#we're finally free folks!

[handelplayssims]

Another day and Supriya is the first one up. Only two hours before work and school and this one, everyone has to go in. ...she also got the fitness one from just simply stretching while energized and I don’t really like deciding that a Sim should be super into something when it’s as simple as a stretch but she is active so it is sort of her thing anyway. Also incidentally, that sentence took so long to write that I didn’t actually get to say if Supriya should work from home or not. Thankfully I believe that defaults to going in for work. Anyway just having everyone vaguely do whatvever while managing Curtis needs before he also goes into work. And now we have a fully away household yaaaay!

Ooooo. Haven’t seen this one. But then again, haven’t played with this job a lot. Hmm, sketchy testimony huh? Let’s go easy shall we?

Hehehe. Success! Anyway Pierce came back from school utterly mortified and Evie stressed so that’s lovely. Time to at least set Evie to her favorite pets. Which she did and hmm. Now what else to do? What do kids do when stressed? We got shout forbidden words or throw a tantrum. Ehhhh perhaps a little bit of yelling. Perhaps playing with toys will help and playing with emotions. Curtis is also back from work and- love getting the fear of a dead-end job just as you get a job promotion. Though to be fair, he does have a low fun need. The only person in a good mood in this household is Supriya, all energized and ready to go. Oooh, but having said that, Evie immedately cheered up upon seeing her step-dad. Ah, it’s the clingy trait working for her.

Ah, and Evie giving a heartfelt compliment about how good it is that he’s such a good step-dad immedately perked Curtis up. -claps hands together- They will now become besties. Oooh, I just checked the parenting for anything good and you can encourage giving compliments. Nice. And I got them up to friends at the very least. So that works!

Curtis’s next whim is to chat with a non-household sim. Which hey, we got someone right at our doorfront. Makes things convenient and nice, because I don’t think he’s got enough energy in the tank for a full go-outside bit. Daniel is a vegetarian history major at Britechester. Good to know! Evie cut in on their conversation to be asked to put to bed by Curtis. Which awww. By the by, Curtis does have the adoring sentiment with Evie now. Again, very cute. Annnd Lazerwolf wants to go for a job after I got Supriya and Blue back from one. But ack, it’s time for sleeps! In the morning Lazerwolf. In the morning.

Neighborhood Watch!

Nothing of note has happened recently. Check back tomorrow.

...let’s make this an extra-long one, shall we? It’ll be our final turn with this household! Evie’s up first and heh, she wants to be better friends with Curtis. Sweet whim but he’s asleep. She says, just as he wakes up. Well, I can at least set him to make breakfast for everyone. I even have time to set the table so everyone will sit nice and comfy aroun-

...of course. Anyway hour until work and school and- oh Curtis takes different hours now. I suppose he would wouldn’t he! Well then he could join Supriya in her regular university visits to a law class that’ll go quickly!

RIGHT. I still have yet to plan a wedding! But here’s the problem, we only have one more day with this household. Welp. That’ll be a plan for next time. Perhaps. Ohp, and Lazerwolf still wants that walk. Go for a jog with Supriya, then we’ll head off to Uni. ...Curtis’s other whim is to volunteer. I would want to do that with Evie but he goes to work as soon as she comes back from school. ALAS. Now is the only time to do it.

Oh and just got a notification that All Haunts Day is tomorrow. My spooky holiday will be our last day with this household! Now we head off to Britechester for work and more! First the automatically fulfilling uni class, -grumble grumble- Then, we study! First to make up for said class and then to research legal issues for the second thing for work. I’m going to do the latter at the local library instead of at the university though. Just because I feel like doing that! And then we do that. Had a casual chat with some students nearby, both programming majors but in different universities. I’d suggested they date. It didn’t go over well. Alas.

Supriya goes home for supper and gets a tense moodlet from being around Pierce? I suppose it has something to do with perhaps being invisible while off at work but eh. Evie just wants to get confident from her earlier gained charisma skill. ...I’m going to leave her to just do things freely because I want to see if she’ll ask Supriya for advice at this point. Supriya, meanwhile, wants to share ideas and talk to Brant Hecking. Well, that’s an easy invite over to the home...despite the fact that I could go out and talk and befriend their pet dog but we’ve spent enough time with Supriya alone.

Oooh, I have a thought in my head upon seeing this. And it’s basically that Curtis is Self-Absorbed yeah? Why wouldn’t he cater an event himself, yeah?

...yeah if the goal was being a celebrity chef, I would have stuck him in that career.

Amusingly, he’s more sad about being fired than he is about gaining fame! Probably a result of my Meaningful Stories mod, that ups the ante on emotions and makes stronger moodlets much more harder to ignore. I would get the potion to solve it but he literally does not have the aspiration points available for it. Alas!

...and I know I should go for the career and skills gain but I really want to try for the socialization one first for celebrity lifestyle. Gah, play it safe. Go for the skills and career based one. -immedately takes notes at all the Charisma-based careers- Hmm. We have so many normal ones like being a business man with a business suit. We also have straight up fanciful fame based ones like being an Actor or an Athlete. We could have a Secret Agent sty- hmm. Good people don’t work in the shadows for the state. Could also stick him in Retail or Babysitting as an inbetween. Double back to the Business career and well, good people don’t become CEOs. I don’t feel inclined to put him in the Politician career since that was literally my track for Bella and Geoffrey...but I could start him in business and has he gets higher up the chain, gets feels more out of place with it’s competetive nature and bounce over to being a politician. Yeah! That feels like an arc!

Anyway Supriya still hadn’t talked to someone about brilliant ideas and Pierce was up at the computer. And so she went over to a moody teen, who was wanting to get his needs fullfilled after the end of a long week of work and school and no time for himself. And ask him to do his homework, with her assistance. Which she managed to do at least. (And me realizing Pierce didn’t have a homework book somehow) And with that homework, they managed to become good friends again. Yaaay. And now, with Pierce in the red of sleepiness, he finally went to bed. While Supriya just cleared out the litterbox first before heading to bed herself.

Neighborhood Watch!

Branden Barrow in the Barrow household has died. Branden let it go and froze solid.

Emmanuel Rios in the Rios household is now a Freelance Fashion Photographer in the Freelance Fashion Photographer career.

Ooooh, nice pick uni-boy!

Greg Thorpe in the Thorpe household has died. Greg was so angry he burst into flames and died.

Ohhhhh! I know that name! RIP RIP RIP!

Last day! And it’s a holiday! Neither of the adults are particularly excited for this holiday but Pierce and Evie absolutely are. Sounds about right!

Anyway since Pierce actually has the décor based want, I did go the extra mile to get the front yard a little bit more spooky. No big inflatable ghosties or skellies. Yet. Anyway, now we have the all important question for Pierce. Vampires? Ghosts? Or werewolves? I think with his neat sensibilities, he’d go more for the refinement and decorum of the vampires. And hey, we do know of one or two vamps!

Anyway, Curtis is sad from being fired and Evie is back to being terrified. -grumbles grumpily- Curtis’s whim is to gain handiness so I’m focusing on that and Evie will focus on the dogs. As her usual source of comfort. Anyway, needs management happens between the whole household, getting food and such. And afternoon rolls around. Time to put on some costumes! If there isn’t one I like within the premade ones for the holiday, I’ll put one on to fulfill the holiday tradition and then make a custom one within the party outfits. Most of the family worked well the offered Star Wars and space themed ones. But Evie...eh.

Wasn’t really feeling this one but ehhhhh. WAIT A MOMENT!

Here we go! Werewolf Evie! I’m a genius!

Oh hey, our werdio vampire friend is here! Let’s chat and invite her in and we shall get the Spooky Tradition out of the way for at least the adults. I have plans for the kids.

Aye! Evie managed to clear off Curtis’s sad mood! Nicely done kid! And now’s a bit of socializing for the family before my plan begins. Oh and I should stick Curtis in the Business career while I’m at it.

You look away for two moments and son and mother are at it again. Damn it. I wanted things to be better now but alas! Anyway Curtis’s next whim is to actually get married to Supriya. Sadly, we are out of time because I want these two to have a proper ceremony and stuff.

Oh and normally you have to deal with trick-or-treaters yourself when they knock on your door but if you set up this specific candy bowl outside, they’ll take it from there.

Oh what would Supriya say to that? Also, how does getting a ninja outfit raise empathy? -shrugs- A or C strike me as the most practical responses for this silly question. Anyway, it’s 6PM! It’s time for me to enact my plan. My plan of going to the teen hangout park! Mostly for one reason. Later in the evening when you have Spooky Spirit tradition on, ghosts and vampires will spawn around the lot. And maybe werewolves. I doubt it as it was made post-Seasons and I don’t know if they backfill those events but not likely! For awhile, Evie played around and poked at a teen but when curfew called at before 9, she headed home. Not Pierce! He’s out to find more vampires/ghosts/werewolves! Will we be successful? I dunno but we’ll find out!

Oh there’s one! I know Sophie is one! Buuuuut it seems Pierce is super distracted by chatting about how excited he is about All Spooks Day to Olivia Kim-Lewis. Anyway, we at least made friends with Olivia so let’s head back to the park to see if we can spy any spooky things. And if not, there’s at least Harrison, his vampire friend! ...and then they autonomously kissed so uhhh, welp. I was going to take a picture but I accidentally pressed the speed up button.

And so we return home. I was going to have Supriya punish Pierce with a grounding but alas, the time to punish ended as soon as I attempted to do it. That was a very long session, as most of my family-with-kids visits tend to do. Next time we’re visiting the...wait first!

Neighborhood Watch!

Nothing has happened recently. Check back tomorrow.

Well dang. Anyway, the next household we’ll visit will be the Zest household once more. Oooh fun.

[teriwrites]

NaNoWriMo 2023: Beyond Alder Creek

Round 2 (AKA the second draft)

Genre | Fantasy POV | 3rd person limited, past tense Setting | A fictional turn-of-the-20th-century town and its counterpart, the fae realm of the Beyond Themes | Human nature, Folklore, Trust, Familial Bonds, Friendship

Synopsis

When Winnie Pewitt first heard about her brother, Bran's, abduction by the fae, she couldn't believe the acceptance of his fate by the townsfolk around her. But when she goes to investigate his last known whereabouts, and stumbles upon a strange man within a faerie ring offering to strike a deal, Winnie runs home without looking back. As the days pass, and Bran's funeral looms over the town, Winnie finds herself turning over the strange man's offer. With nothing more than an idea, a hatpin, and a book on all that's known of the fae realm, the Beyond, Winnie seeks out the faerie ring once more. But this time, she won't be caught unprepared.

Excerpt

Before Winnie, perfectly centered in the ring, stood a strange man. He seemed entirely carved out of gold - no, there was life in his features that even the greatest sculptor could’ve have imitated. It was more like the touch of Midas, a life captured beneath the shimmering hue. His face might’ve been fine, had he the look of a mortal man, but the effect was quite lost in his aureate complexion. “My dear, who might you be?” When the man spoke, his voice was high and rang like a bell. A wide smile revealed a row of gleaming, golden teeth. Had she let herself be caught in shock by the unearthly presentation before her, Winnie might’ve answered him. In fact, she began to, only managing to cut herself off after, “Well, I am - ” His smile stretched slightly wider, and the friendliness in his eyes gleamed suddenly with greed, snapping Winnie out of her reverie. “ - you may call me a friend.” Rather than annoyance, Winnie’s introduction was met with amusement. The golden man’s smile twitched for a moment into a smirk. “Tell me then, friend, what is it you seek?” he asked.

Tag List:

@akindofmagictoo @cecilsstorycorner @howdywrites @happyorogeny @avian-writes

Feel free to ask to be added or removed from the tag list!

[trainsinanime]

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Mayan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

[mcmansionhell]

namesake mcmansion

Howdy folks! Today's McMansion is very special because a) we're returning to Maryland after a long time and b) because the street this McMansion is on is the same as my name. (It was not named after me.) Hence, it is my personal McMansion, which I guess is somewhat like when people used to by the name rights to stars even though it was pretty much a scam. (Shout out btw to my patron Andros who submitted this house to be roasted live on the McMansion Hell Patreon Livestream)

As far as namesake McMansions go, this one is pretty good in the sense that it is high up there on the ol' McMansion scale. Built in 2011, this psuedo-Georgian bad boy boasts 6 bedrooms and 9.5 baths, all totaling around 12,000 square feet. It'll run you 2.5 million which, safe to say, is exponentially larger than its namesake's net worth.

Now, 2011 was an anonymous year for home design, lingering in the dead period between the 2008 black hole and 2013 when the market started to actually, finally, steadily recover. As a result a lot of houses from this time basically look like 2000s McMansions but slightly less outrageous in order to quell recession-era shame.

I'm going to be so serious here and say that the crown molding in this room is a crime against architecture, a crime against what humankind is able to accomplish with mass produced millwork, and also a general affront to common sense. I hate it so much that the more I look at it the more angry I become and that's really not healthy for me so, moving on.

Actually, aside from the fake 2010s distressed polyester rug the rest of this room is literally, basically Windows 98 themed.

I feel like the era of massive, hefty sets of coordinated furniture are over. However, we're the one's actually missing out by not wanting this stuff because we will never see furniture made with real wood instead of various shades of MDF or particleboard ever again.

This is a top 10 on the scale of "least logical kitchen I've ever seen." It's as though the designers engineered this kitchen so that whoever's cooking has to take the most steps humanly possible.

Do you ever see a window configuration so obviously made up by window companies in the 1980s that you almost have to hand it to them? You're literally letting all that warmth from the fire just disappear. But whatever I guess it's fine since we basically just LARP fire now.

Feminism win because women's spaces are prioritized in a shared area or feminism loss because this is basically the bathroom vanity version of women be shopping? (It's the latter.)

I couldn't get to all of this house because there were literally over a hundred photos in the listing but there are so many spaces in here that are basically just half-empty voids, and if not that then actually, literally unfinished. It's giving recession. Anyway, now for the best part:

Not only is this the NBA Backrooms but it's also just a nonsensical basketball court. Tile floors? No lines? Just free balling in the void?

Oh, well I bet the rear exterior is totally normal.

Not to be all sincere about it but much like yours truly who has waited until the literal last second to post this McMansion, this house really is the epitome of hubris all around. Except the house's hubris is specific to this moment in time, a time when gas was like $2/gallon. It's climate hubris. It's a testimony to just how much energy the top 1% of income earners make compared to the rest of us. I have a single window unit. This house has four air conditioning condensers. That's before we get to the monoculture, pesticide-dependent lawn or the three car garage or the asphalt driveway or the roof that'll cost almost as much as the house to replace. We really did think it would all be endless. Oops.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[blank-house]

Keyframes Updated!

Well, folks. Our eyeballs are falling out and the last two weeks have felt a little like cramming for an exam— which is very funny considering none of the leads have been in college for a minute— but we did it. The Spring Semester demo that isn't really a demo is up!

You can now finally(!) enjoy the last two weeks of your semester with Deja, Cameron, Elio, Jamie, and Percy. Play from five new events, completely free on our itch.io page— including partial voice acting, eight CGs, and about 280,000 words total!

As we've mentioned before, we are releasing this update ahead of the Kickstarter!

If you haven't already heard, the Kickstarter only aims to fund production for Summer. We'll explain the reasons for this in full detail later, but for now, keep an eye on our social channels for news!

It's been a long year of development and an even longer wait, and we're excited to hear what you all think. We'll be taking a short break to recuperate, but our askbox is open! (But if you encounter any bugs, please send a report to support@blankhousegames.com.)

Until our next update, happy gaming everyone!

[delioncourtes]

you people think you are so great just cause you put together some gifs

dude what 🤡

ah yes, look at me, everyone! over here on my tumblr blog always acting like some big shot! look at how revered us gif makers are, with an abysmal like/reblog ratio and folks constantly stealing our stuff without credit :')

you people are part of the reason that more and more gif makers just don't even bother anymore; you have no idea how much work it actually is, you've probably never even opened photoshop once in your life, but you think you get to decide 'it's not that hard.' do it yourself then. pay for photoshop or try to find a free version that actually works, learn how to use it, pay for a vpn so you can safely download files, buy external hard drives cause man, you're gonna need so much space for all those GBs you're downloading since you need high quality files, get a player to screencap, cross your fingers photoshop (or your entire computer) doesn't crash when you load the screencaps, crop and resize your gif, make sure your sharpening settings look right for the file quality you're using, TRY TO MAKE UGLY FUCKING SCENES LOOK NICE SOMEHOW with 20 different layers, change said layers a bunch of times to get rid of grain, add subtitles (and don't you dare get anything wrong or have a typo), save your gif...but beware! it might just take ages and then it turns out it's over tumblr's size limit, so you go back and delete frames until it's finally right, and finally make sure your gif is running at the correct speed. go and do all of that for 2-10 gifs that look kinda decent, and then tell me again it's not that hard.

anyway. i don't even know what you think i did to warrant this message, i post my gifs and that's it. none of us think we're saving the fucking world lol, but at least stop talking down to us, and don't act like you'd have a whole lot to look at on here without people making gifs for you. have a nice day.

[forpiratereasons]

all right. i'm ready to talk about izzy.

izzy is a great character. in s1 he sits in this great position as an antagonist that's close to the main characters, and in s2 he sits in this great position as an antagonist who's gotten everything he wanted, and found that actually - fuck! - that's not it at all. the world changes enough in s1 that there's no satisfaction in izzy getting what he wants out of blackbeard. and it's not just ed that's changed, it's not just the crew, izzy himself is fundamentally changed too. even before s2, and that change continues to grow and flourish through the series.

in reality, death is cruel. and death is senseless. and death is unfair, and shitty, and it happens to the wrong people at the wrong time, too early, with too much to live for, who mean too much to too many. it happens.

maybe izzy's death is all of those things, but i don't think that's the point. it's not meant as a lesson in mortality; it's not meant as retribution for past crimes; it's not meant as a commentary on who deserves to live and who deserves to die. it's not about deserving. if anything, it's about the fact that deserving doesn't come into it at all.

the point is that izzy healed.

a lot has been made of the fact that izzy is the only character who bears visible scars from the kraken era - the scar on his head, as well as the leg. but i don't think they're meant as a reminder of the injury, or as a sign that izzy is "damaged" post-kraken era. they're representative of the fact that izzy healed. the scar is there to remind you that izzy survived. you see it heal over multiple episodes because that's the work izzy is doing - he's healing from blackbeard's actions, from his own actions, from his history, from his constraints.

it's not too late to heal. it's not too late to find your place. it's not too late to come out. it's not too late to let people in. it's not too late.

and all those things are worth doing despite the fact that our time here is limited. we are all going to die. but we are here right now, which means it's not too late, and it is worth it to free ourselves to be who we need to be regardless of who we have been and who we are now and what time we might have left.

izzy isn't suicidal in ep 8. he's healed from that. izzy isn't abused or depressed or alone in ep 8. izzy is strong, and competent, and respected, and loved.

and some folks have been disappointed it's not romantic love. i get that. but i think it's super important too that izzy's healing is worth it without romantic love. familial, platonic love is so fundamentally important to the queer community. found family. friends. solidarity. the look when some stranger sees you and you see them and you both know the other is family, that they're safe. the way we fight for each other - for our rights to love who we want, fuck who we want, to marry, to adopt kids, and also for housing, for jobs, for healthcare. for our rights to use the bathroom, for our rights to choose our own names and our own bodies and our own families. we're fighting for our right to exist and that, guys, it's not romantic. the foundations of our community is about - well, i'll let izzy say it:

it's not about glory, it's not about getting what you want. it's about belonging to something when the world has told you you're nothing. it's about finding the family to kill for when yours are long dead. it's about letting go of ego for something larger. the crew.

ed and izzy, following s2e3, interact and communicate on izzy's terms, and that's made clear. that's the last relationship for izzy to heal. when izzy finally approaches ed in ep 6, it's - not great. it's a start. you gotta start somewhere. he lets ed apologize, in their very closed, guilty way of speaking to each other, but then goes back to the crew, back to his safety.

he finally finishes his healing arc with the drag performance and la vie en rose, and then he and ed DO have good moments. he teases ed about stede. he directly reverses his previous actions in s1 and tells ed to listen to his good feelings. that's where djenks is getting this (imo, still a bit weird) father-figure business. the scene in the republic where ed's watching fishermen and izzy comes to say hey, it's all right, hey, listen to your gut. they don't need to directly come out and have some deep serious conversation about their relationship because that's just not like them, man. they're doing their healing their way. i think it would be nonsensical to expect these two to be open and honest with each other regardless of how they are with everyone else because their relationship is not like their relationships with anyone else.

until they run out of time.

and this, i think, is important. izzy controls this last conversation because it's what ed needs to hear, because izzy no longer needs to hear it. izzy doesn't need to hear that ed's sorry, izzy knows ed's fucking sorry. ed's whole arc this season is about the guilt he's carrying. izzy says what he says because he knows ed needs to hear it. ed, you weren't a monster all on your own. ed, i saw you. i saw you outgrowing him, and i didn't want that to happen because i was worried about what it meant for me, but i see now that it could have meant this all along - family. balance. something to die for, sure, but something to live for.

you could argue that ed and the crew don't think of each other as family. i think it's a bit more complicated than a yes or no on that one, but when izzy says, ed, you're surrounded by family, maybe it doesn't matter whether that's fact. maybe it's a statement of possibility. look at this family who can love you if you let them. look at this family who will forgive you even when you don't deserve it. look at all the ways you can still heal. look at how worth it it all is.

just be ed, izzy says, there he is.

he says it to ed because izzy already knows he can be just izzy. izzy already knows he's dying surrounded by family. izzy already knows that love and belonging and family are worth it, and he uses his dying moments to make sure ed knows it too because despite everything, despite everything he did and despite everything ed did and despite not being ed's romantic choice, he loves ed. it's worth it to use his dying moment to make sure ed knows this because izzy loves him.

it's worth it.

izzy is the stand-in for the stereotypical pirate, the villain - the representative of how repression and oppression work together, of how race and class and colonization interact with each other, of the lines between love and obsession and power and rage and fear blurring beyond recognition - and he heals. guys, the point of his story is not that he was all those things and paid that price. the point of his story is that he could grow beyond all those things and that growth and healing was all worth it despite the fact that yeah. our lives will inevitably end.

historically, israel hands is said to be one of the only major pirates who survives the golden age of piracy, and he doesn't survive it well - according to the contemporary account of "captain charles johnson" (almost certainly a pseudonym) in A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, published 1724, hands dies a beggar in london sometime between 1719 and 1724. it has been suggested by some pirate scholars that hands may have actually been the source for much of the information johnson is able to relay regarding blackbeard - and that johnson's apparent wealth of information contributed significantly to the legacy blackbeard left behind and his lasting fame. i had actually really hoped to see this play out in ofmd - izzy protecting ed and stede through perpetuating stories about blackbeard's 'death' (fake, i'd hoped) and legacy.

but i think - he is. in his way. he's there on the hillside, keeping watch. he's there to hold all the stories and all the memories of pirates and what it meant to belong to something, even as the golden age of piracy sets. he's there to show what it is to love and to be loved in return: eternal.

i don't like that izzy died. i think he's a great character, i think he's great fun to have in the ensemble, i think his dynamics with ed and stede are so fucking chewy and delicious. i think con o'neill has done the work of a lifetime on this character and, i hope, had and continue to has the experience of a lifetime with this fandom. my heart goes out to those of you who are devastated; i've been there in past fandoms, i know how achingly difficult that is. i'm so sorry.

but izzy's story is worth telling. izzy's story is worth celebrating. izzy is about making mistakes - bad mistakes! - and finding your way back to something better. izzy is about healing, and about community, and about hope that even when things are shit and people are shit - they can change. things can change.

and maybe - yeah. it's about the role stories play in our lives. about using fictional little scenarios to deal with our traumas. we're here. we're alive. we're coping. we will heal.

not moving on is worse.

[llilyrose]

llilyrose spends her time analyzing aroace stuff. yay.

isat spoilers afoot

what i especially like about the way adrienne wrote mira's orientation is the lack of room for interpretation. yes they snuck aroace talk into fantasy france, but just stop and think for a minute. what would happen if mira just said "i'm aroace" or "i don't feel love the same way" instead of all the nuance we got to her character in the friend quest convo?

we know she's sex repulsed, we know she's romance repulsed. we know she loves fiction that has those things in it, loves interpreting fictional characters that way, but can't bare to see herself in that situation. it makes a lot of sense with regards to her location (vaugarde, a very sex-positive and romance-adamant country) and also with regards to herself (the way she feels about her environment). Of course she wouldn't blame other folk around her for engaging with their religion the "correct" way, of course she'd internalize all her feelings of being outcast and turn it back on herself.

The fandom respects this! Nobody ships her romantically, or sexually, because we know she's not into that. We know she would never and i know a bunch of people who would punch you for even thinking it!

Now what if Adrienne hadn't put this in the game? What if they had just said on their tumblr one day, "mira's aroace," or something. where would we be now? aspec shipping discourse would definitely take the reins. we'd have people shipping her in all kinds of different ways, bending the aroace character to the best of their ability because they could still be into sex, or romance, or whatever. this is TRUE, it's POSSIBLE, but there's no nuance. We wouldn't know the way Mira really feels about these things unless Adrienne told us, so a lot of people would either ignore/"work around" her identity or just wouldn't even know about it to begin with!

Introducing mira's orientation in the way adrienne did leaves no room for discourse. we know if she's sex-positive, sex-negative, how she reacted to finding out she was, etc. It provides so much more representation than a simple "I'm aroace" ever could. It's such a wide label, so finally having CONCRETE information about a canonical aroace's experiences with their orientation is so, so freeing and honestly quite refreshing. and it's worked into the story seamlessly!!!

She's not an emotionless carcass with no capacity for love, she's not outwardly detesting sex or romance at every possible moment, she's simply a well-rounded character who happens to be aroace. You have time to warm up to her before ever even finding out about her orientation! Or having any clue at all (barring maybe the suspicious sketches)!!!!! Aroace people are real!!! We're so real!!!!

Speaking of the suspicious sketches! We know siffrin's alloace (from, like, one line of dialogue), but we don't know if he's sex-repulsed. Adrienne's gone on record to say "aces can still have sex" in reference to siffrin, so I'm inclined to believe he has at least some sort of libido.

When looking at the sketches, both him and mira have a repulsed reaction. I think there are three possible reasons for Siffrin here!

Siffrin is sex-repulsed and has a visceral reaction to them because he thinks it's gross.

Siffrin has no libido because the stress overrides everything in his system. That combined with his ace identity would probably lead to a distaste for the papers.

Some people would NOT GET THE MEMO from the act 3 friendquest. Sometimes when you're writing you have to account for the gamers being really really dense. Some people didn't even understand the Isa friendquest was him coming out as trans basically. Since Ace characters are hard to "prove" unless they explicitly state they dislike sex, this line of dialogue might've just been there to drill it in that Siffrin is ace because the only other place we see that implication is one line in the friendquest. It could even have no tie to his relationship with sex, who knows?

one of these options is not like the others! /silly

I couldn't tell you which one of those it is, but i think at least one of them had to have hit the mark. It's a lot harder to decode siffrin's sexuality when we only get like 5 lines of dialogue total that vaguely even reference it

With this we come back to the issue from earlier: He could be demi, he could be ace, he could be sex-repulsed, he could not! Most people write them sex-repulsed and I'm personally on that bandwagon, but interpreting them a different way isn't any less correct unless you completely ignore the fact they're ace in the first place.

Even sex-positive aces have complicated relationships with sex. Some do it for the gratification, some simply have higher libido and can't think of a different way to get it out, and others only do it to please their partner.

I think writing an ace character as sex-positive should be seen as a character study instead of an excuse to ship two characters together. Is this character the type to even enjoy it in the first place? How often? How do they interact with it? Etc. Which I think is what Adrienne was talking about when she said "aces can still have sex." We don't know about siffrin's identity, we don't have a grasp on the nuance, but we do know he's ace and that he experiences love differently from the way mirabelle does, and the way isabeau does, and the way odile does, and what have you.

I love love love the representation we get in isat. An aroace, an alloace, and someone that a lot of fans headcanon as aroallo though it's unconfirmed. Even if Odile's not aro, we still get that line of dialogue about not finding romance suitable for her at the moment, which speaks true to a different experience altogether. No two characters experience love, experience life the same in isat. That's why i get to make a tumblr text post that's a bit too long exploring the different avenues adrienne took when writing the characters lol :')

[neroushalvaus]

Tumblr in the 60s – deleted posts

Some people requested a sequel to this post so I thought I'd post these drafts that didn't make it to the original. Maybe doing more at some point if the inspiration hits me but I hope these bring you some joy.

🚀 starrfleet Follow

HEY GUYS!! We're buying The Beatles so John and Paul can finally get together!! Who's in

🎹 nixonsafascist Follow

Call that... Beatles for Sale

🚀 starrfleet Follow

Dude this is serious. We want to free them. Why is homophobia so very funny to you?

🎶 mclennstarrison Follow

Didn't The Beatles start managing themselves after Mr Epstein died? So you plan to buy them... From themselves?

🚀 starrfleet Follow

Oh so the george harrison vampire mpreg blog is going to preach to us now.

92 notes

📻 lesbianbobdylan Follow

"Let men have short hair!!" "It's okay to not agree with the civil rights folk" "Don't let tumblr tell you that serving your country is bad" You are all so chronically online and convinced your little hippie bubble represents the world that you have the worst takes. Conservatism is alive and well, us hippies are the fucking minority. The outside world is perfectly okay with all the anti-mlk short-haired men who are happily getting drafted. You are not counterculture.

15,5 t. notes

☁️ ankin-vaimo Follow

Tumblr is so US/UK centric. Scrolling through this site you'd think there were no other tv shows than star trek and no other bands than the monkees and that the stonewall riots were the only meaningful political activism that has ever happened. There's so much great culture elsewhere. I bet you have never even heard of Tapani Kansa.

🇻🇳 shirellesofficial

#shhh don't tell Tumblr that other countries exist #they couldn't even admit Please Mr. Postman was originated by black women (tags via @marvelettesofficial)

peer reviewed tags

#sorry for going through your tumblr marvelettesofficial #you're just so funny #hope i'm not annoying you

54 notes

🌼 andpeoplesaywebeatlearound Follow

People really like to pretend us Beatles girlies hate Y*ko for being asian and a woman like she didn't literally make John cheat on his wife and leave his young son

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians Follow

don't talk like us beatles girlies are all the same, i personally want to fuck her on a canvas while we're both covered in menstrual blood, creating modern art by making love

✝️ jesusrevolution Follow

Op is this you? ↓

🎶 mclennstarrison Follow

Also like, "made John cheat on his wife and leave his young son", did John himself have nothing to do with that decision or..?

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians Follow

do you guys think she and john do mommy play

🎶 mclennstarrison Follow

I appreciate the input @prostitutesandlesbians but we're trying to call the op out for being a racist misogynist

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians Follow

sorry

346 notes

🤪 thekinkykinks Follow

Why is there even discourse about this... Yeah, the folks at Stonewall could have been more respectful towards the police officers who were just doing their jobs, but why are we acting like throwing some pennies at the police officers and calling them "Lily Law" is the worst type of oppression

🥿 trustnobutch Follow

You know what? No. Fuck you. I'm tired of you all talking about these people like they were your poor little meow meows. Have you read about this at all? The raid did not happen because the police "hates gay people wah wah". Stonewall Inn was run by the mob. The. Fucking. Mob. Would you rather have the police not protecting us from criminals, huh??? And the rioters were nothing but a bunch of attention seekers. I heard that a guy from the fucking Mattachine Society phoned newspapers and took pictures of the riot. I'm so disappointed, that was the only gay group that seemed to care about looking respectable in the eyes of the heterosexuals. People who were there made us all look bad and set our movement back like 50 years. Fuck you for supporting them.

🍊 kissmemissoklaholma Follow

Yeah. I heard someone threw a brick.

✌ draftdodgerdyke

??? Nobody threw bricks, where the fuck do you get your information ??

#they should have tho #chilling at the stockholm airport finding the weirdest takes

998 notes

🧸 teddyboyfemme Follow

i'm sharing a joint with this cute ass butch with the cutest curliest hair ever guyyyyssss I think i'm falling in love

🧸 teddyboyfemme Follow

she plays the harmonica for me i want to fuck her to the mattress

🧸 teddyboyfemme Follow

i don't have any idea what she's singing about but i think she likes the rolling stones too, we have so much in commonnnn

🧸 teddyboyfemme Follow

So it turns out that was Bob Dylan.

70,9 t. notes

[genderqueerdykes]

i understand they're not for everyone, but i do think a lot of people who are primarily exposed to queerness through online discourse would benefit from going to a queer bar and experiencing other queers having fun with each other in a distinctly queer way. i had been looking to attend a kink night at a queer bar for a while, and I finally got to go to one last night, and i'm very glad that i did. I was fortunate that the bar I went to had CBD drinks, so I could enjoy myself despite not being able to drink alcohol

there was an old woman with a rollator who set up at a table right next to the stage with free candy and snacks for everyone, but especially for the drag performers. I found that a lot of people there ended up calling her mom. she gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me to get home safe as I was leaving. she told me she'd see me next weekend, see was there every week.

there were adults of all ages there it was an underwear & animal play night, and the house was busy. drag queens and kings, bears, pups, bunnies, cats, leather people and all kinds of vanilla folks showed up. people in collars and harnesses, in jockstraps and leather briefs, on leashes, being lead around on their hands and knees. there were drag performances all throughout the nights and some of the queens included BDSM elements into their performances

i spent the night dancing with the leather puppy boys including an FTM pup who became my friend, some extremely cute old men with white hair and glittery shorts, a middle aged asian man in tiny black undies who really got into the music, an older man who looked like Freddie Mercury who was wearing tiny undies with pink straps and tall pink pumps, a lesbian couple who were fiercely making out most of the night, and a very tall person wearing a shirt that said "stay queer as fuck" with glittery rhinestoned shoes.

i saw a lot of people who were unafraid to be themselves. a lot of people who were willing to show this small slice of the world who they are, their authentic self, no matter what that meant. no one did anything that invaded my boundaries by being their authentic selves. others being loud and proud about themselves didn't drown me out. i felt more like it was okay to be who i was, too. dancing with the pups helped me realize that i'm ready to get into pup play, after questioning if it was for me for years. the exposure was healthy, it's hard to know certain things for sure until you actually put yourself out there

it's not an environment for everyone, i get that. but in whatever ways you can find it exposure to other queers in person is lifesaving, especially when you are having fun. sitting and meeting with each other and discussing what it means to be queer is important, but having fun together in a queer way is literally vital to our health and well being. just talking about being queer all the time won't nourish your soul. experiencing queer fun is necessary, especially when it comes to adults. we're need to and are allowed to have fun with each other in a distinctly queer way. it's important to embrace it when and where possible, in whatever ways make sense for you.

you'll feel a lot less self conscious when you see other people happily flying their freak flag, too

[miss-musings]

Crosshair's 10 Most Impressive Shots in "Star Wars: The Bad Batch"

We're now officially three weeks removed from the series finale, so I thought it'd be a fun time to look back at our favorite sniper and review some of his most impressive shots.

Note, I'll be ranking items from "The Bad Batch" TV show only, so there won't be any entries from "The Clone Wars" S7.

I did get a lot of input from folks here and on Twitter, and a lot of people ended up saying the same ones. I put them on here along with a few of my own.

As for how I determined the order, I judged based on a combination of: the distance of the shot, the size of the target, the speed of the target (if applicable), other external factors like light conditions and weather, and "internal" factors like Crosshair's physical and mental state.

You're free to disagree with which ones I picked and how I ordered them. It's all subjective.

Also, I don't proclaim to be an expert in marksmanship nor am I a military sniper. But, I do have a general baseline for how difficult Crosshair's shots would be IRL. I used to go shooting with my dad a lot at both indoor and outdoor ranges, and I was pretty decent at both pistol- and rifle-shooting. So, that's what I'm using to judge Crosshair's shots.

With that out of the way, let's dive in with #10:

10. Killing Lt. Nolan in 2.12 "The Outpost"

I probably wouldn't have put this one on the list for myself, but I had multiple people suggest it should make the cut.

While this shot is very important narratively, it's not very impressive from a purely technical perspective.

I mean, hitting a relatively stationary human-sized target from a few meters away... It's definitely not the most impressive shot on Crosshair's resume.

However, I did feel it was worth adding to the list for the simple fact that Crosshair is physically exhausted and mentally broken in this scene. He basically uses the last of his strength to kill Lt. Nolan, because he immediately collapses right afterward.

Also, Crosshair might be right-handed, but he's pretty good at shooting his pistol leftie. We don't really see the shot hit Nolan, but if you zoom in after his body hits the ground, you can see that Crosshair shot him straight through the heart. He wasn't leaving that bastard alive after everything he and Mayday went through.

9. Lunch tray ricochet in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Even though this isn't a shot in the traditional sense -- considering there aren't any firearms involved -- I had to put this on the list for two reasons.

One, I had multiple people suggest it; and two, because I've watched this scene dozens of times and only recently found out that Crosshair actually hits two clones with his lunch tray.

He initially throws it at the clone Tech was fighting, presumably knocking him down. But then it ricochets so hard that it basically clotheslines another clone who's just standing there, minding his own business. Dude was hit so hard, he was like floating in midair for a split second.

Also, this plays into my headcanon that Crosshair would be excellent at any sports that require excellent aim and coordination. If he was on a basketball team, he'd be a three-point specialist for sure!!

8. Plan 55 ricochet in 3.12 "Juggernaut"

This is the closest thing we get to a trickshot in S3, so I had to include it on the list.

Here, we see Crosshair's quick-thinking and perfect aim take out several troopers at once by purposely ricocheting his shot off the magnetically sealed doors.

As we know from “A New Hope,” magnetically sealed doors/surfaces are no joke. You really have to know what you're doing or someone's gonna get hurt. Thankfully, Crosshair is a freakin' pro at this!

It honestly reminds me of all those crazy pool shots where you have to plan out four or five bounces/angles ahead to get the angle you really want.

7. Downing a spaceship on Ryloth in 1.11 "Devil's Deal"

NOTE: This is the only clip I couldn't readily find on YT. So I included the clip of Crosshair killing Orn Free Taa from the same episode to maintain symmetry in this Top 10 list.

Don't let the clip fool you. The shot I'm actually talking about takes place before this, when Crosshair -- from like 300 meters away, mind you -- takes down a fast-moving ship by shooting one of the engines.

Look, I love S3 Crosshair with all my heart, but his shooting abilities were severely diminished after his time on Tantiss. When I was doing my S1 rewatch and got to this scene in 1.11, I was like "Oh yeah, I forgot Crosshair used to be able pull off crazy shit like this."

It's actually sad how many of his made shots in 1.11 are like an inverse of his missed shots in 3.11. Here, Crosshair easily shoots a tracker onto Hera & company's ship, and later shoots the engine with no problem, despite the speed and distance.

In 3.11, though, he misses CX-2's ship and fails to track Omega back to Tantiss. 😭

6. Shooting Wrecker's knife in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Now we're getting into the really impressive shit! Most of these remaining entries have Crosshair shooting small targets and/or fast-moving ones.

In this instance, it's both. Wrecker throws the knife like this is skeet-shooting or something, and Crosshair just very casually shoots it into a droid.

Have you ever seen someone who was so good at their job/hobby that they make it look effortless? Like they're not even trying? This happens to me sometimes when I watch the Olympics. I'm like, "That's not so hard. I could probably do that." And then I try it for like half a second, and I'm like, "Oh no, those people are insane."

That's how good S1-2 Crosshair is. He makes shooting a fast-moving knife look effortless.

5. His four-kill trickshot in 1.15 "Return to Kamino"

These next three are all no-brainer entries. I think the biggest question will be why I went with the order I did.

Here, we have Crosshair displaying two very important elements of marksmanship/sniping: patience and careful aim.

Crosshair evidently set up at least four mirrors (I counted the ricochets in the shot) well in advance in the exact spots he needed to take down his Imperial squad, if need be. That's some serious foresight and preparation -- to know exactly where everyone would be standing, and have all the mirrors ready to go ahead of time.

He must've set them up even before he brought Hunter into the training room, or Hunter would've seen them and probably signaled his teammates.

He's also hitting a target that seems to be somewhere between the size of a golf ball and baseball from like 10-20 meters. And with his sidearm.

I know everyone loves the hallway mirror ricochet to kill the squadron of battle droids in TCW Season 7, but it didn't qualify. But, honestly, I think this one is more impressive anyway. He hit the first 1.15 mirror from farther away than he does in TCW S7, and he's using his pistol in 1.15 rather than his rifle and scope.

Talk about accuracy!

4. Sniping the tank in 2.03 "The Solitary Clone"

Oh man! I think we all love this one, right? It's just one of my favorite sequences in the entire show -- the framing, the colors, the effects of the dirt flying up behind him.

I love how Crosshair baits the droids to get the exact angle he needs, and the dude clearly has nerves of steel for staring down the barrel of a tank without flinching. I wonder how many times he's done it, considering he seemed to know exactly how to beat them. I'm guessing at least a dozen.

This is another example of "expert making their expertise look effortless," when in reality, we'd all shit ourselves if we attempted to do the same.

Honestly, sometimes I wish we could've had this version of Crosshair face off against Hemlock in 3.15 -- the dude who stared down the barrel of a tank and didn't flinch at the most literal version of "kill or be killed."

3. Stairwell trickshot in 2.03 "The Solitary Clone"

While I love the tank sequence more for the aesthetics, I have to rank the 2.03 stairwell trickshot above it.

That's partly because Crosshair's still physically and mentally recovering from nearly getting choked to death. But, it's also partly because -- just like with Wrecker's knife -- Crosshair is shooting a target that someone else is throwing.

That means he has to adjust to whatever trajectory and speed they throw it at and compensate accordingly, which can understandably be very hard to do in a split-second.

And, in this situation, Crosshair can't even see the puck directly. He's looking at it through at least one or two layers of reflective mirrors. Dude's reaction time is insane!

He also manages to take down at least four or five droids with a single shot, including the tactical droid, which is several meters up the stairwell and into the next room.

I'm not sure if the clones learned any advanced mathematics during their training on Kamino. But if they did, I think Crosshair would've loved geometry and maybe trigonometry too! He would also absolutely kill in a game of pool. I wanna see him go to the SW equivalent of a pool hall, and show Omega that he can hustle people too! He just needed to find a game that would better suit his strengths. LOL

Anyway, as insane as this shot is, Crosshair has two others on his resume that are even more impressive:

2. Saving Omega & AZI in 1.16 "Kamino Lost"

This is one of three entries on this list that *no one* mentioned when I asked for suggestions, but I had to include it. That's because it is -- without a doubt -- the most bafflingly impressive shot Crosshair makes in the entire show.

I have watched this scene dozens of times, and I still have no idea how he knows where Omega and AZI are.

Initially, I thought -- as others did -- that he's using an infrared scope to see their body heat in the water. But, that doesn't appear to be the case.

The only times I can recall Crosshair activating an infrared capability is when he has his rangefinder, which is attached to his helmet. As we see in episodes like 1.01 "Aftermath" and in 3.07 "Extraction," he specifically has to put the rangefinder down in front of his eye to use the infrared option.

No, his scope is just that -- a regular scope. The infrared capability is only attached to his helmet's rangefinder, which he doesn't have in this scene.

Thus, I have no idea how Crosshair is using a regular-ass scope to find Omega and AZI in the dark ocean. The point of a scope is to see better, and I don't know what he might see beside more darkness. AZI's eyes aren't active and, even if Crosshair spots Omega's flashlight, Omega dropped it when she went after AZI, so it's not exactly on her.

I'm willing to believe that Crosshair has better eyesight than the average human in the Star Wars universe or IRL, but his eyesight must be insane if he can see them in the water, even with a scope.

But, whether it's eyesight, some other enhanced sense or just plain luck, Crosshair knows where in the vast, dark ocean they are — not just the angle but the depth too!

It's really hard to tell how far down they are, but I'd say at least 20 meters. And if he is able to see them somehow, he might have to adjust the shot for refraction in the water too.

Plus, unlike the other entries on this list, Crosshair isn't shooting a blaster bolt. He's shooting a cable, meaning he'd have to adjust his shot to accommodate its weight and trajectory once it hits the water. Additionally, with how Omega and AZI are situated, he needs to have the cable hit and latch onto AZI, without hitting Omega in the process, and get the exact angle needed to drag both of them to the surface.

Like I said: I have absolutely no idea how he made this shot. It's definitely the most impressive one he makes in the entire show based solely on external technical factors.

But of course, there is a parallel shot later in the series that's his most impressive one of all...

1. Freeing Omega in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived"

I will never shut up about this scene. It's been living in my head rent-free for three weeks already, and will continue to for several months.

This is undoubtedly the most important shot in Crosshair's life: the shot to save his kid and free his family from Hemlock once and for all.

And everything is working against him: It's dark. It's raining. Omega and Hemlock are like ~40 meters away. The target is the binders between their hands, which is like 3-5 centimeters wide, and won't exactly be stationary. Oh, he's using CX-2's stolen blaster, which doesn't even have a scope on it!!!

We the audience get a POV of what Crosshair sees from over his shoulder, and I can barely see Omega's face, let alone her hands!! I said in the previous entry that Crosshair's eyesight has to be better than the average person's because, holy hell, how can he see that?!?

And, even worse, Crosshair is physically and mentally spent in this scene. He had to return to his own personal hell -- the place where he was tortured and traumatized for months -- then got beaten in a fight and had his dominant hand chopped off.

He and Hunter are running on pure adrenaline at this point. They are absolutely hellbent on getting their kid back, even if they die or collapse in the process. They were practically hobbling out of the CX lab together, and when they crouch down on the bridge, Crosshair has to steady himself against Hunter because he doesn't have his other hand.

And, as the final cherry on top of this proverbially shitty sundae, Crosshair absolutely terrified of missing.

A few episodes ago, the guy couldn't hit stationary fruit from like ~15 meters away with a scope in daylight and in a controlled environment. He even tells Omega: "Close doesn't count. It's either a hit or a miss." Because in a high-stakes situation like this, missing your shot could mean death for you or someone else.

Crosshair already feels like he failed Omega because he missed the shot on Pabu. And now, he has to make an even tougher one with every disadvantage stacked against him and her life literally in his hand.

I don't blame the guy for doubting himself.

Thankfully, Hunter and Omega have complete faith in him, and despite everything he's been through in S3, he has faith in himself.

And so, in the shot to end all shots in "The Bad Batch," Crosshair hits his target and frees Omega.

He and Hunter then subsequently turn Hemlock into Swiss cheese before Omega gives Crosshair a much-needed hug, causing me to cry for the 100th time.

I'll admit: as much as I would've loved seeing another mirror trickshot or some other crazy ricochet in the finale (or just S3 in general), this scene is basically perfect.

It also makes for a nice little parallel to the S1 finale, where Crosshair saved Omega's life after she saved his. Here, as he says himself, he goes back to Tantiss to free her because she freed him first.

As someone said on Twitter when I asked for ideas about this list:

"(Crosshair) put his whole heart and soul in this shot, and he didn't miss. He couldn't afford to."

Like I said: this was the shot that freed the entire Bad Batch family from Hemlock forever. So, I think by default, it had to be No. 1 on this list.

*******

Anyway, thanks for reading! It'd be fun to put together another TBB list like this. I guess I'll have to pick a subject first, though, because I don't have any ideas. If you have any, send them my way!

(EDIT: For anyone who’s also on Twitter, give me a follow. @CatchingClassic )

[autumnslance]

Benchmark Tech Notes

Running the Benchmark

If your Benchmark isn't opening, it's an issue with the executable file, and something not completing properly on either download, or extracting the Zip file. The Benchmark is designed to run and give you scores for your potato computer, I promise.

I actually saved my Benchmark to my external drive, and it still pulls and saves data and runs as it should. Make sure you allowed the download to complete before extracting the zip.

Resolution

Check your Settings; in Display, it may be defaulting your monitor Resolution to something than you might otherwise use if you aren't on standard 1920x1080.

To check your monitor Resolution, minimize everything on your screen and right click anywhere on your Desktop. Go to Display Settings and scroll down to find Resolution and what it's set at.

You can set the Graphic Settings 1 tab to Maximum, or to Import your game settings. Display Settings tab is where you set it to be Windowed, Bordered, or Full Screen, as well as select Resolution to match your monitor in the dropdown (or customize it if needed). I speak on Resolution as some folks in my FC noted it changed how their characters looked.

The Other tab in Settings is where you can change the text output, or even check a box to disable the logo and score; I do this on subsequent plays, once I have my scores at various settings, to get the clean screenshots.

@calico-heart has a post about fixing graphics settings, with screenshots of the settings tab. Basically, change graphics upscaling from AMD to NVIDIA, and/or uncheck Enable Dynamic Resolution. Also check the Framerate Threshold dropdown.

Screenshots

The benchmark auto-saves 5 screens each playthrough. In the Benchmark folder there is a Screenshots folder to find the auto-images taken of your characters.

Character Appearance

If you want to get your current in game appearance, including non-standard hairstyles, make sure to load up the live game, right click and "Save Character Settings."

Then go to Documents/My Games/Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (this is the default in Windows 10 so mileage varies). The file will have the date you last updated their settings and be named FFXIV_CHARA_01.dat (or however many saves you have/made).

Grab those newly updated DAT files for your character(s) and copy them, then in the same base folder, go to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (Benchmark).

Paste the copied DAT files in there, and rename to FFXIV_CHARA_BENCH01.dat (the number doesn't matter, and you may have more).

When running Benchmark Character Creation, use the dropdown menu.

If you do Create a Custom Character and Load Appearance Data, it will give you default hairstyles again. Meteor's Dawntrail hairstyle is a new default.

In Char Gen I am finding that a very pale hrothgal reflects the green scenery around her, giving her white skin/fur a green tinge. The other zones do not have this problem, or at least not to the same degree.

They added a Midday vs Evening setting in outdoor areas as well to test lighting. The lighting in the Gridanian innroom is better; not as bright as outdoors, to be expected, but not completely useless.

New voice type icons to clarifying the sounds you make.

Remember we're getting a free fantasia with the expansion, so some tweaking may be needed; Iyna I felt like I needed to adjust her jaw. Other colors--skin, hair, eyes, tattoos, etc--are showing differently in the various kinds of lighting.

Uncertain if the limit on hairstyles for the Hrothgals so far is just a Benchmark thing; they do have set styles for different head options. Everyone gets Meteor's hair though, so it may be a temporary/Benchmark limit. But which clan and face you choose drastically alters what hair and facial feature options you have access to.

Check your settings, tweak them a bit, play around with chargen, and remember this is still a Benchmark; they always strike me as a little less polished than the finished game, but so far I'm actually pretty pleased with having defined fingers and toes, the irises in the eyes, scars looking cut into the skin, and other improvements.

[brawlite]

a brief bunny post/update, for anyone curious:

we have 3 bunnies and 1 bunny houseguest (who we rescued from behind a neighbor's trash can)—so, we currently have 4 bunnies under one roof. it's a lot of bunny. there's hay everywhere.

first, we have eggnog, who we mostly just call egg. she's the shape of an egg (round), loves food, and spends about 23 hours of her day sound asleep underneath her favorite chair. she's basically a cartoon bunny and looks kind of fake. she loves people (and running at their unsuspecting feet), is deaf, and is afraid of hardwood. she does not get along with the other bunnies.

next, we have fennel. he's a lot of bunny—about 10 lbs of mischief and personality. he loves getting into things he shouldn't and begs for treats like a dog. when we adopted him, his name was terminator (termie for short). if he's not running around and getting into something, he's snoozing at your feet. he's very patient (especially with kids), but sometimes shows love with his teeth.

then there is francis. who may in fact actually be a dust bunny. he may not look it, but he's only 2 lbs. he doesn't like to be touched, talked to, or observed in any meaningful way. (if you can catch him, he does like to be held. sort of.) he's almost impossible to photograph because he's so fluffy and won't stop moving. he's a little trooper who lost his top teeth, had a life-threatening abscess, and now needs to get his teeth trimmed every month. he lives with fennel and they love each other begrudgingly.

finally, there's bug (disclaimer: we have not fully settled on a name for him, perhaps because we are not sure if we're keeping him or not). we believe he was likely an easter bunny release (don't give kids animals for easter) and a neighbor spotted him, called us, and we rescued him from behind a trash can. he is, against all odds for a street rescue, the nicest bunny we have ever encountered. he loves people, loves to be snuggled, and loves to give little kisses. he wants to be touched at literally all times. if given the opportunity, he will fall asleep in your arms. he is... a love bug. he does not, unfortunately, get along with any of our other bunnies—so, not sure if we can keep him.

anyway: that's the crew. any questions, feel free to ask—i'm always happy to chat about bunnies.

that's all, folks! ;3

[petrodragonicapocalypse]

KGLW folk covers - CD album

as some of you know, me and my girlfriend @bennie4twenny have been making folk/acoustic covers of king gizzard songs, which we've finally compiled into an album.

we're currently doing a limited run of CDs, which you can pick up over on our bandcamp. they're only £10 plus a small shipping fee.

all the songs are also available for free on youtube :)

p.s. we're endorsed by king gizzard!!! the real king gizzard listened to our covers and liked them!!!!! fuck!!!!!!!

[ineffable-suffering]

Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles

This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)

Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:

Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.

It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.

Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.

And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:

It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.

Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.

But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."

Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.

Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?

Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...

... only to then, well ...

... quite literally chuck it out.

To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.

Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.

Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.

Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.

Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.

Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.

(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)

Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.

All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.

And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...

... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.

***

(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)

[archangeldyke-all]

Weird AU idea I had randomly:

What if reader and Sevika were like..co-stars on an adult romcom or romantic drama as the two leads? They spend a lot of time together on set and some of their scenes get a little heated (they ofc have a dedicated intimacy coordinator to help). And things just...lead to another off set.

OR

What if Reader is the intimacy coordinator responsible for helping Sevika and her co-stars feel comfortable and they just....hit it off, off-set or after shooting ends. Everyone ofc remains professional on the job, but ya know...not unheard of for folks to start dating after working together 😏

LOVEEE

men and minors dni

seeing people in various states of nakedness is literally your job.

it's vital that you remain professional and responsible while you're working-- both on and off set. you need to be an advocate for healthy boundaries and responsible film-making, there's no space for you to be flustered or uncomfortable or god forbid, turned on.

and usually you're incredibly good at it.

whether it's men or women, whether you find them attractive or not-- you keep your cool and keep it responsible no matter what.

but this is sevika.

sevika, whose interviews you watch before bed-- just to hear the lovely timbre of her voice.

sevika, who has been your celebrity crush for years.

sevika, who's filming her first ever intimate scene, and has no idea how it works.

you find out who you're going to be working with a week before, and you spend the entire week in denial, confident that if you ignore it, you won't freak out about it.

but then you meet her.

she's even more attractive in real life, sleepy from the early morning call-time, hair a little messy and eyes a little droopy, make up free and cuddled up in a white robe. it's like seeing an angel.

the second you introduce yourself to her, closing the door to her trailer behind her, sevika drops her white robe and puts her hands on her hips. when you turn back around, you get an eyeful of a completely naked, completely unbothered sevika. you nearly pass out.

"uh." you say eloquently. sevika blinks at you.

"you're the intimacy coordinator right?" she asks. you gulp, ripping your eyes away from her body to stare at the ceiling.

"y-yes. you don't have to... i mean, you can put your robe back on." you say. "it's just-- we're just talking today." you choke out.

sevika snorts, laughing at herself as she pulls her robe back on. you try to catch your breath as she casually pulls the belt tight and flops onto the couch behind her.

so, it's a rocky start.

and no, you don't jerk off to the image of a naked sevika that's been burned into your frontal lobe when you get home.

that would be completely unprofessional.

(okay, yes you do. three times.)

sevika's charming and funny and down to earth in a way a lot of the celebrities you work with never are. she's got the prettiest smile you've ever seen, and she asks you about your life and listens to your answers, and your crush only gets worse and worse as the days tick by.

you and sevika spend several lunches going over her own personal boundaries.

she's filming a scene with a man, which makes her cringe and stick her tongue out as she says it. (you have to keep yourself from squealing at the confirmation of her very publicly debated lesbianism.) she's not totally uncomfortable with it-- it's her job-- but she 'would like to keep it pg-13' where she can.

she's comfortable with nudity-- she obviously knows how good she looks-- but you explain to her that in scenes beyond the full frontal, she'll be wearing some coverings just to keep everyone comfortable.

she's fascinated by your job, constantly lobbing you with questions.

'what other movies have you worked on?'

'do pornos have intimacy coordinators?'

and then, inevitably, 'who's the hottest celebrity you've ever seen naked?'

this makes you choke on your spit. sevika raises an eyebrow at you as you hack up a lung, and when you finally catch your breath she grins. "me?" she guesses. you just huff and flip her off.

it's amazing watching her act-- she's insanely talented. she's funny too, just naturally, off the top of her head, always spitting out improvised lines that make you and the entire crew laugh. she's also a huge fucking flirt.

she's respectful of all the boundaries you outlined for her on set. always covered unless she's filming, talking frequently with her co-star about the script, triple checking before they film that they both agree with the direction they're taking their sex scenes. but that doesn't stop her from trying to get a rise out of you.

she claims she has no idea how to work the nipple pasties-- insists you do it for her. you've done it for plenty of clients-- sometimes the adhesives or angles can be tricky-- but you know she's just doing it to get you to touch her tits. it's in the way she smirks each time she asks, the way her eyes sparkle as she watches you nervously, shakily press the tape to her flesh, trying to avoid touching her skin at all costs.

she's insisted on taking all her lunches with you once she finds out that you tend to eat alone in your car. she'll tag along with you in the passenger side of your car, teasing you and fiddling with your radio and ducking in her seat when you pass by herds of paparazzi, as you drive the two of you to taco bell. she always pays-- 'i'm the superstar, you're driving a camry-- no offense.'

and she's always touching you.

never inappropriately, never without your permission-- but she's always got her hands on you in some way.

playing with a strand of your hair as you check in with her between takes. wrapping an arm around your shoulders when the two of you walk to your car. fiddling with your fingers in the back of a bus as the two of you and a few crew members ride to a local bar for drinks. each time, you stutter and stumble over your words, biting your cheek and awkwardly avoiding her eyes as she grins at you. she knows what she's doing. she loves it.

you assume you're just a pillow fluffer of sorts for her. just someone for her to flirt with between scenes-- a place for her to put all the residual emotions that filming a rom-com requires. it's happened before-- occasionally clients will need a bit of intimacy outside of the shoot to keep their romantic mood going all day-- and you're happy to receive a few flirty compliments and lingering glances in order to keep your clients happy.

when filming wraps, you assume that you'll never see sevika again.

you say goodbye to her with a hug in her trailer, wishing her luck in her career and hoping that maybe you'll have the pleasure to work with her again in the future. when you pull away, sevika's looking at you with a furrow in her brow.

"what?" you ask.

sevika bites her lip, and for the first time since you've met, she looks... shy.

"nevermind. 's stupid." she says.

you scoff. "sevika, i custom dye thongs to match various skin tones for a living-- i'm used to stupid." you say. she huffs.

"do you... i mean-- how familiar are you with the dating policies on set?"

"uh... not super? i can put you in contact with debbie from HR if you--"

"no nevermind. it's dumb."

you laugh. "having a crush on someone isn't dumb. you should go for it! filming's wrapped, so i doubt there's any hoops you'd need to jump through."

sevika bites her cheek. "i don't know if she'd be into me." she whispers, still not looking at you. you bark a laugh, and sevika's eyes dart up to look at you.

"don't be ridiculous." you say. "you're a fucking a-list actress, i know you know how hot you are, she'd be a fucking idiot not to be!"

"but it's... it's kinda been her job for the past few months to flirt with me."

"what?" you ask.

sevika's co-star is a man-- and he should be the only person flirting with sevika on set.

"i dunno. she's gotta touch me and talk to me and make me comfortable all day-- i don't know if she'd be doing that if it wasn't her job."

"sevika, who's been touching you? nobody's supposed to touch you." you say, anger bubbling up in your stomach.

it's your job to protect her from this happening, and you're starting to panic as you think about all the ways you might've failed her.

sevika huffs a laugh, and you blink at her. "it's not funny, sev, it's serious-- your boundaries--"

"it's you." she says. you blink. "i... it's okay if you... i mean it's basically your job to, like, take care of me, so it's cool if you don't--"

"me?!" you ask, cutting her off. sevika shrugs. "a-are you fucking with me?" you ask. sevika blinks.

"no?" she guesses.

"so this isn't some kind of prank ran put you up to because i told them you've been my celebrity crush since your first movie?" you ask. sevika's worried expression melts, a smug, self-satisfied smile taking its place.

"no." she says again. you sigh.

"o-oh." you say.

"so..." sevika starts. "i know you're all about boundaries and consent and stuff-- do i have to ask before i kiss you or...?" she trails off. you giggle, a little giddy as the reality of the situation sinks in.

"yeah. you have to wear that thong and the pasties to bed with me too." you tease. sevika laughs.

"damn, that's horrible. i'm not gonna be able to do any of the things i wanted to--"

you cut her off with a kiss.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther @gr0ssz0mbi3 @ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @leomatsuzaki @emiliabby