#smart name choice

[swordy-da-goat]

My osc gift exchange for @mumpsetc

Very neat character 🖥️🌼

[lovl3igh]

"shireen was so smart for this" no. that was child's answer with child's point of view because shireen was, surprise surprise, a child. are you a child? no fighting against the greens for blacks meant facing the consequences of having incompetent rapist on the throne. they would have let that happen if they didn't act. don't behave like 10yo girl who still values empathy more than fighting for better tomorrow with necessary evil

[carnelianwings]

Something I find really funny is how for all the rumors that Seed’s staff/writers don’t like Cagalli, Orb under her leadership just keeps ending up in a better (political) position with each addition - Seed Destiny ends with Logos wiped out, Blue Cosmos severely hampered, and the entire Seiran family wiped out, including Yuna. This leaves Cagalli with almost no political opposition in Orb (since the second Battle of Orb would’ve flushed out a majority of the Blue Cosmos/Logos sympathizers within the government/military), along with giving her a boost in popular and military support thanks to her actions and field leadership during the battle.

(Cutting for me just rambling on a bit about the in-universe politics after Seed Freedom)

You can tell with how much she’s managed to get done in the years between Seed Destiny and Seed Freedom - in that short year and a half to two years, she was able to propose and found COMPASS, secret away and upgrade the Impulse, Destiny, Strike Freedom, and Infinite Justice, arrange for ties between Orb and Terminal to investigate/exchange intel (Athrun and Meyrin), and put into place all the evacuation/defensive protocols in case of another attack on Orb (as seen vs Foundation and Requiem, even if she needed Kira to pull an “I lived, bitch” to Aura 😅).

And it doesn’t end there - thanks to Foundation, Cagalli arguably has an easier time internationally now, because the Eurasian Federation leadership also got hit and the Eurasian Federation, while not necessarily Blue Cosmos sympathizers like the Atlantic Federation, was very staunchly anti-PLANT, which I think would’ve caused some problems for Cagalli, especially post Seed Destiny with Lacus joining her for that broadcast.

I actually think Orb probably has fairly decent diplomatic relations with PLANT (I think Chairman Lament mostly cut off that call after everything went south in Eldore because of the whole nuke situation), especially since Lacus is COMPASS’s inaugural president, plus the time both Dearka and Waltfeld (I’m not sure if he’s in Orb or PLANT as of Seed Freedom since his silent cameo has him helping to stop the coup in PLANT in Seed Freedom) spent there. And we have a very prominent all-Coordinator team with the Yamato Team - truth be told I actually wonder how much the Earth Alliance invested into COMPASS because everything we see on screen is either contributed by Orb (Archangel, Murrue and crew, Kira, Mu, and the Murasame Kais), PLANT/ZAFT (Millenium, Konoe and crew, Heinlein, Shinn, Lunamaria, Agnes, Gelgoog, and Gyan), or arguably both (namely, Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice). Unless I missed a minor crew member along the way. Which is possible.

Also pure speculation on my part on this - but the fact Seed Freedom has Athrun going into intelligence with Terminal (which we first see as having a presence in the PLANTS) from the Orb side and Yzak and Dearka going into intelligence from the PLANT side can’t be a coincidence. I want to think the three of them decided on it together because being in intelligence/covert ops gives them the chance to work together without having to force anyone to change their current loyalties - I don’t think Athrun can be truly loyal to anyone except Cagalli after Seed Destiny, and Yzak was always loyal to PLANT, and if Dearka hadn’t been captured and made to realize how extreme PLANT had become under Patrick Zala he wouldn’t have switched sides to Orb/Three Ships Alliance during Seed either. Which also indirectly feeds into Orb and PLANT having better political relations than Orb and Earth Alliance.

Which brings me to my final point - I would be very surprised if Orb isn’t the primary target for the antagonists in a Seed Freedom sequel. At this point Orb’s capable of doing too much with the limited resources it has as a small nation with too much military strength at its command. And there is room for a sequel (setting-wise) because while Earth Alliance took another major hit with during the Foundation Conflict, the ideologies that led to the First and Second Earth Alliance-PLANT wars still exist - even if Blue Cosmos lost another leader, even if the believers of Coordinator Supremacy lost another leader (in Jagannath) those ideologies still fundamentally exist. All the Foundation Conflict did was serve to take down the military leadership of those ideologies - even if the public on both sides see those views negatively it doesn’t make them go away.

[raayllum]

i think one of the main reasons i can't shake the "possession is not how callum is going to be play into aaravos' hands" (or at least not solely, i.e. doing something vile or dangerous in the name of love that leads to a renewed possession) is because like...

listen, as much as it'd be kind of weird for a "Master Manipulator" like aaravos to reveal his final play two seasons in advance from a character standpoint, it absolutely make sense from a story standpoint. you couldn't just whip that out of nowhere in a plot relevant moment without having your audience feel cheated, so it had to be established earlier on. now instead of surprise, you get to cultivate a nice feeling of dread. (although i've said before that there were other ways to cultivate said feeling of dread / set up the possibility of possession, i.e. callum learning that its possible out of a book when he was canonically reading about dark magic, him having nightmares or premonitions that aaravos is tethered to him, etc. it didn't have to be so blatant so quickly.)

those are, however, neither of the points i want to get at today, because like - if it is JUST the possession, and there is no choice that leads to it directly before or after in regards to helping aaravos...

Then why the absolutely, continually ramped up Viren-Callum parallels?

Cause like, as of S5, absolutely none of this is Necessary. Callum doesn't necessarily have to exist as a contrast to Viren at this point, given that Viren himself has changed his mind and disavowed dark magic and Aaravos; Callum finally freeing himself from Aaravos (and dark magic?) will likely now have more parallels to Viren's arc, rather than the two being disparate. He'll be following in Viren's footsteps, but in a positive way.

None of this is required for the possession plot line, either. That got kick started all the way back in 2x07, like, seasons ago. If anything it'd be kinda more 'tragic' if Callum really had never touched or been tempted by dark magic again, but he couldn't (or wouldn't) take back his prior choices. A consequence of being controlled by forces well beyond your conceptualization and a price you had no choice but to pay, literally, if they're going the removal of agency arc (which has its own merits) / leaning into the eldritch horror aspect of it all.

Like if it's just possession... Callum does not have to be like or be compared to Viren, in either similarities or contrasts, like - at all. Viren and Callum are both characters who have a relationship with destiny (Viren tended to believe in pre-determined destiny, but Callum decidedly didn't as of S2; even if that still started to change in S4, that alone is not enough of a singular parallel to warrant all the rest) but they're not the only ones, nor is that exclusively related to Aaravos - even if their parallels between each other are constantly circling him, their families, and dark magic / justification(s).

Which makes me think there's two main avenues they could be taking this with:

1) S7 endgame is Callum walking Viren's path regarding the rise, but in a more literal, dramatic sense. Again, Callum proving that he's not like Viren doesn't really need to happen as much now that Viren is 1) no longer a villain and 2) will be a parallel for Callum's positive growth as well. So it's still about similarities, but positive ones: "No matter what you've done, no matter where you are on the path, every step forward is a choice" (cue Callum literally regaining agency) "I am free, and so are you." This is also the avenue where it being mostly just the possession > a choice that leads to Aaravos getting out (choice made before that leads to possession, or choice post-possession) would make more sense, but just the Rise doesn't account for the well, ominous foreboding of all this, lmao.

2) S6 and S7 are working together with S6 being Callum mirroring Viren's Fall (whatever you want that to constitute) / helping Aaravos regardless of the possession - taking an understood risk for love that leads to the possession, or post-possession due to another form of coercion/susceptibility - and S7 being the Rise. It gives the ominous foreboding of it all, particularly highlighted in S5 / 5x02-5x04 and 5x08 somewhere to go, while also providing Callum with a balanced negative and ultimately positive character arc. It ties in the possession then as a plot element / vehicle to explore their similarities and differences but keeps everything tied together with choices/agency (rather than solely removing it), which is what Viren and Callum have both reaffirmed ("No choice? You made the choice you always have" etc) in S5 in particular. It also explains why and how all these forces - the parallels, the patterns, both their individual arcs, and their connections to Aaravos, his plans, and the possession plot line could be brought to fruition, and why they've all been included.

[atopvisenyashill]

not an f&b aegon ii fan, not a hotd aegon ii fan, but a secret third thing (a fan of the aegon ii that only exists in my mind)

[pierog]

i hate my doggys name i wanna rename him while hes only a few months old. is that insane. i dont wanna be like 40 with a dog whose name i dont like. but like man i didnt even know the guy when i got him at 10 weeks!! genuinely can someone from dogblr talk me through with this. also give me potential name suggestions.

hes soo cute i love this guy

[lvllns]

odysseus in this musical like “please don’t make me kill the infant” like my good dude you are the one who launches astyanax off the wall in most of versions of the mythos

[illmoraineakoi]

This is the funniest goddamn charm I've made yet.

[sobecomesomethingelse]

maybe paige’s god’s name should be vaughan, since one could make the argument that vaughan was the seed of the wound tree

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

I’ve taken to playing every RPG as essentially Bertie Wooster and it has vastly improved my experience (anxiety about making “correct” choices goes way down if you decide at the outset that your metric for success is just to be a silly little guy)

[sameteeth]

the flint coming out/silvers worst possible reaction convo is one of the few times we actually see flint like. uncomfortable? or nervous i guess? when silver says he doesn't think the pattern of flint's closest person/partner dying will apply to him because of recent events, flint's response ("it is .. natural for men new to power to assume that it has no limits. trust me - it does.") seems strange. he doesn't argue against seeking out his own tragedies as he did before, or deny the pattern, or tell silver to stop blaming him for the deaths of his partners. he tells silver he isn't as powerful as he might feel at that moment. he's defensive, thrown off-balance by the vulnerability of sharing his most guarded heart and secret, only for silver to throw it back in his face. this conversation is significant for a number of reasons, but one of which is that it highlights flint's devotion to silver (he tells silver he is Entitled to the truth) and silver's reticence to genuine connection with flint. he tells flint he's sorry, but then ruthlessly points out a pattern he sees as a potential danger to him. silver is STILL acting in his own self interest here, almost defensively, whereas flint has given himself entirely over to silver. what happens makes me think of this post - flint has such personal authenticity, he KNOWS what he stands for, he has cast his lot, his narrative is fixed, that he is able to give his truth to silver. whereas silver is still playing at both sides. his identity has coagulated into silver, but he's not Long John Silver yet. he doubts this war, he doubts flint and madi's motivations. why expose a weakness when there's no need? all he sees of flint's confession is a potential threat to him. and then there's flint's response in the face of silver coolly explaining why he will survive flint's self-inflicted tragedy, a weak attempt at silver's feelings of strength, a defensive response to what flint perceives to be an attack from silver.. which silver IMMEDIATELY overturns with his stunt with dobbs, using the men as pawns in his dance with flint, proving to flint that silver is strong, that silver will survive flint. that silver will hurt flint. and all flint has to offer is an uncertain but (to me) very genuine attempt at comfort in the face of silver's ironclad defense of his own strength. that even if they agree silver has such powerful influence over the men, flint can still stand with him, against him if they have to.

[permanentreverie]

finished the first two episodes!

[mikurulucky]

I kinda wanted to try and start a new Tomodachi Life save file, but I don't want to delete my current one on my 3DS, so off to Citra I go!

Funnily, when I gave Johan's mii his name, the game pronounces it like it's pronounced in the French version with a j sound lol. So ya have to use the pronunciation setting in order for it to be pronounced in the usual way.

Though in my attempt at making him in Tomodachi Collection, I just stuck with the French pronunciation for him and Peewit. His French pronunciation kinda feels more natural to me when transliterating it into Japanese and I feel like Peewit's French name, Pirlouit, would be a bit easier to adapt into Japanese.

[sweet-sexy-small]

It’s the giant ass water jug for me folks

[inkskinned]

okay :)

i had gotten a dog, so the dog was a factor. dogs have to be the right size and shape. under 50 pounds. please see our restricted breeds list. he sleeps most of the time, a well-behaved menace. he's big because i'm single in the city and it gets dark here early - but i've had to trade that sense of safety for scrambling-for-housing.

cheerfully i report that i live in a hole! because humor, like vicks, soothes what-is-horrible. the windows are painted shut. the fridge sometimes just shuts off for no reason. there are only 2 working stove burners and they're not in the front. for some reason, rust is everywhere, no matter whether it makes sense for an area to rust. the door in the bathroom has a very badly-patched hole; white-yellow stark against the bad cherry vinyl.

okay. it's what i can afford. the pamphlet had said new england nepenthes(TM) apartments: a beautiful place to grow up. and yes, it's ground-floor, which isn't ideal. so we (my dog and i) have successfully secured the door with one of those big prybars that are 50 dollars. also i usually balance something heavy near any possible entrances - i want to be awake when they fall. you know, during the break-in.

for the first four months, i didn't notice. there had been so much to do in those four months. okay, our (okay, my, he doesn't pay rent) kitchen is literally four tiles wide and undivided from the other spaces. the dining room and office are also the living room (which is. also the kitchen). my bed is too big for the bedroom; i can either have it weirdly against the wall with a door (horrible) or i have to give up opening my closet all the way.

my mama raised me on martha stewart, so. it's quiet here, i love the location, and even if it's rundown, i can make it work. i buy peel-and-stick reusable wallpaper that has long lines to make it look like everything is taller. i move the plants around, trying to get them into the most sun. i put up shelves and hope that i'll have enough spackle later to cover up the worst mistakes i've made with the nail gun. and hey! the location. like the pamphlet said: a beautiful place to grow up.

it's in the middle of putting up our new wrought iron plant holders. i have adhd, time when i'm focused can pass ephemerally. oh shit, i realize. it's 9:30 in the evening. i am probably keeping people awake with all the drilling. fuck. my bad. i tilt an ear upstairs, waiting. nobody slamming the floor with a broom. nobody shouting. maybe quiet hours are at 10 and they're just waiting.

the holders are real wrought iron because my plants weigh a lot. i press the last one above my head, against the pilot holes. now i feel bad about the time. i should just wrap up this last one i'm attaching and then go to bed. if i wait, i'll forget in the morning. distracted, i look down to where i've left the screws on my desk (which is often also my dining room table and art station), and, as if the wall spat the screws out, the iron slips out of my grasp and cracks me hard against my nose before tumbling down to the floor.

fuck.

one of the worst things about living alone is when you get hurt. sparks jump in front of me. my eyes start tearing. fuck! i've broken my nose before, this feels like that. fuck fuck fuck. maybe it's not broken?

i have to hobble off the stool, trying to hold my nose while also not wanting to touch it. i do the first adult thing i can think of - call a bigger adult.

hey mama. i pant into the phone. no worries but how do i know if i broke my nose?

30 minutes later, we have decided it hurt but if i don't have a black eye, the nose is fine. it was already out of alignment anyway. i say the whole sordid story to her, and then i add i just feel bad i lost track of time, it's weird none of my neighbors complained.

as soon as i hang up, i hear the upstairs neighbors, with their quiet feet and soft, muffled voices. i hear people to the right and left of me. i hear them murmuring to each other. someone watches bad tv, i can hear the reality show music-to-dramatic-shouting.

i put ice on my face. i google nose break again just to be sure. i ask my dog if he thinks i look ugly, he responds by putting his three paws into the air and asking for a tummy rub. as part of our nightly ritual, i examine and worry about his amputation, even though it's completely healed up. i still do the physical therapy exercises with him. just in case. just to keep him warmed up.

later in bed, i am reaching to turn on gentle rain for white noise before i realize - huh. i think this evening is the first time i've ever actually heard anyone.

you ever have a thought that gets inside of you? i mean, yeah. of course you do, i guess all thoughts are inside you. but once in a while, don't you get one of those haha funny! thoughts that turns. bad. you know, when you've watched a scary movie and close the laptop and think it's not likely there's a killer in there, but have i ever really checked that deeply in the kitchen sink?

i was always the type to check. just in case. to put my mind at ease.

the thought is there when i wake up, like i'd had it for a while: i never actually see anyone coming and going.

the apartment complex is 12 buildings, staggered like spokes on a clock. i live in 6, the furthest from the road. we are spaced unevenly, but when i first saw it, i thought huh. what a nice quiet community. the grass is green and there are never any leaves. i've never seen someone come mow it. there are cars here, plenty. when was the last time you counted which cars are in the communal lot?

isn't it weird how you're always able to snag that one last spot?

i keep weird hours, is all. i laugh at the thought of it. there was a post on tumblr once that asked how long would it take you to realize the building was entirely empty. but it can't be empty, right? at night, when i can see into other people's apartments, i catch sight of the thousand ways other people decorate. blue LED lights or tapestries or nice curtains. so it is silly to think about that post, when i know other people are here. this is someone else's home.

i mention it to my sister when she comes over to help me move the couch purposelessly around before we both decide it was better where i'd originally had it. nobody, like, lives here. i say. it's weird. i've been here for five months, and i don't see anyone.

she shrugs. maybe it's too expensive for the area, or not really advertised enough. maybe most people my age keeping my hours don't like to live in apartments. who is to say.

after that, the shadows start. my dog and i go on our nighttime walk, and then i see the apartments come to life. the flickered silhouettes of them. the flash of tvs and laptops. the gauzy shape of others just-far-enough i can't quite make out their form. they walk away from the windows if i get close enough.

they must not know how to do it right. every third day, the animations repeat.

oh, i get it. i think. i'm living in a horror novel.

i'm cuban. my culture can be superstitious, yes. but it also means that i have been taught to keep my head on a swivel. we do not fuck with this shit. we do not oujia board the spirits for fun. we do not make a joke about the killer. we do not ever tempt fate, her ears are open-and-listening.

my lease is for one year. it's been five months, that's not that much longer. i can't afford to break it (or to move) at the moment. and, again, the dog factor. and i do love the location.

but once it is obvious, it is so obvious. i try to pay my rent by check just the once, but when i swing by the rental office, the whole floor of the building is dark. there is no cheerful team of realtors, only a single dark panel over door. due to unexpected circumstances, we are currently operating elsewhere. i go online and pay there instead.

no one here hosts parties. the mail truck never seems to come to any of the other buildings. my dog doesn't like going near certain places. i discover a 5-foot radius where my phone will always hang up on the person i'm talking with, even if i have service.

i watch carefully, while also pretending i am not watching. i check my mail, waiting for the electricity bill that never comes calling. in the front hall, amazon packages come with names too smudged for me to ever quite read. sanchez, maybe. then, to the same apartment a week later: tawny reed. it's different again the third week. i stop looking, feeling like i'm prying.

i mention how quiet it is here during the day to one of my bosses, and then the upstairs neighbor appears. her alarm goes off when mine does, almost like an echo. when i change my song, it takes her a few days to keep up. i had said something offhand about how i'm the only one with a dog. then, upstairs - the little patter of dog paws.

at night, i start seeing people on my dog walking route. they pace, insubstantial, something black at the end of their lead. their waving arms always bent at right angles, like they are figuring out how to navigate being 3D. i always wave back, cheerfully. i keep my headphones in. they are over there in the mist that-does-not-belong, and i am over here in the light-that-flickers-on-and-off. i do not need to make a scene about this. there are many reasons people might dissolve into nothing. it is not any of my business.

the upstairs girl smokes. i see her with her (pomeranian? poodle?) little rat-rabbit-dog (? dog in the loosest sense of the word), her legs up on the stoop. she always goes inside when i show up to our building, after giving me one of those straight side-to-side waves. i can never quite make out her features. she won't be there when i leave for our walk, but she'll be there when we get back, no matter how long my walk takes. she watching me, her eyes dark. she sits there, smoking, wearing galaxy-print leggings. the little dog running near her. (sometimes the dog is not there, until i look again, and it is. i must have just missed it, or maybe it was hiding under one of the trim little bushes. not my concern, whatever it is.)

i know she smokes, i can see the red glow and smell it on the air after. but there are no places to dispose of the butts and she never leaves behind any litter. so she must be careful with them, which i appreciate. cigarettes are bad for the environment. i am in no place to judge someone for their vices anyway. during the day, sometimes i hear her dog (a corgi? a terrier?) whine, this thin, reedy sound, like someone gasping for breath. like someone buried alive. a howl like dread. sometimes it even sounds human; garbled and anxious, bow wow wow warping into help help help.

but i'm sure my dog whines when i'm gone, too. i will not report her for this, because it's not her fault. and i don't want to get her in trouble. after all, we all love our dogs so much.

when i write a request for maintenance to help me with ants, i get a bounce-back error. three days later, we wake up, and a sea of dead ant bodies litter my carpet. an inch deep, they float on each other's backs, a black blanket.

i vacuum them up. i feel bad about their little ant souls. i tell them i am sorry. i will light a candle. i tell myself - this is no different than calling an exterminator. to remove yourself from the process is an act of careful self-duplicity - we would have been killing the ants another way, and just anticipating someone else handle the transaction.

how do i call someone about this? i cannot break the lease because i think the others here are ghosts. or my other theory: maybe the whole thing is a carnivore, and i am in the belly, already beginning to rot.

we cannot afford to move, it's only been six months. the heat and the lights stay on. i never invite others over. it feels wrong. we are alone here, the way we should be alone here. this is our place, for me and my dog and the rest of us. we are supposed to be here. we are supposed to live here, in this little hole-in-the-ground apartment.

we are not under any form of threat, anyway. i light candles and say the prayers our father taught us. we keep our distance from the mist ones, and adopt their way of waving, side-to-side. it is starting to look less like a wave and more like beckoning. come on, come on. something keeps us locking our door. we put up more wrought iron, even after it hit us so hard-on-the-face, which wasn't fun, and was very mean. maybe we should take it down - except i know it was so much effort to put up. oh the tub leaks and the freezer has begin to lock while it's shut. our boss says we look pale these days. we blame insomnia. it's just that it's so quiet here, sometimes. we like to make ourselves go very-quiet too, like a mouse. and then we turn that horrible white-noise machine on. we are so strange; we push salt down the drains and into our doorways, which is a waste and a bad thing to do. we do not look into the electricity problem. we fix the lightbulb without complaint. we do not send in new notices to maintenance, even when the rust on the walls starts running. we get fabulosa and scrub everything. we do not make a fuss. when our neighbors that have-no-jaw open the door for us, we keep our eyes on our dog and say thank you! and make polite small-talk. when they garble their responses let your welcome out, (no throat but the sound's so loud?)-we say haha yeah and scoot by the cold spot. we help others get their groceries out of the car even though the bags smell rotten. we do not use the basement laundry room with the single pale yellow lightbulb, even though it is so friendly and warm and free; we drive elsewhere for that, which might be lazy of me. whenever we leave, we take our dog, even though he would be fine alone, surrounded by the strange creep of rust. we are kind, and not frenzied. isn't that strange? shouldn't we be frenzied? there have been so many odd things here, shouldn't we be reacting? instead we sit in our apartment and say, casually - oh, i'm fine. how fun! how interesting. are we waiting for something? if we're waiting, which of us is hiding and which of us is hunting? we count our days on the lease - six months left! we can grow to enjoy it here. it has its quirks, but hey. sometimes staying for the location is reason-enough.

and we love it here. it's a beautiful place to grow up.

i've seen enough horror movies starring upper-middle-income white families stuck in spacious haunted mansions. gimme stories about millennials stuck in haunted studio apartments. consider the realism:

why is this protagonist staying in an obviously haunted building despite the glaring warning signs? because a week at a motel would send them spiraling into credit card debt, they'll take their chances with the vengeful spirits. why did they chose this apartment complex to begin with, despite the many many unexplained mysterious deaths that show up on the first page of a google search? hon some of us don't have the credit score to move away from high (paranormal) crime areas. how could i be so careless as to sign a soul-binding contract with a demonic entity? bitch they're called LANDLORDS

[binary5tar1117]

I dont care what people on insta are saying, hinlove is cute! NewBeat was too but it has the name of the company in it, they don't normally do that. Should ateez still be kq fellaz?? Pretty sure tons of companies and groups have done that before.