sexual content

Facade: After Dark

While Facade is currently no plot just vibes, developing the characters led to me thinking of the plot for a prequel. Is it a self-indulgent novella about two of the characters I love? Yes, absolutely. In summary, it’s a romance novella about the the relationship of Leijing and Iris, and their struggles in navigating the wild world of Facade. They have vastly different upbringings and experiences, but their differences bring them together in more ways than one.

I have so much backstory for this pre-established couple and I couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate it into the main story without cutting a bunch of it, so boom it’s a prequel now

I’ve found that working on a wip that’s more low stakes and simple is really fun—I tend to get stressed about my more ambitious plots, so this wip is a great change of pace

Leijing is demisexual with little interest in anything sex related and Iris is an omnisexual sex worker, and the story explores how a world obsessed with all things sex can effect both more sex-negative and sex-positive people

Content warnings include language, explicit sexual content, and potentially triggering subject matters. This is my only wip where it’s strictly 18+!

Lights Out

Sunlight is the essence of life. Without it, the world would wither away. However, a dangerous new life form of unknown origin festers in the light. With long, elegant glimmering limbs, high intelligence, picturesque precision, and a craving for flesh, these organisms pose a major threat to humanity. But for some odd reason, these creatures refuse to step into any area where the sun doesn’t touch. Much of humanity takes to the shadows, building elaborate underground tunnels for civilizations and doing what humans do best—using their resources and ingenuity to adapt.

Has two protagonists that butt heads but start to develop a father daughter dynamic. A young adult girl who’s from the underground and unknowingly part of a cult, and an older man with one leg who’s so stubborn he’d rather fight and die than flee to the darkness

Lots of creepy cult imagery and themes about religious trauma

So much banter of course

Content warnings include language, disturbing imagery, and gore

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Asks, comments, tag games, and messages are always appreciated, and I’d love to hear about your wips as well!

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writing #writeblr introduction #creative writing #writers of tumblr #new writeblr #writer #writeblr search #new to writeblr #writers on tumblr

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bokettochild · 8 months ago

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Febuwhump Day 21 - Unresponsive

@kuroro-uwu Okay, I know I am LATE, but I did write it! I hope this suits your fancy!

Wordcount: 6,697

Rating: General

Summary: Minish Four and Fairy Hyrule go on a mini-expedition to seek out information. One minute, all is well, and the next- well, Four's not sure WHAT happened, but now he's got a passed out fairy on his hands and no clue what caused it.

(No warnings, this is all pure fluff)

They needed information.

It really was as simple as that. They’ve been trying to learn anything they can about what’s happening to the worlds around them, but hylians are so often ignorant and their group is anything but subtle, so getting it without causing a stir has become something of an issue for the traveling heroes.

It’s the weapons and armor, Legend tells them with a huff, and he’s not exactly wrong either.

People do tend to become more wary when they see soldiers around in the country.

He’d noticed it before, back when he hadn’t yet met the others. Carrying a sword put people on edge. An axe, a spear, or even a bow, out in the country, can be excused as a hunting tool or something to do with your trade. A sword though, a sword means that you are, undeniably, a fighter, and fighters don’t tend to go about armed unless there's danger around to be fought. So, correlation of swords to nearby danger makes people wary, and their group, all armed with swords, and many of them being intimidating looking persons, only further sets people ill at ease.

Getting concrete answers from people who are questioning your intentions all the while isn’t easy, and by now, their group has sort of given up. Or rather, almost all of the others have; Four still has an ace up his sleeve.

“I may have something I can try.” He states as the rest seem just about ready to give up for the day.

Eyes turn to fix on him, various expressions of discouragement, frustration, disbelief, and exhaustion coloring the different shades of blue. It’s Legend that speaks though. “If it involves pretending to be a child, keep me out of it.”

Twilight coughs into his fist, but his dark eyes sparkle. Simultaneously, Warriors rubs at his own brows, the captain following up their scholar’s words with his own. “What’s the idea, smithy? And please, do not say it requires-”

“It’s a me thing,” he assures them. “You guys being around actually won’t work.”

“No one is going off alone,” Time states, just at the same time as Warriors says: “What did we say about leaving the group behind?” Both men shoot glances at each other after, but then Four’s fixed with both stares, one tired and one firm, and neither wavering as he sighs.

“It involves magic, and it won’t work with a second person.”

Wild stares, pointed, but Twilight frowns. “S it what I think it is?”

Abruptly, he remembers that Twilight does, in fact, know, and has known about this as long as he’s known the truth about the wolf. They hadn’t talked about it since, and he’s not exactly employed the magic since then, but Twilight had seen it all the same. “Yeah,” he nods, ignoring the confused looks from the others, “that thing.”

“More secrets,” the captain sighs, “excellent.”

A few eyes turn to the soldier, annoyed, but they can’t blame him. Four can’t either. It’s been a bit rough dancing around the new things falling on their heads when their brothers deem it the time to drop new knowledge out of nowhere. Even if he did know about the wolf, there’s still knowledge he hadn’t had about that one.

“I’ll go with the smithy,” their rancher announces, turning to their leader.

Time’s brows raise. “You have similar magic?”

“Naw, but I can keep watch for him, an’ guard his back.”

“No going off alone,” Warriors repeats, again, this time from behind a hand that’s scrubbing at his brows. “How may times must I say it?”

But Twilight can’t come with, and neither can the others. No one else can because no one else can shrink down to the size of a minish!

If there’s anyone who will know what's going on across the kingdom at any given time, it’s always the little people. He knows they can give him answers even if no hylian will, but he’s not too eager to explain that. The other heroes might not even know about the minish, and if they do, the doubt on whether or not he should be able to see them still will linger or make them question his skill like they do with the sailor. Neither option is something he’s keen on.

“I’ll go with,” and he doesn’t expect the traveler to speak up, but the other lad does, stepping forwards with an awkward half smile. “I’m decent with magic, so maybe I can replicate whatever you’re planning to do.”

Given the choice between no answers and letting Hyrule in on it, he supposes the traveler is the better of the two options. The other lad is cheeky at times, but he’s capable, and trustworthy. Besides that, he’s kept so much secret about his own magic, to the point where they still have no clue about all of it. Surely, he can also keep Four’s secret as well, right?

“Fine,” he nods to their curly haired companion before turning to their leader, expectant.

Time sighs, glancing briefly at the captain, but then nods. “Be back at camp by dark.”

“Understood.”

The good thing about working with Hyrule is that he’s good at following directions, and he never asks unnecessary questions. It’s clear he’s thinking them, of course, but he doesn’t talk too much, and he doesn’t push things with Four, not ever. It’s a bit of a welcome change of pace after having the heroes all up each others’ tails about so many things.

They wander back through the village for a short while and into the inn and bar combo they’d been to with the rest. He knows the other two probably want to know what he hopes to achieve in here, even Twilight who knows his arsenal probably isn’t sure how it would be useful, but that’s not his main focus.

They can ask their questions later. Right now, we need that portal.

Where was it again, Vio?

Left corner, floor level. Looks like a mouse hole.

Well, it sort of is. Red snorts softly. It’s a minish hole.

Very funny. Blue deadpans back. If he had his own eyes, he’d be rolling them, but all of Four knows it wouldn’t be in any real ire. That’s just how their more abrasive aspect is.

Twilight and Hyrule are watching as he moves down to the corner. The rest of the folks within the inn don’t seem to even notice the trio, too busy with their own business. Those that do are carefully avoiding eye contact or even being caught staring, wary less they draw attention to themselves. It’s kind of sad, honestly, but Four doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

Ezlo’s spell plays across his lips with the ease of a thousand speakings, and in seconds he’s down to his other normal size.

Twilight grins down at him.

Hyrule gapes for a moment. “Is this what you were talking about?” He asks, as though it’s not rather painfully obvious. Before Four can answer though, the traveler’s face twists up into a grin, eyes sparking. “Alright, I- I can work with this.”

It’s his own turn to gape as the traveler himself mutters a few words, and in a brief cloud of magic, the young man is gone, replaced instead by the shimmering, hovering light of a fairy.

Four stares. Twilight does as well.

The ball of light laughs. “You said it yourself, we’re all sitting on something, smithy.”

“Ordonia’s kids,” the rancher murmurs softly, “’fore we know it everyone will out ‘emselves as a shifter of some sort.” Neither of the other two have any knowledge of how true that rings, but regardless, they don’t exactly have any grounds to deny it either, considering it seems to be true of their little trio at least.

Finally reclaiming control over speech, Four turns his face upwards to stare at his flying brother. Inside his head, Red is exclaiming in delight over the flight, Blue marveling at the wings, and Green ecstatic at the presence of a fellow shifter to match Four’s size, but outside his head, he has to focus. “This hole here should lead to a community of people more on the magical side.” he nods to the gap in the wall, starting a bit when the fairy’s light flickers and zips down to be level with him.

It’s definitely Hyrule, although the change from Hylian to fairy is more than just a shift in size. He’s not sure which set of eyes to focus on or how to react to other definitely not hylian features displayed beside familiar ones, but Vio somehow wrests enough control to keep his face straight and his jaw in place.

“It might take a bit, but the gossip vine is strong with these folks. They should have what we want to know.”

“Excellent,” Hyrule trills, voice more melodic, but pleasantly so. It has the smithy’s ears flicking forwards to catch it better, the warm fairy magic settling his own.

He glances up to Twilight, still normal sized and crouched in the corner, practically looming over them. “We’ll be back before dark. Just wait here, okay?”

A thumbs up is their answer, and the rancher stands, hailing a server in the barroom and claiming the table closest to their future exit as the two smaller heroes- and by now they are much smaller- pop through the hole in the wall to move along to their destination.

Minish passages are nothing new to Four, but Hyrule keeps gasping in surprise and delight as he looks about the lever and pulley systems between one part of the network and another. It has the smithy smiling to himself, and while it’s not his own work, he does take pride in the efforts of his little friends, and their skill, which he’s sure to share with the only other hylian (sort of hylian?) to get to see it firsthand.

“Inns like this are hotspots for minish too, just like people,” he explains to his wide-eyed companion. “They catch rides on wagons or in people’s bags sometimes, and, just like us, they need a place to stay when they tire.” He pads along carefully to the lift made from an old cup and some twine, climbing up into it and almost reaching out to offer a hand to the traveler, only to catch himself when he remembers the other has wings. “A big place like this is sure to house practically a city of minish, so it might take some time, but we’ll have lots of options when it comes to asking around for information.”

The traveler nods, gaze flicking to the little lever just inches from the smithy’s tiny paw. The signal is clear.

Four pushes the lever, and the lift starts its ascent, the fairy flying up behind him even as they watch another such lift lower, granting Hyrule his first sight of a real minish. The traveler’s catching breath and little gasp makes him smile, but he’s careful to warn the other the moment the other lift is out of sight. “Remember not to call anyone cute, okay? If anything, be prepared for them to call you that. They're not very used to fairies.”

“Understood,” the traveler’s voice is distant as he looks around, words almost an afterthought as he seemingly takes in the whole of the new world he’s discovering.

He won’t be much help, will he?

He’s here so we’re not alone, Green sighs, although there’s no lack of fondness in his tone, He doesn’t need to help us, just be here so Time and Warriors won’t get upset.

He won’t be able to understand the minish anyway, the more sedate aspect reminds the others, he’s never eaten a jabber nut.

Right.

Perhaps he should have remembered that earlier, but he wasn’t exactly planning on taking Hyrule this far along when he’d agreed to keep the traveler with him. If anything, he’d expected the other to wait with Twilight while he took care of the reconnaissance. Still, it should be alright, Hyrule seems content to stare about at the thrumming new world he’s witness too, and he lets Four take the lead as the smithy climbs out of the lift and starts towards the minish puttering about.

Greetings rise here and there and everywhere, although no one seems to recognize him. If anything, that proves they’re not in his era, so even the small things mean something (as a small thing himself, the thought makes him laugh). Still, he guides the way, Hyrule fluttering after him and attracting many a startled stare. In the long run, he thinks Hyrule’s presence works to his favor, because while a minish stopping by at an inn and wandering about a new place is hardly anything to look twice at, a minish with a fairy trailing after him garners much attention, and before they know it, a very elderly looking member of the community approaches. The staff in his paw marks him as an Elder, and while the traveler doesn’t know that, he still bows his head politely at the sight of long flowing whiskers.

“Greetings, strangers.” The elder smiles.

Four bows, politely. Hyrule cannot, not while flying, but he thinks the respectful bob of the head the traveler offered will be enough. Minish are polite, but they aren’t fussy about others needing to be so. Well, those who aren’t Ezlo. “Greetings, elder.”

“Greetings, elder.” Hyrule mimics, words a soft chime that echos off the interior of the inn’s walls.

The elder smiles again, thanking them for their kind welcome. “Forgive my asking, but what is it that brings two youngsters like yourselves here?”

“We seek knowledge of the world outside.” Four answers, because obviously Hyrule can’t. “We are travelers through time, and this era is new to us.”

“Ah.”

“We have hylian companions who need knowledge in order to travel safely, so we hoped to come here and inquire what there is to be known of the world outside.”

His explanation is met with some surprised twitching of noses and flicking of ears, little murmurs all around them, excitedly twitching tails flicking all sorts of colors from the many gathered minish peoples, but he pays them little mind, although Hyrule stares about in awe. The elder welcomes them though to speak to any they would like. “I have not been in the outside world for some time now, but we have many travelers, like yourselves. Please, ask all you would like. I hope we are of aid to you young heroes.”

It’s only when he’s watching the elder’s tail disappear into the crowd again that he realizes at all that they should not have been recognized as heroes. Then again, Minish Elder’s are proficient in magic most times, and maybe he’d sensed it. At any rate, the title seems to spark excitement among those gathered around the two heroes, and it’s no trouble at all to find who he should speak to. In fact, it’s more a matter of them trying to speak to him all at once!

Hyrule hovers at his shoulder as he asks questions and talks. Well, he does at first, but after a few minutes, the fae drifts away, looking around curiously, soft chiming voice echoing back to Four here and again from different parts of the space claimed by magic.

He’s able to learn there’s no hero known about in this era, and that the last one that anyone remembers was a little boy who was close to the fairies. Considering the fondness all his brothers have for all creatures magical, it’s not a very specifical descriptor, but it’s something at least. Maybe one of the others will be able to pinpoint who it is talking about, be it themselves or someone else they’ve heard of. He does learn though, that the world isn’t in the best of shapes. Dark magic is common, a side effect of Ganon’s power, despite the fact that the monster is sealed away.

That, he decides to ask about.

Most of the minish don’t have answers, saying they avoid it, saying they only heard it from someone else, but pressing them leads him on a bit of a goosechase all over the building, looking for this person who knows more and that one who does as well.

Like hylians, minish have many a trade, and a place like this is basically their equivalent to a trade city, even if the hylian town around it is rather small. Packed up in one building, but spread across rooms, attic spaces, the cellar, the larder, and even the bar itself, he finds himself hunting down leads and doing a few favors in order to get what he needs to know. He's halfway through delivering some mushrooms in exchange for more details on the dark magic that apparently lies around the world, when Hyrule’s soft glow returns to his side again.

“Four, I think we need to head back.”

He sighs. “I know, but I’ve got a lead.”

“We could come back tomorrow?”

A shake of the head as he adjusts his hold on the mushroom; it’s huge in comparison to himself. “No, apparently they’re leaving at dawn with the coach that stops here.”

Hyrule’s feet touch the ground, wings stilling. Honestly, he thought fairies flew everywhere, but he supposes that a shapeshifter might use various methods. “Four, we have to go back.”

“I’m this close to getting answers,” he drops his shroom to pinch two claws close together. “Just a bit longer, okay? Time will understand.”

He’s not sure what time it is, but the noise of patrons in the inn does carry slightly past the magic of the minish to sound in his ears. Inns and bars are always noisy, especially when combined, but while he’s not their old man, his inner clock isn’t bad either. They have time before sunset, and if they didn’t, he wouldn’t have risked trying this at all.

“Come on,” he urges. “Help me with this shroom. The sooner I deliver it, the sooner this guy will tell me what I need to know.”

Hyrule’s face is pinched, and briefly it registers that something isn’t quite right about it, but it’s hard to tell with changed features and maybe it’s just worry from the traveler. He dismisses it, promising both Hyrule and himself that they’ll only take a very little bit longer.

They deliver the shroom, but in true runabout fashion, the only knowledge he gets from the minish in question is a few wary words that had been heard from someone else entirely, and he’s sent darting across the inn again to try and find that other minish before they too decide to leave. It’s the frustrating thing about communities like this, rather than the ones he finds in the countryside. Minish who make their homes in the forest, the grass, or even up in the mountains and quarries, they all keep to their own space. Traveling minish, those in small towns and hylian communities, are often unpredictable from one day to the next, and there’s no telling when or where you’ll have a chance to see them.

Hyrule tries asking again, telling him that they really need to get going, but Four brushes him off. One or two minutes more. Just a bit. He’s almost done, he promises!

The traveler’s feet are dragging a bit as he follows the smith, and his wings have long since folded against his back. It’s clear he’s tired, and Four is too, but they’ve only got so many chances to learn what they need to know, and passing this up would be foolish. It would make this whole trip into the world of the minish utterly pointless!

Finally, though, he’s able to find someone who doesn’t send him on an errand, who doesn’t ask for anything he doesn’t already have and who is both willing and capable of answering his questions. Near immediately, Four dugs a notebook from his bag and starts asking. How strong is this dark magic? Has it affected any monsters? Have monsters been a prominent problem recently? Are they acting oddly? Does the magic have any effects on anything else?

The minish, who in an odd way reminds him of Time; a prominent scar running over one eye and with a shredded ear on the same side, answers his questions. The magic effects the water and the land, and monsters are more abundant now than they had been years ago. They get worse every year, and they are stronger than the elders say they used to be. None of it lines up with the supposed infection of the monsters in other eras, but Four is not ruling it out as a possible source or contributor. He keeps asking, getting more details, channeling his more pragmatic self, but also the tactful part. He needs to think of this as a traveler, a fighter, and a survivor. In a way, he tries asking what Legend or Warriors or Twilight might ask. What would Wild want to know? What would Time need answers too? He’s going to be the one passing on this information to them after all, so he needs to be ready for the inevitable questions they’re going to have.

He sort of forgets that Hyrule is still waiting for him. Really, the only reason he remembers at all is because his informant tells him that it’s getting late, and she can’t think anymore. “That should cover everything anyway, I hope it helps.”

He bows his head, still sitting, so he can’t offer a proper bow, even though he wants to. “Of course. Thank you so much for your help.”

She waves a farewell to him before heading off to wherever it is that she’s going to rest for the night. He’s seen beds around, but didn’t ask, and never does. Honestly, he should be heading back, because bed sounds fantastic right about now! He turns, stuffing his notebook back in his bag, only to stop short when he sees the traveler.

Hyrule looks like shit.

The fairy is slumped over, glow almost gone and while there’s no apparent injury, no sign of what on earth would cause him to look so, he looks a bit like death! The smith drops down beside his friend, catching the fae’s face in his hands and patting freckled cheeks cautiously. “Hyurle? Hey! Hey, I’m done. We can go back now.”

There’s no answer.

Despite knowing Hyrule was fine before, knowing the minish would never harm him, probably couldn’t without special magic, he still gives the other a once over. There are no visible injuries, nor blood. His eyes, when pried open with claws that struggle so hard not to slip, don’t show signs of being concussed. For all intents and purposes, Hyrule isn’t hurt, but his skin is pale, the fairy’s glow is absent, and he slumps almost lifelessly against the walls.

We need help. Green sighs, desperately trying to balance his thoughts.

Blue’s voice is low, straining. The elder?

Is he going to be okay?

Hush Red, and Blue, the elder can’t do anything for a fairy. Minish magic is too different.

Well, we could try at least!

Guys, please. No fighting. We need to focus on Hyrule.

Blue seethes, but doesn’t argue, something he’s been doing much better with as of late. Vio on the other hand, does continue his stance. We should take him back to Twilight. Maybe he can help.

But Twi doesn’t like magic!

But he is Time’s kid, and he loves fairies. Maybe he knows something about them that we don’t. Come on.

The logic of his logical facet wins over the rest of him, and for lack of a better course of action, the minish hero hefts his fairy brother up into his arms. Hyrule’s still bigger than him like this, but he’s also always been very light, and the smith is strong. Gathering his brother up onto his back, careful not to crush iridescent wings, he heads back for the lift.

Catching Twilight’s attention is hard, once they’re back out in the world of Hylians. His intent originally had been to shift back with a murmur, but he doesn't know how to trigger the change for Hyrule, and without a glow to aid him, he’s not sure how quickly he’d be able to find the traveler again after the shift to his normal size, which always leaves him just a bit disoriented. That, and if it turns out Hyrule needs help of the more hands-on sort, it’s more practical to stay on the same scale as the traveler in order to give it.

Luckily for him, and the traveler, he has lots of experience in trying to make himself heard, and while the sound of a screaming voice would definitely draw unwanted attention, there is a sound he knows will, without fail, catch the rancher’s attention without scaring other people. Four sucks in a breath, and with all the ability he’s got in him, he pushes it out in a sharp little ‘meow’.

Twilight’s ears prick up immediately, the rancher lowering the drink he was holding to scan the area around him, eyes glittering.

Four tries again, a soft ‘mew’ that takes every bit of breath he has but has bright blue eyes fixing on him in seconds.

Twilight chuffs, looking slightly disappointed, but also relieved. Well, until his eyes land on the traveler, and then the man is sliding from his chair to crouch, facing the wall and shielding the two small heroes from sight. “What happened?” he asks, offering a hand laid flat on the ground before them.

Typically speaking, Four does not care to be picked up, especially like this, but for the traveler’s sake, he allows it. Stepping onto the rough pads of the rancher’s fingers is a bit of a struggle with his hands supporting the fae slumped over his back, nd after failing twice he gives up. Instead, he turns and carefully lets his brother slip down into Twilight’s hand first, crawling after him once he’s got use of his hands again.

The rancher waits until they’re both stable, Four holding Hyrule with one hand and fisting a tiny fold of his glove with the other, before he stands again, carefully steady as he heads back to his table. “Is he okay?”

Four shakes his head. “I don’t know. He’s not injured, and I don’t think he’s concussed, but he just-” his gaze drops down to the freckled face cradled in his lap, “-I turned around and he wasn’t moving anymore.” Breathing, yes, softly and slowly, almost too slowly, but it was steady, and considering he doesn’t know how fairy bodies work, maybe that was how it was meant to be. He’s not sure, and he hates not knowing, but as long as Hyrule is still breathing, things will be okay. Goddesses, he hopes he’ll be okay!

Glancing up at the rancher, he sees furrowed brows and a harsh frown. It’s not angry, not fierce, but guilt plummets through him all the same as he watches it.

There’s silence for a spell, just blue eyes staring down at him as he sits in the rancher’s hand, Hyrule pulled into his lap, wings still behind him without so much as the slightest of twitches. The traveler’s breath is shallow but steady as it puffs against his collar. And then Twilight speaks. “Did he maybe touch something weird?”

He shakes his head. “I wasn’t watching him, but this Hyrule, not Wild.” Hyrule doesn’t touch unknown things, not without taking every precaution to ensure they’re not dangerous. Besides, minish don’t tend to keep anything dangerous around, and if they do, it’s well hidden and out of sight. Even lacking experience with other living beings, Hyrule isn’t the sort of person to go poking around other people’s possessions in plain sight. No, he’d wait until no one was around to see or stop him, and then he’d get into their stuff.

The rancher’s frown deepens, but then midnight blue eyes are falling on Four again, something almost apologetic in their depths. “Look. I don’t got a clue, smith, but we gotta get him help.” The unspoken rings in the air between them: ‘we need to talk to someone else who knows about this stuff, and that means telling them your secret’.

He sighs, nodding. “Time seems to know the most about fairies.”

The rancher’s head jerks in a sharp nod, rupees hitting the table as the man pays for his drink and then he’s whisking them out the door and back towards camp.

It feels like it takes forever for Twilight to return with Time.

Rather than announce their presence, and thus secrets, to the whole chain, he’d carefully settled the two tiny heroes on an old tree stump at Four’s instruction. Vaguely, he thinks it might be a minish portal, or close to one, but that’s something to worry about later. For now, he’s looking after Hyrule as best he can in a cave made from the rancher’s pelt, erected for their protection against any predators while the other fetches their leader under the premise of Hyrule and Four needing to talk with him. The rest will worry, and have questions, but they’ll (probably) respect the privacy of the other two, if only as long as they’re gone. Returning to camp will, no doubt, come with questions, but right now, helping Hyrule is what matters most. He’ll handle anything that comes after, as long as the traveler will be okay.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into brown curls, not for the first time since Twilight left, “just hang in there, traveler, okay? Time will be here soon, and we’ll get you all fixed up.”

He dutifully ignores how dark hair darkens further in the fading light of twilight. How the hand that's fallen to brush his leg has claws at the fingers, that as the shadows grow longer, he could almost pretend he’s holding somebody else. No, he focuses on Hyrule and that it is, in fact, Hyrule he’s clutching ahold of under the fur, waiting for their leader to come to them.

Time’s puffing breath announces his presence, alongside heavy feet to match the easy lope of their rancher. The way that he heaves for breath, he really does sound like an old man, but when the fur is moved aside and Four can see their leader’s face, he rethinks that. Time looks worried, terribly worried, and the heavy breathing is probably from a slight panic rather than anything else. Hylia above, what did Twilight tell him?

“What happened?” Time demands, even as Four shivers slightly at the return of the breeze the fur had blocked off.

He sighs, tired, worried, and tired of being worried. “Hyrule collapsed. I don’t know why, but he’s not waking up no matter what I do.”

The blue arrow painted between their leader’s brows distorts as his face pinches up, the man dropping to a knee with surprising grace in order to be better level with the two shrunken heroes. “Is he injured?”

Twilight shakes his head. “Four already checked.”

A hand, slightly smaller than Twilight’s own, but somehow more callused, is extended towards them. Even that motion is more graceful from their old man than from the rancher, and Four is surprised by the lack of panic having it settle before him causes. “Let me look at him?”

It’s work to climb up again, shifting Hyrule with all the care he can before depositing him in the old man’s palm, but he does it. Time doesn’t say anything as the man pulls in their precious cargo a bit closer, staring down with his good eye and prodding gently at the fallen form of the traveler.

Behind him on the stump, Four feels Twilight settle, blocking off the breeze and providing a wall of warmth that assures nothing else will appear behind him. “Well?”

“Shh.” Time breathes, but it’s not harsh. His gaze is incredibly gentle in fact, and as he handles the tiny form in his hand something impossibly warm lights his blue eye beneath the worried furrow of his brows. They wait. It feels like forever, but they wait, and they don’t press until, at last, their leader lifts his eyes to them instead, relief coloring his expression. “Magical exhaustion.”

“No,” Four shakes his head. “I’ve seen Hyrule overuse his magic. He gets tired, but he doesn’t turn.... grey. And he doesn’t stop moving!”

“That’s when he’s a hylian,” one blue eye drops again, a sad little smile tugging at the mouth of the elder man. “As a fairy, it works differently.” The hand lowers, moving close to Four again, offering him the responsibility of taking back his unconscious brother while Time turns his attention to his bag. “Transformation magic takes a lot out of a fairy. For Hyrule, being a fairy would be the transformation, but if, for some reason, he’d been brought into a space where only tiny beings could exist, rather than changing back when his magic runs out,” the potion’s cork pops loudly in the night air, “he’d get stuck.”

“Stuck?” He and Twilight chorus together.

Time nods. “Yes. His magic knows he can’t change back inside a tiny space, but if it’s run out, then he can’t maintain his form normally either. Instead, he has to draw directly on his magical core, which strains him considerably. That’s why usually, when fairies are weak enough to need to pull on their core, they slip into a hibernation so that their magic can keep them alive at the least cost to their core.” As if sensing the inevitable question, the man adds, “drawing on a core for too long damages it.”

“So...” Twilight blinks, speaking for them both. “He’s in hibernation?”

“For now.”

“How do we fix it?” Blue takes the reins, and the others let him.

The old man raises the potion bottle in his hand. In the faded light, Four can’t make out the color (how appropriate) so he waits to hear it spoken. “A green potion ought to help restore his magic and stop him drawing on his core for survival.”

“Then he’ll change back?”

He sees their leader wince, and Twilight does too, shoulders tightening above him. “He will change back, right, old man?”

Time avoids their gazes, reaching for his bag again. “Not without doing it himself, but he should, yes.”

“Good.”

“We just have to wait until he wakes up.”

“And...how long will that take?”

A flinch. “Even with his magic restored, it’s unlikely he’ll come back immediately. He’ll need time.” If Legend were here, or Wild, one of them would point out that their leader is here now, so what else could be needed? But they’re not here, and neither Twilight nor Four speaks up in their place. Instead, Four stares as Time produces something else, settling it before him carefully, before lifting his hand away. With nothing blocking him, he’s able to see that the object set before him is a thimble, “I think you ought to help him with the potion, Four. At his current size, we’re more likely to harm than help.” Which isn’t true at all.

In reality, Time helps quite a bit as he pours out the potion (that they all claim is green) into the thimble, which is far more manageable for Four to lift. Situating the traveler against his front, he has to fumble a bit to get the rim to his brother’s mouth, but Time’s finger helps steady the traveler while he does so, stopping him sliding away from the smithy’s front or his head falling to either side. It’s awkward, when he actually stops to think about it, but they make it work.

After the first thimble, Time pours three more, which is honestly more than Four thinks he could hold in his own body at this size, but the old man assures that it’s basically liquid magic, and the traveler will need lots in order to wake again. “Four thimbles might not be enough, but we’ll see.” He tells them, once more taking the traveler in his own hold, hand cradling the limp form of the fairy with all the care he’d show a baby. More, maybe. Fairies are smaller than babies, so they are a bit more delicate.

“What now though?” He asks, watching.

Time’s gaze falls on him in answer. “Do you need help shifting back?”

“Should I?”

“If you can.”

“And if he needs more of the potion?”

“He won’t,” the hand holding his brother tilts slightly, although Time needs not lower it at all for Four to see the faint shimmer of green light that the fairy within is emitting. “I think that was enough. I’ll have him drink the bottle when he’s changed back, but you don’t need to help any further, smithy.”

He nods.

Finding a portal in the dark takes some help from Twilight, but once he has, and has shifted back, it’s a breath of fresh air. Returning to their leader’s side though, he finds the man now seated on their previous stump, gaze fixed on the tiny, unmoving, but also unwavering, glow in his hands.

“Is he waking up?” He asks, slipping from Wolfie’s back to stand at their leader’s side. At this size, Hyrule looks even tinier, and so much more breakable in Time’s big hand. He’s not moving though, still.

Time shakes his head though, as though the smithy can’t see for himself. “As I said, he’ll need a while to come around.” Blue lifts, and it’s strange to have their leader level with himself. “You boys should head back to camp. Dinner will be ready soon.”

“What about you?” Shadows slip free of the wolf, leaving the rancher standing in it’s place, brows furrowed and voice low.

Time’s gaze drops to his precious cargo, a tiny, almost tender smile touching his features. “I’ll wait for him. Tell the rest that Hyrule needed my time a bit longer, but we’ll be back when he’s ready.”

So, they do.

They head back to camp, joining the others for dinner just as Wild’s beginning to serve it. There are questions, and he still is yet to make his report, but doing so is a quick way to divert attention from their absent leader and wanderer. Later, Time will come back, a sleepy, but normal sized Hyrule curled in his arms, face buried against his chest as the traveler dozes, but for now, the camp muses over the information they were given. Any questions on how he’d gotten this knowledge are lost to worry about Hyrule’s absence, and any fear for Hyrule is lost to questions about the report Four gives.

When Time does come back, it’s only after Warriors has assigned shifts and most of them have at least pretended to go to bed. Their leader’s return has them all watching though, no longer pretending as their eyes, so many shades of blue, follow Time’s path through camp to his bedroll, to Hyrule’s settled beside it at Warriors behest. The man settles the traveler down carefully, but the hand caught in his tunic isn’t pulled free, instead tolerated as long hair is brushed back from freckled cheeks and their leader settles down beside the younger hero.

Even when his good eye slips shut, there’s something warm playing on Time’s face as Hyrule unconsciously nestles up against him once more, and a callused hand becomes lost in dark curls.

Twilight’s gaze meets his own, something like a smile in them as he shrugs, disrupting his blanket. Four just smiles back, shaking his head. Fairy boys, the unspoken thought flickers in both of their heads. It’s only when he lays down again though that he realizes that Time might even be who the minish meant when talking about the last hero.

Well, that would make sense. He’ll ask tomorrow though, right now, he has no interest in disturbing either of the two heroes.

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