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cringefail-hermitry · 4 months

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I've been wanting to make a post like this for a while now, and well, having just finished a crucial stage of my life, I think this is a good a time as any.

It's gonna be a long one

Like, *LONG* long

Like, I Am Going To Mention Every Single One Of My Mutuals By Name long (if you'd rather not be tagged in the future, do warn me)

First of all, the primary purpose of this post is as a letter of thanks for the wonderful months you Tumblr peeps have provided me this year. I am not hesitant to say joining the hellsite was the single best decision I have made in the last 12 months, heck, I think about 2/3rds of the friends I mantain regular contact with nowadays came from here. But this wouldn't be a long post if it was just a brief "thanks y'all for improving my life". I'm gonna get into detail. And I'm gonna be sappy about it. You can't stop me. You're not my mother. And not even my mother could stop me from posting this.

I would've said "I thought long and hard about who I'd start with", if there was any question about it. There isn't. @tearychildren, where do I even fucking begin. I can't really say anything too specific because if I begin I don't think I'll stop and half this post is gonna be about you, and this is already a very long post, so I'm just going to leave it at this, you already know well enough just how much you matter to me.

Going onwards, another of the early spots goes to who I believe was my first mutual, definitely one of the first people I followed, @chlorohexidine, a long-time mutual and recent good friend, our daily chats, however short, never cease to be highlights of my days, your art is really cute (love me some rounded shapes) and brainstorming ideas for your TTRPG campaigns is always fun (I really like your worldbuilding, too). It's only fair to mention your (and my, just needed to make this segue well) good friend @xsenpi, infodumping touhou to you both genuinely got me through that month, and Undertale 2: Revenge of The Robots with Rei and TC has been a blast so far.

@soundsofastar is another that warrants special mention for actually changing my brain chemistry and making me appreciate the local wildlife even more than usual (if we ever meet in person, WE ARE GOING ON A NICE LONG WALK TO LOOK AT BIRDS TOGETHER, WHEREVER IT IS WE ARE WHEN THAT HAPPENS, MARK MY WORDS). Your art also makes me feel things. Not many things make me feel stuff a lot. That is impressive. I should be in a good spot to finish reading the Illuminae Files within the next few days, so please do pester me about it, otherwise the piece of media that the next person I'll talk about recommended to me will consume all the time I'd read it in.

So, the next person I'll talk about, @northwest-cryptid, thanks for letting me use our DMs as my Mabinotepad, and for getting me into Mabinogi in the first place, you've been both the direct and the indirect cause of many good times, and I gotta be honest I kinda admire you a lil' bit (and if you know anything about how I talk, I am horrible at expressing vulnerability, admiration and these sorts of emotions without a bunch of euphemisms unless I'm doing this sort of tangent where I attempt to talk about myself in a more depersonalized way, so what that sentence there essentially means is "I admire you a lot and you are an inspiration").

Another pivotal figure in how this year shaped out is @ratlesshonret, creator of The Bird Nest, site of many good times, who has exposed me and many others to some wonderful media (I AM GOING TO FINISH POCKET MIRROR SOMETIME, MARK MY WORDS), reading through all the chats in the server is usually a blast, too. Your contributions to my life cannot be understated. Seriously, thanks.

The next great friend I'll mention is @transgender-lea-crosscode, we've started talking more only recently, but have already bonded a fair bit, I reckon, damn you're good at Blazblue. You've dared to make me good at the game and for that, I commend you. You should say words about Zeroranger in my general direction sometime, I'd be happy to hear/read them.

Now for those mutuals that I don't really speak to, but are responsible for like, 75% of my total notes, like, everyone is more than welcome to jump into my DMs and start talking about anything whenever, but y'all specifically are folk I'd have started talking with regularly ages ago if I knew what to talk about. @hoshinoreika2004, @ward-leon, @edenplumreal, @tabnk2, @tapok-eve , @boofbv and @sorcerousbrick, thanks for all the lil' dopamine hits.

Shoutouts to @wretchedbirdthing for being normal about that bird, you're a blast to see on my dash and I wish you luck snapping those collarbones in twain to hear those gay little squawks.

@freiflies and @ottisbuns, alongside Tapok, Vic and Honret, y'all bring life into The Bird Nest, and although I haven't really shown up much there recently, I still read most of everything, the words are cool, keep up the good work!

@genericgirl420 and @mikusays-transrights, you two are the mutuals that suffer the least with The Distances, so let's do this in a more, well, local fashion. É genuinamente bom ver que a comunidade brasileira do tumblr está ativa e saudável, aumenta minhas esperanças de encontrar outras criaturinhas desse site maligno pelas ruas, sua presença, por si só, já melhora meus ânimos, por isso, agradeço profundamente.

Ok back to speaking in simplified Old German. This next section goes out to @lemocoffe and @teacup-of-doom, both of whom I haven't really interacted much, but what little there was was quite great, this is, in fact, an invite to do more of the interact-y thing. Y'all are cool.

Another shoutout to a frequent view on my dash, @lobotomise-me-please, whose "Boobs Girl Music" post still has 10k notes to me, I'll get back to mass reblogging it someday (if y'all wanna help, check out @boobsgirlmusic for the post, that's my Boobs Girl Music sideblog where I reblog Boobs Girl Music)

@aurora-veil, @limbuscompanyyuri and @thevanishedpeople-intothenight are up next, some of my first mutuals, y'all post good. And have been doing so consistently. For the past like, 9 months or so. That's impressive.

@meltingadoration, @holyitsquiverrflynn and @jestressofnihil, my more recent moots, there hasn't been much time to do the friendship-building and knowing each other thing, but all that means is that there's still many opportunities for that, which is cool.

Last but not least, the mutuals who I haven't quite gotten to know as well, but I'm inviting to chat anytime, @readysetgargoyle, @atlasmothss, @meeresengel, @flesh-borne, @b-kut, @aureatecenotaph, @risingdragonblade, @agender-witchery (your posts helped me immensely in figuring out gender, thanks for that) and @lich-of-lcorp. Y'all are cool, we should talk more.

And one last section for all those who I've been in touch with but aren't mutuals with, for any and all reasons (I do tend to reblog very, well, erratically), y'all deserve to be on this list, but I just didn't wanna bother you too much (I do have words of thanks to say though, if you want them, just ask).

This post is still too short to express how thankful I am for y'all existing. I don't think text could ever do it justice.

#long post #like #my longest post by a very wide margin

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p-redux · 6 months

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Weekly Summary October 20, 2023

Hi peeps, lots of stuff happened this week, so I'm going to do my weekly summary instead of individual posts or answering individual Asks. This is a LONG one, so grab a drink, and dive right in for: Ringgate, Sam and the City, and Sam and open letter and follow up statement. Also, starting tomorrow, I'll be off for the weekend, my man surprised me with a trip away to the beach before the weather starts to cool down.

Anyhooo, let's start off with something light. #ringgate. For different reasons some fans get verklempt when Sam wears jewelry, and panties definitely get twisted or wet, depending on who you are, when Sam dons RINGS. Sam wore the 2 rings he's been wearing lately during his appearance on Jimmy Fallon a few days ago. Sidenote: Samshine is EXTRA Samshiny is in this pic. Say what you want about him, but the man is BEAUTIFUL 👇

So, of course, Extreme Shippers are convinced Sam is "finally" wearing his wedding rings because he's married to Cait. Um, one small problem, Caitriona Mary Balfe is already married to Tony McGill. Some Non-Shippers get excited to see him wear rings because maybe it makes them think of when Sam WILL get married. There is something about a man wearing rings. I find it sexy as well. But, alas, these rings are on the right hand and Scottish people wear wedding rings on the left hand. Also, Sam's definitely NOT married to anyone since we've seen him linked to several women lately.

For the people who had doubts the copper looking ring is an Oura ring, it definitely is. Here is what the two rings most likely are. The silver one I'm told by some of the Team is 👇

And here is the Oura ring he's wearing, most likely in Rose Gold. It's basically a ring with a computer in it to keep track of physical stuff, the way a fitbit or Apple watch does. Seems EXACTLY like something Sam would wear 👇 So, let's put #ringgate to rest now, please.

On to WHERE in New York had Sam been hiding. Everyone thought he had left and that his recent appearance on Jimmy Fallon had been taped earlier, until we saw THIS fan pic with him. 👇

My New York sources said he had not been seen at his usual hotel The Crosby. I'm putting out the name now just because EVERYONE knows that's where he stays in New York. He used to stay at The Bowery Hotel, but the last few years it's been The Crosby. None of the usual pic and autograph hounds got pics with him, so we assumed he wasn't staying there. All those hounds have contacts at the different hotels and restaurants frequented by celebs, so they would have been alerted to Sam staying there. Soooooo, if he wasn't at The Crosby, BUT he was in New York, THEN the possibilities are. He's aware too many fans know he stays at The Crosby, so he's switched hotels. Or he decided to rent an Airbnb instead. Or he stayed with friends. Or he does have a lady friend in New York, like some think, and he stayed with her. Who knows...but I'm sure we will find out...

Onto more serious matters. I'll preface this by saying I have made it a policy on my blog to NOT talk about anything political and to also not talk about any world events happening, which are upsetting. This blog is my escape from real life. So, I want to continue on that path. But I'm making an exception this time because based on the DMs an Anon Asks I'm getting there is some confusion as to why Sam posted this message on his social media. I just want to give people some clarity on it. And them move on. So, Sam posted this. 👇

It was in response to Sam and other mostly UK celebrities signing an open letter asking Israel to cease fire on Gaza, and explicitly claiming Pro-Palestine sentiments. If you click below, you will find an article on it and then keep scrolling down and you can read the actual letter. That's the letter Sam signed. A few days later, he clarified his feelings and regretted signing it because it doesn't represent fully what he meant. 👇

Here's the thing the history of Israel/Palestine is LONG and COMPLICATED. And most people haven't done enough research to know it fully. Most people go by sound bytes they see as they scroll social media. Or they give in to confirmation bias based on their political party, nationality, ethnicity, religion, affiliations etc.

I'm not going to get into the specifics because all of the information is easily accessible if anyone TAKES THE TIME TO RESEARCH AND READ THE HISTORY, both of Israel and Palestine...with an OPEN MIND.

The reason Sam got himself in trouble with signing the open letter and then the subsequent damage control message is that he didn't take the time to do his research. In extremely simplistic terms: Most of the UK, and in fact, most of Europe has traditionally been Pro-Palestine (except for European Jews, of course). The U.S. has traditionally been Pro-Israel and are allies. Up until recently that is. Due to the divisiveness in the US since the Trump era, Conservatives (Republicans) in the country became even more Pro-Israel, which then meant Liberals (Democrats) had to be the opposite. The rhetoric that Israel was the oppressor and Palestine was the oppressed grew louder. You had to pick one or the other. You couldn't take a step back and look at the history of the Jews being oppressed pretty much since Moses kept trying to get back to The Promised Land aka modern day Israel and Palestine. Or the Palestinians also being oppressed and their lands shrinking year by year.

The Jews have always been fucked over throughout history. And the Palestinians have always been fucked over, but especially since 1948 when modern day Israel was created. So, then, TERROR GROUP, Hamas decides, we're gonna fuck you over, Israel, REALLY BADLY, and engaged in some of the worst atrocities in recent times. No matter what anyone's beliefs are, when you saw what Hamas did (I'm not going to write the details because it's a horror show we all already know about) EVERYONE in the world should have said "Not today, Satan, not today," and DENOUNCED their savagery.

Hamas is NOT the Palestinian people, Hamas' ONLY goal is to terrorize and destroy. First the Jews, then their allies. Look up in the sky if you're in the US, one day a missile will be coming your way if they aren't stopped. After Hamas committed their savagery, Israel, understandably attacked back. They defended themselves from TERRORISTS trying to literally annihilate them. That was NOT the time to chant Free Palestine or write Free Palestine open letters. Just like after the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement came to the forefront in the US, but you had people countering "All Lives Matter!" Yes, all lives matter, but RIGHT NOW we're focusing on Black Lives, ya dopes. Breast Cancer awareness month. But what about Lung Cancer, Colon Cancer, they're important too?! Yes, but JFC, FOCUS people. Should Palestine be free from Israeli occupation, should they have more land? OF COURSE. But when the world SAW what Hamas did to HUMAN BEINGS, regardless of nationality or religion, the ONLY thing that should have been chanted is "DESTROY HAMAS." Hamas fucked things up for Palestinians, not just Israelis. And because of Hamas' actions, now Palestine is getting destroyed by Israel. And then Hamas will counter attack. And it will go on and on. There should be NO sides. There should only be ONE side, the HUMAN side.

So, when celebs seemingly "pick" a side, especially without considering the repercussions, they will get pushback. I love Sam and he's a good man, but he missed the mark on this one. Not through malice, but rather, naivete and ignorance. By cosigning that letter he didn't realize he wasn't simply signing a Pro-Palestine letter, he was simultaneously signing an Anti-Israel letter, Anti-Jews letter. And the reality is he alienated his Jewish fans, his more US conservative fans, his more centrist fans, assorted other fans...and I'm just going to state facts...he forgot WHO runs Hollywood, has always run Hollywood, and will always run Hollywood, including people who run Starz, as well as WHO are some of his agents, and publicists, hence the "better late than never" damage control quasi apology.

If you're wondering about MY stance: I feel badly for the Palestinian people and I feel badly for the Israeli people. There, that wasn't so hard to say, right? You CAN be Pro-Palestine AND Pro-Israel aka Pro-Humans. In the end, ALL HUMANS want the SAME basic things: food, clean water, shelter, safety and peace for their loved ones. To pick sides is to say that one set of people is more important than the other. And that can't be true. It isn't true. I pick the Human Side. Simple as that.

*big long sigh* Okay, peeps, you can leave comments, but I'm not going to answer them because I'm TIRED now. Also any hate comments, antiSemitic or antiPalestineMuslim comments and they will be deleted, and you will be blocked.

I'll check in later today. And then I'll be off until Sunday evening. Of course, still feel free to DM me and send Asks. I'll answer when I can.

Peace, people, PEACE.

#samheughan #sam heughan #palestine #israel #open letter #uk #us #ringgate #ring gate #newyork #new york #Sam and the City #oura ring

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elly99 · 8 months

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And Everywhere All At Once

Part 3 of 3. Check here for more details.

In the midst of the crowds In the shapes in the clouds I don't see nobody but you Constellations of stars Murals on city walls I don't see nobody but you

Spend the summer of a lifetime with me Let me take you to the place of your dreams Tell me, do you feel the love?

A night in Seoul. The night you'd been talking about for so long. You were finally meeting again. You had so much to tell her, so much you wanted to ask, but above all, you just wanted to see her in person again. To see the way she shines in the moonlight, under the stars, like she did in Milan.

And then there it was. Her voice. Cutting through the drone of the city. As sweet as it was the first time you heard it.

"Hey!"

You turn around to see her running to you, arms outstretched. You smile the widest you'd ever smiled and run towards her, taking her into your arms, nearly lifting her up with how much you missed her.

"It's so good to see you," you say softly, tearing up. "I missed you a lot."

"I missed you, too!" she says as she pulls away. You see a sparkle in her eyes telling you she was tearing up as well. "How have you been?"

"I've been great! Been looking forward to tonight. Ever since we met actually."

She takes your hand and smiles. "Me, too."

You return the smile and ask, just like the first time, "Hey, will you go on a walk with me?"

She laughs softly before hugging you again. "I would love nothing more."

It was at a small park near her place where you'd met up. Secluded, nothing fancy, perfect for a cozy evening stroll. But really it didn't matter where you met up. All that mattered was that you did.

After the first few moments of excitement subside, a little awkwardness starts to fill the air. You can feel it in the way she holds your hand. Feel her hand subtly shifting in yours, feel her eyes darting from you to the sky to the ground.

"Oh, how have you been? Sorry, I forgot to ask. Got a little too excited seeing you again," you say, a hint of nervousness in your voice. "You've been so busy the past half year!"

"Wow, I can't believe it's been that long since we last saw each other. Six months." Her eyebrows furrow a little. "But yeah, I've been great! I mean, we've been texting a lot, so you'd know all about it."

"Yeah, I've been following all your stuff! I'm a real Bunny now, I guess. Congrats on Lollapalooza again, by the way! And on your Billboard #1! You guys are incredible."

"Aww, thanks! That means a lot! Yeah, I've been really happy with everything lately. I just feel so lucky and grateful and honored and happy and..." She looks to you and smiles. "Sorry."

"Hey, what are you sorry for?"

"I'm just getting too excited."

"It's no problem! You deserve to be excited! And happy! I know you've been working so hard. You're amazing, Hanni."

And just like that the awkwardness disappeared. She held your hand now with a certainty that wasn't there before. She looks deep into your eyes and whispers, "Thank you." She pauses, looking for something in your gaze, before continuing. "You know, I'm just really excited right now because I get to see you again. Time's flown by so fast and we've been talking almost everyday so it didn't really feel like that long since we last saw each other. But when we scheduled tonight I realized that it really has been six months. And I guess that made me realize just how much I've been missing you."

"I've missed you a lot, too. I remember we had a similar conversation when I got back after Milan. About missing people."

"Yeah, I remember that! I was really emotional that night," she says with a nostalgic smile. Then she looks up at the sky. "And here we are now, under the same stars."

"Here we are now, being stardust together."

That city in Italy was half the world away and half a year had passed since you first met but it still felt like the same night. Like just a continuation of that magical dream you shared. You remember exchanging the same knowing smiles. Knowing that there was something between you that went beyond what words could express. Being with her now felt just like it did back then. It felt right.

"Wanna sit here for a while?" you ask, pointing at a nearby bench under an old tree.

"Sounds good! Hey, tell me more about how you've been! How's uni? Is physics as cool as you were hoping?"

"Oh, yeah! It's been great! It's a lot of work but at least it's something I enjoy. How about you? What do you think you'd want to be studying?"

"Mmm, I'm really into movies these days! So probably film! I do like science, too, so maybe that could be an option as well."

"Right! I saw you asked for a ton of movie recommendations. Have you watched the new Spider-Verse, by the way?"

"Oh. My. Gosh. Yes! And I loved it. It was sooo good!"

"I know right? I think I was bawling for half the movie."

"Aww, really? Same, to be honest. What about it made you cry exactly, though?"

"I think... Just the characters resonated with me a lot. And the idea that love can be so strong that it transcends universes."

"That's a really sweet thought, actually."

She pauses to think about it and smiles. Then she wraps her arms around you, causing you to smile in return.

"What was that for?"

"I don't know. I just felt like it," she says as she pulls away from the hug. "It's just a funny thing, thinking about the multiverse. Like, how many versions of us are out there sitting on this bench right now?"

Assuming it was rhetorical, you don't reply. But you knew that if other universes did exist, there would be an infinite number of versions of you with her, everywhere, all at once. You content yourself with that thought as she continues.

"You know, this feels a lot like when we sat in front of the cathedral."

"Yeah! Though tonight feels a little more real somehow. Do you feel that, too?"

"I do. It just feels different not meeting by chance away from home. Milan really felt like a time out of time, if you know what I mean. Some kind of magic that's hard to describe."

"Yeah, I get that! But I still remember everything so clearly."

"Me, too. I'll never forget it. Meeting you that night, and honestly just talking to you since then has made me reconsider so many things."

"Same!"

"Like sonder. That's been on my mind ever since. It just makes me want to be kinder to everyone I meet. Like see that guy over there? We'll probably never see him again. Tonight's the only time our lives intersect and we'll never get to know what he's really like. But he probably has his own worries and difficulties and... knowing that... doesn't that make you just want to be a little kinder to everyone you meet?"

"Yeah, you know, often when I'm sitting in a park like this, I look at people and try really hard to imagine them as more than just a random passerby. I try to imagine what makes them happy or what difficulties they've been through. How deeply they’ve fallen in love or how much heartbreak they’ve experienced. It's like a compassion exercise."

"I like that. It's always nice sharing in other people's experiences. Sharing your life with someone." She pauses to look at you. "Thank you for sharing your time with me. I know I've said it so many times but, yeah. It makes me really happy."

"I could say the exact same thing to you," you say with a smile. "But back to the guy over there. Did you notice that he was carrying his groceries with him? It didn't seem like he was carrying a lot so there's a good chance he lives alone. And he was walking through the park. If I was carrying my groceries around I'd want to head straight home. I'm guessing he wants to be outside for a while because he has a lot on his mind."

"You're very perceptive about people! And imaginative."

"Well..."

"It's a cool skill to have!"

You smirk a little. "Sure, I'll admit it's cool. Because it got me to talk to you that night. I was sure there was something special about you. And I was right."

"I've thought about that often actually. What this year would have been like if you had never knocked on my door. I'm so glad that you did."

You pause to ponder the possibilities. What could have happened had you stayed silent. What would not have happened between you. You smile realizing how happy you were to be in a universe where you two had this connection.

"You know I was feeling really down that night. There was a lot on my mind."

She nods reassuringly. "I remember."

"One of those thoughts was... Well, I worried that I had felt everything I was ever gonna feel and experienced everything I was ever gonna experience, and from then on out I wasn't going to feel or experience anything new - just lesser repetitions of what I’d already felt. Because of how my life was at the time - moving around all the time. It just felt like a cycle."

"Yeah, I remember you said you felt like your life was just a series of snapshots. Slightly different each time but mostly repetitive. I totally understand that!"

"Exactly. But you happened. You broke that cycle. That night when I saw you I knew it was my chance to change things. To not be afraid of making new connections. To not be afraid of potential loss and just go for it. And you, Hanni..." You take her hand and pull it close to you. "You went above and beyond anything I could have ever expected. You've become my best friend since and the most important person in my life."

You see tears reappear in her eyes. "Aww, man, you're too sweet!"

"I caught myself thinking about it over and over and then I realized that I was just convincing myself that I was unlucky. That it was just the universe's fault for taking people away from me. That it was somehow my destiny. I never really thought about what I could do differently. Isn’t that interesting? Sometimes the past is just a story we tell ourselves and convince ourselves is true. But we can make the present different. And the future, too."

"Yeah, the past is a weird thing. Everyone remembers it slightly differently. And even the same person can remember it differently as time goes on. It's funny that a concrete event can evolve and change in our memories as time goes on."

"Right! Like if I think about our first night in Milan now... I don't know... I remember a lot of what we talked about but now it just feels like a warm afterglow. Like a soft light in my mind."

"That's a great way of putting it! I see that, too. Like the light of a small house in the distance."

A few minutes of silence sitting under the gentle shelter of the tree. You both get lost in your thoughts and enjoy the warmth of that afterglow. Then it hits you. Like an apple falling from a tree right onto Newton's head. You had one very important thing to ask her. But you knew you had to ease into it and asked a simpler question for the moment.

"What's your opinion on trees, Hanni?"

"Mmm, they're really pretty! And in the summer they give us shade. And apples! I love apples. So, yeah, I think they're pretty cool."

You realize that you love how excited she is about life. For the longest time you didn't feel the same, but here with her, just like in Milan, it was like you'd been born again. Like you were discovering the world for the first time.

"How about regrets? Do you have any?"

"That's a sudden change." You see her smile fade slightly and you instantly feel the urge to explain yourself.

"Sorry! I know that's a little heavy but I promise it's all connected. Ok, let me go first." You pause to find the right words. "I do have regrets. Remember how I told you that I've lost contact with so many old friends? How moving around all the time made me sad and anxious?"

"Of course I do."

"Yeah. Well, after Milan, after you," you smile and continue, "after we promised to make the most of that night, I never really stopped making the most of every day after that. You made me happy again in ways that I can't even describe. And so since then I've regretted not trying hard enough. Because relationships are not a one-way street. As much as people drifted away from me, I drifted away from them. Maybe if I tried harder to keep my connections, I wouldn't have lost so many. Maybe if I didn't give up so easily..."

She holds your hand.

"I also regret being unhappy with my life. And I know that being unhappy is normal. It's ok not to be ok. It's just I have so much, I've received so much love, I've experienced so much of the world and, though life may be difficult, I regret not appreciating everything that I have. You helped change that for me. Ever since I met you, I've appreciated every single moment of existence. I know that sounds dramatic but it's true..."

She holds on more tightly. Then responds.

"I have a regrets, too. Not big ones. But sometimes I wish I could do more for others. For our fans especially! They're all so sweet and I wish I could return all their love. So yeah, sometimes I think I could do better at many aspects of my job..."

"You? Being kinder to people? Impossible. You're already the kindest and sweetest person I know. And you being a better idol than you already are? Impossible as well."

"Thank you," she smiles gently. "You're the sweetest person I know! But yeah, sometimes I can't help but feel those things."

You pause for a moment.

"Thanks for sharing, Hanni. So the reason I'm asking all of this is because, sitting under this beautiful tree, I remembered some things I learned about trees a long time ago." You turn to look her in the eyes. "Hanni, we should be more like trees."

She smiles, almost as if she were about to laugh, before asking, "Why is that?"

"So imagine you're a tree. Imagine your regrets, your mistakes, your failures as scars on your skin, like tree carvings on the bark of a tree. Over time tree carvings don't fade or get any smaller as the tree grows, but they don't get any bigger either. So even if your scars don't fade, you as a person can grow and evolve and flourish and, in the end, make your scars a smaller part of yourself."

"I love that."

"And remember how I said I didn't want to give up so easily anymore? Well, you know what happens when trees don't give up so easily?"

"What?"

"Autumn."

"I love autumn! But what do you mean?"

"Red leaves in autumn are the trees giving their all before they succumb to the winter. The harder they fight, the more brilliant their colors become. So as trees we are the most colorful and bright when we don't give up."

Her smile grows to the point that her eyes light up. Or maybe it's the twinkle of the stars in her eyes as tears begin to form. She hugs you to hide her face.

"You're amazing, you know that?"

"So will you be a tree with me, Hanni?"

She releases you from her embrace and meets your eyes once again. "I'd love to."

With that conversation over, you knew you couldn't delay any longer.

"Speaking of trees, I'm thinking of a song right now. And I think it expresses pretty well the way I feel with you. Can I play it for you?"

"Of course!"

Look at me I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree And I feel like I'm clinging to a cloud I can't understand I get misty just holding your hand

Walk my way And a thousand violins begin to play Or it might be the sound of your hello that music I hear I get misty the moment you're near

Can't you see that you're leading me on? And it's just what I want you to do Don't you notice how hopelessly I'm lost That's why I'm following you

On my own When I wander through this wonderland alone Never knowing my right foot from my left, my hat from my glove I'm too misty and too much in love

Too misty and too much in love

And there it was. The right moment to ask her that question.

"Hanni, I gotta ask. How do you feel about... us? Cuz..." You steel yourself and take a deep breath. "I know I'm in love with you. I have been for a while now."

You look to her and see a stunned expression on her face. For obvious reasons. You feel doubt creep into your mind as to whether you made the right decision.

"Sorry, does that make me a freak? Am I crazy? I know we've only been texting and calling and this is only our second time meeting in person but I know I've never felt like this for anyone else before. And I know we have something special."

She quickly grabs your hand again and smiles at you reassuringly.

"No, no. I get it. You know I think love is... I think anybody that falls in love is a freak. It’s such a crazy, stupid, insane, but wonderful thing to do. It’s like socially acceptable insanity, isn't it?. Everybody knows it can go so wrong. You can get rejected, couples can break up. But people still confess. People still love."

"So... do you..."

She stops you before you can finish.

"But meeting you that night made me realize that we're all here only briefly. The time we have with the people we love is short, life can fly by so quickly. So in my time here, I want to allow myself joy and happiness. Even if it is crazy."

She pauses. Looks into your eyes again.

"So yeah, it's crazy, but I'm pretty sure I fell in love with you the night we met. And I've been happier than ever since."

"I..."

Seeing that you were at a loss for words, she hugs you. But with both of your confessions out on the table, her embrace felt that much warmer.

When she lets go, however, her expression betrays a hint of concern.

"But... I'm not sure if I can commit to a relationship just yet. You know how my job is..."

"Hanni, I understand completely! Don't worry," you say, giving her a reassuring smile.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course!"

"I'm just afraid we'll change as time goes on and you won't like me anymore or we'll have different responsibilities that keep us apart. Before we even have a chance to be together."

"I get scared of change, too. You know that about me more than most at this point. But that's just it. Everyone's changing. All the time. And it's exciting to see people grow and change and share in that. You're the one who taught me that."

You take her hand again.

"And yes it's always hard to truly know someone if we're always changing. It's hard for people to even know themselves. But like you said before, it's about the attempt. And I'm not afraid of trying anymore. Because I feel safe with you."

"There's no safer place than home," she says softly.

Your heart flutters. Indeed you were home with her.

"So you'll wait for me?"

"Always. I love you, Hanni."

"I love you, too."

And there it was. Those three words exchanged between the two of you for the first time.

In a whisper she asks, "Can I kiss you?"

You can only nod shyly in response. As she slowly leans in you close your eyes. First you feel her hand gently pulling you closer. Then it's her lips on yours. Through closed eyes you see all the stars in the night sky. And every sky across the multiverse.

No matter the form of existence, you would love her. In every universe and every timeline you would have fallen for her. No matter how long it would take, you would wait for her. Because her name was in your heart. And it was Hanni.

#hanni x reader #hanni #hanni new jeans #newjeans x reader

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daftpatience · 8 months

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Hi! Would you mind talking a little about how you made your pants? I'm in the same boat of not being able to find tripp pants in my size. I LOVE what you did and definitely want to try making a pair myself but I don't really know where to start

YES i can talk lots about it!! in fact i can draw some about it as well!

i'll put it all under a cut since it's gonna be a Long Post! and heres the pants we are talking abt btw

so i started with 2 pairs of skinny jeans. generally skinny jeans in plus sizes are easier to find because they think we are scared of looking any bigger (and since they're out of style lately you'll likely be able to thrift them very easily, but really any cut of full length jeans will work). the first pair (jeans 1) should fit how you want at the top, but it wasn't as important if the legs or the second pair (jeans 2) fit because we'll be chopping those up.

i cut them into segments as shown, though you could do more or fewer:

then i cut each leg 'ring' that i've made open and laid them all out flat. i also took the pockets off of jeans 2, and set aside the rest for scraps. you'll have something like this:

essentially what i'm going to do is attach 2 legs together to increase the circumference - the reason i cut strips is so i can mix and match colours to make it more interesting and look more intentional! i swapped them around like this:

then i sewed the strips back into 4 leg pieces. keep in mind for this whole project i am sewing with exposed seams to minimize bulk/be comfortable on the inside/look more grungy, so not a lot of this is gonna be turning stuff inside out and i'm actually being a little bit messy with my lines on purpose. i did 2 passes of zigzag stitch right next to each other over every seam for stretch and strength. also, unless you have 2 of the exact same pairs of pants they're probably not gonna perfectly match at the edges, this is okay because we'll be trimming the rough edges next - the top of the leg should match 1/2 the circumference of the legholes of jeans 1 (and if you want to make that circumference bigger you can use a scrap to add a triangle shaped dart to the outside seams of the jeans):

it may feel weird to be removing width when we want them wide, but don't forget we've essentially doubled the width of the entire leg here. i wanted a very straight leg that matched my thigh circumference all the way down, so i pretty much just cut a straight line, but if you have enough material to make it flare out at the bottom and you want to do that, definitely go for it! you could even reattach the leg upside down if the 2 ankles combined happen to be enough to match your thigh, but i liked keeping the original bottom hem on mine so i kept it right side up.

from there i sewed the legs up and attached them back to jeans 1. i did mine so that the checkered seam was in the front but you could rotate them a bit to just have it stripey in the front if you wanted. then I applique'd the extra pockets on. this would probably have been easier to do before sewing the legs fully into a tube, but i wanted to make sure they were placed exactly how i wanted so i had to complete the jeans first to see.

i also sewed 4 tiny loops on the front and backs of the shin area using the belt loops from jeans 2 so i could clip on some lil chains. theres so much more you can do tho!

phew, i think that's everything i did!

if anyone makes a pair of pants with this tut i would LOVE to see!!!!!!!!!!!!

#sewing tutorial kinda #big pants #reference

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butterflydm · 8 months

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wot rewatch 1x8: the eye of the world

I made it before the new season started! <3

spoilers for the first season of WoT and for most of the s2 teasers that we've gotten. For the books... um... honestly mostly stuff from Eye of the World that didn't end up in the show, lol. Oh, and for New Spring, I guess.

@apocalypticavolition mentioned that Perrin's original plot was probably helping Lan track Moiraine - that makes a lot of sense! It would have given Perrin a chance to flex his heightened senses and it might have even given Lan a chance to name-drop Elyas.

Okay, wow, yay! Our Completely Old Tongue scene from Age of Legends. When this first opened and they were just... talking in the Old Tongue... I was so blown away. I was not expecting it. I think they've hinted that we might get more Old Tongue scenes in s2 as well, which would be fantastic.

I'm glad that I read The Strike on Shayol Ghul short story -- they really did pull a lot of the info from that story for this scene, so that was very cool to see.

There is definitely a lot more focus on "Dragon as father" here than in the books (and I wonder if the tragedy of him murdering his family is going to focus more on killing his kids and not solely about killing his wife, once we get into that)

And the reveal at the end that '3000 years ago' was actually futuristic and we're living in a post-apocalyptic landscape, which is a great reframing for anyone who didn't already know.

Love all our Moiraine & Rand ~bonding time~ here (for various values of bonding time, lol). Definitely curious about where that relationship is going to go over the course of s2.

Egwene and Perrin checking in with each other is a sweet moment. Yeah, things Got Weird last episode due to stress and Nynaeve accidentally telling a secret that wasn't hers, but it hasn't wrecked their friendship.

And if Perrin is the one helping Lan here (supernaturally), then Lan and Nynaeve's scene would have just been the romantic goodbye.

Ishamael notes here that he didn't think that Rand was the Dragon Reborn. It sounds like he was expecting Rand to look more like LTT did. I really do love him calling Rand "Lews Therin", poor Rand. The identity issues are only going to get worse, bb. Love that Rand starts their conversation with an arrow to the face.

"Ever since the day I channeled, I hear nothing [from the wind]" is our first allusion to Nynaeve's block, I believe.

Moiraine tapdancing around the truth as hard as possible so that she doesn't have to admit that she physically can't teach Rand channeling. She's even willing to share one of her traumas with Rand in order to avoid admitting it! Also, I do think that Elaida's willingness to turn to violence is going to stand out a lot more in a world where teaching isn't always accompanied by brutality, as it is in the books.

haha, I totally forgot about this scene with Min and the others. Maybe because it doesn't really tell us anything we aren't going to learn immediately even without her (a nod to how pointless Min's viewings mostly are in the books? lol) but it does prompt Min to get out of the city on the wagons, I'm guessing.

Apologies to all the people who worked hard on the battle scenes but I don't ever have much to say about things like that.

Rand already getting memories (and Moiraine seeing him remember) plus Rand trying to protect people from getting hurt because they're standing next to him. (and Rand trying to give an order that Moiraine immediately ignores lol)

yeah if Lan had a companion (like Perrin) then his scenes here would have actually had some dialogue - they may have even given Rand the line about Malkier because they wanted to get the info out but it was originally supposed to come out in dialogue between Lan and Perrin.

Aww, family moment between the Agelmars. It's sweet. I honestly barely remember the Agelmars from the books, so this was an improvement. "Buy enough time to stand a chance" is going to be a big theme, too.

We also kinda get confirmation here that Darkfriends have been more effective in the show-verse than they were in the books-verse (it seems like more knowledge has been destroyed).

18. So, given what we've seen in the teasers of Ishy getting Lanfear from a seal, it seems like this specific spot is where LTT sealed Ishamael in particular (half-sealed?) and he released Ishamael fully when he cracked the seal. Before this, we only see Ishy working in people's dreams and then, in s2, he gets to actually exist in the waking world.

19. While I do see the effects of the covid shutdown and new rules in the battle scenes (and am looking forward to seeing them pop off without those setbacks in s2!); the scenes with Rand in the dream and Rand against Ishamael are perfect and I will hear no arguments against them. Rand is, ultimately, a philosophical hero and not a battle hero. He gets that wrong a lot in the books! But things tend to backfire on him when he tries to force himself into the battle hero position.

20. And we have ~the temptation~ here, with Egwene and little Joiya (and the mention of Mat, which was fascinating at the time and remains utterly fascinating; that fake!Egwene makes a point of mentioning Mat in Rand's temptation dreamworld).

21. The imagery for what Ishamael does to Moiraine is pretty much exactly like the shielding on Logain and not anything like when Logain was severed later in the episode, so I will (one last time before the new season lol) put my bet in that she was shielded. Ishamael is just able to do a lot faster than the Aes Sedai. Also when Moiraine is right behind Rand like this, you can really see how similar their shirts really are in color.

22. Min is jetting out of Fal Dara as fast as she can -- show!Min actually seems aware that she's not a fighter. #goodforher

23. But they did use needing to have Perrin in Fal Dara to give him a nice little scene with Loial that fed into the violence vs peace conflict.

24. Ishy really put in the work here (I'm assuming that it must have all been drawn from Rand's memories which, again, makes Egwene mentioning that Mat is saying he's going to make Joiya a lantern just incredibly fascinating). Ishamael waits until Rand falls for the trap to reveal to Rand what's going on (sorta). And both Ishy and Rand are working the angles here -- Ishy pretends that he wants Rand to pick the dream world and... you know, that would be useful but... he still wins if Rand fights him because that surge of Power will break his seal. And Rand pretends that he's falling for the temptation but actually is looking for Ishy to give him some clues on how to access the Power on purpose.

25. Ah, s2 setup is happening: Perrin learns that the Dragon needs the Horn at the Last Battle; and Fain was given the password to get into the fortress, which means there's a Darkfriend who knows the passwords.

26. I 100% approve of the show making joining a circle dangerous. In the books, circles are so completely underused and it feels silly because they are very low risk. People should be in circles all the time; especially when things get dangerous.

27. Lots of emphasis on fatherhood this season -- Rand's struggle about Tam being his father; Rand's desire to be a father (expressed both in ep1 and here with Joiya). We also had Siuan's relationship with her father being a key element of her character.

28. Rand loves Egwene enough to know that their paths have diverged and it would be wrong to try to force her onto the same path as him just because he loves her.

29. Very cute that Rand thinks he just defeated the Dark One. I want to give him a pet on his fluffy (currently sweaty lol) head).

30. Perrin gets the infodump from Fain instead of it being Mat. It's a good infodump, from someone who definitely, obviously has an agenda.

31. Rand thinks he's succeeded, so he leaves on his own so that he won't hurt the ones he loved. Baby. Off he goes, into the big world of Making Bad Life Choices, bless him.

32. And the poor little girl who, at least, probably died quickly? The show did such a good job with the Seanchan. Both here and in what we've seen so far in the teasers for s2. They are gonna be extremely creepy and heartbreaking and scary. You can definitely see tear-tracks on the face of one of the damane here.

#wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot rewatch #wot book spoilers #wot s2 spoilers #wheel of time s2 spoilers #wot prime spoilers #wot show spoilers #new spring

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thenightfolknetwork · 6 months

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Hello, I ummm... This is going to sound silly and I'm going to sound like a total nerd. Well... I love ren faires. The autumn months are my favorite because of them. I know lots of it is sapios who romanticize a time where putting a sword between my ribs or dying to my firey breath was the greatest thing they could imagine, but if you actually go there's way more creatures than you'd expect. I'd argue that if you include the people who volunteer and work at the events, there's more of us than them. Sorry, my feelings and justifications about ren faires aren't the problem here. The problem is that I found out the hardway that I am... A far bigger lightweight than most of my family. My friends teased me about not trying some of the stronger stuff being served at the faire and well... Two tankards in and the next morning I've woken up in a random cave with a bunch of plastic gold coins. I didn't find out what had happened until I got home and saw the local news. Apparently I'd taken over the fake wooden castle and demanded tribute and kidnapped various people dressed as princesses and princes and well... I'm a big fellow. And there aren't many several story tall winged lizards where I live. Let alone any with my scale color. I don't even know where my costume went... I know most of my genus don't wear clothing, but when you went to an event in costume and there's videos of you not wearing it... Well it's just a huge mess. I'm still hiding. My friends have tried to call me but I haven't responded. Everyone knows that was me... What do I do?

Unfortunately, reader, this is not a situation where there is a quick and easy fix that will make the whole embarrassing incident just… go away. It's happened, and there's no way to make it unhappen. But I want to reassure you that it's very likely nobody is feeling as bad as you are.

People get drunk. This is a fact of life. So too is it a fact that, very often, drunk people behave in ways they wouldn't dream of doing while sober. It is a mortifying moment, to wake up the morning after a party and realise you've made a fool of yourself. But it is also such a common experience, all but the most hard-hearted of your acquaintances will, I'm sure, be willing to forgive and forget.

After all, we've all been there, whether “there” is fake-kidnapping some fake royals, or keeping your guests trapped in your house, mindlessly frolicking back and forth in an unceasing dance for several years because you had a few too many strawberry piña coladas and decided you wanted your birthday party to go on a little longer. For example.

Talk to your friends. Let it be known that you're ready to make amends as necessary, and that this was a one-off incident that you will not be repeating. Depending on the damage you caused, you might expect to foot a few repair bills, or make a few sincere apologies – especially to the aforementioned fake royalty.

You can get through this with your dignity intact. Hold your head up, take responsibility for your actions, and who knows – perhaps you'll even be able to laugh about it. After all, it is, if you'll forgive my saying so, a very funny image.

#answered #the nightfolk network #monstrous agonies

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secretgamergirl · 5 months

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How a Computer Works- Part 4 (Binary Math)

This is the 4th part in a series of posts explaining how computers work such that you can build your own from just wires and spare electronics (or hell, Minecraft redstone signals, a carefully balanced water fountain, anything you can build logic from really). The series starts in this post, the most recent entry before this was part 3, but the only REALLY required reading for this one should be part 2. Get that knowledge in your brain so this next bit can make sense to you.

Also, I'm basically teaching a pretty in-depth computer science class here for free out of the goodness of my heart, so if you have the cash to spare, maybe consider throwing a little money my way so I can keep surviving and doing stuff like this?

Our focus for today's lesson is going to be actually designing one of these modules we have hooked up to the bus to actually do stuff with any data we pass into it. As I've mentioned a few times, all of this stuff we're passing along can be thought of in a lot of different ways. Completing a circuit when one tracing wires out connects to a positive charge and another a negative means the same thing as a gate saying true, will turn a light tied in there on, we can call it a 1 in our abstract computery talk, or several other things, but we're dong math today so let's think about numbers.

Let's think in Binary

So I think I've referenced binary numbers a few times in a really hand-wavey sort of way, but it's good to stop and make sure we all get the concept thoroughly. Normally, when we think about numbers, we're using our good pals the Arabic numerals- 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. We just decided to make unique little squiggles to represent these first ten numbers if we include 0, and then if we add together 9+1, we're out of symbols, so we start a new column, put a 1 in it, and reset to 0 in the one we're in. So, 9+1=10. We call this "base ten math" because ten is where we have to start that new column... but really, we kinda just picked ten out of a hat for this? Presumably it's because most of us have ten fingers.

Maybe if we all had hands like typical American cartoon characters, we'd only have made eight unique symbols. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 7. Add 1 to 7 and we start a new column there instead of after coming up with symbols for those fingers we don't have. In base eight math, 7+1=10. It's a smaller group we're dedicating that next numeral over to, but you can see how that works, right?

Or hey, what if the first person to start counting stuff on their fingers just thought about it differently. You can totally hold up 0 fingers. So really on just one hand you can easily go 0 1 2 3 4 5. Well, what if we just use our other hand past there? Every time we run out of fingers on our right hand, we reset it to zero and add one on our left. It's base six math in this example but hey with just our hands we can display any number from 0 to a base six 55! Which in base ten would be, let's see, 5x6+5, so, yeah, any number from 0 to 35, but that's still pretty good. Converting it into base six is kind of a pain since you've gotta stop and do the multiplication, but if we all just kinda thought in base six we wouldn't need to convert at all.

And hey, what if we really thought big here? Instead of using one hand for the next column of numbers, we could just treat every finger as a column on its own. Holding some of the required groupings of fingers up can kinda give you a hand cramp, but hey we've got ten columns that can hold a 0 or a 1, so we can count all the way up from 0 to 1111111111! Or uh, in base ten, 1023. Still a really impressive number though! Just explaining this to you I've upped how how you can count on your fingers by more than a hundred times. You're welcome! Sorry about the hand cramps. We're not looking into binary math for the sake of saving fingers though, we're doing it because we're designing logic circuits and doing math on the assumption that the only symbols we have to count with are 0 and 1. Anyway, just so we're on the same page, let's count up from 0 in binary for a while here:

0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010, 1011, 1100, 1101, 1111, 10000.

You can follow along with the pattern right? And if you're curious what that'd be all standard base 10 style, let's count through that same number of... numbers that way.

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. I made some of these bold to make it a little easier to count along. It's the ones where we're adding a new column in binary, and hey look, it's all the powers of 2. If you have to convert in your head, that makes it easier.

Binary Addition

So let's try thinking in JUST binary now and do some basic math. Before we get into the double-digits- Wait no, if we're pedantic, di- is the prefix for ten things so we shouldn't be saying "digits," we're in base two, so, bi- so... the double bits, I guess), we're just got:

0+0=0. 1+0=1. 0+1=1. 1+1=10

Hey, wait. does that pattern look familiar to you? Like we had to go to a second bit for 1+1, but just ignore that for a moment and look at the lowest one. Humor me. We saw this same pattern in part 2!

0 xor 0 outputs 0. 1 xor 0 outputs 1. 0 xor 1 outputs 1. 1 xor 1 outputs 0.

Oh damn. So if we want to add two bits of data, we just XOR them. All we have to worry about is the spill-over into the next column. Well.. hell, let's see what this looks like if we're looking at two columns here.

00+00=00. 01+00=01. 00+01=01. 01+01=10.

If we just look at the "1s column" digit, yeah, XOR works. And is there a pattern for the "10s column?" Well, it's a 0 for everything except when we go 1+1... we had a logic circuit for that too though, right? Yeah, good ol' AND. Only outputs 1 if both value A and value B it's looking at are both 1.

So OK. We rig up a circuit that has a XOR gate and an AND gate. We feed the first number we want to add into both of these gates, and we can display our answer as a two bit number, with what the AND spits out on the left, and the one the XOR spits out on the right. BAM. We are masters of addition... so long as the highest numbers we want to add together are 1+1. We uh... we should probably try to improve upon that. Also we've got this whole structure to the whole computer where we've got these registers feeding in and out of a bus with a fixed number of data bits on it, kinda would be nice if the number of bits going back out to our bus was the same as the number coming in to our addition circuit... and like, yeah, that's kind of an impossible goal since it's always possible when adding two numbers the same length that you need an extra column to display the answer, but you know, if the first bit of at least one of the numbers we're adding is a 0 it'll fit, so let's get to that point at least.

So OK. Let's expand things out. We're adding any 2 bit numbers now, and let's pretend we've got like a calculator with a 3 bit display.

000+000=000. 001+000=001. 000+001=001. 001+001=010.

010+000=010. 011+000=011. 010+001=011. 011+001=100.

000+010=010. 001+010=011. 000+011=011. 001+011=100.

010+010=100. 011+010=101. 010+011=101. 011+011=110.

I'm being kinda redundant with showing 0+1 and 1+0 and such. Let's narrow these down to just the ones we need a new bit of logic to make happen though. The 1s bit is groovy. We feed the 1s bits of ANY two numbers into a XOR gate, we get the correct 1s bit for our answer. And if the next bits over are 0s, we can pop what's coming out of our AND gate in there out to there and that's fine too. We're also good if we just look at the 10s column, everywhere we don't need to worry about the 1s column affecting it. The places where we need to do more with our logic are just where we're doing the whole "carry the 1 thing." I already set up the grid of all these so that's just the stuff in the far right column, but hey, let me bold those up too.

And let me just kinda blank out these other bits so we're really focused in on the part where there's a problem...

_0_+_0_=_1_. _1_+_0_=_0_. _0_+_1_=_0_. _1_+_1_=_1_.

Well huh. If we're just looking at a bit in the middle of our big long number, and we're carrying a 1 to that position, we sure seem to be getting the exact opposite of what we get when we aren't carrying anything in here. So OK, let's redesign our logic circuit here. We've got our bit A wire and our bit B wire coming in like we did before, going into that XOR for this output bit, but we need to add a wire for whether we're carrying a 1 in from the next circuit over, and if so, flip that result. Do we have a way to do that easily? Well OK, logic chart time. If we have a 0 and no carry, we want 0. I'm lazy, so, 0 bla 0=0, 1 bla 0=1, 0 bla 1= 1, 1 bla 1 = 0. Oh, that's another XOR gate. We XOR A and B like before, and then just XOR that result with our carry bit, and we are definitely displaying the right thing in this part of our answer. Now we just need to double check if our corner case of handling a carry messes with the next carry anywhere and... oh damn yeah.

011+001=100, and 001+011=100. These are the cases where the 1s column carrying a 1 to the 10s column means we have to do something different with that carry bit. So, we're still making our carry-the-1 result a 1 if A and B are 1... but we also need to make sure it's a 1 if we are both carrying something in, AND our original XOR gate is spitting a 1 out. Well we can throw that AND in there, and we can throw in an OR to check either of these two conditions, and there's our new and improved carry-the-1? result.

So let's put it all together now!

For a given bit, we have value A, value B, and Carry. We have a XOR gate that takes A and B in. We feed the result of that and Carry into another XOR gate. That spits out the sum for this bit. Then we AND the result of that first XOR and our Carry feed that result into one side of an OR gate. We feed A and B into a second AND gate, the result of that is the other input for our OR. That OR now spits out a fresh Carry bit. We can plug that into the next adder circuit down the line, for the next column to the left in our result. BAM, there we go. Just clone this whole weird set of 5 logic gates for as many bits as you want to deal with, daisy chain those carry values into each other, and congratulations. You have somehow rigged together something where electricity goes in, electricity goes out, and the weird path it has to take along the way has this weird side effect where you can work out what two binary numbers add up to. Please note again that we didn't at any point make some sort of magical computer person and teach it how to do math, we just found patterns in how electricity flows and where the pure math concept of logic gates and binary math happen to work the same way and exploited that for a result that's convenient to us. Shame that was such a pain wiring up, but hey, every time you add another copy of this onto the end, you double the range of numbers you're able to work with. Eventually that hits a point where it's worth the effort.

Well addition is all well and good, what about subtraction?

OK, so just to take stock, so far we have a big addressed block of memory somewhere we keep our numbers in. We have, for example, 8 bit lines on our bus, and when we want to do addition, we set stuff that turns on "hey, place with our first number, put it on the bus" then "hey register A, read the bus for a moment," then the same to get a number to slap in register B, and we've got this sum register sitting between registers A and B with a bunch of these adder circuits hooked in between all the bits. We might have some leftover carry line with a 1 on it and nowhere to plug it in, but ignoring that spill-over, every bit on our bus is to go good for addition. When we're setting up command codes, we can make more to do some other math with A and B and that's all well and good, but we have a real big problem when it comes to subtraction, because out of what's going into A, going into B, and coming out of sum, at least somewhere we're going to need to deal with the concept of negative numbers. So when we're doing subtraction, one line on our bus needs to be reserved for whether it's positive or negative. If you program, you're maybe familiar with the concept of unsigned integers vs. signed integers? This is that. With only positive numbers, if we've got say, 8 bits to work with, we've got a range of 00000000 to 11111111 to work with, or 0-255 in decimal, but if one of those is getting swiped for negative or positive, now we're talking like, -127-127.

But wait, that's not quite right, is it? Like if we arbitrarily say that leftmost digit is 1 if we're negative, we get things like, 1 being 00000001, 0 being 00000000, -2 being 10000010 etc. but... what's 10000000? -0? That's the same thing is 0. That's redundant and also gonna really screw the count up if we're like, adding 5 to -2! Or really, any other math we're doing.

Oh and we also need to remember when we're stuffing a negative number into a memory register, it's not like that register knows what concept the bits we're shoving into it represent, so like, you personally have to be responsible for remembering that that 1 on the leftmost line, for that particular value, is noting that it's negative, and not that the 10000000s place or whatever has a 1 for some number, or the first of 8 switch variables you're stashing in this address to save on space is on, or whatever else. We here at the memory address hotel are just trapping electron wiggles in a weird little latch or we aren't. No labels, no judgements.

So OK no matter how we're storing negative numbers we need to just actually remember or take notes some way on what the hell convention we're using to represent negative numbers, and where we're applying it. But we also need a convention where like, the math works, at all. Just having a bit be the is it negative bit works real bad because aside from having -0 in there, we're trying to count backwards from 0 and our math module has no conception of back. Or of counting for that matter. Or 0. It's just a circuit we made.

OK, so, let's maybe store our negative numbers in a different way. You know how a car has an odometer? Rolling numbers counting up how many miles you've gone? And there's a point where you run out of digits and it rolls back around to 0? Well funny thing about our addition thing is if you add a 1 to a display of all 1s, that also rolls back around to 0 (and has that carry value just hanging out in space unless we have a better idea of what to plug it into). So if we like, have all the numbers we can display printed out on paper, and we represent that rolling over by just rolling the paper up and taping it, so we have a bit where the count is going like: ..11111101, 11111110, 11111111, 00000000, 0000001... well we can just arbitrarily declare that all 0s is really 0, and the all 1s before it is -1, etc. Try to make that work maybe. And still remember that 10000000 or whatever is where we abruptly loop back between the highest positive/lowest negative numbers we're handling.

Here's a funny thing though. If we start counting backwards, we totally get this inverted version of what we get counting forwards. Just going to show this with 3 bits for convenience but going up from 000 you go:

000, 001, 010, 100, 101, 110... and going back from 111, you go

111, 110, 101, 100, 011, 010, 001... and yeah, look at that with a fixed with font, and it's all just flipped. And huh, you know what else is cool? If we go back to saying the first bit is 1 for negative numbers and a 0 for positive, you can just add these and it almost works. You want to subtract 1 from 1, that's the same as adding 1 and -1. Invert the negative, that's 001+110=111... 1 shy of the 000 we want. Huh.

What about 2-2? 010+101=111. 3-3? 011+100=111. Everything that should be 0 is 111, which is 1 less than 0 when we roll over. What about stuff that should be positive? 3-1? 011+110=(1)001. 2-1? 010+110=(1)000. 3-2? 011+101=000. Still all 1 off if we just ignore that carry going out of range.

-1-1? 110+110=(1)100, which translates back to -3... and that's kinda the only example I can give that's in range with this, but throw in more bits and follow this convention and it'll all keep working out that you get exactly 1 less than what you want, turns out. So, if we're in subtract mode, we just... invert something we're bringing in then add 1 to it and it should all work out?

So OK. We have a wire coming into math land from what mode are we in, it's a 1 if we're doing subtraction. We XOR that subtract line bit with every bit of what's coming into B, that does nothing if we're in addition mode, but if we're in subtraction mode, we're flipping every bit, and tada, the subtraction works without any other changes. We just need to conditionally add 1 if we're in subtract mode now but... wait, we already have literally that. We just take this same "we are in subtract mode" wire and run it in as a carry-in to the rightmost bit of our adder chain. Again, if we're doing addition, that just carries in a 0 and does nothing, but if we're in subtraction, it carries in a 1, and... we're done. The explanation was a long walk, but yeah, when subtracting, just add those extra XORs, plug in that carry, and remember your negative numbers are all weird in storage. Done.

Let's do multiplication and division next!

No. We can't do that.

Well seriously, that's not a thing we can just layer on top of this relatively simple thing we have wired up. We've got this lean mean math machine will give you whatever result you need basically the instant you load values into A and B. Definitely by the time you, being conscientious about not leaving the doors to the bus open all the time, officially flag things to write out from sum and into whatever destination. Multiplying and dividing though, we need more steps, and we need scratch spaces for temporary values. I suppose if you're careful you can multiply by like, loading 0 into B, load the first number you want to multiply into A, just feed sum directly into B, and pulse the clock however many times you want to multiply, but... you probably don't want to just constantly be reading and writing like that, it's tying the whole bus up, unless you have an alternate pathway just for this, and you have to keep count. Still, I'm assuming that's how people do it when they build a dedicated function in. I'm still looking at older systems which assume you're going to do most of your multiplication one step at a time, running through some code.

There's one big exception though. If you multiply any number by 10, you just add a 0 onto the end of the number... and guess what? I'm not using "10" specifically to mean "ten" here. Whatever base you're doing your math in, that still works. So in binary, if you just want to specifically multiply by 2, it is super easy to just shift every bit to the left. Like, have some sort of "shift left/multiply by 2" wire come in, set up logical conditions so that when its set, all we do is have the bit that we are feed into the carry flag, then for the sum ignore everything but the carry flag. 00011001 turns right into 00110010. I picked that out of a hat, but that's binary for 25 getting doubled to 50 as I eyeball it here. Dead simple to do as a single operation. Shifting everything to the right, AKA dividing by 2 is similarly simple... and hey, you might notice that in say... very old games, there's a whole lot of numbers doubling. Like ghosts in Pacman? Each is worth twice the points as the last? Yeah that's because that's easy to do fast.

Other math though takes more steps, and tends to involve extra hardware design to make it work. Like if you're doing division where you aren't guaranteed to have a whole number at the end, so, most division? Suddenly you need to have decimal points in all of this, and work out where they go, and this is why you hear people talk about "floating point processors" as this whole special thing that we just did not have for decades. For now at least, that's beyond the scope of what I'm teaching. Might get there eventually.

A final bit about bits...

So hey, we need to pick some arbitrary bit count for how wide we make our bus and our registers, and also some number for memory registers, command codes, maybe other stuff. And you just kinda want to pick a nice round number. You can't pick ten though, because ten isn't a round number in binary. It's 1010. So usually, we round down to 8, nice and simple, or we round up to 16. And then if we're like filling out charts of values, it's easier to count in those bases. Counting in base 8 is easy enough. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10. With base 16 though, we need 6 more symbols in there, so we go with 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 10. And sometimes people make a point of making the B and D lowercase, because if you want to display those on the sort of 7-segment display you still see on cheap clocks or things going for an 80s look, B and 8 are too similar, and D and 0. Base 16 is also called hexidecimal. People will shorten that to "hex" and you see it a ton when people are looking at raw data and don't want to get thrown by long binary numbers, and it particularly gets out to the general public when we're talking about like, 8-bit color values. 8 bits gives you a number from 0-63, hey that's just 2 digits in base 16, so like, for HTML color codes, you can use 2 digits each for red green and blue values, and technical artists just kinda memorize stuff like "right so FFFFFF is white, 700080 is a pretty bright, slightly blue-ish purple, etc."

We tend to go with 8 bits in most places though, or some multiple of 8 anyway, and someone randomly decided to call 8 bits a byte, and that's kind of just our standardized unit for measuring data now. Well mostly standardize. Because people will say, like, 1 kilobyte is 1000 bytes, but in practice people actually round things off to binary values and they're going to actually be off a little.

Anyway, linguistic trivia! Whatever number of bits it is we store in a register/load to the bus is called a "word" and we talk about how many bits long our words are, because once you design the architecture, you're stuck with it and all. And sometimes you want to be space efficient and not use a whole word, so you do some logic gate trickier to chop off whatever portion you don't need when reading it and not change what parts you aren't trying to when writing it and just kinda store multiple variables in a single value. One common thing that happens as a result of this is that you'll break up an 8-bit value because you just want like two values from 0-15 instead of one from 0-255. And when we're working with one of those half-bytes, because puns, the actually term for that is "a nibble." No really. And if we're using a single bit for a variable a lot of the time we call that a flag. Common to see a byte used to hold 8 flags.

I have no clue what I'm going to cover in part 5 if/when I get to it. Input/output stuff? Better program counter design than what I've taught you enough to guess at? Maybe I should just wait and see if people have questions?

For now let me just point anyone following along with this at this first post of me talking about the game console I'm designing. That's a pretty similar topic to this one.

Let me also point you again at my patreon, too.

#computers #computer science #logic gates #full adder circuit #education #alu #electronics #math

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hrokkall · 8 months

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Saw the little nightmares 3 trailer got released and wanted to hear your thoughts on it. Is there anything in particular that you're excited for or just generally hyped about?

Also sorry if this question comes across weird I have no clue about the series but remembered you enjoyed it and drew some stuff for it so I thought it'd be fun to talk about it if that makes sense?

- 🥊

Oh I have so many thoughts on it. So many that I'm going to put them below the cut so this post doesn't take up anyone's entire dash.

First of all, damn my copious amounts of coursework for the fact that I couldn't sit down and start drawing fanart immediately the moment I finished watching the trailer once… or twice… maybe three times. Mark my words though these kids WILL be getting some day 2 (actual) art, even if it's just a little sketch.

…Point being, I was pretty excited right out of the gate. Admittedly, I was a little nervous that the studio changeover would mean that any (potential) future Little Nightmares content would mean a massive tonal shift, but based on the trailer alone + the additional guides related to the game, it nails the atmosphere of the previous games pretty damn well. Hell, the giant baby enemy even resembles some of the concept art from the flesh walls!

Already, Nowhere is combining some of my favorite things (notably locations that seem/are "alive", steampunk motifs, and copious amounts of birds… also reminds me a little bit of Zone 3 from OFF, but that's probably just me), but most notably is the fact that it actually seems to resemble some of the locations seen in the (tragically cancelled) 2017 comics. This is particularly notable in the first issue, which features two children taking shelter in a barn from a monster known as the North Wind (who is made of/"sees through" the eyes of black birds, presumably crows), but the second issue is about a monster that lives within mirrors, which are shown a lot in the trailer as well. Either way, I'm cautiously hoping for some references to the comics, especially because we never got to learn what happened to the rest of the Maw kids there (the answer is probably "they died horribly" but I mean hey. You never know).

The designs of the two protagonists are, of course, adorable. I love the plague doctor/gas mask duo (especially because having face coverings makes sense in such a dusty place) and the bit where they both glide down using feather umbrellas is genuinely so fun—absolutely no complaints there.

…Actually, one complaint: I have no idea which one is Low and which one is Alone. None of the official sources have clarified that. Please LN3… I need to know the names of my new kids before they get put into the meat grinder like every other protagonist in these games. (Given the series' track record, I'm not too optimistic about their fates—sorry little guys! I'll be rooting for you anyway). EDIT: It seems like Low is the bird mask kid and Alone is the hazard suit kid

Mechanically… I don't think we've seen enough of the game for me to make any hasty judgements. I know everyone wanted LN2 to be multiplayer (and LN3 appears to have a singleplayer option), but I'm unsure of how that will work. Will it be Spiritfarer style multiplayer where only one player has to own LN3? Will it be online? Will it be splitscreen? Will me inevitably ditching the main campaign to screw around with my friend ruin the atmosphere? No idea. The way I see it, it's too soon to tell.

While we're on the topic though, I did also listen to the first episode of the audio drama! Without spoiling anything… yeah I can definitely recommend it. It's very reminiscent of The Magnus Archives and/or The Bright Sessions, so if you like either of those podcasts you'll probably like The Sounds of Nightmares. Even if you know absolutely nothing about Little Nightmares, I'd honestly recommend it. Voice mixing is a little off in places (though there's a decent chance it was just my headphones being fucky), but the podcast MORE than makes up for it in terms of imagery and phenomenal sound design. No word on the lore implications though; I'll listen to episode 2 when I get the time and THEN deliver the verdict there. I also hope they release an official transcript for it—there isn't one right now afaik, but that would be really helpful for a multitude of reasons.

But yeah, that's about it! TL;DR hell yeah I'm excited for this game, but I'm trying not to fill in the blanks with too much supposition while there's still so little info available

#Also I can promise this isn't a weird question at all; I was freaking out over it on main #And I've drawn/talked about loving the LN series here too! Point being no worries :]#Re: Inbox #🥊 anon #Little Nightmares 3 #<- For indexing. Apologies to the maintag

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transmutationisms · 1 year

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i agree that a lot of the critiques of s4 are baseless, but i haven't seen a lot of people acting like stuff is coming out of nowhere. like the consistency of themes doesn't seem to be the issue. i guess it's that the dialogue feels a lot less nuanced and you can make arguments either way for that. the thing for me is it doesn't feel like we're covering new ground. everything they're telling us we already knew. i am biased bc s2 was my favorite (which seems to be a common sentiment) but it feels like s3 onwards has just been reiterating points we already knew without building upon them that meaningfully. the decline of empire stuff has come into play a bit more in s3 and s4 which i like and they built towards it really well, but character wise i don't feel like we've learned anything that valuable in the past 1.5 seasons?

i disagree with that. kendall spends season 3 trying to play knights on horseback, leading to him finally offloading his guilt about the waiter to his siblings, leading to season 4 where he seems to have lost that shred of humanity that made him feel guilty over it; i think that's pretty important information to learn about him. roman went from proposing business-marriage to his father (season 2) to deluding himself into thinking he could just playact as the chosen son (season 3) to actually gaining the corporate position he wanted and going insane over it. shiv is working out an actual viable way for her to survive in this world beyond "go through dad," and everything between her and tom this season is new ground. even connor has had some critical beats in very little screentime (the wedding convo with willa, buying logan's apartment, etc). i acknowledge greg has been foundering for a while and im sorry to greggirls for your loss but frankly i personally never really cared about him the way i do the siblings.

also, i can't really read the political storylines and the psychological explorations as being separate from one another. like, roman and mencken is political commentary, but also a really important psychological beat for roman. same with shiv and matsson; same with kendall and his new tech infatuation; same with connor and the developments in his presidential run. if the political commentary is accomplishing something, it's because the character writing is accomplishing something, and vice versa. to me this sort of political-psychological monism has always been what makes succession tick, both in these storylines and in the broader way the show situates familial abuse as a function of the larger capitalist social matrix.

in general i guess i would question what type of character development we expect from a show whose psychological premise is that people don't fundamentally change. to me this was what made an episode like 'honeymoon states' so brutally effective: it's a reset in many ways, only with the centre of the universe gone forever, and the remaining characters finding new ways to make many of the same old mistakes. i think this does convey new information about the characters, and i think that sense of cyclical psychological claustrophobia is very much on purpose. you might still think it's executed poorly, or you might just dislike it as a narrative engine for a tv show—fair, i'm not going to try to talk you out of that. but i disagree that this season hasn't told us anything important, either about the characters or the political realm they operate in.

like i said, i do have more sympathy for dialogue critiques and i won't pretend none of the convos in season 4 have been clunky. i also do have some issues with season 3 (misuse or underuse of guest stars and secondary characters, a few episodes i don't think go anywhere, etc). personally though, i think season 4 has been stronger and tighter overall so far.

#s4 critiques

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blazehedgehog · 7 months

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Sonic team and sega both need to piss off. I'm more likely to get a finished product out of fangames and contractors who make one game and jump ship. How many times will sonic team make a "step in the right direction" before they stumble into something actually worth the retail price?

This is kind of a dangerous line of thinking, because that's assuming the problem comes from Sonic Team or even Sega itself.

We've already had off-hand comments from Takashi Iizuka about how he wants to make Sonic Adventure 3 but "Sega won't let him" and made them do Sonic Frontiers instead. Sonic Frontiers, a game Sega's current president was deliberately pitching as "targeting high review scores."

So you could say, "Well Sega is the one who is responsible, right?" But Sega is not the top of this ladder.

youtube

I've been talking about this video with friends since I saw it, because it's very interesting. Moon Channel is run by a Real Actual Attorney, and he uses that knowledge and insight to provide opinions on certain legal sides of video games. In this video, he tackles why Sega seems to be so lax about fan-made content. It's sort of a sequel to a previous video, about why Nintendo is so protective.

The general idea put forth in this Sega video is that corporations are protective of things that have value, and Sega used to be more protective than Nintendo when it comes to intellectual property.

That changed when Sega was bought out by Sammy, a company mostly known for its pachinko gambling machines. Moon Channel suggests that Sammy bought Sega almost more for PR reasons than financial ones. Sega has a loyal and dedicated fan base, and by putting Sega forward as the face of the company, Sammy gets to operate with less scrutiny towards their gambling business.

For as loyal as Sega fans are, Sonic fans are even more loyal. So Sammy basically allows Sonic to operate as a "hero to the children" both figuratively and literally as long as it helps keep the company's image clean and Sega ultimately looking benevolent. Even though Sammy very clearly does not provide enough time, resources, or budget to actually make sure Sonic products are consistently good.

He does not make these claims baselessly. He references real earnings reports where Sammy directly talks about some of this strategy, and how little Sonic actually matters compared to their pachinko business.

He also suggests that Sonic could be at something of a turning point right now, given a confluence of recent success even in spite of Sammy's general disinterest towards actually growing the Sonic brand. Sonic has hit a string of success almost by accident, and by Moon Channel's prediction, that could mean Sega could start getting protective again, if nothing else, to prevent another Ken Penders incident.

My point in all of this is that you gotta go up the ladder a few rungs if you're looking for somewhere to point fingers. Even Takashi Iizuka, for all the power he has within the Sonic franchise, is still just trying to keep his job.

Does that absolve him of making bad decisions? No. It merely explains where some of this blame is coming from. The end product can still be bad, but there's a lot of pressure coming down from the top and all sorts of arbitrary guidelines we probably don't know anything about.

And, in general, "THERE ARE FAN GAMES BETTER THAN THIS" is probably a very good way to draw the wrong kind of attention. If you start threatening Sega about this stuff, you endanger a lot more than just yourself.

#questions #Anonymous #sega #sonic the hedgehog #sammy #sonic team #takashi iizuka

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acourtofthought · 1 year

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Just saw a post that says Elain and Lucien won’t be together because…

1. She loses her boldness around him and not with Az. (When? You mean when she was recovering from being thrown in the cauldron against her will and her fiancé leaving her?)

2. SJM also hasn’t set up anything romantic with them. (I would argue she hasn’t set up anything significant with Az either since they were both in love with other people for at least two books but ok)

3. The bonus chapter is irrelevant (then why even write it at all?) 4. Az and Elain are a unique couple…(you mean…3 bros and 3 sisters?)

5. Az doesn’t consider Gwyn a friend (Neither did Feyre and Rhys at first but ok…)

6. He saved Elain bc he wanted to, he saved Gwyn bc he was told to? (You think Az wouldn’t have stepped in anyways…Jesus) 7. Out of all the couples, only Eriel has consistent foreshadowing & an actual plot. Huh?????

I swear I try to ignore a lot of the tik tok “reasons” to why Eriel is sooo “obvious”. It’s like I didn’t even read the same book. Though I understand difference in interpretation and SJM hasn’t written the book yet…there are so many things that I feel like certain people just make up in order to force this to work for them. Out of all the reasons listed, the most bothersome to me is implying that Az only saved Gwyn bc he was told to and he saved Elain bc he wanted to. That comment was icky to me.

I think they're referring to SF when Lucien gives her his Solstice gift and Elain shrinks back into herself, "no trace of that newfound boldness to be found".

And Elain has been showing boldness as of late. When she stood up to Nesta. When she went to the Hewn City even though the cruelty bothers her. When she offered to find the Trove (which Az didn't believe in her ability to do).

But you know where else Elain hasn't been bold? Around Az.

Azriel offered her a small smile that Elain quickly looked away from. Cassian tucked away his puzzlement.

She extended the wrapped gift, her hand shaking. “Here”

as she said softly, "put it on me?"

She opened her eyes, hurt and confusing warring there before she whispered, "I'm sorry."

Does any of that read as the same girl who told Nesta she wasn't a child to be fought over? Does that sound like the girl who squared her shoulders and declared she'd do what was necessary for this court?

Elain shies away from Lucien but we don't know the exact reason. It could be that their bond and the draw to him scares her, it could be that she wants to be stubborn and refuse to get to know him because she hasn't fully gotten over what happened with Grayson. We do know she's avoided getting to know him at all possible costs though so her drawing away is not her drawing away because she doesn't like the person Lucien is. She doesn't even know Lucien well at this point.

But after a year of being in close proximity with Az, after being receptive towards conversation with him, she's awkward as hell around him (and he her). Nesta and Cassian had more meaningful conversations before their near first kiss than E/riel has had. We've seen them talk about gardening, that Az rubs his temples, whether flying is scary for Illyrians and how Elain can use TT because Az was sitting out of the war. I mean, that's the stuff love is built on right there 😂 Obviously her being made into an entirely new species isn't something they should have spoken of. Whether she's over Graysen, what she's going to do with her bond, how he feels after Mor's rejection, his feelings of self worth, etc. Why talk about those things when there is headache powder!?!

So yeah, I'm more worried about the status of Elain and Az's behavior around one another than I am around Elain and Lucien at this point. It's par for the course for an Archeron to refuse to get to know the male she'll end up with it at first, to push him away, to ignore him (are we forgetting how Nesta acted towards Cassian multiple times? Gave him a look then walked away as if he were nothing?) to tell him she hates him, and so on. But no FMC has ever spent a year getting to know an endgame MMC and still be in the awkward phase that E/riel are in.

2) Why does SJM need to set up anything romantic with Elucien? She started off Chaol's book where he was romantically coded with another female yet he still ended up with someone entirely new? And Chaol had met Yrene yet he still kissed Nesryn after that.

3) I think we all know the bonus chapter is relevant, just as Cassian's bonus chapter was relevant to the future of his story. It's basically a sneak peek at the direction SJM will be going. No you don't have to have the bonus chapter but it doesn't change the fact that those who do are getting an early glimpse into where she's heading with the series.

4) Az and Elain are a unique couple because they are a YA romance done by an author who doesn't write typical YA romance. Which should concern them.

SJM does not do couples who are shy and quiet with one another. She does couples who argue before getting together, where they talk about the real and the raw before getting together. Where they call out the other for their behaviors. The fact that E/riels say E/riel is in love yet we've never seen any of that heat from them, in my opinion, spells doom for E/riel. Az telling Elain she was a mistake? An endgame SJM couple would have had the female turn around and give the male a peace of her mind, not whisper "I'm sorry." 🤢

5) And neither did Rowan with his mate. He literally said, "we're not friends and I'm still training you". Which should be very concerning for anyone who doesn't ship Gwynriel because that has literally been their exact setup so far.

6) He saved Elain because he saw Cassian tell Nesta they would save Elain. Nesta told him it would be impossible for Cassian to retrieve her with his injuries and only after watching Nesta crying and hearing that Cassian couldn't go in did Azriel offer to save Elain. Sorry but that's not all that romantic to me considering Nesta and Cassian had an entire conversation before Az ever spoke up. And he KNEW Elain at that point yet he still wasn't the first to say something When he was ordered to Sangravah, he'd never even met Gwyn in his life. They don't realize how poorly their arguments stand up to actual scrutiny.

7) E/riel definitely has romantic hints. But so did Feyre and Lucien. So did Feyre and Tamlin. So did Azriel and Mor. So did Celeana and Dorian and Celeana and Chaol. Dorian and Sorscha. Chaol and Nesryn. So do Graysen and Elain.

And just as some of those romantic hints led to friendship only, just as some of those romantic hints led to a relationship, they all ended up ENDING. So to me it doesn't matter what romantic hints there may have been, it doesn't mean anything. E/riels have never shown me an argument that can't be easily dismissed by every other SJM book and what happened with those characters.

Does anyone honestly think she was going to make Elucien mates in book 2 and spend the next 2 books making it blatantly obvious to us that they were going to end up together? A good author would have created a "will they? won't they? situation and that's exactly what she's done. Created a rebound(ish) between Elain and Az to throw us off.

#elucien #pro elucien #elain archeron #anti e/riel #lucien vanserra #gwynriel

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