#q reads pact

[quantum-mechan1c]

Not keeping up with the pact liveblog whatsoever because any time I spend writing about Pact and wondering about it's many mysteries is time I could be spending shoveling it into my eyes with the ardent desperation of a starving man at a banquet table.

Pact is really really really really good. Quite possibly better than Worm. Blake is a cleverly written, consistently surprising, *fun* protagonist, and the magic system offers a lot in terms of flexibility and setting the stage for clever solutions to the problems it presents. The supporting cast is vibrant and interesting, the stakes feel very real in spite of the reduction of scope from Worm... I could go on but seriously. Just read Pact. ESPECIALLY if youve read Worm, there'll be a lot for you to love. Holy shit man.

[humanmorph]

*sees the word "mauled" in a post* blake.... (smiling fondly)

[lakesbian]

twig faq to answer all of the asks i got regarding my liveblog

Q: holy shit twig turned out bad huh A: yeah

Q: should i read twig? A: no. it's bad

Q: what about the parts of twig that were good though? i noticed that there were parts of twig that seemed awesome before everything suddenly exploded A: okay let me elaborate. the first ~13 arcs of twig are really really endearing when they're focusing on the lambs. when they're being about the lambs, they range anywhere from "cute" to "extremely fun" to "genuinely super compelling" to "shit that made me cry (positive)." we have high points such as:

12yo sylvester lambsbridge fumbles 3 people with crushes on him harder than anyone's ever fumbled in their life in the span of like 7 hours maximum

sylvester lambsbridge does transhet biopunk brokeback mountain

wildbow writes rose thorburn but if she were a hardass trans girl (she's the one doing transhet biopunk brokeback mountain with sy)

gordon dies and lillian copes by taking some of sy's drug that gives him turbo-adhd

helen is there

sylvester lambsbridge experiences what i earnestly believe to be one of the cruelest things wildbow has ever done to any of his protagonists

lots of other stuff, i'm abbreviating here

but the reason i say the first ~13 arcs of twig are good when they're focusing on the lambs is that twig is prone to slogging, strikingly mediocre fight scenes--sy can't fight for Shit, but wildbow still insists on describing, like, sylvester trying & failing to hit someone with a wooden plank with the same gratuitous, lengthy detail as taylor inventing a spider-based saw trap for someone. and unlike the spider-based saw trap, it's not interesting to read about. the arcs take an episodic format, and what this means is that virtually every arc goes on way too long, contains at minimum 40% more tediously detailed fight scenes than are actually necessary, and then leaves you feeling jarred when wildbow inevitably timeskips to the next arc just as the prior one was really getting into the emotional swing of things. i also have a (quite possibly subjective?) sense that twig wasn't as well-developed and thought-out as, e.g., pact, and oftentimes the setting conceit (1900s biopunk frankenstein-y british empire) doesn't feel like it's hitting quite as hard as it should.

for all of these reasons, i wouldn't have rated the first ~13 arcs of twig any more generously than in the 3.5-4 star range while i was reading them, but that's still an overall rating of good. i wouldn't still be thinking about some of the things from the first ~13 arcs of twig if they weren't overall good. if all of twig was the same quality as the first ~13 arcs, i would recommend it to people who i feel like could tolerate the pacing issues & would feel reading about the lambs was worth it.

but. BUT. BUT-

Q: so, twig turns out really bad, huh? what went wrong? A:

it is not all the same quality as the first 13 arcs. it turns out really bad the last 7 arcs are actually atrocious

the first thing that comes to mind if you ask me "what went wrong with twig" is that wildbow tries to write a trans woman as one of the main characters, and he does it badly. miss jessie ewesmont, my new favorite girl whom we need to get the fuck out of a wildbow novel. i think she was written extremely well--and in fact one of the top 2 characters in the book--prior to wildbow trying to handle her coming out. i'd even say the foreshadowing for it was perfectly well done and enjoyable. but after she comes out, during the last 7 arcs of the book?

you know how trans women are often victims of being treated as undervalued, disposable girlfriends, who are expected to coddle & cater to their partner's every whim while receiving effectively nothing in return? and you know how trans women are often treated as if they should be grateful for receiving (what is often less than) the literal bare minimum? and you know how trans women are frequently treated as if it's completely implausible for anyone to find them genuinely attracted or desirable, let alone worth pursuing or putting effort into?

yeah, the last 7 arcs of twig contain untold tens of thousands of words of wildbow reinventing all of that from first principles. this is a subjective experience, but it genuinely felt worse to read than amy dallon. at one point, the Disposable Trans Girlfriend in question literally says "i appreciate you not killing me" after she gets stabbed in her sleep by her boyfriend, sylvester. it's beyond parody. i've never said "WE HAVE TO HIT WILDBOW WITH HAMMERS" more in my goddamned life than while reading the last 7 arcs of twig. Transmisogyny Fucking City. it's a completely unforgivable and miserable reading experience.

and speaking of unforgivable and miserable reading experiences involving bigoted handling of a main character...onto Item No. 2 on the list of writing decisions that ruin twig! the ableism.

wildbow wants all of the lambs to--due to being ill-fated human experiments--have set expiration dates. one of the Main Points hanging over the entire narrative of twig is that every single lamb is, in all likelihood, going to die of complications from the way they've been experimented on before they're even twenty. two of them do die from those complications before the story is even halfway over: jamie's entire mind & sense of being is regularly taken out of his body, and one day, the doctors can't get it back in. gordon is a ~15yo with the heart problems of an elderly man, and they kill him while he's still young enough to make one of his last acts begging to see his dog one last time. it's good. it's tragic, it's interesting.

the problem is that wildbow's decision for how to depict sylvester starting to experience end-stage complications is to...turn sy into an ableist horror movie trope villain. sy hears The Devil telling him to kill his friends, and he just fuckin' blacks out and then comes to like "oh no...what's all this blood on my hands." i'm talking "mental illness is a Demon that can Possess You and make you an Evil Serial Killer" levels of ableist writing. like wildbow straight up turns sy into the joker from the movie joker. it's like that one "insaaaaynenene....assyyylum..... cray-ay-zeee...Insaayne" tiktok, you know the one. it's why he stabs his disposable trans girlfriend.

and it's baffling because: 1. wildbow wrote worm. you'd expect better from him when it comes to writing mental illness. but his skills apparently stop short of being able to depict a character with psychosis without making it cartoonishly ableist. but also, 2., sy doesn't only start becoming mentally ill at the end of arc 13! the previous arcs do very clearly establish that he's extremely codependent with the other lambs and needs continuous support to avoid experiencing life-threatening mental health episodes. he experiences dissociation, he struggles with severe memory loss, he acts erratically, he has self-injurious tendencies, he hallucinates, he talks to himself in public. prior to the start of arc 14, all of that is written with perfectly amenable levels of nuance and empathy towards sy. i wouldn't describe it as glowing representation, or anything, but it's by no means egregious.

but after arc 13? change of plans. now he's the joker from the movie joker, and we have to watch while his friends chain him to an armchair so he doesn't go around randomly cutting peoples hands off in a murderous fugue state.

it's bad. it's extremely bad to read.

the third item regarding how/why twig becomes terrible is a lot more simple to summarize: it becomes almost entirely about the previously mentioned sloggy fight scenes as opposed to about the lambs. and when it is about the lambs, it's often terrible to read anyway, due to the aforementioned issues with the handling of protagonist sylvester lambsbridge and his disposable trans gf. the plot becomes incoherent and uninteresting to the point where it's not even worth the effort of attempting to summarize how or why. everything that made twig good more or less entirely disappears from the story, and things that make it fucking awful are added.

Q: okay but lets say i have something unfixably wrong with me and i want to read twig anyway. wheres the best stopping point? arc 13? A: yeah it's arc 13. it's not a satisfying stopping point at all though. nor is the rest of twig prior to it really worth it. just don't waste your time. go read a good book, like pact, instead

Q: what the fuck is up with helen? A: :)

[velvet-cupcake-games]

Made Marion Mini-FAQ, Sept. 23

Just a few bits and bobs that I can talk about at this point in development!

Q: Players commit to their route ending at the end of Chapter 3 and then experience one of two different Chapter 4s. Does that make each chapter 4 choice-free?

There are still choices in the Chapter 4s! Many of the game's major love scenes are in the relevant character's Chapter 4, so you'll have the love scene choice if you have explicit text on. The rest of the choices are for the purpose of role-playing and making decisions about Marion's future. They won't make major changes to the ending, but they'll let you put a personal stamp on your endgame experience.

Except, of course for that choice. The one that leads either to victory or to a bad end. Which choice is it? You'll find out!

Some of your earlier choices can also cause minor changes in Chapter 4. For instance, in Sherwood Common Marion can write either an angry or a diplomatic letter to her father. This may affect whether he appears in the epilogue segment at the end of a Sherwood character's route.

Q: What kind of experience does the option to turn off explicit text provide? Does it allow for asexual relationships?

Because one of the main goals of the Made Marion project was to provide mature-rated love scenes for adult otome/amare fans who were interested in them, we don't have the option for asexual relationships in this game. Marion is allosexual by canon and it's obvious from the way she views the world from the very beginning of the game.

When explicit text is off, the player reads a shortened, non-explicit version of scenes that involve sexual activity. I try to get across the emotions that the characters are feeling without getting into the nitty-gritty of things, but it's still stated that the characters are having a sexual encounter.

Explicit text is ON by default in Made Marion, so players who do not wish to read such text should turn it off in the Options menu ASAP. Once a scene with explicit text has begun, turning the option off won't work until the next explicit scene (not that we're loaded with them, it's just how the script flow of the game works). I may be able to program a "break-out" button later on, but it won't be available as of the first Early Access release.

Q: Characters in Made Marion drink "tisane." Is that tea or something else?

A tisane is a hot drink with an herbal infusion. Many tisanes, also known as herbal teas, do not contain actual tea leaves. Tea is a very specific beverage, and its history in Europe is tied up in colonial-era violence. Instead of trying to work that into my alternate-magical-Europe history, I decided that it made the most sense for Avalons to simply drink non-tea-containing tisanes. Considering that plant druids are all about making magical hybrid plants, they probably have some delicious ones! They are caffeine-free but may contain other types of stimulants.

When Avalons aren't drinking alcohol, there's a good chance that they're drinking tisane. Thanks to druidic knowledge and the environmental protections inherent in the Pact, Avalon drinking water is way cleaner than the water was in Medieval England. But as Avalon science doesn't yet have a working knowledge of microorganisms, boiling your water is still the safest way to go.

[vyntheshork]

ABCs of Shitass Elder Scroll Lore

A is for Altmer, those stupid fucking elves.

B is for Bosmer, don't buy the meat they shelve.

C is for Chimer, they don't exist anymore.

D is for Dunmer, [Redacted, see above for more]

E is for the Ebonheart Pact, the Nords and the Dunmer

F is for Firsthold Revolt, a book about a sister

G is for Galmor Stone-Fist, the best of the rebels

H is for Hircine, Prince of the hunt, with a spear of rare metals

I is for Imperials, master of the trade

J is for Janus Hassildor, a Vampire he was made

K is for Khajiit, cats of many shape

L is for Lamia, half lady half snake

M is for Markarth, the City of Stone

N is for Namera, chewing meat off the bone

O is for Orcs, let's move on, they can't read

P is for Peryite, strange diseases he will breed

Q is for Quasigriff, born to never fly

R is for Redguard, warriors until they die

S is for Sheza-Rana, the Cyan Star

T is for Trueflame, Blade of Nerevar

U is for Uncommon Taste, written by the Gourmand

V is for Vivec, nothing rhymes with Gourmand

W is for Whitestrake, we don't talk about him

X is for Xarxes, with knowledge to the brim

Y is for Yokuda, home of the Redguard

Z is for Zylvara, this you can also disregard

[nochi-quinn]

legend of vox machina season 3 episode 4: hell to pay OR go fish

are you there sarenrae, etc etc

"we're gonna need all kinds of miracles" trailer line

I am rotating animated!pike trickfoot in my head like a rotisserie chicken; her relationship with sarenrae being Like That and how much of it is what Ashley originally wanted to do and how much of it was built in the in-between time with her playing two other main campaign characters & their points of view

now they can sell more toys

SDCC exclusive Demon Bunny Grog

just pulling every accent out of the bag

"the fuck?" you knew what you were getting into

I would love some concept art for Dis, there's So Much Going On it's hard to appreciate everything as much as I want to

wait he named his big demon castle the Brass Skull

you overemotional nerd

vax don't say the q word

"I could have made it cool" nothing you do is cool

fuck yes allura

oh pike

thanks I hate it

we're gonna hafta juuuuuump

lots of Aaah! Real Monsters! looking-ass designs in hell

this asshole

mala: they made him hot! me: what were they gonna do, not make him hot?

none of this narration is reliable

fucking cut-rate raphael

and I'm not even that impressed by raphael

would you like to form a contract

"such pure blood" hey what the fuck does that mean

godborn pike??

(please read edda-earth)

the lighting!!!

what happens if they deal out and there's no black skull

"are they within ten feet of me"

NONE OF THIS NARRATION IS RELIABLE

can we stop giving grog a quip every time they cut back to the rest of the team, you're killing me (and the tension)

the truth is vicious and you owe it something

the stained glass!!

the portraits!!

I'm gonna cry!!

OKAY I HAVE OPINIONS

everything that happened to zerxus was His Own Fucking Fault, he was a Lawful Stupid paladin who was so convinced he could redeem THE DEVIL, FROM THE BIBLE, that he entered a pact he was never going to come out the winner on.

ALSO (per yelling in chat with mala) avalir was always going to fall. the calamity was always going to happen. the situation simply wasn't sustainable. laerryn just happened to be the one that hit the button. big "kirkwall was always going to explode, anders just lit the fuse" energy.

...spoilers for DA2, ig

fucking reddit atheist

"we all have blind spots" boooooo

"thank you for losing graciously" give it time

"we are his blood"

"what are the chances that isn't for us"

the tradition of "if you can't get cast as a big stompy monster make your own" continues (matt was yenk)

[sgiandubh]

La passante de la Place des Vosges/ The Passerby of the Place des Vosges: in praise of Caitríona Balfe

I have recently discussed, in as much detail as possible without becoming completely boring, S's memoir Waypoints. It is, no doubt, an interesting strategic step, aiming to buy much needed time and respite from unwanted fan attention.

But if there is a memoir I would probably read in a very different, almost sentimental way, that would be hers, not his.

We have an enticing idea of the way she writes, with this lesser known essay published by the totemic NYT just a day shy of her birthday, in 2017: The First Time I Left Home (and Fell in Love), which you can read online right here - https://shorturl.at/uTX12. It is a short, dense piece with a deeply personal, even sentimental, view of Paris in autumn and spring. Something very unusual for the feisty, secretive, almost paranoid C we all know and love (admit it, you do: fair's fair). It immediately grabbed both my attention and highlighter.

Writing about Paris, especially from an Anglo-Saxon/American perspective, is a very tricky affair. So much has been said and done, from Janet Flanner's priceless Letters from Paris and Paris Journal, to Anais Nin, to Edmund White, to Hemingway, to Orwell - just to name the ones that immediately come to mind. In this particular case, we'd be dealing with a nice PR fine tuning detail, with a relatively short lifespan, aiming perhaps to reach a more sophisticated demographic than Twitter banter or a three minutes long Q&A about the current season's antics. But a wonderful detail, nevertheless.

The year is 1998. A young 19-year old Irish model wannabe just landed in the chaotic brouhaha of Roissy Airport and the first contact is brutal, language being a considerable barrier. But before that, we are treated to a masterful bistrot snapshot, with a cheeky, self-deprecating sense of humor. I mean how perfect is this?

Quite a contrast to the dream version back home:

Touché. All the moody young Frenchmen are named Pierre, C. All. Of. Them. As for watching far too many French films, there's always been something very Nouvelle Vague about you, Jeanne Moreau and Jules et Jim & all that, and I have to say this is what I found immediately endearing. I am not talking about Claire Fraser: it is you, emphatically you. The kind of impeccably dressed woman one can find pretending to read Le Monde at Le Café de Flore's terrace in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The kind of self-evident, celestial creature whose high heels are never heard on any pavement (what is your secret?). Late Jane Birkin didn't even come close, C., mark me. However, red lipstick stains look way better on the rim of a nervously half drunk cup of noisette coffee: but then, that is me.

It was not at all like that, of course, but then something happened just across the street from the Saint-Eustache church, at Quigley's Point, a long gone Irish pub I vaguely remember. Circa 1998, our own boisterous squad used to play darts and get plastered on cheap draft beer and that undignified, syrupy manzana Basque liqueur (idiots, I am telling you, but it was very cheap) at The Bombardier, on the Place du Panthéon, just across the Seine:

Thick brogue, a quick laugh, kind eyes and blonde hair. An interesting combo, for sure. No further comment except well, this is very personal, isn't it? You've said it yourself: sometimes (fun fact: always) the really important people have nothing to do with fantasies. But we know, C, we know.

And then, suddenly, it all falls into place: Stendhal would talk about a crystallization moment. It is that split-second when everything becomes very clear. A pact of sorts occurs and all barriers are lifted. For C, it happened in one of the perfect places of this planet, spare perhaps the Piazza del Campo, in Siena:

No doubt, by tomorrow evening at the latest, I will be crucified by Mordor, but this made me think of that - different setting and context, same type of seminal moment. Draw your own conclusions:

(SRH, Waypoints, Day Four: The Hard Road)

Important things happen, too, Place du Panthéon and this moved me to bits, even if this was not a happy ending. So shamelessly glad it wasn't, by the way:

For (and forgive me for ineptly tinkering with your words) "It’s true, you never forget your first love". And for that man on that random pavement in LA, that will always be you, passerby of the Place des Vosges. The wonder you are, despite anything else: it is perfectly irrelevant.

Jacques Brel says it best, in what is almost a prayer:

[em-um-canto]

I think q!pac just made a pact with ablack bunny worker

With barely reading what was on it

Yep, he thinks he just sold his soul

Good start

[phantomdialogue]

˗ˏˋ. ݁₊ ✶ ˖ 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟒.𝟓/𝟓 ☆ . ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

chestnut springs book two

premise: willa grant needs a job for the summer. cade eaton needs a nanny for his son for the summer. he’s just going to have to try not to fall for her when she fills the position almost too perfectly.

couple: cade eaton and willa grant

tropes: single dad x nanny, age gap (not crazy big but referenced a lot), forced proximity, grumpy x sunshine, small town boy/big city girl

available on kindle unlimited

review below!

review:

i have never been one for kids in real life or in my books but i fell in love with this book and the kid in it so fast. i don’t even know where to begin. cade eaton may just be the dilf of all dilfs at this point…. i can’t believe i just wrote that. i loved cade and all of his complexities. i think that’s something that i’m noticing about elsie silver’s writing is that she really doesn’t write one dimensional characters. even the more “side characters” or characters who aren’t the current focus have so many layers to peel back and explore. for example, jasper, the mmc for the next book, got teased a lot toward the end of this book and all of the little snippets she gave about him just made me want to learn more because he’s not just a cardboard cut out of a character when it’s not “his book”.

the way she wrote cade’s insecurities and trauma really made it resonate with me as a reader because she didn’t just state them and walk away. she dove into them and explaining how it affected everything and how it continues to affect him throughout the book. she did the same with willa. even with luke, he may be five years old but she treated him like a living human kid who has emotions about his single dad and their situation rather than just slapping a funny kid character on the page and calling it a day.

something about this book and its characters really endeared me so much more than flawless did and i couldn’t put this book down. cade and willa will live happily in my mind for years and i hope they live happily ever after on that ranch with luke causing them trouble for years to come.

q & a:

are they endgame? - if cade and willa aren’t endgame, i’d be incredibly confused. i feel like even with their age gap, they have a strong enough sense of who they are as individuals and what they need from each other that their communication is strong enough to last.

did i cringe? - i feel like this one had way fewer “cringey” dialogue moments than flawless and had only a few lines that used more slang terms (like slay and such) that felt out of place. but the dialogue specifically in this one felt a lot smoother and mature

favorite part? - the dynamic between cade, willa, and luke. hands down. i think she nailed it on the head with that. the three of them just make this perfect pact and at the same time, they all have their faults. every pairing within the three of them felt so natural and real to read about that it makes you fall in love with them so quickly and i truly could read a few more books just about them.

least favorite part? - hmmmm. this is hard actually (which is nice in a way haha). i think if i had to choose a least favorite part, it would be the fact that we didn’t get to see willa bond with the family as much as we saw summer bond with them in flawless. with this being such a family oriented series, i was expecting willa to get more of a relationship with harvey and rhett but it felt like a lot of the focus was strictly on willa and cade (and luke). i still loved what it was but i think a little extra about her connecting with the family a little more.

favorite quotes (some spoilers here, of course, but minimal):

I’m here counting all the ways in which she’s a problem for me, and she’s just excited to be here and take care of my child.

It seems like the universe could have granted some sort of reprieve. But it granted me Willa fucking Grant.

How hard would it be to smile more, to laugh more, if it made her look this happy?

“The way I see it, I like you a little more every day.”

She’s a spark in the dark. Dancing flames against a midnight sky.

I want to turn that spark into a whole damn fire so this girl goes out and does what she wants with her life.

“It’s two people who were both a little lost until they ended up on the same path and walked together for a while.”

Eyes shut, I wish for Willa. A life with her. A family with her. Gray hair and more laughter with her.

[kissnpunch]

you can tell i love q!roier’s lore and because of that i made a simple timeline of what is happening.

yesterday we got the first tape explaining what happen to q!roier during the messages he left on the global chat and after (i invite you to watch the tape on his youtube channel or twitch account).

a short resume; q!roier made a computer with a —apparently— special antenna to search a lost signal of q!cellbit, cucurucho discover that and drugged him to drag his body all the way to the federation office, where, surprisingly, he meets with his twin brother, doied, who made a pact with cucurucho to create a machine with the special function to change the mind, the human brain data, into something else, in this case, he chose a rat for q!roier.

cucurucho explained how this was the first time doing this type of experiment and he will be in the rat’s body for a while, in the end, q!roier fainted in that body.

if you don’t know, doied was another personally of q!roier, in the first moments it seems like he’s pretty nerd and clumsy but he’s still the smarted one, until now, where he shows himself as his twin brother, we meet a really cruel and crazy scientific (if is a hallucination or not, i would not handle this hypothesis now). another “personalities” are melissa and roger.

side notes: i will keep complementing this image since we just have the first tape and i think he would keep sharing more tapes or hints of q!roier’s state, i added some details for lore purposes aaaand that’s it i guess.

for the record, we don’t know the exact time skip during this process; even in the dungeon, i’m assuming it has been days because he’s cold, probably hungry and his emotional state has to be too low to experiment with him easily. roier is such a enigma when it comes to lore so include two timelines assuming again —because i don’t make things canon, he does— in the case this experiment is the days before we watch the tape and he’s still in that body.

some theories i have been reading is the hallucination one because everything seems so q!roier coded and is canon q!roier told q!bagi how he has voices in his mind, cucurucho usually doesn’t has that much of dialogues and, in my case, i add how that clock didn’t change the time, like, they talked a lot. but once again, and i love how roier manages his own lore, anything, and i’m serious on this one, anything can happen.

[mariacallous]

Every so often along 99 between Bakersfield and Sacramento there is a town: Delano, Tulare, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Modesto, Stockton. Some of these towns are pretty big now, but they are all the same at heart, one- and two- and three-storey buildings artlessly arranged, so that what appears to be the good dress shop stands between a W. T. Grant store, so that the big Bank of America faces a Mexican movie house. Dos Peliculas, Bingo Bingo Bingo. Beyond the downtown (pronounced downtown with the Okie accent that now pervades Valley speech patterns) lie blocks of old frame houses – paint peeling, sidewalks cracking, their occasional leaded amber windows overlooking a Foster’s Freeze or a five-minute car wash or a State Farm Insurance office; beyond those spread the shopping centers and the mills of tract houses, pastel with redwood siding, the unmistakable signs of cheap building already blossoming on those houses which have survived the first rain. To a stranger driving 99 in an air-conditioned car (he would be on business, I suppose, any stranger driving 99, for 99 would never get a tourist to Big Sur or San Simeon, never get him to the California he came to see), these towns must seem so flat, so impoverished, as to drain the imagination. They hint at evenings spent hanging around gas stations, and suicide pacts sealed in drive-ins. But remember:

Q. In what way does the Holy Land resemble the Sacramento Valley? A. In the type and diversity of its agricultural products.

U.S. 99 in fact passes through the richest and most intensely cultivated agricultural region in the world, a giant outdoor hothouse with a billion-dollar crop. It is when you remember the Valley’s wealth that the monochromatic flatness of its towns takes on a curious meaning, suggests a habit of mind some would consider perverse. There is something in the Valley mind that reflects a real indifference to the stranger in his air-conditioned car, a failure to perceive even his presence, let alone his thoughts or wants. An implacable insularity is the seal of these towns. I once met a woman in Dallas, a most charming and attractive woman accustomed to the hospitality and social hypersensitivity of Texas, who told me that during the four war years her husband had been stationed in Modesto, she had never once been invited inside anyone’s house. No one in Sacramento would find this story remarkable (“She probably had no relatives there,” said someone to whom I told it), for the Valley towns understand one another, share a peculiar spirit. They think alike and they look alike. I can tell Modesto from Merced, but I have visited there, gone to dances there; besides there is over the main street of Modesto an arched sign which reads:

WATER – WEALTH CONTENTMENT – HEALTH

There is no such sign in Merced.

Notes From A Native Daughter – Joan Didion

[quantum-mechan1c]

Okay, so i just finished arc 7 of Pact. That is genuinely the worst a book has made me feel in a long long time, the ending of worm excepted. This is, to be clear, a good thing. I just wrote up a massive rant post about how much i hated Blake's death and wanted to stop reading altogether because of it, which I have banished to live in my draft's forever. I couldn't take the pressure and skipped the interlude arc because i needed to know if he was okay. I'm certain I cut a lot of the tension out of that arc for myself in doing so, but I'm glad i did it anyway. That was crushing god damn. If i had to sit and wait for the weeks and weeks of interludes to wrap up i actually would have gone insane.

[starmessngr410]

About Me

Hi, I go by LULU, and I am currently in High School. I write imagines for the groups I like, by taking inspiration from my own experiences and ideas.

This blog is SFW, so I will not post anything other than that.

The groups that I currently listen to/write for are listed below, along with my biases from each group. I'm still trying to get into other groups and learn their personalities to write them accurately, but I do write for and listen to the groups listed.

I know this blog is mainly K-Pop, but I also watch/read Anime/Manga. The ones I'm currently hyperfixated on are Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Demon Slayer, and a little bit of Blue Lock. I've also started watching a bunch of Tokusatsu (Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, etc.) stuff. So, if anyone wants to request anything from those places, I'll try to write it!

☆ Lulu's Main Masterlist ☆

________________________________________

Biases From Groups:

NCT/WayV - [Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaemin, Chenle, Kun, Hendery, Sion, Riku, Sakuya]

Seventeen - [Jun, Wonwoo, Minghao]

TXT - [OT5/Soobin, Taehyun]

ATEEZ - [OT8/Hongjoong, Yeosang, Jongho]

XIKERS - [Minjae, Sumin, Hunter, Yechan]

Zerobaseone - [OT9/Zhanghao, Matthew, Ricky, Gunwook, Yujin]

Treasure - [OT10/Yoshi, Asahi, Jaehyuk, Haruto, Junghwan]

Cravity - [Serim, Allen, Wonjin, Hyeongjun, Seongmin]

Enhypen - [Jay, Jungwon, Niki]

&Team - [EJ, Harua, Maki]

8Turn - [Jaeyun, Haemin, Yungyu, Sungheon]

BOYNEXTDOOR - [Riwoo, Leehan, Woonhak]

Xdinary Heroes - [OT6/Gaon, O.de, Junhan]

The Boyz - [Jacob, Q, Kevin, Sunwoo]

Stray Kids - [Lee Know, Felix, I.N]

P1harmony - [Keeho, Jongseob, Soul]

NewJeans - [Danielle, Hanni, Haerin]

_______________________________________

(I'm still getting into these groups, but I do have a bias this far)

Le Sserafim - [Chaewon, Yunjin, Eunchae]

Ampers&One - [Kamden, Brian, Kyrell]

One Pact - [Jay, Jeongwoo, TAG]

Evnne - [Keita, Hanbin, Yunseo]

82Major - [OT6/Seongil, Yechan, Dogyun]

Aespa - [Giselle, Ningning]

EXO - [Beakhyun, Chanyeol, Kai, Sehun]

_______________________________________

Groups I Want To Start Listening To:

Ghost9

POW

The New Six (TNX)

TRENDZ

TIOT

VERIVERY

(Most of the groups here I had heard about before debut, but wasn't able to get into until now)

_______________________________________

Soloists (these are kind of iffy, since i haven't gotten into them much):

Woodz

B.I.

Taemin

BiBi

Bang Yedam

--------------------------------------------------

[I've added some names to the bias lists, as I wrote them when I was sort of new to the groups. Plus, the groups at the very end are the ones that I'm still learning the personalities for.]

_______________________________________

I will write/take requests whenever I can, so you can still send asks. During breaks is when I'm the most free, so weekends and holidays are the best time for me to write.

[seolarzone]

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 001: INTRO ✩ ‧˚ ⊹ ‎

⋆ ┆ Vita / Vee is my name on here ^^ but honestly any nicknames are welcome just remember to stop using it if i express any discomfort . I go by she/her pronouns so please respect that!

⋆ ┆ '04 liner➡ so anyone younger than 15 please don't message and I may reblog nsfw works so minors please block the #nsfw tag

⋆ ┆ MBTI - infj-t this really tells about like 60% of my personality & my birthday - December 24th so I'm a Capricorn <3 and this is the other 40%

⋆ ┆ desi➡ I'm from India and I go by IST (Indian standard time) if it helps you !!!

⋆ ┆ work➡ I'm currently pursuing my degree in college so if I don't respond to messages or am late please respect that !!

⋆ ┆ DNI➡ Blank Blogs | Porn bots | Ped0philes | Anyone against the LGBTQ+ community | Fet!shizers (of any kind) | Rac!sts | Disrespectful towards others’ gender, beliefs, religions | Hater of kpop | Krp accounts | Plagiarizer | Other basic criteria.. !!

⋆ ┆ pls interact➡ literally anyone who isn't in the dni criteria but special mentions to animal blogs | kpop writers | fanfic nets | oc creators | moodboard creators | poetry blogs | positivity blogs. etc

⋆ ┆ reminder➡ this blog is a safe space so please make sure to keep it as such. You are welcome to drop in your rants or vents in the askbox but please follow the guidelines and remeber to not hurt or offend anybody. I am free to block you or remove your ask if it violates any of those guidelines after previous warning. Be respectful and kind to everyone here and enjoyy !!!!

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 002: LIKES ✩ ‧˚ ⊹‎ ‎

⋆ ┆big yess ➡ CATS !!!! and other animals too but mainly cats, psychology, music no specific genre and ofcourse recs are always appreciated, reading any genre but especially thriller and fantasy, i love food and drinks, poetry and quotes, the scenery and cosmic elements, watching movies and anime and reading mangas, cooking asmr not eating, the rain and snow, plushies, and taking candid pictures ! don't think twice to drop me pictures or recommendations on any of these topics !!!

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 003: DISLIKES ✩ ‧˚ ⊹

⋆ ┆ major pass ➡ everything in the 'DNI' criteria, peas, overly slow walkers, people who can't take the same energy that they give, unnecessarily rude people, people who shame others based on their lifestyles, people with superiority complexes, partiality, biased judgement, horror movies and stories, insects.

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 004: AT THE MOMENT ✩ ‧˚ ⊹‎ ‎

⋆ ┆reading ➡ one of us is lying

⋆ ┆ watching ➡ brooklyn 99

⋆ ┆ listening ➡ the grudge, olivia rodrigo

⋆ ┆ status ➡ trying to be active

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 005: LOVELIST ✩ ‧˚ ⊹ ‎

⋆ ┆ ultimate groups ➡ stray kids, nct, the boyz, seventeen

⋆ ┆ ultimate biases ➡ Seo Changbin, Lee Taeyong, Na Jaemin, Kim Sunwoo, Xu Minghao (The8), Hwang Yeji, Ha Sooyoung (yves), Lee Yubin (dami).

⋆ ┆ other groups ➡ day6, enhypen, ive, newjeans, txt, dreamcatcher, itzy, one pact, loona, ateez, blackpink, twice, lesserafim, p1harmony, stayc, aespa, gidle, astro, the rose, riize

⋆ ┆other biases ➡ remaining skz members, jeon wonwoo, (haechan), dong sichen (winwin), choi beomgyu, kim bora (sua), lee chaeryeong, shin ryujin, jeong jinsol (jinsoul), jung wooyoung, kim hongjoong, ji changmin (q), yoon keeho, haku shota (soul), park jihyo, myoi mina, huh yunjin, yu jimin (karina), ning yizhuo (ningning), song yuqi, song eunseok, hong sunghan.

⋆ ┆ non kpop ➡ I do listen to a lot of non kpop artist too and in multiple languages as well, currently I'm listening to sings in multiple Indian languages, Japanese, Chinese, German and French. I am always open to new recommendations so feel free to drop in your favourites anytime!!!

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 006: TAGS ✩ ‧˚ ⊹

⋆ ┆Document currently unavailable

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 007: MOOTS ✩ ‧˚ ⊹

⋆ ┆odette🌹 ➡ @anqelws | @svt-rosalie

⋆ ┆mars 🪐 ➡ @stayconnecteed

⋆ ┆mattie 🪼 ➡ @stealanity

⋆ ┆priya 🎀 ➡ @lost-leopard-beanie | @ivy-diaries

‎⊹ ˚‧ ✩ DOC 008: BLOGROLL ✩ ‧˚ ⊹

⋆ ┆click here !!!!

[atopvisenyashill]

i accidentally went down the fake dany rabbit hole on reddit and to be clear, i think it’s fun to think about but it’s absolutely not gonna happen BUT one of the main pieces of evidence for this is…A Thing and that’s Dany’s memory of the House With The Red Door:

…one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

She mentions the lemon tree more than once:

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

And again she sees it in the house of the undying:

And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. "Little princess, there you are," he said in his gruff kind voice. "Come," he said, "come to me, my lady, you're home now, you're safe now." His big wrinkled hand reached for her, soft as old leather, and Dany wanted to take it and hold it and kiss it, she wanted that as much as she had ever wanted anything.

But we get it mentioned several times that there are not citrus trees in Braavos. Sam says it here:

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty.

And then there is Arya's description:

Braavos, devoid of grass and trees ... They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea. ... In the forest, they see all. but there are no trees here ...

Now, this could mean she stayed with the Sealord of Braavos, since he signed the marriage contract with Dorne as a witness:

"It is a secret pact," Dany said, "made in Braavos when I was just a little girl. Ser Willem Darry signed for us, the man who spirited my brother and myself away from Dragonstone before the Usurper's men could take us. Prince Oberyn Martell signed for Dorne, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness." She handed the parchment to Ser Barristan, so he might read it for himself. "The alliance is to be sealed by a marriage, it says. In return for Dorne's help overthrowing the Usurper, my brother Viserys is to take Prince Doran's daughter Arianne for his queen."

Except George has been Cagey As Fuck about this when asked TWO separate times:

Q: “Dany remembers a lemon tree outside the house with the red door in Braavos, but citrus trees shouldn’t really grow in Braavos’s cold, foggy climate. Is this discrepancy significant? Does it point to future revelations about Dany’s past. Thank you so much.”

GRRM: “Very perceptive of you. Yes, it does point to … well, that would be telling.”

And again here:

Question: “How old was Daenerys when she left the house with the red door, was it located close to the palace of the Sealord of Braavos?”

Answer: “That’s a interesting question. But I don’t think I’m going to answer it. There’s a certain revelation about the red door that will come into the books that I have yet to write. So we’ll keep an eye to it.”

Obviously there’s the whole lemongate thing, with some saying this means she’s a fake - some say Blackfyre, some say Rhaegar’s daughter. I think it’s more likely her memory is just faulty; she was so young when this happened, and we see Ned, Sansa, and Bran misremember things that traumatized them because it’s a very common coping mechanism. There’s theories around her memory as well - she was in Tyrosh or she was in Dorne.

But for me, it’s more about WHY he’s being cagey and WHY there’s this discrepancy in her memory. If she was really in Tyrosh or Myr or Dorne, why does that matter? I think it’s something that will only matter to Daenerys, and not the plot at large. Will she find the house with the red door or hear the story from Doran (or Areo??) and find out she misremembered that way? And why will it affect her? I’m not sure if “Daenerys realizes even those memories are tainted by the fact that she was only in Dorne because of politics and was sent out of Dorne and safety and now holds a grudge” because…the memories are already tainted by how sick Willem Darry was as he was dying.

Like, “Dany was Rhaegar’s daughter raised by Willem Dustin then sold to Illyrio and passed off as Rhaella’s last child who actually died, because it puts Viserys ahead of her in succession and gives him a Targaryen bride to marry or sell off and Viserys has spent the last few years torturing her into thinking she’s his sister, the same way Ramsey tortures Theon into being another person” is such a crackhead theory lmao but a revelation like that would shake Dany to her core. “Dany misremembered Dorne as Braavos” like that’s such a nothingburger so WHAT IS GOING ON. If she just invented a happier memory for herself to hold onto, what is the original memory hiding? Is it not even real, and while the lemon tree is our sign the memory is fake, the real secret is the red door and it’s going to be some metaphor for something?

The House With The Red Door represents everything Dany really wants from her life deep down and that’s to belong somewhere. So what I’m leaning towards is it’s not even a real memory, just something she cobbled together from several of Viserys’ stories. It’s not just that the lemon tree and red door were in the wrong place but none of it existed. Not the peace she had, not Willem Darry. That seems devastating enough that if none of it was real, that she can never find peace, that the red door she was chasing all these years never existed. I think it might be, emotionally, a big step in her deciding to burn king’s landing.

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

and later on:

She saw sunlight on the Dothraki sea, the living plain, rich with the smells of earth and death. Wind stirred the grasses, and they rippled like water. Drogo held her in strong arms, and his hand stroked her sex and opened her and woke that sweet wetness that was his alone, and the stars smiled down on them, stars in a daylight sky. "Home," she whispered as he entered her and filled her with his seed, but suddenly the stars were gone, and across the blue sky swept the great wings, and the world took flame.

If there was never any red door, never a lemon tree, if even her sweet memories of Willem Darry are somehow false, just a scared child trying to make sense of the world, I think that loss will completely push her towards the path of destruction, and she won’t just embrace the dragon, she’ll embrace its devastation as well. Behind the red door isn’t her salvation, only destruction.

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door. “… the dragon …” And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. “The last dragon,” Ser Jorah’s voice whispered faintly. “The last, the last.” Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

GEORGE I AM IN YOUR WALLS

[ksakiswh0re-xo]

𖤛ABOUT ME/BYI

name/alias: rose/rosie. 🌹

|age: 28. born in the 90's✌🏽

|she/her/hers

|heterosexual ♀️♂️

⇡ you read that?

that means i am an ADULT and do not interact with minors and vice versa.

you will be blocked.

i am not your parent nor a babysitter.

this is my account, and i will often post nsfw and dark content.

so go away, shoo🤧

infp-t personality | ♍️☀️♍️🌕♓️⇡

usa 🇺🇲. cst. southern belle👗🥿

i am religious ✝️ | 🛐

i do not support hateful groups or ideals.

i accept everyone except racists, abusers/predators, narcs, liars, and assholes.

if you fall into one of those categories, kindly see your way off of my page.

do not try to sway my beliefs or force your beliefs or opinions upon me; that is a quick way to piss me tf off.

this goes for real-life situations, fandom, selfships, and hc's as well.

i have my opinions, you have yours. neither are facts, so let it be and let's agree to disagree.🫱🏽‍🫲🏾

do not come under my posts telling me how you disagree with a hc or character representation that i have: idgaf, disrespectfully.

i write how i see them in MY head.

you can kindly leave if you disagree. or block.

i do selfship, but the community is getting weird, so i prob won't talk about them much unless you ask.

i do not participate in tumblr discourse nor do i accept or send anon hate.

save it for someone who cares.

you will only ever see me speak out in regards to racism, child expl0it*tion, or attacks on myself or my moots.

anything else, if there is no hard evidence of nefarious actions, leave me out of it, please.

i am kind, welcoming, and funny. i love to shit talk my favs as well as other characters😂

if you are very sensitive or don't know how to take a joke, this may not be the page for you.

i will never disrespect you, but i like to joke a lot.

i write when i have time/motivation, as i do have a life outside tumblr that calls for my immediate attention. posts may come out a bit slowly.

moots may ask for my discord to keep in touch.

i love making friends and don't mind becoming mutuals, but i please ask you be of age and also interact with me or my posts regularly.

many of my moots have become my very close friends.

that's the jist of it! any q's feel free to hit up the ask box or dm's.

let's make a blood pact🫱🏽‍🫲🏾🩸

please interact with this post to show it's been read.

✧ksakiswh0re-xo࿎