#though in the latter it still does get dark. its just dark in a different way

[angelsaxis]

now im reading my other book (abbreviated TMK even though now it should just be TM) and akjshdflksa these kids are so cute. its nice to be able to write teens as teens rather than teens as Small Adults if that makes sense

[once-upon-an-imagine]

Scars To Your Beautiful - James Potter

A/N: I have no idea how I was able to finish this xD thank you @captainlunaxmen for all your help! I hope yo loves like this :)

Request - @nix-rose asked: What about a James Potter x Black!Reader (if reader can have some personality: extrovert, loyal, gryffindor but could probably be a slytherin, just a happy person, definitely rough and tumble but still enjoys looking cute-) “Have you… Always been this beautiful?” “…That’s so cheesy even for your standards.”

Warnings: reader is really insecure, mentions of abusive parents, James protecting you from a creep (nothing to explicit though) also, this isn't proofread :D

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter :) gif isn’t mine :D  

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Scars To Your Beautiful

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark You should know you're beautiful just the way you are And you don't have to change a thing, The world could change its heart No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

The ‘other Black’. That's how you were known in Hogwarts. 

You knew your family wasn’t perfect. As much as they all like to make it seem that way, it was very much far from it. Being part of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black brought a lot of pressure with it, but you were used to it by now. And, deep down, you loved your family. At least your brothers and your cousins. Well, two of your cousins, you were always pretty terrified of Bellatrix after she enchanted all of hers and her sisters’ ancient creepy dolls to come alive and it still terrified you to your very core today. But you loved Andromeda and Narcissa, even if the latter was now spending all of her time with Lucius Malfoy and you saw less and less of her. 

Even if you’d never admit it, you were always a bit envious of them. Not in a bad way, you just… wondered a little how it would feel to be like them. You remembered guys literally fighting to get your cousins’ attention. And not a day went by without you having to hear at least ten different people saying how gorgeous your brothers were. 

And then, there was you. You had a respectable reputation since you were part of the Black family. But it sometimes felt like you weren’t worthy enough to be part of it. You’ve sometimes noticed some guys staring at you a bit too long. And you’ve gone out with a few guys before. But you’ve also had people come to you specifically to get closer to one of your relatives. And nobody had referred to you as beautiful. Well, no one, except…

“Hey, beautiful” you heard that very familiar voice standing next to you. 

“Potter” you smirked. 

“Going to the match today?” 

“The Slytherin-Gryffindor match?” you smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world” you told him. 

“Good, cause I need my good luck charm” he said as the two of you walked to the Great Hall. 

“Exactly, how does that work, Potter? Because I’m not really rooting for your team” you reminded him and he scoffed, pretending to be offended. 

“But of course you are, your brother plays on my team-”

“My other brother plays for my team” you interrupted. 

“Well, maybe not the team but… I’m sure you like the Gryffindor captain more than Slytherin’s” he smiled sweetly at you. 

“Well, you got me there, Potter” you admitted. 

“Promise you’ll come to the party when we win?” he asked as you entered the Great Hall and you knew you would separate. 

“That’s a lot of talk, Potter” you smirked but he offered his pinky to you. You rolled your eyes but you took it. “Never speak of this” you told him.

“See you there, beautiful” he said before he saw you walk to your table. 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Here” you said, sitting down next to your brother at Potions and handing him a small bag. 

“What’s this?” he asked, grabbing the bag. 

“That girl from Ravenclaw wanted me to give you this. I think she wants to ask you to Hogsmeade next weekend” you said, grabbing one of the chocolates inside. “Bite this, if it doesn’t have a love potion, I’m stealing them” you said.

“I’m not trying anything!” he complained. “Remember when we had to take care of Sirius after that girl from Hufflepuff basically drugged him?”

“I know, that’s why I wanted you to try them first” you chuckled. 

“Hold on” he said, grabbing his wand and pointing it at the candy. “We’re good” he said when a small purple dust came out of it. You grabbed one of the chocolates and Regulus grabbed another one, reading the note inside. “So, how was your talk with Potter this morning?” 

“I didn't talk to Potter this morning” you frowned, stealing some of his chocolates. 

“Don’t do that. I’m not Sirius” Regulus glared at you. “I’m not oblivious of how you two just casually entered the Great Hall together” he said. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Reggie” you said, pretending to be confused. 

“Or whenever he goes to Honeydukes he just happens to buy one too many Peppermint Toads so he gives you some, which just so happens to be your favorite” he said.

“He doesn’t… do that” you said, with your mouth half full of chocolate. 

“Are you… playing dumb? Or have you actually not noticed this?”

“Notice what? James is just friendly. That’s how he is” you tried to explain. 

“Really? He’s never gotten me Sugar Quills” Regulus said. 

“He doesn’t like Sugar Quills, why would he buy those?” 

“He doesn’t like Peppermint Toads either” he smirked. 

“Y-yes he does!” you argued, nervously. 

“No, he likes Chocolate Frogs, like the rest of us normal people” he said, as you glared at him. “And besides, it’s not just that. He’s always asking Sirius and me what your favorite books are, or asking Remus which songs you liked” he shrugged. 

“He… he does?”

“Does he really strike you as the guy who would read Pride and Prejudice for the fun of it?” 

“He might” you tried to convince yourself as you grabbed another chocolate. 

“Look, I know what you’re doing, and I know why you’re doing it. And it’s not worth it, bug” he said, getting serious. 

“It’s easy for you to say, Reg” you mumbled, picking another chocolate. “Look, it’s just… not that easy for me” you added. 

“You’ve gone out with guys before” he frowned, confused. 

“Not like James” you added. “What if… what if he’s really just being friendly? What if I think he’s interested in me and then I make a complete fool of myself? Just because he’s nice to me and I think there might be something else there? I feel…” you sighed, looking down at your hands. “It feels pathetic” you mumbled. 

“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with you liking James. Having feelings doesn’t make you pathetic” he said in a serious tone. “Secondly, did you not listen to what I just said? I honestly don’t think that James is just nice to you randomly like he’s nice to everyone else. He’s always looking for excuses to be around you, and he seems happier when he is. As do you. And, to be honest, I thought you were as oblivious about this as Sirius is, but now that I know that you were just trying to live in denial well, you’re dumber than Sirius- OUCH!”

“Excuse me?!” you asked, offended. 

“Only when it comes to this” he defended himself. “Look, I know that… for some reason, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re never going to find someone who fancies you-”

“For some reason? There is a very clear reason, Regulus, her name is Walburga!” 

“I know” he rolled his eyes. He knew very well about the hierarchy of the three of you in your home. And even if you were still not as below as Sirius because you were in Slytherin, your mother never let you forget that you were not Regulus or any of your cousins for that matter. “And I know that is not easy for you to turn off her voice in your head but, if you don’t, you might miss your chance to be with someone who is actually a great fit for you and it looks like he really likes you” he explained. “Don’t do that. If you let her win, you’re admitting that she’s right. And we all know, she’s not” he reminded you. “What’s the worst that could happen if you give Potter a chance?” 

“It’s very annoying when you’re right all the time, did you know that?”

“I do” he smiled triumphally, eating one last piece of chocolate as Professor Slughorn finally entered the class. 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Ugh, what is it?” you heard your cousin’s annoyed voice on the other side of the door that you knocked on before it opened, and she appeared. “Oh, hey, love” she smiled when she saw it was you.

“Hi, Cissa, um… is this a bad time?” you asked, hoping you were not just interrupting her having sex with Malfoy. 

“Oh, no, love. Lucius is just moping about losing the match” she laughed, stepping out. “What’s up?” 

“Um, w-well, I wanted to ask for a favor… if you’re not too busy” you smiled. 

“Please, anything to get away from Lucius” she said, linking her arm with yours and already walking over to your dorm. “So, what’s going on?” she said, stepping into your dorm and noticing all the clothes scattered around your bed and the floor. 

“Well, I was hoping to get your opinion on something” you said, smiling sweetly. 

“Let me guess” she said, sitting on your bed and grabbing a few skirts and dresses. “You’re going to the Gryffindor party to see James Potter” she said, erasing the smile off your face. 

“Wha-? How did you know? Did Regulus tell you?”

“Oh, please, love, I’m sure you and Sirius are the only ones who didn’t know” she laughed. 

“What?”

“Yeah, Bella and Andy also know” she informed you. 

“What? How?”

“I told them” she shrugged. 

“Ugh, great” you said, throwing yourself on your bed. “My entire family is discussing my pathetic crush” you lamented. 

“It could be worse” she said. “At least he’s a pureblood” she smiled. 

“Right” you said awkardly, sitting up. Of course that would be the only pro she’d find on James. 

“Besides, he obviously likes you back” she said as she started looking through the dresses. “Stand up” she said, pulling you up and putting the dress in front of you. 

“How are you so sure that he likes me back?”

“Oh, please, love. You can’t be that dense” she snorted. “The boy won’t leave you alone. And I’m pretty sure you’re the only one not from Gryffindor to get invited to their parties” she said. “Or at least the only Slytherin” she said. 

“W-well, maybe Sirius invited me-”

“Then why isn’t Regulus going?” 

“Okay, fair” you sighed. 

“This looks pretty. How come you haven’t worn it before?” she asked, holding up a black dress. 

“Oh, I got it a while ago in a very cute shop, but, I know it’s not something my mother would ever let me wear” you told her. 

“Well, lucky for us, your mum isn’t here” she said, throwing the dress at you. 

After you put it on, Narcissa happily sat back down on your bed and helped you with your makeup. 

“Hey, Cissa?”

“Try not to move, I’m doing your eyes” she said. 

“How do you um… get a guy to uh… notice you?” you asked, making your cousin’s look soften a little. 

“James Potter already notices you, love” she smiled. 

“W-well, yeah, I guess b-but, um… how do I let him know that I like him?” you asked. “You know, without actually telling him” you chuckled. 

“You mean, how do you flirt with him?” 

“It’s just… Regulus insists that he does these things to get my attention and… to be honest, I didn’t think it was any different from the way he acts with other girls so… I guess I have been acting normal, but… I’d like him to know that I’m interested, I guess…”

“Well, Potter seems to have a big ego, so congratulate him on how well he played today” she said as she kept doing her makeup and you glared at her a little. 

“And Lucius is as humble as they come, I suppose” you muttered. 

“Fair point” she said, before she continued. “Look, you already know he’s interested in you. Just smile at him, laugh at his stupid jokes, you should be fine” she insisted as she finished. “Okay, I’m done” she smiled. You got up and walked over looking at yourself in the mirror. 

For the first time, in a very long time, you actually felt beautiful. Narcissa had managed to make you look as elegant and flawless as you did whenever your family had a dinner party, but you didn’t feel like you were wearing a costume in one of the dresses your mother always picked. You felt like yourself. You turned around and hugged your cousin tightly. 

“Thank you so much, Cissa!” you smiled. 

“You’re welcome, love. Now go flirt with your dumb boy” she said, ushering you outside your dorm. 

“You too” you said, smiling and walking down the stairs as she rolled her eyes.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

When you entered the Gryffindor Tower, the party was already in full mode. You felt a few people, guys specifically, looking your way but you thought maybe it was because you were possibly the only Slytherin here. You walked across the Common Room, looking for James, but you found a different Marauder first. 

“Hi, Remus” you smiled as he walked over to you. 

“Oh, thank Merlin you’re here” he hugged you. “You’re the only person I like at this party and now Prongs can finally stop moping about you not being here” he said, making you laugh a little as he pulled away and looked at you. “Wow… you look-?”

“Bad?” you panicked.

“What? No! You look lovely” he smiled. “Prongs’ probably gonna have a heart attack though” he smirked. 

“Shut up! Stop saying things like that!” you widened your eyes at him. 

“Oh, please don’t tell me that you are as oblivious as your brother” he chuckled.

“I am not-! You know, I hit Regulus for saying that today!” 

“Alright, don’t hit me” he said, putting his hands up in surrender. “But, you cannot tell me that you haven’t noticed the way Prongs acts around you. He was literally throwing a fit about you not coming today” he insisted. 

“Really? Because he seems fine to me” you said, pointing behind Remus where you saw James talking to a group of very pretty girls as he offered a drink to one of them while another one threw her hair back, clearly flirting with him. 

“That means nothing” Remus said, rolling his eyes when he looked back to you. “That’s how James is-” 

“Exactly, that’s how James is” you repeated. 

“No, it’s different with you” Remus insisted as he grabbed a drink and handed it to you. 

“Really? Enlighten me” you glared at him. 

“So, you are admitting you are as oblivious as Sirius then?” 

“You know, you’re making a big deal out of that for someone who is just as oblivious on my brother’s crush on him-”

“What?!” Remus said, choking on his drink and pulling you aside. “Alright, now you’re just making stuff up” he said. 

“I’m not! You really haven’t noticed how Sirius is obnoxiously loud whenever you’re around to get your attention?”

“He… does not” Remus said, blushing a little. 

“Or that he calls you sweet names” you smirked.

“He calls everyone ‘love’” he interrupted. 

“Yes, he does” you nodded. “But he only calls you ‘my’ love” you added. 

“He… does not” he repeated.

“What are you doing here?” Sirius asked, walking over to the two of you all of the sudden. 

“Nothing” Remus quickly said. 

“Being normal, why?” you said at the same time, making Sirius raise an eyebrow at the two of you. “Um… h-have you seen James?” 

“No, but I am seeing too much of something” he said, gesturing his hand at your body. “What the bloody hell are you wearing?”

“A dress?” you said, looking down at yourself. 

“That is too revealing. You need to go change!”

“First of all, it is not. And secondly, your shirt is literally completely open!” you complained. 

“Yeah, well, this isn’t anything they haven’t seen before” he defended himself. “I am not in the mood to fight some prick that stares at you for a little too long because of… that” he said. “Go upstairs and grab my jacket” he told you.

“What? No!” you complained.

“Yes” he insisted. “Would you reason with her, my love?” he asked, looking at Sirius and you smirked when he blushed furiously. 

“Shut up” he whispered to you. “Look, just go upstairs and pretend to look for a jacket, I’ll distract him and you can come back in a few minutes” he said while Sirius finished his drink. 

“Ugh, fine” you rolled your eyes. 

“How come she only listens to you?” Sirius complained, pouting at Remus. “It must be your beautiful eyes” he smiled.

“How many of those have you had?” Remus asked, taking his glass away from him. 

You made it upstairs to the boys’ dorm and went over to Sirius' trunk to look for one of his jackets.  You found one that you kind of liked and put it on before you went back downstairs. You looked for James but saw he was still talking to the group of girls. You tried to look for your brother instead but saw him very busy with Remus and you didn’t want to interrupt so you went to grab something to drink.

“I didn’t know they let Slytherins into our parties” you heard Augustus McLaggen on your left, pouring himself a drink as well. 

“Oh” you said nervously. You were rarely alone at these things. You would at least have Regulus by your side and he would make someone go away if you were uncomfortable. “W-well, James invited me and- I was with my brother-”

“Relax, darling, I’m joking” he smirked, walking closer to you. 

“Oh” you smiled wearily. 

“It’s actually a bit… refreshing to have someone from another house” he said. 

“Um… thanks?”

“There’s something different about you” he said, eyeing you up and down. “I can’t quite put my finger on it” he said, making you pull your jacket a little closer.

“Hey! You finally came, love” you thankfully heard James’ voice coming towards you and wrapping his arm around your waist. “I thought you were standing me up” he said, kissing your head. 

“J-James, hi” you smiled relieved. 

“Sorry, mate, gotta steal her for a bit” he said, smirking at McLaggen who was glaring at him and he quickly pulled you aside. 

“Thank you” you told him as the two of you walked away.

“Don’t mention it, love. McLaggen’s a prick, why were you talking to him?”

“I wasn’t talking to him! He was talking to me” you insisted as James raised his eyebrow. “I was just getting a drink! And I was gonna go look for you-”

“Are you wearing my jacket?” he asked, confused. 

“Y-your… what?” you said, looking down at your jacket. “This is y-your jacket?” you asked confused. 

“Yeah” he smiled.

“Oh, I’m sorry, it was in Sirius’ trunk” you said, confused. “I thought-”

“Yeah, beautiful. I’m gonna save you some time, probably none of our clothes is in the correct trunk” he laughed. “Except Remus’” he added. 

“I’m sorry” you said, starting to take it off. 

“N-no! Don’t worry about it, gorgeous. Are you cold? Is that why you wanted my jacket? ‘Cause it looks good on you- I mean, you look beautiful tonight” he said smiling at you. “W-well, you always do” he added. 

“R-really?” you smiled, feeling your cheeks blush.

“Yeah” he nodded. “You don’t need the jacket if you ask me-”

“Oh, um, w-well…” you stuttered. “Sirius just… didn’t like my dress and said I needed a jacket” you rolled your eyes.  

“Well, Padfoot just needs to snog Moony and mind his business” he laughed, making you laugh as well. “You look beautiful with that dress” he smiled dreamily at you. 

“Thank you, James” you said, feeling your heart flutter. “Wait, you know about that?”

“How Sirius calls Moony ‘my’ love? Of course I do” he chuckled. “So, what took you so long to come? Were you crying all this time because your house lost?”

“Really? Did you want me to come just to brag about the match, Potter? I can still leave” you smirked as he handed you a drink. 

“Please don’t. I was so bored before you came” he said, walking you over to one of the sofas near a window. 

“I find that very hard to believe” you said, looking around. 

“Why do you always think I’m lying?” James asked, placing his hand on the sofa, behind you. 

“Because I’ve known you since I’m eleven?” you replied, making him glare at you a little. 

“That hurts, love” he said, trying to sound offended. “When have I ever lied to you?” 

“Well, for starters, you didn’t tell me that you, my brother, and Peter became Animagi to help Remus-”

“That was your brother. He didn’t let us tell you” he defended himself. 

“Alright” you said, trying to suppress your smile. “So, you’ve never lied to me?”

“Never, love” he insisted.

“Not even to avoid hurting my feelings?” you raised your eyebrow at him and noticed him tense a little. 

“N-no, of course not” he said, taking a sip of his drink. 

“So, last Christmas when you invited us over and your mum was teaching me how to cook, you actually liked the Christmas Pudding I made?” 

“Of course I did” he chuckled. 

“James” you glared at him. 

“Yes, love?” he smiled, goofily at you. 

“I mistakenly added salt instead of sugar, it was ruined” you laughed. 

“No, no. It wasn’t ruined. It gave it a new better taste” he shrugged. 

“James!” you laughed. 

“What? It’s true! I liked it” he insisted. 

“Nobody else ate it! You can’t possibly think it was good” you laughed. 

“Well, I did” he shrugged, turning your way. 

“You’re really stubborn, did you know that?” 

“Oh, and you’re not?” he laughed making you smile. “Have you… always been this beautiful?” 

“That’s so cheesy, Potter, even for your standards” you chuckled, feeling your cheeks burning. 

“Wait… do you-? Do you not believe me?” he asked, his tone getting serious. 

“I- um… I do” you said, unconvincingly. 

“You don’t” he said, turning himself to you. “It is one thing that you don’t believe that I liked your Christmas Pudding-”

“You didn't” you insisted. 

“But how can you not believe me about that?” 

“I do!” you insisted. “It’s just… I’m sorry, I’m being stupid” you smiled sadly, looking at your drink. 

“No, you’re not” James insisted, placing his hand under your chin to make you look at him. “What’s going on, love? Did- did I say something wrong?” 

“No!” you quickly said. “You never say anything wrong” you smiled sadly. “It’s just… I’m not really used to um… hearing that” you said, feeling your cheeks blush. 

“Love, I tell you that every single day! Why is it so hard for you to believe me?” 

“Because, James, look at my entire family” you said, sadly. “You know who I live with. My mother is not warm and loving like your mum is. I grew up very differently than you” you reminded him, making his look turn soft and his heart break a little. “I know you wouldn’t lie to me” you added. “It’s just… not easy for me to believe it, I guess” you smiled sadly. 

“Well, love” he said, moving closer to you and placing his hand softly on your cheek. “If you’re okay with it, I will keep saying it until you believe me” he told you. “Because you are the most beautiful person that I have seen in my life. And, since apparently I haven’t been as obvious as I thought I was, I am completely and madly in love with you and I would love to take you out on a date” he said, making your heart stop. 

“R-really?” you asked and he raised his eyebrows at you. “I m-mean, y-yes, I would love to go on a date with you” you smiled. “And… in case you didn’t know because I’m horrible at this… I am very much in love with you too” you added, making the biggest smile appear on James’ face. “And I also think you’re really beautiful” you said before he pulled you in to kiss you on the lips. 

“I love you, beautiful” he said, making you smile. 

“I love you too, Jamie” you said. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

“Anything” he said.

“Do you like Peppermint Toads?” you asked suddenly, remembering your conversation with Regulus. 

“Do I uh-” he frowned. “Why are you asking me that?” he chuckled nervously. 

“You always give me Peppermint Toads when you say you bought too many but… I don’t think I’ve seen you have one” you explained. 

“Well, love… I hate to break it to you, but nobody likes Peppermint Toads” he admitted. 

“That’s not true!”

“Yes, it is” he said, kissing your cheek. “I just bought them because you always smiled when I gave them to you” he said. “So, I’ll buy you as many as you want” he said, hugging you to him and giving you another peck on the lips. 

"Thanks, love" you smiled. "Can you now tell me if you actually liked my Christmas Pudding?"

"I did!"

The End

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A/N: I hope you loves liked it! :)

[imaginariumwanderer]

So I finished the latest story...

This is pretty horrifying from a cookie's perspective. One of cookiekind's main forms of happiness is their ability to express their various colorful flavors/personality. I suppose it's the same thing as tripping a living human of their sentient and individuality. Ego death. Leaving behind hollow flesh

We be committing unspeakable crimes against nature with this one✨

We be crumbling our colleagues while slowly losing our mind with this one✨

On another note, "eyecing" make its glorious return. I have no memory of it being used before the Mystic Flour update. Can anyone point out the other times it was used, if there's any?

????!!!!! OMG HIIII

MORE CJ PAWLIKOWSKI VOICE ACTING YES YES YES

Don't do it, don't give me hope...

I know he's the last to be released u don't need to tease me like that

So the other-space here clearly refer to the Dark side of the Moon, right? Is there any other-space I don't know about? Also, I guess this confirmed Shadow Milk is the only one able to do this astral projection thing. On one hand, it increases his chance of appearing a bit more before his own update, on the other hand, we most likely won't see the other Beasts having any talking-role any time soon

The implications here...

So the Beasts may likely have their own voices of their Light just like the Ancients does. And "Soul Jam"... Without an (s), Shadow Milk is specifically referring to his Soul Jam here, I can't believe my headcanon of the Light of Deceit/Knowledge whispering things to him is becoming true

It's a thing unique to Shadow Milk and not the other Beasts too. Interesting how both the voices of the Light of Truth and Deceit operate differently from the other Lights' (referring to the theory that the Light of Truth have never make an actual appearance since all instances of it in-game were all Shadow Milk's disguise)

... Clownage. Whelp! time to integrate that into my daily vocabulary!

Alright, so we got confirmation Smilk is not only aware of Dark Enchantress' plans but he's actively helping her out. Whenever he's oblivious to her other, secret plans (stealing the Beasts' Soul Jams) or he's aware and already have a counter measures to it though, is still up in the air.

My money is on the latter. Shadow Milk have shown time and time again he's way more knowledgeable than he let on. The way Dark Enchantress was depicted in his previous "play" does show us a certain level of... Appreciation(?) but who's to say he actually trusts her? It really does feel like a "I rub your back if you rub mine and then we'll backstab each other" kind of deal. Now I'm curious about the other Beasts' opinions on Dark Enchantress as well.

Where's Dark Enchantress anyways? We haven't seen her make any on-screen appearance in a while. I, um, I missed her a lot actually. I missed the diabolical meema

Laughing at Wind Archer cookie repeatedly telling Smilk to stfu from the moment they've met. He's saying what we've all been thinking

Also laughing at Shadow Milk basically only here to make cryptic riddles and mocks our Wind Archer. He really does have nothing better to do lol

Yeah that's right, FRIENDSHIP will save the day!

For real tho, tons of intriguing implications about the Ultimate Cookie with this one. I gotta mulls over them for awhile...

GUYS NEW SMILK'S SPRITE JUST DROPPED

HE'S ROLLING HIS EYES. HE'S SO DONE I'M DEAD

"In conclusion, this changed nothing!"

Kidding, kidding! I was getting real worried for Wind Archer there despite knowing full-well it's not crk's style to let something happen to a character unless they're a minor villain or an elderly *grinding my teeth trying not to bring up Elder Faerie again oops too late-*

The unexpected yet sweet moment of empathy Wind Archer have toward the Ultimate Cookie combined with the stunning animation toward the end were definitely my favorite part of this little adventure. Although I half-expected for him to have his magical girl transformation like White Lily and Dark Cacao right then and there-

"Beast-Yeast EP 5 coming soon to theaters near you! Remember to stay tuned, mkay? Okie dokie? Pinkie promiseee?"

[mysticstronomy]

DOES DARK ENERGY EXIST??

Blog#423

Wednesday, July 31st, 2024.

Welcome back,

The dominating form of energy in the cosmos, dark energy is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, but its nature remains a complete mystery.

Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that is proposed by physicists to explain why the universe is not just expanding but is doing so at an accelerating rate.

Think of dark energy as the "evil counterpart" to gravity–an "anti-gravity" force providing a negative pressure that fills the universe and stretches the very fabric of spacetime.

As it does so dark energy drives cosmic objects apart at an increasingly rapid rate rather than drawing them together as gravity does.

Dark energy is estimated to account for between around 68% to 72% of the universe's total energy and matter  —  its matter/energy budget  —  meaning it heavily dominates both dark matter and everyday matter.

The only real answer to the question "what is dark energy?" currently is "we don't know" as unsatisfactory as that may be. Scientists aren't completely in the dark, however. There are some leading candidates to account for dark energy.

These include the vacuum energy of space  —  particles literally popping in and out of existence in empty space — and a "fifth force" responsible for the negative pressure that might cause the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Other possibilities a range of different "flavors" of fields that could account for dark energy such as a low-energy field dubbed "quintessence," fields of tachyons  —  hypothetical particles that travel faster than light and thus back in time  —  among other concepts.

All of these remain purely hypothetical meaning that the only way we can really "know" dark energy currently is via its effect on the universe.

If dark energy is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate, shouldn't we see our coffee mug shift away from us or notice our commute to work getting longer each day?

We don't see things like this happen (even though it may feel like we do sometimes) because objects that are gravitationally bound such as stars, planetary systems, star clusters, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and even our coffee mug and table, don't seem to experience dark energy's effects. Gravity still beats dark energy at small scales.

Dark energy only seems to act on the largest scales of the universe, with the expansion of the universe a phenomenon that can only be measured by observing galaxies and other cosmic objects that are separated by massive gulfs of space in the order of millions, billions, and even tens of billions of light-years apart and away from us. And the greater the distance that separates these cosmic objects, the more rapidly they race away from each other.

As a simple analogy for this, imagine drawing three spots on a deflated balloon, two close together and the other further apart. In this analogy, dark energy is the breath blowing into the balloon overcoming gravity which is represented by the tension of the balloon's rubber skin. As the balloon is inflated all three points will move away from each other, but the furthest point will move away more rapidly.

This is like three galaxies, two close together and the other further apart, the latter of which is moving away faster because the space between it and the other galaxies, like the rubber of the balloon, is stretching, and more space means more expansion.

Currently, scientists estimate that galaxies are getting 0.007% further away from each other every million years. American theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel explained in a column for Big Think that in "real terms" for a cosmic object 100 million light-years away astronomers infer it is receding at 1,336 miles per second (2,150 kilometers per second). Meanwhile, a galaxy 1 billion light-years away is receding 10 times faster at around 13,360 miles per second (21,500 km/s).

Originally published on https://www.space.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, August 3rd, 2024)

"WHY DO PLANETS SPIN??"

[mobileleprechaun]

On Home, Wally, and their dynamic

Warning: Big Long Post! Rambly. Speculative!

In the early days of the Welcome Home fandom, it was often speculated that Home's role in the narrative was antagonistic, one defined by coercive control and abuse of Wally. This idea of a sinister, manipulative Home has inspired many AUs, pieces of fanart and has overall made a big impression on the fandom's perspective of Home as a character.

While this still remains very possible as an outcome, especially given that the series is still in its prologue, a lot of what I've observed in the latest update has painted a very different picture in my mind.

Below are some miscellaneous observations, both from the update and from information we had prior to the update.

Wally is excited about Eddie potentially being able to lift Home in the storybook recording, as he would like Home to be able to get a hot dog from Howdy's bodega like he and Barnaby always do.

Wally speaks often of his love for Home in the guestbook, and even writes Home's signature for it at the bottom of the page.

Home is shown, in a famous piece of art on Clown's Tumblr, to be the "plus-one" Wally would invite to a wedding, and he's shown smiling fondly at it through the window of the chapel while it peers in from outside.

This piece of promotional art, as well as this crayon drawing from the April Fool's Day prank where Wally briefly took over Clown's Twitter to post his drawings, show a big Wally cradling a small Home in his arms. This is an inversion of their actual relationship, as Wally is just a little guy and Home is a great big house. In the latter drawing, Wally has obsessively written Home's name over and over again.

In the bug vignette featuring Barnaby and Home on the page with the script, Barnaby understands Home perfectly when it speaks and has a fluent back and forth with it. Its responses to him seem amused and sarcastic, and it generally looks to be having fun bantering with him and sassing him. When Barnaby becomes concerned for Wally at the end, Home's noises sound concerned and urgent, like worried questions. It's concerned for Wally's change in behavior too.

Conversely, Wally is shown in his audio excerpts from the show to be socially-awkward and unable to comprehend things like sarcasm and turns of phrase. At his best, he sounds like he's saying things he's rehearsed before. At his worst, especially in the audio messages he leaves, he struggles even to speak, as though he cannot find the right word or that speech itself is hard on him. He begins to hyperventilate and lose his grasp on proper intonation in the latter recordings, likely out of distress or frustration.

In the Morse code message on the So Below page, most people interpret what Home is saying as either "help" or "hello". The former indicates distress on its part, while the latter indicates it trying to go along with Wally, as he introduced it in the previous audio message and explained (while struggling not to hyperventilate) that it makes noises.

In the picture of Wally and Home in "So Below", Home's eye is shuddering in seeming distress while Wally is knelt at its window. Although this is commonly interpreted as an act of worship, Home does not look particularly happy or powerful here. Wally's outstretched hand may be caressing it, or otherwise trying to pat or soothe it. Wally's eyes shudder in a similar manner in the "Stay Quiet" page.

The dark substance beneath Home has begun leaking to the point that it is now visible on the desktop version of the Neighborhood page. This is very likely the same substance mentioned on the secret, staff-only page, which apparently causes "nausea, dizziness and fatigue" upon physical contact.

The impression that I've gotten from this is that Home and Wally are more akin to intimate peers – siblings, very close friends, possibly even romantic partners* – than they are to an abusive guardian and their child. Much of what I'm about to say is speculative, and may not hold up after further updates, but it's nonetheless the vibe I'm getting.

Wally and Home have a deep understanding of one another, deeper even than Wally's friendship with Barnaby. They are bound so tightly that one can scarcely exist without the other. Home shelters Wally within itself, granting him the sanctuary of its own body. Wally, in turn, grants Home a purpose as its inhabitant and tends to its needs, always making sure to help it feel included in neighborhood activities. Both are seen doting on one another with the sort of fondness only years of intimate familiarity can bring. Each is attuned to (and interested in) the other's needs.

Neither Home nor Wally are doing well at this point in the narrative. Wally is audibly deteriorating when he addresses us (or the Question-Answerer) in the audio snippets. He's barely able to keep it together, and some sort of horrific distortion is slipping into his voice. Home, meanwhile, has only seen its sludge problem get worse, and does not seem able to do much at all besides the occasional response in Morse code. These utterances are few and far between, especially compared to how chatty and lively it seemed in the Barnaby vignette. It seems withdrawn, perhaps even exhausted. It is very likely sick.

Home has, up until this point, been "the strong one" in the relationship, as a house must be. In addition to bearing up its body as shelter for Wally, it may have carried the little fellow's social burdens, as it seems to hold its own very well in conversation. But now it's fallen ill. Gravely ill. It's unable to go and look for help, being a house, and is put in a precarious situation due to its immobility. None of the other neighbors are around to help it.

Wally cares for his Home deeply. He is grateful for its shelter and its friendship. He's the only one who can help it now – it's finally his turn to be strong. He wants desperately to protect it, to find help for it, and this is what drives him to reach out. But he doesn't know how one asks for help, or how even to describe the problem. His tranquil neighborhood never made him confront that reality, and he's now left floundering. Home can only watch helplessly, through a haze of sickness, as he humiliates himself again and again in his pained, futile struggle to be understood.

It's driving him mad. It's forcing him to feel emotions he can barely describe. Every attempt only serves to further terrorize the Question-Answerer and double his own anger and misery.

But he can't stop. He must be strong for Home. He will make his neighbor understand.

So TL;DR, I see it as less "Home has Wally trapped!" or "Wally is doing something bad to Home!" and more this heartbreaking nugget from Learning With Pibby. If Home is malevolent, I think Wally's going to be right there at its side. And if he manages not to be, I think it will be a tragic effect of the corruption rather than any innate badness Home has in it. I think we are shown how wonderful and precious this Home can be so it will be all the more heart-wrenching when that is no longer the case. At any rate, I am enthralled and am so grateful to be able to engage with this wonderful piece.

*I hate that I have to even say this, but – please don't misconstrue that I think siblings and romantic partners are the same thing, or any other implication therein. I'm an eldest sibling myself and find the idea abhorrent. I say this only because relationships in a text can be very ambiguous, and there are many flavors of closeness between people that share similarities.

Anyway, thank you so much if you read this far! Welcome Home has really given me the analysis bug again... heehee, bugs.

[plzu]

caricature of intimacy - (Miguel O'Hara x Venom!Symbiote!Reader)

summary: Miguel invites you to keep his cock warm while he works. warnings: explicit 18+ only (mdni), cockwarming, p in v sex, no Y/N, implied venom x reader, (mostly one-sided) hate fucking, the tiniest possibility of humiliation kink, interrupted orgasm, Miguel in civvies! a/n: part 3 of sleeping with roaches. title once again from P!ATD's Build God, Then We'll Talk. i've had this idea stewing for months and finally got a chance to write it. sorry for liking it when Miguel is mean. as if it's my fault. wordcount: 2.3k

Sometimes, it feels like Miguel may actually take pleasure in punishing you. Which, if you’re being honest, is hard to convince yourself of, given the way he carries himself. Like he’s the only person capable of solemnly bearing the brunt of the world (or worlds, rather) on his massive fucking shoulders. 

He doles out the responsibility of keeping you restrained, so to speak, with ever increasing proximity. It is a constant and cruel test of your discipline. How deep can he push himself inside you without 1) the symbiote overtaking you and 2) letting your trembling hands wander along his body.

Lately, though, it seems he's been getting more lenient regarding the latter. Maybe it's a test of will. Maybe he just likes this more than he'll ever be capable of admitting. Likes you more than he lets on, and he doesn't let on much. You fully believe he still hates your guts as deeply as he can reach 'em.

(And he can reach. It's a wonder you can stand at all after your onerous little trysts.)

Either way, your current predicament has you flush against him, body quivering from immense self-restraint and the overwhelming sensation crowding between your legs. Miguel allows your hands to clench at the fabric of his shirt, right at his chest. Your forehead rests between your shakings fists at his clavicle, which is hidden by said shirt and its wide-rimmed, almost bowl-like collar.

It’s a funny thing, seeing him in regular clothes. The fashion here is slightly different than where you’re from, which adds to the out-of-placeness it brings out in Miguel. Simple, yet futuristic, you suppose, given that this dimension is several decades ahead of your own, before it was crudely blipped out of existence. The soft white and gray material of the long-sleeved shirt does  something to mellow out Miguel’s typical dark and brooding aura. It’s nearly disarming, the way it makes you want to stare. Take in the way he looks almost… normal. Less creature of the night.

The casual outfit had certainly made you pause when you sought him out before. You blinked back surprise, wondering if you had wandered into the wrong room, if this Miguel was a different variant, not of Earth-928. Until he cut you with that familiar glare of disdain that only your Miguel could give you, and then accepted your offer to release any pent-up frustration. Only to surprise you again by commanding you to sit on his lap.

(“I’m busy, so you’re going to sit still while I work until I say you can move.”)

Maybe being fully clothed is why he’s allowing the proximity. The only bare part of him that you're allowed to touch is sheathed inside your heat -- the head of his cock pressed up against your cervix like a bruising promise. A delectable threat.

The clothes allow a modicum of distance between you. Nulls the intimacy that his exposed flesh might allow, skin against skin as you straddle his lap, stuffed with his cock.

Aside from being a barrier, you wonder if, maybe, there was an element of humiliation to the circumstance. While it was unlikely anyone would come across you two in his computer chair, in his very private office -- lab? -- it wasn't impossible. Some emergency could have one of the other Spider-folk bursting through, and they'd see you naked from the waist down, barely holding it together as Miguel coolly works on his computer.

Miguel would never let anyone else see him like this, of course, yet you can't help but wonder. He doesn't seem particularly pleased that the others seem to like you so much. It must be satisfying -- the idea that some of the others would change how they feel about you if they happened upon the sight of you quivering like a desperate little whore on their commander’s lap, while he remained clearly unaffected.

The seat Miguel works in is slightly reclined, so the orange glow of his holographic monitors spill over your back. Flashes here and there when he closes one and opens another. Miguel's focus on whatever information being displayed makes it seem like he's entirely unphased by the way you're soaking his lap.

In an attempt to distract yourself from the ache of his girth, and how badly you want to rut against his pelvis, you zone in on the barely-there audio coming through. The sounds of recorded fights with different anomalies. Vulture. Rhino. Sandman. Green Goblin.

But the hum of sound is much too quiet. It's drowned out by the thudding desperation pulsing in your ears. This would be easier, much more bearable, if he weren't so fucking big.

You whimper, probably. Make some pathetic sound, because you feel his attention shift. A slight turn of his head has his jaw closer to your forehead.

“Keep it together,” he warns, voice dipped into a molasses-thick gravel that only makes you wetter. You shudder against him, squeeze your eyes shut against the temptation of wanting to look at his face.

“M-Miguel,” you breathe, finding it difficult to talk around the feeling of him inside you.“H-how muh-much...”

“Until I say we're done.” 

This is frustrating. The thought isn’t exactly your own, but it mirrors your feelings. As much as Venom enjoys when Miguel has his way with you, he currently squirms with impatience beneath your skin. I do not like this one. You can feel the desire he has to snake out a tendril or two, use it in a way that would satisfy you both, but he knows better -- even the slightest hint of his appearance would disrupt this session. 

Despite the circumstances, this makes you huff a one-syllable laugh. A small puff of amusement that does not go unnoticed by Miguel.

“What’s funny?” he asks, mild irritation an undercurrent to his soft query.

You answer, after a beat. “Inside joke.”

That seems apt.

Miguel doesn’t seem to appreciate the pun so much, though. “That thing is not a part of this.”

Venom takes offense to that. I am a part of you, so I am a part of this whether he likes it or not!

“Don'worry,” you sigh, ignoring the symbiote in favor of lifting your head to peer up at Miguel's handsome, ticked off face. “Won't let him out. 'M a good girl.”

Miguel's nostrils flare at your words. His cock twitches inside you at the same time that his large hands clamp down against your waist, cementing you to his hips, preventing you from bucking against the brief friction.

Your mouth parts in a startled gasp. The feeling of his palms sears against your skin, warm and titillating flesh. 

His attention zeroes in on your mouth, his own lips peeling back into a snarl that traps a guttural sound behind his teeth.

And- you catch it again. The hungry look on his face as his eyes focus on your parted lips, the look that makes it feel like he wants to devour you. It sends a thrilling crackle of desire skittering along your veins, foolishly fills you with hope and longing. 

The truth is, you’d let Miguel O'Hara consume you in a heartbeat. He wouldn't even have to ask.

It makes something liquid and molten spool in your lower abdomen, and you clench involuntarily around him, your weakness for Miguel's attention making you mewl and quake in his hold.

You squeeze your eyes shut again, not wanting to see Miguel's expression shift back into controlled anger as it usually does after you interrupt the rare reverie of his attention. Instead of another frustrated growl, however, you feel his head bow into the space of your neck. There’s no contact, but his breath fans hot against your skin.

Your eyes open with careful slowness despite the speed at which your heart beats in your chest at the sight of Miguel's neck so close to your lips. The hair that falls over his ear tickles your left cheek.

His chest heaves under your clenched fists, and you could swear his heartbeat matches your own. You want to ask if he's okay, but you're afraid of shattering this moment with another word.  

It doesn't matter that your legs are starting to ache from being spread around his hips for so long. Doesn't matter that the feeling of his cock persists against your core. You want to savor this delicious torment of his hands at your hips and his fangs a breath away from your pulse for as long as you breathe.

Miguel is the one that breaks the silence, instead. Murmuring below your ear, “I don't like what you do to me.”

You’re not sure what he means, other than being well aware that you're a thorn in his side. You just hope that the comfort of your cunt is enough reason for him not to pluck you out.

Which is kind of embarrassing to admit. So you hum in agreement. “Same, here.”

He lifts his head, and you think you catch a glimpse of remorse in his crimson eyes before his features slip back into the more familiar grim stoicness. 

As he leans back, his hands travel lower, gliding over the curve of your ass until you can almost feel his fingers at the crease of your heat. The action lifts you, forces you to follow forward as he continues reclining back. It also makes his cock slide partially out of you. A quiet moan shudders out of you at the sensation of finally having some reprieve.

Miguel shifts slightly underneath you as he meets your half-lidded gaze. “Don’t forget the other rule.” You just stare back at him, frowning slightly. The ghost of a smirk accompanies his reminder. “Stay quiet.”

Before you get to fully process his words, his hips snap up and slam against your ass, plunging his cock fully back inside you. You cry out for only half a second before biting back your wail. 

He shushes you against your hairline - you didn’t even realize you dropped your head back down against his chest. Though with the way he’s dragging out of you again, terribly slow, you’re probably going to have to use his chest to muffle your cries. 

He thrusts up into you again, and again, and again. Despite the bruising grip on your hips, the pace he’s going at feels almost tender. The head of his cock pushes repeatedly against that sweet, swollen spot inside you, gradually undoing you. 

“Good girl?” Miguel growls low in your ear. “You’re the most aggravating part of my day.” He switches up, guides you to slam down on him while he remains firm on the seat of the chair. It punches the air from your lungs. “Everything you do pisses me off.”

His words drip like nectar down your spine. It's difficult to take offense to them when he lets you hook your arms over his shoulders and around his neck so that you can cling to him; it's the first time he's ever allowed your arms to wrap around him.

If he weren't fucking all matter of coherent thought out of your brains, you'd be able to marvel over the fact that he hasn't ripped away from you. The fact that he's in your arms gets lost in the smoldering heat trapped between you.

Miguel spreads your cheeks, and it does something you can’t describe to the sensation of having his cock fuck into you. It makes you babble nonsense into the damp space of his neck, taste his sweat on your tongue as you keen, “so deep so deep so good-”, a feeling sweet and sharp swelling in your belly until it spikes and bursts, and you gush around the relentless ramming of his cock, soaking the crotch of his pants.

You pant, falling slack against the solid wall of his torso. His hands finally relinquish their hold on your bottom, and you feel his arms encircle your waist, holding you still and close as he uses your spent pussy to chase his own release.

The bunched up fabric at the crotch of his pants, his open fly, keeps catching at your clit with each thrust. The sensation quickly and overwhelmingly begins to build into another orgasm.

His pace quickens. Something animalistic rumbles in his chest, the strength of his arms crushing you to him. Your vision blurs with unshed tears as each snap of his hips brings him closer to his release- a second one of your own about to rip right through you-

“Yo, Boss man!”

Lyla's disembodied voice pings from the watch on Miguel’s wrist. He stills, coming to a tense stop with a grunt. You would have jumped off his lap had he not kept the vice grip around your waist.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting anything,” she continues, and it’s hard to tell if the amusement in her voice is from knowing what she’s interrupted. “But I’ve detected another anomaly.”

Miguel unwinds his arms from around you. You take the opportunity to ease up and away from his chest, quietly unwrapping yourself from Miguel’s neck, suddenly worried that he’ll push you away.

As he sits up and lifts the watch to his face, he speaks into it in a strained and gruff voice, “Where?” 

You don't look at his face to see if he’s spared you a glance as he gets information from Lyla, very purposeful in avoiding eye contact and keeping quiet as you begin to slide off of him, afraid that you'll remind him of who and what you are and make him regret these last few moments of intimacy.

The absence of him from between your shaky legs aches almost as much as being too full with him does. You feel his fingers gently graze against the soft flesh at your hip as you turn away. The unexpectedness of it makes you waver for only a second, heart going into a flutter. 

You keep your back turned to Miguel, smiling softly, as you gather your discarded clothes, planning to hold onto this moment for as long as you exist.

[izunias-meme-hole]

Since I already posted my favorite Sailor Moon Villains but I didn't exactly rank them, so here we go.

My Top 10 Sailor Moon Villains (From Both The 90's Anime & The OG Manga/Crystal & Eternal)

Number 10. Wicked Lady - No, I will not be calling her "Black Lady," but aside from that, this is Chibi-Usa at her undeniable worst, no matter the version. Though execution-wise, the anime wins out purely because of her resolution, and the showcase of some level of good still being in her.

Number 9. Mistress 9 - Ah, pure evil done well. She didn't exactly have a lot of screentime in the 90's anime (and she was sadly kinda basic), but in the manga she's an entirely different story. Mistress 9 is the child and herald of Pharaoh 90, and is hellbent on eradicating all life on earth because she sees them as inferior lifeforms. Oh, and let's not even bring up her possession of Hotaru Tomoe, the fact that Chibi-Usa's pure heart was used to give her power, and overall she's just heinous as hell. In short, Mistress 9 was definitely something in both the 90's Anime and Manga/Crystal, though her appearance in the latter elevates her into the 10th spot on this list.

Number 8. The Shitennou - Ah yes, Beryl's servants. The loyal supervillain Jadeite, the passionate Nephrite, the ever so underhanded and insecure Zoisite, and last but not least the "cool" Kunzite. Surprisingly, Crystal botched these guys really bad, while the anime basically expanded upon the other 3 and gave Kunzite, the best one in the manga, the literal shit end of the stick after a good run. Still, all four of these guys are absolutely phenomenal minibosses.

Number 7. The Amazoness Quartet - God, they look absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn't stop them from being great minibosses like the Shittenou. Between their unique personalities, relations with Chibi-Usa, and overall just how solid they are as a group just sold me on them.

Number 6. Crimson Rubeus - Ah yes... the second most consistently heinous member of the Black Moon Clan. Rubeus is selfish, cowardly, sadistic, arrogant, manipulative, loyal to the literal worst people ever, and overall he's just a very hateable villain on so many angles. Though this hateability, his effectiveness as a villain, and just how much of a good addition he is to the Dark Moon Clan cements this guy's placement on here.

Number 5. Queen Nehelenia & Zirconia - Life is funny sometimes. In the manga/Eternal, Zirconia has nothing going for her aside from design and the fact that she's Queen Nehelenia's other self, while Nehelenia herself is almost like Snow White's Evil Queen mixed with Maleficent and its genuinely great to see. Yet in the 90's anime, Zirconia is expanded upon so much more to the point where she's legit entertaining, while Nehelenia gets expanded upon too before being brought back from the dead with a tarnished character. Still though, in both of the mediums where they're at their best, this evil queen and the personification of her inner ugliness are great.

Number 4. Prince Demande - What a delightfully twisted, vile, yet tragic villain. Granted the 90's anime take on him falls short because the guy had a half-assed "redemption," but it doesn't neuter all of his best qualities, nor does it ruin the OG Manga/Crystal's take on him, where he fully commits to that bit.

Number 3. Queen Beryl & Queen Metalia - Nothing wrong with a classic wicked witch. Especially if said wicked witch is an envious and hateful woman that's in service to pure unadulterated evil as a means to get what she wants most. Granted Beryl alone could've made the list, especially since Metalia doesn't have a lot going for herself, but the anime had the perfect resolution for these two by just fusing them together.

Number 2. Death Phantom/Wiseman - No matter the iteration, no matter the medium, Nazgul Charles Manson here is pure, unadulterated, unrestrained evil done right. Death Phantom is a manipulative monster who sees no value in life, who's made it his personal mission to become a dark god of death and nothingness. He's not a complex character, but he has substance, his evil deeds remain significant across the entirety of the Black Moon Clan's arc, and he leaves an impact as the most evil villain in the franchise and its best final boss. TL:DR: Death Phantom is objectively the best villain.

Number 1. Professor Souichi Tomoe - I shouldn't even need to explain this, but I will. Tomoe in the anime is hammy as hell, an amazing boss, shining with personality, nuanced as hell, carried the Infinity Arc on his back, and surprisingly enough gets a shot at redemption after his evil Daimon side, Germatoid, is split from him. Meanwhile, Tomoe in the manga/Crystal is initially shown as a somewhat shady figure who possibly cares about his daughter, before slowly being revealed as just a nicer looking Professor Hojo, complete with him making his own daughter the vessel for Mistress 9 all for the sake of becoming the god of an entirely new race of super-beings that will inherit the remains of the earth. It doesn't matter if this man is a corrupted magnificent bastard or a complete megalomaniac, this man is a stellar Mad Scientist who's undeniably human.

[nitewrighter]

So, re-read your Cindy story (still amazing!) and ended up going down a research rabbit hole with different fairy tales and found out about Donkeyskin. (Wikipedia link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkeyskin)

And wow. I know fairy tales are dark but there is a very human kind of horror to me with this one. Read: the king’s incestuous desire for his daughter and the prince spying on her while she’s changing.

Obviously I know it’s a whole thing about oral traditions, there not really being one ‘true’ story but different tellings with different tweaks.

But my point is that if the fairy godmother in this story is anything like Cindy’s I’m getting pretty strong: “hey do you want me to kill this guy for you? Because it sounds like he sucks and I would totally kill this guy for you.” Vibes.

Oh yeah--Donkeyskin was also definitely a variant of Sapsorrow (the version used in Jim Henson's "The Storyteller"), which did also partially inspire my version! Though also the threat of incest to drive the princess to another kingdom in disguise I think is a mechanic that has found its way into multiple fairytales. On a much tamer note, in the Perrault Cinderella, the Dad was very much still alive, he was just a chickenshit who couldn't stand up for his own fucking daughter, so maybe it's cruel of me to heap all that grief on Cindy, but honestly the prospect of having someone who could stand up for her but doesn't got me too angry and I think that anger kind of distracted from the core of the narrative, which is that Cindy holds onto her own hope and kindness in spite of her cruel surroundings. I really didn't want to write a scene where Cindy goes, "Hey Dad, I know you watched me get abused and basically get enslaved by the woman you married and did absolutely fuck-all, but I forgive yoooooouuu." Like, nah, bruh, I could NOT write that. That's also kind of why I avoided writing any outright forgiveness on Cindy's end toward the stepfamily and went for more of a "The center cannot hold" sort of thing when she leaves and takes her labor with her. While Cindy does ultimately find a new family, I do consider labor itself to be a major component of the story. That's also why I do talk about Cindy still doing work as a Princess Consort and it still tires her out but... it's work she's proud of! It's work with people who share her values and who care about her wellbeing! Like, there's work you do because it gives you a sense of pride and purpose and you feel like you're actively making your environment better through it, and then there's work you're doing because you're being exploited--Cindy's happy ending is the former, and her time with the Stepfam is the latter.

Again, Fairy Godmother is partially inspired by east coast energy, and partially inspired by the sheer bloodlust I felt playing as Aqua in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep when you drop into Cinderella's world literally minutes after her stepsisters have torn her dress to shit.

[diana-bluewolf]

Yay, I’ve finally finished it!

Some stills from the video.

Have you ever wished Sebastian's side quest line ended differently? Yes, me too. That's why I made this video (yet there's still its own crisis in it, sorry). The first part of it mostly retells the beginning of their story from the game, but the ending is different.

I really hope you enjoy it because I've been working on this for ages, trying to get the hang of mods and AI voices. I've written some clarification further, maybe you’ll find it helpful after watching the video (to avoid spoilers).

Sebastian’s impulsiveness reminded me of that moment from the original HP stories, where Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco. You know, an absolutely unfamiliar spell “for enemies” with unknown consequences from a mysterious book. 

In a normal state of mind Sebastian would have never hurt Ominis or, after what happened with Anne, he would have never doomed anyone, never mind his best friend who he does care about, to such fate. But Anne was getting worse, the relic was his last hope, he was desperate, his mind was in a mess. He was mad at Solomon, who seemed to do his best to prevent Anne from healing. 

When Ominis tried to stop him and take the relic away, Sebastian said that he won’t step back from a fight. Ominis unintentionally responded with the same words that Solomon liked to say about Sebastian, a powerful trigger. “He doesn’t know when to stop.” Sebastian’s exhausted mind interpreted it as “to stop saving Anne”, Solomon and Ominis’s images mixed up in his mind, so he lost it. His anger wanted them to feel what Anne feels. He cursed Ominis with a powerful dark spell, which he had learnt from Slytherin's spellbook by the logic “the better prepared we’ll be”. Sebastian regretted it a moment later but it was too late. Ominis had survived only because Chris (MC) had managed to get him to healers fast, but he still remained seriously ill afterwards.  

Sebastian and Chris were trying to find a cure. Eventually Chris discovered that ancient magic could take away dark energy that was ruining cursed people's health. Just like Isadora did with mental pain but safer, because unlike the latter dark energy isn’t supposed to be a part of being a human. Although Chris had been avoiding Dark Magic before, he realised that now he needed to attune himself to it a little, so that he could recognise its energy in a patient (Ominis and then Anne) and extract it. And that is where Sebastian's knowledge of Dark Magic turned to be crucial, because he guided Chris. 

They had managed to make a special potion, which together with ancient magic not only cured Ominis of Sebastian's curse but also had a side effect - it returned his eyesight. Let's imagine that he wasn’t born blind after all but he lost his eyesight in infancy because one of his brothers loved to fiddle with dark magic and Ominis came in handy as a training dummy. And the Gaunts covered it with a made up story about congenital disability. So when Chris rid Ominis of all the dark magic impact, it affected the eyes as well.

So, the main idea is - there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. Sebastian did curse Ominis, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise of some kind. Though the price for Ominis' eyesight was quite high -  trust in Sebastian. Hopefully, they can sort it out eventually.

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

Mods used:

“Male Face Replacer - Ominis Gaunt“ by JustAnOrdinaryGuy

“Unique Player Eye Shapes“ and “Brighter Eyes“

“Male Face Replacer - Sebastian Sallow“ by JustAnOrdinaryGuy

“UETools - Developer Console . FreeCamera . Debugging“ by Cranch

“Character Editor“ by nathdev

“Animations Mod Menu“ by YouYouTheBoxx

“Anne Sallow's Face“ by brucetesting123

“Party like it's 1890“ - Wizard edition by Aryksa

“Sebastian Sallow's Closet (Alternate Clothes)“ by leoisalion

“Ominis Gaunt's Closet (Alternate Clothes)“ by leoisalion

“Alohomora Mod” by Alfairy

“The Ultimate Wand Collection“ by Rosestorm

“Highlight Remover“ by HaywirePhoenix

“Emote with any npc” by nathdev

“AnyTimeCompanion” by Pez

[blackbirdsinatrenchcoat]

HI I SAW THE FANART OF YOUR OCS AND I LOVE IT, CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THEM???

aaaaaaa!!!!! absolutely!!!! thank you for asking!!!! ( in ref to this post ) okAY so they’re all embodiments/deifications of the seasons, Winter is top left, Summer is top right, Spring is bottom left, and you guessed it, Thaw is bottom right. (Autumn would be there but I don’t have its design yet sob.)

Winter: Gender? I Hardly Know Her! sapphic, they/he/she, doesn’t like you and isn’t afraid to say it, nice once you get to know them (you will never know them), definitely does weed, So Tall Literally What The Heck Man, genuinely terrifying, Doesn’t Know, hasn’t heard of a self esteem, survives off of instant ramen and tap water,

Spring: Just A Little Guy, biromantic gray-ace, he/him, nicest dude, all your pets and kids and siblings like him, has not had a full night of sleep since the dawn of time, flowery coffee mug full of hard liquor, places worth in his actions, would be an alcoholic but is too scared to accidentally get violent,

Summer: Prettiest Princess, pan, she/they, smiley, super friendly, pretends to like you but fantasizes about feeding your corpse to the vultures, in denial about everything, 5 3 but has 6ft aura, photographic memory, can bat her eyelashes and get away with murder

Autumn (not here :( ) :That Thing, demiromantic ace, he/it, no clue what is going on, accidentally funny, tries its best to make people like it, fails miserably, Wet Cat, does not believe in self care, incredible chef, like things with instructions cus they’d heard to mess up,

Thaw: Whatever You Want, Baby *wink*, bi demiromantic, xe/he/she, flirty as heck, infinite rizz, “your honor, nuh uh,” tbhkinda mean, passive aggressive about everything, knows exactly what to get people as gifts, really good at reading people,

im dumping the lore under the cut bc i saw the words “ocs” and “tell me” in the same sentence and got a bit too excited

The first three were created by Sun and Moon, but Thaw is an “artificial season”, made by Winter and Spring. They all have full power over their domain, and can create elements of their season. Winter is the patron of cloven animals, that which is already dead, guiding of souls to the afterlife, pottery, mourning, and they were the first season to exist, as they prepare the earth for life to Spring forth. get it. cause you know. Winter and then Spr ok i’m done. Spring is the patron of the beginning of life (as in babies and kids and stuff), guiding new souls into bodies, the waters, music, plant life, reptiles, and all aquatic animals. Summer is the patron of life(as in actual living), creatures of the air(besides bats) and insects, care if they physical body, fertility, and visual art, like paintings n drawings and things that go on a flat surface.

Autumn is a bit different. The 3 previous seasons were made by both Moon and Sun, the former having existing longer than the latter. The Primordials simply came into being, but Moon was first. Cus of a lot of creation myths and stories start with darkness, and then light. So Moon was there, and then Sun. They got bored of sitting and staring at an empty space rock. So they made the Seasons, and gifted them with creation.

It was just the first 3 for a while, but Sun got resentful. Moon was always the one who had the ideas, and executed them, and Sun hated that Moon was loved more by the Seasons, even though Sun was kinder. Sun decided to prove Sun was just as good at creating as Moon, so Sun made Autumn. Autumn was lacking morality, kindness, the ability to communicate, and was basically a shell of what it could have been.

The 3 eventually met Autumn, and since they were gifted with creation, they did their best to ‘fix’ Autumn. And they did, but not perfectly, since only a Primordial is the only being that can make fundamental changes like that. So Autumn is a little odd. It’s still learning how to be ‘human’ but it Knows and it Loves. And that’s all anyone can ask. Autumn is the patron of death(like the actual cease of life), removing of souls from bodies, harvest, all animals with paws, he art of writing in any form, and physical illness.

Thaw, on the other hand, was made by Winter and Spring pretty early on, a little bit before the 3 met Autumn. They got curious about the extent of their creation power, and created the first Lesser, Thaw. Inconveniently for them, Thaw was not created as an adult or even a teen, Thaw came to be as small child, about 4-5 in our years. So imagine two teens trying to raise a baby. Even though Spring is the patron of babies n kids n stuff, Winter stepped up, and tried to parent. Spring ended up taking Thaw at relative age 16, but until then, it was a weird coparenting thing.

Once Thaw was old enough to be independent, he held a lot of resentment for his “parents”, especially Winter. It took a while to reconcile, and his relationship with Winter is still strained, but everyone tries their best. Thaw is the patron of all hibernating animals, musical instruments, sleet and small streams, and all those with complicated families.

As society progresses, the rift between Sun and Moon deepens, and they start fighting, hence the end of the world. To the seasons, it’s like parents divorcing in the messiest way possible and also everyone and everything is dying. So they do their best to protect humanity (cus humans are a thing by then), and life as we know it. While also falling in love and stuff. Also they can’t die until the world is gone so.

And uhhh yeah :3 that’s all i can think of rn, but there’s definitely more except it’s 2am. this entire thing was heavily inspired by Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier, PORTALS by Melanie Martinez, and How to Build an Ocean: Instructions by Bears in Trees. Shoutout Fruit Gummy friend for maybe butterfly effect causing this by introducing me to Bears in Trees and shoutout to that other person who did the shit that causes the breakdown that caused me to put on Bears in Trees to calm down that caused me to have the first inspiration.

thank you for asking, Saturn, genuinely, and when are we scheduling the wedding?

[skydigiblogs]

honestly thought i would have a lot more to say about adventure 02 but like

i just finished episode 50 and the jist of my thoughts really are "yeah this is better than i remembered it being"

overall, an extremely ambitious follow up to digimon adventure, balancing a lot of plot points and an attempt at having a more cohesive storyline than "bad guy of the arc but suddenly it's apocalymon." in 02, most of the bad guys lead from one to another, in a way that seems much more intentionally thought-out than everything up until the dark master's arc in 01. even the one-off antagonists (dark ocean and demon's crew) played into the larger narrative, and weren't necessarily treated as one-offs so much as chances to expand the scope of the lore and use it to the narrative's benefit.

(although i do think it's a bit sad we never saw follow up on demon going "oh, you all are going to regret sending me to dagomon's ocean SOOOOO much")

also a lot of lore. so much lore. 01 introduced the fact that homeostasis has a bunch of agents that look like gennai, but a2 kept suggesting they're all copies (put a pin in that for my tri rewatch, much as i am loathe to rewatch that one). there wasn't any elaboration, but it is an interesting idea, and unfortunately i understand why it was kind of hastily noted and dismissed (the world tour arc had a lot to get to).

also the dimensional makeup of the digimon franchise got a lot more fascinating in 02. in 01 gennai mentioned that the gate could lead to all kinds of different places, but 02 actually takes that a step further in the lore, showing us the dark ocean and the dimension of dreams (even mentioning that the latter is pulled from by the digital world).

but it does maintain some of the problems i had with the original adventure in that i do wish more of the kids got to see their mega forms. :/

(i know tamers fixes that somewhat, then frontiers backpedals, but. you can't get me to rewatch frontiers lmao.)

furthermore, it does kind of suck that we're still left to wonder about ken's adventures in the digital world. we see ryo and millenniumon in his flashbacks to the adventures, but for audience members who missed out entirely on the wonderswan games, it makes it so we have to trust wormmon's word that ken was a kind person in the past. it's shown to an effective degree in the show, especially with his flashbacks to his childhood after the chimeramon arc.

it also makes narrative sense that they didn't feel the need to go over a story that's already happened, because that likely would have taken too long for 02, which already had so much going on. but maaaaaan. i do not want to play the wonderswan games, frfr (though i know there are fan translations out there for 'em).

i do love ken's arc though, as frustrating as him struggling with self-doubt is to watch. i'm glad the writers didn't make it seem too easy for him to forgive himself, because that's hard even if you weren't the vessel for like. All That Shit. i'm giving this boy a weighted blanket and hot tea.

tl;dr: compared to the oftentimes fever-dream like qualities of 01, 02 feels a lot more narratively focused in its story, and i think that really works to its favor. not a flawless season, but none of the digimon seasons are. a successful sequel to 01, much more so than i remembered from my last rewatch of the dub in 2020.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Prologue: Fortress of the Light

Well I took a much longer break than I expected and now winter's over (hopefully; I do live in Alaska) so it's time to get into the book with a longer break than expected between it and its prequel, but that gets going now that winter's over. Everything else is of course spoilers, and this post is going to have spoilers for the whole damn series so... don't keep reading if that's a problem.

Pedron Niall’s aged gaze wandered about his private audience chamber, but dark eyes hazed with thought saw nothing.

We start out this book with the Whitecloak icon because we're in Whitecloak town. And as is usual in Whitecloak town, every person in the place is looking around wildly and still completely blind to what's in front of them.

Still, he was suddenly aware of the tendon-ridged back of the hand holding the drawing, aware of the need for haste. Time was growing short. His time was growing short. It had to be enough. He had to make it enough.

We do see evidence here and there that despite being a Whitecloak, Niall isn't a completely contemptible person but... He is of course still completely wrong. He's not going to make it to the Last Battl and it won't be old age that takes him. He's in audience with a guy who could be warning him about the threat that will destroy his country but is focused on something else entirely.

It is a worse madness than any false Dragon I’ve ever heard of. Thousands have declared for him already. Tarabon and Arad Doman are in civil war, as well as at war with each other. There is fighting all across Almoth Plain and Toman Head, Taraboner against Domani against Darkfriends crying for the Dragon—or there was fighting until winter chilled most of it. I’ve never seen it spread so quickly, my Lord Captain Commander. Like throwing a lantern into a hay barn.

Considering how in-depth the series gets later on, it's a bit surprising we don't get much of a taste of this initial conflict. This all-consuming war, IIRC, continues to run on and off for pretty much the rest of the series, though the Seanchan do quiet it down and reframe it a great deal in the latter half.

“Lord Captain Bornhald said they called themselves Seanchan, my Lord Captain Commander,” Byar said stolidly. “He said they were Darkfriends. And his charge broke them, even if they killed him.”

Even when Byar touches on the Seanchan it's only in ways that actually misinform Niall. No wonder the LCC is so frustrated with this conversation.

“By this one Darkfriend you spoke of, Child Byar?” He could not keep an edge out of his own voice. A year’s planning lay in ruins amid the corpses of a thousand of the Children, and Byar wanted to talk only of this one man. “This young blacksmith you’ve only seen twice, this Perrin from the Two Rivers?”

Dude is so Perrin-obsessed that I feel that Perrin's ta'veren must be working against them both under these circumstances. Just like how Rand's causes both good and bad things to happen at random, so too does Perrin attract allies and enemies.

Perhaps these wars meant nothing in themselves—men fought wars—but they usually came one at a time. And aside from the false Dragon somewhere on Almoth Plain, another tore at Saldaea, and a third plagued Tear. Three at once.

Consider how different from Europe the setting of this story is, that wars come "one at a time". They don't have the population to sustain Renaissance war rates, even if they do still have the technology.

The Atha’an Miere, the Sea Folk, were said to be ignoring trade to seek signs and portents—of what, exactly, they did not say—sailing with ships half full or even empty.

I believe this is the first mention of them acting weird, so... that's an additional complication to look forward to.

But Tar Valon had apparently sent other Aes Sedai to support the other false Dragon at Falme. Nothing else fit the facts.

Props to Niall here for coming to a somewhat correct conclusion from a variety of incorrect data.

Carridin was tall, well into his middle years, with a touch of gray in his hair, yet fit and hard. His dark, deep-set eyes had a knowing look about them, as always. And he did not blink under the silent study of the Lord Captain Commander. Few men had consciences so clear or nerves so steady.

It's pretty easy to have a clear conscience when you don't have any conscience at all. Shame Niall's not a good enough judge of character to see that.

To serve the Light. Not to serve the Children of the Light. All the Children served the Light, but Pedron Niall often wondered if the Questioners really considered themselves part of the Children at all.

Maybe instead of setting up plans to conquer the continent you could have dealt with the Questioners, Niall? No? Just gonna let that shit heap fester in the sun? Great choice. Absolutely no knives in the back are coming your way... His eyes really aren't seeing anything in this chapter.

The Shadow’s plots are murky, and often seem mad to those who walk in the Light.

Sad thing is, Carridan is probably perfectly accurate in this particular sentence. The Dark spends a lot of its time acting in ways to maximize the paranoia of the common folk, to keep the Light too divided to properly purge it before the end of the Age.

Few ships have tried to cross the Aryth Ocean, and most never returned. Those that did, turned back before they ran out of food and water. Even the Sea Folk will not cross the Aryth, and they sail wherever there is trade, even to the lands beyond the Aiel Waste. My Lord Captain Commander, if there are any lands across the ocean, they are too far to reach, the ocean too wide. To carry an army across it would be as impossible as flying.

1. The Seanchan also do fly, naturally.

2. As Niall points out, this isn't a proof, it's only a (logical) guess.

3. The Sea Folk actually have made it across a few times, though they refer to the far end as the Isles of the Dead or something similar. Carridin probably isn't pointing this out either because he doesn't know or if he does because he doesn't want to make reaching the Seanchan continent seem plausible.

“Most people think Trollocs are only travelers’ tales and lies, and most of the rest think they were all killed in the Trolloc Wars. What other name would they put to a Trolloc but monster?”

This... also isn't proof. Shame the Whitecloaks don't like logic as much as the White Aes Sedai do.

“Even a false Dragon,” Niall said dryly, “is not enough to make them forget four hundred years of squabbling over possession of Almoth Plain. As if either of them ever had the strength to hold it.”

Even the real Dragon only manages to unite them through his second-order unification, as they lie across the Seanchan/West divide otherwise.

“At first they were only rumors, my Lord Captain Commander. Rumors so wild, no one could believe. By the time I learned the truth, Bornhald had joined battle. He was dead, and the Darkfriends scattered. Besides, my task was to bring the Light to Almoth Plain. I could not disobey my orders to chase after rumors.”

Bro doesn't even have a good excuse. If Niall wasn't busy scheming for his own agenda, he could have ended Carridan here and now and saved everyone a lot of trouble.

He would never put forward one of his own, but I doubt he’d quibble if I named you. A few days under the question, and you would confess to anything. Name yourself Darkfriend, even. You would go under the headsman’s axe inside a week.

Actually perhaps I'm overoptimistic here. Perhaps the High Inquisitor - or just the Darkfriends amid the Whitecloaks - would ferry Carridin away or arrange for an early demise before he could give away any information at all. Replace him with the next dude, same as the first.

Loose a lion—a rabid lion—in the streets. And when panic grips the people, once it has turned their bowels to water, calmly tell them you will deal with it. Then you kill it, and order them to hang the carcass up where everyone can see. Before they have time to think, you give another order, and it will be obeyed. And if you continue to give orders, they will continue to obey, for you will be the one who saved them, and who better to lead?

Niall of course foreshadows Perrin's rise to power, though the boy does it kicking and screaming.

Niall rubbed his hands together. He felt cold. The dice were spinning, with no way of telling what pips would show when they stopped.

In a way, Niall inadvertently views himself as a dark mirror to all three ta'veren. Perrin, by means of creating an enemy to unite people; Mat, as a Great General with a focus on gambling, and Rand...

But he, Pedron Niall, would unite humankind behind the banners of the Children of the Light. There would be new legends, to tell how Pedron Niall had fought Tarmon Gai’don, and won.

Rand like this.

A month before, in the dead of winter, the gangly little man had arrived in Amadicia, ragged and half-frozen, and somehow managed to talk his way through all the layers of guards to Pedron Niall himself. He seemed to know things about events on Toman Head that were not in Carridin’s voluminous if obscure reports, or in Byar’s tale, or in any other report or rumor that had come to Niall. His name was a lie, of course. In the Old Tongue, Ordeith meant “wormwood.”

"Wormwood" is a Book of Revelation reference: "The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter."

But also, poor, poor Niall. He sees himself as a man of cold logic (steel, cuendillar, etc.) but with Ordeith around whatever virtues he had are assuredly doomed.

The Two Rivers,” Niall mused. “Someone else mentioned another Darkfriend from there, another youth. Strange to think of Darkfriends coming from a place like that. But truly they are everywhere.”

Niall is almost, ALMOST clever enough to realize how stupid this claim is... But Ordeith's a fast talker.

Much of the drawing was only a smudge, and a rip ran across the young man’s breast, but miraculously the face was untouched.

Fain can tear Rand up physically, as can most of the Shadow, but despite everything, the boy remains.

“Perhaps I must make plans for the Two Rivers. When the snows clear. Perhaps.” “As the Great Lord wishes,” Ordeith said blandly.

And so we set up... next book's plot. Seems a little premature for this book's prologue but sure! Also note that Ordeith calls Niall the same thing all the Darkfriends call the Dark One. You'd think a real servant of the light would notice and object...

It was a man in form, no larger than most, but there the resemblance ended. Dead black clothes and cloak, hardly seeming to stir as it moved, made its maggot-white skin appear ever paler. And it had no eyes. That eyeless gaze filled Carridin with fear, as it had filled thousands before.

Oddly, the wiki says that this is the first appearance of Shaidar Haran and that it was only described as a "very tall Myrddraal" at this stage but as you can see, this Myrddraal is actually... a little short for a storm trooper. I'm going to make the executive decision that no, this Fade is not even an early SH variant and that if Jordan wanted me to think so he should have put it in the text where it belonged instead of interviews after the fact.

The Halfman’s bloodless lips quirked in a smile. “Where there is shadow, there may I go.”

There really must be some other limit to the Myrddraal's shadow-stepping technique because otherwise one of them should have just stepped in Rand's shadow and killed him if they wanted him dead so bad.

The Myrddraal grated, “Your Lord Captain Commander’s words are dung! You were commanded to find the human called Rand al’Thor and kill him. That before all else. Above all else! Why are you not obeying?”

And so we see the trap that Carridin is in, an interesting trap indeed considering that in later books Rand will be off the kill list. It's a good thing Ba'alsy is mad enough for the inconsistency to just seem to be his illness and nothing more. Though perhaps this Fade works for one of the other Forsaken (Sammael? Rahvin?) It certainly isn't the DO deciding this (another thing that makes it hard to believe it's SH), because his orders are even clearer: let the Lord of Chaos rule.

“Hear me, human. You will find this youth and kill him as quickly as possible. Do not think you can dissemble. There are others of your children who will tell me if you turn aside in your purpose. But I will give you this to encourage you. If this Rand al’Thor is not dead in a month, I will take one of your blood. A son, a daughter, a sister, an uncle. You will not know who until the chosen has died screaming. If he lives another month, I will take another. And then another, and another. And when there is no one of your blood living except yourself, if he still lives, I will take you to Shayol Ghul itself.”

Frankly Mr. not-Haran, I don't think that's a great threat for Carridin until you invoked his suffering. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who cares about his family at all...

With his good hand Carridin struck the basket from Sharbon’s hands, sending withered winter apples rolling across the carpets, and backhanded the man across the face.

The hierarchy of evil is so pathetic, isn't it? Ah well.

So ends the third book's prologue. The first book's prologue was an Age before the main story and sets up the conflict of the book and the series clearly. The second book's prologue was at least a little before the chapters of the second book and set up the conflict of the book and the series clearly. This prologue doesn't bother with that and instead sets the tone for the vast majority of the prologues to come: checking in on the plot threads that aren't doing anything this book. Probably one of my least favorite structural choices in these books, but it's a minor quibble.

Next time: Rampant abuse of innocent corvids.

[nickgerlich]

Turn The Page

I have always been a book worm. My parents instilled the value of reading at a very early age, aiding and abetting my youthful passion with frequent visits to the library, as well as occasional trips to bookstores to purchase items for what I now know was my own personal library. I am thankful, because their diligence paid off.

Throughout university, I hoarded books, even textbooks. Heck, I even bought texts for classes I could not take because my schedule was full. I was just hungry for knowledge. As an adult and a newly minted Texan—if the kind natives of the Lone Star State will allow me to make such a claim after 35 years—I could get lost for hours in Barnes & Noble and Hastings. When on travel, I would seek out the small, independent booksellers, if only because those always featured local authors and hence local flavor.

That all changed when Amazon launched in 1995. Their initial focus was only books, and their aggressive pricing strategy allowed it to make quick inroads. Whereas I loved the “library” feel of a B&N, with those dark, hard wood shelves, coffee bar, stuffed chairs that invited you to stay awhile, and the implicit message that you should be whispering, it was just too easy to shop from home. You know the drill.

Through the years, Hastings lost its battle and is now just a fading memory here in Amarillo and wherever else they had shops. Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, an attempt to get us to switch from tangible books to e-books. Rivals like Borders also folded, and B&N found itself hanging on for dear life. It closed many stores, launched its own ill-fated e-book reader, and prayed hard.

Today, B&N is staging a bit of a comeback. It is leaner, meaner, and more focused this time around. Actually, with a lot of its brick-and-mortar competition now out of the way, they have the space pretty much to themselves. And James Daunt, the CEO who took over in 2018, is making moves by opening five dozen new stores, and allowing each location to curate its own collection of books. In other words, they are free to reflect local interests, feature local authors, and enjoy a high degree of semi-autonomy. Why, they are becoming the independent mom-and-pop bookseller they too initially set out to destroy.

With an estimated one billion book sales each year (and about 90% being tangible), there is a lot at stake here. Book sales exceed movie ticket sales. Both are forms of entertainment, albeit very different. Movies, in spite of a lot of ticket price increases, are still cheaper than books, for which now a $30 price point is common for a new cloth-bound release, and yet we opt more for the latter.

But something funny happened as the digital era unfolded. Whereas we gladly (and quickly) changed our consuming ways of news, music, and movies, we never let go of our books. Online newspapers and streaming music and movies became the new normal. There’s something about reading a tangible book, though, manually turning the pages, smelling ink on paper, that just cannot be replicated on a tablet device. The page flip on a Kindle is a weak metaphor of the real experience. Oh, and nothing beats falling asleep on the sofa whilst reading, and awakening to your book and glasses on the floor. Priceless, I tell you.

Oddly, my university has fallen in love with e-books as our texts, and has new agreements with Cengage and McGraw-Hill to provide free access for any of their titles, as approved by the professor. I know. I do it for Consumer Behavior. This was a hard decision for a guy who has never sold any of his texts, and still has everything dating back to the late-70s.

Most students, though, don’t share that same nerdiness that I have, and I don’t know that I have ever met one yet who held on to a book just in case—you know—future reference might be needed.

I am thrilled that B&N has emerged as a survivor against the e-commerce giant that Amazon is. It does not mean that there are cracks in Amazon’s armor, or that e-commerce as a modality is teetering. No, it just means that both consumers and a big corporate chain have figured out that there is still some joy to be found in Mudville. Call it old school, new school, or just back to school, buying books at B&N is becoming the new black.

And with winter rapidly arriving, I can’t wait to hunker down at the Amarillo B&N for a few hours. They know that the longer a person stays, the more they will buy. Keep the coffee hot, I’ll be right there, credit card in hand. We have some catching up to do.

Dr “Buy The Book” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[boxkeith]

Video Games I Played in October 2024

October was a rather hellish month, but I didn’t pull the trigger on playing any idle games so I’m not completely a lost cause. It doesn’t help that my game consumption this month was mostly putting 20+ hours into five different games (finishing up Wukong and Zelda, and three I started this month). A smidge more variety might be in order, which for me usually means snagging a random shitty metroidvania and doing that for 8-15 hours. So it goes. This review also puts me over 110k words in my game diary for the year, which is daunting.

Kryptic – I do not know how I feel about puzzle games. Sometimes I want deeply invested puzzles that require a pen and paper, genuine cleverness and creativity, and iterative problem solving to unwrap a larger riddle. Sometimes I come to a new screen and realize my only reward for puzzles will be more puzzles and then desperately need to do literally anything else with my life. Kryptic was the former until it was the latter, not helped by the puzzles varying WILDLY in quality and complexity in ways that made overthinking a near-certainty. Shoutouts to including all the cyphers natively at least.

Dome Keeper – One could be forgiven for confusing this with Wall World, though Motherload has been out for a hot minute and it’s not like we’ve gone exceptionally far since Dig Dug. It has the classic roguelike issue of a slow start that’s boring to repeat alongside an overly quick endgame where either your upgrades trivialize everything you encounter or you die before getting a chance to play with your fun toys. For a second it makes me wish for a game like this that had more permanent progression, but I have played Steamworld Dig 2 and good lord that game has problems. I dunno. Maybe I just don’t yearn for the mines.

Throne and Liberty – The CIA is continuing its MK ULTRA research, and in this instantiation they are attempting to see if I can quite literally be paid to care about an MMO. Turns out the answer is no. I got a solid 45 minutes into the tutorial before I realized I’d played the tutorial previously as part of a beta test, and if that doesn’t say something about generic action RPG starts and how there’s only so many ways to render a realistic wooden barrel in a cave, I don’t know what does.

Super Fancy Pants Adventure – Unlike most people my age I don’t have an overabundance of nostalgia for flash games. I think I transitioned to PC gaming just a hair too late to really get in on that zeitgeist, though I did certainly play more than my share of popcap games and random shit on newgrounds. Coming at this having barely played the originals, I respect it but also don’t have the patience, reaction time, or dearth of other pursuits required to play this style of platformer. It’s not so much fiddly as it is exacting and particular, but I don’t want to spend ten minutes trying to figure out exactly the pattern of keystrokes that’ll make a little guy do an overly precise jump. I don’t have math homework to procrastinate on anymore.

Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand – I fucking love terrible video games. Can’t get enough of them. The Surge 2 is better than Dark Souls, and so when I learned those lads were making a game that was 100% fucking about I was completely on board. Not on board enough to pay for the game rather than waiting for it on gamepass (which is also how I played The Surge 2, to be fair), and also not on board enough to fail to confuse it with Immortals of Aevuem when asked for what game I wanted from a list that may or may not have had both of them on it, but nevertheless completely on board. It feels fucking good to punch things in this game and they have the whipfist from Prototype, but instead of hijacking helicopters you’re tethering onto monster hunter knockoffs trying to wallop them. The partbreaking system is pretty inconsistent and the lock-on is still just as dogshit as The Surge 2, but overall the game feels smooth and graphically it has a love for sand on par with Mirror’s Edge’s obsession with concrete. I especially like the momentum system’s attempted risk/reward of combos increasing the damage you deal and the damage you take, and the added wrinkle that your passive and active abilities are socketed in along the momentum bar so you have to weigh getting access to attacks early with slotting in abilities that help you build momentum. The story and lore are whatever, the game is like five hours too long, and they make the baffling choice of having a solid 80% of the setting revolve around a slave underclass that are Unnamed but at no point do the rebels just… start giving them names. You’re just “Gauntlet Bearer” i.e. one of the good ones. That being said Asterigos did an even worse job of having any of its characters object to chattel slavery and in that game they were being ground into food so … I dunno. The bar’s low I guess.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – As someone who has been an ardent Zelda fan for about as long as I can remember playing video games, Twilight Princess is a fascinating entry in the series. Its aesthetics and tone aren’t really approached in any other Zelda game. Structurally it takes a huge amount from Ocarina of Time, but it goes out of its way to flesh out a large number of NPCs and tries to have an actual story and setting that doesn’t revolve around Link. Zelda barely has a role even as a mcguffin, and in many ways Midna is the main character. It’s deliberately quite linear, with the tears of light sections serving to drag you through each area top to bottom before letting you explore it properly once you’re oriented. As an actual game I’d say it’s… functional? At worst it has some pacing issues and there was clearly cut content in the lategame, but it’s hard to point to any one facet and say “this could be better” because there’s such a robustly holistic vision of the type of game it was trying to be. It’s hard to step back from my childhood fondness for the game and the love grown over 5+ complete playthroughs, but I’m also not trying to step back from that. If anything I’ll probably reread the manga once I’m done with the game.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – Sekiro had been pitched to me in a variety of ways over the years; ‘the most unique/difficult/interesting Fromsoft game’, ‘the best parrying has felt in a video game’, ‘the only good media named after its main character other than Columbo’. None of these spoke to me, and I had not so much avoided the game as been disinterested. Even after playing Nine Sols and gaining a grimaced tolerance of parrying, I wasn’t convinced. Steam Family Sharing dropped a copy in my lap though, and I needed to hit buttons in something after Atlas Fallen. The game’s fine. It’s merely fine. Bloodborne had interesting things to say about the Dark Souls formula and said them through its mechanics and its level design in ways that enhanced its own identity and actively punished playing as though it was Dark Souls. Sekiro isn’t as transformative, because the emphasis on parrying means that positioning isn’t rewarded – you NEED to get attacked and react appropriately in order to be proactive. Nine Sols had this same stilted cadence, but in 2D your relative position with an enemy is much clearer and the game not only had a variety of defensive options but also rewarded you with resources for parrying that could then be spent proactively. In Sekiro your reward for parrying is gradually staggering the enemy, and although chip damage accrues and slows the rate of stagger degradation it’s still a much different cadence. I do not hate the game. I do not even dislike the game. I expect to finish the game, or at the very least get to what I feel is a reasonable stopping point and deliberately cease playing rather than merely falling away. But I do not see myself loving the game. When I first started playing, I told a friend in jest “Everything I wanted from Sekiro I got from Ghost of Tsushima”. I don’t think that’s true, and I didn’t think so at the time. I just also don’t know what it is I actually want from Sekiro.

[thefirstknife]

I think the issue with people complaining about a cliffhanger is that there's different ways to tell a story, and they aren't expecting how D2 does it. For some series, they have an overarching plot but by and large you can pick up entries in just about any order, or even omit some, and get a good experience. Other stories you really have to go through them in order without skipping or you'll be confused. The problem with Destiny is that the cliffhangers try to treat it like the latter, but the simple fact that a bunch of relevant story and lore content is only accessible via write-ups and YouTube videos (so not actually accessible at all to some people) rather than in the game means it's forced, in many regards, to be treated like the former type. Which doesn't work great. It's trying to run something on framework designed for the opposite. So when people hear that story elements get removed yearly (seasons) and entire expansions are gone (vaulting) the reasonable assumption is "every story expansion is pretty much entirely self-contained" except then it turns out not all of them are, and LF ended up having a lot more plot hooks for TFS. Which makes the annoyance very understandable when they looked at the game's model and reasonably expected a different storytelling format. (It still doesn't excuse the vile behavior many people have displayed, but it makes more sense the more i step back from the game and see that it seems like they've evolved themselves into a messy corner with their choices for how they run and unfold things.)

Oh, that's definitely a problem Destiny has always had. Even before vaulting, though obviously vaulting made things worse. Like, Destiny 2 was advertised as a game anyone can pick up when it came to the PC for the first time, without the need to play the first one. This was not the case at all. When I jumped into D2 at launch, there was not a single tutorial or explanation for anything that was happening and I was definitely not gonna watch 50 hours of footage of lore on youtube or playthroughs or buy a console I don't have just to understand a video game.

But the game was playable. Obviously I didn't understand anything, but the game was perfectly playable and is still playable now. Basically, the only people bothered by this weird lore stuff are people who get immediately invested into the lore itself and let me tell you. That is by far not anywhere near any significant level of people. It may seem like something normal to go into the lore section and read the lore, but the overwhelming majority of people never do that.

This is obviously a bigger issue for players that do care but skipped parts or don't want to spend hours and hours of their free time backreading everything. However even with that, I don't think that the cliffhanger stuff could really be handled any differently by itself (vaulting notwithstanding, since that's a whole different problem that isn't tied to Lightfall itself as an expansion). By the virtue of it being a cliffhanger at the tail end of the saga, it's by default not going to be exactly friendly to new players (story-wise). Actually, in some way, by introducing something brand new that even veterans had to learn from scratch (Neomuna, Veil, Cloud Striders, new discoveries of Light and Darkness...), we were all pretty much on the same playing field, veterans and new players alike. But basically, Lightfall had to be a cliffhanger, given its position in the overall story.

I don't think Destiny was ever newcomer friendly, not in at the time I started, not later either (despite having free campaigns in Shadowkeep, every new player I got into the game struggled immensely to understand what's going on). The story of Destiny definitely suffers in a lot of ways due to D1 being locked to console, vaulting and various other issues with lore delivery, though a lot of it has gotten better over time. I still wouldn't expect Lightfall to really be drastically different no matter what, except maybe if the whole structure of expansions and time between them was changed.

These issues certainly didn't help Lightfall (and many other expansions), but I wouldn't say that Lightfall was particularly affected by continuity. In part specifically because it introduced so many new things. Nobody had any reference point for Neomuna or Cloud Striders. We all learned it at the same time. And from a vast majority of people online, I've seen that they didn't even bother trying to learn (I've also seen people being personally offended that they're not getting the veteran's treatment and that they weren't able to immediately understand everything through their vast knowledge of Destiny lore). There are fantastic lore books and quests that follow the campaign that expand on Neomuna expontentially and people have simply not played them. I genuinely believe that a lot of people went into Lightfall thinking it's going to be the big showdown with the Witness and that there's a bigger badder evil behind the Witness. When that didn't happen, people declared Lightfall "worst expansion ever" that "Bungie lied about." It's a very strange situation to me. I won't say that the story was the best ever, as I generally think Destiny campaigns tend to be fairly basic, short and more cinematic. But the response is so overwhelmingly negative in a way that reveals, to me, complete misunderstanding of storytelling.

I obviously can't get into the shoes of someone whose first interaction with Destiny was Lightfall and I've seen people who were put off as well as people who got immediately hooked. I can only say from my experience with vanilla that I spent a year with zero information and references and the only way i could've gotten them was to go watch youtube and it didn't really bother me all that much, since I didn't care a lot about the story in the first place. The game worked fine gameplay wise without understanding the story. And when I did get interested, I still had to go watch youtube to understand it. There's no summary in the game and never was. Lore books are exactly informative of the basics or the timeline or things that happened in the past. My ordeal of learning about Destiny lore is actually largely what made me make the blog so I can help others.

But yeah, no matter what Bungie advertises, Destiny has never really been friendly to new players story-wise. It's actually one of my biggest pet peeves because it would be super easy to create some kind of in-game encyclopedia with detailed summaries of everything that unlock as you play the game. You know, kill your first dreg in Trostland, unlock "Eliksni" entry in the encyclopedia. I hope that whatever is coming after TFS the first thing they're working on is the ability to NOT vault anything. Like, that's first priority to me. When this saga concludes, whatever is coming after, it has to be set up from the start in a way that we don't have to ever lose any story content or render it unplayable. On my knees begging.

I'm not sure if this would've helped Lightfall as I don't think there would be any new player or returning player going through 20 seasons worth of content and 5 expansions just to hop into Lightfall. I think that no matter what, there's always going to be people disappointed in the story as it nears the end. I just wish people gave it a reasonable chance and if they were able to accept that maybe they got it wrong and that their first impression is not entirely grounded in reality (mostly because I'm 100% sure people missed stuff on their first playthrough. As an example, people were mad about "how does Osiris see what's happening to our Ghost at the end! It makes no sense!" meanwhile as you get into the facility, Ghost has a line saying he'll be directing "visual feed" to Osiris to help them navigate. There are a lot of details like this that people repeat over and over as "proof" that Lightfall's story made no sense. It relies on no previous knowledge. To be clear, I missed things too). As usual I'll say that my critique is that a few things could've been structured better and a few more details added to make things tighter for understanding what's going on.

This is definitely a conversation worth having more than any other mindless critique online that's borderline Cinemasins level of engagement. I'd actually be interested to know what's the split on how veterans and new players perceived Lightfall and what were the specifics that confused them or that they disliked, and especially with a combination of how much they were into lore before and after Lightfall.

[marvel-starwarsfangirl]

“The Honorable Ones” vs. “The Outpost”

I know this type of post has been done already but I just think that it’s so interesting and cool that these episodes parallel each other. Honestly, I like to think that Jen Corbett and Brad Rau were inspired by “The Honorable Ones” when creating “The Outpost.” Their similarities are uncanny tbh. Both are phenomenal episodes that take an imperial through an icy but life-changing journey. 

Like Kallus, Crosshair believes he has a place in the Empire. Chip or not, he thinks that the Empire is only doing its duty regardless of who has to be sacrificed. However, all that changes with on an ice moon. I’ve listed some similarities below:

Imperial vs. Rebel- Mayday and Zeb serve as foils to Crosshair and Kallus as both are people that the other resent. Zeb is a Lasat, the species that Kallus helped (almost) completely wipe out. Both hold animosity towards each other because of this personal vendetta. That, and Kallus holds contempt towards Lasats since he was almost killed by one. Zeb nonetheless helped the injured Kallus.

Likewise, Mayday is a “reg.” Out of all the Batch, Crosshair voiced his opinions towards regs the strongest. He viewed himself as superior because of his enhancements. While Mayday holds no ill-will towards Crosshair, he still is someone that Cross wouldn’t view as equal under normal circumstances. Mayday continually shows Cross kindness even though the latter acts rather coldly in the beginning, especially with the “I don’t carry deadweight” line.

Taking off the blindfold- Both episodes serve as a way to help the antagonist see things in a new light. As Kallus relies on Zeb to get out of the cave, he is encouraged to start asking questions. Zeb pushes Kallus to reassess his beliefs about the Empire. Ultimately, Kallus does take Zeb’s words to heart and becomes the next Fulcrum and future rebel. 

While I think Cody was the initial drive in Crosshair’s view on the Empire, Mayday was the final straw. Crosshair is lonely; he is struggling without his brothers. The Empire continues to dehumanize and isolate him. And then comes along Mayday, who shows him nothing but kindness. Mayday’s companionship reaches through Crosshair’s darkness and opens his eyes. Finally, Crosshair realizes that the Empire doesn’t care about him. 

Vulnerability- both episodes gives us a chance to see our antagonists from a different perspective. Kallus opens up to Zeb as the pair try and figure out how to survive. He tells Zeb about the Lasat mercenary, revealing where his contempt stemmed from. We see Kallus with softer expressions for the first time; we see him look sad and alone. Before this, he’s been either angry/annoyed or cruel/determined. Finally, we see a new side to Kallus and get to understand him better.

Crosshair, who has been dominated by “severe and unyielding” expressions, becomes so much more emotional. He’s usually cold and closed off, or angry with a sharp tongue. Here, however, we see him truly afraid, heartbroken, and desperate. The latter half of the episodes shows us the pain that Crosshair is suffering and it is gut-wrenching. 

Persevering- Kallus and Zeb must rely on each other to survive. Unknown creatures threaten to eat them and the cold is nigh unbearable. On top of that, Kallus can’t walk because of a broken leg and the pair are trapped in a cave. Despite the odds, Kallus and Zeb work together to escape and get to safety. This leads to them forming a bond that’ll change their lives for the better.

Then there’s Crosshair and Mayday. Between landmines, raiders, an avalanche, and the extreme cold, this pair of clones persist. Mayday’s kindness touched a part of Crosshair that was suffering. In turn, Crosshair refused to give up on Mayday. Even when the latter was severely injured, Cross carried him back to the base. The odds were stacked against them, yet Crosshair and Mayday kept going. 

No rest for the wicked- Unfortunately, there is no happy ending just yet for our fave antagonists. Kallus watches, alone, as Zeb happily reunites with the Ghost crew. They came for Zeb, even though Kallus kept denying that they would. Meanwhile, Kallus returns to a cold, dark environment. No one greets him or bothers to help him with his injury. The only familiar face, Admiral Konstantine, is the coldest; he doesn’t even bother looking up from his datapad, addressing Kallus briefly before continuing on his way. I bet Konstantine had no idea that Kallus was even missing. As the episode closes out, Kallus sits alone in his room, contemplating on everything that happened. For the first time in this show, he feels alone and vulnerable. 

Mayday doesn’t make it, but Crosshair does. Crosshair begs for help but is denied by Lt. Nolan. Like Konstantine, Nolan didn’t care about what just happened. Cross is truly broken in this moment. He glances up one last time at the ice vulture and makes his choice; he stands up and defiantly shoots Nolan, finally turning against the Empire. But unlike Mayday, Cross can’t join him in the afterlife. Instead, he awakens, captured, on Mt. Tantiss with an unknown future. After all he’d suffered in getting Mayday back to base, Crosshair is forced to endure more pain, emotionally and physically. Hopefully, like Kallus, he will have a happy ending eventually.

If y’all made it this far congrats! I just thought the parallels were interesting and most likely intentional.