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postitforward · 1 year

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Mental Health Spotlight: Jasmine Marie, Founder of black girls breathing®

Jasmine Marie is a speaker, breathwork practitioner, and the founder of black girls breathing®. Her work is innovating the wellness, healthcare, and research industry by making mental health services accessible to Black women while filling in the gaps of data and research available on this underserved and underrepresented demographic. Marie plans to impact one million Black women and girls with her work by 2025. She is a serial founder with a past life in global haircare brand marketing and an alum of NYU Stern. The impact and range of her work to date is expansive—ranging from underserved minority communities to stressed-out college students and executives. She’s brought her expertise to elite colleges such as Harvard Business School, Columbia University, and Cornell University, and her client list includes corporations such as Estée Lauder Companies, Under Armour, Capital One, Ford Motor Company, Facebook, and Twitter. Marie has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America, VOGUE, Forbes, Harper’s Baazar, Marie Claire, Glamour, Nylon Mag, Wall Street Journal, and Black Enterprise, to name a few.

What is black girls breathing®? And why was it created? black girls breathing® is a safe space for Black women to manage their mental and emotional health and heal trauma in their bodies with breathwork and community.

I created black girls breathing® after finishing my breathwork training and seeing so few facilitators that looked like me yet knowing how much chronic stress and trauma (generational, societal, etc.) and decided to create it. I used my background in business to help me develop a model where we could provide this work accessibly.

Do you have any secret hobbies, skills, or interests?

I don’t think I have any secret hobbies but for a while, I would always feel embarrassed whenever anyone asked that question, as a lot of my hobbies can maybe seem boring to others lol. But I love to read. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I love having quiet time…any activity that allows me to feel refreshed, sit with my own thoughts and enjoy my solitude. I think because I deal with so many people’s energy that in my spare time, I just like to spend time with self. I love to cook though…it’s a very meditative activity for me that allows me to unwind from my day.

How did you get started in this work? And why is it important to you?

As mentioned above, after my breathwork training, I realized there were so few Black breathworkers. But before that, I found breathwork while being stressed out after graduating from business school at NYU and working in beauty in NYC. My nervous system was so fried I began having physical symptoms…rashes and an inability to sleep. The doctor would see me and always say, “This is stress. How can you reduce your stress?” Fast forward to me finding my first breathwork class and falling in love with the way it allowed me to just feel more space in my mind and body.

WOW — ONE MILLION Black women and girls breathing by 2025 what an ambitious goal! What impact do you see this having?

It is an ambitious goal, but in 2020, we fundraised $55k to make our work accessible for one year. After the year was done, it was so clear that we couldn’t stop there. So many Black women needed this work, and we would hear that over and over again. So I decided if I was going to do this work, I was only interested in creating real impact and a goal that would signify that. Imagining 1 Million Black women using breathwork as a tool to regulate their nervous systems, heal from compounded trauma and reduce the effect that chronic stress has in our community (health challenges linked to chronic stress: heart disease, high blood pressure, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, fertility issues, and the list goes on) will not only affect them but our community as a whole. Ending the passing down of generational trauma and normalizing healing.

What would you suggest to people who feel like they cannot find the time to breathe or practice mindfulness?

I would first affirm that it’s okay they feel that way. Western society has done a great job of making us feel that anything outside of productivity is not only a waste of time but the least important thing we should make space for. Making time for yourself for any mindful activity can be eased into and it can start with being more aware of the present moment and practicing that action on a daily. Maybe you create a routine where every morning for 3 minutes right when you get up, you take a moment to be still, notice your breathing pattern and focus on each and every inhale and exhale.

Why is Black representation important in this industry?

The wellness industry isn’t unlike other industries where Black representation is lacking. I think it’s important to see other Black women caring for themselves because, historically, we’ve been taught to do the opposite for oh so long.

Where do you find joy?

I find joy with my family and my loved ones, in intimate moments with friends, in good food and conversation, and in being able to create something and see it grow, shift, and evolve.

Want to learn more about black girls @blackgirlsbreathing?

Check out their website!

Breathe with us on March 27th @12pm EDT during their Mindful Monday Breathwork for Anxiety session on Tumblr Live

Ask black girls breathing all the questions on your mind for IssueTime on Navigating Anxiety in an increasingly digital, lonely world

Take the pledge with black girls breathing®

#meditation #mindful monday #mindfulness #mental health #well being #tumblr live #black girls breathing x tumblr #black girls breathing #self care #healing #take the pledge #mental health matters #menhealthmatters

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teecupangel · 4 months

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Desmond being bored and deciding to make a retelling of his ancestors for shaun or historians of the assassin's. Except he 'accidentally' makes it public and it goes viral, given that sometimes its Desmond and other times its his ancestors from the bleeding effect

The Assassins desperately needed a win.

After the Great Purge, the Assassins were left imprison in a sinking ship.

William Miles and Gavin Banks tried their best to protect and hide what was left but it was a losing battle.

It made people desperate.

Desperate enough to place their fate in Desmond Miles.

Desmond Miles, the runaway son of William Miles.

Desmond Miles, the descendant to Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore.

The golden boy of the Assassins.

He didn’t really care much about him.

Rebecca Crane was his tech support so he never even met the great Desmond Miles.

He was stuck here, in the basement of a loud club in Berlin, doing his job as one of the contact persons of Erudito.

Most of the time, he just helped Erudito fuck Abstergo’s shit up.

Or try to anyway.

Abstergo does have one of the most impressive security system money can buy.

They were slowly chipping on it though.

Most of Erudito were still trying to throw rocks at the digital bullet proof system Abstergo has while he and the best of Erudito hack into another company who uses the same system to find its weaknesses that they can use against Abstergo.

They were so close to a break through.

And he may have drunk 6 or 7 energy drinks for the last 62 hours so he actually thought he was hallucinating for a moment when he clicked the link one of the Erudito hackers he was working with had spent with the message “dude, isn’t he one of yours? O.o”.

It was a youtube video.

Of Desmond Miles…

In that motherfucking (should certainly be) secret hideout in Italy.

With that motherfucking statue of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad behind him, completely clear on view.

“So you wanted to know what Ezio was doing while he was looking for Cesare Borgia, right, Shaun? You went out and I know I’ll be back in the Animus by the time you get here so I’m recording this so you can watch it while I’m stuck in the Animus.”

“So… Cesare left Roma after he failed to kill Ezio and got sent to Castel Sant’Angelo.”

He blinked.

Was…

Was Desmond Miles giving a history lesson???

Oh, fuck, he was.

And he just namedropped Machiavelli and Leonardo as Ezio’s companions who were also looking for where Cesare was transferred after he escaped and got captured again in Firenze.

And…

He had started to speak in Italian.

Not only that…

His entire demeanor, even the way he sat had changed.

He had only heard about it.

The Bleeding Effect.

Desmond Miles was bleeding as Ezio Auditore in a fucking video in the internet.

His second phone began to rang and he prayed to every holy and demonic being that it wasn’t William Miles.

No matter what William Miles say, he cannot just scrub that video from the internet.

It was obvious (6 millions views! What the fuck!!!) that someone out there had already downloaded this video and taking it down would just spark more controversy.

He looked at the number and knew exactly who was calling him.

He accepted the call and said immediately, “What the fuck, Crane. Why did Miles upload a video to fucking Youtube?!”

Rebecca groaned and he could hear Lucy Stillman and Shaun Hastings shouting in the background, most probably ripping Desmond Miles a new one.

“The phone he used to record it automatically uploads to Youtube.”

He blinked.

“That is bullshit.”

“It’s true! It’s one of Lucy’s burner phones and she didn’t even change the settings at all! It defaulted to that kind of setting!”

“No phone has an automatic upload to Youtube and you know it.”

“I know but this one does! It’s so weird! It’s like… something weird is going on here!”

“I’d believe it more if you said Miles wanted to publish it as unlisted but fucked up.”

Rebecca groaned once more.

A phone that automatically uploads to Youtube.

That was such bullshit.

(Rebecca is telling the truth. The phone is a weird one and Lucy can’t even remember where she got it. Almost like… it was always there. Dun dun dun)

#i could have made this in the same au #as the tasting history-esque au #but nah #i wanted to make this a much more #holy shit #moment for the assassins XD #assassin's creed #desmond miles #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #ask and answer

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writingforatwistedworld · 1 year

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For Vil: H, I, J, please! I’m very interested in the Housewarden’s mindset as a yandere

Self-aware au

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, manipulation, imprisonment, murder, poison, unhealthy relationship

H, I, J

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Being put on a way too high pedestal

It’s not like Vil would do this on purpose

It’s actually the oppesite

He praises you constantly, telling you how perfect you are

It’s nice and all when your partner tells you that they love every single part about you but nothing comes close to the extent Vil does

For a normal person like you it is absolutely impossible to be what he envisions that you are

And when you tell him that this is too much he is going on and on how humble you are

Safe to say you will never be able to climb this mountian

Vils fans

Many of them understand that Vil is also just another human being who wants some love in his life

And then there are also like “DON’T TOUCH MY VI-VI!”

To be fair, Vil also dislikes those fans a lot but there isn’t much he can do

So he does try to keep your relationship private but there is only so much someone like him can do

If you didn’t have the same experience as the NRC cast (aka meeting your vessel Yuu, getting to know you through Yuu) it can be a bit hard to figure out at first glance that you are the Overseer

So even that isn’t necessary some sort of protection for you

Just avoid crowds and learn how to make yourself look like someone else entirely with make-up

Vils fretting over you

“OH MY GOODNESS IS THAT A PAPERCUT??!”-Vil Schoenheit, model with 5 million followers

To say that he is always worried would be an understatement

He just wants to make sure you are always taken care of, ok?

Well guess who isn’t so thrilled about that? Ding ding ding! Ten points for the right answer! You

I’m not talking about a few minutes of attentio. I’m talking about him coming back to Pomefiore and then it starts for the entire rest of the day

And it’s not like you can tell him that it’s too much

That would be just rude and we also don’t want to know what happen if you ever were to take that “privilege” away from him

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

A “normal” relationship

You know, getting registered on the paper, being able to go out with you, yada yada

Sadly he is not able to enjoy this at the moment since he has to shield you from the more problematic part of his following

Why the “ “?

Well because in that vision you are not really having any contact to anyone besides him

Unconscious manipulation is also a normal thing, the world is evil you know? Only he is on your side

Maybe if you ask nicely he will get you a goldfish or somethign like that. You know, to talk to

One where he isn’t interrupted

At the moment the young model still has to study and also take care of his more or less dormant career

So “sadly” to your joy he can’t be there all the time

If worst would come to worst he would step down from his job

He has so much money he could probably pay easily for everything Ruggies family needs for fifty years

Man just wants to spend every minute of his life with you

Whether you want it or not does not matter

One in which you love him enough for him to stop feeding you secretly potions

Have you ever wondered why you are still here with him even though he is so overbearing?

Well congrats! You just broke through the effects of one of Vils potions

He hates it, ok? He hates it to always tiptoe around you so he can put it in your drinks

Vil thinks he has no chance with you, perfection itself, so he sees no other way but to cheat a bit

So the next time you see him with a heartbroken look on his face you know what he just did

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Easily jealous

I would like to remind you that he has a background as an actor

This means you won’t even know that he is jealous… until it’s too late

The sight of others being around you, looking at you, being close to you, potentially taking his spot besides you

It makes his blood boil

If he didn’t have a reputation to uphold he would have fed all of them apples a long time ago, and those do not keep doctors away

If you look really close and are Rook you might see his muscles being a little more tense than usual so… Nah, no way you can spot this sign early enough

Bettering himself

Vils jealousy stems from a place of fear

What if you were to find someone better than him?

So he takes it out on himself… and a teeny tiny bit on you

He wakes up earlier, runs longer in the morning, sees something ugly in something totally normal

You know, the unhealthy stuff

With him raising his standards for himself he also raises his for you

Suddenly that papercut isn’t just a papercut (to which he already reacts way too much) but a stab wound in your side

He goes from mother hen to Bridezilla before a wedding… just in a caretaker sense

Snapping

If you don’t see the signs even then he will snap

Full on reenactment of Snow White

No need to worry why he gave you that apple. It’s good for your health!

Two seconds before catastrophe struck

So whilst you lay there, your vision going dark, you can still see his visage torn by a unnatural wide smile

If he can’t have you no one can

And if eternal sleep is the only solution to you never leaving him then so be it!

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midchelle · 7 months

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how would you rank the different beatles couples wedding looks?

Now this looks like a job for me

9. John and Cyn (1962)

I feel a little bad ranking them this low because the four of them had about two shillings to rub together between themselves, but this was just not a great effort. John appears to be wearing A Suit. Perhaps with a tie of some sort. Paul and George's fits look kind of similar, which makes me think he got married in his Beatles suit. I guess that was an appropriate start to their marriage.

Cynthia's having a classic Cher Horowitz faux Chanel suit moment. It's not a bad look, but it's literally something you would see in Zara. There's a pneumatic drill in the background. Cyn nearly got married to George instead. What a world that would be.

8. Paul and Heather (2002)

Did you know this was one of the most expensive weddings in history? It cost 3.6 million. They rented a castle in Co. Monaghan. There were fireworks. Did you know that Heather Mills wore the most 1980s wedding dress known to man in 1989? These are the things I was forced to find out while researching this look.

I originally had this a bit higher. I didn't want to rank it low just Because Heather. But the more I look at this dress, the more I hate it. She's doing the Kate Midleton lace sleeves -- which, in fairness, was pretty forward-thinking in 2002 -- but then the lace just goes over the whole outfit, which has the effect of making everything look very same-y. Barbie in A Christmas Carol executed this idea way better.

I don't have many objections to Paul's outfit. He wore a vest. That's effort. And he matched his tie to the flowers. Like job done, basically. My only real issue here is the lack of vision. If I was Paul McCartney in 2002 and a knight of the British Empire or whatever, and I'm getting married in a castle -- I'd have a sassy little sword with me. Perhaps even just to cut the cake. Come on.

7. Paul and Linda (1969)

Don't let the cuteness of the pictures distract you from the fact that they're both dressed like they have a meeting with Harry from accounting in an hour. Paul appears to have shown the barber a picture of the guy from The Peep Show. She married him when his hair looked like that. That's love.

It's possible that Linda is wearing a non-business casual outfit under the trench. We'll never know. The problem is that these people refused to get married any time outside of the cold months. It's weird how this is the one Indian thing they all adopted.

The kid is a fun accessory. I enjoy how she and Linda appear to be matching trenches.

6. Maureen and Ringo (1965)

I enjoy how Cyn, John, and George seem to be haunting the proceedings in the second picture.

Originally, I had this lower, but you know what? I like Maureen's little Jackie O suit with the Peter Pan collar, and I love that hair accessory she has over her bun with the bow. Ringo is fine, even if he does look like he's wearing his Dad's jacket. I really don't think it's supposed to fit like that. You're Ringo Starr and this is your wedding, you couldn't get it tailored? Or just buy one that fits better?

And once again: she married him when his hair looked like that.

5. [ERROR] (1978)

I saw a lot of sources saying the first pic is George and Olivia. It is not. The man looks a bit like George, but the woman looks nothing like Olivia. The second picture, I think, is from George and Olivia's wedding, and yes, that is the best quality I could find. I think George has the same '70s open-collar suit thing as the man in the fake picture, but that's about all I can tell. Olivia could literally be wearing a rug for all I can see about her outfit. Since this is Schroedinger's Beatle wedding look -- neither good nor bad since I Literally Can't See It -- it goes right in the middle.

I can't believe they wanted to have a small personal wedding. It's like they weren't even thinking about all the Tumblrinas.

4. Paul and Nancy (2011)

Nancy Shevall's royal wedding dress ft. Paul doing a classic Paul pose.

Nancy's wearing a Stella McCartney dress -- cute -- inspired by Wallis Simpson of all people, which is kind of wild as royal wedding inspiration goes, but I like it. It's tasteful while still being unconventional.

Paul also looks great. The longer hair suits him much better. Nancy Shevall is a businesswoman, and it shows. She did not marry a man with bad hair.

3. George and Pattie (1966)

Mary Quant herself personally designed George's coat. That's how serious this is.

It's a strange occurrence because this is one of the few times that `I feel more let down by the woman than the man. Don't get me wrong, Pattie looks great. Her hair's great. Makeup: great. The tights? The coat? Fantastic. But the dress itself does look like something I wore to my friend's birthday party when I was eight. Do better.

Not featured: Paul McCartney being out of his gourd during the proceedings. Sorry, Paul. This ain't about him.

2. Ringo and Barbara (1981)

Unghhh they look so good. Sorry there's no joke.

Barbara's dress is so lovely and romantic -- I think it might be a top and a skirt, actually? Anyway, love the neckline, love the sleeves, love the bell skirt. The flowers tucked in at the waist? The lace? That's how you do lace, Heather! And Ringo. He got his hair cut by someone who actually likes him this time, and he's wearing a jacket that fits! That's how you know he was serious about it, and it shows -- forty-two years later. Very fond of the star pin on his lapel.

What really puts this look over a lot of the others is I do feel like they coordinated, her in all white and him in all black. And they one-upped both John and Paul by having not just one, but two kids. Beat that, McLennon.

John and Yoko (1969)

You might've had a cute wedding look, a great wedding look, even, but did your wedding create enduring pop-cultural tropes? Don't think so.

#mid.txt

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comicaurora · 1 year

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So far, has there been any sort of art technique or process you've tried that made you go "that was surprisingly easier/harder than I expected"?

Oh man, yea. So many things. Doing this comic has been a learning experience and a half because of all the textures and effects I have to do, most of which I figure out on the fly because I've either never done them before or I've never done them that many times before.

The first "surprisingly easy" effect I'd never succeeded at before was the scales on the Storm Drake in the interlude after chapter 6:

It's a Droplet particle brush used on two layers, one set to Multiply and the other to Screen. It produces a very easy texturing effect that works on everything from scales to sand to rock, making the surface look like it's catching the light in complicated ways. I used it again in Dainix's desert flashback in chapter 19 to make the sand look like it was catching the light.

I actually used a similar method to draw the background in the arena fight in chapter 12 - using a rounder particle brush, but the same combo of Multiply and Screen to produce a chaotic pattern that gave the illusion of a massive background crowd without making me hand-draw ten thousand tiny people.

This one was an effect that didn't surprise me and that I sadly had very little cause to replicate, but I LOVED the multicolored highlighting effect in Erin's chapter 6 flashback in the heart of the Storm. It ended up being very simple to do and it just looked SO pretty.

Changing the highlighting colors to just the cool-tones for this page just made me like it more.

When we hit Falst's intro arc and I had to draw about a million forested backgrounds, I decided to refine the process I'd used in the first few chapters, because I wasn't happy with those results:

Starting in chapter 8 I tried a lineless style for forested backgrounds, and it worked out better than I'd hoped. Not only did it produce a feeling of depth and shadow, I didn't even need to plug in my drawing tablet to do it - I could literally do these backgrounds with my trackpad and mouse, which was a huge timesave. Combined with a little experimental sunbeam stuff and these forest backgrounds ended up both shockingly simple to make and VERY nice to look at.

I used a similar technique for the soulcrystal in The Collector's lair - stacked Multiply and Add layers with nested rough shading patterns similar to the ones I used for foliage, but with more overlap to produce the effect of chaotically scattering light.

This was another no-drawing-tablet one, and I liked this texture so much that I willingly redrew it for the stinger in chapter 18 rather than copying the texture from the earlier chapter.

In terms of effects that took longer than I anticipated, Dainix's fully-realized Crucible form has been giving me trouble for literally as long as I've conceived of the comic. Drawing fire is already hard enough, but giving that fire a semi-solid, tangible form that was clearly readable as a humanoid figure was a HUGE pain in the ass. The head and arms were easy to design, but what to do with the bottom half was always a struggle, and beyond that I wasn't always sure how opaque to make him - real fire is a semi-translucent light source in constant motion with no clearly delineated edges, and if you draw it in a way that deviates from that too much it can make it feel less like fire. It took a while before I was happy with the color balance on him to make him suitably glowy without losing the internal detailing that made his expression readable.

Similarly time-consuming, working out how to do Vash's "nova mode" took some trial and error. I wanted to make it clearly visually distinct from Paladin light magic and regular fire magic, so I focused on trying to replicate the texture of the surface of a star, with sunspots and flares rather than licks of fire or sharp-edged lightsaber vibes. I'm happy with how it ended up, but if I recall correctly it took upwards of two days just getting all those glowy effects sorted out.

Then drawing the actual starfire blast was an even bigger pain, because again I didn't want it so glowy that it was completely unreadable. To be honest I'm still not sure if it worked.

This is a very recent one, but it took me a while to figure out an effect I was happy for to communicate "this place is really, really dark." I didn't settle on a blanket dusty purple desaturation layer until quite late, to sort of replicate what night vision supposedly looks like for animals that can see decently well in the dark. Lights and darks are preserved, but color isn't so much, and this way I wasn't way-overshadowing everything and making it impossible for US to see. And conveniently the actual effect is quite simple to do - it's just a universally gray layer at 50% opacity set to the "Saturation" combine mode, stacked with a universally dusty purple layer at 70% set to the "Color" combine mode. Very easy to add quickly and copy/paste across different pages.

There's probably more, but yea. Almost all of the "that was surprisingly difficult" effects either get easier with time or I figure out ways to simplify them and make them work in fewer layers. This is the really fun thing about a longform project like this - I keep finding new ways to challenge myself I'd never even thought of before.

#asks #aurora #art stuff

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hannuhbee · 2 years

Text

𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝘀

steve makes a list of romantic clichés to do with you.

pairing; steve harrington x fem!reader

warnings; fluff, steve being a sweetheart, friends to lovers, pet names (sweetheart, bub), skimmed through so not fully edited

wc; 2.6k

“hi.” steve said as he greeted you at your door. the folded piece of paper felt like it weighed a million bricks in his pocket. “you ready?

you tilt your head. “for?”

“i’m taking you out, remember?”

you shake your head. “nope.”

“well, i am. get a jacket, it might be cold.” he turns on his heel and walks back to his car.

you shake your head laughing again, grabbing a light jacket. it was already cold, nearing october.

right as you walk out, a large gust of cold air hits your face. you can hear steve laughing. he’s leaning on his car.

“ready now?”

you nod. he opens the passenger side door and lets you climb in. “you’re such a gentleman, where’s the steve harrington i know?” you tease.

“i’ve always been a gentleman, you just need to be more observant.”

“right. care to tell me what’s going on?”

he starts the car and begins to drive. the windows are down, letting the cold air in. it’s nice, would be nicer if the air was warmer though. “just thought we’d do something fun. we haven’t really gotten to hang out with just us in a while.”

you nod. “that sounds nice, i think we both need that.” you laugh.

since steve had taken dustin under his wing, the whole group of kids had followed. in the past month, you hadn’t seen steve had at all without a kid following close behind. you loved the kids, but it was nice to have just steve for a little bit.

“have you heard of that new diner that opened up right outside of indianapolis?” he asks. you nod. “thought we’d go there, share a milkshake or something.”

you felt your heart swell at the thought of sharing a milkshake with steve. the closeness made you dizzy. “that sounds nice.” you repeat, only your voice was smaller.

steve was never one to shy away from touching you, as he always had a hand on the small of your back or an arm around your shoulder. this was no different, as he placed his hand on your thigh. you hoped he didn’t hear your breathing hitch. “you look scared.” he said, glancing at you. you were driving through a forest, no sign of life anywhere. “i’m not going to kill you, i promise.”

“i didn’t think that, steve. just happy that we’re doing something is all.” you smile. he smiles back, that classic harrington smile.

“did you know that dustin likes you more than me?” he says, laughing.

“have you seen the way that kid looks at you? it’s like you would’ve hung the stars or something. kid worships you.”

steve smiles. “he talks about you a lot. says you’re real pretty.” and that you’d be good for me. steve doesn’t say that.

“yeah, he’s real sweet.”

“i agree, you know. you are real pretty. maybe a star yourself.”

you hit his shoulder. banter like that was usual for you. platonic flirting you’d call it. “oh shut up, harrington.”

“oh no i’m not lying, swear. you could be a famous actress or something.”

“you flatter me, now focus on driving.”

he does as told, eyes fully on the road.

you wished you could pull your eyes off him, but you couldn’t. “you’re pretty.”

he glances at you, then his eyes are back on the road. “what?”

“oh yeah, like phoebe cates.”

“you’re evil.” he shakes his head. he doesn’t deny it, he thinks it’s funny. he thinks you’re funny.

his thumb draws circles on your thigh.

“and,” he draws it out for dramatic effect. “we’re here!”

you open the door before he can run over and open it for you. “again, evil! can i not continue my gentlemanly efforts?”

you shake your head. “nope. c’mon.”

he jogs after you, placing his hand on your back. you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel like his hand burned you. a good burn, though.

the diner was quaint, cherry red and cream seats. music was playing softly in the background, a song you didn’t know. very few people were eating.

“hi there! you can take a seat anywhere.” the waitress at the counter smiles. “i’ll get you guys in a couple minutes.”

steve leads you to a seat in the back. “it’s nice here, isn’t it?”

you nod. “it’s cute.”

there was vibrant colored lights overhead, lighting steve up beautifully. “you look nice in the lights.”

“as do you, harrington. like a christmas tree.”

“hi, sorry for the wait.” the waitress apologizing, handing you and steve menus. “what can i get started for you guys?”

“uh, a coffee please.” you smile.

“just a water. i think we’ll need time to look over everything.”

“of course! i’ll get those drinks over quick.” the waitress begins to walk away, then turns back. “i recommend the peach cobbler, it’s very good.”

steve loves peach cobbler. his face lights up at that. “thank you.”

“i already know what you’re going to say, and yes. we should get it.”

“i’m not hungry, i think we should just skip to milkshakes and cobbler.” he suggests.

you smile. “read my mind.”

your hand was on the table, so steve reached out and grabbed it.

steve, though usually touchy, was even more touchy. it felt strange, but not bad. it made you have a ting of hope that he felt the same way. you shook your head slightly at the thought. it was just steve being steve, nothing else.

“here’s your coffee, and your water. have you guys decided yet?” the waitress pulls you out of your thoughts.

“can i get a strawberry milkshake with two straws, and then a large piece of that peach cobbler?” he asks, smiling politely. his hand never left yours.

“of course, you won’t regret it!”

she puts her hand on his shoulder, something that usually wouldn’t make you jealous, but it did. it felt like someone set your heart alight.

when she walked away, you pulled your hand from steves and wiped it on your pants. “she was nice.”

“she was.”

“and pretty.” you say. your voice came out a little strained.

steve looked confused. “i mean, sure. what’s up?”

“nothing, just... observing.”

steve’s foot nudged yours. “can i hold your hand again?”

someone had poured water on your burning heart. “yeah, sorry. i’m just tired.” you were tired, but that wasn’t the reason you were acting strange.

you put your hand back in his, and he smiled. steve looked so pretty when he smiled that you wanted to reach out and feel if he was real. he looked unreal, and the vibrant lights only made it seem more so.

“do you have to be home tonight?” he asked, rubbing his thumb over your hand.

you shook your head. “my parents are gone, new mexico i think.”

steve knew all too well what it was like to be alone. that was only partially why he wanted to take you out. “good, because i had no intention on bringing you back.” he didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. “no, wait. i’m not going to kill you i swear.”

you laughed. “are you saying you have more things for us to do?”

“yeah, got a list and everything.”

the list was something robin had come up with for the most part. she suggested that it be created and what was on it. steve had come to her for help on how to ask you out, and robin being robin, suggested that he go all out.

the list read;

1. share a milkshake with TWO (!!) straws

2. stargaze at lover’s lake (no funny business)

3. dance to the radio (pls for the love of god pick something good)

4. confess undying love

5. live happily ever after (update robin)

steve only wrote number 1, robin wrote the rest. robin ordered that she was to be informed of how everything went right after it all happened.

“can i see the list?”

“no!” steve shouted, a little too loud. “no, sorry. it’s top secret.”

“i see, so you are going to kill me.”

he hung his head on down, his head on the table. you could tell he was laughing because his shoulders were bouncing up and down.

“yeah, actually i am, you caught me.” he deadpans.

“wow... what an honor to killed by the steve harrington. put that on my gravestone. ‘death by harrington’.”

he laughed, then stopped as he noticed the waitress coming back. he didn’t want to let go of your hand, so he slipped out so much as to only touch your fingertips. “thanks so much.”

the waitress put down the milkshake with two straws, then the peach cobbler. she looked at your hands, then said, “sure.”

“she turned sour real quick.” you mumble.

“yeah, it’s whatever. this looks so good...” steve was practically drooling.

you put your straw in the milkshake and took a sip. it was perfect, best milkshake you’d ever had. “oh my god, try this now!”

so steve did. “you’re kidding. best milkshake in indiana definitely.”

you nodded, agreeing. you leaned in again to take another sip. steve leaned in too. he was so close, you were sure you could count every freckle on his face. you wished you could, as he pulled away.

“you fall in love?” he teases. you were still leaning in.

your face heated up and felt like it was going to melt off. “nah, you’re not that pretty.” you shrugged. you felt as if you played that off well.

“that’s not what you said in the car.” he mentioned, leaning in again.

your mouth was open, and it felt like your throat was closing up. you couldn’t reply.

“i’m just joking, bub.” he laughed.

“god, i hate you.”

steve just laughed, and began eating the cobbler. “mm... try this.” he put a little bit on his fork and held it out to you.

you ate it, sighing after. “this is my new favorite diner, i’ve just decided.”

“we’ll come back, i promise.” you knew he was telling the truth, steve would one day pick you up and come here again.

as you two finished eating, you noticed it was beginning to be night. “i think we should get going.” you nodded to the window. the sun was setting, a beautiful shade of pink filled the sky.

“yeah, i’ll pay.” he suggested. as you began to voice your complaint, he shushed you and pushed you to the door. “i pay, you wait in the car.”

“gentleman.” you muttered before leaving. steve had pushed his car keys into your hands.

after he paid, he waved to you from inside, and pointed to the bathroom.

you nodded.

when steve got into the bathroom, a small one person one, he took out the folded note from his pockets and used a worn down pencil to cross off number one. “phew... okay. robin you better be right about this.” he whispered.

it hadn’t been obvious to steve that you liked him. dustin and the gang always told him you liked him, that you couldn’t have single conversation where he was not brought up. robin even voiced her opinion, saying “you are an idiot, dingus. it’s so obvious it’s almost painful that you don’t realize it. maybe you need glasses.”

once he left the diner, he smiled at the sight of you with your feet up on the dashboard. he heard the faint sound of the radio as he got closer.

“hey, bub. are you cold?” he asked when he got into the drivers seat.

you nodded. “a little.” your light jacket wasn’t doing anything to help.

“here.” steve tugged off his jacket and tossed it to you. “you’ve said i was like a human heater before, so i’ll be fine.” that was true, but also, steve just really liked seeing you in his clothes.

“thanks.” absentmindedly, you breathed in as you put it on. it smelled like him, almost overwhelmingly so. “where to now?”

“secret.” he smirked, then started driving.

“lover’s lake, seriously?” you questioned. you had known steve long enough to know that he took every girl to lover’s lake. it was his place.

he laughed, uneasy. “not for that reason, bub. you see how dark it is?”

you nodded. “i don’t get what that has to do with an-”

“stargazing. lover’s lake is perfect for stargazing. plus, people get crazy out here, water’s nasty.”

that made you laugh. you felt a little better, though you still wondered if steve brought any other girls out to stargaze. those thoughts were pushed away as steve opened your door and held out his hand. you took it.

“the stars are really vibrant.” you admitted.

“it’s beautiful isn’t it?” he asked, almost silently. his voice was so soft you almost couldn’t focus on anything else.

you nodded.

lover’s lake was silent, you couldn’t even hear the water moving. every so often, you’d hear a bird make a noise, or a leaf would fall.

steve had gotten a quilt out of his trunk and put it down. he sat down first, motioning for you to sit down next to him.

your thigh pressed up against his, the contact making your skin burn yet again.

“you know what robin said?” he broke the silence after a few minutes.

“what?”

he took a deep breath. “she said that you felt the same way.”

it felt weird, him saying it that you liked him.

“uh... i guess.” your voice was so small steve had to lean in to hear you better.

your mind had skipped over the fact that he said, “the same way.”

“hey.” he touched your face. it was different than the thousand other times he did it.

“yeah?”

“i feel the same way.”

you laughed, shakily. your hand found his on your face, leaning into his touch. “so...”

“so, i think that was me confessing my feelings for you.” you both laughed. the note read, “confess undying love”, but it was all the same. “can i?”

he looked at your lips, you looked at his. you leaned in at the same time, and it felt like a thousand fireworks went off in your brain. you had always thought that if you kissed someone you truly liked, that your whole world would change, the world would become a little more vibrant, colors more saturated. you were just shocked that it was true.

“well.” he said, pulling away.

“well?”

“i think i like you.” the smallest smile on his face appeared.

“wish you’d have told me sooner, harrington.”

he laughed, then got up and ran to his car. “just wait there!” he called out.

he turned on the car, then the radio. it was perfect, the song that came on.

and i wanna spend some time with you.

“c’mon, sweetheart, let’s dance.” he said, pulling you up and grabbing your waist.

you didn’t know how to dance, neither did steve. you were both stepping on each others toes, but it was alright. you could write it off as romantic.

just the two of us

we can make it if we try

“just the two of us.” you sung.

“just the two of us.” steve joined in.

you had gotten the hang of the dancing after a while, almost perfect near the end of the song.

just the two of us.

the song ended. steve was staring at you, his nose almost touching yours.

“that was so cheesy of you.” you sighed. you loved it.

“get used to it, bub.” he said, peppering your face with kisses.

steve could cross out three things from the list. he couldn’t wait to tell robin.

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader fluff #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things fluff

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weaveandwood · 23 days

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Weave and Wood Chapter Five: Reverie

Gale/Named Tav | Slow Burn | Read on AO3 | Entire Work

Summary:

Auroria and Gale deal with the effects their mutual pining has on the rest of the group. A quiet moment is shared on their last sunset before the Underdark.

She didn’t know how much time had passed as she sat lost in her own thoughts before she heard a twig snapping. “Hello, Gale,” she smiled to herself, not bothering to turn around to see if she was correct. She knew she was. Gale cleared his throat. “That obvious? You know, maybe I should take you up on that stealth lesson.” He laughed softly to himself, moving closer to her patch of grass in the clearing. “Though I must say I do like how you always know when I’m near."

If the orb didn’t kill Gale, his imagination would. Since the tiefling party days ago, it’s been nigh impossible for him to think about anything other than the vision Auroria projected into his mind. She wanted to kiss him. Him! His feelings about her weren’t one-sided! And here he was, fully unable to act on it.

Gale sighed, lost in his thoughts as he stirred the pot of random ingredients that made it into that night's stew, if you could really even call it that.

Hands brushing as they walked on paths together, as they so often did now.

Auroria tucking an errant strand of hair behind her delicately pointed ear whenever she laughed, which was more and more often.

Obliterating her enemies one by one with a well-placed arrow.

The way she constantly teased him for his knees and his self-given title.

Checking for each other in battles - not enough to be distracted, but it was comforting to know the other person was okay. Gale wished he could cast mage armor on Auroria, her own armor be damned.

Speaking of, had her armor always been so well fitted?

“Need a taste tester?” He was interrupted from his reverie by the subject herself, holding a spoon. He smiled.

“You’re more than welcome to, though it is sorely lacking in flavor. Why can we never find a godsforesaken spice in all these abandoned crates and barrels on this journey?” He joked as he took her spoon, filling it with the soup and holding it out for her, his hand cupped under the bottom to prevent spills. She leaned forward, letting him put the spoon in her mouth, resting it on her tongue before closing her mouth around it. A million inappropriate thoughts ran through his head as he pulled the now empty spoon away from her mouth, tempting the orb’s presence. “I promise if I had my pantry in Waterdeep available to me, you would be very impressed.”

She smiled, taking the spoon back from Gale. “You know, it’s not bad. Especially since more than half of what we find has to be left behind because it’s rotten, you’re doing very well with such limited resources. I’m already very impressed,” she touched his shoulder as she walked back to sit by the campfire with Shadowheart, Wyll, and Karlach, discussing what happened at the creche that afternoon. Lae’zel was in her tent, needing time alone to process everything.

He sighed again.

“Soooo Gale, how is your sad, hopeless pining going?” A voice came from behind, startling him. Astarion. He was too good at sneaking around unnoticed - a boon when they needed something swiped, an annoyance at camp.

“I’m hardly pining. It’s been a year or more since Mystra cast me aside.” He turned his head to look at Astarion, who blinked a couple of times before smiling wickedly, putting his arm around Gale’s shoulder.

“Oh…oh, my dear wizard, I wasn’t talking about Mystra,” he said with a soft chuckle, patting Gale’s shoulder twice before walking off to join the rest of the group around the campfire.

******

Auroria looked up at Astarion as he walked over, noticing Gale in the background. Why was his face so red all of a sudden?

“Astarion, what did you say to him? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that particular shade of red before” she whispered as he sat beside her on the log.

He leaned in, speaking softly, “Darling, do you think we all haven’t noticed the way the two of you are constantly staring at each other then sighing? Honestly, I’m insulted that you think I’m that oblivious. Ever since the party with the tieflings you two have been insufferable. I just pointed it out.”

Now it was her turn to feel her face getting flushed. She took a deep drink from her wine, finishing what was in her cup and stood up quickly. “Man, is this fire hot? I feel like it’s really hot! I’ll, uh, I’ll be back in a bit.” She walked away quickly into the woods surrounding their campsite, hearing stifled giggles from the rest of the group. She hadn’t thought they were that obvious, but she was clearly mistaken.

True, she had been walking closer to him than before, hoping their fingertips would brush.

There was that one time when Karlach definitely caught her staring as he did his quarterstaff training with Lae’zel.

Maybe she did always know where he was when they were fighting an enemy.

And the thing with the spoon earlier was definitely calculated. She sighed. Stupid orb.

She didn’t know how much time had passed as she sat lost in her own thoughts before she heard a twig snapping.

“Hello, Gale,” she smiled to herself, not bothering to turn around to see if she was correct. She knew she was.

Gale cleared his throat. “That obvious? You know, maybe I should take you up on that stealth lesson.” He laughed softly to himself, moving closer to her patch of grass in the clearing. “Though I must say I do like how you always know when I’m near. I am surprised you’re at ground level - usually I find you at least fifteen feet up in the trees. Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” she smiled, this time looking up at him from her spot on the ground, moving over a little to let him sit on the patch of soft grass she had found. The two of them sat next to each other in silence for a while, listening to the birdsong, watching the sun lower itself in the sky. Another day near its end. “I will miss this,” she said softly.

He looked at her, “What will you miss?”

“This.” She inhaled deeply. “The sun, the fresh air, the green grass, flowers, birds singing without a care in the world, the wind. I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to going into the Underdark and dealing with the Shadow Curse.” She ran her fingers through the grass, feeling each blade as she closed her eyes.

Gale watched her and laughed softly. “Sometimes I find myself surprised that you’re not a druid. You seem to be so spiritually connected to nature.”

“You can thank my parents for that. They were both rangers. I don’t remember my father at all but my mother had a deep respect for nature and a strong call to defend. Nothing spiritual, no deity to worship, just a heartfelt duty. She taught me everything I know. She told me stories of how she met my father by chance chasing after the same fiend and it was love at first sight, a human and an elf.” She plucked a blade of grass, twisting it in her fingers as she continued, “My father died when I was three years old. My mother said he had gotten ambushed during a hunt with some other rangers. His injuries were too severe to be saved. From the stories she told me, he was well-loved and it was a long period of mourning in the settlement we lived in.”

“She wore her wedding band until the day she died, never trying to find another love. She told me my father was all she needed, all she wanted, and that in her long and many years as an elf she was lucky to have found that once and that was enough. So she focused on training me - teaching me how to hold a bow, where to aim, how to blend in to my surroundings. We would travel to the seaside and practice shooting fish from cliffs, or go to the deserts to get acclimated to drier climates and hone survival skills. Not a conventional childhood, I’d guess, but it brought me such a deep appreciation for the varied world we live in. No matter where we went though, as soon as I got back to the forest, I knew I was home. It’s always felt like home to me.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your parents,” Gale said, looking at her as she wiped the corner of her eye. “It is difficult to lose one, let alone both.”

“Everyone has their stories,” she shrugged. “My mother was the one who taught me what limited magic I know. The week before she was killed she taught me Hail of Thorns. We practiced for hours on it each day. You should have seen the celebration she did when I finally got it right consistently. After she died, it felt…I don’t know.. wrong to use magic, if that makes sense. Like if someone else taught me, it would betray her memory. I perfected Hail of Thorns in tribute to her, but vowed never to learn another spell. And it’s worked alright for the past 20 years. Of course, now that I’m in this situation, I can see how that vow may have hindered me.”

“Would you be open to learning more spells?” Gale asked softly, tentatively. “I don’t want to overstep, and I don’t even know if it’s possible I could teach you, but perhaps we could try adding a few more to your arsenal. I found a book -"

“Of course you found a book. Where did you find a book?”

“Poking around at the creche, of course. You look in barrels for food, gold, and potions, I look on shelves for interesting books I can bring back here to read and decompress in the evenings.”

Auroria nodded. It did make sense, and she had been wondering how his book collection had continued to grow out here away from civilization. “I think I’d be willing to try. And from our time at the party, I remember you are an excellent teacher. If someone else besides my mother was going to teach me magic…I would like for it to be you,” she said softly. “I trust you.”

She felt a hand on hers. She stared at it, then looked up at Gale, brows furrowed.

“Gale, the orb - are you sure? You said -”

Gale smiled, “I know. It will be fine - no feeling of imminent explosion. Let me just sit here with you and watch our last sunset for quite some time together.”

Gale intertwined his fingers with hers and they did just that until the moon was high in the sky.

#gale of waterdeep #bg3 fanfiction #gale fanfic #my writing #gale dekarios #bg3 #bg3 fic #gale x auroria #auroria galanodel #the line about gale's sad hopeless pining has been one of my favorites since I heard it #gale x tav #named tav #gale x f!tav #weave and woods #weave and woods fic

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drstonetrivia · 6 months

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Chapter 204 Trivia

What we thought may be a politics arc may in fact become a brotherly feud…

Galileo's quote is taken from his book "The Assayer", considered to be one of the pioneering works of the scientific method. At the time, most science was done by philosophical arguments rather than observation and trying to understand the mathematics behind them.

Math is the universal language because the symbols may change, but the meanings/axioms cannot. Because of this, the cover of the Golden Record placed on Voyager 1 (the probe leaving our solar system) has instructions written in math in the hopes some future beings can understand.

Ryusui wasn't wearing two swords last chapter, I wonder where they came from and why he's wearing them now…

(Maybe this is why Sai was running from him haha!)

Mathematical errors have ruined a lot of space missions: the Mariner 1 was destroyed because of a missing hyphen, and the Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed on landing because of a failure to convert units.

Avoiding these errors was very difficult when it was all done by hand.

This seems to be at least partially true, however the practice has lessened over the decades. Indian-educated parents and grandparents may remember, but students these days probably only need to learn up to 19x19!

The HR industry in India is incredibly large, and are a very useful resource to have for any business looking to scale up. It's not surprising that the Nanami Corporation set up a university there!

Sai appears to be the 554th most popular name in India and can be used for both genders, but it's generally a male name.

The equations in the background here I haven't identified yet, but the gamma (γ) thrust here may be alluding to the thrust equation used with rocket engines in space. The gamma is the specific heat ratio of the gas.

The day is October 1st, so the team likely left Spain sometime between September 15th-20th if it did in fact take them 10 days to travel the distance (with some delays because of the Suez situation).

The food here may be a somewhat generic curry as the sound effect seems to indicate, or it could also be lamb gosht based on the color, region, and spices used.

Technically we don't know that Ruri specifically called for the defensive positions, but we do know everyone in Japan is probably in them.

I think this is the same sky image as the one Tsukasa saw in chapter 188, but with a different star pattern.

The Fellenius method and what Senku is actually doing here is dividing the slopes into segments and calculating how stable each one is using the properties of the dirt and rock. Putting the segments together should give you how likely a rock slide is. Strata are layers of rock.

The many-armed pose Sai is found in is a reference to Durga, a major Hindu deity. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.

This comment I believe is Chelsea's from the "I'm not a fan" part, with the "baaad" learnt from Chrome's habit.

The meaning of her comment is confusing, but it might be because the last pretty-boy character introduced was a villain (Stanley), however shes also a fan of Hyoga…?

Sai's outfit is very simple and rather lacking compared to Ryusui's, however they share elements such as the collar type and addition of a belt.

The belt buckle is very interesting, it doesn't follow Ryusui's nor Nanami Corp.'s branding and looks like a C+.

My guesses for the meaning: -C+, the programming language, based off the fact he was petrified on his laptop presumably. -C, the Roman numeral, indicating 100+ because of the million-times brainpower comment (million in Japanese is 百万, 百=100). -C, from E=mc^2, for light speed.

Sai's odd yell ("peegyaaaah!") may be a computer joke, as the sound effect "ピ" (pi) tends to be used for computer beeps, like pressing a button.

A similar sound has been used in the past for Xeno's encryption device.

Sai's character could go a lot of directions since he's unlikely to be one of the traditional nerds they described, nor one like Joel since Joel exists. What Ryusui did to scare off his older brother though, I'm very curious about…

#trivia #dr stone #chapters #sai nanami #204 #bit of me-trivia here: i got spoiled from the leaks from someone updating ryusui's wiki page to include sai and i assumed it was a joke #until i read the chapter and was like “ah.”#i still wish there were more hints to sai's existence before he suddenly appeared out of nowhere

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brunchable · 1 year

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2319 Chapter 9 — Start of Love & War || Young!S.S × F!Reader.

Word Count: 2K Genre: Young Love, Diary Entry, Flashbacks. A/N: Inspired by the Korean Drama 2521. Thank you for being patient guys, I do apologize if it's short! I admit I've sorta forgotten some stuff so I'm rereading everything lol. I might focus on the present next chapter.

The night of July 25 1999, it was a hot, scorching summer, and night had come with a breeze like a balm. It was noisy all around the camp; not only your group was the one waiting for the meteor shower to start. The radio was on for the forecast and some people were singing, others were telling stories and laughing around the fire.

The midnight blue sky is exuberant, twinkling with bright, white sparkles and fireflies. Stephen turns his head to look at you, his face illuminated by the stars. He digs his fingers into the soft grass of the hill.

At some point, you caught Stephen staring at you as you blew a deep sigh out of your lungs and you felt embarrassed, somehow. Especially after confessing to each other that both of you have lingering feelings mutually.

"Oh my! Look up!" Donna gasped and pointed skyward as millions of diamond streams fell from the sky.

Stephem smiled at you and asked you if you had ever seen a meteor shower before. “No, it’s for the first time”, you answered and suddenly quickly turned away to hide the hint of pink blooming on your cheeks.

He pretended he did not notice and he went on, “It’s interesting how people are fascinated by this phenomenon, when the Earth basically passes through the tail of a comet, which collects everything it finds in its journey through the Universe.”

Both of you gazed up at this dark, vast canopy sprinkled with millions of diamond lights. So mesmerised were you by the sight of it, your voice took on a dreamy tone when you answered him, “Yes, but how beautiful it all looks from down here.” you softly chuckled.

He laughed softly together with your silvery laugh. It was so sweet and sunshiney, he half-expected flowers to sprout on the ground wherever you walked and a coterie of singing woodland animals to trail behind you while you traipsed through meadows or whatever girls like you did.

Both of you lifted your gaze and saw small shiny globes shooting across the sky, leaving behind a neon-like effect. Exclamations and applause could be heard around you, and you felt him take your hand and clutch it slightly. All he seemed to notice were your bright eyes, they were close enough that he could see the way the lights from the comets reflected in your eyes, like tiny star-beams streaking across an endless night. Your lips parted, lush and pink, and an insane desire to find out whether they tasted as sweet as they looked now gripped him. He nodded with a very warm glow in his eyes, a very softened looking face and an almost hidden smile.

You were too absorbed by the meteors to react to his actions but your heart did skip a beat as you watched the whole show on an indigo background, like a huge canvas, which would lift with the sunrise.

Stephen closed his eyes and made a wish for time to stop for a short while, so that he can savour the moment with you. His chest aches at the idea of losing the thread of this night, and the ease that has shaped between you, an ease born of weeks instead of months or years, but it is something, fragile and lovely.

Stephen sighed softly, stealing glances at you whenever he can so that his photographic memory will have your image seared into his brain. Then, he looks skyward to see the night sky, twinkling with myriads of mysterious stars, blue-black velvet, making the heart stop from the power of mystical attraction.

Something inside Stephen sparked and right there and then, he has made up his mind. He was going to finish what he started, he will graduate university.

Stephen's Flashback

“It’s laughable, isn’t it?” He says.

“What?” Beverly asks him.

Stephen gestures to himself. “This.” He leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. “I should just quit Mom. I’m obviously not cut out for this.”

Beverly sighs. “Not cut out for what? College? Real life?”

Stephen shakes his head. “Responsibility in general, really. Dad was right when he told me that I'm no better than his estranged brother, Uncle Rainer. He was right about that, at least.”

"This year is just a really bad year, Stephen. A really, really challenging year. Sometimes in life, we need a few bad days in order to keep the good ones in perspective.” His mother reached out to hold his hand while keeping the other one controlling the steering wheel.

"You might not see it yet, Stephen but you have what it takes. Your grandfather always tells me to finish what I started, thrust aside your trepidation and self-doubt. Bare your teeth and embrace the process. Most importantly, finish what you start. You’ll be surprised by what unfolds and presents itself before your very eyes." Beverly continued with a slight imitation of her father.

She continued, "And if at the end of it all, you still don’t like medicine, you can do whatever you want to do. You're young, this is not the end of the world."

▪︎▪︎▪︎

August 5th 1999

“Again, (Y/N)!” If you hear the words 'again' and (Y/N) together in a sentence one more time, it might be the thing that finally tips you over the edge.

You've been on the edge since you woke up this morning with a headache sent directly from the pits of hell, so the last thing you need right now is more grief from Coach George Laurier. You focus on suppressing your annoyance, like you do every training session when he makes it his mission to push you to your limits.

Rationalising it’s his dedication that makes him such a successful coach, he decided throwing your ice skates at him is something that should stay in your imagination.

It’s been a few days since the camp and right when you got back home, your father instantly gave you a condition. A condition to make it ‘fair’ according to him. Since they allowed you to go on that trip, the least you could do was start training. So here you were, training for the next olympic games. You’ve been so focused that you haven’t been able to hang out with Donna.

“You’re being sloppy, (Y/N)!” he yells as you fly straight past him. “Sloppy skaters don’t get gold medals!”

What did I say about not throwing skates at him? I already have a gold medal.

“Come on, (Y/N)! Put in some effort for once.” Alex snickers, poking his tongue out at you when you shoot him a cold glare.

Stupid Alex Laurier. Just because he is the best male hockey player the University of Washington, Devonport has to offer and having an ex-figure skater as a father, Alex acts like knew everything about both figure skating.

“It’s coming, Coach,” you say with as much fake enthusiasm as possible. “I’m getting there; it’s not perfect yet, but I’ll keep practising.” It’s a minor lie, a harmless one. You are getting there. What you've failed to mention is you're only getting there off the ice, specifically when you're attached to equipment that helps you get there.

“She’s getting there,” Alex lies, throwing an arm around his Dad's shoulders. “Hang in there just a bit longer, (Y/N).”

It was nice for Alex to be on your side and show a united front to his father.

George mutters something inaudible and waves you off flippantly. “I’ll see you two back here tomorrow, and if you could both not be late, that would be great. I’m fairly certain eating McDonalds before training isn’t going to get either of you onto the Olympic team. Understood?”

Shit. “Yes, Coach,” you say in harmony.

Alex is staring at his phone, waiting for you in the lobby when you finally exit the women’s locker room.

“I freaking told you he’d know.” you groan, swinging your bag toward him as soon as you're close enough to hit him in the stomach with it. “I didn’t even have anything!”

He grunts at the impact, tugging the bag from your hands and flinging it over his shoulder. “The man has the nose of a bloodhound.”

You climb into Alex's new SUV, the latest guilt gift from his uncle, and head home. Alex and you decided it would be cool for him to be your ride since he has practice two hours after yours.

Alex stops at a stop light and looks over at you while you rummage through your purse for your most prized possession.

“What does the planner say you’re doing tonight?”

You snicker, ignoring his teasing tone. “Getting laid.”

“Ew,” he says, the tip of his nose wrinkling as he grimaces. “Keep your imaginations to yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

“Nothing,” Alex smiles to himself while you roll your eyes, “So. . . I heard Paris talked to you before we left camp. . .What did she say?”

You scoff at the memory of that morning before separating, “Y'know she apologised but then she said I should've let everyone know I couldn't swim.”

“Wow.” Alex widens his eyes, “What a massive bitch.”

“I'm over it, just as long as I don't see her again. . . Robbie was more upset than her.”

Alex pulls over in front of your house and lifts the handbrake, “To be honest, me too,” Alex said. “You know what?”

“What?” You asked, looking over at him. Before you could even register what was happening, he leaned across the car and pressed his lips against your cheek. You almost jerked back in surprise.

“All right,” he said, pointing at his cheek. “Lay one on me.”

Before you could think twice, you planted a kiss right on his cheek. He smelled like pine trees. “There.”

He grinned, sitting back just as fast as he’d leaned over. “That fixes it for both of us—and by that I mean my Dad being a pain in the ass.”

And that’s when I fainted. Okay, I didn’t really faint. But something inside you snapped like an elevator cable, your heart plummeting to your feet. You felt light-headed and combustible, your neck hot beneath your collar.

“Thanks,” You said, laughing a little. Thanks?! Someone kisses you and you say thanks?! Did you learn nothing from Stephen Strange?

“That takes the pressure off.”

No, it doesn’t! Now I have no idea what’s going on! Do you like me or are you just being a good friend in the most confusing, lip-touching possible way?!

“Hey,” he said. “What are friends for, right?”

Not this! You climbed out of the car onto shaky legs. Alex Laurier kissed you. Alex. Laurier. Kissed. You.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

You shut the door of your room and that’s when you snapped out of your trance. You dropped your bag on the floor and combed back your hair, “What the hell was that guy thinking?”

You rushed to the window to let some fresh air in, not realising that Stephen was there, “You look frazzled.” He looked up from the guitar he was holding.

You jumped slightly and cleared your throat, "It's nothing."

“Really? That didn't seem like nothing to Alex.”

Your face flushed at the mention of his name. You sat down, wondering if Stephen saw Alex kissing you on the cheek. He seemed so casual about it—he probably wouldn’t even think about it again.

“He was just trying to cheer me up. His dad was very hard on me during training today.” You replied, which was not all a lie since you think that's what Alex was doing—at least that's what 'taking pressure off' is to him.

“Nice to see that it worked.” Stephen chuckles and sets his guitar on his stand, “Enjoy your sessions with him.” With that, Stephen grabbed his jacket and left his room, shutting the door behind him. Stephen's actions stung and it caught you off guard, rendering you speechless. Even though he was casual about it, it felt as though there was a blizzard right beneath his calm persona.

SERIES TAGS: @goldencherriess @lokislov3 @strangesweetheart @mydearalmira @veryladyqueen @seasonofthenerd @artsherlocked @bobateadaydreams @classicrebound @holygalaxyprincess @sobeautifullyobsessed @winsteria @allie131313 @gaitwae @sherlux @the-royal-petals @keistange @omgstarks @evelynrosestuff @withalittlehoney @strangeions @gwephen @cemak @patbrdac @siredlust @downtownshabby @nicoletk @lilithskywalker @youcantseem3 @samisubi @strangelockd @bloodyxsaint @lady-harvey @paola-carter @jotaros-bara-tiddies @delightfulheartdream @strangefilms @strangeobsessed

#stephen strange x reader #stephen strange #doctor strange #stephen strange x you #doctor strange imagine #doctor strange x you #doctor strange x reader #benedict cumberbatch x reader #dr strange x reader #benedict cumberbatch imagine #stephen strange imagine #stephen strange fanfiction #doctor strange fanfic

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look-how-they-massacred-them · 9 months

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Preliminary Poll

Tony Stark

Submission reason:

There are a million things I could rant about here. The way he fucked up Peter's arc is especially atrocious. But SO MANY of these things have been discussed a million times over, so I want to talk about one specific thing I don't see people bring up as much: His heart. Tony Stark had a canon heart condition. He was literally on the verge of death at all times. He needed an implanted device (the arc reactor, that glowy circle thing) just to live. And sure, the device is some made-up sci-fi shit, but the condition was a real thing that real people can have. It's just shrapnel embedded in his chest so close to the vitals that it's just as dangerous to try removing than to leave it in, as simple as that. It's rare enough to have a super hero with real-world life-threatening health complications or disabilities, but for that hero to be MAINLINE? THE FACE OF A WHOLE MULTIBILLION DOLLAR FRANCHISE? That's unheard of. And it wasn't just background info, either; complications from his heart affected his life and the story again and again. The entire second movie was about him recklessly ticking off a bucket list because he was so sure he was about to die any day. The big personal payoff was finding an element that worked more efficiently in the arc reactor without leaking toxins into his body. It was fascinating, it was comparatively unique, it was representation for severe heart problems and subdermal medical devices, AND it had real, tangible effects on his motivations and story! But then the end of Iron Man 3 just healed it all off-screen, with as little fanfare as possible. It almost felt like a throwaway line. No catharsis, no lead-up, nothing. Just "oh by the way there's surgery for that now" zip done, major defining trait in the trash.

#look how they massacred them poll #look how they massacred my boy #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #tony stark #mcu tony stark

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canmom · 2 months

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VR observations, 10 months in

I've been a game dev for 10 months now. It's pretty great, I'm enjoying it a lot, I get to spend my days doing crazy shader shit and animations and voxels and visual effects. Hopefully the game that will come out of all this will be one people enjoy, and in any case I'm learning so much that will eventually come back to the personal ~artistic~ side of things. I can't talk about that game just yet though (but soon it will be announced, I'm pretty sure). So this is a post about other games.

Mind you, I don't actually play very many VR games, or games in general these days, because I'm too busy developing the dang things. but sometimes I do! And I think it's interesting to talk about them.

These aren't really reviews as such. You could project all sorts of ulterior motives if it was. Like my livelihood does sorta depend on people buying VR headsets and then games on them. This is more just like things I observe.

Headsets

The biggest problem with VR at the moment is wearing a headset for too long kinda sucks. The weight of the headset is all effectively held on a lever arm and it presses on your face. However, this is heavily dependent on the strap you use to hold it to your head. A better balanced and cushioned strap can hold the headset still with less pressure and better balance the forces.

The strap that comes with the Quest 3 is absolute dogshit. So a big part of the reason I wouldn't play VR games for fun is because after wearing the headset for 30-60 minutes in the daily meeting, the absolute last thing I'd want to do is wear it any longer. Recently I got a new strap (a ~£25 Devaso one, the low end of straps), and it's markedly improved. It would probably be even better if I got one of the high end Bobo straps. So please take it from me: if you wanna get into VR, get a decent strap.

I hear the Apple Vision Pro is a lot more comfortable to wear for long periods, though I won't have a chance to try it until later this month.

During the time I've been working at Holonautic, Meta released their Quest 3, and more recently Apple released their hyper expensive Vision Pro for much fanfare.

The Quest 3 is a decent headset and probably the one I'd recommend if you're getting into VR and can afford a new console. It's not a massive improvement over the Quest 2 - the main thing that's better is the 'passthrough' (aka 'augmented reality', the mode where the 3D objects are composited into video of what's in front of you), which is now in full colour, and feels a lot less intrusive than the blown out greyscale that the Quest 2 did. But it still has some trouble with properly taking into account depth when combining the feeds from multiple cameras, so you get weird space warping effects when something in the foreground moves over something in the background.

The Vision Pro is by all accounts the bees knees, though it costs $3500 and already sold out, so good luck getting one. It brings a new interaction mode based on eye tracking, where you look at a thing with your eyes to select it like with a mouse pointer, and hold your hands in your lap and pinch to interact. Its passthrough is apparently miles ahead, it's got a laptop tier chip, etc etc. I'm not gonna talk about that though, if you want to read product reviews there are a million places you can do it.

Instead I wanna talk about rendering, since I think this is something that only gets discussed among devs, and maybe people outside might be interested.

Right now there is only one game engine that builds to the Vision Pro, which is Unity. However, Apple have their own graphics API, and the PolySpatial API used for the mixed reality mode is pretty heavily locked down in terms of what you can do.

So what Unity does is essentially run a transpilation step to map its own constructs into PolySpatial ones. For example, say you make a shader in Shader Graph (you have to use shader graph, it won't take HLSL shaders in general) - Unity will generate a vision pro compatible shader (in MaterialX format) from that. Vertex and fragment shaders mostly work, particle systems mostly don't, you don't get any postprocessing shaders, anything that involves a compute shader is right out (which means no VFX graph), Entities Graphics doesn't work. I don't think you get much control over stuff like batching. It's pretty limited compared to what we're used to on other platforms.

I said fragment shaders mostly work. It's true that most Shader Graph nodes work the same. However, if you're doing custom lighting calculations in a Unity shader, a standard way to do things is to use the 'main light' property provided by Unity. On the Vision Pro, you don't get a main light.

The Vision Pro actually uses an image-based lighting model, which uses the actual room around you to provide lighting information. This is great because objects in VR look like they actually belong in the space you're in, but it would of course be a huge security issue if all programs could get realtime video of your room, and I imagine the maths involved is pretty complex. So the only light information you get is a shader graph node which does a PBR lighting calculation based on provided parameters (albedo, normal, roughness, metallicity etc.). You can then instruct it to do whatever you want with the output of that inside the shader.

The upshot of this is that we have to make different versions of all our shaders for the Vision Pro version of the game.

Once the game is announced we'll probably have a lot to write about developing interactions for the vision pro vs the quest, so I'll save that for now. It's pretty fascinating though.

Anyway, right now I've still yet to wear a Vision Pro. Apple straight up aren't handing out devkits, we only have two in the company still, so mostly I'm hearing about things second hand.

Shores of Loci

A few genres of VR game have emerged by now. Shooting and climbing are two pretty well-solved problems, so a lot of games involve that. But another one is 3D puzzles. This is something that would be incredibly difficult on a flat screen, where manipulating 3D objects is quite difficult, but becomes quite natural and straightforward in VR.

I've heard about one such game that uses 3D scans of real locations, but Shores of Loci is all about very environment artist authored levels, lots of grand sweeping vistas and planets hanging in the sky and so on. Basically you go through a series of locations and assemble teetering ramshackle buildings and chunks of landscape, which then grow really big and settle into the water. You can pull the pieces towards you with your hand, and then when you rotate them into roughly the right position and orientation relative to another piece, they snap together.

It's diverting, if kinda annoying when you just can't find the place the piece should go - especially if the answer turns out to be that there's an intermediate piece that floated off somewhere. The environments are well-designed and appealing, it's cool to see the little guys appearing to inhabit them. That said it does kinda just... repeat that concept a bunch. The narrative is... there's a big stone giant who appears and gives you pieces sometimes. That's it basically.

Still, it's interesting to see the different environment concepts. Transitions have this very cool distorted sky/black hole effect.

However, the real thing that got me with this game, the thing that I'm writing about now, was the water. They got planar reflections working. On the Quest! This is something of a white whale for me. Doing anything that involves reading from a render texture is so expensive that it's usually a no-go, and yet here it's working great - planar reflections complete with natural looking distortion from ripples. There's enough meshes that I assume there must be a reasonably high number of draw calls, and yet... it's definitely realtime planar reflections, reflections move with objects, it all seems to work.

There's a plugin called Mirrors and Reflections for VR that provides an implementation, but so far my experience has been that the effect is too expensive (in terms of rendertime) to keep 72fps in a more complex scene. I kind of suspect the devs are using this plugin, but I'm really curious how they optimised the draw calls down hard enough to work with it, since there tends to be quite a bit going on...

Moss

This game's just straight up incredibly cute.

youtube

Third person VR games, where you interact with a character moving across a diorama-like level, are a tiny minority of VR games at the moment. I think it's a shame because the concept is fantastic.

Moss is a puzzle-platformer with light combat in a Redwall/Mouse Guard-like setting. The best part of Moss is 1000% interacting with your tiny little mousegirl, who is really gorgeously animated - her ears twitch, her tail swings back and forth, she tumbles, clambers, and generally moves in a very convincing and lifelike way.

Arguably this is the kind of game that doesn't need to be made in VR - we already have strong implementations of 'platformer' for flatscreen. What I think the VR brings in this case is this wonderful sense of interacting with a tiny 3D world like a diorama. In some ways it's sorta purposefully awkward - if Quill walks behind something, you get a glowing outline, but you might need to crane your neck to see her - but having the level laid out in this way as a 3D structure you can play with is really endearing.

Mechanically, you move Quill around with the analogue stick, and make her jump with the buttons, standard stuff. Various level elements can be pushed or pulled by grabbing them with the controllers, and you can also drag enemies around to make them stand on buttons, so solving a level is a combination of moving pieces of the level and then making Quill jump as appropriate.

The fact that you're instantiated in the level, separate from Quill, also adds an interesting wrinkle in terms of 'identification with player character'. In most third person games, you tend to feel that the player character is you to some degree. In Moss, it feels much more like Quill is someone I've been made responsible for, and I feel guilty whenever I accidentally make her fall off a cliff or something.

A lot is clearly designed around fostering that protective vibe - to heal Quill, you have to reach out and hold her with your hand, causing her to glow briefly. When you complete some levels, she will stop to give you a high five or celebrate with you. Even though the player is really just here as 'puzzle solver' and 'powerful macguffin', it puts some work in to make you feel personally connected to Quill.

Since the camera is not locked to the character, the controls are instead relative to the stage, i.e. you point the stick in the direction on the 2D plane you want Moss to move. This can make certain bits of platforming, like moving along a narrow ledge or tightrope, kinda fiddly. In general it's pretty manageable though.

The combat system is straightforward but solid enough. Quill has a three button string, and it can be cancelled into a dash using the jump button, and directed with the analogue stick. Enemies telegraph their attacks pretty clearly, so it's rarely difficult, but there's enough there to be engaging.

The game is built in Unreal, unlike most Quest games (almost all are made in Unity). It actually doesn't feel so very different though - likely because the lighting calculations that are cheap enough to run in Unity are the same ones that are cheap enough to run in Unreal. It benefits a lot from baked lighting. Some things are obvious jank - anything behind where the player is assumed to be sitting tends not to be modelled or textured - but the environments are in general very lively and I really like some of the interactions: you can slash through the grass and floating platforms rock as you jump onto them.

The story is sadly pretty standard high fantasy royalist chosen one stuff, nothing exciting really going on there. Though there are some very cute elements - the elf queen has a large frog which gives you challenges to unlock certain powers, and you can pet the frog, and even give it a high five. Basically all the small scale stuff is done really well, I just wish they'd put some more thought into what it's about. The Redwall/Mouse Guard style has a ton of potential - what sort of society would these sapient forest animals have? They just wanted a fairytale vibe though evidently.

Cutscene delivery is a weak point. You pull back into a cathedral-like space where you're paging through a large book, which is kinda cool, and listening to narration while looking at illustrations. In general I think these cutscenes would have worked better if you just stayed in the diorama world and watched the characters have animated interactions. Maybe it's a cost-saving measure. I guess having you turn the pages of the book is also a way to give you something to do, since sitting around watching NPCs talk is notoriously not fun in VR.

There are some very nice touches in the environment design though! In one area you walk across a bunch of human sized suits of armour and swords that are now rusting - nobody comments, but it definitely suggests that humans did exist in this world at some point. The actual puzzle levels tend to make less sense, they're very clearly designed as puzzles first and 'spaces people would live in' not at all, but they do tend to look pretty, and there's a clear sense of progression through different architectural areas - so far fairly standard forest, swamp, stone ruins etc. but I'll be curious to see if it goes anywhere weird with it later.

Weak story aside, I'm really impressed with Moss. Glad to see someone else giving third person VR a real shot. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of it.

...that's kinda all I played in a while huh. For example, I still haven't given Asgard's Wrath II, the swordfighting game produced internally at Meta that you get free on the Quest 3, a shot. Or Boneworks. I still haven't finished Half Life Alyx, even! Partly that's because the Quest 3 did not get on well with my long USB A to C cable - for some reason it only seems to work properly on a high quality C to C cable - and that restricts me from playing PCVR games that require too much movement. Still though...

Anyway, the game I've been working on these past 10 months should be ready to announce pretty soon. So I'm very excited for that.

#vr #computer games #game development #shores of loci #moss #Youtube

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shiroi---kumo · 7 months

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⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ Somehow they keep getting lucky enough to not get themselves thrown out of the last few villages on sight. Somehow they haven't been met with harsh glares or pitchforks while the local populace chants about the White Devil and The Great Destroyer and how they would be better off if either one of them ended up with their head on pike. (Or both - the fearful never seemed to be picky)

Somehow, despite their appearance as a very blinding body of white and a tall tower of black, they have managed to just blend in to the every day hustle and bustle of this small town. Are they too far out? Not every corner of Wonderland could know the name Lord Makenshi and even if they did - that doesn't mean they knew what he looked like.

His Excellency had only let his leash extend so far out after all and he's only been off the chain for a little more than a year now. There are places in this mismatched world that even he hasn't been to.

So he can't say he knows much about this town or it's people. They seem to be just as mismatched at Wonderland itself is. There are those with horns and those with fox like ears and those with ears that look like bears. There some people with hooves and some with long tails that extend out far behind them.

Perhaps it's because of this, that he has found himself in a place where for the first time in a while, he doesn't have a multitude of eyes staring at the seven horns upon the crown of his head. Though, even if there are other beings with horns here - he's never seen any with quite as many as he has.

It's nice however to be able to shop in peace. To slowly browse through the wares of their bazaar without wondering when he'll need to run next all because someone recognized one of them from those damnable wanted posters.

Gaudium really had it out for them, didn't they?

Jade eyes are scrolling over the items of a local fruit stand when his ears perk and he can't help but notice the sudden building tune in the air. There is a beat in the background of this town's bustle and he can feel it's rhythm starting to make it's way from his horns into the rest of his form.

It's harm to resist. He can hear strings and chimes. He can hear the sounds of some sort of woodwind coming into the mix but once the hand drums join the party, the prince finds himself swaying his hips ever so slightly with the tempo as he hums.

And it continues to infect his form as they walk. Pulling away from the stand he was perusing only to venture deeper into town to find an inn, yet before the Misterican is even away the cadence of his steps has picked up a very noticeable rhythm.

The swaying of his form far more noticeable than it has been before and how long it's been since he's heard such an infectious tune. Oh what kind of wizardry is this? It's an unfair but effective way to trap any Misterican because the heartbeat of the cosmos is spoken through song and those with mist forged souls struggle to resist it's call.

Even as his twin soul walks next to him, the prince is finding himself getting lost in those vibrations further and further the deeper they walk into town and the closer the beat becomes. It's almost as if his body has become entranced as he moves.

Shifting his hips and timing his steps. Hands have raised to snap fingers along with the song. It's been so long since he's heard any form of music like this and it makes his body itch with the urge to make some of his own. Fingers tingling with the desire to play those drums himself and he half wonders if the locals that own them would be so kind as to allow him to do so.

He doesn't have it in him to ask, he's too caught up in the display keeping time to the beat. Each step sat down with intention while the swordsman continues to hum right along as if he's heard this tune a million times before instead of hearing it for the first time today. He can't remember when his ears were filled with such melody.

It's alright if he enjoys himself a little right now, isn't it? Sure there are eyes on them now but it is hardly because of who they are as it usually would be but instead because the cloud of white is holding himself so well to the rhythm.

The inn has to be around here somewhere.... though he doesn't really mind if it takes them a little longer to find it.

||| Perhaps @kazeofthemagun should be looking for them - the prince seems to be in a world all his own....

#v; cloudy rhythm #kazeofthemagun #at your side forever i shall be || kazeofthemagun #tw; long post

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variousqueerthings · 4 months

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She enjoyed that way too much.

OH NO CLARA DIED. I knew that was going to happen, I have seen it all on the tumbls. but how did she die? I genuinely couldn't remember (all I had was the toymaker going "killed by a... bird?") and yeah that's what I was thinking too. a bird? really? alright then

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 6/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 5/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 9/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 6/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 8/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 8/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 6/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 6/10

FULL RATING: 73/100 (if I can count….)

alright so we're on Big Episodes Time. technically Face The Raven is the first of three episodes but it very much stands alone in Vibe, so let us look at it

OBJECTIFICATION: seriously, we're pretty good on this by now. almost like one doesn't have to make a million jokes about women's appearances or sexually harass them to write a story

PLOT-POINT: okay first contentious rating, because the whole thing about Clara in this episode is that she figures out she is Gonna Die, which is all about her emotions isn't it?

I mean... a bit. but I think it highlights two things 1. "Maybe this is what I wanted. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is why I kept running. Maybe this is why I kept taking all those stupid risks. Kept pushing it" <- this is Clara being like "ah fuck I'm gonna die, but who knows maybe that's what my whole story and self was about" and I'm scratching my head a bit, going... was it? is that... the core of Clara? do the writers know the core of Clara? Or is this just her comforting the Doctor which is my second point 2. sooo much of this death is about Clara comforting the Doctor and telling the Doctor to not get revenge and to be okay with her dying. my love, you are about to die, why are we not getting more on you?

if this story had, say, echoed way back to early days Clara (s7) who was coming to terms with the fact that she was going to die over and over again, but then is rescued from that fate in one reality (I mean, it didn't quite nail that premise, but there's cool ideas within it), and this reality of Clara being afraid of death, but wanting to engage with the fun of life instead, to the point that maybe she forgot death was even an option... there's certainly some things you can use to read this into her, but it's not textual, it's not -- I would even say -- deliberate

Clara just kinda bounced about in the story a lot of the time, as if the writers had forgotten to do a simple character bible or something to that effect with her, so that in this moment when she dies... I'm not sure how it echoes back to how she lived. "Be brave" can mean anything, it's not a Clara-based mantra that relates to anything about her before. it doesn't relate to the idea that she's died before in a bunch of different lifetimes, or that her partner died to save her -- even though she mentions that death, but it's in the context of how she should also be brave and face it, and I'm like. no! aside from how I feel like Danny Pink's narrative was written, he at the very least canonically died so that Clara would not, it seems kind of not how that was framed to go "ah well, he could do it, so can I," he would be Upset at this idea surely???

we reach the seeming end of her life and I understand how it affects the Doctor -- hell how it affects Me and Rigsy -- more than how it affects her

I didn't rate this point lower, because I do think there's some emotional throughline in the episode itself, the problem is that it feels like it didn't relate to the entire rest of her run

COMPLEXITY: there's a Plot. who did the Plot? we don't know yet. we will find out! that's fine, this is the season finale one of three, we don't need to know everything yet

Me was hired to do the plot, and she did so in... kind of a complicated roundabout way. I kind of wish she'd targeted Clara to begin with, because why would she think Rigsy could get in contact with the Doctor? I really like Rigsy, I'm happy to see him again, and he's clearly doing well, but it's a bit ooh and then this plottwist happens, except I wasn't quite following why it needed to be twisted like that in the first place + I mean the fuckn. bit at the end when Me realises what's happened with Clara feels like it's doing so much heavy lifting "I didn't know she'd do something so stupid" really? I didn't realise it was stupid, because it's just inventing stuff as it goes along

I like a lot of the stuff around the plot, but that's another point!

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: I mean yeah, Clara dies and the Doctor is transported... sooomewhere. (actually when I was watching Heaven Sent I hadn't realised it was this transporter that sent him into the Confession Dial, it took me until now)

Me is running a safe haven -- again, a compelling idea that isn't really explored a lot -- and is working for sooomeone to fuck with the Doctor. villain

so yeah, big stuff. Confession Dial now out of the Doctor's hands

COMPANIONS MATTER: second contentious rating perhaps, but Clara makes one big decision in this episode, and it's a huuuge mistake and gets her killed -- the fact that everything around that mistake was kind of silly aside, it's kind of a symptom of one of the main things that frustrated me for a lot of Clara's run (and Amy's for that matter) which was that M*ffat couldn't seem to figure out how to make them make decisions without the Doctor holding their hand, and the second she does in this episode, she literally dies

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor goes on a bit of a murder mystery romp in this one, and that's quite fun. again, I think Clara's death was more about him and how he might react to it, than about her, but on the whole there's nothing else egregious in this

also we get the return of the flashcards, I do enjoy the flashcards!

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: Mmm there's not much in this one. obviously the Time Lords are about to arrive bit by bit, but on the whole -- apart from showing some various aliens...

“SEXINESS”: Clara mentions Jane Austen as "a great kisser" in this episode, and it's... the second? third hint? that she's not quite straight. I know it's baaaasically canon at this point, but I think generally Clara being bi was handled pretty terribly, in that it wasn't

INTERNAL WORLD: there's that secret world of aliens, which mimics a bit the Zygons outside. I kind of think this deserves more than what it gets, but it's not really about it, it's just a bit of set dressing

still, some cool concepts within it. I do wonder if I sometimes am unfair about when I think something is well-developed or not -- after all, Rings of Akhaten was also an alien culture briefly shown but not too dwelled on. I think that episode really did show bits of how that space worked, and crucially the religious festival aspect of it, whereas with this you get a sense of a kind of fucked up underlying politics, but it's not important to what's happening -- heck, we discover that Me pretended to kill someone and framed someone for that fake murder, so that she could lure the Doctor there, and it's confirmed that the law is so strict that just "assuming" someone committed that murder is enough to condemn them to death without trial or chance for defence

but we don't really understand how this affects the people in this supposedly safe haven, we don't really care about any of them, and Me's "plot" is never discovered or important to the running of this place (and the next time we meet Me is in the final episode at the very very end of the Universe so whatever this place was, it's gone now, it's just some random time she spent doing this thing)

I kind of wish there was an episode that was actually about this place

POLITICS: so we've got the refugee/secret society of aliens on earth, which is... somewhat thinly depicted. and the structure of this society is veeery not-good/vicious. but I guess it's mainly just that none of this really matters to the story of the episode

I like that we showed Rigsy again and that he has a kid and seems to be doing well for himself, I think having him specifically as a recurring character was a good choice

FULL RATING: 73/100 (if I can count….)

this is the highest-rated episode of the season actually, and I do enjoy a fair bit of it. some of this rating though comes from it being a Very Big Episode that sets up various things. I realise in structure it's got a bit in common with Utopia leading into that season's two-part finale (although of course, very different finales). straggler society that's holding on, Doctor arrives and is hoping to fix things only to get hit by a curveball in the last few minutes

I think that this is where the stuff that I do like about s9 comes up against the stuff that I knew wasn't going to land for me -- things like how Me is written into the lore feeling kind of clumsy to me, Clara not being as developed as I'd want her to be, and this season having a certain "and now suddenly something really important happens that came outta nowhere" style of writing

but it's a sweet little episode on its own, with some cool worldbuilding, and Rigsy is there!

also the post-credits Rigsy graffiti'ing the Tardis was beautiful. now we head into the. Final Episodes!

I'm not gonna lie -- this is not fair to the episode but oohhhh seeing Letitia Wright was transphobia jumpscare! she wasn't super transphobic and anti-vaxx back then either, it's just. yeah, jumpscare, as my friend and I call it whenever we don't expect sudden casual transphobia reminders

#im watching nu!who #im watching capaldi who #the measurement #episode face the raven #i feel like ive forgotten to talk about something with this episode but i cannot remember what ah well

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dearweirdme · 7 months

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I’m happy you brought this up because it’s something I noticed a while ago and we don’t talk much about it but you’re exactly right that Jkkrs make everything Jk and Jm do sexual and especially in the case of of Jk his every move is related to jm and I’ve always thought it stemmed from a very immature idea that casting everything in a romantic light makes Jkk more real or believable and harder to discredit in their mind and I also think a person earlier said they also seem to think the more ppl they convince Jkk is real will somehow effect real life.

It’s super frustrating to see and makes talking to them mind numbing because it literally informs everything for them down to the way they view the other members as well and they completely remove context and nuance from every situation. Look at the background vocals Jk did for Jimin’s song for them it’s proof that’s a Jkk love song instead of Jk doing what he’s done for a million other songs and they’re still trying to claim his hand tattoo even though he gave a very detailed explanation of what most of it meant and why he got that way and it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t fit the Jm centric Jk universe they created.

Hi anon!

Tkkrs and Jkkrs can’t actually have a balanced discussion about this can they? When our ships communicate it’s automatically a them versus us conversation, both situations cannot be true at the same time (though I have seen some narratives include both possibilities… and also hi poly-bangtan anon). But it’s quite impossible to reach some sort of consensus. Most we can hope for is an admittance of vminkook loving each other very much, but even that is hard to get at sometimes.

In general our views on vminkook’s personalities differ, our views on closeting differ, our views on what’s business and what’s not differ, our views on relationships and friendships differ, and we mostly read body language differently…. That’s a whole lot to overcome. It’s also why I don’t go to Jkk blogs to send asks.. because there’s no use. When a Jkkr comes here I’ll answer on occasion.. because I have trouble with seeing people misjudge Tae and Jk and Jimin.. but I also know it’s no use. I’ve had some nice Jkkrs come here, but even those conversations end quickly. We just can’t agree on this. Most I hope for is that at times they come to see that looking at Jk and Jimin and only seeing the relationship and not the individuals is wrong.

#fandom shenanigans

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abuddyforeveryseason · 15 days

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Don't look, Marion! It's the Buddy for April 12th! It's a gif! It's beautiful...

Today's Buddy was based on that famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the bane of VCR rewind buttons everywhere, where the bad guy's face melts off.

That must've been a fun special effect to pull off. And I know I say a lot of movies are the best movie of all times, but, seriously, Raiders is the best movie of all times, right?

Spielberg and Lucas wanted to make a James Bond movie, but they were chased off into the sunset, so they decided to make their own version - a much cooler adventurer, not tied to those british spy novels and silly penguin suits.

A lot of people say a movie like the Indiana Jones series couldn't be made today. I mean, not another Indiana Jones movie, there's probably another sequel on the way. But giving a guy the equivalent of 1981's 20 million bucks to make an original movie, not based on IP, just an idea the dude had.

I don't know about that - after all, Rebel Moon just came out, and that movie shares a similar background to Raiders - famous director wanting to make a movie that's part of a famous franchise, gets rejected, makes his own edgier and pulpier version.

Sure, it sucked, but, still, it got done.

I don't really agree with a lot of the public discourse about modern movies. Probably because I'm very optimistic about popular movies. People complain about franchises and IP, but, I don't think it's a bad thing. Or at least, not necessarily a bad thing.

A good example is the best movie of all times, Eternals. It's a Marvel movie, yeah. But it's about obscure characters, and it allowed a auteur director to make an actual big-budget movie for a chance, something she'd never have a chance to do without Marvel's help. And it's an interesting story - the original comics were an interesting story too, despite their clumsy flaws.

Yet, everybody hated it. Especially people who never heard about those nobodies before - they were the ones complaining about the lack of new ideas in Hollywood. So that was the beginning of the end for Marvel.

I still think a lot of the criticism wasn't about the movie itself, but about Zhao choosing to "sell out" and make a sci fi movie, and a Marvel one at that.

Thankfully, it'll never happen again.

But, I don't know if we'll get a movie as good as Raiders again. It's a different world. And, I don't know, in a way, we don't need it. Kids can just watch Raiders instead of some director having to reinvent the wheel for a new generation. I don't get why every era needs to have its Star Wars, anyway. I mean, I do get it, it's because there's money in making new movies, even if they're just rehashes.

I read something online about the dangers of nostalgia, of people being obsessed with their youth. It ends up making their bitter towards the present day, it turns toxic. And it's easy to exploit - just keep shoveling out remakes, reboots, adaptations of the crap they loved when they were kids, and they'll keep buying. Suckers.

There are people like that (and a lot of them), yeah, but there are different issues to consider, too. One idea that a lot of people agree with is, a person's never too old to enjoy kids' stuff. We keep getting angry about adults enjoying cartoons, but, what's the harm, really? And yet, that can turn toxic too - a lot of douchebag complaining about "wokeness" in cartoons is the dark reflection of a refusal to grow up. As is the creepy obsession with sexualizing kids' cartoons.

Sometimes, it's better to accept that you're too old to enjoy something that wasn't made for you. It's better than to force it into that slot. Let the kids have their thing.

Despite all that, though, I still like some kiddy stuff, although I appreciate it in different levels. And I did like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Old Indiana Jones was fun, it felt almost like a movie version of Mr. Mustachio from Osamu Tezuka stories.

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