So, this hot day today threw me for a whirl. I fell on my hands, knees, and scraped my elbow. Hahahaha

Probably won’t be on tonight and gonna hope I feel better by tomorrow.

hozier starting to sing take me to church and then unfurling a pride flag healed something in me actually

if you listen closely you can hear me yell ‘oh my god’ when he does it

never have i been so entirely exhausted from sitting in front of a laptop in a dark room for three hours gay! and so full of delight and happiness! like wow! i have not felt this good in ages!! and its a good kind of tired! i feel like im glowing!

but shit, the update is more than i could've dreamed of. like i said - three straight hours of combing, and i probably still missed a thing or two! i'm even saving the storytime audio to enjoy in the morning, i haven't listened to it yet!

i already have so many thoughts and emotions but i'm... so wiped out oh my god lmao. so much new stuff at once! i need to sleep on it all! and in the morning i will be more than happy to reply, interact, answer asks on this subject, share my actual thoughts - i just need to take the rest of the night to Process and rest, yk yk

and i know i "missed" some links on my liveblog! i know i know! i didn't add every single thing i found - like most of the Wally audios - because i'll be compiling them all into a labeled post tomorrow! when i wake up! i'm already looking forward to it <3 i'm confident i personally found all of them, though! i was Thorough! i went through everything at least twice, i tabbed through, i clicked on Everything...

but yes i hope you all are having a wonderful Update Day/Evening/Morning/Afternoon As The Case May Be. this is truly a delight and again, more than i could've dreamed of. i'd forgotten what it's like to be so wholly excited and delighted by something! it's been so long since i've felt this kind of genuine joy and whimsy! usually im white-knuckling my optimism and happiness but tonight it was all authentic 100% non-forced From The Soul!

my princess nonsense is being encouraged watch ouyt imabout to be eneaabled

OK WHATF ATHAT'S SO CUTE I HAD TO MAKE IT i know realistically there's little to no chance that rei DOESN'T know how to work heels 🤣 BUT IMAGINE.....ING.... YAKUMO GENTLY GUIDING REI IN HEELS, WEEKS BEFORE THE BIG GALA AND HAVING NONE OF HIS NORMAL FEAR OF PHYSICAL TOUCH BC HIS [TEACHER MODE] IS OVERRIDING HIS INSECURITY

Linktober Day 6

Mask(s)

Soft and sweet with just a hint of melancholic because 1.I'm tired and probably need a nap father than coffee, 2.I actually managed to make a pretty good mocha and the Anchorage LOZ animatic came onto my playlist before writing this and it kind of influenced my mood, and 3. I'm saving the usual Majora's Mask flare of angst for another prompt because I was having way too much fun dissecting the tragedy of the Hero of Time before sleep deprivation snatched the idea away which is usually my sign to pass the heck out and save the second option for when I have more energy lol.

For the Warriors fans, also Warriors is a disaster of an older sibling but we adore and appreciate him for it in this household, as always can be implied romantic or platonic between him and reader.

You were all but pinned down to the ground, brought down more effectively and unable to find the strength to get up.

Well, not literally, there were no enemies nearby, the chaos at camp had long since died down and there wasn’t anything much to do now that night had fallen, the heavens deigning to put all of it’s glittering jewels on display.

Were it any other day you’d probably focus more on appreciating it in full, the fire was crackling merrily, you were safe and had a full stomach and even with the ever present threat of the Shadow possibly deciding to ambush you all while most of your guards were down, you had your boys with you and the crisp autumn petrichor was a balm on your soul, weary from the journey.

Maybe it would be fine to rest for a little while.

And then the small figure clinging to you flinched, burrowing closer and holding onto your tunic like a lifeline. And awareness came to you like a smack over the head with a log, your fingers gently carding through blond locks as you hum gently. Weighting options and just how quietly you could move without bothering the precious Sprite at your side.

You had guessed Time had been a sweet kid, and you still wanted to lodge a formal complaint with the gods for writing such cruel fate for him because the man couldn’t catch a break and you’re not the only one to take it personally. But he was killing you here, this is how you die, with an adorable but oh so heartbreakingly sad little boy having fallen asleep leaning against you after telling you all sorts of stories about his extensive mask collection.

(You don’t know wether you want to cry, scream or laugh, Mask was so, so young. It breaks your heart, just a little.

Really, the deities of Hyrule must adore tragedies. Bastards.)

Sighing, you decide to compromise, gently keeping the Kokiri boy right where he is, fast asleep and with barely any nightmares as you hum and card your fingers through the spun gold strands, you brush your fingers through the last masks he fell asleep mid through telling the story of how he’d acquired. If you were careful surely you’d be able to reach his pack on his side so he wouldn’t worry later.

A pair of brown boots invade your vision, Warriors crouches down. You think you spot a flash of surprise on his eyes as he spots Mask napping on you, and then fond amusement of a big brother you knew he directed often towards Wind, tone low, “Well would you look at that, out like a light. It’s a rare honor for him to trust anyone like this.”

You chuckle a bit, shaking your head, “I can tell, he’s a good kid. I’ve barely met him for a day and I’d already take on an army for him.”

“Welcome to my world.”, comes Warriors dry response, though you both knew he was a hundred percent serious, his own mask quickly falling away as he gently picked up the Deku Sprout Mask to put it back in the small sprite’s pouch, hiding it’s confused, fearful sadness from your gaze (and it’s an effort, not to twitch, as your rage towards Majora gained even more kindling to burn) as the soldier handled it with the due solemnity of being one of the few Mask would allow to even touch the masks without his immediate supervision, “... I never thought I’d see him again, as...”

“I know.” Your tone was quiet, as you carefully picked your choice of words.

If there’s one thing you knew about any Link, is that they’re all really good elder brother’s and that they are too hard on themselves. Warriors specially, Mask and Wind were his everything, there wouldn’t be words that could describe how gutted he was, after confirming his suspicions with you, regretting not saying anything against Mask joining the battle field back then, loathing himself for not convincing him or Lana into letting him stay in spite of his bad feeling that as soon as the young hero of time passed through that portal he was unlikely to ever meet him again.

... You settle for something simple, instead, reaching a hand to softly pat his head, taking care not to mess his hair too much, “You did good, Wars, it’s not your fault. Mask also knows you did your best.”

He still, sighing, the mask falling away as he guides your hand to his lips, quietly thankful (really, like big brother like little brother, your wonderful, silly, caring boys. You make a point to cheerfully bat away the butterflies in your stomach, ), “... Feels hard to believe that, some times. Thank you.”

You hum, after putting the Zora mask away, Warriors takes Mask’s other side, pulls you closer and breathes.

(Just in case, he lies to himself.)

You quietly listen to his stories about his little brother, and Warriors is content.

maybe an unpopular opinion but one thing i really truly dislike is grown men being called boys. no they are not "boys", they are grown ass men that can and should be held accountable for their actions. not some 10 year old child

got tagged by @anthonymire

last song: the grammy performance of fast car by tracy chapman and luke combs

favorite color: dark red or teal blue

last movie/TV show: the last movie i watched was dumb money but that was over a week ago. last tv show was grey's anatomy bc i've just had it on in the background while doing other things

sweet/spicy/savory: unmentioned fourth option: salty

relationship status: single but there's a guy at work i look forward to flirting with so that's nice

last thing i googled: uh, earlier today i was trying to figure out how to remove the faucet handles so i could clean them. learned a new skill!

current obsession: still the terror probably

last book: last book i finished was the talented mr. ripley over winter break, but right now i'm nearing the end of alive: the story of the andes survivors.

looking forward to: getting my 9AM meeting over with tomorrow. i don't want to start my day like this so i just need to knock it out and move one.

tagging: @crazyassmurdererwall, @valleydean, @woodchoc-magnum, @telvayns, @tattooedsiren, @tripleaxeldiaz, and anyone else who wants to do this

20 days until my mantis tattoo 🥳🥳🥳

For the doodle/rant thing, Cole

Cole!!! (Sorry this took a while)

God I love Cole so freaking much man! He’s my closely second favourite after Zane. He’s just a good guy, with a side of silly and an edge of trauma. I think his writing is the best in terms of the main characters, (although I think Nya has the most interesting), which is probably bc his backstory is the most realistic and easy to write. But I think Cole is really under-appreciated when it comes to his writing and stuff. But at the same time I’m probably gonna be biased because I just love this character.

Okay to start off, Cole is actually one of the more moral characters, like Zane, he loves by a motto given to him by his departed parent: “to always stand up to those who are cruel and unjust”. In the show, he proves that he cares so much for others, such as with Karlof in Chen’s noodle factory where he decided he was going to get everyone to escape. And trying to befriend Yang’s students and Yang himself. And befriending Krag. And the entirety of MotM. Cole is also one of the strongest ninja, physically, he was introduced climbing a mountain and he introduced himself to Kai as being fearless (mostly). In the first episode of s1, Cole nearly one the skill contest between the ninja, having beat Zane ( I think?), and nearly beating Kai before Kai set everything on fire. Jay acknowledges Cole would’ve and should’ve won their duel in the tournament in s4, had he not have let Jay win.

But in contrast to Cole generally being and kind, strong guy, he seems to have a lower esteem than what you’d expect. His reaction to grief and difficulty is to run and hide himself away from the world, as seen in s4 when he became a lumberjack after Zane died and when we know Cole became a mountain climber after running away from home and his grief over his mother. His most prominent arcs involve him losing faith in himself: in s5 he thought being a ghost made him less of a ninja, in DotD he thought he was gonna disappear without anyone remembering him, in s11 Cole blames himself for losing the tea, and s13 is about Cole feeling like he can’t measure up to his mother. I’m literally gonna start crying. Cole is an unspoken treasure, unable to see his own worth, like a geode with the crystals on the inside.

And we can fault a lot of it to his backstory. Cole’s parents were a successful musician and performer: Lou, and the dearly missed elemental master of earth: Lilly. It’s unknown if Lou knew Lilly was a ninja because he seemed so against ninjas as a whole in s1, (although I think Lilly being a ninja is a retcon that took effect in s4) but either Lilly abandoned the life of a ninja when she started a family, kept it a secret from Lou, or Lou knew but hid it from Cole, who didn’t seem to know about it when he joined the ninja. Either way, both make sense and fit with Cole’s theme of hiding away. Both Lou and Lilly had given Cole expectations to live up to: Lou with his strict expectations of being a performer, and Lilly asking Cole to promise to be a good person. In the one scene we see Cole and Lilly interacting, Cole is scared that he’s disappointed her by getting into a fight, but it turns out she’s proud of him for being who he is and defending children from bullies. With Cole losing Lilly, he carries this harsh standard that he needs to live in a way that makes her proud, and Lou also feels like he needs to raise Cole to be the best he can be, which is why Lou is harsh in training Cole to be a performer, because that’s all Lou knows. The pressure of everything was too much for Cole and he ended up running away from it all, and climbing a mountain. In his own way he’s still trying to climb to the top and prove himself, but at the same time he’s trying to bury his grief and trauma under other things, such as how Lou is burying his grief with performance. Joining the ninja, Cole starts to heal, he has a way of self improvement that is monitored so that it’s safer, and more importantly he has a family, a safety net that can support him. He’s a ninja and he takes pride in it, but this life comes right into conflict with the life he was hiding from, his father’s. In Cole’s true potential, his disconnect from his father held him back, forcing him to first shun who he was in front of his dad, and lead him to nearly committing crimes because he had no faith in himself winning and he didn’t even want to try. But he decides to anyways, and he does actually succeed. And he’s not proving himself to his father but he’s proving himself to himself. His true potential isn’t just about his daddy issues but also his self esteem in general. Whilst his true potential was achieved this episode, Cole’s inclination to run still resurfaces in other arcs. He associates attention with negativity, as seen when he gets unwanted attention from Nya costing his friendship with Jay and pushing him to run into the woods and be a lumberjack. And he always ends up giving up something in order to help someone else, like giving jay the Jade blade, or grabbing the scroll in Yang’s temple, nearly not making it through the rift because of Yang, falling off of the bounty, helping people in s10 etc etc.

Cole imo has really balanced writing that gives him just enough spotlight to answer our questions about him, and when he isn’t the main focus, he usually has a good b-plot where he receives really good character or he gets good comedy bits which are just enjoyable to watch (like rocky danger buff). It’s easier to actually develop Cole bc as I mentioned, his backstory is the least outlandish. He has kinda a high pressure childhood and his mother died. Unlike every other ninja who’s parents have been missing at some point, Cole knows everything about his parents, his expectations of their status don’t change during the show so he has the most time to develop his current mental state (unlike for example Zane, who’s father kept flip flopping his mortality in a way that doesn’t give Zane enough time to showcase his emotions at each stage of that process, at least not to the extent Cole has). Also because Cole usually gets plots that are not usually connected to the main storyline, his plots always focus mainly on his character development. In a way, being a less important character actually gives characters more of a spotlight. Also they never shove Cole into any romance which is a bonus bc Ninjago romances are honestly horrendously set up. I mean… other than that one time.

Which is how I’ll segue into talking about my few criticisms with Cole’s writing. Bc every character can be improved. First of all, as I mentioned, I can’t talk about Cole without the love triangle. I actually don’t hate about it as much as I used to, since the love triangle did end up setting up the cool development we got in s4. And if you read behind the lines you can almost pretend it was in character, I just tell myself that Cole was only taking part in the drama because he was pissed at Jay assuming he was straight. But the canon is that Nya suddenly had a crush on Cole bc a buzzfeed quiz told her to, and Cole suddenly reciprocated bc that’s apparently what you do. Istg none of the romantic feelings make sense or are justified in the show outside of “that woman looks like she’d be a good gf” which is cringe. So like I just squint when it comes to that and say that Cole and Nya are suffering from peer pressure and allonormativity/compulsive heterosexuality.

Another specific nitpick of Cole’s character is the complete fake out death he had in s10. Like writer’s set up stakes that make the death dramatic but then didn’t stick to their rules which just kinda invalidate the stakes of the season in general. Like we see the cloud immediately turn citizens to stone but for some reason Cole can nap through it fine. The writers put no effort in justifying Cole’s survival of not just the Oni cloud but like surviving falling from that height. I mean ig legos are built different, but if they are, then why is everyone so worried yknow? And it could’ve been simple, we could’ve been shown that Cole somehow saved himself with his powers, maybe being an earth elemental means he doesn’t take damage when he hits the earth? Idk. It was just a cheap death and it didn’t have any impact other than make Nya sad for 1.5 seconds and loosely set up survivalshipping. Yeah

Other than that, I don’t think I have any other specific Cole criticisms. His dad could be involved more ig. Idk.

All in all Cole is a top tier character

🤒

another semester BEHIND me… the relief hasn’t fully kicked in, but i’m starting to feel it.

ah fuck I took migraine meds on a mostly-empty stomach and now The Horrors are overtaking me :(

done with the second worst part of cleaning, i have vacuumed

My dog is shaped like food

my boss is leaving work early tomorrow during a very important and stressful day in order to go see beyonce and then is immediately leaving on vacation to barcelona for two weeks while we're literally in tech for the most difficult and temperamental show of the year and i'm extremely pissed off about it but i'm not as pissed off as i should be because our head tech called him Vacation Boy behind his back yesterday and that's soothed the sting some

10, 27, 50🥰

10. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Nah. Like you said there’s infatuation at first sight.

27. Has someone ever written a song or poem for you?

Yes 😭 I’ve had a few poems sent to me on here either through anon, DMs or posting one and saying I’m the inspiration behind it.

50. If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept?

That’s pretty complicated lol