So my new sunglasses could use adjustable nose pads.

Mom sent me a link once of someone to ship glasses to for this service. Looked them up yesterday I realized they're just a regular (non-lenscrafters) optician, and I could probably find someone locally to do this. Well, I did find someone who can do it, but his other custom services were wild.

Among other normal things like replacements and antique refurbishments, he will put prescription lenses in your SCUBA GOGGLES

I didn't even know that was an option, but he's out here doing it

i think when you hold pepito over water pepito starts doggy paddling in the air like puppies do

i'm seeing a lot of Pokémon SV DLC analyses where people say 'Oh, Kieran's fixation on Ogrepon is because he sees it as a path to strength; Carmine's bullied him long enough that his shield against admitting his weakness to himself is adoring a legendary creature'. And don't get me wrong – these interpretations certainly hold water – but I've actually been working from basically the opposite angle for all this time.

By all means, Kieran idolises strength, but he inhabits Carmine's shadow – he's the weak sibling, and probably has been for a long time. Yet, rather than fixate on the fantastical power of the Loyal Three, he identifies himself with Ogrepon – the downtrodden, ostracised creature cast out to eke out a subsistence. A terrible demon that wasn't quite terrible enough to cause anyone any lasting harm. The creature defeated by heroes, rather than the perfect, heroic figureheads themselves. He's enamoured with the downtrodden; he sees himself in its grief, in its being cast out and excluded. He's been cast out and excluded all his life (and he can't be a bad person, right? It's not fair – he's hated senselessly, surely, rather than for some reason?) – he sees himself as harmless; so the ogre, too, must be harmless, mis-blamed. Strength is thus in resistance; in growing a shell to tolerate others' inexplicable cruelty. So Kieran looks to Ogerpon, and he thinks that the meek shall inherit the earth, and it gives him the strength to tolerate long nights with poor company. Others are villains – not him, not this creature – and he's safe in the knowledge that at the end of the day, at least an ogre can go down in mythology as the putative sole survivor of its trials.

In this sense, Kieran's like Penny – he finds himself in a position of weakness, of being victimised, and forms himself an armour of being an underdog, of being the thing that bites back. Yet while Penny's position is that the underdog might muster the strength to bite back and restore justice, Kieran's view is that at least the underdog was worth loving. He's inert and preoccupied with his inertia. He can't understand that maybe he could be a human, with the capacity to grow, the capacity to sin. And when Carmine is cruel to him, he reaffirms his own contrarian mindset more – she says I am worth little for my weakness, so my weakness is all I am worth; my weakness is my strength.

And yet he chases strength, because he has to to survive. So when the player comes by, and supports him, maybe he has the safety to walk away from his preoccupation with being an underdog, to enjoy strength for strength's sake. And then, he starts losing, but this time, there are stakes, since he can't just withdraw and be consoled by the fact that withdrawing is right, is right, is right. Thus, he must get stronger. And then, when Ogerpon turns out to favour Juliana, who's become Kieran's idol for all that strength means, rather than Kieran, who's Kieran's selfsame designated weaklingpatheticscumidiot——well, what can Kieran do but fracture, since his whole ideology, his whole premonition that he might have the right to inherit the earth, has been fractured? And, under stress, he pivots from one extreme to the other. All he knows is that weakness is now unbearable. He must get stronger. Must get stronger. Must get stronger—because otherwise he's doomed, he's nothing. He has no myth to dissolve his identity in any longer, so he reshapes himself around the only other standard he's ever known. And it twists him and it breaks him into tiny pieces, because suddenly, the last thing he can bear to be is Kieran: Kieran, the downtrodden and meek boy. He has to flip on his axis; he must become the designated villain of his story by popular imagination, or else be subsumed in the fact that he's going to die someday without any place in the world. He has to play a part, because he's been consigned to one so long, and he can't think of anything other than heroes and villains, enemies and martyrs. He can't be the bad guy. Strength is now goodness; weakness is now evil. And he can't reconcile who he thought he was with who he must become, and as a result, all he can do is try to destroy the person who's destroyed his ideology.

There’s def a lot I wish to be in Tears of the Kingdom, especially things like regional/diverse enemies. But the thing I really wish to see is Link express negative emotions. And not just “he’s angry at fighting enemies” but rather he’s angry and tired and upset and confused at his situation. He has followed orders from the king the moment he touched the master sword as a CHILD. We don’t even know if he truly got to be a child because his whole life has been about duty. And I’m pretty sure in this timeline he was descended from the Hylian knights so who knows how long he’s been training to just be a standard knight before the master sword.

Link SHOULD be angry that he’s stuck in this cycle of rebirth. Even when he died, the fall of Hyrule was blamed on him and he didn’t even get to stay dead. He was woken up and had to finish his duties while also being constantly reminded that his death is what lead Hyrule to look like is does. He should be angry, angry at Ganon and Demise and at the Hylian Royalty for forcing him into this situation over and over and over.

And this is exactly why I hope TOTK is similar to Majora’s Mask. Not because Majora’s Mask was scary. But because it dealt with the grief and isolation and depression Link had to face after going through an incredible traumatic journey, and then losing all of his friends as a result. Most notably losing the ONE friend who was with him the entire time. Who completely understood everything Link went through because she experienced the same thing. And she was the entire reason Majora’s Mask even happened in the first place, because Link was desperately searching for Navi because he was scared to be alone. I want TOTK to explore these hard and brutal emotions for both Link and Zelda. I want them both to be scared, angry, and distraught. I want them to cry over themselves and be selfish. I want them to do something impactful that isn’t for the sake of Hyrule. I hope there’s conflict with the Goddess Hylia. I hope they reject her outstretched hand after she has burdened two children to sacrifice themselves for the good of Hyrule.

I want there to be a good resolution to TOTK. I want both Link and Zelda to choose their own path even if that means leaving Hyrule. But I want the path to resolution to be painful and really explore Link’s true emotions. He is stoic and mute because he is burdened with the weight of the world. What good is a knight who talks when he is judged based on his actions and ability to use a sword.

With Zelda’s warning that she thinks that even Link can’t succeed, I hope we do see helplessness in Link. Again to Majora’s Mask we did get to see Link helpless. He was transformed into a small Deku Scrub with no weapons, no horse, and was an outlier in a town filled with humans. But he learned to work through that helplessness. He embraced the spirit who had to give his life for Link to look the way he does and figure out new ways to fight and communicate. He later became grateful for the Zora and Goron who let him use their spirits to aide his journey. He was able to confront Majora’s because he was never truly alone. Everyone he’s ever met has given him strength even if they aren’t with him presently.

And that’s what I hope to see in Link in TOTK. A helplessness due to his isolated burden, faced against something he could never win against alone. And thankfully we did get that to an extent in BOTW with the champions and even Zelda. But even then, fighting the divine beasts was optional. Link in a sense could have faced Ganon alone. Hell people even fight Ganon with no clothes and only carrying sticks.

No, I want Link, even in the most powerful armor with the most powerful weapon, to be helpless. And I want him to be angry about it. And upset. And hurt. Because he has earned the right to express every painful emotion for his circumstance and he deserves to be able to express his frustration. It is okay if he isn’t the hero.

purgatory fanart of that one scene where phil loses his wings for the second time

These guys killed me a couple of times but I can't possibly be mad at them, just look at them, scavs are so adorable.

shipwrecks by montereydiver

Diving mask, 1975. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

Imagine making it to the final round and two of the Pink Soldiers take turns eating your pussy, during the dinner, to show their “gratitude.”

Of course they’re the Circle guys.

“So,” you mumbled, “are the Triangles and Squares too good for this?”

The guard with his nose currently mashed against your clit, presumably unmasked under the table, licked harder. Desperate to please. Good soldier. Your fellow players were too engrossed with their plates to notice you getting head. No one else was. Or had, as far as you knew.

“I mean, the table’s triangular.” You waved your fork, before thinking better of making conspicuous gestures. It was hard to resist slamming the utensil down. “Or are Triangle Masks only interested in penetration?”

Your other admirer subtly tapped his friend. Indicating his turn to pleasure you. And he tried. But eating in this situation was hard enough. Getting eaten…

The second Circle was sloppier. Treating giving brain like a make-out session. He wasted no time in pushing his tongue inside. Latching his lips onto yours. Increasingly wet, you still knew you couldn’t finish in such a faux romantic setting. Sighing, you decided to enjoy dinner in peace. The tap on his shoulder didn’t quite stop his administrations. His mouth popped open, anticipating your gracious slick. A tap to the forehead informed him he was relieved of his duties.

He actually took off his mask for me.

It was flattering. (The other guy just pushed his up.) But you wished they’d acted on their crushes five games ago. Six, even. Though you weren’t sure what they could have done about those rounds of ddakji. At that point, you wouldn’t have let mysterious masked men muff dive. Well, not without someone buying dinner first.

Speaking of… you remembered where you were. Better focus on eating in, not eating out.

Later, when the other players were a safe distance ahead of you on the walk back, a Square Mask matched your step.

“Make your way to the hallway after lights out.” Gloved fingers brushed your hip. “We will make sure you finish this time.”

Should you have been more excited by his promise of “we” or “will”?

i think light yagami is "socially adept" in terms of being able to reason out relatively well what to say and do to come off as a harmless and good and polite young man who is likeable to be around. however i do not think "socially adept" (or "neurotypical") typically comes with having to preface every other normal-passing action and statement with a minor crisis of "ah shit. quick, what would i say/do in response to this if i was light yagami, a normal and nice and respectable young man?"

everyone likes to talk about him talking about kira in third person but can we acknowledge that he also talks about LIGHT in third person. i'm not adding manga panels at 3:57am but y'all know exactly which ones i mean

Sucks that diving suit monsters are almost solely a bioshock thing and whenever they DO show up in something it's always in the most boring way possible as just a big ogre in a suit. Give them four arms or two heads or tentacles or just make them lanky instead of stout, SOMETHING!

same goes to gas mask and plague doctor monsters. they caught on in the most boring way possible.

Unexpected Baggage

Erik should have realized Schmidt would do it again. How had he been naive enough to think that he would be the last child tortured by that man?

He had given up the last lead he had on Schmidt to save the girl he had seen being dragged around by the mad man's followers. He was trying very hard to not regret it. Reminding himself that the girl was like him.

Here were the facts: he was in France under false pretenses, his reason for living wasn't dead yet, and there was an American teenager following him who wouldn't stop talking.

"-and all I wanted to do was get Monica back!" The girl threw her hands up, "My family is probably having my funeral already."

Maybe he shouldn't have started tuning her out. That sounded like important context.

He turned around to look at her, feeling slightly bad as he watched her pull down the sleeve of her jacket from where it was riding up. She kept doing that. He didn't want to ask why.

"Listen, kid-"

"Kamala."

"-which part of America are you from? I'll try to get you home, so you can tell them to call off the funeral, in-person."

She screwed up her nose as she thought out loud, "It's the sixties, right? Well that means my Nani is in Pakistan, right now. Probably just about to meet my Nana, so my parents are definitely not alive yet, and to answer your question-" She paused to breathe, "I don't think I qualify as an American right now."

The first thing that came to mind was that she sounded incredibly American for someone who claimed not to be. Was that what a Pakistani accent sounded like?

The second thought, once he actually digested what she said, slipped out before he could control himself:

"What the hell?"

"Surprise!" She did jazz hands weakly, "I'm a bit of a time traveler. And, I'm hoping, a dimension traveler."

If she was right about that, Erik was incredibly glad he'd gotten her out of Shaw's hands.

[Has nothing to do with my Gwentin Takes On X-Men First Class fic. I just enjoy this movie and think the most emotionally competent person in marvel movie history will probably fix this mess]

🟨 Just call me [V]