#your one in early development understood on some level

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Sea Monster x Reader

In the spirit of Mermay, I come to you with a slightly different approach: an octopus hybrid, dwelling in the dark depths of ancient waters. :) Hopefully close enough to the sea monster you imagined, @wally0117

Content: gender neutral reader, male yandere, monster romance, reader likes sharks (a lot); inspired by The Shape of Water and My Octopus Teacher; photo from Whalebone Magazine

He’s always been aware of humans, naturally. Observed them from the beginnings of time, from the very first rudimentary attempt of a boat that crossed his waters. Though he can only guess how these creatures exist, how they breathe, how they move. What arrives in his depths is always a corpse of some sort. Bloated, decaying carcasses, rarely intact, whether chipped by fish or by time. Everything else is left to his imagination.

Until today. The fish are restless, the currents are stronger. Something must be happening above, stringing him along curiously. His many legs sway in tandem, opening and closing, as he investigates the source of interest. His pale white eyes narrow to a mere squint, unused to the light of the surface levels. At last, he finds it: a human.

Yet this one is unusual. Intact - save for the bleeding wound - and unlike the washed-out, cadaveric blue tint he’s normally accustomed to. He notices a twitch of the limb and it dawns on him: this one is still alive.

You wake up with a violent cough, thrusting out the leftover liquid that had invaded your lungs earlier. You clearly remember drowning, so how did you end up on shore again? The answer reveals itself rather quickly: a monstrous creature, albeit humanoid for the most part. The upper half resembles a man, but the torso ends in thick, enormous tentacles, now flopped onto the sand, surrounding your body. You search for the creature’s face, framed by translucent tendrils that seem to replace what you’d expect as hair.

“Thank you”. He scans your features and remains silent. Does he even understand human speech? After a moment of consideration, he looks ahead, surveying the water, then returns to you, giving you a nudge. He most likely wants to know how you ended up in that situation to begin with. “That’s, well…”

Conveniently enough, the monster has brought you back to your little camp, so you reach for your backpack and pull out a book. Of course, no words can ever replace the image itself. With renewed enthusiasm, you open your encyclopedia and turn it towards the man, showing him a photo of a sand tiger shark, tapping on it excitedly. “I was looking for sharks!”

Ever since the bizarre, life-saving encounter, you’ve been returning to the same spot most days. And without exception, the monster will be waiting for you in one of the neighboring caves. Judging by the pellucid, pale skin and his reluctance to be in the light, you guessed early on that he might be a creature of the depths.

One that has been around for a long time, it seems. Once he understood your interest in sharks and other aquatic animals, he developed a liking to play guide for you, silently touring you through forests of kelp, hidden caves, labyrinths of reefs and hills. He knows where the animals linger, and they don't scurry away when you approach. You've never dreamed of being so close to them, staring into their eyes and tracing their fins as they swim past you, unbothered and relaxed. The monster will gaze at you from a distance, amused by your passion.

On ground, you’ve begun your own little experiment: can the octopus creature learn sign language? You didn’t need long to discover how intelligent he is, mimicking your gestures with flawless ease, instantly memorizing the meanings, the connections, the implications. He seems to be terribly delighted by this newfound tool of communication, often asking you questions with earnest curiosity.

Ah, yes, the questions. It makes sense that he’d want to know more about humans, though his interrogations are rather…particular. Specific. It’s less about humans as a whole, and more about you. How long have you been swimming here? How deep can you actually swim, with or without aid? Might you have a family waiting for you back home? A mate, perchance? No? Interesting.

"My vacation will end soon", you sign with pursed lips. He tilts his head. "Leaving?" his webbed hands gesture, somewhat uneasy. You nod. You can discern a glint of melancholy in his eyes. Eventually, he resumes: "Would you like to see my home?" Your eyebrows raise in surprise. His home? Down there? Was such a thing even achievable for a human like you?

The plump suckers attach themselves to your skin, one resting over your mouth. "Do you trust me?" You cast one final glance over the underwater abyss, a black hole trapping all light and matter. You shake your head in approval. Without hesitation, he plunges over the cliff, pulling you after him and into the yawning void of darkness. His form glows eerily, and his movement is swift and elegant. You can tell this is his land, his territory. You would've been dead a long time ago.

He releases you on the wet stone, inside the air pocket of a cave. You need a few moments to overcome the wave of claustrophobia pressing against your lungs. As you catch your breath, you recall your long path from the surface. It would be impossible to make it back out again without your friend. A cold shiver runs across your spine. "Have a break, and I'll show you everything else afterwards", he gestures with a smile. "How long will it take? I don't want to walk back at night", you explain.

Silence. You stare into his empty orbs, awaiting a reaction. There's not a sound, not a gust of wind, not a shred of light. "You're not going back", he finally answers.

You see, he's done a fair amount of research himself. He doesn't need an encyclopedia to figure you out: how you breathe, how you move, how you exist. In fact, he is rather confident in his ways of helping you adapt to a life spent together. He would've never brought you down here if he wasn't certain of your survival. His grin widens in anticipation, a strange warmth enveloping his innards at the mere thought of it: a future with you in it, right here. However, one question remains, a cheeky, perverted detail that has been on his mind from the moment he met you, yet he could never investigate it properly.

How do humans mate?

[a-griffin-in-the-clouds]

A personal note about boobs from someone who’s been through their early 20s

No one told me that as I got older, my boobs would become dense. No one explained what fibrocystic breast tissue was, so with my medical anxiety, I genuinely thought I had breast cancer at the ripe old age of 22.

So here’s some advice for any young radfem out there: keep regular checks on your boobs. Pay attention to any lumps and make sure they don’t grow. If something feels like a hard pebble and seems to get bigger over time, please get it checked out by a doctor.

Because no one told me that as I got older, my boobs would become dense. No one explained what fibrocystic breast tissue was, so with my medical anxiety, I genuinely thought I had breast cancer at the ripe old age of 22!

So here’s some advice for any young radfem out there: keep regular checks on your boobs. Pay attention to any lumps and make sure they don’t grow over time,not if they grow and shrink with your cycle. If something feels like a hard pebble and seems to get bigger over time, please get it checked out by a doctor.

Fibrocystic breasts are characterized by lumpy, tender breast tissue and sometimes cysts.

These changes are primarily influenced by hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle.

Estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate, causing breast tissue to thicken and sometimes form fluid-filled cysts.

The exact cause of fibrocystic breast changes isn’t fully understood.(shocker 🙄)

Hormonal changes are believed to be a major factor in the development of these changes.

DIFFERENCES:

Fibrocystic changes often cause painful, movable lumps that vary in size and tenderness throughout the menstrual cycle.

Cancerous lumps are typically firm, painless, and don’t change with the menstrual cycle.

A cancerous lump in the breast often feels hard and firm, with irregular edges!!!

HAIR ON THE CHEST!

Hormonal changes in your 20s and 30s can also cause nipple hair to change in appearance or become noticeable for the first time.( I was really all panicked cause my right titty had areola hair and my left didn't)

DENSE TISSUE!

Dense breast tissue means your breasts have a higher proportion of fibrous and glandular tissue compared to fatty tissue.

Breast density is determined by a radiologist when analyzing your mammogram.

Age affects breast density: breasts tend to be naturally denser in your 20s and 30s and become less dense as you get older.

Real talk: boobs aren’t anime balloons they don’t jiggle endlessly or look perfect all the time. They get dense, lumpy, and hairy!

Everyone talks about puberty like it’s just a teen thing, but nobody warned me about what hits you when you actually turn 20!

So if you’re about to hit that age, keep an eye on your girls, don’t freak out if things feel different, and get anything that worries you get checked out.

I’m not a doctor, so don’t ask me if you think it’s breast cancer, because, well, I’m not. All I can do is share what I went through and what helped me.

[adragonsfriend]

Use this one trick to instantly fix all childhood trauma (Jedi Masters don’t want you to know this)!!!!!

That is what every “if Obi-Wan had just— *adds one extra scene to canon* —then Anakin would’ve had perfect mental health and never listened to Palpatine at all,” sounds like to me. Look I am not an expert on any kind of psychology at all let alone early childhood development but,

It is possible to do your very best to help or raise someone and still have bad or imperfect outcomes, especially when you have someone actively, secretly working against you (cough cough Sith Lord of the month cough), (for many reasons, but in this case particularly), because unravelling the mindset built in early childhood is hard, actually.

Coming at this from the “raised in a safe and loving environment” side of things, it took me years to figure out and internalize that my friends whose parents weren’t as great as mine were functioning in an entirely different landscape when it came to their interactions with adults.

Many years ago when I was in middle school a friend (acquaintance? idk I think most people thought I was annoying) told me that her ankle kept giving out and causing her pain. I asked if she'd told her parents so she could rest or go to the doctor. She told me she had, but her mother either hadn't listened or refused to help. My (approximate) responses?

"So it's not actually that bad then?"

"You should tell her again."

"Are you sure you explained it right?"

The only explanation I could comprehend at the time was that there must have been some unclear communication about the situation or its severity--if her mother had understood she was in pain, she couldn't possibly have just not done anything about it? Adults are responsible, caring, etcetera! They wouldn't do that?!

With more experience, I've come to understand better, and learned to respond in kinder, more helpful ways, but the shift in mindset was not and is not intuitive.

And I had the luxury of figuring all that out whilst being safe myself. Coming from the other direction, being in danger and trying to figure out why other people act like the world is safe? I can't say for sure, but I imagine it’s a lot more complicated.

Point with regard to Star Wars being, it really is harder for Anakin, coming in later, to acclimate to the Jedi ways and thought processes than it is for his peers who grew up in the safe environment of the Temple. And whatever arguments people want to have about how much psychology and therapy exist in the Star Wars universe, or how much “Jedi just do cognitive behavioral therapy” (not totally inaccurate, but reductive on several levels), no matter what the answers to those questions, it will still be harder for Anakin.

There is a reason the council changes its mind on training him only after he is suddenly famous and the Sith are proven to be back. When Anakin was not in significant danger of being snatched up by someone else, it was genuinely probably the easier and safer option—for him and everyone else—for him to live a different life.

The Jedi are not necessarily fully prepared for a child with Anakin's history, and, there is nothing bad about living an ordinary life. Anakin would not have been somehow unforgivably robbed by living life as a mechanic or an engineer or something, rather than being a Jedi.

Anakin is a victim of many things in his life—Sidious, Watto, Gardulla, Tatooine’s everything, his own conscious choices—but he is not a victim of malice, incompetence, or idiocy by the Jedi just because they couldn't—in only a decade or so—help him fully and perfectly unravel the mindset he developed in his early childhood. If there was any lack of qualification on their part, it was one they were aware of—but which was outweighed by the danger of little Anakin getting kidnapped out of normal-kid elementary school.

Being brought up in and around slavery absolutely made him more vulnerable to Sidous and became the basis of their dynamic as master and apprentice. Acting like the trauma that affects his mindset and actions for his entire life can be obliterated just by making minimal changes to the plot is wild to me.

And don’t get me wrong, fics and headcanons can do whatever they want, not everyone wants or is trying to write a deep psychological character study (also fanfic and even fiction in general cannot and should not be held to any standard of realism if it's not serving the story and the author)—simple fix-it’s (my love) are fun and an excellent short-cut to other things like happiness and fluff (my other loves)—but don’t act serious about the idea that adding one conversation about his feelings or one extra explanation about Jedi philosophy would automatically lead to Anakin having perfect mental health outcomes and always making good decisions.

Disclaimer (if the ones throughout weren't enough) : please go forth and do whatever you want. the moral of this post is actually just that (1) you won’t convince me, (2) I wanted to talk about this, (3) the clickbait title was too funny not to post, (4) i literally can't open my mouth without phrasing things like i'm in the middle of a heated debate, and (5) i continue to not be an expert in early childhood development—my evidence is very literally anecdotal

[whateverisbeautiful]

Hello!! I see a lot of RJ criticism and hate on social media from the TWD fandom. I think he gets an unfair shake as he hasn't had much screentime - definitely not enough for the audience to develop such strong disdain towards him. I never buy into their rationale and I think they hate RJ for being half Black and carrying on the Grimes legacy, although the fandom never admits this and when you press them on it, they come up with every reason under the sun to dislike RJ. None of which ever makes a lick of sense to me. What are your thoughts about this? Also, do you have any headcanons about who RJ will be as he gets older and who he will connect the most with. I find his character exciting and the TWD writers have a lot to work with if they decide to do a spinoff based on the next generation. The possibilites are endless if they execute his character arc well. With him having Richonne DNA, he's destined to be bada$$. I always envision him being very bonded to Rick and having both of his parents' quiet demeanor, and strength, and natural instinct, yet also being highly intelligent and diplomatic like Michonne and even connecting with Eugene to develop some new tech that could change their world. I remember Rick not being able to understand what Eugene was talking about during their few interactions and looking at him crazy and Mich getting frustrated with him as well. It could be interesting to see RJ be the one person who gets Eugene. Anyway, sorry for the long, rambling post and interested in hearing your thoughts! Take care 😀

No need to apologize! Thank you for asking these questions! And I agree, I think the hate comes from that very place. There are parts of the TWD fandom who loudly disliked the Richonne pairing for racist reasons, and there are also those who maybe said they're indifferent to Richonne but definitely did not want their relationship to be of any real importance. RJ made it a lot harder for both those parties to dismiss the fact that Rick Grimes genuinely fell in love with Michonne and now has Black/half Black family members who are his whole world.

Some act like their RJ hate is just because of the acting skill of this elementary school-age child, but that's weird because anyone's acting level, especially a young child, should never merit such vitriolic comments. Or they act like they can't stand him since RJ "didn't do anything," and even call him "useless," which has always been a wrong and egregious take. They can comprehend that when Judith was small, her expectation was just to be "the baby" in the story, and yet when RJ is just about kindergarten age, they felt he needed to be doing big things for the plot and biting necks out, or else he serves no purpose. To me, it's largely all thinly veiled ways to skirt around not wanting the next Rick Grimes to be half Black.

And it's crazy because RJ's very existence serves an immense purpose for the show & TWD's closing message of being the ones who live. On a personal scale, RJ is living proof of Rick and Michonne's love and resilience and an extension of their legacy. On a larger scale, he and the other children born in this apocalypse represent a victory for this world, considering Earth became consumed with the dead, and yet the resilient living came out on top and even produced life, giving everyone hope for a future. The kids really represent that life can persist.

Also, I really like your headcanons for RJ. 😊 I can see adult RJ having all those traits you've noted - his parents' quiet demeanor, strength, natural instinct, and being highly intelligent and diplomatic. I always picture RJ being very bright and drawn to STEM. I never thought about how that could lead to him connecting with Eugene, but that's true. I could see a shared interest in science and tech being what helps RJ understand Eugene more than most understood him. I'm so convinced that RJ and Rick will feel very bonded early and have a special lifelong father/son connection.

In terms of who a grown-up RJ would most connect with, outside of his Grimes family, I could also see him maintaining a good bond with Ezekiel. Had he lived, I think RJ would have really liked Nat and his knack for invention as well. 🥲 Being part Rick and part Michonne, I feel like RJ will be a thoughtful fighter. And I also always felt like he'll have this innovative mind that develops something that really enhances their world!

[unknowngaytoaster]

Paperjam meets Goth

(A small fic of in the scenario of Paperjam meeting Goth after the discovery of Error being Geno)

Voices crowd and cradle the vicinity of Olympus, many intrigued at the freshly discovered news. Most prominently on the grounds of Olympus were the Gods of death, destruction, and creation. All three beings gathered to discuss new arrangements in the foreign circumstance that had not too long ago come to be. On the horizon, just on the edge of Olympus, sit Goth and Paperjam, legs dangling on the edge of the free fall down below.

The air between the two is one-sidedly tense, Goth's fingertips curling tightly into his snow-white cloak from the anticipation. While Paperjam's gaze lay calm and collected, basking in the beautiful sunset before him.

"I'm sorry," Goth uttered under his breath.

Paperjams' skull snapped toward the smaller skeleton. "What?"

Goth repeated. "I'm sorry."

With an arched eyebrow, Paperjam pressed forward, "For what exactly?", genuine curiosity spilling.

"I... I'm sorry for taking your dad away from you." Goth spoke, guilt spilling from his trembling mouth.

Even more confusion spread through Paper Jam's expression before finally landing on realization. "My....? Ah, right."

Goth's eyes widened as words started spilling from his mouth, apologies and explanations, desperate acknowledgments to understanding the conundrum that had unfolded with the discovery that Error was in fact Geno.

"I-i know it's probably messing with your family-."

Paperjam interrupted casually.

"I don't really consider Error to be my dad."

Goth's body froze, then loosened at once.

"....oh."

Possible misinterpretations flooded Goth's head, as Paperjam rushed to explain.

"Uh, well, it's more like I consider Error and Ink to be my creators?"

The silence grew from Goth, and more concern and confusion sprouted.

Paper jam took a breath and took his time to explain.

"It's hard to say, I guess I was kind of an accident?"

At the time of Paperjam's creation, Ink and Error were never in a formal relationship; the two clashed at many points, and the opposites attracted yet repelled each other consistently. The relationship was casual at best, for both a being that was erratic and ever-changing in moods, to a being that felt nothing without the interference of vials to guide the direction of emotions, consistency was difficult between the two.

Paperjams's creation itself was a mesh of magic intertwining at length at enough of an intensity to create life, and such a life that confused both Ink and Error.

Both the guardian and the Destroyer found themselves at an impasse, neither having memories of experience with cultivating life, let alone raising it.

"It's not that they were horrible at taking care of me, it's just they were kind of...detached? Especially when I was just a baby bone, which wasn't for a long time."

Paperjam explained, glancing at Goth, who solemnly nodded along. Oddly enough, even though time frame-wise, Goth was surely older than Paperjam, perhaps a child created from soul-bonding and a child created from magic had different rates of age progression, but Paperjam couldn't be sure.

"Error wasn't bad at parenting, now that I think about it. Probably was better between the two. It kind of seemed like he vaguely knew what he was doing, like some... far-off muscle memory."

Goth's eyes gleamed at the prospect.

Paper Jam's memory of the early days was hazy, especially when he could barely take care of himself. Blurred memories of Ink's enthusiastic attempts at connecting with the child before losing concentration and forgetting what he was even doing in that moment.

Error's attempts at child care were sporadic and nonsensical in their levels of effectiveness. Ranging from leaving him on a couch to watch Undernovella to attempting to educate him with books and puzzles.

Error seemingly understood that touch was an important aspect in a child's development, whether this knowledge came consciously or unconsciously. The days when Error showed affection and attempted to make contact were just as sporadic as his attempts in child care.

Some days, Error would hold Paper Jam at arm's length, maybe just barely cradling him in his arms, until he would place Paper Jam on the ground as his body would force a hard reboot from the sheer stimulation of physical contact. Other days, Error struggled to even stay in the same room as Paperjam, as if the mere air of living beings made his spine shiver.

For the days that Error did leave paper jam on his lonesome, which happened more frequently than both his creators would have liked to admit, he would spare Paperjam a puppet of Classic Sans to supplement his need for affection, and Error's lack of availability to provide it.

A certain moment in time rang clear as odd in Paperjam's memory. An afternoon filled with oddly casual parental affection, a young Paper Jam being held close and dear to Error's chest, skull resting softly on the Destroyer's shoulder as his back was gently patted, Error humming a tune. The moment had been odd yet well appreciated in the grand scheme of things, appreciated until the moment was broken as if a sudden realization came to Error that something was off.

Paper Jam was tugged away from Error's shoulder and brought once again at the regular arms-length distance that usually Error provided. The glitch's eyes squinting hard, eyes blurred in their effort to see what was before them, before a shiver ran up his spine as Error quickly plopped Paperam on the floor. A hard reboot racking his body, the sound of shrill glitching echoing in the emptiness of the antivoid, painfully coursing through Error's body for many minutes.

What followed was many days of silence and isolation from Error, though Paperjam’s memory didn't remember those days with as much clarity.

Paperjam's gaze returned to Goth, only to see intense glee.

“My dad was also weird!”

The little skeleton started sharing his own stories of memories of his father as a baby bone.

Toriel freaking out at the site of Goth covered in his father's blood, after being hugged just a little too hard to his father's chest. The eternally-bleeding stab wound blessed him with a horrifying look that made the Goddess of Life almost collapse from surprise.

Paper jam and Goth spent the rest of the night trading stories and sharing laughs, worries of the future lying behind them as a concern for then, not now.

[eraofprocrastination]

was adding an obnoxiously long reblog to @stygianfalcatasword's post about the opening of House of Hades and now I'm reflecting on the impact of middle-grade books when I was a middle-grade-aged reader so here's an essay, enjoy.

I was one of those kids that got into the YA genre before even becoming a teenager and I'm only now realizing that it's because teen fantasy/fiction had so much more emotional rawness to it that I needed to see. Even though it wasn't my intended age range, I needed characters who experienced rage and held grudges and felt depressed. And I could only find those in YA novels.

The thing is, a lot of people will joke about "oh so you got into smut early? join the club." I am asexual. It has never been and never will be about the smut. Plenty of middle-grade books had (straight) romance. It was never about the love stories, either.

It was about the fact that I was a 12-year-old who needed to turn to 16 to 18-year-old characters to find people whose emotional states felt "relatable." I already had a good dose of trauma by that age, so reading your standard Middle School Adventure series didn't hold a lot of interest for me, particularly because the characters were written by these adult authors as Happy Innocent Children who maybe cry when things get bad.

There were very very few middle-grade characters who felt grief and rage and injustice. I grew up reading kid's magazine articles about climate change and the extinction of the white rhino and the fact that a penny costs more than a penny to make. I understood the unfairness around me far better than the characters in the books I read, so I looked for books with darker themes and angrier worlds because those just made sense.

Call me cynical and jaded or whatever, but I think that adults constantly underestimate the amount of responsibility and anger that "young kids" are able to feel, especially within classroom environments where acting out emotionally is so forbidden. As a middle schooler, I felt like my "inner world" was messed up because it didn't match what all the adults around me were telling me I should see.

So yes I loved reading YA fantasy (even with unnecessary smut), because at least these were characters who felt their pain and could take action about it. I could find girls who felt anger and swung their swords about it. I could read about corrupt government and world-level crises and then put myself into the heads of the teenagers/adults who had to handle those things.

I read books about mental health crises and suicide because I understood them and needed to see characters reflect that. I heard a lot of "oh so it's the books that are making you feel depressed?" and NO, I read those books about depression because I felt depressed and I needed reassurance that people do in fact experience that. I read books about queer characters because I was queer — they didn't make me queer. I went looking for stories that reflected my experiences, and there weren't many in my age range. So what did I do? Age myself up.

And all of those books were intended for 16-18 year olds and I was 12 and I Did Not Care because no literary 12yo was feeling what I was feeling.

Not a lot of authors in the younger category understood what kind of responsibility and emotional turmoil a person can develop within the first decade-and-a-half of life.

This comes back to why Rick Riordan's writing is so deeply beloved to me, because he takes these children who are already relatable through their personalities (I could do a whole other rant about personality diversity) and then throws in truckloads of trauma and balances it all out well enough for it to be appropriate reading for an eleven-year-old.

With RR books, I didn't have to risk the "what if there's smut/violence/*enter other triggers here*" game in order to find mental states that resembled mine — because I did understand on some level that even though the YA books were more relatable, they were still pretty damaging in terms of material.

I could be 9 and open up The Lightning Thief and Luke would already be embittered against the gods. I could be 12 and read about Reyna's trauma and unresolved anger, and Percy's willingness to commit several murders, and Nico's shame about his sexuality, and every character's survivor's guilt/depression/justice complex — and still have what was essentially a fun middle-grade book.

Because somehow RR understands that yeah, there are 13yo kids out there who feel rage to the levels of wanting at least the catharsis of reading a literary murder, but those kids also need to laugh and smile about giants being hit in the eye by blue plastic hairbrushes.

Anyway I think this is a big reason that the YA genre has had such a huge boom recently and also why people tend to look down on kid's lit despite the gems in it. There's a whole complex of being "intellectually/emotionally superior" if you read YA over middle grade because middle grade books are shallow.

But middle schoolers are not shallow!!! They are complex, developing human beings!!! And we don't see that accurately portrayed in books!!! Stop being cynical about the amount of violence a book needs for it not to be shallow. The Game of Thrones series (I'm judging by the show) counters that mindset very nicely.

I do understand that there's a need for happier stories in kid's lit but I would argue that there's a dearth of them in adult literature. And there are plenty of ways to characterize, humanize and validate pre-teens and early teens without throwing in violence.

There just has to be a lot more understanding in regards to what those age ranges know about their world.

[alchemistofthenewage]

How to Empower young children

For progressive parents, teachers and adults

Let them know that adults don’t have all the answers

Encourage free thinking and originality.

Let their opinions be heard and known. Don’t agree or disagree, create a judgement-free space for them to express and explore their ideas.

Give them choices and let them make small-level decisions for themselves.

Explain the consequences of an action in a factual way, not based on your negative past experiences. There are multiple probabilities and the child may not have the same experience as you did. You can however let them know about your fears around an experience, but also let them know that their experience is personal to them and will yield its own unique outcomes.

Give them pointers and directions to explore a certain concept by themself. Be a mentor and encourage them to ask questions while keeping the answers open-ended, ones that lead to further introspection for the child. A good answer is one that leads to more questions and digging in deeper rather than putting a dead-end to the exploration process.

The more briefly you can say something, the more clearly you have understood a subject and the better you can explain it to the child.

Children are full of energy and trying to calm them down is a futile effort. They have kinetic energy that requires them to move around, have space to play, run and have fun in their body while growing up. Don’t restrict their free movement or try to control them, instead give them ample opportunity to express this energy through their limbs as this is an important aspect of their physical development. In the early ages, growing physically happens before mental development, and hence is a greater priority, always remember that.

Teach your kids how to ask for their needs and be respectful of how you listen to them when they are expressing a need to you. Some needs are essential while others are less urgent, teach them the difference between the two and assure them that their essential needs will never be compromised and they must be loud and vocal about them, no matter who they are around.

Kids don’t understand the moods and issues of the adults around them. Help them understand what to expect and where and why you do what you do so they aren’t clueless about what’s going on. Don’t be afraid to speak about your vulnerable feelings with them in a polite way to help them understand better.

Never use aggression to control your child, be it verbal or passive aggressive as well. Children are very sensitive and only respond positively to the language of love. Using fear tactics on them is the fastest way to dis-empower them as individuals and turn them into a punishment-fearing restricted child instead of an authentic, happy and liberated child.

Give up the convenience of a quick fix and adopt approaches that will actually help empower children around us. You don’t have to be hard on yourself or be fake, start by just understanding things and being open to new ideas.

[punkforkos]

Because I'm insane and obsessed I've been listening to your three of a kind playlist and looking at the moodboards your posted and reading their story on artfight but I'm on my knees pleading and begging for more details of Heart and Spade's childhood together, give me the fluff, tell me about their early years together, before they left home together to become hustlers, aughghgh I love them I love them so much your honour I'm wailing

AUGH!! ;w; <3 it genuinely means so much to hear that you like them and that you've been looking at the stuff we created for them!! But yeah, gosh, I think about them as kiddos a lot...

♠♥ More Heart & Spade rambles underneath the cut!! ♥♠

Heart and Spade grew up with a simple childhood. Simple pleasures, making adventures out of nothing because they really didn't have much else! A quaint little hometown that they'd eventually outgrow. But for a while, it made for perfect stomping grounds as they figured out who they wanted to be!

These two are genuinely soulmates, so I think that they were destined to stumble into one another-- to walk side by side, yanno? They met when they were young and instantly gravitated towards each other. And they've always understood one another on some deeper level, when everyone around them-- namely those adults in their life-- didn't understand them or expected them to fall in line with something they didn't want as they got older. There was never such pressure when they were with each other.

Both boys have always been compelled by thrills, novelty, adrenaline, and fun. Whenever they had spare time, they'd make another adventure out of the day-- wander the creek, wander the train tracks, wander the streets of their home, and watch the adults going about their days. Observing their habits, watching them play with cards and dice. They'd soon find a deck of their own and start to play themselves, beginning with the simple games... Go Fish, Old Maid, Crazy 8s, and War. Eventually getting into games like Poker, Rummy, and Baccarat- things you play if you want higher stakes. They learn you can bet a lot more than just snacks when they're older. And they began to develop some tricks between themselves because they both loved the thrill of winning. And they always liked being in on it together. Thus began their origins as little hustlers!! They got into a good deal of trouble as teens for trying it out on every drunk and schmuck who'd give them the time of day.

extra bits about them and their childhoods:

Heart and Spade were always banged up and bruised as kids because they were reckless little thangs, always running around and getting into shit. Heart usually got the worst of it, though. He was a little clumsier/more reckless than Spade, haha.

They started getting used to patching each other up early, though!!

Speaking of patching each other up, Spade and Heart have made it a Routine to help each other out with grooming. They help cut, style, and dye each other's hair and assist with shaving, etc. This stuff starts happening more once they get out of their hometown and it's just them on the road, but the origins certainly began in their adolescence! (Y'know, by helping fix each other's appearance so they can go home slightly more presentable for their parents after a day of play.)

They've got plenty of nicknames for each other that stem from childhood! Sooo many inside jokes.

When they'd play cards together, they would bet their snacks or trinkets or whatever else... but no matter who ended up winning, they'd always share their earnings with the other.

Go Fish was probably their favorite game from childhood! It was so simple and easy to get into, which made it a good game to play when they wanted to just shoot the breeze.

They're okay with certain creepy crawlies but cannot stand other ones AFGSHJ and they both would use that against each other, by chasing the other boy around while holding something that freaks him out bad. Spade doesn't like things with a shit ton of legs like scorpions or centipedes/milipedes or catepillars. Heart hates things that fly... also scared of snakes LOL. Both of them don't mess with spiders, though aha (at least the ones bigger than an inch)

Spade and Heart learn that they literally cannot play Rock, Paper, Scissors with each other because they keep throwing down the exact same signs every time, and it goes on for way too long.

what makes me so insane about them being childhood friends is that... those early years are the years where you figure out who you are!! those are your identity building years... and heart and spade have been around to see ALL of those years. they were a part of them. they have MADE each other their world, their identity, so much so that they cannot fathom one without the other in it. they became heart and spade together. there is no spade without heart and vice versa!! i could literally go on and on about my thoughts about this. ALSO about how teenage years are for figuring out so much abt your romantic identity/sexuality and how long they've just been stewing on these crushes- this love- for each other. without ever addressing it because like. they never once felt the need to do so because again, so many things just go unsaid. There's usually some intrinsic understanding there. (now. it's complicated because like, they both love each other and they show it but also they're in that nebulous space where it's like. i like him and i know he likes me but does he like me the same way or as deeply. is it romantic from his end or is it just friendship, like always? it's the blurred lines overcomplicating these feelings that are in actuality- so very simple. they're simple men, they like simple things. they make me freaking loco.

anyways,,,, thank you again for your interest in them ;w; !!! they're my darlings, i'm always happy to share more about these idiots

[beardedmrbean]

A charity with ties to Prince Harry has owned up to multiple human rights abuses carried out by its park rangers.

African Parks — a non-profit conservation organization that had the Duke of Sussex as its president from 2017 until 2023 — admitted to several violations that took place in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

A damning investigation published earlier this year exposed myriad of abuses against indigenous people in the Republic of the Congo — including rape and torture.

Following an in-depth review, London-based law firm Omnia Strategy LLP, helmed by Cherie Blair, has released a statement about the shocking findings.

The law firm described its probe as “thorough and proportionate without attempting to be exhaustive.”

The charity, for its part, formally acknowledged the findings — saying that “in some incidents, human rights abuses have occurred.”

“The board of African Parks has reviewed Omnia’s advice and endorsed the management plan and timeframes to implement the recommendations resulting from this process,” the charity, which boasts Harry as one of its board members, said in a statement.

“African Parks acknowledges that, in some incidents, human rights abuses have occurred, and we deeply regret the pain and suffering that these have caused to the victims.”

“Omnia’s process also highlighted several failures of our systems and processes that were insufficient for the level of responsibility given to us, particularly in the early years,” the organization added, fessing up to to systemic failures.

The organization said it has significantly strengthened its safeguarding protocols over the past five years across all its sites, including Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

Among the reforms is the appointment of an anthropologist tasked with ensuring the Baka communities receive more effective support.

Despite admitting to the findings, African Parks has withheld the full review from the public, raising questions about transparency.

It’s understood that the Invictus Games founder, 40, has been closely briefed on the review’s findings.

The Post has reached out to Harry’s reps for comment.

The development follows earlier concerns raised by Survival International — a charity advocating for Indigenous rights — over the treatment of Baka communities.

Caroline Pearce, who heads up the group, criticized African Parks’ decision to refrain from publishing the review’s full findings.

“We still don’t know the details of what they found, because African Parks has refused to allow the findings to be made public,” Pearce said in a statement.

“The root of the problem is that African Parks continues to cling to a racist and colonial model of conservation, which kicks out the indigenous people whose land it is, while outsiders take control.”

“As long as this is the case, the Baka will continue to face abuses and the destruction of their livelihoods,” she added.

The duke has faced a turbulent year in his philanthropic work, with his other charity, Sentebale, also coming under scrutiny in a separate damning investigation in recent weeks.

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In March, it emerged that Harry had sensationally quit as patron of the African charity he kick-started in honor of his late mother, Princess Diana, in 2006.

The “Spare” author said he was devastated and “in shock” to have stepped down from Sentebale, the organization that he co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.

Days later, Sentebale chairwoman Chandauka raised alarming allegations and accused the charity’s board of “harassment,” ���bullying” and “misogynoir.”

The trustee, who became leader of the organization in 2023, also claimed Harry had tried to use the charity as “an extension of the Sussex PR machine” to support his wife’s public image.

As a result, the organization — which was set up to help AIDS patients in Africa — is now being investigated by the Charity Commission.

[oliveoilsoda]

Today I Beat: Moon Remix RPG Adventure

Moon is a hard game for me to talk about. Not for the lack of anything, far from it, this game is filled to the brim with charm and strangeness but merely for the fact that I dont quite know where to begin. Ill start with the aspect of the game that I can speak the least about which is the gameplay. The game is best known as an "anti-rpg" and the gameplay reflects this by kinda not being an rpg. It plays a lot more like a point and click game but without the pointing and clicking. Most of the time your walking around and showing things to characters in hopes that they have something more useful to say then "huh?" and when your not doing that, your walking around aimlessly. A good chunk of the puzzles in this game can be pretty obtuse and any consistent flow of progress can be halted simply due to schedule conflicts. And while a part of me often felt frustrated that I had no clue what to do, the other part understood that it just came with the territory of being an "anti-rpg"; a rpg where you dont fight.

The term of "RPG" is used pretty loosely when used to describe games. Despite standing for "Role Playing Game", rpgs are known more commonly for how you play them. Killing enemies to gain XP so you can level up to kill more enemies and so on until you can kill the big bad. This is where the story of moon comes in, by putting you at the other end of the sword. While I wont be spending much time going over the story as I think its best experienced by playing the game and not listening to some autistic girl blabble on, I will relay the general gist of the game. The game starts as a fairly generic rpg, shining armor and all, but just as you reach the end, the perspective changes. You are no longer a knight on a mission to slay a dragon but a child controlling said knight but just as he is ready to walk away for the night, he gets sucked into the tv. It is then your job to save the souls of the "monsters" slain by the knight, acting almost as an angel (albeit in the form of a dead child rather than a divine being but I digress). With all of this being said, its time for me to divulge into what truly makes this game special to me: its style.

To this day I have yet to find a game that quite looks like moon. Its almost as if the developers were throwing art styles against the wall to see whatever stuck and just, nothing fell off. The game uses pre-rendered images for the backgrounds which isnt at all unusual especially for ps1 games but its in moons disinterest of realism where they truly feel unique.

Often, the game will not only used pre-rendered images of early cg settings but will then add real images into them, making them make the distinction between what is real and what is cgi all the more apparent. One could analyze this as a metaphor for the games themes, a digital world clashing with human emotions but I think thats missing the forest for the trees here. The clashing of both elements make for such a distinct style and thats not even mentioning the character designs.

You could have told me that every character in this game come from different games with radically different art styles and I would have no reason to disagree. However with the game being as strange as it is, no one feels out of place. And I havent even gotten started on the claymation sprites.

Im a big big stop motion fan so naturally when i found out that all 51 "monsters" are animated using said medium, I stood up and did 2 cartwheels.

Its a great way to distinct them from anything else in the game as saving their souls is the main focus of the game. It reminds me of old cartoons where you could tell what would move or not based off the coloring. If this doesn't show how you special of a game this is I dont know what will.

My personal favorite aspect of the game, however, isn't the graphics, isn't the gameplay, but the soundtrack or rather lack thereof (in a traditional sense).

In moons ambitious goal to subvert almost every norm in gaming, most of the game takes place in total silence with the exception of your own foot steps, occasional ambiance and a rare dramatic sting. Thats not to say the game has no music in it though, far from it. Instead of your normal scripted music, game features what is, in essence, a built in mp3 player.

However instead of adding your own music, the game features 36 songs, MDs as the game calls it, all ranging in artist, genre, and even tone. Some songs will act as a mellow ambiance and others lean closer to breakcore. This MD is my personal favorite:

As this "review" ,or whatever you wanna call it, comes to a close, id like to talk about my favorite scene in the game.

-SPOILERS AHEAD-

Once you've completed your mission of constructing the rocket, your sent into the abyss of space and for almost 10 minutes your just venturing quietly into the stars with nothing much happening. That is until a character who i will not name, fades in and out of existence on top of your ship and the melancholic masterpiece of a song "Promise" starts to play

He tells you:

"Soon your journey will come to an end.

When one journey ends...another journey begins.

Life is like one night's dream.

Waking and sleeping

Birth and death.

Many things appear and vanish.

What has vanished appears.

You and I are no exception.

Throughout the universe...everything dies, and is born

Life rolls on down the road.

The question is, when you wake from the dream, when will you set out toward another dimension? Will you be able to open the door?

Soon you will reach our final destination.

Perhaps we'll meet again, at the side of some road.

Goodbye."

9/10

[river-in-the-woods]

Good day/night! do you keep your western and eastern practices separate and parallel? or have you found some way to reconcile them together into one more "personalized" path maybe? how does that work for you? I'm kind of struggling with this as of late, as someone with mixed heritage, and I thought maybe you'd have some advice. Thank you.

Good day or night to you too!

In general, I keep traditions and techniques separate, unless it makes sense to put them together. It's difficult to advise on this without specifics, so perhaps you can provide a little more context for me 🙂 Let me go through a few key points, and hopefully at least one of them will provide some clarity.

Essentially, it's important know the mechanics of the practice you're doing, how it works and why. And to understand that, you have to receive adequate instruction, and engage with the practice according to its respective tradition to an adequate level.

The only personalisation I've done, is that I do the practices I want to do. But I do them according to how they are taught, and I don't mix and match unless I have a solid and well-understood reason to. There is plenty of religious and spiritual syncretism throughout history, and there are new traditions being born all the time, but the successful ones are formed with an understanding of all the influences they draw upon.

I think people's desire to overly personalise their practice very early on can end up impeding their development, or even have adverse effects depending on how they do it.

If you really want your practice to be something that helps you grow and develop as a person, you have to sometimes be willing to do things differently to your own preference.

If you go to a class – whether it's on martial arts, music, archery, biology, gardening – whatever it might be, it makes sense to follow instructions and not to assume you know better than the person teaching it. There can be room for experimentation once you've grasped the basics.

When it comes to spiritual and magical practices, there are additional stakes than just taking e.g. a pottery class. Spiritual practices have a lot more in common with medicine than they do with a casual hobby.

Practices like yoga, qigong, meditation, energy work and so on will have effects on your subtle body, which then affects your health when practiced for long periods of time. This is what those practices are created for. And they are subtle, which means you may not see an impact immediately.

If you stretch your body in a bad way, you feel immediate pain and know that you shouldn't do it like that. But with practices that affect the subtle body, it might take much longer, and the effects are not necessarily as direct and precise as they are with physical exercise.

If you do leg exercises, you pretty much only strengthen the legs. It is direct and precise. But the impact of a spiritual practice affects multiple aspects of your life: emotions, physical health, relationships, fortune, wisdom...

And of course, interfacing with spirits and gods can affect your fate in all of these ways.

There are insidious ways you can mess up your health and well-being if you don't practice properly. Otherwise, at best, nothing will happen and you'll just be wasting your time. Maybe it makes you feel cool – a lot of people get into spiritual practices because it's aesthetically pleasing and they're just looking for ways to reinforce a particular identity.

Again, that is not what these practices were created for, nor how they operate best.

I'm not saying that LARPing as a... I don't know... a dark tantric priestess of Hekate, Morrigan and Kali and 7 other gods, is going to ruin your life.

But I do see how people become obsessed and infatuated with their personal image, chasing the thrill of the aesthetic, and the thrill of self-categorisation. (It's a great marketing strategy, haha...)

As a mixed race person, I understand your position. I have had identity issues all my life. Part of why I got into all this was because I struggled deeply with who I am, where I belong, and what I'm even doing in this world. Caught between different countries, families, cultures, ideologies. I wanted something that was just for me, instead of feeling constantly torn in multiple directions. But which side does a bridge belong to? Does a bird belong in the sky or in the trees?

I don't think this is something you can reconcile by forcing two different worlds to integrate. I mean, maybe you can do this with two different cultures in the same region, or even on the same continent. But in my case... England and China are very, very different. Rather, I find more success to be found by choosing what influences to draw on at any given situation.

If you want genuine change – if you really want this path to empower you and help you feel at peace with yourself – you will trip over yourself if you try to make this about your identity. A big portion of spirituality is about deconstructing one's identity and ego, to realise that the world is far greater and more intricate than we know, and that there are no simple answers to life's great endeavours.

If anything, you have an advantage in this regard.

You will have to learn to be nimble, and resist the temptation to find the 'perfect' social-cultural-spiritual space to fit yourself into. Be nimble and learn to walk between worlds, and belong comfortably to all of them at the same time.

I hope this long ramble has been helpful to you 🌿 Good luck on the path.

PS: I recommend Consorting with Spirits by Jason Miller. It may further answer your questions on how to work with multiple traditions and pantheons.

[kariachi]

Random: While there are plenty of words in Imperial Erinaen that, as long as you speak some Erinaen language, you're probably going to be able to figure out, just due to how the language was originally developed, there's two that are damn near identical in every Erinaen language.

'Qhoq', a generic term for non-aerial predators, and 'Qgiq', a generic term for aerial predators.

This is because no matter where you're from, these words always come from the same instinctive alarm calls that have kept Erinaens for time immemorial. You might get changes in tone or emphasis, but the sound combination itself doesn't change. Even Erinaens who didn't grow up speaking Erinaen languages, while not knowing exactly what these calls mean, have been shown to experience heightened levels of stress and anxiety upon hearing them at volume when compared to other non-understood words uttered with the same tone and volume.

Alarm calls are common among Erinaens' evolutionary relatives. Among Erinaens themselves different areas vary in whether individuals have the specific job of keeping watch or whether there's a social expectation that upon seeing something you sound the alarm, but however it's done once an alarm call goes out one learns from an early age to sound it yourself, making sure that it makes its way around the colony. This is part of why Erinaens don't historically worry much about keeping other Erinaens out of their homes- alongside some very loose property laws- when an alarm call goes off it's generally expected that people are going to beeline for the nearest safe location. Whether that's a business, a bathroom, a home, doesn't really matter when you're trying not to die. In fact refusing to allow individuals to take shelter in your home when you can safely do so is one of the things most likely to get you chased out of a colony.

Any colony of a decent size has people whose entire profession involves keeping track of local predators and attempting to keep them from entering the colony proper. Common methods are setting and maintaining a border of items, scents, etc that discourage them from approaching (think an equivalent to farmers using bees to keep elephants from their crops, or stringing up prices of metal to spook birds), but may also include mobbing a predator nesting or otherwise keeping territory too close for comfort. Only rarely are predators actually killed, as it tends to be more effective to just keep a predator to the outskirts than to keep having to go out hunting predators each time one tries to fill a void. Especially when as many things hunt you as Erinaens deal with.

Still, alarm calls aren't unusual to hear in colonies- you can never guarantee things will work, or that you'll catch every predator before it finds the colony proper- and play a vital role in maintaining the health and safety of the community. Truthfully the most at risk one is of predation is on the outskirts of and outside the colony itself, and when outside during daylight hours. In all these cases it's a matter of having fewer individuals around to notice a predator before it strikes, meaning your less likely to get an alarm sounded. Adding to this, when out of the main portion of the colony one is less likely to have a safe spot to hide available, and more likely to have to rely on their quills for protection. They're handy, but not all of the Erinaen's predators are affected by them, the more specialized having long since evolved resistances. And in daylight most individuals out and about will be those who woke up to use the bathroom, making them more vulnerable as they may still be groggy.

In the end, even with all attempts at security, predation is one of the major causes of death among Erinaens, with those most commonly taken- to the surprise of nobody with a sense for ecology- being children, the ill, and the disabled, plus individuals who work outside of the colony itself. They have a real rate of predation deaths.

Predation is estimated to be the cause of up to 15% of lasting deaths among Erinaens on their homeworld. This is second only to falling, estimated to cause upwards of 23%, as far as specific causes of death go. The numbers in these cases skew heavily towards children and teens, alongside, as mentioned above, the ill and disabled. The majority of deaths otherwise can be attributed to foul play, chronic illness, and injury.

[1driedpersimmon]

i've been following your comics for a while in part because i saw saffron interacting with lyse & gaia and was enamored instantly. and i am perhaps going to say something insane but i noticed you like hxh and so maybe this will make sense.

a lot of people have compared zenos to hisoka, and on a surface level i understand this - but, rewatching the chimaera ant arc with my wife, it struck me... zenos is far more similar to pitou's archetype, at least how they are early on imo. specifically the way fighting kite shapes them (down to how they develop their nen ability) seemed a MUCH better parallel to zenos' relationship to WoL.

so i thought it was really cool seeing someone else who kind of 'got' that aspect of zenos re: the latest information about saffron. he is so obsessed with 'that feeling' from fighting WoL that he will stop at no ends to experience it again. if he had a way to clone WoL i do not doubt he would. i feel like you've really understood his character in a way that a lot of ppl don't.

thanks for the comics, they will sustain me thru the cold winter

Ooo some good points! I can def see the points from all of those... (ahshajsj I haven't thought about hxh in so long.... don't look too hard at my old art it's. Old ! XD)

But yeye! I mean at a surface value ig Hisoka and Zenos could be compared 🤔 but Hisoka is more like uhhhh sneaky and conspiritory about his methods and Zenos is like, one track obsession 🤔 more nuanced but the gist of it yeah. Pitou i can see more with that kind of obsessed single goal mhm

(And ty!! I'm honored you think so!!)

[fledbeast578]

A Strategist's Respite

Of course, I know that I should not have been fishing at this moment, time was urgent, and it seemed it could be any day now I could be called upon to help deal with some singularity, as has been happening often. That’s not even mentioning the looming threat of the Seventh Lostbelt, even if I wasn’t personally summoned I would no doubt be utilized in combat. Plenty of other servants reacted as they probably should have, constantly training and preparing for the time when they would inevitably be summoned into some battle to save the world. It seems there isn’t a single day I don’t walk past Li Shuwen training his various pupils, or Leonidas encouraging Master to lift heavier and heavier weights. For the past months, I felt I should act similarly, and despite my natural inclinations, I did! I’ve spent many nights studying the various magecraft literature available to Chaldea, collaborating with the various other tacticians to ensure that for every battle there was a stratagem to follow. Even if Master seemed inclined to ignore them in many cases, usually in favor of some hair-brained scheme to befriend their foe, I’m proud to say that whenever he did utilize them it was to a consistent roaring success… well, ignoring the Tunguska incident of course.

It was because of incidents like Tunguska that I seemed to attract the reputation of someone quite untrustworthy, although that was something I never understood. In my experience, everyone lies once or twice, and this certainly hasn’t changed in Chaldea, at least I’m honest after I do. Regardless, despite my innate untrustworthy appearance, I managed to cultivate a reputation as someone reliable… too reliable. Without even realizing it when I seemed to find myself at the forefront of people’s minds whenever they needed a strategy or magecraft expert, and people were not afraid to call upon me whenever they needed one.

One such case was when I was sleeping in the early morning… or at least I think it was the early morning, it’s difficult to tell sometimes in Chaldea, as far as I’m aware there weren’t even any windows, and very rarely were the lights outside of individual rooms ever turned off, thanks to the sleepless nature of many other servants.

“Jiang Ziya, we desperately need a strategy for the coming singularity!” shouted Chaldea’s resident director Goredolf, a worried expression on his face.

I could only reply with a blank stare, my well-formulated difficult-to-read expression replaced by one of utter annoyance as I stared at him. I liked Goredolf more than most, I was always pleased to have a fan, and despite his overcautious attitude, I found the director fairly competent. At this moment, however, I was tempted to have the ground beneath Goredolf give way, and push him into another room.

As if sensing the sudden tenseness of the air, I could see the director stiffen straight, an apologetic expression on his face to match my own still annoyed one, “Mhm, when you are well refreshed and ready of course, I shall leave you to your rest for now,” he stammered, before turning around and quickly leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

I was tempted to say something in response to his apology, before letting out a sigh and preparing to follow after him, I could hardly be annoyed when it seemed this urgent. And so I met up with him, lightly reassuring him that his sudden intrusion wasn’t taken offensively before he informed me of an upcoming minute singularity. More of a multi-spacial “event” of sorts, than anything on the level of a proper singularity or lostbelt, but something worth planning for nonetheless, even if planning for most of the servants wearing swimsuits was a… unique, endeavor.

As unusual as the strategy developed was, I was ultimately proud of it, which is why I felt just a smidge disappointed when I saw Master completely ignore it in favor of their own idea. Ultimately it ended up working out by the end, so I couldn’t exactly complain, but it did make me wish I had simply gone back to sleep.

Now, I could hardly blame my illustrious master for ignoring my strategy sometimes, as past precedence had shown no plan was perfect, and compromises would have to be made at the moment. However… it seemed to be happening again and again, each time I would be called upon to utilize my talents and each and every time I would be assured they were more than grateful for my assistance, but as I poured over the reports I saw that each and every time, it was if they weren’t even reading them! I thought of myself as someone not quick to anger, it was necessary given most of the people I had worked with, but at this point, it was difficult not to be offended.

And so, when I was called upon again for another meeting, rather than obey the call, I decided to head to the simulator and plop myself next to a lake. The perfect fishing spot only I could summon would have perhaps been a better option, but right now I was sick of using my feng shen, or even thinking, frankly. Besides, it seemed the simulator had been chosen well today, and I could only smile as I took in the warm sun.

Holding at my divine weapon, The God Striking whip, I extended the line into the water. It was most certainly not what it was designed for, but it could get the job done nonetheless, better than most normal fishing rods anyway. Finally relaxed, all I had to do was-

“Oh come on youngling, you’re not going to go train with that Cow are you?” came the teasing words of Shuten as she looked over Kintoki

“Shuten, her name is Raikou and-” responded the aforementioned Kintoki

“Oh I know what her name is, perhaps I could convince you otherwise, perhaps with a brawl~?”

Perhaps on a better day, I would have responded more gracefully, perhaps I would have functioned as an intermediary or simply ignored them. However, I could tell this was not a discussion that was going to end quickly, and most certainly it was not going to end quietly, and already I could hear them getting louder and louder as they began to talk over each other.

Before I even realized what I was doing, I could hear my voice, “Heave…ho. Let the heavens open…” and by the time I had caught up to my impulsive act, I decided it was too late to stop, already tossing my divine rod, as good a fishing rod as it is a weapon, into the lake. Within seconds, a massive replica fell forth from the heavens, boomingly loud in its descent that it could be heard miles around. I saw Shuten and Kintoki go silent, and that silence continued as the instrument made a massive crater in the ground, mere feet away from the two of them.

I had observed Shuten often, as I did with most of the servants here, the ones of divine nature especially. As a result, I half expected that she would simply laugh at my display, but as I looked over her stiffened form, I discovered that my previous thought was mistaken. While I was certainly no sadist, least of all involving my allies, I got a certain amount of joy seeing Kintoki grab her pale white body, before running away, the warrior looking at me with an embarrassed look as she held her small form. I simply put a hand behind my head, my usual expression looking back at him, and willed the divine rod I had haphazardly tossed into the lake back into my other hand.

Perhaps the good director or my own master would chew me out for the use of my Noble Phantasm, as they did often towards the other servants who caused mischief. But for now… it was quiet, and peaceful, like the days spent during my youth, neglecting my training in favor of fishing. On a different day, I might have chastised myself for doing something like this, maybe that different day would be tomorrow, but for now, I simply decided to cast my fishing line forward, as I basked in the warm sun and soft grass.

[anawkwardlady]

its "early" so i dont give a fuck but saying this maybe some of you are in the middle of a workday. Anyway. I watched a video by a person who were saying they felt like no one truly listens to them. And thats not really my case per say however it made me reflect on the fact that I feel like I can't connect to people. I love them and all but I can't truly connect, i'm not "there" and never was. And it's really lonely because it feels like no one actually understands you, not because you're special but because on a fundamental level you're not very grounded. And you need to compensate by performing. I actually feel like people mix performing and lying about yourself when it's more taking control of the narrative of how you're perceived. It's not fake it's just adapted so we're all having a good time. Because one thing is for sure and it's that when I start accidentally being too real people get the ick. I'm don't feel like I'm evil (at least intellectually speaking im aware of that) but I know I'm unpleasant to my core. That I am really bitter, that I have nothing to give, teach or add to any relationship so thank god performing a bit made it so I could develop a bit of all of that. I don't think it's a bad thing but it doesn't help with feeling disconnected which is a curse when even if your older memories you were craving so be loved and understood deeply. Now I'm the age that i am, trying to smother any part of me that wants anything because i'm tired of that. I wish accepting and moving on was easier.

[bmaxwell]

Race for the Galaxy

We have comfort TV around here. Movies, too. In times of trouble, putting on Community, or Lost in Translation feels warm and cozy. I'd never considered the possibility of a tabletop game filling such a role. Race for the Galaxy filling occupying this space for us is about a million miles from where we got started with the game.

Initially I got the game because of the high rank on BGG (I recall it being ranked as high as #3 at one point?) and the low cost. The sci-fi theme does nothing at all for me. Race is a too-large box* with some player mats and a lot of cards. The game was incredibly tough to get my head around. I remember playing against the excellent Keldon AI at first, just trying to grok the game.

I understood the rules, but now how to play well at all. I was losing consistently. There was something here to be grasped, but I had to decide whether to put the work in to find it. After all, if it's a game based on luck then I should win as often as I lose, right? I hung with it well enough to get a handle on it, then taught it to my wife who proceeded to win her fair share of our games (maybe just a touch more than that).

In Race for the Galaxy, the game is played in rounds made up of 5 distinct phases:

Explore: players draw cards from a central deck, keeping some and discarding the rest

Develop: players may play Development cards onto their personal tableau

Settle: players may play Planet cards onto their personal tableau

Consume: players trade goods from their tableau for points or additional card draws

Produce: players produce goods on their tableau from cards capable of doing so

None of this sounds too complex so far. The devil is in the many details here. First, players will only execute a phase if someone at the table chose that phase at the beginning of the round (these are revealed simultaneously). For example, if I choose the Settle phase, Molly chooses Produce, and Gary Sinise chooses Develop then no one gets to Explore or Consume this round. We all will Develop, then Settle, then Produce - with the players who chose those phases getting a special bonus. If I choose Settle then we all get a Settle phase where we may play a planet card onto our respective tableaus, but I also get to draw an additional card for doing so (Molly and Gary Sinise do not get this bonus).

So now players will have incentives to choose certain phases based on the cards on their tableau or in their hand. Your planets and developments in your tableau will give you various bonuses during specific phases. If I have Interstellar Bank (draw a card whenever the Develop phase is chosen) and Public Works (draw a card whenever you play a development into your tableau) then I have incentive to choose the Develop phase. Gary Sinise knows this and will not choose Develop because 1) he knows I'm likely to choose it so he wants to choose something else that benefits him and 2) if he chooses Develop, he's giving me those free cards.

Gary Sinise is no fool. But I KNOW this, so maybe I'm not going to choose Develop either. If Gary wants to play that Drop Ships development, he's gonna have to choose Develop himself. I'm no patsy.

If this sounds like it's getting complicated, it is and it isn't. The rules as written aren't especially complicated once you've played a few rounds. The flow of the game makes sense. The sheer tonnage of choices and options to weigh against one another is overwhelming, especially early on. Like so many other things in life, you're rewarded for pushing through to find the quality in a piece of art that isn't immediately accessible.

There's one mechanism I haven't mentioned yet, and it's brilliant: you pay for the cards you're playing from your hand by discarding other cards in your hand. This adds a level of angst to most every choice in the game. "I really want to play this Alien Planet, but its cost is 5 so that means I will have to discard FIVE other cards from my hand! I want to play 3 other ones for sure, so do I just spend my turns trying to draw more cards?" That way lies madness, because you end up with a handful of cards you want to play but have to make sacrifices for. While also factoring in your tableau bonuses and trying to read your opponents' needs and predict which phase they're going to choose. I really want to play that Alien Planet, but I've been waiting for Molly Shannon to choose Settle for the past 3 rounds and SHE ISN'T DOING IT I know she's waiting for me to choose Settle first well I'm NOT going to do it! Let Gary Sinise do it.

The game also has a couple of ways to trigger the end of the game: when the game's pool of VP chits is emptied (mostly from Producing goods then Consuming those goods) or when a player plays their 12th card to their tableau. This means that tempo is a factor, and your big sprawling VP engine of expensive cards isn't going to hit its stride if your opponent is racing to play cheap cards to reach 12 cards in their tableau. If I see you building something grand on your side of the table, I'm going to hit the gas and try to end the game before you finish.

Race is brilliant. I especially love the "discard cards to pay for other cards" mechanism. It's easy to fall into the trap of "I need to find this one card to make my tableau work" and then curse your bad luck when you don't draw it. Like many of my favorite games, you need to learn to roll with what the game gives you rather than trying to hammer it into the shape you want.

The vast majority of my plays of Race have been 2-player games with my wife. It's a game I directly associate with her. We've turned to it to occupy our minds in times of crisis - big or small - several times now. When we went through a miscarriage and needed to mentally be anywhere else, we played Race. And when there was a terrible storm late one night when my wife was 9 months pregnant and due to give birth any day now, we played Race into the small hours of the night.

Race for the Galaxy is an absolutely brilliant design. It came out 17 years ago as I write this, and it holds up. Like all games, it also brings to mind the circumstances in which I played it. Games aren't just expensive boxes of cardboard and intimidating rules, they're shared experiences that create memories with loved ones. Race carries that truth more than any game on my shelves.

*Our box currently has the base game plus 4 expansions and it barely fits.