#those really vague mom recipes

[lavender-linens]

I had a friend over tonight for dinner. We've been planning this for about a month I think. We decided that we would have to get together and make pelmeni, because she is Russian and craves pelmeni. We, of course, decided to bring along the boyfriends. Because why not? Worst that can happen is we need to make them sit on special chairs at the end of the kitchen so that they don't get underfoot. My kitchen is so narrow it is functionally a hallway, and 2 people is pushing the capacity quite a lot.

So my friend arrives. I am, of course, very excited to see her. And we start making things. We start making the filling first. 30 cracks of black pepper and some salt to the meat (half pork, half beef, idk, a poundish each?). I add some allspice for fun. I think my allspice is too old to actually taste like anything. We only stop to think after mixing the meat and seasonings that we need to add the onion.

So I just assign onion-chopping and cooking to the Boyfriend, who is excellent at chopping onions and carefully browning them because he hates big chucks of onion, especially if it's raw. I ask my friend what her mom's recipe for the filling is, and she says "that's it, it's basically just meat and onion." We aren't sure about cooking the onion, we do it anyways. I let her boyfriend inspect my kimchi while Onion Caramelization takes place.

I ask my friend what her mom's dough recipe is. My friend is not going anywhere near making the dough tonight, since she doesn't want to mess it up. No matter, I'm the dough grand master. I am given "my mom says 1 egg and ice water. Oh, and put salt in the water." So I just make dough until I think I have enough. I do not, but we do not know this at the time. The dough is kneaded, we let it rest, and onward to rolling and filling.

We bought a plastic tablecloth to go over the dining room table, and now it's show time! Filling the pelmeni! I, of course, am not too bad at this. Yes, I have only done this once before in my life, but I am the dough master. Russian friend's boyfriend is surprisingly good at the dumpling filling part. This makes sense, he makes dumplings with his Korean grandmother occasionally. We ran out of dough, so I put him to work making new dough. And I get him to knead it for me, mwahahaha!

Sometime before we decide that we need a second batch of dough, we eat the pelmeni. A quick flurry of activity to clean and clear my coffee table into a dining table cause the real table has pelmeni bits on it. I steal the couch cushions and put them on the floor. Bam. Comfy seating. We get to eating. The pelmeni are delicious, especially with the small bit of butter each plate was topped with. There is a variety of seasonings and a simple soy sauce-vinegar dipping sauce. There is sour cream and dried dill. The pelmeni are delicious of course, no raw onion to be found.

I remembered the kimchi, and I get some out for my friend's boyfriend. It's amazing with the pelmeni, although my poor Russian friend has no spice tolerance and almost dies. My Boyfriend dislikes the smell and finds it very unpleasant. That doesn't matter, we're adding it to the next batch of dumplings anyways. I can't wait to try them. Oh and we made jam and fruit dumplings, that was nice.

We had a nice silver needle afterwards (lovely thick mouthfeel and violet candy notes) and plotted tea shop raids and Russian Friend's abduction after a ballroom dance competition.

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Fantasy high headcanons let’s gooooo

Fhjy spoilers, long post so it goes ✨under the cut✨

Weekly sleepovers but that’s a given

Somewhere in one of the rooms in Mordred the Bad Kids all carved their names somewhere

Kristen and Fig have an entire corner of the Mordred living room designated as the ‘Secret Service Corner’

Riz is so good at shoplifting to the point that every time they go shopping Sklonda just keeps shooting glances at Riz’s hands to make sure he isn’t taking something or thinking about taking something

She has an entire pocket of her purse dedicated to distraction fidget toys because he can’t shoplifting if he doesn’t have anything to shoplift with

Fig perfected her screamo voice over the summer before freshman year (yknow the one where she was really pissed at her mom. Yeah that summer)

If Fabian ever needs advice on anything his go tos are Riz and Cathilda

Anytime one of the Bad Kids get a call in the middle of the night they just assume it’s Riz

Adaine is the only one allowed to ignore texts and calls and that’s only because she just uses the Message spell to respond to people

Kristen learned Morse code to talk to Fig in class

Fig does not know Morse code but by Cass she can pretend she does

After dropping out Fig will occasionally just shift into different fake students and drop by the others classes

The party always knows its her but nobody else ever does

The freshman thinks it’s a myth (legendary rockstar who dropped out of the school and is being hunted by the school just randomly shows up to classes she has never been enrolled in even when she did go there) but the seniors keep being like “no I swear to god I saw her at lunch earlier she’s gonna be in my class today I know it”

Agent Clark is always hunting her

Kristen Applebees has POTS and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome because I said so she my special girl

Gorgug has made each of the Bad Kids a playlist

And now for a list of things the party has banned Kristen “dex score of 3” Applebees from doing

Playing on Fabian’s DDR machine

Driving

Baking (cooking is fine though)

Skateboarding

Anything involving putting her on wheels

Juggling (you’d think this wouldn’t be a problem but she did try to once. It did not go well)

Any type of stitches that Riz would be capable of

A lot of Wii games

Just Dance

She also sucks at fantasy Mario Kart but nobody can figure out if it’s the low dex or if she’s just bad at the game

The story of the DDR machine is that once Fig and Kristen challenged each other to a DDR battle to the death and Kristen danced so hard she broke an arm

That was a fun call to Jawbone /s

Adaine once gave Gorgug one of those motivational cat posters except she changed the words to say it’s Gorgug keep going

He genuinely loves it it was one of the things he took with him when he went to go live with Fabian

They’re all neurodivergent because I’m neurodivergent and I said so

Adaine weekly has to take another pair of noise cancelling headphones out of her jacket because Kristen keeps losing hers

Kristen and Adaine are the only two who know how to properly cook

Gorgug is decent at it but he mainly just follows recipes

Riz and Fabian are banned from the kitchen

Fig hasn’t even tried to cook ever everyone knows it wouldn’t end well

Kristen swears she figured out how to make cottage cheese ice cream

She just froze cottage cheese and called it a day

Riz is constantly on hire by Fig to find Bobby Dawn

He found him like a day after he was hired (Bobby Dawn really isn’t that smart) and he told Fig exactly where he was but she just keeps vaguely bothering him

Her goal is to make him think he’s haunted

Riz refuses to take free money from Fabian so Fabian just keeps paying him insane amounts to do the easiest things

1000 gold pieces to make him 1 cup of coffee

Adaine figured out how to do the whole eyes rolling back and glowing thing on command so when someone pisses her off she just casts fly on herself does that says random words and then casts scatter on the person who pissed her off

They all love shrimp and they all love cottage cheese but they absolutely resolutely agree that combined they are fucking terrible

Aguefort does an “everyone gets a a familiar” day

Riz picks a fox

Kristen gets 5 snakes. People try to tell her she only gets one familiar but who is going to argue with the most talented cleric like ever wielding 5 snakes

Fabian picks a parrot and gives him a little eyepatch

Gorgug picks a straight up fucking bear

[girlscoutbrownies]

sbg headcanons!

(i had to put a title because it keeps just showing up as “aiden” in my notifs)

some of my favourite school bus graveyard headcanons! (in celebration of 101 followers) some are mine, some belong to other people that i’ve taken as well

these got really, really long so ill split it into two parts: aiden, tyler, and taylor for this post and ashlyn, ben, and logan will be in the next

——

aiden

(bit of a tw for disassociation around the end)

- uses he/any pronouns, he mostly doesn’t give a fuck. also doesn’t care if you stick to he/him because he likes it. he also tries out mirror pronouns every once in a while and flipflops between any

- unlabelled energy. also doesn’t care abt that type of stuff, but he’s asexual and it takes him a while to grow feelings. he’s afraid of letting people close to him but it really doesn’t matter to him, not that much. he’s pretty apathetic about it

- generally smells like shittily applied cedarwood cologne. it’s one of those cheap drugstore brands and sometimes he forgets to apply it in the morning, and he doesn’t spray it very well. also smells like grass sometimes

- his favourite subject is psychology/maths/anything logic based (he likes those puzzles). growing up with his bitchass karen mom who probably twisted all the words he said, he doesn’t like cryptic or vague language or poetry (english class) because it reminds him of her. in math, there’s only one answer. in english, there’s hundreds. also the words swim on the paper and he finds it hard to focus

- he has his ears pierced. he begged his parents to take him to an ear piercing studio they just ended up taking him to claire’s but he was still so happy about it

- he BEGGED for a dog or a pet when he was very little but eventually stopped at some point. he asked for stuffed animals and never got any because “it would be too hard to keep track of when we’re moving and you would lose them and get sad” and he’s still very upset about it. used to hug like three pillows when he slept

- he was told they were settling down in georgia and now his current room has millions of stuffed animals i will not hear any arguments about this

- he’s a kicker in his sleep (when he gets any). he kicks plushies off his bed like all the time, he’s not apologetic though he’s just like “oh shit”

- worst and best guy to have a sleepover with. super clingy

- he knows very few actual life skills other than operating a microwave for frozen meals because he largely grew up alone without his parental figures in his life. ashlyn and tyler eventually teach him how to cook

- his growth is stunted bc of that period in his life and he’s short like ashlyn

- he is a HORRIBLE gossip addict. they’ll be sitting at the lunch table eating in silence and he drops “did you hear that samantha’s parents are divorced and madison dropped her bc samantha’s mom doesn’t drive them to the mall anymore” like HUH WHERE DID YOU HEAR THIS?

- he gets school lunch and very rarely (if ever) brings lunch from home. sometimes ben makes him lunches

- plays with his food (this is canon) but he makes storylines out of whatever he does its like his personal roman empire

- big fan of extreme foods (spicy, sour, etc) ((he grew up eating plain ramen)) and loves weird food combinations. everyone always makes weird faces at him when theyre at the mall and he orders weird shit

- he doesn’t know proper meal etiquette until someone has to tell him, his parents didn’t teach him anything (I HATE THEM)

- he’s a really bad cook like ben because he always ends up getting distracted, and somehow manages to skip over steps in the recipes.

- he probably likes cooking shows though and is like “yeah i could do that” (he can’t do that)

- the first time someone (tyler) made aiden a homecooked meal he started cry laughing (it was mostly crying) (nobody talks about it)

- the few times his mom has made him meals whenever she’s home they’re really bad. they don’t taste anything like home, but he didn’t know what home tasted like so he just cried. his mom thought it was because of how good it was (it wasn’t) and he just cried harder

- he dislikes bitter flavours, especially like, orange juice that you make from scratch but you don’t put any sugar in it (it’s because his mom once tried to make homemade orange juice/lemonade to feel more like a “real mom” and it was horrible

- he’ll still eat bitter food though he just wouldn’t like it that much

- likes crunchy food or food that pops in your mouth (poprocks) bc he thinks its cool

- probably needs glasses from how long he’s spent staring at screens (his backstory)

- the one thing his parents consistently did as a kid was take him to his doctors appointments so he has stellar teeth

- he’s fit and fairly athletic (jumping off walls and all) but he doesn’t play sports because he just. isn’t interested in any of it. he tries everything but nothing really sticks that much

- he eats his greens but probably wouldn’t care much for the healthy vegan lifestyle, not that much of a picky eater (this part is canon)

- his favourite holiday is halloween because 1. candy (which he didn’t get much as a kid unless he specifically asked for it or ben brought it over) and 2. he loves dressing up it’s so fun to him

- understimulation is the BANE of his existence he genuinely wants to tear out his own hair every time he gets like that. gets really irritated

- he disassociates a lot, generally experiences a lot of derealization. he doesn’t feel like he’s in his own body sometimes

- insomniac

- chases thrills so that he can “feel” something. doesn’t care if it hurts him or not, because at least then he’ll remember he’s a real person and that his life matters

- really bad at telling when people are lying/are irritated with him. he just keeps pushing until they explode

- good with secrets (his own) but isn’t good at deflecting if asked about someone else’s. he’s just like “ummm. would u look over there. a bird!”

- runs really fast, he wakes up early in the morning to take a walk around the neighborhood. he sometimes encounters tyler if he happens to go into his city (which is often, because he doesn’t like being in his house)

- his house is always really cold, which is why he tends to run really warm (his body is compensating). he knows how to turn the ac off, but it always ends up turning back on in the middle of the night

- he grew up learning The Gifted Child instrument; the piano. he dislikes classical music (he says it’s boring but it’s because of this). he also almost got forced to learn the violin but he once practiced so hard his fingers started bleeding which is how he got out of it

- likes verbal validation bc his parents never told him they were proud of him

taylor

- she/they cis demigirl, gets a bit upset at being misgendered though (people think she’s the transfem twin because tyler passes really well)

- bisexual fem pref

- decorates her locker for almost every occasion. halloween, christmas, easter, birthdays. also decorates other people’s lockers for their birthdays before school starts with sticky notes

- has tons of stuff in her locker (except food because tyler won’t let her) just in case anyone needs anything but she’s not very organized so she doesn’t know where anything is

- because of this she’s one of those people that barely makes it to the door before the bell rings but she’s trying to fix that habit

- enjoys crime documentaries/true crime, horror stuff. used to make tyler watch with her but his anxiety gets really bad and he started getting paranoid

- adores christmas bc it’s a family holiday she makes tyler and her mom homemade gifts every year

- loves dogs with every bone in her body she asks santa for one every year but alas. tyler always has to write “a letter from santa” back saying they ran out of dogs at the north pole

- uses emoticons like “:D :] :3” all the time when she types, downloaded a bunch of sticker packs too. especially cat ones

- had her future all planned out as a kid and told her dad she’d be a mechanical engineer and build trains and rockets to bring him places when he started getting really sick and couldn’t move anymore

- her hair is actually kind of dry (compared to aiden’s or ashlyn’s) because they couldn’t afford great shampoo or anything

- has an ehh skincare routine and doesn’t care much for her fashion sense, just wears whatever’s comfortable

- knows a lot of random facts as conversation starters, she’s surprisingly good at small talk ( + comforting people)

- gossips with aiden aallll the time bc she’s super sociable and knows lots of people who tell her secrets. she doesn’t tell any of the important ones but just little drama things

- her and aiden are bffs

- really likes kids because they’re funny, she has a big imagination like them so it’s easy for her to play with them

- she’s a swiftie and whenever someone asks her if she likes taylor swift as a joke bc of her name she says “i like all music!” (she loves tswift)

- really likes sweets over most types of food, she’s healing her inner child guys

- has always ALWAYS wanted to go to a circus/carnival/festival when she was younger, but they couldn’t afford tickets. she still has that dream but she obviously has bigger priorities now…

tyler

- transmale he/him

- doesn’t care that much about dating, he actually doesn’t think about it that much until he meets The Gang. he always too busy taking care of his family to bother with relationships

- dislikes heavy meals, eats in small portions. it’s a habit

- used to be a picky eater but isn’t anymore, when he was younger they struggled to put food on the table so

- he’s like tigris from ballad of songbirds and snakes; when he prepared food for the family he’d eat bits and pieces of it while cooking. eats raw meat sometimes but once got sick from it so never again because he doesn’t want people taking care of him

- he HATES being sick. HATES HATES HATES it, hates having to burden people

- stress cooks because he likes having things to do with his hands. he also runs laps/paces around when he’s stressed

- runs his hands through his hair so it’s always messy

- he doesn’t bother combing his hair unless it’s for a special occasion like the first day of school, he just doesn’t care that much

- gets up early like aiden to keep up his physical fitness, doesn’t stray far though because his mom wakes up around the same time he does

- is VERY punctual. will be furious if someone makes plans and then is late. always arrives somewhere like, fifteen minutes early. he’s trying to break taylor’s habit of being late

- occasionally scolds taylor about how messy her locker is

- is extremely (and kind of scarily) meticulous. clean backpack, clean locker, clean room. it’s a habit

- book smart and figures things out pretty easily. he has an internal computer inside his head i swear. latches onto concepts very quickly

- likes math because he’s good at memorizing concepts but biology is his worst enemy, he gets queasy very easily

- motion sickness

- doesn’t actually have a set plan for the future, other than “help his family.” will probably do something related to sports (sports scholarship) or will do something math/analytical related

- spams people when they don’t respond to him but quits eventually (semicanon)

- has some sort of separation anxiety i swear he does

- keeps every single promise he makes because he hates broken promises (his dad told him he’d be fine and out of the hospital soon), he also doesn’t make a lot of promises

- dislikes nicknames like “champ” and “buddy”

- he’s ambidextrous

- he always seems to be like, tense? can’t relax at all. it might be because of his anxiety (HE HAS ANXIETY)

- only ever relaxes if he’s at home

- rarely watches television, he says it’s a waste of time (he always gets distracted and gets up and goes to do something else) he can leave it in the background though

- i think he has chronic pain, i don’t know where but i just think he does. everything just aches sometimes and he’s so young fuck life

- he’s okay with kids like his sister, not as good as her but he’ll take care of them (habit x37362828) he’d probably say everything really monotone though “there’s santa claus, wow.”

- he and taylor both have a pretty strong southern accent from living in middle of nowhere georgia (i think someone made an art post on this a while back :D)

- is really bad at video games because he gets frustrated easily

- he grinds his teeth when he sleeps and has jaw pain what a loser

[earthry]

How to Tempt Your Papas (Headcanons)

How to get your papas home early, inspired by this post (also mentioned in Copia's section).

sfw mostly, a little spicy imagery in some parts, gn!reader

Primo

Primo has such a soft spot for you. All you really have to do is send him some really sappy message telling him that he makes you so happy and you love him very much and he just melts.

He’ll send an equally long message about how he feels the same, how he loves you without requisite and that you make him want to be a better man every day of his life. That’s your hook and line. 

For the sinker, send him a selfie of you in one of his sweaters all cozy in bed with a empty space beside you with a text saying ‘I miss you so much, I’m so cold and lonely without you :(‘ no matter how cheesy you think it is, it will capture good ol’ peepaw’s heart.

He’ll go ‘Oh no :( I left my dearest all alone, how could I? Shall I come home early tonight, amore mio?’ And voilà he’s home in less than half a hour. Mission successful. 

Secondo

You’d think if you send nudes it’ll rile him up enough to come home and have his wicked wiles with you but no. This man is shameless. He’ll get off right then and there to your picture and send one back of his handiwork with a promise to absolutely ruin you later for trying to tempt him. 

The first time you do this you learn that while it is a good motivator, it does not get him home any faster. Kind of backfires because when he sends you a well-framed shot of himself in hand entirely spent and messy, you're the one getting all hot and bothered now.

What really gets him home quickly is your home cooking. Make any authentic dish (especially with his mom’s recipe) and mans will be home in less than 20 minutes because that shit is fire when it’s hot out the oven.

He knows if he waits it’ll either get soggy or cold and he hates re-heating food. If you make his favorite he’ll be back in even less time.

Terzo

Where nudes don’t bring Secondo back, it’ll send Terzo packing for home. He’ll be back so fast you barely have time to put your phone down. He is so enthusiastic and most times it feels like he just can’t get enough of you.

Sure, he could wait until he’s done with his work to go home to you, glance at his phone every so often to motivate himself to finish quicker, but where’s the fun in that? His tesoro’s ready for him and who is he to keep them waiting?

He’ll dump his work onto some poor unsuspecting sibling of sin or ghoul and be out the door in seconds.

While it's very effective, you should be prepared to follow through with this man

Alright. For my ace-spectrum lovelies and those who feel uncomfortable with the idea of sex, I love you and you are so valid. Your method of choice will be Italian Soap Operas.

Every night before bed you'll watch a few episodes of a soap opera together, following along and commenting on outrageous choices or acting and pointing this out to each other.

Tell him if he doesn't come home, you're gonna start it without him. If that doesn't seem to get his butt moving, send another text ten minutes later saying 'do you want spoilers' or 'i did not expect that to pan out this way' or something about the episode coming up and he will respond with keysmashes and be on the way in no time.

Copia

Rat photos. Send him cute photos of his rats and he will cave and want to go home.

He’s a hard worker so sometimes he pulls all nighters and then just stays in the office for the whole next day as well. To lure him back to make sure he’s taking care of himself and getting food and sleep, make pancakes.

Make some for you and him and then tiny pancakes for the rats and take a picture. Tell him they’re waiting on him to eat together! They’re starving! But they really wanna wait for their papa to have breakfast together. Copia is home in minutes. 

You can also send vaguely threatening (but not really) texts with a blurry photo of his beloved rats (like this post that I love very much) with a text saying “come home or she/he gets it”. He’s not worried that you’ll actually do anything to his babies, but he’ll still want to come home faster because fuck that’s really cute and funny of you.

[zeemczed]

Announcing... EL GOONISH SHIVE FLASHFIC WEEK 2024!

YE GADS, CAN IT BE? It's that time of year again!

For those not in the know, every year (sometime between September and October - this year it'll run from September 1 through September 8) we issue a challenge to everyone in the fandom to write a zero-editing quickly-written fanfic every day for a week. Each year there's an optional theme; this year it's EXTREMELY VAGUE PROMPTS!

How vague? Well, here's the list. If you're going with the theme, each prompt should be used in the fic somewheres, be it at the start, the end, or somewhere in the middle but sparking the idea of the rest of the fic around it (somehow!).

"I never thought I'd be sick of this."

"No, seriously, za?!"

"Your mom said to call her when we got there."

“Well. Didn’t expect that.”

“I’m sorry, it does what?”

“Don’t worry, I know where all of the bodies are buried.”

"So, I figured out how my new spell works. Kinda."

"What smells like pancakes in here?"

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and I have no idea what that is.”

"We've been lost for the last hour!"

“You did safety test this, right? Right???”

"It's morally, ethically, AND structurally questionable."

“Well, if you’d told me when I woke up this morning that I’d end my day shaving off this much fur…”

"Pants always feel weird with a tail."

“Wait. That body part is not normally that shape, is it?”

“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”

"That isn't inherently romantic, is it?"

“No, really, I know what I’m doing. Now don’t flinch.”

FAQ

Q: What is a flashfic?

A: A short fanfic with no minimum word count that's written in a single sitting with no editing.

Q: What do I do when I'm done?

A: POST THAT STUFF. You can put it on Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction dot net (if you must), your own website, or just toss it up here or on the Discord!

Q: Is there a collection I should post it to on AO3?

A: Not officially, but please tag it "EGS Flashfic Week 2024" if you post there!

Q: Do I have to use the theme?

A: I'm not your parent, you do you.

Q: Are crossovers okay?

A: See above answer.

Q: Can I add more extremely vague prompts?

A: Sure, comment `em down below.

Q: Do you have a really good bread recipe to share?

A: Not relevant! But yeah the Peasant's Bread recipe on the King Arthur Flour site is basically foolproof. Love that stuff.

Q: What about fan art?

A: If you do fan art every day during flashfic week I will find out where you live, fly out there, and give you the BIGGEST freaking hug. Or, well, probably not, but know that I'll be thinking about doing that.

[verdemoun]

jumping ahead in the timeswap au because i am the captain personally i headcanon jack not making it to 20. i think life had well and truly defeated him and he was too tired to keep running, and he ended up hanged for ross's murder.

side tangent a) imagine the emotional devastation the VDLs in modern era would feel reading that. there's a grainy photo/sketch and they can almost tell what jack looks like, how much he looks like john, how old he already looks at 19, and then there's the noose sitting on his shoulders waiting for the trapdoor to be pulled. the article portrays ross as a poor elderly man of honor killed by jack marston, outlaw, a dangerous sociopath

side tangent b) john and jack being reunited. john really struggling not to be angry because he wanted/expected so much better for jack: knowing he was never an ideal father (or even a good father) but how much he didn't want his son to be like him, how clear he had been to never become an outlaw. then, the grief. it's only been 3 years but being able to see how much those three years have changed jack, physically and mentally, just by the way he carries himself and that dead, destroyed look in his eyes. jack struggling not to be angry for a lot of the same reasons because at 16 he was left taking care of abigail as heartbreak and illness killed her, and a ranch they could barely take care of together. jack realising his mom, dad and little sister got to play happy family in current day without him.

well now that that's out of the way: dues-ex-isaac morgan

isaac morgan deciding jack marston is his personal responsibility. sure, the whole recipe of staying in a house for a few weeks slowly learning about the current day slowly works for most VDLs, but isaac understands that not only is jack 19 (a teenager) but the culture shock isn't quite as severe going from 1914 as it was 1899.

isaac throws rocks at the window until jack sneaks out his first night in modern day. he forces a helmet onto his head and gives a vague warning that 'it's going to be faster than a horse', before setting off at very illegal speeds on his motorbike

jack immediately loves it. it's very much what he needed: the adrenaline, feeling like he's rebelling, seeing the chrome and crowds of city as a blur become more and more recognizable in outdated suburbs until they're pushing 100mph on the highway

isaac strategically takes him out to the desert, because the desert really hasn't changed that much, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. they lay down and trauma-bond about how fucked their lives have been (isaac, who experienced the timewarp like a child moving house and had to teach things to his 19th century mother, jack, who grew up in the chaos of the VDL gang with his mother as the only constant: deadbeat dads taken to the metaphorical extreme).

'there's only two things you really need to know: you can't buy alcohol until you're 21 and cigarettes are actually really bad for you' 'cigarettes are BAD??????'

isaac introduces him to cliche teenage emo music through a dodgy bluetooth speaker. jack marston actually listens to music for the first time

arthur getting a frantic phone call from john saying jack snuck out

charles offering to help track them down, because they immediately know isaac is involved

charles and arthur finding a drunk isaac and jack air guitaring to mcr in the middle of the desert

isaac and jack are instant best friends. instead of the coddling most of the gang do when something is new and initially intimidating, isaac laughs at him and it's honestly more comforting. like yeah, traffic lights take a hot second, but jack does feel dumb for not realising that the changing lights and loud beeping meant it was time to walk/run.

isaac literally doesn't hold his hand unless he has to, meanwhile jack has had months of living alone as an outlaw in 1914. they balance each other out in the worst ways. isaac will say they shouldn't walk through a dark alley and jack is like pfft if someone tries to mug us i can take them

their hangouts go from jack bookworm marston helping isaac study at college to isaac being the one calling his dad because 'heeey we might be in jail' in 3 hours. all parental figures involved are going grey with stress

[mourntheantagonist]

I think that Steve and Billy turn into this super domestic couple when the summer of ‘85 hits. It’s the first time Billy can remember ever having so much freedom. Of course it’s not total freedom, and Neil still remains a looming threat, but Billy’s out of the house more than he’s inside it, and Neil doesn’t question where he’s going when he grabs his keys from the ledge. Billy graduated and has a job. He’s doing exactly what his dad expects of him, and the simple fact of him being a true adult grants him a lot of extra time outside his responsibilities.

Which means Billy spends a lot of time at Steve’s. Like. A lot.

He can only vaguely remember the last meal he ate at his house. It was just a week and a half after he graduated when he had an early shift and made himself some toast before heading out the door. He hadn’t had family dinner as he was normally working during that time. And when he wasn’t, well, he might’ve bent the truth about his work schedule those days.

He and Steve both got off work at similar times, clocking out just as the sun was beginning to set. Usually the person who was getting off last would pick up food from a local restaurant or fast food joint. They never really cared to have anything fancy. Steve practically lived off fast food since his parents started traveling more. Billy was the opposite. They never ate out. Not when he was a kid, and especially not after his mom left the picture. It was always the most bland home cooked meals or TV dinners.

Sometimes they’d cook for themselves, but it was rare. But those were some of the best nights. The two of them struggling to follow their way through Steve’s mom’s cookbook recipe, Steve not being able to tell apart the teaspoon and the tablespoon to save his life. Billy burning whatever was put in front of him without fail. Steve would insist Billy could burn a chicken breast without even having the stove turned on. Those nights were always spent giggling and frantically fanning the smoke detector as it went off every twenty seconds. Those nights they’d sit together in front of the TV trying their damndest to chew through overdone steak before admitting defeat and calling in an order for pizza.

He can’t remember the last time he did a chore at his house. He used to always have to help Susan with the dishes after dinner, but he was never there and eventually that task fell to Max. And speaking of Max, he didn’t have the responsibility of babysitting anymore, as she was going to be entering high school in the fall and everyone agreed she was old enough to look after herself. Billy still was expected to look out for her, but Billy never had to be told to protect her. He did that on his own.

With him having a job, Neil didn’t expect him to do things around the house. He was simply happy enough to be getting a third of Billy’s paycheck every month.

But Billy was sure he’d be happy if he knew Billy was still busying himself with chores anyway.

He always helped Steve out. They would take turns taking the trash out to the curb every week, they would do dishes together, they’d sit together on the floor in a pile of clean laundry and fold it together while something played on the TV—

Hell, he can’t remember the last time he did laundry at his house. Practically two-thirds of his clothes have wound up at Steve’s house. He even had his own set of drawers and a space in Steve’s closet.

Billy can’t even remember the last time he took a shower in his own house, because since summer hit he has only ever showered at the pool after work, or in Steve’s bathroom, where he’s never alone.

It was one thing he never knew he was missing until he had it—Steve standing with his arms wrapped around him, letting the hot water soak the both of them. Washing each other’s backs and just getting clean in each other’s presence. Billy used to see showering as his few moments of peace throughout his day, but he definitely didn’t mind having Steve there with him. Especially when they made the decision to rack up the water bill and stay in there a little while longer…

Billy still slept at his house sometimes, but that was only on nights when he had to. Usually when Steve’s parents were back in town or when a considerable amount of time had passed that may have deemed suspicious. Neil would believe the idea that Billy was spending the night at a girls house. However, he wouldn’t believe he was spending night after night at the same girls house, and there were only so many girls in Hawkins to keep up his charade.

So there were still days he’d come home at night and sleep in his own bed, that was notably no where near as comfortable as Steve’s. Billy wasn’t sure if it had to do with the mattress or just the warmth that came with having Steve there next to him. But on those nights spent without Steve, he didn’t stay for long. He come home early enough to make his presence known, but never too early he had to spend any more time not in bed than he had to. When he slept at home that was all he did. He slept. The only time he did anything more was when he’d stop by Max’s room on his way in and out, just to check in.

He was glad he didn’t do that often, because sleeping at Steve’s was the best. With Steve he wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. He didn’t jump at every creak in the house. Steve made him feel safe. Billy never imagined that he’d enjoy sleeping with Steve in the most literal sense more than sleeping with Steve in the figurative.

Of course he enjoyed that too. God he enjoyed that. But it wasn’t everything that they did together. When they were still in highschool, that was all it started out with. They never hung out without sex as a promise. They were nothing short of the horny teenagers all the movies warn you about.

But now, with the showers and the chores and the meals and the shared bed and shared closet and giggling in the kitchen…they aren’t that anymore.

They are proper boyfriends. They’re a couple, a pair, a duo.

They turned into this and summer isn’t even halfway over. It’s only the end of June.

Who knows what the rest of the summer has to offer…

[the-east-art]

Ode to the Tree Lightning Struck - Wip part 3

Joey drives, Ness takes shotgun, and Sylvin sits in the backseat. It’s somehow more uncomfortable than the last time Sylvin recalls sitting here - sometime during the mad dash to resummon Arakiel to Sylvin before a demon could find her as an open vessel. Probably a year and a half ago now, give or take. The seats are made up of cheap faux-leather - which is to say plastic - that’s cracking and peeling in places. The car is an old Nissan that’s still kicking probably due to prayers - in fact, now that Sylvin is thinking about it, maybe due to prayers specifically to Arakiel. Joey and Ness don’t have a lot of money, and Sylvin is unsure if they have the knowledge required to keep the junker alive as long as it has been. It feels a little ironic that the hunters of supernatural phenomena drive around in a car that is basically a zombie, only living off of parts taken from different, newer models. 

Sylvin considers sharing the idea to the others, but the air of the car is still thick with tension and unwelcoming to Sylvin and any conversation she might bring. This discomfort is of her own creation. Some part of her wanted this outcome, but sitting in the silence of the car trying not to make the plastic squeak too loudly when she moves to adjust her position, that desire feels very far away. 

She alternates picking at the plastic of the seat and the loose threads from the holes in her jeans. They were a little big on her, and the bra a little small, and none of it was really her style, but clothes were clothes. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Sylvin certainly felt like a beggar right now. No phone on her - she had the vague impression that it hadn’t ‘traveled’ well with Arakiel over the last four years, or that Arakiel just hadn’t seen a reason to keep track of it. No wallet either - she hadn’t had her purse on her when Arakiel had taken her as her vessel, so it was who knows where by now. Just her luck she’d look into her bank when she got a chance and find out her identity had been stolen EVEN MORE than it had by Arakiel and now she was in debt or something. 

In the front seat, Joey adjusts the music on her phone and her places it back in the ‘speaker’ - a glass cup that sits in the cup holder as a makeshift way to amplify the sound. It makes each of the songs adopt a tinny quality to them. 

The progress east was a combination of both reasons Sylvin had hypothesized: a mixture short days driving and a meandering direction. It felt like they were on some kind of a victory lap after saving the world - checking up on different people the pair had crossed paths with over the last four years. It made a kind of sense - see who was still kicking, pay respect to those who had died, and make sure that everyone that had been involved in the shitstorm knew that it was over.

Didn’t make Sylvin like it though. 

It made her feel like a child, being toted around by her parents and forced to sit off awkwardly on the sidelines while she was introduced to strangers. The entire affair was a lot like family reunions or church - back when Sylvin and her siblings would all stand slightly behind her mom, waiting for her to be done chatting about keylime pie recipes or whatever it was the moms discussed in church parking lots while their kids baked in the sun, reflecting off the dark asphalt. Those were the only instances where Sylvin actually envied the crazy Sunday hats the grandma’s wore. Sylvin and her three siblings would usually end up standing like dominos or some bizarre version of matryoshka dolls - line up so they were standing in eachothers shadows for at least a small reprieve from the heat. Atlas the unfortunate tallest of the bunch, bore the sunlight on his own. Or alternatively ran around the parking lot as a moving target, preventing the rest of them from using his shade. 

Just today they’d met up with 3 different people and 3 gravesites. Only one of the cemeteries had been planned - someone, a civilian, who had died on a job three years ago. The other two had been new deaths. A fellow hunter, vampire got the best of them. The other someone they had saved from the jaws of death already, took care of a poltergeist that had been hounding them. Didn’t matter - dead now - car crash. Bad luck. 

[always-andromeda]

Okay. Meda I’m sorry. This is going to be verrrrry vague. But I want to read something you write about TLOU because you love it so much and I wasn’t sure how many requests you’d get for it for this event, so here’s one!! This’ll be your wild card for any TLOU character + any of those prompts you want 🃏💕 (or you can do a number randomizer and have it pick for you) Go craaaaazy with it!! -🌟

– 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐨

𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: so. I went with White Chocolate Truffle (a fluff blurb) for Joel. and if we're going self indulgent, I figured I'd go all out on it. strap in friends, prepare for a reader that might as well be me and yes the title references a song from Waitress because my lovely Sophia said it reminded her of me and goddamnit it made me so soft. so really, this isn't my fault if we all think about it. 😌

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: pre-outbreak Joel, 100% self indulgent fluff, nothing else I can think of!

"Where did these come from?" Joel found himself staring at a Tupperware container full of muffins, the tops all golden and speckled with various mix-ins.

Sarah, with a knowing glint in her hazel eyes, giggled, "Who do you think?"

Joel sighed before picking up what looked like a blueberry one and taking a bite out of the top. The crumb was perfectly moist, the tart blueberries evenly distributed, and he savored the light but buttery taste. He almost hated to admit it, but you'd done it again. You'd managed to make a batch of something that he'd inevitably crave every single morning with his black coffee.

The voice of his daughter brought him back. "When are you gonna marry her already?"

Joel nearly choked on the muffin. "Marry?"

"Yeah, then she can make us cakes and cookies every single day," she said like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"Not exactly an ideal reason to get hitched, is it?"

"Well, there's that...and hey– new mom! That could be a perk," she joked.

"Don't hold your breath on it, babygirl," Joel chuckled.

For the rest of the week he thought about the gesture, as he did practically every week now. Like clockwork, you worked on some new recipe of yours every weekend. Then come Monday morning at the crack of dawn, you waltzed over from next-door, a batch of some sort of baked good in your arms. Finally, you would tell Joel that you hope he has a good week. And that you hoped that by the end of the week when he returned the Tupperware container, he'd let you know what he and Sarah thought about the food.

It had been months of this schedule. Of course it was just an act of kindness; just something you did when you moved into the neighborhood in order to make friends. But as soon as Sarah's suggestion entered his head, he couldn't let go of it. And, he realized...it wasn't like you were baking cookies for everyone in the neighborhood. No, you'd chosen to take time out of your life to feed the single father and his bubbly daughter from next-door.

And Joel – as silly as it felt – liked being special. A part of him liked knowing that the whole week, you were just waiting to hear what he thought about something you'd spent so much time on. It was small but it was nice being thought of in such a way.

Between Joel's midnight snacks, Tommy flitting in and out of the house to raid the fridge, and Sarah's school lunches, by the time Friday rolled around, all that remained of the muffins in that Tupperware container were crumbs.

So, after Sarah turned in for the night, Joel grabbed the container from the kitchen counter and made his way to your house next-door. After knocking on the door you invited him inside. Taking the Tupperware container from Joel, you stared at him eagerly.

"So, what did you think about the muffins?"

"Great," he said quickly. "They were great."

"That's all you have to say?" you asked.

Almost immediately, Joel became hesitant, not quite knowing what else to say. So he laughed sheepishly and added, "Well, I've long since abandoned my diet, if that helps at all."

Thankfully, you returned the joke with a giggle of your own, "Sorry."

"Oh, don't be." There was a beat of silence as you looked at each other. Joel's voice softened as he wondered, "You must be spending a fortune on sugar, butter, and flour to keep me fed. So why do it?"

"Am I not allowed to take care of my neighbor?" you shook your head, confused at his line of questioning.

"Depends on what kind of taking care of you mean." Joel's eyebrows lowered, indicating just what he meant.

You stepped towards him. "I want to take care of you the way one would care for someone...special."

Joel's gaze flickered to your lips, "Oh, I'm suddenly special, huh," he murmured, relishing in just how right he was.

You stood on your toes and placed a hand on his firm shoulder, permeating his personal bubble in a way that he wasn't opposed to. You were so close that you could smell the stale scent of sweat from his job. All he could smell was sweetness; vanilla extract, mixed with notes of brown butter and baking powder. And your tone is just as sweet when you reply breathily, "Joel, you've always been special to me," before dotting a chaste kiss on his cheek. Your lips are warm and soft, seemingly freshly baked like one of your treats.

Unusually but still unsurprisingly, the small action lights his face on fire. And almost as if he's high off the bakery fumes, Joel found himself leaning down. His eyes started to flutter closed and–

Then came that wretched vibration from his pocket. Joel pulled his cell phone from his pocket and without checking the number on the display, he answered annoyed, "What?"

"Where are you?" Sarah whined on the other end.

Joel stumbled for an answer, "I-I-I'm...out."

"Oh, great. While you're out can you grab me some tampons? My period just started aaaaand...I kind of need some."

Perfect timing, Joel thought to himself before agreeing. "I'll be back home in about ten minutes, alright?"

"Thank youuuu, you're the best dad in the whole world," Sarah said dramatically.

"Yeah, yeah, you got it, kiddo," Joel rolled his eyes before his daughter hung up. Then he sighed, closing the flip phone and putting it back in his jean pocket.

Having heard the girl’s muffled voice through the phone, you asked, "Period problems?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I gotta go."

You spoke suddenly, "I could whip up a batch of those dark chocolate brownies she liked and have them over by tomorrow afternoon." Then you paused, looking up at him for permission, "If you're alright with that, of course."

Joel's mouth quirked into a tired smile. You are really set on that taking care of me thing, aren't you?

"That would be great," he answered. "Thank you."

"No problem," you said, giving him another quick kiss afterwards. "Goodnight, Joel. See you tomorrow."He bid you goodnight with a sly wink, which earned a little laugh from you as you closed your door behind him. And the little sound, mixed with the lingering feeling of your soft lips on his cheek, have him shaking his head on the short walk home. Oh, what baking can do.

[bekkathyst]

Sometimes it really hits me how much has happened since I’ve been on this website and have had my little shop. Idk if it’s nostalgia or just procrastination of my current to-do list but I feel like writing out a little synopsis of what’s happened over the years lol. Also for any new followers, you can catch up haha

Also there will be some vague mentions of rough/traumatic circumstances, so just a warning!

I opened my first tumblr account when I was still in high school in like 2009 because all my friends were on here. I had like a fashion blog at one point, a recipe blog at another, but eventually I settled into my little witchy nature crystal niche where I felt the most at home.

In 2013 I was living in a horrible studio apartment in central Los Angeles with my now husband Antonio and we were living in poverty. He was being paid under the table below minimum wage and I was an unemployed high school dropout. I was struggling to find any kind of job and I also knew that it would be impossible for me to keep one because of how I am. (Which at the time I didn’t realize was the result of neurodivergence and a lot of trauma). I was just happy to be away from the abusive home I grew up in and I was really determined to make things work somehow, as impossible as it seemed. Eventually I decided I needed to just work for myself. A job wasn’t going to fix anything for me, and where I was wasn’t safe for me to be walking to and from a job anyway. I dealt with a lot of harassment every time I left my apartment so I pretty much became a hermit for the years I lived there.

One weekend with $10 from our grocery budget I went to a little shop that sold tumbled stones on the Redondo Beach pier and decided to buy a couple and some wire and make some pendants. I also had quite a few stones from my collection from childhood and I used those, too. And I opened my first Etsy shop! I honestly cringe when I look back at pictures of my work from this time, I’d really like to think I’ve come a long way lol.

It took several months to get a single sale and at least a year before I had any kind of consistency. For the next couple of years I worked on my little shop while Antonio went to work. In 2015 we decided that my shop was making just enough for us to work on it together and move somewhere else. So we ended up finding a mobile home for rent on some lady’s horse ranch in the mountains of unincorporated riverside county and we moved there.

We planned to stay for quite a while, but before even a year had passed, life drastically changed again. In early 2016 my little sisters came forward about the abuse they were facing and our father was arrested and a years long criminal court case began. Because my mother was undocumented and had spent the last 20 years pretty much just hiding at home, all their care fell on me. We took in my mom and my 3 sisters and had to move. We found another manufactured home in the same area and we all moved in together. I was truly not financially or emotionally prepared for this and it was extremely difficult. On top of that we were all very traumatized. I had not yet been open about the abuse I had faced because I wasn’t ready.

Amid that struggle is when my mom decided to start working with us as well! And she helped us grow our shop some more until we were a little more stable. Eventually we realized we had to find a bigger home and in 2017 I finally got to realize my goal of living in the big mountains and we found a lovely big house in Big Bear.

Actually during this time I have gaps in my memory so there are some things I start to mix up, but shortly after we moved I also decided to come forward about the abuse I faced which unfortunately further complicated the court case. We were looking at a trial date in 2018 which would eventually get pushed to 2019. But during 2018 my niece was born and I also ended up taking in one of my half brothers as well. So our household was now 9 people that were all surviving off of my shop’s income. Also during this time (I think it was actually 2017) we had been talking to one of our suppliers about taking over their wholesale warehouse near Los Angeles. It was presented as a huge business opportunity and I saw it as a chance to better things for us and hopefully ease the struggle. Taking this opportunity actually did the exact opposite. We were quite honestly deceived and ended up being straddled with a failing business. I lived 2017, 2018 and most of 2019 in a haze. Like I mentioned, I really don’t remember much and sometimes I see posts I made during that time and I’m really surprised by them. I think it was just the combination of extreme stress, burn out, sleep deprivation from trying to run 2 businesses and taking care of a massive household, and the trauma of having to recall all these repressed memories from my childhood.

But, somehow I survived. The plus side of coming forward about my abuse is that it gave me access to free therapy and I ended up finding the most incredible therapist that helped me start my healing and recovery from burnout.

Eventually in early 2019 our court case happened and we all testified in front of a jury, and our father was found guilty and is now serving a 300 year plus sentence. It took me the rest of that year to come out of the haze I’d been living in. After the court case, I decided to take the leap and open our brick and mortar shop in Big Bear. It was the thing I actually wanted to do with all my heart.

Then… 2020 came around. Covid hit and it was the final nail in the coffin for our warehouse business. We closed it and gave up. My other half sibling that was working at the warehouse ended up moving in with us as well and so did a friend of mine, so at this point our household was at 11 or so people and we were beginning a pandemic. I had also found out that I was pregnant.

Finding out I was pregnant caused the biggest flip of a switch in my brain. I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I was living anymore. I couldn’t keep burning myself out and over extending myself to people. I had to put up some kind of boundaries and create a healthier environment. With the help of my amazing therapist supporting me, I made this a reality. It’s also when I finally decided that as soon as we could, we’d be moving to Austria, the country my mother was from, where I had also lived as a young child. I knew I had to make life better, I knew I had to release all of this chaos.

In early 2021, still of course in the middle of a pandemic, our landlord said he wanted to sell our house so we needed to move out and he would not be renewing our lease. This was right when the housing shortage really started to hit our area. I had an infant daughter and all these people in my care and I was very scared. By some miracle we found a listing for a house in the high desert, about a half hour away from our brick and mortar shop and we went for it. We knew we had no other options. At this point most of my household went their own ways and found their footing. So me, Antonio, our infant daughter, my mom, my youngest sister, and my toddler niece all moved to this house in the desert. I knew that this was temporary and I told myself I would not be here for longer than a year. Once our year lease was up, we’d make it to Austria.

It was a lot of work and honestly I probably could have made some smarter choices now that I look back, but early 2022 we sold all our inventory from our brick and mortar shop to a wholesaler and closed it up. And then we moved!

And now here we are, a continent away from where we started. Much happier, much healthier. Now we’re not selling nearly on the scale as we were before, but I know that with time we’ll be back to the level we were at. And I really hope to open a brick and mortar store somewhere in Austria sometime soon.

It really amazes me that some of you have been here from the beginning. It feels like several lifetimes have passed, but it also feels like it all happened in the blink of an eye.

I’m really so thankful for the opportunity I had to grow and learn so much and heal. I feel like I’m a completely different person than the desperate girl who started an Etsy shop in 2013.

And… this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s still so much more that happened. When I first started seeing my therapist she encouraged me to write my story in a book, and it’s definitely something that I plan to do one day. I don’t think a younger version of myself would believe everything we survived. 🙏💜

[iantimony]

tuesday!

another two-weeker because i forgor last week but it's not actually that beefy

listening: metric albums formentera from 2022 and formentera ii from 2023 are full of good earworms. favorite songs: all comes crashing, enemies of the ocean, oh please; just the once, days of oblivion, who would you be for me ... idk all of formentera ii is really really good. easily could list all those songs as favorite. just love a good synth! just incredibly catchy albums.

i got back into the podcast sweetbitter; i listened to the first season on sappho not long after it started, but fell off when they started season 2 on pirates. i'm listening to that one now and i'm enjoying it! i'm a little leery of season 3's topic (christian bible) but i feel like they do a good and sensitive job of covering information in general. the podcast hasn't actually updated in ages which is interesting, i'm not sure if they're just on hiatus or if it's like...done? i can't seem to find any information on it, there are some tweets that were posted on reddit about it that are now deleted, maybe there was a falling out??? it's possible they say something in the most recent episode (may of last year) about a hiatus but it's not in the episode notes...in any case, god i hate the ads they have. they're so stuck in my head in the worst way possible. 0/10 on that front. get that coin but please choose less obnoxious/a wider variety of ads (i know that's not always in their control but yk).

reading: finished mdzs. restarted svsss but it's been sideburnered for a few days while i play catchup on work.

watching: finished kill la kill with the boyf...am caught up to dunmesh...been passively absorbing the black list because my roommate has been watching it...

playing: fallow but i really wanna do disco elysium soon for Real

making: pottery has been on a planned 2-week break between sessions so no reports here! i did go in briefly for open studio to attach a handle and re-trim some of my citrus juicer. otherwise, really haven't done much...i restrung a necklace for my mom as a birthday gift a few weeks ago, and i have been drawing a little again! some dunmeshi fanart, some concepts for a painting i want to do.

eating: fairly boring - two weeks ago was in florida with my grandma and that eating is always notably bland. last week my roommate and i fuck-it-we-balled a bit so it was a lot of tuna salad and adjacent things, this week we got some more recipes rolling in though. last night we did a off-the-cuff vaguely-thai rice noodle and tofu thing that was real yummy but not the most filling because there was like no fat in it. definitely could use a different protein or something to juice it up.

misc: doing okay! valiantly played homework catch-up this past week! excited to go back to pottery tmrw, thinking about upcoming wedding gifts to make!

[kiwipineappleparasol]

TTYD remake Rambling -- Stuff up until the end of Chapter 2 talked about here

The TTYD remake has so much attention to detail put into it it's crazy… Like, there's the big things to improve the general experience for both newcomers and returning players; the Partner Ring and the new pipe system are much more convenient so far. And the battle tutor toad is great for practicing those tricky Stylish Moves with alot more precision than just going off Eddy's well meaning but ultimately still vague advice, considering some of these timing windows are crazy fast. Or the new partner hint system! I never really got stuck in these games, but I know that it's just a much better mechanic than going allllll the way back to have your future path read if it's something you need. Plus, I love any new dialogue for my little friends, even if they're ordering me about haha.

The layout for everything is so slick now too! And I love the fact you can unlock art and music in the menu by collecting Shine Sprites and Star Pieces -- while already useful in-game, it's just extra incentive to get them. Especially star pieces -- I really wanted to collect them in all these different areas and see the art! And it was sooooo worth it. Concept art for not only the remake, but for the original too. Stuff I've never seen before! Makes me wonder if they got it released just for this remake, yaknow? Just really cool to look through.

I love all the little things too. The new animations of course are obvious, I adore those -- they really add to the personality of the characters. But I also love stuff like how everything in the environment reacts to you, how instead of shaking bushes you crush them, being able to whack literally everyone over the head brings Such Joy …

I think Zess T uses unique cooking utensils for each recipe, which I don't believe was in the original? I think that's so cool ! Like this attention to detail is what I'm talking about. This was a completely frivolous change, but they did it anyways -- and that to me, shows the care put into this.

(Unrelated, but the animation of Mario getting trapped in the bubble in the Boggly Tree is sooooo silly… Pretty sure that was in the original but still. I enjoy Flurrie's personality too -- I never really appreciated it as a kid because I wasn't a fan of her design so I never used her. It's still definitely not my favorite haha, but I could appreciate her more now.)

Also the way they changed the dialogue about the Shadows -- I didn't want to just believe wholeheartedly that they would change the translation, but they actually did here! They didn't do a direct translation of the original Japanese version from my understanding -- opting for Beldam's transphobia to be in how she disregards the sister label but gives a very flimsy excuse for it, when it's obviously out of cruelty -- instead of outright misgendering. But Vivian saying that she just likes it when she's called their sister made me so sad… Vivian you deserve better!!! Another great thing about the new changes: you can whack Beldam over the head all you want in the overworld!

I still can't believe we're in a world where a remake with such care put into it exists for a game I thought would never be ported, let alone treated with such love. And even changing the English Translation regarding Vivian's character? I never in a hundred lifetimes would believe that would happen! It's honestly quite surreal for me.

This feels like such a love letter to the fans of this game, like an early birthday present delivered right to my door. It's honestly hard to describe how much fun I'm having with it and everything I enjoy about it -- I just wanna keep playing, haha. Chapter 3 is when I remember getting really invested in this game as a kid, for various reasons -- so we'll see if I come back for another Ramble then.

Bonus: the scene that my mom kept calling “Flurrie knocking over Mario with her boobs” And wouldn’t stop laughing about

[argentumcor]

Uldwyn, Uldren, Crow, and Father Figures

One of the things that stands about the Sov siblings is that they don’t have a dad. They just have Osana, who is not a very good mother, being uninvolved and not affectionate (the fact Osana is not the mother kestrel in the story is another essay, but she isn’t). Considering the tech and how matriarchal the Yang Liwei seems to have been, given it adapted a monarchal matriarchy right quick in the Distributary, they might not have ever had a father outside the most bare biological sense. Osana might have opted for test tube twins. At any rate, no father is mentioned in any entry for the Sov twins. Not even a father figure.

I don’t think this was good for either of them, but I think it hit Uldwyn the worst. I spent a lot of time around young men in my time in the Army. The ones who didn’t have dads involved were obvious. They and a certain flavor of aimlessness and desire to prove themselves, a bad combo. Of course, men with involved fathers can have these problems, but it has a different feel to it.

We see this pretty plainly on display from Uldwyn when we’re introduced to him, all those years and a whole universe ago on the Yang Liwei:

Uldwyn grins messily at Mara over his opponent's shoulder. He's fighting a big, brutal woman from Gravity Ops, a woman who's had her myostatin genes knocked out so she can swell up into a giant plug of brawn. Uldwyn doesn't have a chance. He took the fight for the same reason he wanted to join the Amrita expedition—he measures himself by the bravery of his losses. By what he can survive losing. (Brephos II)

This is not a recipe for a stable young man. My uncle once told my mom “what a man wants most is for his father to tell him that he is proud of him.” You can argue that point if you want, but it is hard to deny the intensity of father-son relationships or the way in which they affect men as they grow from boyhood.

Uldwyn, and as such Uldren, had no such relationship. He didn’t even have a vague hint of it from what we can tell. Osana’s apathetic form of motherhood left him with Mara, who played a dual role of sister and mother- and filled in for some of the father relationship, badly. It’s too much pressure on Mara, I think, and it was really only a matter of time that their relationship became the ugly thing it did. Even if there had never been the cosmic powers and great wars, it would have gone wrong.

Whether this mess is just a function of their screwed up family or coming at least in part from the hyper-matriarchy of the Yang Liwei/Distributary isn’t clear to me. It was, at any rate, never going to be alleviated because of the Sov twins’ contrary independence and, later, the way Mara bound Uldwyn/Uldren to her when he struggled to become Awoken.

I imagine this made it all worse for Uldwyn by this...not really friendly to men environment in the Distributary:

...that the women should hold care and protection of the men and the others until more could be born. (Ecstasiate III)

It seems, based on this and the fact every single Distributary character we get a name for is female, that men were not allowed to hold any authority. How far this second-class citizen status extended is your guess. Interestingly, while men don’t seem to be inclined to hold authority in the Reef, it doesn’t seem they are blocked from it (Uldren is a prince, a title that isn’t mentioned in the Distributary, and holds authority as spymaster, while we have male cryptarchs, which are probably equivalent to Distributary eutechs, predecessors for the all-female techeuns) while they explicitly are in the Distributary. Could this have been a major appeal for them following Mara? Which would have posed a problem to those who didn’t want to leave, maybe not out necessity but at least culturally if men were...commodified to some degree.

So Uldren was living as a second-class citizen. He seems not to care overmuch when we do see him, being an independent sort who’d rather be in the wilderness (Hunter gonna Hunter), but we know he wants respect. He revels in praise. Mara’s in particular, but anyone’s will do. In the Distributary’s system, he wouldn’t get a lot, or if he did, it would be of the ‘dog walking on its hind legs’ sort. None of this helps his issues. No one has taken the time to teach Uldren the hard lessons, either, such as Saladin’s bitter lesson about mercy. He’s just sort of left to flail.

The rest is nearer history. Mara’s great destiny unfolded before her and he tried to tag along, win her attention and praise in increasingly insane ways, while she went her own way and grew colder. The Black Garden drives people insane and it exacerbated all of Uldren’s already existing issues. Things go wrong.

Then he becomes Crow. Crow, unlike Uldwyn/Uldren, is tossed a succession of potential father figures. First, we have the bad ones: Spider- he is getting off too easy for what he did- and then “Osiris”. “Osiris” behaves in a motherly fashion to him, and it’s what sold me on the rumor that this was actually Savathun.

It’s interesting to me that the mother figure Crow gets is a toxic one, but in a way opposite uninvolved Osana. Savathun finds herself caring about him, maybe a little out of the fact that she can’t actually love any of her real children (I wrote a one-shot about this whole dynamic). But she is a broken creature and a monster as well, and so her care for Crow is twisted, like every other mother figure in Uldwyn/Uldren’s life.

At any rate, enter Zavala and Saladin, positive father figures for Crow. Zavala, well, we all know how paternal he is. Saladin is harder and it’s a hardness Uldwyn/Uldren/Crow needed in his life. He tells Crow that it is not wise, or useful, to measure oneself by the bravery of one’s losses. He tells him mercy is a complicated beast. He demands self-discipline. He grants him authority and praises, soberly, his accomplishments for their practicality and contribution to the goal. After a long road of his own, he ends up sacrificing himself for Crow (yeah, maybe not much of a sacrifice it turns out, but it didn’t seem that way at the time).

No one, in Uldwyn/Uldren/Crow’s life, has put themselves between him and pain or danger before that point. It’s what a father should do, but no one has done it for him ever before.

So a lot of our boy’s life is influenced by the lack of father figures, and it is a major part of his current relationships and development. Would a lot of the trips we have seen with his story gone better if this theme had been kept in mind? Yes, but it is there, if unintentionally; it takes some doing to seize a story entirely for yourself, they are their own things, and better when you give them just the right amount of rein. The saga of Uldwyn/Uldren and the influence the lack of father figures had on him, and how that plays out for Crow, is an interesting story to tell and one that is well worth telling in this world of ours, frankly. 

[funnelcloudd]

My dad was from a little former(?) fucking sundown town in central IL and that side of my family refused to season their food at all. Whenever I went there for holidays I had to eat bland gray slop. My dad couldn’t stand garlic or anything with too much seasoning on it. When he died I remember thinking “well at least we can cook with garlic now” and then feeling like a monster for thinking that. Grief is weird.

Thinking about the weird deviled egg man from Tolono that I worked with on Election Day who’s wife said she “didn’t grow up with mustard.” Not even French’s yellow mustard not even fucking MUSTARD.

My mom’s family (also white) is from the working class south Chicago burbs and they’re the exact inverse of the cold, stilted people on my dad’s side. They’re loud and dramatic and dysfunctional in the opposite way that my dad’s family is dysfunctional. Grandma just kept having kids and couldn’t stop bc no birth control in the 50s and 60s so they were all crammed together in this tiny 3 bedroom Sears kit house and some real Jerry Springer shit went on, but god damn could my grandma cook. Homemade waffles, pancakes, biscuits and gravy. Leg of lamb on Easter studded with cloves of garlic and mint. Fried chicken in a cast iron skillet. I wish I would have asked her for her recipes (the lamb especially) but she’s gone now and I didn’t. Idk if it’s bc the white people up north aren’t as homogenized as they are down here and still retain a sense of cultural identity outside of the vague blob of “whiteness” (a lot of them are still real racist yes I know) or bc my grandma grew up on a farm in southern Indiana which is basically the south but either way the difference is stark.

I grew up and still live downstate but in a diverse college town with a huge East Asian population in particular, a town of 260,000 people where you can throw a rock and hit a really good Chinese or Korean restaurant. There’s places tucked away in strip malls and on campus where nothing is in English and you have to point at shit like a big goofy white idiot but it’s all very good and unlike anything either side of my family ever fed me growing up. I’m lucky to be from this little oasis where I got exposed to other foods and cultures. I kind of want to write a book about university towns in otherwise deeply conservative areas bc I feel like it’s a complicated and interesting subject that hasn’t really been explored that much.

Anyway my feelings toward my downstate home are complex. I get real mad when coastal or Chicago people are dismissive and shitty towards a place they’ve never lived in before but I also recognize that there’s a lot of serious problems here. I’m not gonna discount small towns entirely like some lib asshole bc there’s a lot of cool things and people tucked away in those places, but it’s also like. Yeah.

But I still love a goopy casserole some times or a big pile of chicken and noodles. I’m not above it by any means.

[lunarsilkscreen]

Techno-Baffle and the lie of AI

"Whatever you want it to do, it can do it." - The Promise of *EVERY* new technological advancement.

Sweet, have it mine the ore, smelt the titanium, and build a rocket by next week.

I used "Baffle" not "Babble". Yes.

We all want to believe in science fiction, and that the technology of tomorrow is here today. And if you look at history's idea of what "tomorrow" looks like, you'd get a bunch of vaguely accurate guesses, and a bunch of ideas that look either stupid, or very far off to what we have today.

Gilded Time Machines that look like Santa's Sleight written by H.G. Wells. Or Orson Wells describing a socio-political machine that was already in place when he wrote the book. Which happened to coincide with some ideas today.

Ah, remember when screen savers were a thing that didn't waste energy and computer monitor life?

Look at something like "Steam Punk" which is a dedicated genre of science fiction to yesterday's future today. Which serves to bring those fantasies to the modern day, and you can see just how far off our ideas actually were.

Sometimes not far off, other times, *very far off*.

Cyberpunk is the genre that describes today's socio-political machine with the same premise as yesterday's steampunk. Today's future, right now. And in a few years time, some of those ideas are gonna look pretty stupid. And there's gonna be some new form of discopunk or something that idolizes the lost future of today.

The question you are being asked is "What Exactly does AI do?" And the buzzword of the day is "AGI". I hate to tell you, we've had AGI. We've had it for decades. Maybe even centuries of you ask sociologists and data scientists.

Search engines like Google are a form of AI. They collect a bunch of data together, so you can ask Google to return some resources about a topic.

One of those is Wikipedia, a bunch of those are trash-ads. And a bunch more are other resources and descriptions by other people. Sorted by theoretical relevance. (They say if you ever go past the 3rd Google page, you've gone too far, but I find--on some research projects; you need to go deeper. Because the topical things replace the most relevant things.

And that's the exact same thing that happens with ChatGPT today.

Instead of giving you the resources it used, it just compiles them together. Usually stopping at the Wikipedia entry. And oftentimes rambling auto-complete, usuallly like "type 'women are' and then have auto-complete complete the sentence."

"women are women and women are women and women are women and women are women and women" - my phones auto-complete. Which sounds suspiciously like queer Twitter...

AGI isn't exactly far off from early video game AI enemy bots. Or Animal Crossing NPC behaviors. You give it a task, say "accomplish this goal in this way as quickly as possible" and it fails at that until it figures a way to fail successfully.

Sometimes, it's better than a human. It most often isn't, because the parameters humans give it are shit.

"Needs more Buckets"

If you say "okay track mania and finish this course as fast as possible" it'll map a pretty solid route. If you tell it play Super Mario World, for some reason... It sucks at that. Really bad.

I know why; it's because the parameters are "Go forward until you reach the end. Press jump sometimes" which could definitely be improved if the AI had a way to understand what those buttons did, and a way to understand what it was seeing on a screen.

You ever blindfold a friend and try to dictate commands to them so they can play Super Mario blinfolded?

As any 90s Mom will tell you though; Video Games don't translate into real life. You need better parameters for that.

AI also can't create anything new. It can solve problems that humans haven't been able to solve, or to come up with recipes that haven't been tried before that might be better than what we're already doing.

It can be incredibly precise.

It also can't make entertainment that hasn't already been made. If you think Simpsons has been going on long enough, just imagine it running forever with AI writers.

I'm sure the neverending Seinfeld channel already burned a lot of watchers out on AI-Media.

What is AI good for? What is it Used for? Learning models aren't new, but they are faster and easier to use on cheap tech. Even still, like the industrial revolution, and every technological advancement, it just makes monotony easy and quicker to do.

That's it.

And I hate to say it; the people currently using the AGI buzzword... Don't know how to give it parameters, and they don't know how to make it productive, other than for it to write essays like a high schooler: Copy it from Wikipedia, and change some things so it's not obvious.

That's also how you get around the plagiarism filters without trying too hard my guys. Don't even need to pay the $30 for ChatGPT.

The fact is; AI is dumb. All it is. All it ever was; is a search engine coupled with AutoHotkey.

The same two things your average hardcore gamer already knows like the back of their crumb filled keyboard.

[20dollarlolita]

30 day lolita challenge, day 4

Quick note about day 3 (10 things you hate about lolita), I did forget one thing: I really, really don't like peignoirs. You can wear them if it's your thing but I've never liked the idea of vintage pajamas as lolita. Also I don't really like the idea that anything vintage can be used as lolita fashion.

I'm doing the Random Lolita's 30 day challenge that they made back in 2011.

So, here goes: ten kinds of food you like (I guess lolita-adjacent?) Anyway, all this gets a

FOOD CW

.1) I really like big soft pretzels. Like if it's vaguely pretzel and it's soft, I probably like it. My favorite pretzel recipe is this one, but instead of baking soda, I use washing soda (and I wrap the little arms around each other instead of just crossing them, because I'm not a monster). Tasty AF. Also super fun to make into bows or other shapes instead of the traditional pretzel.

.2) Milk tea and thai milk tea (w/boba). I found out recently that I don't like it super sweet. Also if the small boba are available, they're much better.

.3) Sushi. I'm allergic to crustaceans and mollusks, so I have to find a place where I don't worry about cross-contamination. One of the things I miss the most about living in San Diego was being able to go to the fish market and get fish that was safe to eat raw. I'm no sushi chef but I can cut the fish all nice and properly (my rice is absolutely not good, though). I leave it to the pros these days, but it was nice to DIY it back when I could.

.4) Okay, so I'm running out of stuff and no one wants me to put wheat thins and grownup lunchables on this. So we're going to migrate a little bit to places where it's fun to wear lolita to eat.

.5) Restaurants where it's fun to wear lolita: For some reason, people at Dennys and Shari's and other 'good ol' american diner's seem to react weirdly positively to lolita fashion.

.6) I went to get pizza with my family last night and a little girl asked why I was dressed like a princess.

.7) Okay those frozen yogurt places where they sell it by weight have a huge nostalgia thing for me because of being in college and trying to absolutely optimize the topping to weight ratio to get the best value with the minimum cost.

.8) I really don't like macarons but I like pretending that oreos are macarons

.9) chocolate that's not fruit flavored. I don't like pretty much any fruit. My mom gets on my case about it. But I absolutely hate good chocoalte ruined by fruit. Also cake with fruit. Just don't put fruit in anything.

.10) I really like the experience of