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thekingofthenameless · 1 year

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Since you sent me, I shall send in return!

Blorbos? Tell me about them if you wish!

YES

Okay. Technically he’s my own creation. But DR!Merlin is definitely my blorbo! I’ve made posts about his redesign (which I need to update) and characterization, so now it’s time for backstory!

Well, some of it. The meme I made definitely still applies, but I can, at the least, now tell you about his birth and his sister! :D

So obviously, Emerald Embers spoilers, but there are a lot of dark subjects ahead.

TW/CW for: rape, mentions of genocide, murder, and child death.

In the year 5,650 B.C., Adhan, a mortal human, is raped by a cambion. Merlin is born nine months later as a result.

It was an attempt to bring the Anti-Christ into the world, and as the first human wizard, Merlin was supposed to be. His magic surfaces as a baby, because a demon’s magic is very powerful.

Being half-demon also gave him exceptional intelligence, and it first shows through his eyes. His eyes are a muddy color when he’s born, but as he gets older, and his blue eyes become clearer, intelligence shines in them.

(At two years old he speaks very eloquently, and he’s already beginning to act like an adult in a child’s body.)

Adhan falls in love and marries his stepfather, also a normal human, about a year after his birth.

Three months later, she gets pregnant.

One day, Adhan and Merlin are sitting in their family home. She’s rocking him, and he’s falling asleep. But then a noise coming from his mother’s stomach startles him awake. She’s very confused by what noise he could be talking about, but they eventually figure out that he was hearing a heartbeat from her unborn baby.

His sister, Ganieda is born, and when he sees her for the first time, he gets a gut feeling that she isn’t like him. He’s confused, because he doesn’t know why she isn’t, and he’s sad, because he thought she would be like him.

But he loves her, and when she grows old enough, she loves her big brother’s magic.

Back then, magic wasn’t feared or hated, and people were amazed by it.

But as he and Ganieda grow up, more wizards start being born, and so do more cambions who wanted to bring the end of the world, because Merlin apparently won’t. (He doesn’t even know the true circumstances of his birth until years later.)

Because of all this, people become afraid. They begin to associate all human magic with demons and evil, and they decide they need to exterminate it.

So… they start capturing wizards and killing then.

Whether the wizards are innocent or not isn’t the point; no matter what, it’s a terrible, brutal act that shouldn’t have happened, but it does, and it keeps happening.

But Merlin and his family are safe, and he has no idea what’s going on. (The mortal humans know he has a high amount of power, even if he hasn’t used it yet, so they want to get the drop on him.)

Ganieda gets married to a mortal man named Rhydderch Hael, and Merlin, who’s just started getting into crafting, makes them both wedding gifts.

She gets a necklace, and Rhydderch gets a knife.

Ganieda gets pregnant pretty soon after the wedding, and everyone is overjoyed. Merlin is very excited to be an uncle because it’s his only sibling, and unbeknownst to them, the baby is a girl.

The fear of magic keeps getting worse. Soon whole mobs dedicated to wiping out at all magic form, and they decide they have enough manpower to kill Merlin.

They arrive to Merlin’s village. A few of them infiltrate it, pretending to be newcomers searching for a home; the rest of them stay in hiding. They begin spying on Merlin, and they learn that he has a sister. And anyone who’s in proximity to magic and knows about it is helping them live, and helping the magic spread, so they need to die.

One day, Merlin and Rhydderch go out to trade metal for silk, leaving Ganieda at home because she’s very far along at that point.

The mob strikes.

They break the door to Merlin, Ganieda, and Rhydderch’s house down, and they stab her in the stomach, killing her and her unborn child.

Then they set a few houses on fire, driving everyone else out. They leave Merlin’s family home alone for him to discover.

Then they take their exit, satisfied that their work is done. They’d ruined the village, killed Merlin’s sister, and Merlin would definitely end himself when he discovered the carnage.

Merlin and Rhydderch arrive home to their village mostly burned down, with no one in sight. They’re confused, horrified, and terrified for their family’s safety.

They race to their house, and find the door broken, hanging off its hinges.

Ganieda is on the floor close to the entrance. She’s lying in a pool of her own blood, and it’s clear that she’s been dead for a while.

They stare at her in horrified silence, shock rendering them completely unable to speak.

Merlin starts to disassociate for the first time.

Rhydderch, who had gone to his sister and picked up her body while he was, calls his name and begs him to do something, snapping him out of it.

He walks toward them with shaking legs and kneels slowly, taking her into his arms.

And he tries to think of something, anything, that will help-

But he knows he can’t do anything, and Rhydderch sees it in his eyes. He starts sobbing, and Merlin starts crying too.

Merlin starts to lose his innocence that day. It would take a lot more centuries, a lot more losses, and a lot more trauma, but it was the first thing that changed him into the man he is now.

The village slowly starts trickling back, and they hold a funeral for Ganieda and the baby.

At the funeral, Rhydderch gives Merlin her necklace, saying that he should have it because he was the one who made it.

He takes it without protesting and puts it on, a thousand yard stare on his face.

A few months later, Merlin and Rhydderch find themselves in a battle with the steadily growing number of anti-magic humans. (Some of them are definitely the ones who murdered Ganieda and her child.)

One of them stabs Rhydderch in the heart, and Merlin sees him go down.

He races over, kneeling so quickly he roughly slams his knees, but he barely notices that.

Maybe this time his magic could do something.

He lights his hands up and slams them down into his brother-in-law’s chest, over and and over again.

It doesn’t do anything.

Rhydderch is already gone. He’s dead, just like his sister. Just like his sister, there are no goodbyes, no promises to see each other again.

He stares down at his brother-in-law’s body, his blood covering his hands.

He snaps. A grieving, agonized scream tears from his throat, and with it comes a wave of uncontrollable magic that blasts everyone away.

He picks his brother-in-law up and cradles his body, just like he’d cradled his sister’s.

The village has another funeral.

Eventually, Adhan and his father die of old age, leaving him with only Charlie.

Speaking of Charlie. I need to insert him in here. 🥹🤦‍♀️

Eh that’s a worry for future me 😎👍

Thanks for the ask!

#mine #talesofarcadiaforever answers #talesofarcadiaforever rambles #the-arson-author-gamer #tales of arcadia #trollhunters #wizards #toa fanfiction #Daylight’s Redemption #Journey by Daylight #Merlin Ambrosius #DR!Merlin #adhan #ganieda #rhydderch hael #long posts

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flightless-rising · 3 years

Text

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

#flight rising #fr #flight rising meme #iceberg meme

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oflgtfol · 2 years

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can you PLEASE talk more about the guy fieri arg because seeing those three words together made my brain feel like it was collapsing and i need to know more

OKAY. to start things off i will say here is my guy fieri arg tag in chronological order, so you can see how it actually progressed over time. now, for the in-depth explanation:

JANUARY 22nd, 2021: THE BEGINNING

the tumblr icon on desktop changes to have guy fieri's facial hair and sunglasses. the featured post on the side of the dashboard was also a drawing of guy fieri. when you did inspect element on the dashboard, an ASCII art of guy fieri showed up in the console.

but the real confusion was that a banner appeared at the top of the desktop dashboard. it said "Welcome to Flavortown" in an obnoxious script font and has a photo of guy fieri on the side. when you clicked on it, it brought you to the blog fieriframes.tumblr.com, which is a blog that is like horrendously dedicated to created gifsets of diners, drive-ins, and dives. when i say this blog is horrendously dedicated, i mean a new gifset like every 3 hours. and it had been running for several years at that post (and it's still running apparently!!!). and it only ever got like 0-3 notes which is sad, so much effort for so little traction. absolute dedication

so everybody is a bit perplexed. why is tumblr promoting this random blog? you google "Guy fieri" and it turns out that it's his birthday today. woo! perhaps tumblr is just being fucking weird and deciding to celebrate guy fieri's birthday for no reason. whatever

most people brush it off as tumblr being silly. but a few curious people look a bit deeper. you look at some of fieriframes' posts and realize that the dialogue is... peculiar. it obviously is not from the show itself, or weirdly cropped in a way that no human would ever do. some have weird glitched cutoffs, or weird things edited onto them?? and the image descriptions were very insane and janky, not describing the gifs properly at all. the only thing the IDs captured correctly was the dialogue.

it's all very strange. but it looks like perhaps the reason the blog runs so regularly is that the gifsets are computer-generated, which would also explain why they're edited so weirdly. in the end it's all easy to brush off still

THEN ENTERS: et in arcadia ego

if you scrolled far enough down the blog to find last night's posts (yes, it posted so often that you had to scroll that far just to access posts from last night), you'd find the weirdest fucking gifset ever. the coloring is all black and white. the dialogue captions are the most cryptic ever, creepy almost even. the people's faces are blurred out by some black circle with white eyes. and in the image description, where it typed out the dialogue within the gifs, a few choice words are colored red.

if you look closely, a certain tag stands out. "et in arcadia ego." if you searched the blog for that tag alone and sorted by chrono, you'd see that the blog had been posting similar things once a day since december 28, 2020. the first few posts were relatively normal, with minimal editing other than the dialogue choices, but they quickly took on the black and white aesthetic and consisted of longer gifsets.

i began to trace through the et in arcadia ego tag and string the red words along together, because i figured they would form some sort of message. as of january 22nd, that message was:

carry my bones across the threshold soon it will be night you already have the map did you find me where is the world i know who you are

i then began compiling the complete list, including original dialogue as well as the red words, in this post.

aside: doctor phil m&m explanation

literally as this arg was slowly falling into place, with everyone crawling through fieriframes, the ASCII art in the tumblr dashboard inspect element code kept getting updated as well. it was switching between the guy fieri art, mentioned earlier, and also ASCII art of the doctor phil m&m meme in the "you know i had to do it to em" pose.

among the small group of people following the arg, this became a joke. and it eventually became a meme to crack ship guy fieri and doctor phil m&m. hence, phileri was borne. people made sideblogs specifically for the phileri memes, and then valentines day 2021, tumblr staff then pinned one such blog phileri-lovin.tumblr.com to the top of the dashboard with the "OTP <3" banner

JANUARY 23, 2021: THE CONTINUATION

as it was no longer guy fieri's birthday, the flavortown banner disappeared. the guy fieri tumblr logo disappeared. the featured post went back to normal. and the dashboard inspect element code stayed solid on the dr. phil m&m, no more swapping with guy fieri anymore. the tumblr dashboard was back to normal for most people. but this was not the end of the arg.

people continued to search through fileriframes in order to find more strange posts. among them was this post, in a similar aesthetic style to et in arcadia ego, but without being tagged. also, the dialogue is not in the latin alphabet, and the ID is unhelpful by simply listing a bunch of question marks. apparently those characters are from the Voynich manuscript, and using some cipher i don't understand, they discovered that the caption says something like

They used the (mord tanis tmuhh)

upon googling for any more information about this arg, i found that reddit users had found it before tumblr. here, they explain that tanis is some sort of podcast or something. tanis in particular is another recurring theme on fieriframes a la posts such as this.

my unfortunate break with the arg

so i stopped paying attention after like january 24th because that's right when my spring 2021 semester was starting. i don't know where it went from here or how it ended but i'm assuming it's as utterly insane as the start was. i think i read somewhere that it finished towards the end of february so that's like, a whole extra month of insanity. from an arg based around guy fieri.

#there was a discord server and everything LMAO #ask #Anonymous #guy fieri arg #the problem with args nowadays is that it all goes down in discord servers #which is like good i guess for keeping it centralize #but bad bc 1. its so hard to keep track of it as its developing. you have to be there as people send messages #otherwise its basically lost. so its very hard to backtrack and keep up if you take a break #which i had to do bc i was at school like i cant be glued to my phone all day LOL #and 2. im nervous about talking in discord servers so that like instantly killed my participation in uncovering the arg LOL #and sincethe discord happened. the tag became super inactive #so i basically lost all ability to actually keep up with other people discovering things #and then school so its like. well whatever then . so i just stopped paying attention #i know this probably wont reach anybody BUT to the ppl in the discord / who kept up with it in the end #can u please tell me how it happened LMAOO its going to haunt me to my grave i swear #im in an odd in-between state where i know so much about it began but i dont know how it ended #i know more than most people about it but i still dont know how it progressed past like . jan 24th

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that-random-citizen · 3 years

Text

Writeblr Intro

Apparently I haven't done one of these yet so here we go

About me

Hey! I'm a person who writes and has too many projects unfinished. Let's be friends!

So, what can I say about me?

This is my side blog dedicated to writing. I go by L. and I'm 21 years old. I'm Portuguese and my pronouns are she/her. INTP?? Let's just get to it

You inspired me to write this intro. Yes, you. I really like reading about all of you and your stories, makes all my writing process less lonely because now I know there's a bunch of other people out there... who also struggle to write...

Let's struggle together, my friends!

I started writing stories a long time ago but only in 2019 I finished one completely. And after that, I started trying not to give up on my projects after only 3 chapters. It's been a challenge!

Although a lot of my WIPs feature romance, I have no idea why. I like a lot of stuff. So I tend to write a lot of stuff. This stuff that I'm talking about are the genres. Yes, I'm good with words. I love mystery, thriller, comedy, fantasy, I don't really remember much more but yeah, you got the idea...

I'm very character driven so I tend to focus a lot on my characters when writing. That's the reason why I excuse my excessive amount of daydreaming instead of putting my thoughts on paper. I'm just developing the idea! It needs to reach its final form... And so, I can't really move on if I don't know my characters like the back of my hand and that's why it's been 7 years on that one WIP (introduced a little down below)

I reblog a lot of memes and writing advice that I like. I also like reblogging your WIPs because they're all so good and you guys have amazing ideas and beautiful layouts. I wish I could read all your stories! I may try to up my game and add some mood boards when I introduce my characters. I don't usually write in English so I'm not sure about posting excerpts but I'll be keeping my WIPs updated in terms of how they are doing and character wise. I can also talk about random ideas and new WIPs that cross my mind. It's an infinite number of possibilities. And that's why I don't gamble.

I'm quite random and so I have a hard time focusing on one thing for to long. And that, my dudes, brings us to a very high number of unfinished WIPs that I can't keep track of. Here's the list:

WIPs

I have to many to count (27). These are the ones I'm trying to focus on right now:

The 4 Elements

It's been 7 years!

Basically I came up with this story because my brother asked me to write it and I was trying to make him more interested in reading books so I decided I was going to write something he wanted to read. Uh, that's a long and confusing sentence... if only I had editing skills!

Anyways, then it became this big conversation topic between us and I developed it a lot over that summer. And in the past years. It also has some clichés that I see a lot on TV that I'm not that fond of and so I decided to give them a little twist with this book

It's a superhero story!? And is my longest running project (I guess)

It's a series of 4 books from which I have a good grasp of what I want to write but one of the main characters is still a mystery to me so... I'm struggling!

Like, what is her motivation? I can't really find her voice, she's the "leader" and the only one who carries a braincell in the entire series and yet... What is her conflict in the story? I guess we have to wait another 7 years to find out...

Found family trope because that's my reason to live

A lot of chaotic energy

Four idiots who can control the elements

A lot of backstory

Some bad guys

It's a fantasy book. Or a sci-fi? I'm not sure

I'm going to write the second draft of the first book by this summer... hopefully

Reverse Fairytale

I don't know what to say about this one

I like taking clichés and reversing them somehow so I guess this is it

There's a princess trapped in a tower, a bunch of knights, a bunch of witches and a kingdom to overthrow

Very soft, very sapphic

There are only women loving women and an ace boy who has a pet dragon

Fantasy. There are a lot of fairy tale books involved

It's also romance and... why do I do this to myself?

Even the subplot is a romance - it's about a mermaid and a pirate and a curse but that's a spoiler so let's move on

Helena's Trial

This one I just want to get the outline done

I really liked this idea but I forgot to write it down and now I'm going through it to get it back

Another thing about me: I have terrible memory

It's about this angel and this devil who realize that they were guarding the same person - Helena

And in this universe, there can only be one guardian for each human depending on the fate that is given to someone as they are born

If you're destined to do good things you get a guardian angel

If the big boss says you're going to be evil, you get a devil to guard you and you have to be evil, no chance of changing back your destiny

Another corrupt system that it's getting overthrown

Helena has both an angel and a devil guarding her so they have to realize her destiny fast because she's destined to die in 24 hours, on her wedding day

The angel and the devil knew each other before they died and so it's a little awkward

It's a little enemies to lovers in that area

There are also cupids and a big Goddess who wants revenge

Fantasy

There's a screenplay...

So I'm trying something here but I'm still not sure.

I have about 100,000 words of backstory and that isn't even over yet and I'm trying to write a TV series screenplay.

I literally don't know why

It's a comedy so I had a really great time getting to make my characters be complete idiots but I have no idea how to write this and it's been a ride...

That's about it. I'm having new character ideas but I don't want to get myself wrapped around them yet. But my next big thing is going to be a horror novel (with chaotic energy and some idiocy, the only things that are a constant in my works) so if you have any tips, let me know. I tend to write in every genre. I thrive for it actually. I think it's a good experience to figure out what I truly enjoy and the things I wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole

Anyways, feel free to interact, I'll be making an effort to be more active about my WIPs and post more about them here. Maybe it's the little push I need to focus on them and actually finishing one for a change. You can drop a message anytime, let's be friends and writing buddies!

#writeblr #writerscommunity #writeblr intro #writeblr introduction #writers on tumblr #writing community #writing #wip

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ladyryukyo · 3 years

Note

Always awesome to find another MFB blog!! Thanks for the follow btw 💙 Consider this ask an invitation to share any of your favorite MFB headcannons👀👀

omg hi! thank you for the follow, dude, your blog is awesome 💛,, hmm my favorite mfb headcanons...

I think I'll have to say the legendary bladers keeping in touch after defeating nemesis. I just don’t think it makes sense for them to split up without another word after saving the world from being destroyed by an angry, ancient god bey. I can’t imagine a more profound bonding activity lol.

it’s not initially the bladers’ idea to keep in contact but the WBBA’s. they wanted a way to contact the legendary bladers in case of emergency since they are the most powerful bladers in the world presumably.

(you never know when the world might be destroyed next. could be in the far future. could be next week. the WBBA just wants to be prepared.)

so they give every legendary blader a brand-new phone and hope no one accidentally destroys theirs in whatever crazy dangerous training plan they come up with.

gingka is the one who suggests creating a group chat with everyone which is of course a terrible idea which is why ryo absolutely loves it.

it goes well for about two hours and then yu finds out about the gc and wants to be in it. tsubasa joins to keep an eye on him and madoka joins to keep an eye on everyone. hikaru joins to supervise for the WBBA and after that no one can stop benkei from joining no matter how many burgers kyoya tries to bribe him with. then aguma argues that it would be unfair not to let bao in and suddenly there are way too many people and the gc is way too chaotic.

the first thing kyoya does is mute the chat, put his new phone on Do Not Disturb and proceed not to check his messages for the next two weeks. he only ever writes in the gc when he has another win against a legendary blader to report and to ask who wants to be his next opponent. other than that one message every few weeks, he doesn’t really exist in the gc.

benkei travels with kyoya from legendary blader to legendary blader but at least he lets everyone know that they’re both still alive. he sends a lot of photos in the chat, mostly sneaky, blurry pictures of kyoya, some selfies and pictures of the many different types of food they encounter. he makes everyone jealous with the last one and has to promise to cook some of them for everyone once he’s back.

tsubasa entertains the group chat w daily updates about everyone’s favorite pet eagle (whose name i don’t know but i’m pretty sure tsubasa just called it ‘eagle’ in the show?? it’s so no one figures out he actually calls it cutesy pet names in private. no one can know). eagle is a riot because she is well trained but also has a mind of her own. i just decided eagle is female. you can play catch with her as long as you’re respectful but in exchange she is allowed to land on your head and try and feed you the fish she just caught. yu likes to message tsubasa suggestions what he should make eagle do next. one time he asked tsubasa to put a wig on her and see what happens. she was very regal about the whole thing.

(i could write so much abt tsubasa and his pet eagle, this whole concept lends itself to so much ridiculousness. i’m going to write a separate post abt them another time.)

you know who the most hilarious texters of the group are? dynamis and aguma. everyone expects them to be as collected and serious as they usually are but. wrong. dynamis lives in a temple on top of a mountain that is protected by many deadly traps. he lives pretty far from human civilization and we can assume he never got many visitors so. i can’t imagine there’s good cell phone reception at mist mountain. has he ever used a phone before? does he even know what the internet is??

same with aguma: beylin fist is an exclusive organization forced into exile and obscurity for many years. their sole goal was to train until they could defeat beylin temple and prove themselves to the world. once again we can assume there was not much surfing the internet going on here.

expectation: dynamis and aguma text with proper punctuation and grammar, do not use emojis, do not understand memes, do not send gifs or anything that isn’t a fully formed sentence you could copy and paste for your essay in school that would make your english teacher weep with joy.

reality: dynamis: OMG!! 😱 The ✨ say you are super 🍀 this week, Aguma!! 🤩 You should 💪 a lot LOL!! 🔮 (trans: the stars say you are super lucky this week aguma. you should train/fight a lot) (also it’s a tragedy that there’s no spinning top emoji)

aguma: k iuss l2g l8er? (trans: okay, if you say so. would you like to go [fight] later?)

dynamis: YES!! (trans: yes)

aguma: gr8 cul (trans: great, see you later)

everyone is so confused. at least they can understand what dynamis is saying but what is with the exclamation marks?? the emojis replacing words? the abbreviations in all caps that make the texts look like a middle-aged wine mom on facebook wrote them? don’t get them started on aguma and the unintelligible mess he calls a text message. does he just take a bunch of random letters and numbers and throw them together however he sees fit? apparently not because dynamis understands everything he sends even if he is the only one in the gc that does.

dynamis and aguma bonded over their mutual ignorance of everything technology when the gc was first created. yu said lol once in the gc and that was the moment dynamis and aguma learned about chat speak which is why everyone blames yu for this disaster. dynamis thinks the emojis are very helpful and aguma straight up memorized a list of more than 1,500 internet abbreviations. no one has the courage to tell them that nobody actually speaks like that on the internet and that they took it a little too far than is normal.

you know these people that are super nice and soft-spoken in real life but swear like a sailor over text and reveal that they have like a really obscure humor? that’s yuki. although he usually doesn’t say much in a group and feels shy around other people, especially when they are as loud and extroverted as for example yu or king, over text when he’s not face-to-face with them he doesn’t feel like he has to watch himself as much. he is usually overly conscious of his actions and words but through the virtual barrier between him and everyone else it makes it much easier for him to just say what he thinks and what he thinks is actually really funny and weird.

yuki actually has a pretty large online following for his fandom blog about various books and tv shows where he very passionately argues over fandom meta and character analysis. because of his active interest in fandom his references can be... a bit obscure and specific. there is always one person in the gc that understands the references and finds them hilarious but everyone else is left thoroughly confused and questioning their sanity.

that is all i have for this for now but i’ll add more when i think of it. everyone is of course welcome to add their own ideas!

#this was so much fun tysm for the ask #i'm really sorry for how long this took me i just kept adding onto it and it never seemed to stop D:#mfb #mfb headcanons #metal fight beyblade #beyblade metal fury #i wrote this

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prosopopeya · 3 years

Text

New Year’s Meme

this survey has been a tradition among my friend group for YEARS, but i haven’t filled it out since 2015 apparently. i’m not entirely sure why except 2016 was the year a lot of stuff changed for me, namely in that i finally got out of school in some form and started a new job, but i also had a few health problems that kept plaguing me (thyroid medicine being off, vitamin d) and my anxiety was all over the place. so here we go i’m doing it again and feel free to do it too if you want!!

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before? tried on wedding dresses. taught virtually. dealt (poorly) with drunk teenagers. performed in a pep rally. wore face masks all the time. i’m going to lump in living with someone. jon moved in october 2019, but i don’t think i did this quiz last year so. taught ap.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year? i don’t really like resolutions. they put too much pressure on me and i am a fragile person when it comes to setting expectations and living up to them. i did want to try to read more this year, and i maintained that until the pandemic, and then just kind of gave up requiring myself to do anything but live.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? i don’t think so. a coworker did.

4. Did anyone close to you die? jon’s cousin committed suicide in march or april. the circumstances were pretty upsetting. um. andy died in february, very suddenly. andy was my high school boyfriend for four years with whom i had a very... he scarred me in a lot of ways when it comes to sex and consent. it’s taken me a long time to unpack all of that. and i struggle with how much any of that was his fault or just bc he was a stupid kid too. our mutual friends had nothing but nice things to say about him on fb. anyway. he would guilt me into saying he’d kill himself if we broke up, and jon’s cousin killed himself over his girlfriend. so that was a complex part of the year.

5. What countries did you visit? none. literally the week before the quarantine, we went to asheville to visit jon’s cousin.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020? maybe a different job? or at least some peace at doing mine.

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? march 13 we cancelled classes and had a technology training day; the 15th we had another one, and then we were virtual the rest of the term. it was such a sudden shift and while i so loved working from home tbh, it was such a relief after a supremely shitty january/february work-wise, i still had a lot of keyed-up, stressful days centered around transitioning to being the senior upper school spanish teacher. i hate it!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? writing 50k in the month of november. i have literally never done that before and actively reject nano as being typically unhealthy for how my mind works, so it was nice to do it entirely by accident.

9. What was your biggest failure? mishandling the drunken teenagers on that field trip in january.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? i sit crosslegged in my virtual teaching chair and i did it so much that my ankle hurt for the entire summer.

11. What was the best thing you bought? we put a deposit on our elopement in ireland. jon’s wedding ring. (i didn’t buy my wedding dress.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? my best friend at work who keeps me sane and is represented by benny in my au, which other than the fact that he is not my sidepiece, is perfect he is crucial to my survival at work and i love him so much. (also he is gay and the french teacher so the benny parallels just keep coming). everyone who tore down a statue in virginia (and other places, but especially monument avenue). everyone putting their lives on the line during this pandemic.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? guess! but aside from all the obvious, i found out a friend of mine at work voted for trump. my work bff and i had been trying for years to sway his politics, but that had us both deciding to give up on him.

14. Where did most of your money go? food, ALCOHOL. god., our savings account. i did a pretty excellent job saving this year, though a good deal of that is because jon moved in and makes more money than me, and also we split all the bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? my wedding dress but strangely only when i went to try it on after it came in bc after the purchase i was so sure i’d made every mistake possible. my wedding band. wellbutrin changing my whole life. and, last but certainly not least, the gay angel and the bi(lingual) hunter. i wouldn’t have survived nov-dec in school without that distraction. the election.

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2020? the entirety of taylor swift’s oeuvre this year, maybe specifically “this is me trying”

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. Happier or sadder? happier, i suppose, perhaps contrary to what should be the case, but wellbutrin is a hell of a drug. ii. Older or wiser? wiser. ii. Richer or poorer? richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? reading. cleaning. exercising.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? stressing. chaperoning.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? so, an update; last year was the first year i didn’t go to my mom’s for christmas. i was supposed to see her for thanksgiving last year, but she basically told us not to come bc she wasn’t feeling up to it (cool!), and we went to jon’s for christmas and my mom’s for new year’s.

this year, obviously we couldn’t go to my mom’s. instead, we rented a little cabin by the lake. it was perfect; it was really really nice inside, the beds were SO SOFT, the pillows were the best things i have ever laid my head on, like i took off the pillowcases to try to find the brand. we had a little tiny christmas tree with tiny ornaments from walmart that we decorated. the 23rd, we went and picked up our wedding bands. we slept two nights in the (cold) back bedroom so i could wake up and look out at the lake. it snowed for christmas. :)

we opened presents on christmas eve, per jon’s family’s tradition. on christmas eve, we also went to his family farm and sat outside and hung out a little. every year his family does like a secret santa sort of thing and i got my first present in that exchange, which is notable bc jon and i are not yet officially married. i got a remote control car -- jon’s idea bc i couldn’t think of anything, and he was so delighted to hear that i loved playing with rc cars when we went to the beach as a kid.

christmas morning we facetimed my parents and opened some presents together. then jon and i marathoned mandalorian (after spending the previous few days watching several die hard movies), and then we watched wonder woman 1984 which was a bad movie.

21. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve? ok LAST year for new year’s, we were in a hotel room, so that was nice, bc it meant minimal stress with my parents. i had always wanted to go to this restaurant near us that has a special new year’s menu, so we did that. the night before or after i think we went to cheesecake factory, which was also amazing.

this year currently i’m tumbling and he’s playing pokemon, and in a bit we’ll try to time it so we finish schitt’s creek in time for the new year.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020? i re-fell in love with supernatural so that was nice.

23. How many one-night stands? 0. i submit we should randomly change question 23 each year to something more relevant to any of our life experiences.

24. What was your favorite TV program? what did i even watch this year. schitt’s creek. mandalorian. i mean obviously we know supernatural. the circle. are you the one (the queer season). pose. unsolved mysteries. we’re here! perry mason. watchmen. oh maybe that mcdonald’s monopoly fraud documentary. avenue 5. i’ll be gone in the dark. of those i think my favorite maybe is... pose or we’re here.

OKAY UM. on my 2014 version of this there were a bunch of questions about tv shows that i’m putting back in if only for the memories:

25. Which TV shows did you start watching in 2020? the haunting of bly manor, which we still need to finish. derry girls.

26. Which TV shows did you let go of in 2020? HERE’S WHY I WANTED TO RESURRECT THESE. here was my answer in 2015: “supernatural. goodbye, my sweet prince.” CAN YOU EVEN FUCKING BELIEVE

27. Which TV shows did you mean to get into but didn’t in 2020? Why? so far, queen’s gambit and that one on hulu with catherine the great. EVENTUALLY. 28. Which TV shows do you intend on checking out in 2020? fleabag. queen’s gambit. 29. Which TV show do you think you might let go of in 2020 unless things significantly improve? idk i drop things pretty regularly if they don’t entertain me 30. Which TV show impressed you least in 2020? GUYS HERE’S MY ORIGINAL 2015 ANSWER: “supernatural. :(”

anyway back to the rest of the quiz:

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? every person who refuses to listen to facts and information.

26. What was the best book you read? killers of the flower moon: the osage murders and the birth of the fbi, or the his dark materials series.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? well i knew about tswift so i’m not going to count her albums. i will count this song that jon played for me once in the car that got stuck in my head for two weeks straight and led me down into a great related-songs spotify playlist: through the roof ‘n underground.

28. What did you want and get? a wedding dress and a very specific kind of wedding band. a gay angel. a christmas getaway. animal crossing.

29. What was your favorite film of this year? idk i don’t know how many films i saw this year. maybe mucho mucho amor: the legend of walter mercado

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i was 32. we went to an escape room with a BUNCH of people -- work bff, my old work bff and his wife (old bc he quit and we’ve fallen out of touch :(), the cool new physics teacher and his fiancee, and the aforementioned trump voter and his wife, before we knew... we went out for brunch/lunch after. it was pretty great!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? not having to chaperone that school trip in january. dean being bi in english as well as spanish. cas just ilke, appearing in 15x20. not having to physically go back to work this fall.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020? no! real! pants!

34. What kept you sane? jon. supernatural (in a way?). animal crossing for a while. wellbutrin! i haven’t really been able to detail this yet, but finally i did something about tumblr and my therapist making me think about adhd. my doctor gave me wellbutrin (bc i lack any official diagnosis and was on anxiety meds anyway, and he was like let’s try this!) and it’s fucking. it’s a fucking godsend. surprisingly enough, my students. trying to provide them a safe space has been a calming thing for me.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? jensen ackles’ silence. misha collins again, i guess.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? the summer was so fucking intense. i guess though it was me trying to exert my influence in a responsible way with my students without trying to try to make them feel uncomfortable but then one kid was a vocally upset trump supporter after the election and i had to try to defuse that situation.

37. Who did you miss? my old work bff. several old friends that i’ve fallen out of touch with bc i have no object permanence.

38. Who was the best new person you met? people i met through the spn resurgence!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020: if you manifest it in an au, it will come. no really though. maybe that expectations are only as important as i make them out to be.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: usually i have a hard time coming up with anything for this and i default to looking at my most played songs of the year. my most played song of the year received each and every one of its plays within the month of november and you can guess why. anyway see if this works

I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Take me back to the night we met - the night we met, lord huron

#happy new year #annual meme

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hilltopsunset · 3 years

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I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield

I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.

Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder.

While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.

Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.

1. Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation

By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.

I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.

2. Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw

Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.

Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.

Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.

3. Gen VII: Focus on Minigames

The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.

Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.

Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…

4. Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious

When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.

And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.

What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.

When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?

I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).

I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.

There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.

When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.

I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.

#pokemon #pokemon shield #pokemon sword/shield #game review #review #hilltop sunset #streamer #gamefreak #gen viii #gen 8

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pocmuzings · 4 years

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hello g :D i have a quick question for you if you don’t mind? in my past rps, i’ve had a lot of issues with ooc discords. despite this, i do still enjoy them, and would like to have them in my rp, but i do know others don’t care for them or don’t feel comfortable joining them. i tend to make joining the discord required in my rps, only because i personally post important, members only info about the rp there and because i think it’s important for members to be able to access and be notified of other player’s intros, starters, etc. over a little while i’ve thought of two ways to combat this, and i’m just wondering which you think might work best/make the most sense? 1/2

(cont’d ) the first is having a discord that functions like an ooc sideblog, since sideblogs are no longer reliable due to tumblr’s constant shitty updates. this option would mean that the discord has no form of ooc chatting, and is simply just a place to share links to your important info, intros, starters, etc as well as any small ooc updates like hiatuses and things. the second option is to have a discord that again, functions as stated above for everyone who first joins. everyone who first joins will have their permissions set to only view certain channels and an ooc chat WILL NOT be one of them. after one week of consitent activity, a member can request to be given permission to join the ooc chat, should they wish. to further combat cliqueyness and issues of people talking over one another, there’ll be a consistent slowmode in place to slow the flow of chatting. thanks for any and all help ❤️

hello , i don’t mind at all !!! you never have to worry about bothering me ! it’s my pleasure to assist in any way i can ! i’d just like to preface this by saying this is my opinion and my own biases !

i personally have never seen the benefit in an ooc chat on discord . even if it has ‘slow mode ‘ enabled , it doesn’t do much in terms of preventing cliques , inside jokes , and the chat to overall move quite quickly still . i have been in rps who definitely have slow mode activated , and when i do jump online , i still have to scroll through 200 + messages . it’s overwhelming , and it’s a lot , sometimes ! plus , even when you’re new , jumping into an established group , with an established ooc chat is HARD . there are inevitable bonds and connections already formed , both ic and ooc . there are inside jokes . there are meme’s . it’s a sure fire way to always feel slightly like an Outsider , or slightly excluded .

this is why i think , if you wanted a discord group for ooc things , it WOULD be a great idea to utilise this space to promote events , starters , make channels for plotting calls and starter calls , and post a ‘WELCOME NEWCOMERS! ‘ to help ease people in and explain things further for ic items and strictly rping purposes . i might be worried that without the option of not chatting to each other in an ooc group chat , some people may not go online discord at all , but that’s a General risk with discord .

i personally don’t like the idea of having ‘ permission ‘ to join an ooc chat due to their ‘consistent activity ‘ . this can be really hard for some people to accomplish ( due to time differences , jobs , etc etc ) . obviously you want a rp to have consistent activity , but labelling and wording an ooc chat that way isn’t super encouraging ( i , myself , would find it slightly elitist to need ‘ permission ‘ in joining an ooc chat . that may just be wording that can be ironed out , though ! ) . also , even if people joined the group chat after one week of consistent activity , this would still be hard to not form cliques or inside jokes , because not everybody joins rps at the same time . it poses the same issue , potentially , as having any other normal group ooc chat !

all in all , ooc group chat or not and whichever way you go . i always think it’s a good idea to not make an ooc chat ‘ mandatory ‘ . either post all events / meme days / starters on tumblr , or make your discord just for that purpose , instead . i personally really dislike and am uncomfortable with ooc chats being made ‘ mandatory ‘ on discord, and for rping on tumblr , just because they Sometimes will hold ic / rp information as well . people should have the option of receiving this information on both platforms , not being told they Have to join the discord ooc or they’ll miss out on apparently ‘ important information ‘ . sorry , this is a pet peeve of mine . rps , pls stop describing ur ooc discord chat as ‘ mandatory ‘ . ooc chats and discord isn’t for everyone !!!

again , this is totally up to you ! every side has its pros and cons ! i’m glad u have had a positive experience with discord and ooc chats ! as u can tell . . i have Not . dsjnjkdfj . i also just have a preference of talking to people one on one , myself !!!

#this is controversial of me to say probably #anyways sorry this got so long #i hope it helped provide some ?? insight ?? mb ??#then again i am just one person with one Strong view thats all !!!#its only bc im always bitter abt my timezone and inevitable fomo fdkjfdj #rph #rpc #Anonymous

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 4 years

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HGPC 17 - 21 | Koi to Producer 2 - 6 | Appare 5 - 8 | Fugou Keiji 4 - 6

...only just realised I was missing some tags. They should be there now or soon.

HGPC 17

Why do I get the feeling the Sawaizumi family will be held hostage one day…? (Maybe I’m just being negative?)

The episode title mentions Chiyu by name, so I wonder why the translation didn’t…

Customer service! You can’t get away from it, even in COVID times…! (Impressive!)

Hmm…you can actually read part of the booking for the Smiths in the book if you know the kanji.

I thought the Smiths would speak in English, but they actually speak in fluent Japanese if the word “susume” was any indication.

Ah, Sukoyaka sweet buns! (from the other episode about the festival)

HGPC 18

Don’t burn down your house with scented candles, kids!

Also remember to use your knees when lifting heavy boxes! (<- says a charity store volunteer, who does this stuff on the regular)

These days the mascots usually have a human form. I wonder if this is implying that particular direction…? (I woke up today and was craving a certain oneshot I’d read during my scanlation days…if it is, it would fill that niche nicely.)

I wonder if the kids will recognise this Ashita no Joe parody…?

HGPC 19

“…since you were young?”

Oh! Element of Wind again!

Koi to Producer 2

This almost feels like Victor is assigning a school project to Protag-chan…it’s a bit sad, really.

It’s nice they let Protag-chan have a personality.

It’s fine if you can’t read the katakana, but Gavin’s name is Haku in Japanese, so it throws out the immersion somewhat…also, I know I shouldn’t be complaining – I’m the target audience here – but do these guys look kinda similar or what…? (partially kidding)

High school sweethearts, huh? “Childhood friends” is my favourite angle of a romantic relationship, but it gets so overused by harems it comes around to being boring…!

I-Is this Stand My Heroes…?! (LOL…?)

Can we not with 1st person cam…?

As cute and dorky as this stuff gets…how does Gavin never get found?! Does nobody ever look up in this city?!? (I thought Evolvers were meant to be a secret…?)

GPS tracker? That’s no better than large corporations using your location data…Isn’t that creepy…?

Hold on, when did she get his phone number? You would assume it was before this entire chase after the boy happened, but still…?

LOL, the English on the board.

This anime is gonna cause me some frustration, but it gives the good stuff in roughly equal measure. It seems to omit the fact you interact via phone with your bois for intimacy (in the game).

Koi to Producer 3

LOL, that’s so clearly Gavin…

By googling, you find out Uptown and Queens are in New York.

Ohmygosh! Did the creators know I love the trope where only people with superpowers can move in certain circumstances?!

Uh…his name is Kira in Japanese? Did someone read the katakana wrong?

Pictured: Depressed bishonen eating bad pudding. (…That joke sounds better in my head. I forgot what meme I was meant to be parodying there, but I had a meme in mind.)

Lemme guess…this man (I dunno if it’s one of the previous bishies with an identical face or a new one) is looking for MC-chan. *sigh* Update: Yep, just Victor again. To be honest, I don’t like anyone who calls harsh words “their sign of love” – love should be honest and upfront. That’s how it becomes heartmelting.

Koi to Producer 4

Okay, in order, it seems to be hexadecimals, Javascript (you can tell from the “const”), some kind of profiles which are apparently for human lab rats (which seem to have some kind of nonsense filler text), a DNA model and DNA bases (ACGT).

The text on the screen says something along the lines of this being an official broadcast of this man’s arrest and this man was a genetic researcher. Obviously, if I wanted to put more attention into what it meant, I would, but I won’t sweat the details this time (because it doesn’t seem to impact the plot).

The guy’s name is Minor because minor key (geddit?)…that’s my guess.

I started playing the game due to this anime, if you didn’t know, and I unlocked an expert in ch. 2. I thought he was Minor, but turns out his name is Spine (an older man).

The diary, true to form, contains details about either one case or several cases, two involving children. The bottom of the 1st page says “if it’s fake, I’ll laugh”.

Hey, I once told Crunchyroll I wanted an anime about hacking (so is this a dream come true? I reveal all in the next sentence!). Hackers don’t congregate like this…they’d be too conspicuous, even with the secret hideout!

The code in the top left appears to be…C? I think? (Note they declare “unsigned int”.)

Kiro sometimes reminds me of Masayoshi (SamFlam)…it puts a derpy smile on my face.

*blah blah blah I’m Key* - Wuh…? F*** you, Kiro!!! (There is such a thing as piling too much cool stuff on to a character, y’know – I’m guilty of it in my own writing.)

3684 isn’t a very safe password (says someone who once aspired to be in cybersecurity).

What bugs me is that Simon is a perfectly fine name…it’s just a bit boring. Kiro/Kira I get (a bit), but Lucien/Simon…? *shrugs*

Ohh! Based MAPPA! Thank you for making this adaption look great!

Koi to Producer 5

Oh, I got an SR in the game recently and it has a line like, “Only a fool stays up all night to do others’ work. Victor talks like that a lot…

The sign so obviously says “Renka”, meaning “love flower”. “Loveland” really is a step down from that…

Where’s Gavin’s guest badge…?

“Happiness Noodle Store”…?

“…the end of our first year…”

If this weren’t a Chinese work by origin (or Japanese work by translation), I’m sure Protag-chan would have gone after Gavin, despite being told the contrary.

Kanya = Minor. I’ll take a note of that.

One of the books behind Minor says “Gale Start”…hmm…

That GPS tracker is still unintentionally creepy, IMHO.

Koi to Producer 6

…oh. (dejected) Probably a beach episode or something.

What the actual heck was going on with Lucien…? It’s like he was having a tiny stroke there…

Lucien’s power is listed as “???” in the game. I thought he was an aura-reader when he said “show me your colour”, but that shield thing he did means he might just have various psychic powers…? *shrugs* We’ll find out eventually.

Running in heels is hard…

LOL, that’s so clearly recreating a CG from one of the cards.

This is the 2nd time this has gone pseudo-isekai. As much as I like to joke about it…I fully expect someone to be sent to another world at this point.

I couldn’t possibly see Victor on any kind of game show, come to think of it.

Appare 5

This guy’s middle name is “Rich”! That’s silly!

A boombox from the 19th century…makes sense, somehow.

I only just (?) realised Al has a tiny tie on his usual outfit.

Back to the beginning already…just start!

Appare 6

…I just realised Appare mouths “I got it!” in the OP.

Al Lion (sic…?)

Isn’t Sofia in that train…? Update: She might have been, she might not. Hard to tell when they don’t confirm.

This series seriously could’ve done with a dub…Even with weird hokey Hetalia accents, it would be good stuff.

These bunches of people at designated points…reminds me of the book I was reading while in Japan. The Long Walk by Stephen King (part of a compilation). It still gives me shivers down my spine when I remember it.

This “leave in the middle of the night” thing reminds me of the Amazing Race.

“Valley of Despair” is made-up, but Death Valley exists. It’s one of the hottest places on earth, hence the name.

LOL, Kosame scores himself one (1) prarie dog and two (2) Hototos.

I thought Appare was being inconsiderate at first…but he’s being considerate, in his own way.

Oh! I didn’t realise, but Saito Soma is Al.

Appare 7

“It’s not one plus one, but one times one!” – LOL.

Hybrid engine? In the 1900s? Hmm…

LOL, I think Al just did a hadouken.

This stuff’s like an animated Galaxy Brain meme! It’s amazing!

I managed to successfully predict – without watching ahead – Appare would catch himself with his traps.

Kosame with his hair down…is rare. Not exactly attractive because we have to care about the racers rather than lust after them (and the artstyle actually prevents me from doing so, because it’s deliberately quite cartoony), but it’s rare.

Appare is surprisingly childish…that’s what makes him more than a Sheldon Cooper, I think.

The spelling of the place is actually “Ely”, if Google-sensei is any indication. C’mon, subbers! You’re American (most likely)! Can’t you put in the legwork (or the Google-fu) to discover what place in Nevada this is?!

Subbers make characters say “shit” a lot in this show, hmm? (contemplative)

Now this evil guy here *points to screen*…that’s hair I like.

Appare 8

I just love this OP…don’t you?

I like how the steam/gas boat/car has Chinese numerals on its dial.

Kosame means “small rain”, so “heavy rain” is obviously to contrast that.

The Hototo joke never gets old.

I thought I just saw someone leave the saloon…

Nice hair + terrible face = bad equation.

I can almost imagine the wee-oo-wee-oo-ooooooo…wah-wah-wahhh…(You know the one sound snippet, right? The one theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - or whatever movie it is – that maybe involves a tumbleweed rolling across the screen, and then a huge shootout? If you don’t know it, play a sample on this Wikipedia page!) playing in the background.

It’s convenient the prarie dog didn’t appear when Hototo (old) had his revenge spree.

I noticed there’s a bit of a mark under Kosame’s left eye…it suggests that he’s been crying (or maybe it shows tiredness from the race…?), but it’s not that noticeable.

So that’s the real Gil…and tose were his henchmen that threatened to hang everyone bar Kosame. Got it.

(notes to self) So, for charting a course with Appare Ranman!, it’s Los Angeles -> Death Valley -> Ely -> Denver -> ??? -> New York. Got it.

Fugou Keiji 4

“Daisuke-sama” isn’t “Lord Daisuke”, it would be “Sir Daisuke”, I think…but “lord” has a proper translation in Japanese.

The truck has a Shinagawa licence plate. Anime really does like Shinagawa, huh? (Based on ID: INVADED and this.)

I think it’ll be interesting to see Kambe handle this without HEUSC.

The board for Sanchome (which is equivalent to a suburb…or a county, I guess?) has posters saying stuff like “take your dog poop home” and “let’s protect the environment!” (technically, it says “let’s protect the region/area!”, but that doesn’t translate right. There’s even a flea market. Still, those posters don’t have any big hints…not that I know of so far.

I kind of forgot that dude was the gardener for Kambe’s house…er, mansion.

I noticed a poster in the kouban says haru (spring) on it. That’s probably the same one that Haru’s name is signified by, assuming that’s not in combo with another character or few.

Oh great…the sister is an overbearing one.

Ahh…he doesn’t like natto. So that’s the problem. Daisuke is childish (like Appare)…Note I don’t like natto either, but I wouldn’t run away from home (or similar) because I was fed natto.

I noticed Kambe uses shinseki (which doesn’t refer to close family). “Relative” is a correct translation of that word, I just wanted to check that word was the right one for the context.

There’s a green tea bottle by the sink…I don’t think I’d mistake that shade of green for anything else.

LOL, I didn’t think we’d actually get to see Kambe with his hair “down”, so to speak. It’s…an interesting look, for sure.

Oh my gosh! It cost him (Haru) $15!!! (LOL, cheapskate…says the cheapskate…*suddenly droops and stops laughing*) Update: Sorry about the sudden downer there. I was having what the kids these days call a “woke moment”…at least, I think that’s how they use that term.

…I’d watch that crime drama. It’s funny.

Just realised Kato has an older model of phone than Kambe does.

This episode was kinda like a Tokyo Sonata kind of thing, huh? The sensational in the middle of the not-so-sensational…”sensational” for this show, anyway.

Those kids look like the ones from Erased.

*lightbulb goes off in brain* What if the dog went to Kambe’s…?

Can Suzue actually hear HEUSC while Kambe is using it…? $2.46 though…that is cheap, in comparison to the ham.

This was the cheapest episode so far (about $550)…probably because it was an insight into Kato’s life, more than Kambe’s.

Fugou Keiji 5

The flag seems to be based on Cameroon’s (which is in Africa, not America) and the “Arita Kinen” seems to refer to Arima Kinen, meaning this episode is set around Christmas-ish. Credit goes to Kambe Zaibatsu on this show.

I-It’s a Humvee!

Polyadoll (sic)…?

The Poliador guy speaks perfect Japanese…(?)

The star! It’s a key thingy!

I thought Kamei was the 1st Division dude with the reddish hair. Turns out it was the blonde…? Update: Redhead is Hoshino.

Ummmmmm…he was reading porn…? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…okayyyyyyyyyyyyy…

…oh, the costs for Kambe’s tuxedo are on there. So’s the cost for repairing the bike Suzue rode.

Fugou Keiji 6

I never knew there were so many money proverbs to be used as episode titles…

What is Kambe doing with his hands…? He’s not even using the computer.

Imura seems to use a Windows 10 with Cortana on the taskbar.

HGPC 20

What’s with all the Naruto running this episode…?

HGPC 21

(no notes, sorry!)

#simulcast commentary #healin' good precure #fugou keiji: balance unlimited #millionaire detective #Koi to Producer: EVOL x LOVE #mr love queen's choice #Appare Ranman!#Chesarka watches AR #Chesarka watches HGPC #Chesarka watches Koi to Producer #Chesarka watches Fugou Keiji

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americangodstalk · 3 years

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Notes about S2E3: Muninn

# As stated previously, Betty is the modern form of Sleipnir, and we see its reincarnation here.

# Note that on the newspaper Wednesday reads that is an article about how the “Deep State is watching”, a foreshadowing of Argos.

# Ibis is seen here eating pieces of the corpses he dissects (something that Jacquel did in the novel).

# Argus Panoptes is mixed up with “Argus”, the dog of Odysseus. He is also referred to as a “peepin’ Tom”.

# Argus backstory is honestly a mess... The backstory is told in an Egyptian style. Ibis says that Argus Panoptes was rebirthed by Hera as a “god of surveillance” (it is actually merely a metaphor, and it is show that Argus had other incarnations before the American god of surveillance, but many people took it for literal). And it is mentionned that he was a god of surveillance before joining the New Gods - in fact it is the fading of his worship that pushed him to an alliance.

# Argus is confirmed to be the eye seen in season 1 through the bank’s security camera.

# Argus is described by Wednesday as akin to Mr. Wood, a being that adapted into “something else”. It is mentionned that his “many eyes faded”, and that only his memories stayed intact - in the form of the Argus archives. Argus actually appears to the world as a private surveillance company - we can note that the symbol of the company appeared on the jumbo screens of the “Media reinventing herself” scene.

# Argus is connected to Black Briar and offers its “eyes” to them. We see he uses drones as part of his many eyes. When one of said drones is taken down by Muninn (or Huginn), the Caretaker complains that the system was not updated and the GPS files are corrupted. Tech Boy answers that he told Argus to upgrade the system, and complains that he is not a “micromanagement”. However Mr. World quickly tells Tech Boy to put “your man on the line” (here Argus is identified as an agent of Tech Boy). Mr. World mentions the “broken window theory”, and insists that visiting Argus instead of texting him is “per tradition”. Mr. World has this very interesting concept that “We build the new world on the ruins of the old”.

# Before New Media appears, Mr. World has strange hand gestures - which almost makes it look like he is “downloading” informations from Technical Boy he then injects into the screen New Media comes out from. Or am I reading too much into this?

# New Media appears dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl (some mentionned a Harajuku vibe), with a Hello Kitty-look alike on her collar (hinting at the influence of Japanese pop culture over the Internet and the youth). In the background you can see the screen she comes out from becomes full with social media posts of New Media - one can see Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, a lot of selfies and videos... She is shown disdaining things that are “old”, and she also is seemingly aware of who, what and how her previous-self acted since she makes a reference to Media by imitating the Marilyn Monroe persona. Of course, one can see she literaly manifests emojis, emoticans and picture filters in the real world. She also refers to Argus as “the man with the fiber optic”.

# The headquarters of the Argus company have a parabolic satellite antena. Wednesday explains that, for the “local tinfoil hats”, this building is a stronghold of the Deep State, the Illuminati and/or the Men in Black. But to the “local city council”, it is just an old warehouse filled with computers. And in Wednesday’s words, in the end “truth and lies mix up”. Again, it is mentionned that in the warehouse there are “miles” of fiber optic cables, and that “only the memories remain”.

# Interestingly, we see Argus doesn’t just archive information, but also himself or rather his old versions. We get to see the “cast-away husks” he collected after he changed into “something else”. Here, we get to see the original Argus - the monstrous sheperd that was supposed to guard Io in the Greek mythology and was killed by Hermes. Apparently, only a sacrifice can allow one to move forward from this stage of the archive - the killing of Io. The fans have been splitting their head over what exactly the wooden tool Wednesday uses is - on top of that, it has an eye symbol engraved on it.

# Wednesday mentions that Laura is a “revenant” and like all revenants, she is “single-minded”. Just like the archive and Argus, to move forward Laura needs change, but change only comes with a sacrifice.

# We step away from all that to go to the Corn Palace, a strip-tease palace where live Old Iktomi, the Native American shapeshifter and spider-spirit (compared by the Jinn to Anansi). Actually it seems it was originally the “Porn Palace”, but the P neon letter “died” in such a way it looks like a C now. The Jinn describes Iktomi as “manipulating humans like puppets” and advices him to not look at him in the eyes. We also get to see another Native spirit - Gnaskineyan, “Crazy Buffalo” an evil spirit, looking here like a tall blind man.

# The next incarnation of Argus seems to have been in Roman times - indeed, we see that Argus was at this point the caretaker of the Library of Alexandria, renowned as the greatest collection of knowledge in the world. It seems Argus is locked in a cycle of rebirths and deaths - more precisely murders. Indeed, Argus always end up killed, because he keeps repeating his original myth - guarding something for which he will die. He murder because he was the guardian of Io, burned down along with his library... Note here that the Library of Alexandria was located in Egypt - which might explain why Mr. Ibis had Argus story told through an Egyptian point of view. Also note that here, Argus had his eyes ripped out.

# Iktomi appears in a wheelchair (hinting at his decay as an Old God). He grows marijuana in the background of his Palace - it seems he is an expert at tricks and potions. I honestly don’t know why people keep saying Iktomi and Whiskey Jack are the same being when, from my researches, they apparently are not. Whiskey Jack is a Crane spirit from the cultures of Algonquian and Dene people, while Iktomi is a trickster from Lakota mythology. Yes, both are considered equivalents, but they are not the same.

# We need an explanation on how Iktomi ended up having Wednesday’s spear. It seems Iktomi is also aware of Thoth, as he mentions he will be against the use of the spear for it is an “instrument of death”.

# New Media of course uses hashtags in her talk. In her talks with Technical Boy she appears friendly, childish, energetic, but she has a snarky and nasty side to her hinting at her rivalry with the technology god. She explains that Tech Boy and her have “different audiences” and she mentions that she needs “bandwidth”.

# Tech Boy threatens Argus to come back on their deal, which would have Argus “go back to trolling the Dark Web on IRC bots and Geocities pages” - so that’s what he as doing as a god of surveillance before taking a deal with the New Gods. Interestingly, we here have an incoherence - before Mr. World identified Argus as an agent of Tech Boy, but here Tech Boy has the hardest time acting as Argus boss, since the “surveillance god” says he was offered a deal by Mr. World and works only for him.

# Odin explains that he wants Argus killed because he “plays both sides” (how? We never saw Argus help the Old Gods), and apparently to kill him Laura needs to stab the tattoo in his neck. Though one may actually see how he plays “both sides” by looking at what Argus says - he says that entropy leads to disorder and all systems evolve towards chaos, “even alliances with gods”. It seems as a result that Argus has a sort of nihilistic view - he doesn’t wish to partake in the war, or to really help one side or another because ultimately it doesn’t matter who wins this conflict. That’s why he is so rebellious against Technical Boy. Or at least it seems like it...

# New Media, to interact with Argus, brutally switches personality - you can literaly see her change. She becomes seducing, flirty, very sexual. She visibly wants to take over Tech Boy by stealing Argus to herself. She mentions that she has “likes, shares and subscribers” and that everyone watches her, but what she wants is “someone to watch them back”. She wishes to “connect and merge” with Argus - which takes the form of a strange sexual scene. I personally believe this is a reference to “hentai” in its primal form - the typical diea of “sex with tentacles”. Indeed, in this episode New Media has a strong Japanese pop culture influence, and for those of you who don’t know, “hentai” originally was a form of pornographic art of Japanese culture, very old, and that often involved tentacles and sexuality with octopuses. However, the Internet took over this “hentai” style and turned it into a true meme, a recurring joke and a “common knowledge” and “popular trope” of Internet works - it is a literal representation of how the Internet takes back for itself forms of traditional art and turns them into something entirely new.

Anyway, she talks about her “fusion” with Argus as a “synesgestic expanding” and a “marketing opportunity”.

# Despite his death, Wednesday mentions that “Argus will come back”. Which hints that maybe Argus has enough belief/worship/popularity to keep living, contrary to the other Old Gods.

# It seems Bast is part of Wednesday’s plans, or will act at Wednesday’s request when she will “heal” Shadow.

#american gods #season 2 #muninn #argus #new media #technical boy #mr. world #new gods #old gods #laura #iktomi

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coolpolarbear123 · 4 years

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Band Camp Day 1

Yes, we’re having band camp in the midst of a global pandemic

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

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I explained last year the origins of this, so if you’re curious, you can check that out:

Essentially: I use tumblr as an actual blog for a week. Or a diary. Whichever.

Now I know what you’re thinking: band camp? We’re literally at the height of coronavirus

You’re right, we are. It is way less of a problem where I go to university, but it’s still not the best idea, I know

We are all taking bets on how long this lasts and when the uni is gonna switch us back to fully online, and my bet is a little less than a month. My friends have all said 2-3 weeks.

The uni is also testing all of us, I got tested on the 8th because band kids needed to be tested at least two days prior (it takes two days to process)

Except that’s a lie because my results aren’t in and neither are anyone elses

Okay that’s an exaggeration, half of them are probably back

Anyway, onto how the band is handling this

Band camp was shortened by a couple days to allow for testing, so we started today instead of Sunday/Monday. Leadership started this morning, and the rest of us started at 12:30pm.

We were supposed to start yesterday, but covid results weren’t coming in fast enough, so we had to postpone another day

I definitely needed the extra practice time, though, I guess

Not that I used it properly, but spoiler alert: I’m third chair out of twelve

Okay but I guess I went to Biggbby before practice instead of practicing but a n y w a y

Got there, got in a circle, seeing our freshmen for the first time and old friends for the “first time”

Because we definitely Did Not all see each other several times in the days leading up to band camp

We all checked it, which was super quick

So in the past, the band gets into an entire block, and that’s called “block” and we sorta just figure it out by section, and then we use that same configuration for the rest of the year, but this year we got assigned seats, essentially

I was put in the back, moved to the front, then put so far back I’m only by one person??

Does that sound like a block to you??

And then we did auditions

Outside

We walked so far away from the practice field, we may as well have been in a different timezone

All of band camp is outside this year. Playing rehearsals, meetings, everything.

Social distancing, of course

“Social distancing”

Masks on whenever we aren’t playing

That, we actually are managing to do

And yeah, I’ll keep you updated on how much of a dumpster fire this becomes

In the meantime, my friends and I are all in two apartments, living together, so if one of us gets it, the entire section goes down, and speaking of the section, we have 4 freshmen!

We were supposed to have, like, 9, but our band director literally kept urging them to switch instruments until 5 of them did

It made us really mad, it was a whole ordeal

Like we were specifically targeted, and yeah we were one of the biggest sections, but there are others just as big

And the drumline didn’t even need anyone else

It’s so maddening—all of the returning piccolos are angry

Like one of them went to colorguard, and our band director practically asked right in front of our drill instructor

Again, it’s a whole, very maddening, thing

Back to the program: after the auditions (we were the last to finish, but #notlast) we headed back to the practice field where our band director started without us

But the worst part is that he started right as we were walking across to put our stuff down? Like if felt like an extra “f*ck you” because he could have waited five more seconds but no

“but the piccolos aren’t unappreciated or disregarded or anything”

Ugh anyway

We played scales, went home for dinner, met at the music building (outside because of covid), marched down to the practice field as we always do

Spaced out a Ton Extra because covid (part 87648687)

People shouted “you’re doing great” which my compliment-deprived husk liked

Our band director said “looking good” when he looked at our section, and $1 million says he didn’t know we were the piccolos

We learned how to march until the end of practice (9pm), then we sang the alma mater and fight song as we usually do, but not really

We usually all form lines of side hugs (is there a name for that?) and sway back and forth, but because of covid, we had to stay still

It made it a lot harder, actually

Oh, during our one (1) break, we made our groupchat and Immediately memes and shenanigans began. This is a good section this year, folks. We’re close already, which is amazing

Other sections could never

Our after band activity was the scavenger hunt, which if you don’t know, we won two years ago, when our section chant became “Not Last” (which we still chant to this day)

It’s a very important night for the piccolos, to say the very least

We got 6th out of 7th, so I guess that’s not last, but also we suspect the judging was very biased even though they said it wasn’t

Reading this, you might be like “anni, you’re paranoid, they aren’t treating the piccs that badly” but I promise you, I can pull pages of receipts that I don’t really want to say on a public tumblr post, so sorry

The only people who read these are my friends, anyway, so I trust that you guys believe me

The scavenger hunt was fun though! It involves a lot of waiting, and we really bonded during that, too

We played ninja, which made other sections start playing ninja

But the piccolos aren’t close or anything

We sang country roads for a hot second

We did a bajillion dumb ice breakers

“everyone say what pet you have”

I said “I have a little brother, a dog, and a fish”

“if you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

I said “the grave”

Apparently that one isn’t wholesome like everyone else’s

Got home, my section leader called me because even more Piccolo Hatred happened, which I’m definitely not typing out here, sorry, and now it’s time for me to sleep!

This may get posted late depending on my wi-fi situation, but theoretically, I’ll see you guys tomorrow

okay but also

“maybe if the piccs didn’t distance themselves from other sections...”

me, when I stepped onto the practice field for the first time, having tons of people from different sections waving at me,

anyway anyway

#band camp #2k20 bc adventures #rant #marching band #band #cpb speaks #cbc

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legmanns-moved · 4 years

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Why I don’t interact with @gam.iru_ on Instagram

@gam.iru (idk what name they use) is a mestize puerto rican user who I have beef with because of their repeated instances of antiblack racism and racism against korean people, inappropriate sexual behavior, bullying of others, and a lot of other stuff. This post is going to act as my catch-all post explaining my reasons for no longer wishing to associate with them or their friends. I am not trying to “ruin their life” or intentionally make them look bad... they make themself look bad.

One of my main issues with them during the time that we were friends was their frequent use and defense of nonblack people, themself included, using the terms n*gga and n*gger. The first instance of the N word was in a group chat that we had back in early-mid 2018 for Cookie Run fans, where they would on occasion refer to certain individuals(cartoon characters, public figures, etc.) as "that n/gga", and then once I or another user called them out for it they'd insist that they were in the wrong headspace, failing to address the bigger issue.

To add from that, one of the things that lead to the termination of our friendship was their repeated defense of the use of the term "n/gger sugar" in a song by the band Queen, and continuing to listen to this song and mock me for it making me uncomfortable. This term is obviously racist, and there's never any reason for a nonblack person to use or defend it. From what I've been told byother users, gam.iru is claiming that they refused to listen to the song in question. I can confirm that gam.iru did not, in fact, avoid songs that contained the term n*gger. Their choosing to listen to the offending song in question was what made me first criticize the action. This first altercation (the first time I've called them out for the n word, not the first time it was used) was on April 17, 2019 at around 6 am EST, so 5 am for them.

Even if they were telling the truth with avoiding offending songs, it is still beyond inappropriate of them to try to defend or justify the use of this term by a nonblack individual, or furthermore claim that other individuals' actions are not racist because they don't think they're racist. Especially to me, a black person. Nonblack people do not get to dictate what is and is not considered antiblack racism, or try to tone police black people when speaking on antiblack racism. gam.iru did this on numerous occasions.

Another one of the things that they did was repeated racialized hateful remarks towards east asian musicians, specifically korean artists. Apparently, they've tried to justify this by citing that hating on kpop was a trend at the time, but the trend originated from racialized xenophobia and they knew that and simply didn't care. They repeatedly made comments lumping all korean people into one category, mocking korean artists, and all that, which is still racist regardless of intent. Using a racist meme doesn't excuse racism, and that was one of my problems with them. They also did this to a lesser extent with Japanese musicians who I listened to at the time, but I didn't mention that since their fixation seemed to be specifically on Korean people. They went a step further from simply "not liking" kpop to the mockery of korean people, bringing this up every single time other people in the group chat mentioned anything korean ,and making racist remarks. This was my issue.

(please note that the screenshot where I call them Jack is from 2018, before they chose the name Carlos. I don't intend to deadname them, this is just a really old message. To update, they no longer go by Carlos either, and I don’t know what their new name is.)

The idea that Western artists represent and own the concept of free expression while Asian artists are "starved" and are always forced to suffer is not only racist propaganda, but dishonest. The implication that this is merely a Korean issue, when many corporations such as Disney or Atlantic Records have had repeated issues with pedophilia, abuse, and censorship of their own stars, is therefore racist no matter how you spin it. You cannot criticize the kpop industry while actively supporting the western music industry as if there's nothing wrong, which is something gam.iru has done. The entire trend of hating kpop was something started by mostly white men to emasculate east Asian men and mock them, citing that they "look the same", and mock teenage girls for liking these stars. Gam.iru , to date, has never apologize for making comments like this, or apologized to my friend, another black user, for her art "looking like a kpop stan's", and repeatedly inserting themselves into conversations discussing her interest in korean artists. All of this was done while spamming the chat with pictures of Queen (and occasionally other offending artists), whom Sharon and I had previously denounced as being antiblack in some form. I can assure you, since I was there for all of this, that gam.iru was not speaking from a place of supposed concern for Korean artists when they made these comments, but rather simply being an ass.

To continue, the reason that their fetishization of dark skin was included in this list, is due to this being an aspect of racism. Talking about how you have a "preference" or whatever for dark skin while repeatedly engaging in antiblack racism and making comments about how hard it is to draw natural hair is disturbing. The fetishization of features associated with blackness, such as dark skin is weird as hell, and I personally take issue with it as a dark skinned person. It may not seem as significant to you, but comments like that make my skin crawl, as fetishistic racism is rather dehumanizing when you're at the receiving end of it.As someone who is dark skinned and female-presenting, I can say that the amount of sexual exploitation that dark skinned black girls go through because of this obsession with our bodies and features is incomprehensibly harmful to our psyche and self image. This fetishistic racism is also known as exoticism, which is what leads to people breeding for the aesthetic (people having mixed race children because they're "prettier") and white people adopting children of color for the Aesthetic, leading to psychologically damaged children who often times will have identity issues, be divorced from the culture, and in the case of white/poc mixed kids raised by white parents, be self hating towards the poc parent's race. This entire supposed "preference" for dark skin, juxtaposed with the fact that they have /only/ dated fairly pale white people is disturbingly fetishistic and made me and other black people who were in group chats with them violently uncomfortable.

Other racist aspects of their behavior during and after our friendship would be their frequent digital blackface and seeming mockery of mentally ill black people, as well as overuse (and misuse) of AAVE and treating black people as the punchline to many of their jokes. I can't explain what digital blackface is well in my own words, but it can be boiled down to a frequent use of black people and the black image as your way of "expressing yourself" (comments like your "inner black girl" or what have you), as a means of further commodifying the black image. Some articles/videos that explain it better than me: [X, X, X]

In regards to mentally ill people, one of gam.iru's favorite subjects of ridicule until only recently (the past 3 months) was a mentally ill black woman who goes by Peaches online. She is a victim of repeated physical and sexual abuse who achieved notoriety in 2017(?) after running away from her home and making money through creating shock videos of eating her own feces, and sex work, when she was roughly 16 years old. Since then, her behavior has become more hideous, with attempts to sell her infant daughter and incidents of public exposure in areas where there are young children, molesting and subsequently murdering a puppy, and intentionally trying to give sexual partners STI's. There are more things that she has done, but I don't wish to go into more detail. I do not in any way intend to defend Peaches' behavior, and have limited sympathy given the severity of the crimes that she has committed. Nonetheless, gam.iru , and people like them, find this behavior-what should be clear cries for help- amusing. I can't express my disgust enough.

Besides Peaches, frequent punchlines to gam.iru's bizarre humor were Wendy Williams, a talk show host whose rage and mental spiral has been played up by media for laughs, and Rick James, a musician who suffered from cocaine addiction and subsequently kidnapped, tortured, and sexually and physically assaulted women and girls on multiple occasions. Gam.iru unironically declared their being a fan of this man despite all of this on multiple occasions.(I really don't want to include every instance of them talking about rick james just trust me when I say it was a lot)

In regards to their misuse of AAVE, it would be inappropriate to call them out without acknowledging that just about every nonblack person I know also makes it a point to overuse and misuse AAVE. AAVE stands for African American Vernacular English, or alternatively BVE (Black Vernacular English). You probably know it better as internet slang or "stan twitter speak". This is another thing that gets misappropriated frequently in modern society, and I don't have the mental spoons to properly explain its history and the extent of why nonblack people using it is icky... to say the least. Being overly critical and outwardly racist towards black people while fixing your mouth to use our own dialogue for a trend is yet again another form of racism, and pretty nasty on their part. They're not the only person who does this or the last person who does it (this is a growing problem in society), but I take issue with them in particular for using AAVE as a joke while also being extremely antiblack.

There are more articles that talk about this issue in detail, but to start here's this one: http://www.dailyuw.com/opinion/columnists/article_b7318c5a-fb7b-11e9-afee-a73bf103f2db.html

Besides racism, personal grievances that I and others had with them were their being uncomfortably sexual in conversation and in sfw spaces. Frequently, when we were friends, they would send nsfw memes in inappropriate locations, or a completely sfw situation would be turned into something unacceptable. The main server that I spoke with them in at this time is a child-friendly server, where we were more than clear on the fact that since there are younger individuals and people who are uncomfortable with sexual jokes here, any subject matter of that category would have to be put in certain channels. They failed to do this, and skated heavily on the fact that they were friends with many of the mods here (myself included, I admit I was too lax with them and their behavior) to evade being temporarily kicked or banned. For personal reasons, I don't want to find images of this subject matter and will not be sending any.

Another unrelated thing that's merely personal beef at this point (so I didn't include it on my story) was their repeatedly mocking/bashing/whatever their friend group from school in my DM's. By repeatedly, I mean on a daily basis. It scaled from being critical of one friend, who they believed had bad art and calling them "ddlg" (don't know their real name) while bashing them, their interests, etc. to repeatedly sending me pictures of their ex and their art and mocking everything about this person's existence. This ranged from their relationship with gender identity to things gam.iru found wrong with their art to bragging about mistreating them during their relationship. Although some of gam.iru's problems with this person were valid, as this individual's behavior on many occasions was unacceptable (will not go into detail), I now understand that this was a form of bullying, and regret all parts that I had in it.I will say that I didn't participate in the mockery of this person's art or their appearance, but my lack of speaking up on how mean gam.iru was being did enable them and give them a platform to be hateful rather than talking out their problems like a mature person would have.

This brings me to my last thing (which kind of ties back into racism), the incident that lead to our final falling out. After a series of comments mocking Kim Seokjin, a vocalist for the kpop group BTS, on June 19, 2019, I did finally ask them to stop.

(DM in question)

After I sent my first DM, they proceeded to go invisible on Discord and leave every group chat or server that I was in. I was frustrated, but I felt that I'd said my piece, so I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was still upset, and seeing that I knew they were awake but had still failed to say anything in response (it was 11 am at this point, so they were awake), I sent another DM, being an ultimatum. At this point I'll admit I was not trying to be nice or cordial at all. I apologize for the vulgarity.

This was the last time that I made any attempt to speak to this person. About a week later, a former mutual friend (who is also more racist, ableist, and what have you but that's a whole other can of worms that I won't be getting into right now! maybe in a few hours though once I've slept) sent this message in the mod chat of the main server that we all frequented, and I responded.

That was the end of the conversation, until October 2019. In a server that I had been in that gam.iru happened to moderate, I noticed that out of the blue I had been removed from it with no warning.

^I contacted the ex mutual friend, and this is everything to be said on that issue.

As of today, June 1, 2020, they have not apologized for any of their actions to any of the parties involved. Accordingly, I will not retract any statements made about them being grossly racist and just gross in general until all other parties involved get their according apologies. If I get wind of them saying/doing shit like this again, I'll be just as vocal on how and why they're racist and gross, and will keep doing so until all other parties get their apologies. I have no interest in ever being affiliated with this individual again, because they have single handedly been responsible for half the drama in my life since 2017 and even if they do manage to grow as a person at some point, the damage has already been done and I want nothing to do with them. They're simply a nasty person and I don't believe that given their history, seeing any performative bs during a time of crisis for the black community is appropriate on their part. Do with this information what you will, and have a nice day.

UPDATE (June 7 2020)-

This user has still failed to apologize and considers all of the aforementioned issues “petty” so yeah I’m keeping this post up.

#honk #blocklist #I'm just making a post on this so I don't have to create another one in the future #long post

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starlight-drive-in · 5 years

Text

Saeran Choi Week - Day 6

Afterendings || AU

---

You know that part in Seven’s route where Seven shows Saeran the pictures of him and he goes into denial? Of course, you do! I’ve always wondered what that scene would be like from the perspective of Saeran’s route. These are my ideas for that, and also some of my ideas about how his after ending could go!

---

MC and Saeran have been staying in Saeyoung’s bunker for a while now. It’s strange, even though she’s never met him in real life, MC still feels his absence. The place carries so much of his personality it feels like he’ll walk through the door any minute.

They don’t plan on staying here forever, they want a place to call their own, a place that feels like theirs but for now, it's a blessing to have a place to stay free of charge and with everything they need while the couple gets on their feet.

As they accumulate their own belongings though, they find the need to start to pack some of Saeyoung’s stuff away for now. They haven't given up hope that he’s still out there. Saeran had even found some good leads he had sent to the C&R Intelligence Unit earlier this week.

“I’d feel it if he was gone.” Saeran had said one night after a long session of searching CCTV’s for any hint of his brother. “I just know I would. I’m sorry. I probably sound insane to you.”

But MC understood. She always understood. If Saeran believed Saeyoung was still out there then so would she. But she still had to get some of his stuff away. Her book collection needed a little more space, and it wasn’t like Saeyoung even had that many books on his office’s bookshelf anyway - maybe about ten or so accompanied by boxes of small electronic components she couldn't make sense of.

She nestles the smaller boxes into a larger one then begins to take the few books off the shelf. As she picks up a particular book - a children’s book that she does think much of at first - something clatters to the ground next to her foot.

She bends down, retrieves a small square of plastic, realizing its a floppy disk. “Who uses floppy disks anymore? I didn't realize Seven was an antique collector.” She comments, turning the item around in her hands looking for a label, there isn’t any though.

Saeran turns around in his computer chair, curious. “Let me see?” he asks, holding his hand out, she hands it over and he gives it a similar inspection.

MC’s eyes scan the minor monstrosity that is Saeyoung’s work area, although Saeran has attempted to clean and organize the wires and various components that make it up, it’s still a mess to her. “Does he even have a floppy disk reader?” She asks.

She watches as her boyfriend opens and closes multiple desk drawers, then stands and leaves the room. Moments later he returns with a small drive in hand.

“I thought I saw one somewhere, he had this in a kitchen cabinet behind some old cereal boxes.” He shrugs, although he wants to reunite with his twin he doesn't pretend to understand the man’s methods of organization, or anything else for that matter. He hands her the cable. “Can you plug that into a USB port for me? There should be some open on the back still.”

“I think I can manage that!” MC says.”What do you think is on it?” She asks, from underneath the desk as she plugs the reader in.

“Memes? An old 8-bit video game? His senior thesis?” Saeran says, honestly baffled but what in the world his brother could have stored on a media form that has not been widely used since they were children.

He pops the disk into the drive and goes to open the folder, but it's in encrypted, of course it is. Saeran makes quick work of the encryption but is stunned when the encryption leads him to a string of personal questions. Questions that could only be answered by two people on earth. He takes a sharp inhale of breath.

“What is it?” MC asks eagerly.

“I… I think he meant for me to find this?” Saeran says, working his way down the list of questions. “I’m the only person that would know the answers to these, besides him.” He adds, filling in the answer for what the twins did on their 6th birthday while their mother was passed out in the kitchen.

He reaches the end of the questionnaire and finally gains access to the files stored on the disk. Photos of a young red-haired, golden-eyed boy fill the screen.

Saeran scoffs, “Why does he have a hard drive full of pictures of himself.” He says MC can hear the slight offense in his voice.

“That’s not him.” She says plainly.

“W-what do you mean?” He asks, staring up at her from his seat, wide-eyed.

“That's you, My Love.” He calmly says.

“N-no it’s not, I don't remember any of this,” he says. “Why do you think it's me?”

“You have a mole on your neck, right side, just below your jawline. See?” She points out the mole on the multiple pictures populating the screen before lightly brushing the same mole on his person. “Saeyoung doesn't have it. That’s you.”

“How? No that can’t be. That makes no sense.” He says, getting up from the desk and disappearing into the hall. MC follows him but allows him some space.

“I look happy! I look normal there!” The crack in his voice is apparent.

MC’s heart lurches to see him in pain, she never wants to see him in pain again, but she's afraid the fight will never be over for her love. She watches as he sits on the leather sofa and places his head in his hands. When he looks up again tears are trailing the expanse of his pale face.

“He really did think I was ok, didn't he? He thought I was happy.” He had suspected this, of course, had mostly accepted it, but at this moment it truly hits him for real. Saeyoung was fed lies too. He thought he was doing what was right, what was best for him. And Rika had Saeyoung tangled up in her lies just as much as him. The enormity of just how deeply the tendrils of lies reach hits him hard, and he cries.

MC sits down next to him and takes him into her arms, cradling him softly and running her hands through his hair. “It’s ok, we’re going to find him and you two are going to have a long talk. We’re going to figure it out. I’m going to help you figure this out.”

He moves to hug her, burying his face in the shoulder. “Thank you.” he chokes out, tears seeping through her t-shirt.

After a few minutes, his sobs calm “Hey.” She says gently, rubbing his back.

“Mm?” he responds raising his head from its spot.

“You were a pretty cute kid.” She says smiling and wiping a tear from under his eye.

He chuckles through another sob. “Thanks.” He says simply.

Suddenly Saeran’s phone begins to ring in the other room. He inhales deeply and wipes his face as he gets up, retracing his steps back to the office to answer it.

He taps the answer button near Jumin’s name and steadies his voice in greeting. “Hello?”

“Saeran,” Jumin says in his usual steady, deep voice. “We think we’ve found him.”

-----

Saeran and MC stand near a black C&R van as the largest amount of security and KPA officers either have them have ever seen storm an expensive-looking residence on the mountainside. After all the claims against Prime Minister Choi were confirmed legitimate it wasn't long before warrants of his arrest were filed, after which conveniently disappeared.

MC watches as Saeran nervously paces the small space at the bottom of the hill leading up to the residence, periodically biting his nails, then stopping himself.

An entire lifetime seems to pass before two of Jumin’s largest security officers drag a handcuffed, now former, Prime Minister out of the house.

Saeran’s blood runs cold as their eyes meet for just half a second before the man is shoved into a vehicle and promptly driven away. His chest shakes and he tries to steady his breathing. After a few minutes, he’s managed to calm himself a bit.

Moments later the doors open again, Revealing a long-haired brunette man repeating how he doesn't need help and a very familiar shock of red hair following closely behind him.

MC gasps, and before she can even register what is happening her boyfriend is gone, running up the hill in clumsy steps. She watches as he almost slips three times. She then realizes Saeyoung is running to meet him. Her heart swells at the heartwarming moment the twins embrace each other. She almost can’t believe this is happening at all but it is.

“Saeran?” Saeyoung says in an exhausted voice. “That's really you right?” He’s both unsure because this is too good to be true, and because his glasses have been missing for so long he forgets what clear vision is like.

“Yea - yea it's me,” Saeran responds, tears threatening his eyes again, but this time they are not sad tears. “I-It’s me.”

“Thank God. Thank you, God.” The older twin breathes. Squeezing his brother so tightly, almost like he might float away if he doesn't.

“You were the hacker, weren’t you?” Saeyoung asks, already sure of the answer but still in need of confirmation.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Saeran answers “I’m so sorry”

“Me too.” Saeyoung answers. “I think… I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Saeran scoffs into his brother's shoulder. “Yea,” is all he says.

----

A few weeks later Saeran and MC sit on the couch in Saeyoung’s bunker once again, but this time everything is different. There is no looming absence anymore. The void Searan has felt for the past several years has finally been filled again. His brother is back and never meant to abandon him. Although he has to remind himself of this several times a day. The two of them still have a lot to work out in therapy, but they are together again.

The news is on TV as the two of them sit, holding hands. Saeran rubs the back of MC’s hand gently as the announcer begins the evening’s updates.

“Former Prime Minister Saejoong Choi has been sentenced to as little as 40 years in prison as of Tuesday.”

Suddenly Saeyoung’s voice comes from the hall as he enters the living room “Haha, YEA Suck it Old Man.” He exclaims excitedly as he plops himself down on the armchair adjacent to his couch.

“It would seem his career in the public eye is all but over, the man who was once adored by a nation is now behind bars. In the end, Choi ended up with over 107 charges against him but it would seem that one of his more heinous crimes was against his own blood, his twin sons. Kept secret from the world and cursed to grow up in poverty, and abuse. The county that once revered Saejoong Choi has now adjusted their affections onto the Choi Twins.”

MC watches as photos of the twins appear on the screen, Saeran becomes instantly uncomfortable as Saeyoung becomes quite the opposite.

“Can you believe this? Us? On TV?” Zen’s probably already jealous, we look amazing in those pictures too.” He says, legs bouncing in excitement.

“The older of the twins, Saeyoung Choi has been rated Korea’s Most Eligible Bachelor, a position that C&R’s Jumin Han has held for the past several years.”

Saeyoung doubles over in laughter as he hears this. “Poor Juju, All that work he did to help us too.”

“I don't think Jumin ever really wanted that position to begin with,” MC tells him. “I hope you’re ready Saeyoung.” She continues, almost ominously.

“Oh, I’m ready” Saeyoung accepts, a mischievous grin gracing his features. “But Korea’s not ready to learn that I am forever in love with my dearest Elly, and so they will lose both of their most eligible bachelors to her impeccable beauty!”

“It would seem that many people we surveyed on the street were disappointed to hear that the other Choi twin, Saeran is undoubtedly “off the market”.” The announcer continues.

The TV cuts to a scene from last week, Saeran had thought he could pick up a few things from the convenience store without being bothered but he inevitably thought wrong. In the video, Saeran stands holding a carton of ice cream he had freshly picked from the freezers of the store, surrounded by several news personnel.

“Saeran Choi, The nation is dying to know, do you have a girlfriend?”

In the video, Saeran fidgets for a second before taking a breath and speaking. “Yes, I have a girlfriend, and I love her very much. In fact if not for her I would not be standing here today, and neither would you. I would very much appreciate respect for both her and our relationship as I will not tolerate anything else.”

A light blush appears on Saeran’s cheeks, embarrassed and uncomfortable with being in the public eye and seeing himself on TV.

MC, on the other hand, is filled with adoration, promptly throwing her hands over her boyfriend's shoulders in a tight embrace.

“Bro, that was so cool.” Saeyoung says, stunned at his brother's calm collectiveness on camera.

“Babe, that was so sweet.” MC says, nuzzling her boyfriend's sweater.

“It’s only the truth, as long as it’s up to me, I won’t let anything or anyone come between us.” He says.

“Nothing is ever going to come between us.” MC confirms, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

“Should I leave you two alone? I could see if Yoosung needs some company for a while?”

Saerans already apparent blush becomes much deeper “No! No of course not. This is your house, remember?.”

“Mmhmm” Saeyoung hums, “ Well, you just let me know if the County’s Sweethearts need some ‘Alone Time’” he says teasingly as he retreats back down the hallway.

Saeran breathes out, relieved to be free from his brother’s teasing, but also relieved to be able to be teased by his brother, it’s been far, far too long.

Even if he’ll never completely understand his brother or his motivations, even if his jokes still sometimes grate on him the wrong way, they’re together. They are brothers again, not enemies and it feels better than he had ever imagined. Their father is in prison, where he aptly belongs. There are still things that need to be figured out, the Mint Eye issue will need to be taken care of next, but with him on the RFA’s side this time around he knows they will be a force to be reckoned with.

He has MC, He has Saeyoung, He has everything he needs and his life feels like it is finally beginning.

#saeranchoiweek #day 6 #fanfic #fanfiction #mystic messenger #mystic messenger fanfic #saeranchoi #saeran #saeran x mc #mmsaeran #mysmesaeran #mystic messenger fanfiction

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klanstability · 6 years

Text

Updated Fic Recs!

It’s been literally a thousand years since I last updated my fic rec page (as always), but I’ve finally gotten my shit together. These go all the way back to mid-August, and I was really bad at keeping track of what I read and I don’t use bookmarks on AO3 like an idiot, so I’m definitely missing a few good ones, but I’ll get to that some other day.

"Fractal Glances Beyond a Shattered Plane" by 2towels

Teen | 30k

“Our containment study of that magic isn’t giving us a lot of information but what we can tell is that it was nasty, and it targets. You remembering stuff that didn’t seem important enough to erase—like Clarabelle Cow, or how to milk Kaltenecker, or simple stuff—is normal because it never reached the husk stage Coran keeps talking about.” Distantly, Lance echoes, “Husk stage.” -- All he has is a cow, a ship, and a rockin' tattoo, but boy howdy if he's going to let that keep him from getting his memories in order.

"meteoric" by zukos

Teen | 7k

It doesn't matter how good-looking the son of Aphrodite thinks he is. Keith isn't going to sleep with Lance. Ever.

"best friends?" by Lynn1998

Explicit | 9k

Lance and Keith have been friends for a long time, but what happens when hormones start to get in the mix?

"Hang the DJ" by Ehlihr (Elihaha)

Teen | 13k

“Lance can't get along with someone who likes the Smiths, he tells himself, after Allura rejects him and his Michael-Jackson-esque proposal for a date because she "prefers the Smiths".

Then, Keith (the boy who Lance does nothing but compete with in gym class) gives him a mixtape of his 'favourite Smiths' songs', to which Lance promises he won't listen to any of them. Proceeded by Lance listening to the tape on repeat for an entire weekend.

[Inspired by 80s music, high school life, and riddled with their awful slang.]

"life after death" by taylortot

Teen | 40k

Fear clambers into his mouth and tastes bitter on his tongue. “Who are you?” It takes him a moment to register the sound of his own voice. She stares at him. Blinks. “Lance, please, this isn’t time for one of your jokes--” He furrows his eyebrows and struggles to sit up, to stop leaning into the cradle of her arms. “I’m not--I’m not...joking.” * After sacrificing himself to save Allura, Lance wakes up in a strange new world where the only thing he knows is a deep connection to a boy he doesn't remember.

"The Futures Full of Clones" by jilliancares

Explicit | 20k

Keith accidentally winds up in his future self’s body, who he then has to pretend to actually be because apparently the future is full of clones who will say or do anything to trick Team Voltron. In the future, anyone acting out of the ordinary is a suspect, and Keith can't afford to get his future-self killed by being incompetent. This is only made harder by the fact that he has to pretend to know what it’s like to be a boyfriend, because in the future, he and Lance are dating.

"To Catch A Thief" by orphan_account

Teen | 5k

“You’re him,” said Keith, hardly able to believe it himself. “The Collector.” He laughed, grin wide. “That’s what you guys call me? Classic.” Eyeing Keith up and down, the man leaned against the gallery wall, next to Van Gogh’s Blossoming Almond Tree, with a coy grin. “That’s too formal, though, so call me Lance.”

"baby, you're a haunted house" by seabear

Teen | 6k

The thing is? Lance doesn’t even really like Halloween.

"dynamic" by kagshina

Teen | 17k

“So, uh,” Keith starts, and Lance notices the way he shifts, like he’s not quite sure how to say what he wants to say. “How are we gonna...do this?” Before answering the question, Lance makes a quick list in his head of things he should never do: 1. Ask the boy he has a huge crush on to be his fake boyfriend for the sake of proving a point (even if Lance thinks he’s going to say no, because apparently he might actually say yes!)

"I just wanna make love to you" by DairyFarmer

Explicit | 26k

Both Paladin and Blade stood in silence for almost a full minute, staring at each other with indiscernible expressions (or at least Lance thinks the latter is, can’t really tell with the identity protecting mask adorning their face.) Before he can stop himself, he opens his mouth with a smirk curling at his lips. “You come here often?” Lance asks, tilting his head coyly. XxX In which Lance hooks up with a masked Marmora member, unaware he might know the person a little better than he thinks.

"Jealousy Thy Name is Lance" by RandyDowager

Teen | 8k

“I heard that you like someone,” he admitted. Wow, it hurt to say it out loud.

"when the lights go out" by dimpleforyourthoughts

Teen | 18k

Date and a Fifth: a type of party in which everyone must come with a date and a 750 ML bottle of hard alcohol (fifth). However, you must stay zip tied to your date until the two of you finish the entire bottle together. // (In which Lance needs a date, Keith needs cash, and maybe they fall in love along the way.)

"Feel me, I'm running through your veins" by Queerklancing

Explicit | 2k

“Hunk?” Lance pulls a face at the hoarse sound of his voice. “What’s this smell?” “Uh, yeah,” Hunk says and rubs the back of his neck. “Keith … asked me to give this to you.” He takes a few more steps towards Lance’s bed and hands him a dark cloth. Lance can feel how his body reacts the moment he realizes what he’s holding in his hands. It’s Keith’s shirt.

"three minutes to closing" by Yuisaki

General | 1.5k

“So you don’t know his name,” Pidge says slowly. “And he says meme-y things. And he always comes in three minutes before closing, and—” “Always leaves on the dot,” Keith adds. “And uh, he never orders the same thing twice in a row.” Pidge’s face is blank. “A customer who leaves at nine on the dot and never orders the same thing twice in a row,” she repeats. She opens her mouth, closes it, and taps at the screen of her tablet, hopping off the counter. “I’ll just tell everyone I didn’t get the answer out of you.” “Pidge,” Keith protests. “I mean it.” “And I think you have a cryptid customer,” Pidge says. (or: eccentricities in a small coffee shop where a cuban boy with cute dimples only exists three minutes to closing.)

"sweep him off his feet" by hcneylesbian

Teen | 25k

“I win.” Lance’s rapid breath hit his face, and that’s when Keith realized how close he was. He was close enough to see small freckles dotting across Lance’s cheeks, and to see his eyes taking him in. After a moment, he was just surprised Lance hadn’t pushed him away. “What were you down here for in the first place?” Lance’s face was red—Keith presumed he was flushed from the workout. “Hunk made lunch, I thought you might be hungry. Plus, I hadn’t really seen you all day.” And Keith was pissed that something in that sentence made his face fall of all cockiness, replaced with surprise. “Oh,” he said simply. Lance’s breath was finally evening out, but he still hadn’t shoved Keith off his waist. -- In which Keith and Lance keep having bonding moments until it's almost too late.

"i don't wanna let you love somebody else but me" by ericawrites, killproof

Teen | 16k

A stellar collision is the coming together of two stars caused by gravity, gravitational radiation, or other mechanisms not well understood. Any stars in the universe can collide. Keith and Lance do.

"Cereal Sweepstakes and Other Bad Ideas ft. Lance McClain" by ruralfishingcat

Teen | 50k

After winning a free session from a cereal contest, Lance decides to visit Voltron Skydiving. Unfortunately, there's only one employee working at the time and he has a stupid mullet. And to make matters worse, Lance seemingly can't escape interactions with him.

"flesh and blood (you deserved to be loved)" by rosedvst

Teen | 12k

Lance is melting under the intensity of Keith’s words, the sincerity of his voice, the softness of his heart. Falling for him all over again, but in different ways--not just for his smiles and his hands and his iridescent eyes, but for his heart and his voice and the way he makes Lance feel--tender and warm and deeply, deeply in love. Keith is like the ocean, Lance thinks, in that he is incredibly deep and beautiful and dangerous and dark. And when you get too close, he pulls you in like the sinking tides. Whether or not you embrace him is up to you. ☆ﾟ. * ･｡ﾟ Or, Lance dreams of Earth's oceans to put out the fire raging within him. Falling in love with Keith happens somewhere along the way.

"put the stars in our eyes" by keithkin

Teen | 7k

Keith turns his body and brings his legs onto his bed, sitting criss cross with his shoulders hunched up near his ears. He wants to say something, and he can tell that Lance is waiting patiently for him to find the words, but he isn’t sure that it’s possible to form something eloquent. So, he says, “are you disappointed?” He doesn’t look at Lance when he speaks. He doesn’t know that he’d like what he would find on the other’s face. “Well, I’d rather not be glowing right now.” Lance responds. or: after years of Keith not having a soulmate, something changes.

"Nightmares" by Trashness

Teen | 15k

Lance's nightmares are getting out of control. It's effecting his and the team's performance, but he's at a loss for how to fix this. Apparently sleeping next to a warm body helps.

"fit the crown to my head" by aknightley

Teen | 76k

“What’s the fun in a masquerade if you don’t flirt outrageously with the prettiest person in the room?” the young man says flippantly, and then winks at Keith. Keith huffs a laugh, amused. “You keep saying things like that, but you haven’t seen my face,” he says, gesturing to his mask. “I could have warts under here. I could have spots, or scars.” “You’d be lovely even with all of those,” the young man says, and he suddenly sounds serious. It takes Keith by surprise, makes his heart twist along with his stomach. “Your eyes,” he continues, tilting his head. “I’ve never seen eyes like yours before.”

"Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" by 2towels

Teen | 3k

“I’m Lance! Nice to meet you! Can I ask you something? Just fielding here, no funny business!” No, Keith wants to say as he glances at Pidge’s circle again and sees her throw her head back and scream something victorious at the ceiling. He doesn’t even think they’re playing flip-cup anymore. “Shoot.” He says instead, peering mysteriously into his drink as he moves his hand from over the lip of it. It’s just water, but clearly something has afflicted him if he’s going to indulge the guy. Maybe Pidge’s enthusiasm is infectious from across the way. Lance’s lips quirk very wide before he seems to be able to calm his expression. “Well, I am a sharpshooter!” He blurts, blinking when Keith blinks in turn at him. His shoulders bunch, then, and he barrels on, “Nevermind. Anyway, uh, would you ever date a zombie? Quick survey.”

#voltron #klance #vld #klance fanfiction #voltron fanfic #by me #fics #wow!!! klanstability!!!#starting and ending with 2towels??#will you rec every single one of 2towels fics????#yea #yeah i will #anyway i loved alla these go read them #i cant believe theres only 20 i feel like ive read so many more #edit: i just remembered one i read like yesterday alsdkjfsd #edit: ANOTHER ONE

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velocicraptorr · 5 years

Text

What’s up with cassavetes?

So, I’ve seen a number of those criterion videos where directors recommend their favourite films. I’ve heard a number of them talk about John Cassavetes. But who exactly is he? Why are his films worth mentioning? He’s got such a fun name, but why exactly are famous directors talking about this guy when no one has heard of him?

I asked a number of those questions-in exactly that tone-of a friend working in film festivals and programming. His answer? Cassavetes treated his actors in a way that was revolutionary for the time. His directing was apparently liberating for actors.

But I have so many follow-up questions! How did the directors who cite him know? Did they glean this treatment from his films or was it his E! Hollywood Story that gave it away? How did they all manage to get to watching his damn E! Hollywood Story in the midst of all of that directing that they presumably had to do?

I’m not sure. So here’s a video of Martin Scorsese (who people do actually know) talking about him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTLedTEs4lY

Scorsese at some point says the phrase “rollercoaster of love”. He also says “(Cassavetes) insisted on having fun while making his films, while searching for truth.” That’s admirable. That and the liberation... It makes sense, but I’m missing some details.

In entry number one of this terribly framed, self-indulgent masturbation blog, I’m going to talk about John Cassavetes. I’ll naively, and perhaps ill-advisedly, write about him without watching his films. And I’ll then update this entry after having watching some of his films. Number one on films of his to watch is apparently A Woman Under the Influence.

Okay.

What’s Up With Cassavetes (this is obviously going to be a rip off of his wikipedia page...)

Life

Death

Style

Influence

1. Life

He was born in New York City and is the song of Greek Americans. He went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he met his future wife and collaborator Gena Rowlands (who’s in A Woman Under the Influence, aha!).

He taught acting in New York City and played parts in B rated films (I now need to know if B-movies are of a specific genre, and B films are something else entirely). He then guest starred in Beverly Garland’s Decoy as a jazz pianist moonlighting as a private detective (or... a PI moonlighting as a jazz pianist. I am very intrigued. Another thing: the word ‘intriguing’ is difficult to spell. I turn off spellcheck because I fear losing even more neural connections given the amount of alcohol I’ve had to drink in the past couple years. Words like intriguing make me regret committing to being better). Okay, I’ve gotten that wrong. He was in decoy, a TV show about an undercover detective (not him). He was also in Johnny Staccato, where he plays, you guessed it, Johnny Staccato (there’s two Cs and only one T in ‘staccato’, by the way). This might seem surprising, but, according to wikipedia, the latter of those shows was critically acclaimed.

The guy then signed a bunch of deals with a bunch of studios and continued acting in television. He saved up some money, moved to California, acted in a bunch of films (like Rosemary’s Baby, a Polanski film AND a film my mom loves... I’d also like to point out that very rarely do people like my mom get updated about the private lives of people from the west, so she doesn’t quite know who did what and will enjoy the films with the quite endearing assumption that the film just... came into being).

He directs a bunch of films including, yes, A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Two years later, he strikes again with another Criterion Collection favourite often mentioned on picks videos, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), never mind the title. Opening Night (1977), which I saw a tiny bit of, comes out a year later.

Wait, I’m still not sure what he was about. He taught acting, acted, and later directed. Isn’t that Vincent Gallo? What’s so great about Cassavetes?

2. Death

He died of cirrhosis (wikipedia says ‘of the liver’. Now wondering if there’s a kind of cirrhosis that affects something other than the liver. Okay. What does the word cirrhosis mean?) in 1989 (the year Taylor Swift was born) “caused by many years of alcoholism”.

Here’s a song with his name in its title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI87_X52wmk

Well, a quick listen... Maybe a little regretful, this entry. Maybe I never should have asked.

Okay, I’ll keep asking. Another ‘by the way’: I followed Le Tigre to Kathleen Hanna to Bikini Kill and now, DIY ethic and Ladyfest. That’s a fifth of my night in wikipedia pages. Quick summary: Hanna formed Le Tigre after her Bikini Kill years, a band that was part of the riot grrrl movement of the early 90s that began in Washington State (source of many a garage band; i.e. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana). Also, I know! Pre-meme triple lettering. Cray.

Ripped off wikipedia yet again: “In 1991, young women coalesced in an unorganized collective response to several women's issues, such as the Christian Coalition's Right to Life attack on legal abortion and the Senate Judiciary Hearings into Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Young feminist voices were heard through multiple protests, actions, and events such as the formative opening night of the International Pop Underground Convention and later L7's Rock for Choice.”

And DIY ethic? The ethic of self-sufficiency suggesting you can do tasks yourself, rather than rely on paid labour.

3. Style

Here’s Cassavetes talking about the role of the audience in Opening Night (1977):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePptcNqXRJA

“I’m telling you. They’re not gonna see something stupid. They’re gonna see something that challenges their own intelligence and that awakens their own emotions. And I like it... I wanna see lines around the block TOMORROW.”

I’m not doing a good job of describing any of this. So have another video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoEr9nsXXRQ

Polarising. I can see how someone might describe this process as liberating. He frequently collaborates with the same people. That also makes sense.

4. Influence

Maybe I’ll get to a supercut of directors talking about him in those Criterion Collection videos.

And maybe more reading, too.

#john cassavetes #films #bikini kill #DIY ethic #Criterion Collection

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