#so i am expecting people to read too much

[coffeeghoulie]

Mushy May Day 17: Hugs

Mushy May put together by the lovely @forlorn-crows <3

Swiss struggles with needing to be useful in the downtime between tours. Aether does his best to help. No warnings, 800 words.

divider by @ghuleh-recs <3

Aether is always happy to be home after the end of a tour. As much as he loves what he’s been brought to the surface to do, it’s always a relief to be stagnant for a while. Not have much expected of him outside of infirmary work with Omega. To sleep in his and Dew’s actual, proper bed with space to stretch his legs.

The Cardinal’s new ghouls get to learn such reliefs, and Aether smiles when Cumulus shows up late to breakfast with her hair messy and frizzy from sleep. When Rain comes in from a day in and out of the lake. When Cirrus brings books back from the library and spends an entire day reading through the stack.

Swiss, however, is a different story.

He has a visibly hard time adjusting back to life off of the road. He’s not standoffish or lashing out anymore, but he’s restless, desperately throwing himself wherever he thinks he may be needed. Doesn’t stop moving, working. He begs Aether to train him on working in the infirmary the moment Aether deems him acceptable with his quintessence magic. Aether even catches him in the band’s practice rooms working through the setlist they’d just spent months playing nearly every night.

He, very gently, takes the guitar from Swiss’s hands, his claws cracked and blunt from using his hands so much, and puts it away. “Sparkler, come back to the den with me?” Aether whispers, helping Swiss to his feet. “We don’t need to work ourselves to the bone, we don’t need to earn rest.”

Swiss’s ears pin back to his head, jingling the new gold earrings the pack had gotten him during the last weeks of tour. “I- I need to be useful,” he shrugs. He says it so casually too, it makes something in Aether’s chest sting.

He knows, though he doesn’t know any of the big details, that something had happened to Swiss before he’d met the multighoul. Many things had happened. Even the summoning had nearly killed him, but Aether knows about that. He doesn’t know what happened before, and he doesn’t want to push.

Aether pulls Swiss to his feet, doesn’t let go of his hand. Tries to radiate comfort. He smooths a thumb over the back of his hand. “We were summoned for the Project. And when the Mouthpiece goes to speak to the people, that is when they need us. But the tour is over, and you did such a good job on your first tour, spark, but the tour is over, so they don’t need us to perform right now.”

Swiss nods. “Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m trying to help-”

Aether cuts him off by pulling him into a hug. Swiss goes tense and stiff, breathing hitching, and Aether almost lets him go before Swiss completely melts into it with a keen. Goes completely boneless in his arms, and if Aether had any less notice, he’d be scared he wouldn’t be able to catch him.

For what it’s worth, Aether holds him, solid and supportive. Swiss wraps his arms tight around him and buries his face in the crook of Aether’s neck, and he can feel the hot, shaky puffs of breath against his skin. When Aether inhales, his lungs fill with the sweet, spicy and almost herbal scent he’s come to associate with one of the newest members of his pack.

“We have to rest, too,” Aether whispers in his ear. “I was excited to get to know you outside of the Project, you know?”

Swiss chirps, a soft, curious sound that Aether hasn’t heard him make before. He doesn’t pull back from the crook of Aether’s neck.

“Yeah. I was. I still am. Can’t do that if I can’t find you, sparkler,” Aether whispers. He doesn’t make the conscious choice to, but he realizes slowly that he’s rocking Swiss gently where they stand. He tightens his hold on the multighoul, and Swiss starts to purr, shaky and quiet but undeniable.

“There we go, spark. Think you needed this,” Aether whispers, rubbing his back through his shirt.

“I- uh- hah-” Swiss laughs a little nervously before relaxing into Aether’s arms again. “I think so too.”

“I’m more than happy to give you this whenever you need it, Swiss,” Aether whispers. “But for now, come back to the den with me?”

“Yeah,” Swiss breathes. “Can- can I lay down with you when we get there? If Dew’s not too mad about that?”

Aether chuckles, chuffing low in his throat. “He’s not gonna be mad, spark. In fact, he might even want to join us.”

“That’d be nice,” Swiss whispers. His breathing has slowed, arms still tight around Aether’s chest. He can’t help himself but turn and press a soft kiss to his temple.

“Are you ready to go back to the den, spark?” Aether asks.

Swiss takes a deep breath. “Yeah, Aeth. Please take me home?”

Aether grins. “It would be my pleasure.”

[blue-marbles]

I finally got the time to reply to this. The post got far more replies than I thought; thank you for all your input on the topic! Instead of replying to everyone individually I will tag this onto the longest thread of discussion, for simplicity’s sake, but I read all of your replies.

So the broad consensus seems to be that Mandos give a shoes off indoors vibe, and “The Mandalorians: People and Culture” explicitly agrees with that. (I know the article, but I always keep forgetting it exists.) However, as @bardan-jusik points out, they don’t always seem to actually do that in the books (vor’e for looking it up!). So much for what the source material is giving us.

Now, from a cosplayer point of view, folks brought up the aspect of practicality. It very much depends on your beskar’gam and how many/which plates/which boots you got on your feet and lower legs how easy it is to take them off. I wonder though if that is easier solved in-universe. While we have to work with 21st century earth options, e.g. strap systems, velcro, etc. for putting on the plates, the Mandos in universe have fancy space tech, with the plates just attaching to their set spot on the flak-vest/undersuit. We also know from the Republic Commando books that at least the undersuit of the Katarn class armour can be easily unsealed segment by segment, but is vacuum tight when sealed. No idea how it works, but whatever technology they use for that could potentially also be used to easily open and close boot fastenings and make them easier to take off. Whatever these technologies are, they don’t seem to be sensitive to EMP grenades. Imagine, somebody throwing an EMP grenade at you, and all your armour just falls off, and parts of your clothes unseal. That would be… unfortunate.

Then, a lot of people agreed that it probably also depends on where you are and how safe you feel. Safety of your own home? Shoes can come off. Home of a person you don’t fully trust? Shoes stay on. Combat zone? Shoes definitely stay on. Absolutely makes sense.

It made me wonder though what the implications might be amongst Mandos. (So not Mandos visiting some aruetiise, or aruetiise visiting Mandos, but Mandos visiting the home of other Mandos.) Given that Mandalorians seem to be considered shoes-off in legends canon, keeping yours on might have implications. It shows that you don’t trust your host, that you are expecting trouble, or even plan on causing trouble. So I guess it might be a very passive-aggressive move and be frowned upon. I guess it might be a bit like how handshakes evolved as a way of showing that you do not hold a weapon: You could take your boots off to show that you are not here to cause trouble. @lia-said-clone-rights had some really good input on those ideas, too. It is not in the thread I am replying to, but y’all can find it in the reblogs.

I also found your input, @skierunner, super interesting, both in regards to the military pov, and also the travel trailer thing. I like the idea that inside Mando homes, there might be more nuances of where to maybe wear boots and where to definitely not. Though I’d say it also depends on the state of your boots. If you walked around in a more or less urban environment, paved roads, maybe a bit of dust on your boots it might be an entirely different matter compared to your boots being covered in mud, undefined space goo, and blood. And I think regular cleaning/sweeping/mopping makes a lot of sense for Mandos, too.

Now, I want to add something from my own experience. I am in archaeology. On dig-sites, I have to wear S3 safety boots for safety reasons. Depending on the situation, we also might wanna wear a helmet, and most of the time you also will wear gloves. While what we actually try to achieve is totally different to what soldiers do, obviously, I do see parallels. We walk around in different, possibly unpaved terrain, sit around in trenches, and depending on what we do, we might even lie down flat in the dirt. From my experience, my boots get extremely dirty. I would not enter my home (or anybody’s, really) wearing them. I do not even enter our mudroom with them, take them off in front of the front door. There have even been days when I walked along my road barefoot because I felt bad about literally leaving a muddy trail. But thinking about this made me realise that Mando might not just have dirty boots, depending on what they were doing, but dirty armour in general. Now I wonder how that is being handled. You might not wanna put your mud-smeared bum on your buir’s couch, I guess. On digs, I usually use a horse brush to brush down my clothes before going home. The dirtiest non-boot areas are usually the knees, the buttocks, and the palms/fingers.

So in summary: It probably depends on were you are, how safe you feel, how much time you got, what social message you want to send, and how dirty you are. If you have the option because those factors are right, you take them off though. Also, I guess while never specifically described, Mandos might commonly have some sort of mud-room, including some option to store your boots, or to brush them/the rest of you down.

Lastly, I had the idea that Mandos might have some sort of armoured slipper/house shoes situation. Keeps your feet warm, but also offers at least some protection. I imagine something like “Hüttenschuhe”. I tried to find a good English term for them, but failed. Literally translates to hut shoes. They are a type of house shoe that originated from hikers/mountaineers in the Alps. They are designed to be easily stored and carried when hiking, are warm, easy to put on/off, and are also shaped in a way that makes them sit securely on your feet so you can, e.g. climb up ladders, or even run. Now, imagine putting some sort of armour on them and only wearing them indoors. Like beskar'gam they come in fun colours. Might be an option if you want the protection but not the dirt of your outdoor boots.

I am trying to sleep, but I can't because my mind is stuck on one question:

Are Mandalorians a shoes on or shoes off culture when they are at someone's/their home?

Let me elaborate. As you probably know, in some cultures, you take off your outdoor shoes once you enter a private living space (not a store, or public building, etc.). In others, you seem to commonly keep your shoes on. And in some, it seems to be more of a case-by-case thing.

But what do Mandalorians do?

Boots do belong to beskar'gam, and beskar'gam is very important, culturally. The mental image of people hanging out in full armour but in socks is a bit weird, too. And in case something happens, you want to be ready and not have an entire aliit hurry to put boots on, right?

But then again, that somehow does not feel right. I cannot put my finger on why, though. I guess it might be both my own background as a firm 'no shoes in homes' person, but also the fact that, doing what they do, their boots would probably be rather dirty. Like, imagine the dirt you'd bring back in with you. Just as if you went hiking and came in with your dirty shoes. So, from that angle, it might make sense for them to actually take off their shoes.

The worst thing is, it is not even relevant. I am not working on any fic, or picture, or whatever I would need that information for. It is just a random thing my brain decided to latch on. And since I can't decide on what makes more sense:

Which one do you think is it? What makes more sense considering Mandalorian culture? Are there maybe even snippets of text that I can't remember that support either one or the other? Any thoughts, anyone?

[lin-sterling]

DRIP POST 2: E for Everyone Edition

this time it's not a remake per se, it's a re-release lol. this time with handy-dandy item codes to enable you - yes, you! - to partake in my fashion obsession.

simply click on the name of the outfit and it will take you to my godforsaken google doc and show you the codes for that outfit. should show up at the top of the page (give it a sec). hopefully I haven't borked anything.

let me know if there are any issues.

drip post 3 is being cooked as we speak but it will take some time.

IMPORTANT

you need to install some mods

you need to enable the console

don't paste an entire cell of codes into the console, they'll get cut off and you won't get all the items. copy and paste about 2-3 lines at a time

my document has the necessary info but I'm also providing instructions under the cut.

there's an overlap between some outfits so you might get several copies of one item. in this case just yeet them on the floor and let some bum pick them up. or sell them. who am I to tell you what to do.

↓↓↓

the console:

right-click on KCD2 in your Steam library

choose 'Properties'

select 'Launch Options'

put -devmode in the launch options

launch the game and press the tilde (~) key

use ctrl+c and ctrl+v to copy and paste the codes, then just hit enter

the mods:

Refined Garments

Outer Garments

Custom Clothing and Armor

More flower wreaths (there's one outfit that needs this for now but there might be more later)

the drip:

Henry

Black Knight v1, cuirass inside

this is MY HENRY, iconic outfit, never gonna give you up never gonna let you down

2. Black Knight v2, cuirass outside

3. Guardian Angel

my Henry doesn't usually go for white or silver, he's black&gold kind of guy, but I decided we need one outfit

4. Trosky Traveller (before the waspening)

not fully happy with this outfit but it's already err a historical one, I've already gone through Trosky wearing it so I won't retcon it haha

5. THE WASPENING

same shit here, it's a piece of my playthrough history now. weird, bright yellow history

6. Leipa Simp

and now I make new history

7. Bluebell

wasn't expecting this one, it just sort of happened and I weirdly like it

8. Shifty Fella

is he trying to steal your wallet? is his back hurting? why not both!

9. Horse Thief

up to no good this guy. steal your heart, steal your horse, get 60 groschen for his trouble... wait, horse industry is a scam!

10. Armed and Armoured Robbery

can't shoot straight because he's on his way to bisexual awakening

11. Mushroom Enthusiast

those mushrooms won't gather themselves, you know! *cronch*

12. Falconer

all hail the birbs

13. Noble Bastard

when you need something fancy but not too difficult to pull off

14. Night Reader

casual comfy outfit with optional reading glasses. read a nice book at 3 am and watch your boyfriend as he sleeps!

15. Dubious Doctor

impersonating a medical professional during "Fifth Commandment"

16. Reverse Ball and Chain

when you miss a fucker so much you start wearing his colours. except the yellow gambeson you've found had aggressively magenta belts and you had to reverse the order of colours. I figured clown shoes were appropriate in this situation

17. That Mine Is Mine

impersonating a rich fuck during "Via Argentum". rich people wear golden armour, right?

note: actually wearing armour while talking to Buresh is not recommended. apparently it makes you look like a homeless vagabond lol

18. Red Wedding

this wedding also ended in a bloody mess

19. Nostalgic

kcd1 starting outfit colours but now Henry can afford better clothes

20. Dandelion Dance

what a surprise, more yellow shit

Pebbles and her codes are gonna be in the reblog

↓↓↓

[myechoecho]

The Prisoner of Beauty, ep 12-13

The cousin is such loathsome character. And a traitor to the Wei clan as he is the mole that other state has planted.

Wei Shao was so uncomfortable in the brothel. Very definitely out of his element. And when he got home, really didn't want Xiao Qiao to know. Though I think if he had just said he went to meet his cousin, given what Xiao Qiao knows about his cousin she would have been okay with it?

I love how he explains to her that while Wei Yan is his cousin, she his wife. He wants to hear from her too and doesn't totally blindly trusts his cousin. Though he does trust him too much.

The canal talk was really interesting. Because he's right, the main reason she suggests extending it is to take pressure off of her clan. But regardless of her underlying reasons for that, it would be of great benefit to the Wei people in that region. While I have not been playing close attention to much of the political talks, it has been made very clear about drought and famines in multiple regions. Having access to water would mean crops could grow.

He should not have told Wei Yan about reading Xiao Qiao's letters (or have let him read them).

As I suspected, Wei Yan is going to try to cause strife. First with the jade piece and now with him deliberately letting out the fact that Wei Shao has been intercepting her letters.

Which honestly, she should have expected this. If I am remembering right, he did this after the flag incident. Regardless even it was before it makes sense that he would.

And as we see later in the episode she does understand that part of it; she's more upset that Wei Yan read them. When it comes to her and his family, he can fully trust and have her back. However, when it comes to politics, he really can't trust her. She's also proven that she cannot quite be trusted given what happened with the flag.

I do have to laugh at how he is genuinely worried about facing her wrath to the point that he feigns sleep.

The whole sequence was funny but she does go a little far with hitting him with the scroll and calling his name (which I don't quite get but I know its a cultural thing). Then she insults him and throws the scroll at the door so he turns back and she really knows it as a step too far. Still does not stop her form doing it again when he leaves.

Poor Wei Shao. He expected praise when he told her he made the decision to extend the canal. She does not give an inch.

Again, Lady Yulou is highly suspicious. She probably did cause the temple to collapse and kill all those people somehow.

I love that Xiao Qiao was completely unfazed by the information that Wei Shao and Lady Yulou were engaged. No, she is immediately suspicious of her Lady Yulou and her reasons for coming which have nothing to do with Wei Shao romantically.

[ao3scrapesearch]

hi so, thanks to your tool i was able to figure out that every fic ive ever posted onto ao3 (from 2015 to recent, aside from three fics this last month i just posted) were all scraped, and its absolutely horrifying to me to know my works are being used in this way. this is hundreds of thousands of words of time, and is over 90% of all of the writing ive ever shared online, spread over multiple accounts and fandoms and im just feeling- so dejected. i know youre not an advice blog or anything, and i really appreciate the work youve done to help people find this information. im just curious- do you have any advice when it comes to dealing with this knowledge? i dont want to delete my fics and take them from people who enjoy them, and i want to continue to write and see others read my works. but its just so dejecting knowing what theyre being used for now. that i dont have any control over what is done with my own passion projects because some company can show up and just take it and use it in some environment-poisoning misinformation machine

I wasn't expecting to be ASKED for advice when I made the blog! But I give it my best shot for you guys when I can.

So to ME, it's a bit reassuring to see that the data isn't like. Amazingly collected, if that makes sense. If I were looking for a dataset to generate good writing, a huge thing I would want is a way to know what readers actually liked. For the record, having a low hit or kudos count or whatever does not mean your fic isn't good! (You can have a low hit count because your fandom isn't big or because you're not tagging your fic in a way to help the right people discover it, but the fic can still be amazing.) BUT if I were an outsider not looking to actually read the fics, just figure out what about the writing makes people like them, the top thing I'd be looking for is the stats like the hits, kudos, comments, and bookmarks. Nyuuzyou intentionally tried to exclude that data, which is... an interesting decision.

The choice of forum is telling, too. They chose to upload on Hugging Face, which is for AI hobbyists, not corporate models. These are people like you and me, just doing this as a hobby for fun, and it's pretty unlikely they'll ever create something they can sell from this. Yes, they're killing the environment with it, which I hate, but they're doing it on a much smaller scale than any of the commercial names in AI. Very similar to how you can post a fic and even get tens of thousands of hits and tons of positive interactions, but that doesn't mean you also publish traditional novels and make tens of thousands of dollars.

Again, for me, it also helps to remind myself that hey. They're already out there. Even if I take down all 60-ish of my fics that were hit in this scrape, that data is still out there, but if I delete them, it's ONLY out there as a stupid AI-training dataset, and I've cut out my readers entirely. Deleting the ones that were already scraped doesn't un-scrape them, and to me, it feels like letting the scrapers win if they get my writing AND I don't get to share my writing anymore.

For new writing going forward, that's definitely a place to make a personal decision! I've said a couple times I'm going to keep writing and sharing anyway because I love it, but that's not The One Right Way to do things.

I also am in the same boat as I've seen some people in my notes. A lot of my scraped fics were uh. Not my best work. Like I was prolific in 2018 and man... those fics were not super well-written. Text-based GenAI is trained to learn the order words should appear, based on probabilities. So if there's a lot of bad, boring works in there (and there definitely are! we all start out by posting mediocre writing!), that teaches the AI model to write bad, boring sentences. Most of us aren't tagging our fics in a way to tell a computer which fics are like this, so the AI doesn't know which fics are written by beginners who still don't know how to write well or who don't know English very well yet, and at least from what I know, the AI is going to treat those works like they're just as valid as the 100k+ novels we all know and love. All that comes together to make a shitty AI model that no one really wants to use, even if they're otherwise super pro-AI.

I'll round this off with a silly little book recommendation, but this book seriously changed the way I think about life in general and definitely impacted how I was able to take the scraping well enough and focus on being productive about it instead of just upset. The big takeaway from it is that no one can fully control their circumstances, but everyone has the ability to control the way they react to those circumstances. No one can control AI scrapers being scumbags, but we all get to choose how to respond to it happening.

[milfbrainrot]

i feel like i type so much more than is reasonable when i do talk to people but i also don't get to socialize a ton so i just have soooo many words in me and if i'm like, tired or short on time, it is so much harder to restrain to the already-pushing-it point i can sometimes manage ;-;

[egophiliac]

OMG EGO HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOOK 7 CATER CARD YET

80s britpunk Cater is such an incredible direction to take. his Sid Vicious jacket! his little british police cap! I wouldn't have anticipated that going full-on Sex Pistols would be his alternate self but it is SO fitting actually. 😭

(also th-the crown symbol?! the gavel?! is housewarden Cater real because I will TRANSCEND --)

[hermidetta]

yuri is tilting her chin. sharp, brilliant lilacs find two colorless clouds. lilacs see her—maybe even really see her—and somehow, despite her signature avoidance in all things confrontational, bernadetta finds herself frozen, wide-eyed, unable to tear her attention away from theirs with the faintest tremor of her lower lip.

the people she loves always seem to do this. dorothea earlier, and yuri right now—they take the bernadetta who shuts herself down and lowers her head, they catch the point of her chin and show her it's okay to keep it high. they show her it's safe, that maybe—just maybe—it isn't so normal to expect a swift strike. maybe it isn't normal to defeat herself first, to pummel herself back into the dirt where a weed like her belongs. is it?

maybe it's not. maybe it shouldn't be.

"confidence..." she echoes softly, the word foreign and awkward in her mouth. "smart? ... even kissable? me?"

bernadetta blinks. processes. yuri's hand drops as hers happens to lift, fingertips absently grazing the curve of her lips. a little chapped considering all the worrying she does to it, tooth and nail. but none the wiser to yuri's swirling thoughts, bernadetta is still trying to fathom if not dismiss her very own. if she's good at anything in the world, anything at all, it's that—dismissing herself.

... maybe she shouldn't be.

bernadetta is mired in a web of absurdity, of coincidences and contradictions. she's slow and doesn't know much, doesn't know anything she actually should, right down to class names and even house leaders. she doesn't know that a few things she does casually know should really be some of fódlan's most carefully guarded secrets. all of that, all of this, and somehow she's always been a pinch too observant for her own good. it comes with the penchant for people-watching.

and yuri, she sees, fusses at their collar. bernadetta ogles ahead at their hands, their neck, and their face again while they aren't looking back at her. it's curious. she wants to know what they're thinking, what's budged. are they really and truly okay? is she?

"well..." she starts, gaze flickering to the sand—her head starts to tip again and she catches it, but she still has to swallow with a downward glance. "i guess i can agree with that... that if you think so, it's right. i trust you. so, confidence... o-okay. got it," she nods, more to herself, trying to gather her determination through a thoughtful pout.

but, she opens her big fat clueless mouth to ask without thinking, how can you be so sure that bernie's perfectly kissable if you've never kissed her—

ah.

no; the words don't make it out. it's bernadetta's turn to skid to a halt and and blink at herself, head immediately spinning in the other direction.

she clears her throat. then she babbles breathlessly, mind swerving to get back on its right rails, whatever those may be. "um, but that's hard. how am i supposed to be confident without even practicing? should— should i keep writing murder mysteries? read more romance novels?"

the knife, give it back. she throws her hand onto the blade end because there's no way she'd let them bleed out there alone.

*⚘ crimes one and two

⠀ continued. ⚘ ethereal ball 2025 ⠀

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I came here for the silly haha doodles, but I've stayed for the absolutely blazing commentary in the tags. Your analysis of this story is so so so good! Thanks for all the work and thought you put into this!

I am just a silly little comics blog. I am not hiding anything in the tags, no way. Never.

[deoidesign]

Ray of sunshine

(pre-launch page for their comic)

[bu-blegh-ost]

Gillion and Edyn devastate me because they both love each other so much and desire the same thing, but they both at the same time serve as narrative detriments to one another. This is a tragic story of two siblings aiming to achieve the same goal of reuniting but they end up drifting apart from each other instead.

Edyn thinks she knows Gillion. She is the one to experience first hand the damage done to him, and for the longest time she was the only one Gillion was truly able to connect with. But the truth is Edyn doesn't know her brother anymore. Edyn never got to be a sister. She never got to experience being annoyed with her little brother's antics, she never learned Gill's habits, his routines, what he likes and what he hates. All she got to see was the Child broken by the Cage he resides in. A broken child that needs to be comforted, a child she loves but doesn't understand. And even with all this she knew him best of all. They shared sorrow and suffering for years and the Bond formed from mutual anguish and pain was enough to form a connection and care. All Edyn knew for so long was that she loves her little brother and that she wants to be his sister. A real one, not just the reward, a relief from pain that he Has to earn.

And Gillion thinks he knows Edyn. To him Edyn was the connection to the world itself. To Gillion Edyn is wise, unwavwring and most importantly, always right. She knows what she's doing and of course she does. She Has seen things he Has never seen before and he trusts her unconditianally. He believes she would never ever lie to him, she is the one thing that keeps him grounded in this world, a reminder of why he needs to keep going. But just like Edyn, Gillion doesn't truly know his sister. He doesn't know her aspirations, her hopes, dreams and desires, he knows nothing about her life up to this point and what she's been doing, and it's not for the lack of trying either.

Both Gill and Edyn used to hide a lot from the other to protect their sibling. Just as Gillion would be vague about things he was going through during training, trying to make is seem like he is in much less pain than he truly is to spare Edyn from things she can't prevent, Edyn was hiding the truth about a lot of things from Gillion, including the truth about the lies he Heard from the Elders in fear of Gillion breaking under the weight of his trauma after realizing that all Has been for nothing.

This behavior continued throughout their entire relationship. A pair of people who love and cherish each other more than anything, yet the world keeps creating barriers between them, until there is just so much left unfelt and unspoken they feel the need to create more barriers themselves.

When Gillion finds out just how much Edyn was not telling him, how deep her involvement with the Navy, the Elders, the war, everything is, he is left worried, hopless, hurt and betrayed. But the most prominent feeling of all is guilt. Cause Gillion trusts Edyn with his entire heart, and yet she doesn't trust him back. She thinks he can't handle it, she thinks he can't know things and it's better to hide it from him just like she Has always been doing. She thinks it is better for him, but what she is really doing is making Gillion feel worthless. To Gill, Edyn is always right so she must have a reason. To Gillion Edyn is always right, so if she thinks of him as someone who can't be trusted with a secret, who will end up ruining things for her and getting in the way, then that must be what it is. And he wants to find her, to help her so badly but Edyn accidentally created this paralysing fear inside him that if he does, he is going to be exactly what Edyn thinks of him. And he so desperately doesn't want to be that, doesn't want to be a burden on her life anymore, more than he already is since whatever she is doing she is doing it for him. The least he can do is not get in her way.

And Edyn? She goes off on her own, trying to get Gillion home, but what she doesn't realize is that Gillion doesn't need a home anymore. Gillion found his home here with Jay and Chip. But that is not the home Edyn is fighting for. She fights for Gillion to be able to go back home to the Undersea, but even if she succeeds, this will never be a home to Gillion. Not anymore. There is too much distance, too much damage to repair 17 years of abscence, 17 years without him. There are no parents anymore for Gill, only familiar strangers, and coming back there and realizing just how little there is left for him there and how much he lost will only cause him more pain. But Edyn doesn't realize it. She doesn't know what Gillion wants because she stopped asking long time ago, assumimg it for him instead, believeing he is not capable of making decisions for himself. And maybe that was true before. But it isn't now. Edyn was so caught up in her own idea of Gillion and what he is that she completely missed her little brother growing up and changing. Getting wiser and more capable, drifting away from this portrait of a helpless child she Has gotten used to many years ago. And by neglecting to notice him and see him and hear him out, Edyn didn't realise that by leaving she have deprived him of the only thing Gillion truly wanted- his loving sister. Cause that is all Gillion truly needs. His rock to keep him steady, the only one who understood him, who was there on his worst days when the only thing he could do was break down in her arms. Back when she was the only thing worth lasting another day for. And now that he thought he got her back, that she is safe and sound, she Has ripped herself away from his life once more. This time willingly, and it hurts even more.

Neither of the siblings ever wanted to hurt the other, and yet they hurt each other anyway. Because there were people who made them believe they have to hide to keep the other Safe. And it is so sick and twisted that the two of them trying to keep the other sibling away from more hurt, is the very thing that keeps exposing them both to more danger, heartbreak and pain.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[the---hermit]

Not me adding annotations to a book to make it more accessible for my mom when she will read it

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[itzphynix]

My brain is so full of Bees about Post-Shift 2.

It's a fan game that was delayed for 4 years -- by the time it released, fnaf fangames as a whole were not as popular as they had been, & most people in the scene had forgotten about Post-Shift 1, so not a lot of people heard about it/played it.

Worse still is the people who did talk about the game. Pretty unanimously, the consensus was this: this game is the craziest, most insane fnaf fangame. It's overly difficult with mechanics that have no rhyme or reason to them & tutorials that are wordy, unhelpful, & sometimes actively mislead the player, meaning you need to comb through a lot of text only to be misinformed. It's not as infamous as some other fangames, but it definitely was talked about very poorly.

In general, I think most of these criticisms were blown up out of proportion, but I can't really disagree with most people's problems -- it is difficult & wordy, & rather hard to understand. I think, however, that the game is still 1. Really fun, 2. Not a bad game at all, &, most importantly, 3. Is a free fucking game that was clearly a passion project. Most damn fangames never get off the fucking ground when made in groups because the creators will never make a red cent off the thing -- this game was made by one dude for 4 years & delivered to people for free. It didn't ask anything of you except to accept it as a difficult game & to not go in with wild expectations. The dev just wanted to make a game that was rough, but he also wanted to make a game that felt unique & was fun. & It is fun, too, is the damn thing.

[firestorm09890]

hey it's that anon from the other day about meursault. I am also an autistic individual with low empathy and can therefore only partially sympathize with Meursault. I think that you've done a reading of The Stranger that is very sympathetic and that there is value in that, but I've always read The Stranger as both a story about the absurdity of connection and a story about a Frenchman in colonial Algiers who doesn't understand himself or his own biases. You mention heat stroke but I think it's worth considering: is Meursault's perception of events realiable? Could he be unconsciously struggling with his complicity in oppressive violence against a colonial subject?

You raise very good points. I will be considering this. It’s a bit late to change the wording on that og post though