#we're in a very weird state of having way more motivation to do things but no ability to actually start the tasks

[thethingything]

so, a series of events:

our tourettes flares up really bad

our ADHD symptoms suddenly seem to get way worse

we get one of the worst migraines we've had in months that lasts for a week and a half and involved being really shaky and weak all the time

our restless leg syndrome then also flares up

throughout all this the ADHD and tourettes symptoms are still worse than usual

dopamine is either known or thought to be involved in all of these conditions in some way or another, and I'm kind of looking at the fact that they've all flared up at the same time and like, I don't know what to do with this information but hey at least it makes sense that everything's flaring up together and maybe we can use that to judge when stuff will flare up in future if, for example, one of these things gets really bad suddenly

[genericpuff]

This might be kind of a stupid question, but in total, how many times did Rachel retconned LO? I clearly remember Hypnos being trapped for 10 years and then it getting retconned to "a few days"

Also, Hera, Demeter, Hestia going from friends to sisters

Did something else get retconned…?

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

this question got me thinking so hard i consulted the UnpopularLO crew, here's what we were able to come up with but there are almost definitely more examples:

Melinoe claims she's only been trapped for a few days but this contradicts what Hypnos told us about Kronos using a child deity to overthrow the Underworld in the first place. Unless this just means Persephone showed up just a day or two after everyone fell into a deep sleep, but considering the state of the Underworld when she arrives and other things we're told after the S2 finale, there's no way this is the case.

Speaking of Melinoe, the whole concept of "the interloper" was clearly something Rachel came up with on the fly and didn't have an actual solution to because when we're first told about them, they look nothing like Melinoe:

The weird replacement of Hades' imagined childhood self with Melinoe as a dream child who was actually "always present" throughout the first two seasons. Like, why is Hades so familiar with the ghost child 'checking in on him' if this was some random thing that started happening due to Kronos messing around with the timeline?

The sudden 'reveal' that Ouranos was the one pulling the strings and manipulating Apollo since the very beginning even though that makes zero sense and was completely unnecessary to explaining Apollo's motivations. Apollo himself even constantly flip flops between being some evil mastermind out to get Persephone for a very specific purpose (overthrowing Zeus) and being just a completely oblivious obsessed asshole who doesn't understand consent and actually believes Persephone is in love with him. After all, why would Apollo go on a date with Daphne and then ask her if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone's if the goal was to get his hands on Persephone specifically for the purpose of using her powers to overthrow Zeus? How in the world does Daphne factor into that?

Throughout S1 and 2, the gods claim that the mortals are largely disposable and easily replaceable, but then when Persephone causes the plague, suddenly mortals need to be protected because their beliefs and rituals are necessary to sustaining the gods (funny how Hermes bounces between the mortals being necessary to save at all costs but also just inconvenient to live without, like which is it lmao):

The whole "plan" to overthrow Kronos bouncing between being Hera's idea and being Zeus' idea. Rachel just couldn't seem to decide if she wanted a strong female character like Hera to be a victim manipulated into abuse or willingly choosing to put herself in harm's way for the "greater good". IIRC it's written out in the end that Hera and Zeus couldn't even remember who came up with the plan first (but don't quote me on that, I need to find the panels, they do stick out in my mind but I don't know which episode they're specifically from)

The reveal that Hera was the missing fertility goddess depicted on the mural when the original reveal of the mural looks nothing like how it looks later in the flashback sequences. This is the same as the Interloper problem where Rachel was clearly grasping at setting up some kind of mystery box that she didn't know the contents of.

The reveal that Zeus and Metis had a relationship which is what allowed him to use her powers in the first place (because within that same episode Rachel revealed that a bond of love was necessary to using them, but then clearly realized that meant Zeus and Metis had to be in love)

Zeus consuming Metis was changed into some plan to "protect Hera" from being used as a fertility goddess power battery, but then Zeus just went ahead and slowly drained Hera of her powers anyways.

Metis becoming a star after being eaten by Zeus because reasons.

The text messages from Leuce and Hades were retroactively changed into a "manifestation board", probably to absolve Hades of "fooling around" while Persephone was trapped in the Mortal Realm, but all at the expense of a woman who was now retconned into being delusional just for the sake of strengthening the main ship and giving Persephone someone to bully.

The reveal during the trial that Eris was the cause of Persephone's wrath when there was literally zero reason for that to be the case.

The reveal during the trial that Thanatos was actually Hades' adopted son, which really doesn't look good on Hades considering how much of a dick he was to Thanatos throughout the entirety of the first two seasons without any impression given that they might have a canon father-son dynamic.

Apollo and Artemis WEREN'T originally going to be children of Zeus in LO, as Rachel didn't want to create any possibilities for incest within the messy family tree of the Greek gods, but then she decided to make them the children of Zeus anyways as a "plot twist" which is really silly considering 1.) most people would assume they're Zeus' children anyways due to being his children in the myths, and 2.) she still designed them to look just like Zeus.

The subtle but very present SA retcon. This one's so egregious and in-depth I wrote an entire essay about it.

Minthe was originally written with BPD which Rachel decided to "move away from", probably because she realized how shitty it made her look to give BPD to the one character she was pitting the audience against as the "mean other girl" who we all knew was eventually going to be turned into a plant.

Edited panels and changes in the physical books. This is unfortunately not something that I can fully document here, I'm planning on making an actual dedicated post for it, but people have caught changes both in the webtoon version of the comic AND the physical prints that point to Rachel trying to quietly retcon things in the wake of her own bad writing, one of which is present in that aforementioned SA erasure essay in which a scene was added to make Persephone seem more sympathetic towards Apollo. That said, there's also a scene in the trial arc that was changed in the webtoon version, in which Rachel retconned Eris' dialogue from revealing that Hades was the reason Demeter wasn't queen of the mortal realm to reminding her that Hades was the reason (because obv later on we'd get a flashback sequence showing us what happened between Demeter and Hades, which implied that Demeter knew all along what Hades did because he did it right in front of her):

(isn't it funny-weird how Persephone never asks about this despite being in the courtroom when Eris mentions this?)

There are almost DEFINITELY more examples of Rachel absentmindedly and/or intentionally retconning things throughout LO, but that's what we were all able to come up with and should at least get the gears moving in our heads when thinking about other instances of it throughout the comic. Granted, some of these are arguably less 'retcons' and more so just logical inconsistencies / plotholes / etc. but they all still point towards Rachel doing a very bad job at keeping track of her own comic's narrative, its characters, and its twists, even in spite of having multiple other people working for her who all seem to enjoy LO (including heyitsjaki, who is also a webcomic creator), an editor with a background in television writing, and a massive and dedicated fanbase that actively keeps track of her story and its themes arguably more than she does. At that point it feels less "oopsie daisy!" and more just deadass not giving a shit. I don't want to accuse her of intentionally doing this, but it's like she knows her fanbase will just go with whatever she tells them even when it doesn't align with other things she's told them or make sense within the overall narrative - and she'll still be rewarded with Eisner awards regardless - so she doesn't bother to actually try when it comes to the writing, it's just about meeting that panel quota and giving people more H x P fluff.

The simpler answer though, even outside LO, is that Rachel just can't write.

[irregular-child]

Ok so...

me and @whitetape were hanging out the other day, and all of a sudden he pops up and asks me...

"Is it taboo to have a picture of an omega in their nest?"

Yes, my loves, we're discussing the omegaverse!

We chatted for a while and came to the following conclusions

TABOOS:

It is not taboo to have a picture of an omega in their nest, if the omega consented

An empty nest without an omega in it , with the omega's consent, is ok but looked at weird

It is ok to post a picture of an omega in their nest, but is seen as nsfw and more conservative types think its not ok, irregardless of the omega's state of dress

It's seen as never ok to post an empty nest outside of a nsfw/fetish context

BUT

There are parts of the internet where people post nest pics in an aesthetic way

Advice columns/reddit asks/etc

Though these are usually nests posted by the omegas that own them

There are some exceptions, such as non-omega parents with omega children

These are usually asking for advice or help with helping their children build nests

BEHAVIOR:

Nests were traditionally seen as an omega only thing, and kinda still are, but as time goes on, acceptance grows for non-omegas building nests

There are usually children of omegas who miss the sensation of nesting with their dams, or people very close to their omegas with the same motivation

The acceptance exists but non-omegas nesting seen as different to omegas nesting

The act of nesting for omegas is inherently instinct driven behavior

While the act of nesting for non-omegas is seen as more of a comforting act, the same as a child sucking their thumb

CULTURAL NORMS:

The typical timeline of an omega inviting their partner into their nest varies from omega to omega

But culturally in the west, the typical expected timeline is 3-4 months into the relationship

There are some non-omegas, generally alphas, who are pushy about it since its commonly seen as a trust thing

Though the real shitbags will twist it into a "you don't love me" thing

This 3-4 month mark is where a lot of people end relationships

For those who make it past that, the 2 1/2-3 year mark is usually when the omega allows their partner to start referring to it as "their nest" instead of just the omega's

This could happen as early as 1 year into the relationship, some couples go 10 years together without talking about it, but 2 1/2-3 years is the norm

Most omegas take the subtle approach of slipping it into conversation, as to not spook their partners for various reasons

Though some do prefer to have a conversation about it

NESTS:

Typically, nests are made of the basic materials of blankets, pillows, and scented clothes

The scents may be from a romantic partner, close friends, family members, pack members, etc

It just has to be from someone the omega holds dear

Other materials/nest behaviors vary on an omega to omega basis

Some omegas like having stuffed animals in their nest, some see it as childish

Some omegas keep any important items, no matter the material (laptops, notebooks, water bottes, meds, etc), others have a strictly soft items nest

Some omegas eat in their nests, others don't even drink water in their nests

Some omegas clean all nests materials at once, others stagger different materials at different times

Some omegas allow pets in their nests, others keep them out

These preferences can also cause the end of relationships, especially in omega/omega relationships

A good portion of omega/omega relationships sleep in separate nests/beds/rooms

Other than partners, generally only dams and younger, non-omega siblings are allowed in an omega's nest

However, behavior towards non-omegas being in nests are finnicky in general

Betas are generally ok, up to presentation

Alphas are generally kicked out around age 7, since its the age when gender roles are more heavily cemented in children

We will be back folks! Next time with presentation worldbuilding! :D

[n4rval]

hi I just wanted to say your tags on the gaster poll posts are so correct yessss (always enjoy your takes just in general). thank you for being one of the seemingly very few people out there who also believes there's no way the timeline works for gaster and alphys to have been colleagues. however, him haunting her benevolently is something I'm 1000% here for <3 (also I hope your finals went well and you get to have a nice relaxing break!)

HII HELLO HI im glad you like them!!! knowing you read these motivates me to keep being Absolutely Very Normal About Him on the internet

personally it's less of a believing thing and more of a come on it's written right there thing, but since we're here.

behold! dingus timeline. (and the hottest of takes with freshly baked personal headcanons otherwise what am i doing)

Not a skeleton?

Isn't 201X too early?

Indeed, not a skeleton, but rather, some guy. Something about how monster's bodies are manifestations of their SOUL, and him oddly resembling a strange looking man does well to represent his insatiable curiosity and love for creating. (things humans are known for in a better light)

On the other hand, you will be pleased with how fascinated he is by "FLESHLINGS AND THEIR CALCIUM DEPOSITS".

And then they fucking died.

201X is the year the first human fell into the underground, and shortly after, the royal family has moved to New Home. This means some decent exploration of the cavern has already been made. Scientists could very well already have been working on optimizing life underground, with special attention to the large and ever growing new capital.

My idea? As this idiot has been aiding exploration with his antics, Gerson was the one to appoint him to Asgore. Something about his talent with turning garbage into non-garbage. With a little patience and getting familiar with his odd manerisms, it was not too long until he got to be the prince's weird godfather.

Cracking already?

And everyone was devastated, mainly the close family. Not only that, but amidst your mourning, the one couple responsible for your unrealistically high standards for romance just divorced. Is love even real anymore. You eat ants with your cereal and your work consists mainly of convenience improvements and absolutely nothing groundbreaking. What's the point of breaking that pesky barrier again? Child murder? Come on.

That's the Wingdings PATIENCE and BRAVERY encountered in their adventure. Dear god, you're lame. Aren't you some kind of genius? Get yourself together! And together he got his self, now, he has children to look after. Surely there must be some other way. He must stop coming up with new flavours for chips and find some other way.

... Dear god, the King is going to kill them.

BONES and DT

Listen. He's old. You got your wrinkles, he's got his cracking. What? You meant to point out some major event of injury must have been responsible for his current state of deformity? Well, he's old AND heartbroken. That's a direct blow to the SOUL, okay.

Jokes aside (kind of), doing any lasting damage to a monster is quite difficult given their magic forms can easily be healed through, well, magic. They can, however, eventually "fall" (wink wink) and dust away with age - which cannot, however, be fixed with magic.

With a little determination however ...

Something about the anomaly.

He found it, the other way. It was the bones all along, the so needed sustainance for channelling such a high concentration of that power. Well, not necessarily, but a boney structure will endure much more and last much longer than a meaty one. Also, it looks so cool.

You know this guy, he gets first dibs on any and all dubious substances that might or might not deal the last hit to the nail on his coffin dust urn(?). And when it all works out (dubious), he might as well play a little. What kind of things can he make? With the material properties of these calcified remains infused with his own magic, animated with determination.

Some new, powerful magic tricks?

A new kind of monster, maybe?

DARK, DARKER, YET DARKER.

There is a lot of interesting things one can do with isolated DT, aside from making bones rattle with life - for example, peeking onto the complex layers and ramifications of what composes reality. This is when the already kooky scientist grows a little mad; manic, if you will. This is the Wingdings sans was familiar with.

Time travel this, resets that, blah blah blah alpha timeline, the anomaly, the angel, the anomaly again, all things that only make sense to him and his illegible mess on the black board. The lack of detail is killing him, he needs to know what it is - what it does, why it does, how it does. Not to stop it, no, there is no stopping it.

Rather, an overwhelming need to understand it.

He falls somewhere in recent history, details of it left ambiguous. The shattering, combined with the amount of DT running in his magical... mathematical physiology, rendered all of his self but an espectator of his reality; confined to the code and unable to do anything but watch, powerless before the nature of his very being, like a corrupted program.

It is all rather frustrating, besides the burden that is coming to terms with simply not existing anymore, watching was pretty much all this research was and now ever will be. That is, until something interacts with him. It is different from the tragic prince, whom no matter how much DT he's accumulated, he is just as confined to this world's rules as other elements. Not this one, not the force from beyond. Not "YOU".

He makes it a mission to reach out, despite the limits of the code, to give away bits and pieces of him and see if you bite. But not too much, he's seen how you tend to exhaust a world for knowledge, something he can oddly sympathize with. I mean, what will you do once you find everything? One cannot fully know a person.

Maybe in another world, prophetized by a cute, little white dog. A much better world for everyone, without so much as war or disease, his greatest creation yet. And he could invite you to it, to experience bewilderment, to be reminded of wonder. If it could even help you, wherever you are, to deem your own world worth of partaking ... then the experiment was a success.

[0aurelion-sol0]

Hi... Hello! Sorry if I've been away again after just coming back, I know I warned that I was still not sure if I was going to be here regularly but still... minus 7 points for the lack of dedication x) but there has been again a lack of motivation for multiple reasons and not just for the blog but IRL stuff as well.

Life has not really been easy lately, I had a hard time doing it but still I was able to work and prepare some of the posts that I'm going to drop at some point on here, here's a sneak peek:

The Storylines of Stranger Things 5". "The Case of The Russia Storyline". A Memento through Dimensions". "What is The Hellscape AND Dimension X ?". Zombie People".

- "The Storylines of Stranger Things 5". This post will be going through what I think will be the main storylines of the season and which characters or groups are going to drive each of them. It's very long and has been actually the post that has took the most time to be put together but we're on the finish line. It's kind of a new & condensed version of the "big theory post" I wanted to make about Stranger Things 5 for a long time but I was unhappy with the way it came out everytime but I think this one is the right one this time around.

- "A Memento through Dimensions". This post will explore a deeper part of Will's storyline in S5 and how it will structure itself + parallel past seasons. Can't really go into details about this one because I think I've found something about his storyline that I'm sure is going to happen that way, not necessarily the content of it but the way it's going to be done. People have noticed the patterns of what I'm going to talk about here but I'm not sure they've guessed how it's going to be done with Will this season because I think there's going to be a twist about it. But you'll see.

- "The Case of The Russia Storyline". Now this is going to be me going to point out a very difficult storyline to digest & some really weird decisions made by the Duffers regarding that storyline. What was the purpose of it ? Will we continue that storyline again ? I have already talked about it before but this storyline that has been here since the beginning has been difficult to get by I think pretty much everyone in the fandom, even the general audience. So I think we need to talk about it.

- "What is The Hellscape AND Dimension X ?". Pretty straight forward. X) I said in my post about the Thessalhydra that I was going to elaborate more on what these new places are and why they exist or existed the way they are, and what is their "true nature", let's put it that way.

- "Zombie People". A post about the many... "dead" characters we have in Stranger Things, characters who have faced death or are in a state that could be considered the closest to death. It's a weird one. We are more on the theory side with this one than something really plausible to happen in Stranger Things 5 but I want to see what they are going to do with that aspect of the story. Can't really describe much more about it.

Voila! A little tease to keep those still interested and with that I leave you with a playlist that I've made recently about Stranger Things that only contains music from Stranger Things Season 1 soundtrack for the moment. But it helps me sleep, relax and de-stress when I'm not feeling good and if it can help any one that might be in the same situation as me, why not share it ? :)

The track listing is & was definitely very much intended to be that way, xD and it does describe it's own story & where my thoughts are in my life and with the series so enjoy!

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

How would you have handled Rhysand after book 1?

It honestly would've been very easy to rehabilitate him. I'd keep the bargain and him whisking Feyre away at her wedding, but give him actual motivations for wanting her around beyond simply "being nice" and then force them to interact over the Hybern threat. It needed like... no real finesse? The concept was fine, and him helping her through the initial trials in book one was enough to set him up as a dubious ally, enemy of my enemy is my friend, type thing. She can grow further away from Tamlin as per canon (minimal props to SJM bc I do think the concept of them coping with trauma in incompatible ways was interesting) but instead of having it be a cut and dry "Tamlin is abusive now and Rhysand saves her" it can be more gradual. The problem is SJM basically tried to redeem him too hard, when he really didn't need it! Just let him stay kind of gross! If we're going further into what *eye* would personally do, then I'd let him keep the court of nightmares as his like actual legit court! That can be his style of rule and it can suck! But he's also vulnerable and weird and doesn't really know what to do with himself after the events of ACOTAR and he kind of imprints on Feyre. (Ugh, fine. We can keep the mate thing.) And maybe I'd expand on her trying to spy on him a little? There's that bit earlier where Tamlin quizzes her on all her visits, and like I'd lean into that and have her try, in her clumsy way, to fish for information. And he probably knows this and tells himself he's being guarded about it and only humoring her but he's also in such a complicated emotional state being newly released from captivity himself that her attempts at like being nice and flirting actually keep getting to him. I'd also nix the fucking inner circle. They're so fucking cringe. And I think isolation works better for him as a character, and the juxtaposition of like Tamlin, the beloved forthright High Lord with Lucien and idk all his people. And then Rhysand as the lonely goth freak and the court that's eating itself alive. I'd make the mate reveal happen when Feyre is still with Tamlin. And they're both really confused and grossed out by it but decide to like use this to manipulate him. And she pities him about it, and they know that he knows, but he's pretending not to give a shit. But idk at some point Feysand could have some sort of fight (I guess at the midpoint or seventy five percent mark) where she can throw it in his face and he cringes away like she stabbed him. And idk. proceed from there

Insert external plot to tie it all together and make them legit admit feelings

[kathleenkatmary]

My Top 30 Movies of 2024 (as of 12/31/24)

Disclaimer: This is by no means my 'completed' list. There are still a lot of movie I want to see that I won't have access to for awhile yet. I don't usually 'close out' - though I never really 'close out' my yearly lists - until around Oscar time. But I always like to take stock of what my list looks like at the actual end of the year. So here that is. I'll have more complete version around the end of February/beginning of March. Also, I tend to do go by non-festival domestic (US) release dates to determine the year of a movie's release, roughly going by Academy Awards eligibility. But I am kind of loose with that if a movie becomes widely available, even if only on the high seas, before it gets a non-festival US release.

30. A Different Man

A Different Man is the year's most effective exploration of identity and loneliness. It's hardly the first story or movie to look at the idea that changing the physical things that you don't like about yourself won't necessarily make you feel less lonely or more equipped to connect with other people, but it does it in such an interesting way. It's equal parts sad and anxiety inducing.

29. Blood for Dust

This is definitely one of the most underrated movies of the year. It seems that the perception of this is that it's just another low-grade suspense/thriller, but it's actually a really dark look at what modern poverty looks like for so many people, the desperate state the broken system we live in leaves people in, and the lengths people are willing to go to in an attempt to escape it. Every moment is infused with a feeling of dread, but even then it's so easy to relate to Scoot McNairy's character and his choices because of the situation he's in.

28. Civil War

I wouldn't say that Civil War is an apolitical movie, but it's completely uninterested in the one side versus the other side politics that led to the titular war. Instead, it explores the politics of journalism during such a time, the role journalism plays in such a world, and what existing in that line of work does to a person. Through a character like Kirsten Dunst's Lee it shows war as a fact of every day life, and it looks at the United States would look like in that kind of situation.

27. Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake is probably the biggest surprise of the year for me. I went into it knowing pretty much nothing, and what I got was a deeply melancholy time travel tale that used it's sci-fi storyline to dig into ideas of how we're tied to the generations of our family that came before us and how those connections and the things that happened to the people who came before us echo through the generations and continue to impact us. It's such an incredibly effective use of time travel to tell a very human story.

26. The Substance

I doubt I have much to say about The Substance that others haven't already said. Is it subtle? Of course not, but I don't think it needs to be. The over the top atmosphere and slightly bizarro world it sets up feels like the perfect fit for the story it's telling. It's not saying anything that plenty of other pieces of media haven't said, but I do think it captures that feeling of living in a femme body in this culture better than most other movies of this type.

25. Alien: Romulus

I've been a fan of the Alien franchise since I was a kid in the 90s, but it's been in a weird place for a long time. Alien: Romulus feels like a return to form, prioritizing the horror over the sci-fi much of the time and not getting to bogged down with lore and backstory. Most of the characters do feel kind of like stock characters, but the movie does a good job of giving them all solid motivation for their actions and behaviors. And Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson give such great performances, providing the movie with its emotional core.

24. Wicked Little Letters

Wicked Little Letters is a fun movie that unapologetically places women of all kinds at its center. Yes, it's a movie about a feud between two women, but at its core its a movie about the way society pits women against each other, and how we'll always be stronger together. It's also got one of the best ensemble casts of the year, lots of women with amazing chemistry and perfect comic timing.

23. Between the Temples

Definitely the most anxiety inducing moviegoing experience of the year. But it's also one of the sweetest. It's another exploration of loneliness - a theme that's been popular and will probably continue to be - but this one is quite hopeful about finding connection in unexpected places. At its heart it's a love story, but not in the traditional way.

22. Nosferatu

The 1922 original is one of my all time favorite movies, so I was both excited for and a bit skeptical about Robert Eggers's remake. While I don't think it ever reaches the heights of FW Murnau's original or Werner Herzog's version from the 1970s, and while some of the performances could be better in spots, Eggers has such a feel for the dark atmosphere of the story and such an interesting take on the titular vampire. And I think he went in a really interesting route by putting the ideas of grooming and sexual assault that are just sort of naturally an aspect of this story at the forefront.

21. Witches

Looking at the witch hunts and trials of the 1500s and 1600s in Europe and North America through the lens of mental illness isn't really anything new, but the documentary Witches looks at it through a very specific lens: that of post partum depression and psychosis, the continued lack of systemic and cultural support for people suffering from such things, and the way cultural expectations of gender norms surrounding motherhood put people in a position of feeling isolated and even unsafe in seeking help. It's a fascinating way to look at witch hunts, but more than anything it's a deeply personal and cathartic look at experiencing post natal mental health crises in our current world.

20. La Chimera

La Chimera is the most magical feeling movie of 2024, while still feeling very firmly set in the real world. I love that, because it allows for that feeling of magic in our ordinary world. The Italian setting now doubt contributes to that feeling, and the way it's filmed is full of so much whimsy and freedom of spirit that it only enhances the mystical, magical tone that encompasses the story.

19. His Three Daughters

One of 2024's great films about grief. But it's not just about grief. It's about that uniquely agonizing experience of waiting for someone to die, of grieving before the death has actually happened, of being unable to escape that feeling of just wanting it to happen already so that you can get back to your life and all of the guilt that comes with that. Take all that an mix in the complex relationships and rifts between the three sisters at the film's center, and His Three Daughters is one of the best explorations of family dynamics and the impact that a major death can have on them in years.

18. Things Will Be Different

I knew almost nothing about Things Will Be Different going into it, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a quiet little sci-fi story that inserts its genre elements in really clever ways that allow for the low budget. It uses time travel to explore that feeling of the way we can sometimes commit the same mistakes with the people we love over and over and over even when we try to do thing differently, and it ends up packing in incredible emotional punch as a result.

17. I Used to Be Funny

From what I've seen, most of the very few movies out there that focus on the aftermath of sexual assault are very revenge-based. So it's nice to see something like I Used to Be Funny, which has no interest in ideas of revenge and is far more interested in really exploring the long term impacts such a thing can have on a person, on their ability to live life day to day, their relationships, the things they can't get back and the things they can. It's refreshing to see a movie like this that, for the most part, is pretty uninterested in the perpetrator himself, focusing more on the trauma they caused to the people around them, and the way those people find their way to healing.

16. The Last Stop in Yuma County

This is probably the most tense I was watching a 2024 movie (so far, anyway). From pretty much the very start, the tension just keeps building and building and building, at such a steady and methodical pace as more information is revealed, more characters are introduced, and things become more chaotic. The tension then breaks in one of the best end-of-second-act turns I thing I've ever seen. It then goes on to build a completely different kind of tension through its final act. The Last Stop in Yuma County really is a masterclass in tension building. I'm not kidding, this should be studied in schools.

15. The Dead Don't Hurt

The Western has, historically, been a pretty male-centric genre. And while we have seen more westerns focused, at least in part, on women in recent years, The Dead Don't Hurt is the first one I've seen that's really focused on what the experience of a woman really would have been like when the man in her life went off to have the kind of western adventure they usually make movies about. This is very, very much a love story, but what it's about above all is about what a woman alone in that kind of world would go through. It's rough and horrific at times, but in a way that never feels fetishistic or voyeuristic.

14. Dune: Part 2

Villaneuve's Dune movies are stunning achievements not just because they're adaptation of a difficult-to-adapt work that feels complete and true to the source, but also because of how effectively they explore the novel's themes, themes that are still startlingly relevant today, and because of how fantastically it sets up the universe the story takes place in, laying the groundwork for future entries into the franchise.

13. Small Things Like These

I feel like a lot of people might not like Small Things Like These because "nothing really happens", but I feel like it's all right there in the title. This isn't a movie about some grand heroic act where some everyman hero saves a huge amount of people or exposes some major organization. It's about the small things we can do, that a completely ordinary person like Cillian Murphy's character can do to help. It's about the value of every person, every life, and the tremendous, life saving impact even one normal person choosing to do the right thing can have. It's a small, quiet movie. But it's a tremendously powerful one.

12. Late Night with the Devil

I'm not sure I can explain exactly what it is about Late Night with the Devil that captivated me so much. I'm not generally a horror fan. Not because I think the genre is somehow 'lesser', I just don't enjoy being scared. If I love a horror movie, that means there was something in it that I loved so much it overrode how much I don't enjoy being scared. I think this movie really excelled with its main character, exploring him from a really interesting angle and creating a lot of depth with a pretty simple central conceit.

11. Lies We Tell

I'm not 100% sure if this is actually a 2024 film or a 2023 film, but it looks like it was released in he US in 2024, and I didn't have any way to view it until 2024, so I'm counting it as 2024. Lies We Tell is an adaptation of the gothic novel Uncle Silas, and it manages to be even darker than its source material. I think above all this is, obviously, a very woman-centric story, exploring they ways society, especially at the time the story takes place, can leave a woman completely powerless even in her own home. But it's also a very interesting look at family secrets, at the horror of learning that what we thought about the people we loved isn't true, and the ways that those truths being kept from us can put us in danger.

10. I Saw the TV Glow

Again, I doubt I can say anything about I Saw the TV Glow that anyone else hasn't already said. It works most obviously and clearly as a story about the trans experience, but I think it's something that anyone who struggles with their identity, who feels like society or the world they live in keeps them held back from being who they really are, can connect with. And it does that in an incredibly powerful way by focusing really hard on the nostalgia we feel for our youth and the way that, as we grow up, we're constantly looking back to what we remember as 'simpler times' for comfort, even if those times weren't all that simple.

09. Late Bloomers

I'd probably say that Late Bloomers is the most underrated movie of 2024, as I don't think I've seen anyone else talking about it. It's a simple, quiet movie that I found so easy to relate on such a deep level. While, obviously, people in situations more similar to what the characters are going through will find it easy to relate, I do feel like a lot of the ideas being explored here - difficulty connecting to other people, feeling like you're failing or that you haven't done enough or the right things with your life, being selfish at times that you shouldn't be, and at times that you should be, etc. - are probably relatable to most people.

08. Love Lies Bleeding

What a weird little movie Love Lies Bleeding. Most of it has the tone and feeling of a gritty crime movie, but there are strong elements of magic and spirituality. Honestly, in that way it kind of reminds me of a Frank Borzage movie. Borzage never really veered into actual fantasy, but his films were very much about the healing, purifying, spiritual power of love and all of the unlikely and seemingly impossible things it can cause to happen, especially within harsh and unforgiving environments. That's Love Lies Bleeding all over, it just leans a little bit further into the fantastical at points.

07. Woman of the Hour

The true crime genre has been experiencing something of a reckoning lately (and rightly so) for multiple reasons, not least of which is the way victims - especially women victims - are so often loss in the stories of their own deaths, with most of the focus being places on the men who killed them, and with so much attention paid to the gruesome violence of their murders. Woman of the Hour comes out of that reckoning, seeking to tell a story that's usually told because of the murderous man at its center, particularly because he appeared on The Dating Game while he was actively murdering women, in a way that centers his victims, and that doesn't linger on the violence committed against them. It's an incredibly effective film that manages to be quite scary at times and capture the genuine menace of its murderer while still feeling like it's actually honoring the stories of the women he killed.

06. Mother, Couch!

Mother, Couch! did not do well with critics. Most labeled it incomprehensible. Clearly, I disagree. Yes, it's surreal as hell, but I think it all makes sense as a deeply felt exploration of the grief you experience when your relationship with the person you've lost or are losing is messy and complicated and there are more negative feelings than positive ones. It's a look at the very sad reality some people live in where sometimes when someone close to you dies, your life is better for it. Those are some complex and deeply unpretty things to explore, and Mother, Couch! does an incredible job of it, unfolding the relationships between Ewan McGregor's character and his family through a series of confrontations set in a surrealist furniture shop. And it has what I think is the best performance McGregor has ever given.

05. Saturday Night

This felt like the quickest moviegoing experience of the year. It's not the shortest movie from 2024 that I saw, but it was so perfectly paces that it felt like the shortest. The movie is just near-constant action, breaking only occasional to give is a more slowed-down moment between characters. And in that it really captures the frantic feeling Lorne Michaels, played fantastically by Gabrielle LaBelle, is experiencing in trying to get the first episode of Saturday Night Live on the air. It's also got an incredible ensemble cast who do a great job of embodying the real people they're playing.

04. Anora

I think Sean Baker deserves a lot of respect for the work he's done to destigmatize sex work in his films, but what I really want to focus on with Anora is how much it feels like a screwball comedy from the 1940s. Sure, on the surface you wouldn't think it, considering it's about a sex worker and there's a lot of nudity and sex. But when you zoom out and really look at it, from the setup of a quickie green card marriage, to the heroine struggling to survive and hopefully finding a way to do that through marriage, to the fast paced dialogue and physical comedy, this thing is a classic screwball comedy from top to bottom, and I love it.

03. Challengers

Challengers just crackles with energy from beginning to end. Writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadignino take tennis being a metaphor for the relationships between the characters and makes almost every scene about that thing, with almost every conversation and argument that happens feeling like a tennis match where everyone is trying to win, trying to exploit each other's weaknesses, seeking that win without thinking much about what happens after they get it. I also think it's a really interesting looks at relationships and how they operate - or don't operate - when one or both parties in a relationship love something - in this case tennis - more than they love the other person.

02. The Beast

The Beast is a twisty, Lynchian adaptation of Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle, taking the general idea and themes of the story and adapting it in three different time periods - the past, the present - and the future - all of which are connected as a presentation of the characters' past lives. It explores feelings of isolation and loneliness, and the way the society and culture we live in specifically puts is in a position to feel those things, in the way the stories connect to each other. With the way this story is told, it's able to be so many different things: tense and scary, achingly romantic, strange and alienating, and always heartbreaking.

01. Conclave

Conclave really was a big surprise for me. I knew almost nothing about it, but my mom wanted to see it so I went with her for her birthday, and I'm so glad I did. I love watching political process in media. Lincoln is my favorite Spielberg movie, The West Wing is one of my all time favorite shows. So Conclave, a movie about the college of Cardinals trying to elect the new Pope and all the political jockeying and intrigue that goes on while that's happening, is so up my aisle. And as someone who was raised Catholic but always struggled with doubts (and who is now no longer religious), the fact that one of the major themes of this movie is doubt, and how doubt is a necessary part of faith, really spoke to me. It's also just amazing looking. Really, a movie about priests should not be this exciting and fun.

[lovelesswiki]

sometimes i joke about how loveless could be easily ended by just handing soubi a gun and whatever he chooses to do with it would end loveless (yes, morbid sorry), but i do legitimately think that one of the most frustrating parts of where loveless 'ended' is that it's pretty clear from the results of the battle that there is a massive stalemate between the ritsuka-soubi-seimei where everything feels like a powder keg that's an instant or two away from blowing.

i think a lot of that comes from soubi, who actually holds a lot of the power here but none of the ability to utilize it. loveless can't go on without soubi, but it could go on without either ritsuka or seimei (likely not with both of them unless someone could talk soubi down from a very literal ledge). ritsuka has no fighter and cannot do anything on his own other than make the choice to return to goura, which is pretty much the only option in this case other than not doing anything.

seimei's case is even more interesting. i don't recall if his motivations are really gone into (hello i am very slowly rereading ill get there eventually (whenever my job stops killing me)) but my theory has always been that he took soubi back because he didn't think nisei was up to beating moonless alone but knew 1. that soubi could, and 2. not winning would halt everything. and he was right on both counts. nisei lost, soubi won, and seimei was only able to get away because soubi was there at all.

that gives us this weird little triangle of a lingering stalemate threatening to blow up. seimei's plans now hinge on soubi. he might not be utilized for all of it, but seimei seems to be well aware that he needs soubi and nisei won't cut it for what he needs. ritsuka needs soubi to do anything tangible about seimei. he's essentially needed by everyone in this situation. technically, seimei can't do much without him (since nisei seems to be incapacitated post moonless battle) and ritsuka can't do anything without him other than try to talk things through. this isn't stated directly iirc, but i think seimei is also balancing on a very fine point of ritsuka completely giving up on him ever being his brother again, and i think more than anything seimei is aware of that and is instead waiting for ritsuka to make the first move.

i think it's interesting how much of this power rests with soubi and also how much of whatever seimei's plan is relies on soubi being too depressed/out of it or too obedient to realize that he has power in this situation. any move he could make has the potential to actually end loveless, whereas both ritsuka and seimei are relying on him to either stay obedient or make up his mind/do something. if soubi defies and goes with ritsuka, seimei doesn't have the firepower to win and thus, the story wraps up. if he stays with seimei, seimei's plan goes through and seimei wins, story wraps up. if soubi takes himself out of the game in some way, then neither ritsuka or seimei win and the story wraps up because it's now a no-win situation.

loveless ends up with this three way powder keg set up and ready to blow and honestly if i think about this any longer i'm just going to get sad again that we're still resolutionless... endless, even.

[inchidentally]

'what if the competition between Lando and Oscar turns bad?' between my landoscar post and comments on other SM content it made me want to get weird in notepad again

I'm tagging @481boxboxbaby and @twinkodium who've asked but I'm sorry if someone's asked to be tagged and I missed it! also tagging @huntscunt who's tags put this idea in my little head

(caveat that I'm a casual fan who happens to have been around F1 fans all my life so this is just my not remotely official perspective lol)

just to state I think it's a given that we're all so excited for McLaren's future with these two is that Lando and Oscar feel like generational talents. and they're also very different as drivers and every race is exciting to watch even just for them. also the fact that Oscar was the jolt of competition that Lando needed.

and honestly I'd be more worried about their future harmony if they hadn't already had so many highly competitive and charged moments in their first season together:

Oscar came in at a surprisingly even level with Lando apart from the obvious difference in experience. he's taken risks that have on balance landed decently on the side of ballsy/respectable vs total failure and the time spent as reserve driver hadn't deteriorated any of his ability. so it was fair to worry for a while if Lando would take the competition as motivation or frustration esp after the disparity between him and DR in 2022.

I really liked the sort of respectful if tentative camaraderie Oscar and Lando showed each other when the car was an absolute tractor. but I liked it even more the fact that the turnaround at McLaren by Silverstone saw them both still in such a good place while being very competitive. that was I think the start of us seeing that Oscar wanted to prove himself a real team player and good teammate by starting the habit of showing up consistently for Lando's podiums/qualis.

the pit lane ding-dong in Monza was definitely the biggest test they've had - and that a lot of teammates will ever have - and the whole thing was handled really well all around. Andrea did the right thing of being big bad boss and Lando was quick to say that it was prob down to misjudgement (which is what I always thought) and that they still respect each other the same. I wasn't as active then so I can't remember if Oscar was asked for a response but I do remember my friends/family telling me that it was impressive how that didn't cause any major damage between the drivers since that's a pretty major incident to happen so early in a new partnership.

side note here to say that the ppl around me who've been watching F1 since the 90s overall feel like the hothead in-fighting with teammates seems to be fading/getting less intense with the younger generations. maybe it's because alpha male mentality seems cringe to gen z or because awareness of mental health is way more prevalent. Gasly and Ocon are relatively young drivers but even there the situation is pretty rare and because of hanging onto childhood grudges. I don't get the impression that any of the people around me feel like the Norris/Piastri partnership is likely to blow up or generate bitterness just because they're competing so closely ??

it's fair to say that Oscar has seemed genuinely happy to acknowledge that Lando is the McLaren brand representative and the established fan favorite within the sport as well as the team's fanbase. he's extremely mature for his years and incredibly well-balanced in terms of ambition. he's almost tailor made as a perfect compliment to Lando. EDITED TO ADD: see Oscar's almost lifelong friendship with Logan Sargeant as an example of Oscar having duked it out on track with someone for years while remaining close friends the whole time. and this was Oscar interrupting his own victory radio message to say how awfully he felt for Logan crashing out early. and that this is what Oscar felt about his and Lando's partnership toward the end of the season.

EDITED TO ADD:

Silverstone is a perfect encapsulation of how Lando has felt about Oscar from the very start and this was so beautiful to say.

Lando has measured himself by Lewis Hamilton-level goals since karting. Oscar wants to qualify well and win races. Lando was brought into F1 extremely young coming off of huge expectations and has placed enormous pressure on himself since as early as his second year in F1. Oscar has taken a business-like approach to his career since he was 14 and his calm sense of focus and determination comes from focusing on the race ahead and not letting much else in.

Lando's emotions being driven by his superstar destiny/status and Oscar's ability to have calm perspective even during a race is as solid a foundation as you can get in an F1 partnership honestly. they'll absolutely have the same conflicts that all teammates do and the media and DTS will explode those out of all proportion (both of which I ignore anyway). but I really can't see Oscar suddenly flying off the handle or holding grudges and I can't see Lando becoming a driver who suddenly wants to sustain a bad relationship with his teammate after all these years. Oscar is very clearly not the type to develop a crazy ego and Lando genuinely has more of an insane high self-expectation complex than that big of an ego.

even setting aside the parasocial widely felt agreement that they seem to genuinely like and respect each other, neither of them are alpha types and they're not both superstars jostling for publicity and they didn't come up together with a ton of existing history. idk it's just not on the F1 cards that they become icy or resentful.

so while I know no one can see the future and they're both relatively young and could change I don't really feel apprehensive?? and it's way too early to know if either of them will split from McLaren or when. especially if the car stays competitive with RB and Merc then it's the best place for both of them for the foreseeable (and prob most likely since competitive openings elsewhere look to be scant for the next 5ish? years but pls correct me if that's wrong!).

.

.

side side side note: I personally would not want to see Lando at RB. I know he's itching to try that car but unless RB and Max change drastically before then, Lando would positively shrivel up there. he's a superstar and he needs to be someplace he can be a superstar. it's also why I'm glad Carlos and Daniel moved along bc that's why those friendships are still so strong. we saw what had begun to happen when Lando was eclipsing Daniel and I don't even want to think about Carlos and his family if Carlos was teammates with a dominant Lando.

[goodluckclove]

On Being Seen

I'll warn you in advance, friends and colleagues - I might not have quite an optimistic take on this one. In advance I'll say that I'm totally all right, there's no need to comfort or fawn or worry. It's just been a pretty crazy couple of days and it's sort of left me in a kind of perturbed state of mind.

I feel as if I've developed a reputation on Writeblr as someone strongly supportive of other writers through their struggles and successes, and I figure it might be useful to see that I speak as someone who has their fair share of doubts. Consider it a show of neurosis that supports me as your steadfast advocate in creative growth and potential.

I'll put it under a read more. It's nothing triggering I don't think, I'm just a little embarrassed to have it fully visible under what I still consider to be a relatively professional space. Or at least a space for me as a professional whose brand involves not being very professional.

Nevertheless.

I debated for a long time self-publishing Blind Trust. I went back and forth every so often for weeks, and my poor wife had to deal with the brunt of my strange excuses not to do it. It really came down to one big question, which was...why?

Why am I publishing this? And for money, no less? That's weird. Why would anybody support that? It wouldn't deter me from writing if I never published any of the Songbird Elegies. I'd still write them. I've been writing stories for almost 20 years that no one has ever read and no one will probably ever read.

Sure, I have the fantasies of relative cult notoriety. People making fanart of my characters and sharing weird memes about my plot points. Finding comfort in the words and stories I've created to comfort myself. When I was still considered schizoaffective my dad gave me a copy of Flow My Tears the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick and said that he was "like us". If that happened to someone else with one of my books it would mean the world to me.

Then again, would it? Because in my actual, real, physical life I am terrible at taking praise. It's like trying to catch a ball from the other side of a brick wall. If you ever pass me on the street I'm guaranteed to be wearing soundproof headphones and blasting music to keep anyone from talking to me. You might catch my eye and I'll smile and nod, maybe toss a compliment your way, but if you try to have a conversation and I do not know you I will absolutely just keep walking. I can't do it.

I love people and I'm terrified of people. It's always been this way.

It's easier online. I mean it when I say that I'm open to anyone here just starting a conversation with me about anything. There's already the unspoken assumption that we're all already weird, so I don't have to think too hard about your motivations. But still, large amounts of praise and positive reinforcement make me deeply uncomfortable. I've been trying to work on that for years, but I find most advice on building self-worth deeply unhelpful.

It's not like I'd prefer hate. I think I'm just not used to being noticed either way.

This is the first time I've made an honest effort to put my work, and by proxy myself (all writers are brands now, says the publishing industry as a whole) on display online. And for the most part it's been great! I enjoy the connections I've made here. The promise of making more. There are so many skilled storytellers here that it gives me a lot of hope and excitement for the future of literature.

But it's weird. It's really weird.

Most of the time I see it as another social media client. I stand by the posts I make and do them for fun, but I also do them to maintain a presence and draw in more attention. I studied to do things like this for work before. I picked like three social media management tactics that I thought I could remember when I was 18 and just stuck by them. And then occasionally I go oh wait. This isn't some nonprofit. This isn't a start-up for tech assholes. This is me.

And that's weird.

It's not a massive following I have, but it's more than I've ever had before under my own personal and creative writing. I published short stories and articles, but I never heard anything from them. There are short stories I have on online journals that I genuinely do not know if anyone has read. Here, I see people like things and I'm like huh. I feel like a mummy or a ghoul. I do not understand what people are doing.

One part of my brain takes this information and says that it's probably proof that when I publish Blind Trust, some people will buy it. People have expressed interest already. Which means they're probably interested, I think. I post excerpts of my writing and people seem to enjoy it enough to click a button or leave a comment. That's cool. I don't get why it happens, but it's very cool and it makes me happy.

At the same time there's this undercurrent of paranoia. I don't get it. And I don't think I ever will. That's essentially been my only coping mechanism for publishing at this point - I don't know if it'll work, but I might as well try and if I do something will probably happen.

I know I'm a writer. At this point it would be ridiculous to say I wasn't. I'm a professional, working writer, and experienced enough to know that saying all that doesn't say much in terms of quality.

Am I a good writer? I don't really know what that means. I like Blind Trust. I'm reading it for the fourth time as I edit it again and I genuinely enjoy it. So someone who thinks like me and has similar tastes to myself might feel the same way. I don't really know who that person might be. Statistically I imagine they have to exist somewhere. And that there's at least a handful of them.

Imposter Syndrome is real and I don't think it ever goes away. I'd like to think that it's one of those things where you think about it less and less, and this is just the first night in maybe five months that I'm really thinking about it.

I'm not expecting to make a ton of money off my first book. In fact, I probably will be sick from anxiety with any purchase I get for the first year, because it means that someone spent human money on writing I am happy to just give them for free.

But this is going to be my job. I want this to be my job so I can spend more time doing it. Because I've dedicated so much time to doing all of this, it means I get to spend a lot of my day getting other writers to write even a little bit of their own stories. And that's so important to me.

I don't know. I don't really have a neat end to this. I'm forcing myself to actually follow through with posting it, and then to continue keeping it up even though it feels incredibly vulnerable to be, in my opinion, this self-indulgent and whiny. It's insecure. I'm still insecure. I'm in therapy and on medication and there's more shit I got to do in life.

Still, I'm telling myself that my version of being a Professional Writer is to showcase emotional pitfalls like this. Newer writers might know that you can sometimes have a night where you might not be in despair, per say, but certainly deep confusion, and then come back the next day and keep on working. I stand by what I mean when I say that the craft should not be entirely miserable. It is still maybe 25% inconvenient to me, and I am currently in that less-desirable quarter.

So what am I doing? Wife got us Jersey Mike's, so I had a yummy sandwich. Kafka is sitting on my calves, just behind my laptop monitor. I'm listening to my soul/funk playlist while Wife plays Hell Divers for the first time. Later we're going to play a board game.

But for now, I'm going to keep editing my goddamned novel.

Blind Trust out in June. Get ready people, because I'm not.

[wannabepapa]

(you don't have to reply if you don't want to) we aren't moots so I don't feel comfortable asking for other places (plus I, like, never post anything) but I really do adore your blog. Your writing hits in a way that is so good and I always get excited when I see something from you on my dash, and I'd sorely miss your work if you did delete. You're one of the people I go back and reread things of. All that being said--the election is depressing as hell. Do what you need to to keep yourself safe, but if we're stuck in a 4 year Hell, enjoy the parts you can. If the motivation/enjoyment isn't there, it isn't there. but if it is? Find your bright spot in the shit. Hold tight to the joys you can whether that's goofy friends, pretty sunsets, or a dude cumming a baby out on the subway. No matter what's going on in the world, remember to enjoy your You. -🥕

🥺

come here please so i can kiss you on the head thank you!!!!!

i unfortunately suffer from just-skirting-by disease (depression, anxiety, and possible autism rolled together) so i go through bouts of not knowing the state of my blogs. i don't necessarily want to delete them since it's already a moot point on my digital footprint—they can easily dig up stuff that's "deleted" if they really wanted to. it's more the............hopelessness isn't the right word but i'll use it.

i have been feeling down in the dumps for a few months now. the state of everything right now definitely didn't help but i have a very tight attachment to this part of my life. i was in a bad place and when i was finally escaping in 2019 i made an account (not this one, a long since deleted one) where i was able to let everything free. it's how i met my partner and was able to find others that helped me realize that i'm not weird—i feel safe in the online space.

sorry for the ramble but it's more my brain taking its sweet time getting through the trauma of the past week. i do urge you though to dm me privately even though you aren't a moot. i'm always up to making friends to talk about all things, not just kink centric

[tdstoryarchive]

Book 1

Chapter 1:

We're All Running From Something

Quite the read. :)

A cool gentle breeze rustling through his short spiky hair as Flash runs around the track.

As his competitors approach from behind he speeds up to keep his lead. The wind picked up, people were cheering Flash in from the stands...

And....

"DARRIN WILLIAMS COMES IN FIRST!"

The announcer called out from his box within the stands. Thr crowd goes wild and starts chanting "Flash! Flash Flash!"

He made his way out of the track area, only to be halted by reporters.

"Another victory in the continued winning streak of Track Star, Darrin "Flash" Williams," a Channel 6 News anchor, Brie Walters commented as her cameraman filmed.

"Darrin may only be in college, but he has great potential to someday be in competitions such as The Olympics!"

When Brie noticed Flash, she ran to him with her microphone, "Flash! Flash! A second if you wouldn't mind!"

He stopped and looked at her. "Alright, but only for a few minutes."

Brie nodded. "How does it feel to win yet another State Track Meet?"

"Same as it always does, it feels nice to win." He stopped for a second. "But I don't run for thr medals or the trophies. It's simply just...a passion of mine."

"Besides Passion, is there anyone who motivates you to keep going with this running career?"

"Uh.." Flash had hesitated.

At this point, Brie was smiling wide, " A girl maybe.. someone like Beauty Pagent Winner, Heather Granville? You've been hanging out around her recently yeah??"

"Uh.." Flash shook his head. "No she's just a friend. But, I gotta go now."

Something was always followed Flash, something...not good, and the dread of it was sinking in so, he had to go. He ran away from the reporter, who was left suddenly confused.

Flash had run straight into Heather upon pure coincidence. Knocked them both right over.

Heather rubbed her head as Flash offered out his hand to her, he'd gotten up fast, and was very apologetic.

She accepted his hand and rubbed herself off. Today had already been a bit weird for her. She also had a splitting headache because of it.

"Its alright.. it's not the worst thing that's happened to me today...." Heather seemed kind of down, she let go if Flash's hand when she was back on her feet.

"Sorry to hear that..anything I can do to help?" Flash asked.

"Probably not unless you have 4,500 Dollars." Heather sighed.

"I most definitely do not." He was taken aback slightly. "But..what's it for? If you don't mind me asking."

She was quiet for a moment, before speaking low, "A nose job."

Flash put his head down low. "Heather, you don't need a nose job. Your nose looks fine."

"Just fine?" She asked her eyes pleading.

"More than fine, amazing flawless. You don't need to change your appearance like that to be pretty Heather." Flash said kindly, "You've got natural beauty. Not a lot of girls can say that."

"Aww," She found herself blushing at parts of Flash's words, "Thanks Flash. Means a lot."

Flash nodded in response. Half the time Heather did this sort of stuff so she could get compliments, so it's hard to tell if she was lying or being sincere.

But that's the first impression you'd normally get being acquainted with her. Flash sincerely liked her despite everything.

Maybe it's because they were both popular. Regardless the two friends hugged and went on their way.

Her heels clicked as she walked away from The Track Star. An important mission for a young adult in college.. asking her parents for money.

She'd already told Flash what she needed and he had helped her out a little, but all the other girls have been talking about Heather behind her back..

"Your nose is crooked!"

"Off Center"

"Beauty Queen isn't so pretty now huh?"

Maybe Flash was right, she is pretty and nothings wrong. Maybe these are just petty rumors spread by those who are Jealous of Heather. It's not worth the risk.

She arrived at the Café, she had asked her dad to meet her there. He was a successful businessman. Luckily she'd caught him on his lunch hour.

"Daddy," Heather looked at him with slight puppy eyes. "The other girls at my college say that my nose is crooked."

"And let me guess, you want thousands of dollars for...what? A nose job?"

"If...you would?" Heather asked nicely.

"Absolutely not." He said. "You don't need a nose job, you are a beautiful young woman okay?"

"Those other girls, well, they're just jealous."

Of course, Of course. What was Heather thinking. The world was in her grasp. Born into Beauty it seemed to even revolve around her. Truthfully, a fault of hers, conceded due to those around her. Perfectly Perfect as some would say.

Not all lives are as perfect as Heather though. Take Zoe Ingstrom for example.

She is an 8 year old girl who is the child of a broken couple. No further details needed. But it is rubbing off on her. She often makes her dolls hit each other...

That as you know is not healthy. It shouldn't be a thing a kid has to head let alone watch.

Distant yelling could be heard echoing in the halls of her house.

"WE'LL MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SUCH A DEADBEAT, ZOE COULD HAVE A REAL FATHER AND A GOOD LIFE."

"DEADBEAT?" A male voice countered the female voice, booming louder. "I'M NOT THE ONE GOING AROUND WITH OTHER GUYS HUH?!"

Both parents had their faults. Honestly, weren't even fit or ready to have a child.

Zoe drowned it all out with the dolls. This time she was playing house. A mommy and a daddy doll were taking their baby doll out for a picnic in a nice park.

They had sandwiches, juice, chips and everything you can think of that would be at a picnic!

Zoe used her imagination to run away from her troubles, but it only got worse outside her room.

She decided to take her favorite dolly and climb out of her window. Luckily her room was on the first.

We are all running away from something.

[thinkatoryprocess]

Any advice for people who want to get into writing porn but have issues with embarrassment?

I took a bit to think about this.

My journey into writing porn as a primary thing is a weird one. I started out strictly as a gen writer who really didn't get porn and had a lot of hangups around it, if you'll believe it. I won't get into my background on it, but what got me to the point where I could actively consider myself primarily a porn writer was this: I stopped viewing it as writing sex acts and started viewing it as an event, physical, emotional, whatever other kind of way, in the character's life. At that point, you're just as obligated to focus in on the character's inner life and reactions as you are when they're in the middle of a fight or in the middle of a love confession or anything else.

The beauty of porn is that it's inherently about sensation, whether that sensation is positive or not - I've written a lot of noncon - and the trick to really getting past the fact that you're writing two people fucking is that sex is a very seriously individual act that is different each time because the emotional state someone brings to it each time is different, especially in the context of fanfic, where a lot of people tend to focus on big events rather than slice of life. Sex after a love confession is different than sex after a loved one dies is different than sex between two people who really are no longer in love anymore.

So it comes down to pairing sensation to emotion, and they're more paired than you might think. The intensely good sensations are high when good sex is matched with good mood or good connection, and the worse ones are low when any kind of sex is matched with bad mood or lack of connection. Sex becomes an act of emotion, whether or not that emotion is good. Even emotionless sex is motivated by some kind of emotion and is informed by that distance, and the sensation will be touched by that.

So I guess I'm saying that there are three layers to porn - physical sensation, emotional reaction, and the actual intellectual thought process that is your POV character processing both and how it's impacting their general state of existence. You might think I'm being too complex about this, too granular, but in my experience I only began to be able to write porn comfortably when I realized it was an emotional act with physical sensation and treated it as such. If you can connect firmly to the emotional state of your character, you should be able to write your way through their reactions to the physicality of sex without actually changing gears, because generally when we're writing porn we're not writing totally meaningless, totally pointless sex that the character did for no reason whatsoever and that has no impact on their mental state afterward. There's a reason they're in this situation and they're gonna have feelings about it. Focus on that. The physicality is important, but pushing past the embarrassment is a matter of realizing that you're not just writing sleazy sex acts, you're writing characters experiencing something very visceral, very real, and definitely some form of emotional.

Fuck, that's a lot of text. Just bear in mind that if someone like me, who was seriously hung up on the idea of being a gen writer who never got the mindset of choosing to write porn, got to this point, uh, you can probably do it too.

[beloved-blue]

For the dreblr ask game 5, 20, 23, 24?

Hellooo thank you for the ask <3

5. What do you think is the most character-defining c!Dream scene?

I'm going to be more general than a single scene, mostly because my analyst days are long behind me. I'd say c!Dream throughout the daedalus arc.

A little late in the timeline and there are probably way better and obvious choices (maybe the revival book montage) but I'll stick with this one.

I think these scenes are the closest we ever were to a c!Dream pov. My mental recollection of these scenes sometimes has Dream looking at Sam in Minecraft instead of the other way around. They are very private moments between c!Dream and c!Sam without the extreme power imbalance that other scenes with them had.

We got the reveal that c!Dream wanted to sleep in the prison cell even after he escaped. We got c!Dream free but freshly out of hell, hiding things from c!Sam, keeping The Plan and c!Punz safe but letting some things slip, revealing some things because it felt good to make c!Sam see how wrong he was about him.

We saw c!Dream kill c!Sam but ultimately, let him go. We saw c!Dream let c!Sam leave.

20. What are some of your favourite pieces of c!Dream analysis?

Oh my, so many. From the OG analyses from @ruby-whistler, to the amazing meta from @simplepotatofarmer. And of course, some of the awesome posts from the loreheads™.

But I'll link two posts that I think never really got the love/discussion about them/their content that they deserved:

c!punz's motivators by @merrinpippy

how c!dream lies by @rutadales

23. To what extent are you a c!Dream apologist?

If we are talking Seriously™, all the things he did to c!Tommy and others are unforgivable, and the stunt he pulled with the boomers is straight out of a horror movie. Any good intentions he has will always be stained black by his completely fucked up morality.

If we're not talking Seriously™, then he suffered a thousand times more than Jesus. He quite literally never did anything without a logical or justifiable reason, and all the crimes he's accused of are greatly exaggerated for the purpose of dehumanizing him and using him as a scapegoat for everything wrong with the server and all its other members.

I think he should be loved like he deserves by like half of the server At Least, starting with c!Sam in this essay I will-

No because I'm serious, c!Sam is just a mentally ill puppycat (he has ocd) who placed his loyalty on the server when he shouldn't have, and just has to learn he can let himself love c!Dream like he's fighting tooth and nail not to!!!

As you can see canon and arguing about morality doesn't serve me At All and I couldn't care less if my meow meow tortures people and is Extremely Weird About, first of all why do you think they're my meow meow in the first place, second of all it's literally all in Minecraft my meow meows aren't hurting anyone irl Calm Down Everyone Let Me Have My Fun!

24. When/how did you become a c!Dream apologist?

Early 2021. The first big dream smp stream I watched was Doomsday from Techno's pov so I was not that invested in clingy duo's fate during the disk finale, I just wanted to Take It All In and enjoy the spectacle aka Dream's performance. Then, the very first prison visit got me Interested, and the subsequent c!Ranboo lore streams got me Hooked. I was big into endersmile then, but I slowly transitioned to being more focused on the prison arc as a whole as well as the prison trio.

This animation was definitely a turning point to my interest in the character. Made my brain invested in c!Dream's mental state and well-being, which means I would never again be a c!Dream casual and would from that point on be a c!Dream apologist <3

[primevein]

The Prime of His Youth: Book IV: Fire's Master: Ch02: God's Creation

"We're in fucking space!" Grant Garver shouted, as he stood overtop of the of the navigation console.

"You'd think that astronauts would be more?.." Arcee asked, and paused for a moment, "Like Ultra-Magnus?"

"By his service record you mean boring." Sarah Sanders said, from Pyra Magna's console.

"Regulation." Merrick Parry said, from a rear gantry, with small Human-sized consoles in front of him.

"Yeah, that?" Arcee asked.

"Uh-huh?" Grant Garver asked, Rust Dust just behind him, looking at the console. "And what did that get me?"

"In space?" Arcee asked.

"Knockout got us in space." he said, and turned to look at Japheth, "Japheth got us in space. The astronaut programme wanted us to wait 20 years and maybe get a single space flight." He then turned to look at the window, "And here I am, in actual space." He then paused for a moment, "And with gravity, so I don't have to worry about my bones dissolving."

"Wait, what?" Arcee asked, "Your bones dissolve? What?! Why?!"

"My turn." Raven Thorin said, from another gantry, and Arcee walked over to her. Arcelia and Roxana moving over as well. "In truth, our bones are always being dissolving."

"How does that?.." Arcee asked.

"And always being rebuilt." Raven Thorin replied.

"I guess that makes more sense." Arcee stated, "Humans are weird." Raven just gave her an expectant look, "Okay, yes, we're just as weird." She paused for a moment, "But our bones don't dissolve."

"The Human body is constantly tearing itself down and rebuilding itself." Raven continued, with Roxana looking on her with incredible eagerness, "In space, there is no stress that requires it to build up, and so... I guess it gets lazy."

"Not using uncessary resources?" Roxana asked.

"That would make sense." Raven said, "But Humans in microgravity experience extreme loss of muscle mass and bone density. It can take years for an astronaut to recover."

"You can't be serious?!" Jumpstream asked. "Why the scrap would you do that?!"

"That was the only way to leave our world." Rahab Ziskind said from atop Jumpstream's console.

"You have to risk your bones dissolving to go into space?!" Dust Up asked the Human on her console. Ella Ran just shrugged.

"We haven't even left..." Skyburst stated.

"...your stella system." Stormclash added.

"We haven't even made it..." Skyburst continued.

"...half way." Stormclash added.

"Your fifth planet." Pyra Magna added.

"You have no idea what this means to us!" Merrick Parry stated.

"And, that's what?" Dust Up asked.

"If I may?" Sirenia asked.

"Of course, Siren." Japheth stated.

"Jupiter, Sol-5, has four moons that are visible from Terra with primitive instruments. It was the first sign on Terra of the greater cosmos yet to be discovered. It was when astronomy became a science rather than attempts to read predestination."

"It's probably the reason we're here." Sarah Saunders stated.

"Shouldn't we be more?.." Melinda Myriad asked, and gave Japheth a nervous look. He gave her a bright smile in reply, one that made her feel at ease, and even more nervous.

He stood up properly, "I guess I should give you a proper answer. I expect you to be professional when needed." He said, and then went back to a slight slouch.

"That's it?" Dust Up asked.

"Very..." Stormclash sarcastically stated.

"...motivational." Skyburst added.

"Honestly?" Jumpstream affirmed.

"What am I going to do?" Japheth asked, "Treat the Caminoan Battle Sisters like the Elite Guard?" A paused followed.

"You're not?" Dust Up asked him, and he just smiled at her.

Japheth then looked around the bridge, "We all have jobs that we need to do. As long as you do them, and aren't assholes to each other, feel free to relax and enjoy yourself."

"Unless he needs us to smash things." Pyra Magna proudly stated.

"Any chance we could stop by Ganymede?" Merrick Parry asked.

Japheth looked distant for a moment, "Isn't that the one with the internal ocean?"

"Believed to be one of the best candidates for life beyond Terra." Sirenia stated.

"Well..." Japheth stated, "There is Caminus."

"Do you know how long scientists have been speculating about Ganymede?" Raven Thorin asked.

"Honestly?" Japheth asked, "No, but I don't see why we can't stop by."

"Can we go down?.." Theresa English asked.

"Too much radiation." Arcelia stated, and Theresa sighed.

"Aren't the exosuits ratied for radiation in space?" Japheth asked.

"They have not been tested for radation levels this high." Arcelia replied.

"I volunteer to try." Merrick Parry said, hand in the air.

"We're not going to test a suit, live." Japheth said.

"So?.." Merric Parry asked, "We can test it if I take it off?"

"Do we have radiation swaches?" Japheth asked.

"We have far more accurate radiation sensors." Arcelia proudly stated.

"Alright, let's test it." Japheth said, "We'll retire to our room. Everyone else, as long as we have a few people on the bridge, do what you want."

"You don't mind if we stay on duty?" Grant Garver asked.

Japheth smiled at him, "Do what you want." he said with glee.

* * *

Japheth lay on the bed with his four femmes cuddling up to him and each other.

"Didn't you want to see how this goes?" Arcee asked, "I figured it would be something that interests you?"

"I'm a boss now." Japheth stated, "At times like this, my presence would be disruptive."

"So, you're saying you are interested?" Arcee asked.

"Either way, there's nothing I can do." Japheth replied. "Sometimes it's best just to find something else to do."

"Like cuddling!" Roxana excitedly stated.

"I never said I was against this." Arcee stated.

"We could see you pining." Arcelia added.

"Yeah-yeah." Arcee replied. She paused for a moment, "Cuddling is wonderful."

* * *

Stormwright flew out, and transformed with an empty exosuit in her hand. "So, how long do we have to do this?"

"We are already getting data." Melinda Myriad replied, "It seems well within safe levels. We should use radiation sensors to make sure we keep track of exposure."

"I volunteer." Merrick Parry stated.

* * *

Merrick Parry turned off his gravitization and pushed off the hull, gently moving away. Stormwright slowly floated out with him. Merrick used his attitude thrusters to gently turn around, "This is absolutely incredible."

"The look on your face is amazing." and intruiged Stormwright stated.

"E-V-A's are normally extremely dangerous." Merrick replied, "If I slip, if my safety line breaks, or wasn't hooked up properly, I'm dead. But here, I can just... look... I can see things no Human has seen. I can see the beauty of God's cosmos."

A pause followed as Stormwright steeled herself to ask the question, "I am curious about your religion."

"Christian." Merrick replied.

"There are apparently a great number of variations?" Stormwright tepidly asked.

"I honestly don't know." Merrick replied, "God created the world, and everything in it. The small differences of doctrine really aren't worth thinking about." He looked about for a moment, "How can you look at this, and not believe in God?"

"Luckily for me, he walks among us." Stormwright stated.

"You think he's a god?" Merrick asked.

"Primus is the god." Stormwright stated, "The Primes were created by him to fight the great evil, the chaos bringer."

"So, Japheth is an angel?" he asked.

"He seems more than that." Stormwright stated, "But Sirenia would be the one to ask about that."

Merrick held his hand out to her, and she gently moved towards him to take it. He pulled her in for a warm embrace before turning away. He wrapped his arm around her while just looking out at the stars.

[autobot-ratchet]

MTMTE 17-19

MTMTE 17

“No cure for cybercrosis, but you can bet they've invented a million new ways to kill someone...” GOD. FUCKING. THE ABSOLUTE FUCKIGN STATE OF IT ALL I AM GOING TO CLAW MY OWN FACE OFF

“Not everyone's ready to give up on this- this very seductive idea that we're immortal,” he says while fiddling with his hands. Man he knew from the very beginning, huh, or at least had a feeling, even way back in issue one. Like sure, his hands were giving out, which meant the end of his career, but I think Ratchet knew his time in general was running out too. And getting Pharma's hands and being able to continue working never tricked him into thinking otherwise, just let him keep himself occupied while waiting it out

aaauufgdsjk Cyclonus is so upset... he likes Tailgate a lot but he can't bear to say it or to even properly express his grief...

Percy's smile is cute lmAO

Cyclonus is trying to give Tailgate a one-of-a-kind experience before his death...... aaaaAAAAAA........

to this day I am still so sad that Luna-1 igniting after Rodimus and Rung touched down on its surface was because of Rung and not Rodimus because I had so much fun with my “Rodimus knocked up the moon” jokes and it just doesn't hit the same with Rung lmfAO

“We could be looking at the next Optimus Prime or Ultra Magnus!” or the current Megatron, even

eyyy it's Dr. Giggles McChainsawhands

MTMTE 18

aww, Swerve considers Skids his best friend, they're both so cute

I love Swerve's big stupid blaster, I want a model of it for myself, where's that toy line, Hasbro

big fan of Cyclonus disobeying Rodimus's order not to engage with the decepticons alongside Whirl. Also a huge fan of Whirl asking Cyclonus if he wants to attack them with him as if he just invited him over for tea

love Rodimus cursing Tyrest out lmAO same buddy

God Pharma is so weird and gay at Ratchet lmfAO I said it before, I know it's actually pretty tragic how hard he fell off but also god. Look at this fuckin guy

I completely fucking forgot about Star Saber lmfAO

like. Pharma really did just remove Ratchet's head and spark from his body just for shits and giggles huh. I remember the first time I saw that panel with the reveal I thought Ratchet was dead for sure but nah, he's back to normal not much later and we just don't talk about the whole out-of-body experience ever again

love Rung subtly agitating Minimus until he snaps at him to test if he's actually Magnus, love that it works too lmAO

MTMTE 19

poor Magnus getting yelled at by Tyrest, it's not his fault the Lost Light is a disaster ship filled with a nonsense crew

Whirl was actually the first one to refer to Rodimus as Rodders lmAO I always remembered that as a Brainstorm thing

love Ratchet goading Pharma into putting him back in his body. He took him out of his body just to show off, why not have him put him back in, just to see if he can? 'course, it comes back to bite him in the ass but y'know

Whirl talking about how he doesn't get his claws replaced with hands because then the anger might fade and then he'd have no motivation is so fuckin real lmfAO I used to be so much more motivated than I am now and it was 100% out of rage and spite and lemme tell you, depression is starting to overpower the rage and spite and leave me not feeling much at all and it makes a big fuckin difference

aaaaaaaand rip Ambulon

eeeyyyyy it's the Circle of Light! Shame Drift got exiled right before we caught up with them lmAO man that still makes me sad, he was so excited to see them again...

YOU.

There's. Something to be said about Tyrest's bit about cold constructed bots being predisposed towards sin and that they'll eventually slip beyond god's reach, considering, y'know. Who he is lmfAO That's an entire post to be made in and of itself and I do not have to words or brainpower to make it right now but damn is this bit making me feel. something

and yknow what there's something even more to be said about Tyrest's new take on the law what with him being Who He Is. The whole concept of integration of religion into law (as in forcing the rules of your religion to be everyone's rules that they have to follow or be punished, regardless of whether they practice said religion or not) skeeves me the fuck out to begin with but this is. This is a lot lmfAOgfdhsjk a god not knowing he's a god but being a fanatical believer of god to the point of literal genocide is. It's something