#unlike real life

[pigtailedgirl]

FICLET

The NAFTA trio returns:

“I swear if Vecchio has become MAGA even you won’t stop me from killing him Canadian”, says Anita Cortez, looking absolutely fine and lethal as usual even in her old age.

For his part Benton Fraser, now greyed but no less charming, gave her his very uncomfortable awkward look. He’s not even in uniform but stands parade rest.

Before he could speak Ray Vecchio glides into the room, classically suited still, having overheard. “ You wouldn’t have to. I’d rather shoot myself than work for the clown car that is the FBI and government state again. Now with the guy in charge who even fits the make-up? No. NEVER AGAIN. So explain why we are here?” and he turns mulish eyes on his husband.

“Well Ray, as duel citizens perhaps we can bring some needed clarity of judgment to the discussing parties. About mutual benefits of trades and balances between borders.”

“Oh yes and regulate me to third wheel again? Ay Dios Mio!”, Cortez scowls fondly at them.

“No Fraser, tell her the truth. The reality is we got forced out of retirement by higher Canadian officials who are only a bit less crazy for coco-puffs. I may live in Canada now Benny but boy is it’s governance bi-polar when it comes to how it’s run and also liking you.”

“It's bilingual governance Ray.”

“Well pardon moi. I voted no go.”

“No Ray, in that case it was Yes vote. And technically yes, he’s correct.”

“What I can’t figure out”, Cortez said eager to get them to the point as much as get home to her so much better life than this, “ is why OUR team to train another set? One; We weren’t very high profile. This did nothing for my career the first time aka. thank you but I made my own place as head of a district bringing down a cartel not a PTSD-ed homeless man. Two; no one thought we did a good job before despite actually succeeding. Also, we all hate our governments. Why would they even think we’d be helpful?”

“Because they think they’ll learn from what not to do. And because they always underestimate the cunning of Canada, the sheer bullish loyalty of a true American, and the grit of a surviving Mexico”, said a shadowed figure emerging. One Meg Thatcher.

“Ma'am! Uh Sir”, said Fraser automatically.

“At ease, Constable. Or make that retired Constable. I can’t believe you never got a higher rank but I also can’t say I’m surprised", she said smiling nonetheless.

“Lovely to see you too Dragon-lady”, Ray rejoined.

“I have my mission and I’m entrusting it to you. Impart your wisdom during training. I’m sure you can find some in local Chinatown fortune cookies Vecchio.

— And when that ‘reason’ fails, give these bozos such a massive headache that when they send you all home they can’t even consider what’s put on the trade table because they think we are all equally nuts. Or better, their guards won’t see me coming.”

And thus Meg Thatcher, no relation to that Meg Thatcher, saved the day by destroying NAFTA 2.0.

[meowsapow]

E3 2023 prediction: game developer gets "cancelled" for making the event too political by tweeting using the gender neutral term "gxmers"

[cosmic-ribbons]

Yeah, if you're trying to make a profit off niche slang like this. I think you should give a cut to the person who coined it, they wouldn't be that hard to find.

Take me to Your Blorbo 11×17 Poster • $10.00

Everyone has a Blorbo who’s yours? Seriously, who is it? I need to know right now. Take me to your Blorbo!

11 x 17″

Printed on archival matte paper

Printed with Dye/Pigment Reactive Ink

Shipped in heavy duty poster tube

[spotsupstuff]

(hii Spot been awhile) Something I think that's interesting about the observation about how Slugcats are getting so much attention nowadays is that its almost a 180 from how things were in the pre-downpour days, iirc.

Though I am glad we're getting an AU like yours it's so interesting compared to the usual

Im eating with a fork

Yeah, the fandom was not particularly strong back then, but I think there was more Iterator content. My suspicion as to why slugcats are so much more popular now is because the general "cat appeal"*. Downpour brought in wider audience which mostly consists of people that go wild over cat videos on the internet.

Not my intention to throw shade on it, because after all what does my opinion matter to anyone, but I find the whole "cuteness cult" of the internet annoying and, when applied to Rain World, frustrating. There's a whole silent worldbuilding in basically every screen of the game and the only thing that people seem to take away post-DP is "cute sluggy go wooo :3 the Ancients were such cultist pricks Dx". Which like alright, but expand a little on the latter please? Try? There is So much fun to it when one moves past the "religion only BAD" mindset.

DP also I think didn't care much about the Ancients and the culture they left behind (and therefore the root of Iterators). "But there's Saint!" Saint is almost everything new that wasn't heard of before, can be taken as another fact of monstroid mad religion and, of course, it Has to be wrapped in a fluffy cat package. The undergrowth Echo also feels like a spit in the face to the lore/religion than an addition, to me. My *guess* would be the original intention was showing an individual who failed to ascend because of the Fifth Hindrance but it doesn't *feel* like it. If that was the intention, I think the author didn't understand why a desire to live/survive could ever, in any form, be bad

It's interesting as well in the sense that when there was only Survivor, maybe up to Hunter- the slugcats felt like a vehicle that brings the player to the story. The player saw the world through their eyes and got to experience the world's rules, abiding them- the original campaigns were still subject to the lore/religion of the world.

DP made the slugcats characters, the main focus, in some cases a rebelion against the lore/religion (forever beef against new route for Survivor and Monk). So people had an easier time latching onto them.

That is my theory at least. Fact is also when I first watched RW I almost didn't get into it as a creator because I felt like I had nowhere to hook to and work with. Characters are great anchor points for people to latch on to and then work with/through, so it's not like I blame the fandom for quite literally getting slug infested. It's natural and logical and I'm well aware of it as someone who's trying to be a writer. Still frustrating.

Either way, at least there's a vacuum for me to fill with something I'm actively actually passionate about. It's kind of a sweet bonus that people are somewhat interested, too.

[acotarfrustrations]

Honestly we could REALLY get into the fact that a lot of the insanity in Acotar is an excellent exercise in why you can't really separate the art from the author.

Sjm's zionism is OBVIOUS in the text. The ic destabilize governments to the detriment of people they will never have to care for, steal artifacts from other countries, displace people, cause invasions, commit war crimes for 50 years "for the greater good" all while their own people are living under unchecked brutality and poverty.

They are rich megalomaniacs that care for no one but themselves and their own emotional and material satisfaction and they are PRAISED for it. In fact anyone who even remotely disagrees with the IC is almost always one of the villains in the story (Beron, Tamlin, etc) as if to condition the reader that asking questions that are critical of the IC puts you on the wrong side of the narrative morally.

All of that sounds REALLL familiar huh?

[secondbeatsongs]

to the person at pride who recognized my Nickapocalypse pin: I love you but also what the fuck how

[lith-myathar]

.

[halfbaked00q]

aaand here are the ficbits I started coalescing based on my previous concept post -- as a reminder: 00Q are together, Q takes Bond for granted/accidentally hurts his feelings slash breaks his heart by being unintentionally hurtful and also unthinkingly dismissive of the thing they have going on between them. there is more to it but these are the parts that coalesced

(as it says in the tin these are more so like the... vibes-based pre-alpha demo drafts of a fic, as opposed to anything so respectable as an actual drabble or ficlet. and, as such, some parts may perhaps be a bit overworked, tenses are all over the place probably, punctuation is more abt the vibes than actual grammar tbh- but anyway please enjoy our featured program, hot off my notes app presses-)

///

===

They're walking and talking, and then suddenly, it's just him walking and them not talking. Too late, he realizes that the growing silence from beyond his elbow had gone quite still rather than companionable. Too late, he glances back around, just barely catching the tail end of…

…..

The thing is, even in hindsight, he’d be hard pressed to pinpoint what exactly he saw cross Bond's face… only that he was suddenly left feeling rather as if a door he hadn't even known was there had unceremoniously and quite ignominiously shuttered sharply in his face. /// [[only that he was suddenly rather left feeling as if he'd blithely walked into a door that materialized just to shutter quite ignominiously in his face.]?]

As it stands — and unfortunately far too late— as he desperately rolls back the last few moments to try to find- as it slowly, far to slowly, begins to dawn on him-

“007- Bond- wait, I,” was about all he managed to stammer out before Bond somehow manages to evaporate from sight, leaving him blinking at the afterimage of crisp suiting and unbreachable impassiveness.

Oh. Oh shit.

—

Eve took one look at him and immediately swept herself up from her desk and him away to - he paused to gather his bearings - what appeared to be an empty conference room.

“Well,” she said without preamble. “Out with it then.”

Q wrung his hands. “It's Bond,” he finally manages to get out. When is it not.

(maybe sth about a moment too long passed, then another, then another- and he admits. It's me, really, but it is also to do with Bond. / Eve is either not surprised or is waiting him out- no visible reactions one way or another yet)

////

I think he must have said something about anniversaries, and I joked back- or thought I was joking back- something about how he surely wouldn't be expected to keep track of all of his anniversaries like this, or else his rolodex would be fit to bursting. And then when I saw the expression on his face I hastened to reassure him that I certainly had no expectations on that front, ta very much. But it was entirely the wrong thing to say.

What he didn't - couldn't - confess to Eve was the way Bond had — oh, earnestly, seriously — brought up the subject of their upcoming anniversary, and how — yes, unintentional though it might have been, but nonetheless— absurdedly callous his casual dismissive burst of laughter must have been.

//

“…and speaking of, our anniversary is coming up too, you know.”

That accursed involuntary, misplaced, mocking peal of mirth. Then, worse- carelessly, unthinkingly- “Oh don't injure yourself on my account, I'm hardly expecting you to keep track of all of your little anniversaries from your various escapades, let alone ‘ours.’ Goodness, your little black book would be fit to bursting - well, even more so than it is now - if we're expecting you to note down anniversaries and nonesuch as well now.”

////

“Q,” Eve called after him. He paused and turned, saw her regarding him. “Be careful with him,” she finally said.

“You're the one who warned me off him in the first place!”

“Be that as it may, but., well. clearly James Bond deserves for you to take some care with him.” with his heart, goes unspoken, but certainly not unsaid

[thegreatyin]

How did you manage to handle not one, but FOUR separate accounts in fl? I recently made the account for my HD little guy but having to do the tutorial again just seems miserable

there's... weirdly several answers to that question, actually??

a HUGE part of it is due to the way FL is structured. the 10-minute action timer is a core part of the game on a fundamental level, and the fact that i can very easily run out of stuff to do on one character and thus have an excuse to quickly and easily swap to another is just... convenient? satisfying? i'm not entirely sure how to explain it. the fact that i can make progress even while i am fundamentally simultaneously Not Making Progress is like pure dopamine for my freak insane awful little brain. there's just something really pleasing about spending all of my actions pursuing The Goal Of The Day™ on one account before casually swapping to another and doing the same without feeling like i'm wasting time or acting to the first account's explicit detriment. the downtime helps! the recharge time helps! the structure really really works!!

i'm technically only actively playing three, maybe two accounts minimum. the only reason the fourth (the one that'll be my future BaL playthrough) currently exists at all is so i can get his earlygame completely out of the way now and not have to waste time running through it all later, when what i actually want to do is play the ambition i've made myself wait a full year to play. and also getting free goodies as seasonal stuff happens,, something something surprise tools to help us later. the only two accounts i'd say i'm really "actively playing" at the moment are caeru and lark- and of the two, lark takes the most priority, since his ambition is the one i'm currently pursuing in earnest. for a couple months now- despite being My Main FL Character- the scoundrel has actually been pretty inactive on a gameplay front outside of the occasional progression in TLC and discordance content. purely by virtue of having Very little left to do outside of Very long-term grinds and vanities. they're in their "now what?" "now you can start playing the game" era. they've graduated to previous protagonist background cameo in a sequel anime series. they're like the yin FLPC equivalent of red at the top of mount silver. they're Literally just vibing rn. i only keep posting about them regardless because i'm insane and i will never ever ever ever ever let that bat go. but yeah, big TLDR, outside of doing the bare minimum to keep making waves/notability up every week, i'm not actually spending that much time on accounts i'm not currently actively interested in playing. and that accounts for way more gaming spoons than you might think.

i have a virtually lifelong history of playing MMOs, especially and specifically world of warcraft. i was born in the endless grind for useless video game pixel vanities and/or bragging rights. molded by it. you all have merely adapted to doing the same piece of content a pointlessly excessive amount of times for literally no reason besides whimsy and folly. me? i've done my time. i've served my sentence. i've spent weeks doing the original burning crusade netherwing dailies. i've devoted days to running praetorium over and over and over again, back-to-back, nonstop, long before square enix cut it in half and made it NOT take at minimum an hour and a half per run. i've perfected my silverwastes + auric basin goldfarming strategies. i've (almost) crafted dragonwrath tarecgosa's rest. i've killed the sha of anger so many times its dying scream of agony is embedded into the very fabric of my being. ""only"" doing making your name content four times over? that is nothing to me. it means nothing to me. it is so infinitesimal i can do the persuasive seduction quests in my sleep. it's not a matter of handling misery, or having the capacity, or even sighing as i remember the brass embassy raid segment of the watchful questline seriously i don't know why i keep forgetting that exists or what even is my problem with it i just am so consistently mildly inconvenienced by it and its highly specific resource requirements and it is the worst thing ever. maybe i'm just so used to the scoundrel's near-infinite money and troves of disposable items that i've completely forgotten what being poor is like. despite having done that step 3 fucking times now. ahem. anyway. i have transcended the feeble mortal bindings of my resistant-to-grinding flesh and ascended to a higher plane of enlightenment, they may call me insane but they will be the ones left laughing when they see what that "insanity" has wrought, i've usurped them, i've usurped them all-

hacks and coughs and awkwardly clears my throat. i mean. uh. um. Ahem.

the empress' court artistry + tales of the university nerfs helped too.

[gabrieldrawsstuff]

Jack Marston as an animal would be a mangy stray dog

[soup-or-who-lock]

I do not trust this Sydney fella from OMITB. All that coughing, hiding his face from Oliver and Mabel (and us, the audience). Coughing like a man “too weak to kill”? Knew Charles for years and years?? That just screams murder to me

[fauvester]

cannot STRESS how much i love your svsss demon prince oc. his hair... the cunty clothes... the coloring on his eyes and fingers and lips.... ohhh goddd

demon SLAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[la-galaxie-langblr]

Year abroad declaration of intent due in 12 days and I'm kind of freaking out about it 😭

[lady-corrine]

Some of you really read the Dance (or pretend you did idk), made up a whole lot of headcanons and twisted the narrative into somehow "Daemon and Laena were the love story, not Daemon and Rhaenyra", you actually believed that nonsense... and then you get mad as hell when the show does not follow your nonsensical hcs in this regard and portrays the actual great love story of it all.

[platoapproved]

Slight spoilers for Blood & Gold but if you read any part of it, Bianca and Marius’ breakup fight is one of my favorite parts of the series. It starts with

Bianca: I feel sorry for you.

Marius: Thank you, honey, I really needed that -

Bianca: No, no...that was meant derogatorily, not consolingly.

And then it gets better. I’m not holding my breath for Bianca onscreen in AMC IWTV but if we DID we’d be getting domestics to rival “I heard your hearts dancing” and “align it with Ursa Major”

I do LOVE knowing that, thank you anon 🥰!