#pyro speaks in the tags

[smokedoutcoldstar]

Our ancestors lived through spite. Spite and community.

100 years ago we lived through spite. Spite and community.

50 years ago we lived through spite. Spite and community.

Let's be real. 10 years ago we lived through spite. Spite and community.

We can do it again. We will do it again.

Take my hand. Live with me. We can get through this.

You will get through this.

[thatonesimp-e]

HUGE thanks to everyone who participated! the magma will stay open for a little while longer, love you all! <3

[l00ney-m00ny]

I feel like I'm obligated to say Happy Pride! Since I got my flag.

@hoshii11

[soothedcerberus]

Speaking of Team Fortress 2…

I just remembered that like in 2012 I made my whole youth group watch all the TF2 “meet the” videos on the big projector we had downstairs at my church

I’m pretty sure it was during a service too janbsjxn

Everyone upstairs learning about jesus and us cool kids downstairs I made watch wacky cartoon men explode each other 

[smokedoutcoldstar]

Men, if your guy acts like this, you should also leave him.

Women, if your guy acts like this LEAVE HIM.

[sharksonfire]

Finally found my old laptop... time to see if any of my old WIP xmen fic is still salvageable

[pyro-sea]

Red hearts for Volo! @kaijus-love-zone

@kaijus-love-zone

red hearts: Did you fall harder for your f/o than you expected to?

...................................................................yes.

It was inevitable I'd think he's pretty (I've had a fat crush on Cynthia since childhood) but.

I was not expecting to fall this hard. Or like, at all really.

My devotion is best illustrated for how long I saved gems in the vague, blind hope that he'd be added into Pokemon Masters: around two and a half years.

*wistful sigh* now if only more updates would come to PLA so I can see him again in Hisui 💞

[smokedoutcoldstar]

i would love to hear a rant from you about maximum ride's ending. i always saw it around and never picked it up, but from the little i saw of it, it kinda seemed to be all over the place. i'd love the inside scoop from an old fan

Under the cut because I went off. Fair warning, it's a little scattered. But the thoughts are there ✌️

This is a rant I have held within me since I was in elementary school. This is a rant that is over a decade old, eternally-contained, only given in small pieces to a couple folks over the course of my life. Because i've never known someone else to be aware of Maximum Ride, let alone want a single-digits child's take on the series end. I have not reread any of the Maximum Ride books, but I did read them all. The Angel Experiment all the way to Nevermore. If for some reason there were MORE after Nevermore,,,,,,,,,,, really, really clearly a beat the dead horse until there's no horse left situation. Sometimes, ending a series before you have too many books to carry is the smart and credible choice. I'm absolutely being petty rn. This is a disdain i've held for a long time.

In my opinion, the story lost the plot / got too big for its breeches right around either Angel or Fang (I forget which book comes first. Whichever one has Angel going lowkey godmode crazy). The ending of Nevermore, however, was the WORST way to end the series.

Why?

Everyone dies.

No seriously. The entire end plot is everyone except 1% of the population dies to a genetic virus designed to kill everyone except the chosen genetically superior 1% (most of whom are experiments like Max, or people who bought their way into the saved 1%. Yeah no really. Really actually.). Max is trying to stop that from happening the entire book. She fails. And she fails because the adults in her life (iirc she was like 16 or 17 at that point?? I forget. Remember these are over a decade old thoughts) (JEB. FUCKING. J E B. HISSSSSSS) actively sabotage her and her ragtag gang. And because James Patterson decided to write Max failing to stop a Secret Conspiracy Eugenics World Takeover Plot.

Oh yeah, and she's kept alive so she can repopulate the new earth with her genetically-engineered to be her perfect mate Dylan - WHO SHE DOESN'T WANT TO HOOK UP WITH. She 'surrenders to her fate' at the end, after almost two books' worth of the adults in her life pressuring her and telling her she cannot change her destiny to have a bunch of babies with the guy she doesn't want babies with, when everyone else on earth fucking DIES.

Not to mention, making Angel into this weird I Am The New God type character SO LATE INTO THE SERIES seemed like such a Ah Fuck I'm Out Of Ideas And My Manuscript Is Due thing. At first i was cautiously interested, and then ANGEL. The ACTUAL CHILD. Starts telling Max the voices in her head are saying 'Max you will have a mate perfect in every way and you have to bone him, there's no other future for you except your fate to bone your newcoming perfect match!!' and then I decided I HATED what Angel was now written as.

And here's the thing. I don't hate Dylan! I don't really feel anything towards Dylan one way or another, except that he seemed really immature (probably because, as it says in the book, he's only three years old, just with a teen's body. Like, when Dylan is first introduced, the book makes a REALLY big deal about that. Brings up REPEATEDLY that Dylan is 3 years old in a teenage body). And I don't hate Max's clone Maya either!! She has an interesting side thing going where she's trying to be her own person instead of Max's clone, after being sicced on Max to kill and replace Max in the gang and then failing to do that. And good for her!! A little weird that Fang left Max for her, but Fang's choices aren't a reflection of her!! Fang was super wishy-washy on which girl he was going to be loyal to that entire time. Which wasn't cool of him!! Max was his ride or die!! Ride or die my ass by the end of the series, apparently!!

But like, the early books were so good! (To elementary school age me. I cannot speak to how they hold up now, because I have not and will not reread them) Max was such a badass and she had the support of her found family! And her struggles and her flock's struggles were real! They were a group of outcasts who just wanted to live normal lives in everyday human society. And there was so much joy from them doing everyday people things, like going to school and trying makeup and making friends. And the longer the series went on, the more and more it seemed like it curved waaaaay off-field and out into the parking lot. Down the road and then off a fucking cliff.

Like, i'm sure there's stuff wrong with the book politically. Remembering how Iggy's blindness suddenly Disappeared Under Certain Conditions felt really, really questionable even at childhood age. And I never liked the makeover scene with Nudge, where she gets her hair straightened and her makeup done, but I will be honest. It was because I didn't like tomboy makeover scene type stuff. I wasn't yet aware of how icky it is to write a black character hiding their natural curls and calling them more beautiful for straightening their hair. I know now!! Yet another reason I really don't like Nudge's whole makeover scene. I forget what book that happens in. Pretty sure it's either The Angel Experiment or School's Out Forever. (This dislike of Nudge's makeover scene is also influenced by the manga, which I read volumes 1-3 of)

The long and short of it is, the ending of Nevermore felt really cheap. 'Oh everyone dies and that's a good thing because now the earth will be repopulated by Max's coercion-born animal-human hybrid babies and none of those genetically defective regular humans'. >:( I was so mad and felt so cheated by the ending that I stopped reading James Patterson's works entirely (which honestly wasn't that hard. I had been reading Witch & Wizard at the time too, and stopped halfway through The Fire. Which was not hard to do. The characters who were once interesting became utterly insufferable)

Okay while looking up how to spell character names, I found out two things. One, Nevermore had a sequel and the Wikipedia plot summary is just as nonsensical as I expected. No interest in reading it, as far as I am concerned literally nothing can come back from And Everyone Died The End ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there's no saving it at that point. Write a new series. You've shot the old series between the eyes with an ending like that.

And two, apparently Nevermore was astronomically received NEGATIVELY by literary reviews / critics. Which. VINDICATIONNNNN. Baby me knew what was up!! Baby me knew a shit ending when they saw one!!!

Anyway. Immediately after reading Nevermore, I walked away from Patterson books, was convinced that I in my wee ripe age could write better stories than him, and proceeded to First Draft an actual novel and a half of Human Experiment Teens Save The World. It's been a side project of mine to revamp it every time I notice a sharp increase in my writing skills (it's actually due for a revamp again, but I haven't finished the rewrite of the Second Draft, so really want I want to do is reevaluate the plot using the knowledge I know now. Gotta dust away all the unknowing child ignorances and biases and really make it a story worth telling.) And for the record, it will NOT be ending with goddamn Everyone Died The End.

But anyway. That's my rant against the ending of the Maximum Ride series. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk ravings on this corner of the bar counter.

[smokedoutcoldstar]

Also idk if they're still rolling, but when I was learning kanji, Wanikani was a HUGE help to me. No app (web only), and you gotta pay to unlock later lessons, but the beginning free parts make kanji feel more manageable. Good luck all 🙏

it's poor form to air your petty grievances with someone when it comes out they did something actually bad. save that for companies, like when you learn duolingo removed kanji from its beginner's japanese courses as part of their collab with crunchy roll

[adviceofthedead]

Tf2 mercs + birthdays hc:

I don't Scout likes birthday parties. Mostly because they bring up bitter memories of deflated balloons and empty chairs: how he was stuck in a beat-up birthday hat with nobody else around, all at work or in jail or in a fistfight, waiting for a man he never knew to come up and celebrate with him. He for sure had faith his dad would eventually show up. Eventually I think he stopped caring about birthdays--or acting like he cared--and left the celebratory events to someone else.

Demo has mixed feelings on them. On one hand, opportunity to get wasted + have fun + party + good food. On the other, his birthday parties were always. Tense. Very overbearing parents and all that--made it a little hard to enjoy his presents when it felt like there were strings attached. Overall, the sentiment is positive. Some of his better memories came from big DeGroot birthday celebrations, full Scottish style.

Engie doesn't really…Have any I don't think? In my min his family celebrated them much--he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to care much about birthdays.

Heavy loves them! They remind him of his family and his sisters. He's an acts-of-service kinda person, so he'd often decorate their cabin when birthday season ran around. Sometimes his ma would scrape enough food by to make some banger piroshki. He treasures the warm memories he has of his birthday. Sniper is in a similar vein as Scout: bitter! Especially post comics Sniper. Birthdays molded from a small celebratory event and a good slice of pie to a harsh reminder of what he lost. A reminder of the people he lost all for a bunch of useless fucking rocks. I think he's not a big guy for grand gestures anyway, so when his birthday rolls around (if he even remembers it) he doesn't do much other than call home to a phone that'll never pick up.

Medic likes celebrations and tends to go all out. Okay, yes, he is being dramatic, but his general philosophy live life to the fullest and cuss out anyone who doesn't like it. In my mind he has a thing for birthday steak, not cake: probably from the whole being the kid of a butcher thing.

Spy has a very. odd stance on birthday parties. She never got any, I don't think--old money family and all that--and the loneliness which came from her birthday isn't something she's fond of. That being said, he's got the energy of someone who would like birthday parties. In a very odd way. Spy is the best at giving people well-matched gifts and, on occasion, some scrapbook pages. Don't ask how he knows that or where she got that picture. For you own health, just. Don't.

[spark-circuit]

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

*V1 voice* [LITERALLY SEETHING]

[basaltdelta]

Once I finally start using this site like an actual blogging site its over for Everyone Here

I have So Much Nether worldbuilding. I got sent an ask abt my ocs (i owe u my life) and its still in drafts bc its So Fucking Long. I have enough bugsnax and inscryption content on the backburner that it Haunts Me

[smokedoutcoldstar]

Visitable via the wayback machine!!!

This capture is from 1999!!! Before bastards deleted the owner's site!!! The site lives on in frozen memories!!!

https://web.archive.org/web/19990202235534/http://www.geocities.com/Paris/3835/

original url http://www.geocities.com/Paris/3835/

last modified 2006-05-28 10:32:41

[thetimecrystal]

tagged by @kraeuterhexchen to post random photos from my camera roll <3 my camera roll is swamped by the strokes pics, so i decided to be good and share... not that LMFAO

tagging whoever wants to do this, idk who has and hasn’t done this!

i was at a dead by april show last night and um. i didn’t take any photos except this. the show was great, super energetic, so i tried to focus more on that instead of being on my phone!

it is so grey, yet looked kinda pretty outside, so i took this god awful photo of it? why have i been strugglebusing so much with my camera lately???

i had a tedtalk at my irl best friend about the strokes and had to show off my newer collection (it is is this it? and the voidz’ virtue. i am hunting for francis trouble and almost got it from platekompaniet, but apperantly the website was trolling me because they didn’t have it in the store or the warehouse)

my.... philosophy ig?

what my last couple months have been like akjfkgjgj

[thatonesimp-e]

part

Part 2 of my camp doodles

Theres still so much more it amazes and confuses me because I don't remember drawing like half of these

ANYWAYS UH

Uhhhhhhhhh yeahmn :)

[l00ney-m00ny]

Info dumped about ants to a random stranger who lives in a completely different country while online today.

It was fun 10/10 would recommend. They taught me how American measurements work!! :D