yeaah the rise of academies seems like a way to make more money since its illegal to make trainees pay back their debts now. SM institute opened in 2020 and even thought they are offering scholarships and what not it seems less like a cash grab and more like the ballet academy scene. very intense, very competitive and very effective

oh, i meant that more generally about the industries themselves, not so strictly specific to the institutes/academies. academies and conservatories don't generally make high enough profits to warrant being labelled cash grabs (they usually have government/grant funding and charge obscene tuition fees to stay afloat), because training someone in any type of art+performance is never going to be profitable enough for a capitalist. but, when you take the comparison even farther down and compare the kpop industry to something like the current ballet scene, the industry itself is structured around maximizing profits, not about creating career artists. make no mistake, it does of course create career artists and attract people who are dedicated and passionate about making lifelong careers in this field, but currently the basis of the industry is deeply rooted in capitalism and does not prioritize the 'art' of it. tbh no arts ent industry is safe from capitalism now anyways, bc a lot has been restructured in order to just barely survive in the 21st century (rising ticket prices and elitist exclusivity, the art market etc etc), but the kpop industry isn't quite at the place yet where it gets accepted into the canon of 'artmaking for artmaking's sake'

i love when Astarion is mean, and i mean like genuinely mean, saying shitty things and lashing out specifically to hurt someone or push them away. i think it really says so much about him and about the specific situations when he feels the need to lash out. i love seeing it with Durge/Tav, but i'm playing a Karlach origin to romance him right now and he's so mean during his first romance scene when he can't even kiss Karlach.

after playing it, i went to look at the parsed dialogue for that scene because i wanted to see if there were any dev notes, and oh boy are there dev notes. walk with me here while i go through them all. (i didn't add alt text to the images below, but i did transcribe the lines i'm referencing in the images below, so all the important information is in the text of the post itself.)

it's the typical Astarion scene, but after his "i've been waiting to taste you" line, he diverges with: "Although your condition means tasting you could be a risky proposition. You're quite the forbidden fruit, aren't you?"

the player (as Karlach) has a few choices in reply at that point, but as long as they pick one that progresses the scene (i.e., not the one where you reject him last minute), he goes down the same dialogue tree. this tree starts with:

Astarion: All denied to us because of what Zariel did to you. [devnote: subtext, thinking about Cazador]

so right off the bat he's upset because Karlach's situation is reminding him of his own with Cazador.

but then his next line is:

Astarion: I - you know, I have no idea what to do with you now. [devnote: Astarion's mask as the flippant libertine is cracking a bit here. He's frustrated but vulnerable here. Because he can't physically seduce or touch Karlach, his usual means of interacting with a person is punctured. He's faced with the reality that he might not know how to handle a situation where he can't bite or seduce his way to the finish line.]

wow. that's a lot in that dev note.

at this point, the player has the option of a few responses, but two options to continue the encounter. the choices to continue it are: "You don't have to 'do' anything. We can just be." or "After the life you've led, I'm not surprised."

if you choose the first option, Astarion is frustrated but less mean. he says:

Astarion: 'Just be' what, exactly? Frustrated? Bored? What do we do, if not... that?

if you choose the second option, he's a little meaner. understandably so, since the player just poked at his painful past:

Astarion: You think you know the life I've led? The experiences I've had? You've no idea the stories I could tell, sweet Karlach. But you - you're just -

then, both the paths converge to the same final statement, which is mean no matter what Karlach has said to this point:

Astarion: Urgh! Why is this so difficult? I'd have already bedded you twice if you were normal.

importantly, there are dev notes for all of his lines here, but the notes are all the same:

devnote: Masking defensiveness with offensiveness. In truth he really does want what Karlach is offering (to just hang out without having sex) but now that it's within grasp he's floundering.

again, at this point the player has two choices to continue the encounter, and one to end it. i'll go down each continue path separately, since they can diverge quite a bit.

path 1

the first choice is to say: "Twice in this short space of time? Doesn't sound very satisfying."

he gets mad. and mean.

Astarion: Karlach! You know what I mean. [devnote: Frustrated] Astarion: Or maybe you don't. Astarion: There may be an inferno in you, Karlach, but at the end of the day you've been frigid for a decade, isn't that right? [devnote: Being mean-spirited in an attempt to drive Karlach away, even though he doesn't actually want to do that.]

the player again has two response options to continue the encounter, and one to end it.

the first choice to continue the encounter is: "You want to try that again? Without being a jackass, maybe?"

in response he says:

Astarion: This is impossible - you're impossible! [devnote: Masking defensiveness with offensiveness. In truth he really does want what Karlach is offering (to just hang out without having sex) but now that it's within grasp he's floundering.]

(at this point, the path diverts to merge with the dialogue tree from the previous branch where Astarion complains about Karlach not being normal. so we'll pause here, and continue down that dialogue tree with the path 2 header below.)

the second choice to continue the encounter after Astarion says that Karlach has been frigid for a decade is to say: "What's really going on here, Astarion? Suddenly you're so vicious."

he replies:

Astarion: Suddenly? Darling, you haven't been paying attention. [devnote: Seething and mean.] Astarion: Listen, it's just - ... I'm sorry, all right? Is that what you want?

again, at this point, he diverts to the same shared dialogue tree as the other response option. that merges with path 2, so we'll continue there:

path 2

to go BACK to the previous branch we went down, where Astarion said he would have bedded Karlach twice already if she was just normal, the other response option for the player is: "I am normal. 'Fucked up' is the height of normalcy."

instead of being mean, Astarion immediately apologizes:

Astarion: Oh no - don't you tar me with your 'normal' brush. My demons keep me extraordinary. [devnote: Karlach has punctured Astarion's bad mood with a joke.]

and then he apologizes, like he does in the other paths, saying he doesn't know what to do without being able to touch her.

Astarion: I - ...I'm sorry, Karlach. It's just, not being able to touch you - having to slow down, it's... I'm just not used to it. [devnote: subtext here is on the slowing down. That IS what he wants. But it's hard for him to see that clearly.]

Astarion: So, can you -... I don't know. Help? Show me what to do? [devnote: First breakthrough. He's asking for help knowing what to do when you can't jump into bed with someone.]

again, at this point, the player has two options to continue the encounter or one to end it.

for the first response to continue, the player can say: "We can just talk. As long as we want. Then we can sleep. Near, but not too near."

Astarion responds to this one pretty positively. he's still a little mean, but it's in his fond teasing way, and not his biting, cruel way:

Astarion: Karlach, champion of the Hells, wants to talk and then fall asleep? [devnote: Incredulous] My dear, you're much more boring than I gave you credit for. [devnote: Teasing] All right, Karlach. Let's try it your way. [devnote: Gently. He's feeling vulnerable, but sees that this might be a chance to feel safe.]

the second response option from the player is: "I don't know either. This is all just as new for me as it is for you."

he doesn't respond quite as well to this one, and goes back to being mean:

Astarion: Well. To quote you: 'Fuck.' Astarion: Why don't we put ourselves out of this misery and just sleep? If I can at least look at you, I won't have wasted my whole evening. [devnote: Peak of Astarion sexy toxicity.]

then, the scene fades to black and it transitions to the morning-after scene with Astarion, where the player first sees his scars.

i also think as a whole, this scene is just so representative of Astarion's early-game state of mind. he's following a comfortable script with all his interactions, but when he's confronted with something new, he flounders.

especially when it comes to sex, which is a touchy subject for him, his first reaction to any vulnerability is to lash out and hurt people. in this scene:

if Karlach brings up his past experiences, he lashes out. ("You think you know the life I've led?")

he blames Karlach for the situation because that's easier than addressing that he doesn't know what to do without his script. ("if you were normal")

if Karlach jokes about him ("Doesn't sound very satisfying") he lashes out even further, calling her frigid and impossible and then even doubling down if she calls him out ("you haven't been paying attention").

but if Karlach jokes about HERSELF ("'Fucked up' is the height of normalcy"), it snaps him out of his toxic bullshit and he's able to take a step back and apologize to her.

then regardless, he's also able to recognize that this is an opportunity to get what he wants without having sex, and recognize that he wants that too.

and then to me, Astarion being mean in that last response choice ("I don't know either") makes perfect sense, given the context of his other lashing out earlier in the conversation. even if the player didn't make those previous choices where he lashed out at them, he can still get mean and toxic on this choice.

crucially, with this choice, he's taken that step of hopeful vulnerability where he recognizes that maybe he does want to just spend time with Karlach without having sex, but he doesn't know how to do it. he asks for help.

if the player says they don't know how to do that either, he immediately puts those defensive walls back up. he doesn't want to flounder around, he wants an answer. he wants to know that it's actually possible to have a positive experience with someone without the script he's always used. the player saying they don't have that answer just pisses him off.

wow okay this post got really long, but i really vibed with the dev notes for this scene, and i think you can see exactly these toxic behaviors from Astarion in other scenes and in romances with other characters as well, but it's just so so clear with the Karlach scene and the dev notes just really highlight that.

Scientific Progress Goes Twang

"Why are we doing this again?" Del'rennian's tail flicked in worry.

"Because, if it works, it'll be really preem!" Rachel's voice was muffled under the machinery. Only her feet sticking out belied where she was in the room.

"Rach, that does not inspire the confidence you might think it does. I'm not a human, that doesn't work on me." Del's small hands were on her hips as she spoke with Rachel. Del'rennian grew up on a starbase that was equally populated with humans and K'laxi, so picking up their gestures and mannerisms was natural.

"Don't worry so much, Del. It's not like I'm modifying the main reactors. We'll be fine"

"No Rach, you're modifying one of the main batteries! You're messing with the weapons! I know how important weapons are to humans, you can't build anything without sticking a few exawatt lasers on it 'just in case.' I think your research telescopes have slug throwers on them even!"

Rachel slides out from under the weapons machinery. She's on a little board with wheels on it. Her face is smudged with... something. Del'rennian was pretty sure that human laser batteries didn't have oil, but maybe they did. "Del, this is the secondary battery, not the primary! I'm not an idiot."

Del's ears flicked. "That has not been determined with 100% certainty yet." Rach could hear the smile in her voice. She looked around the room. They were deep inside the battery, and were all alone. The lasers required only minimal maintenance and service after they were used. People would come once in a while to make sure everything was working, adjusting and collimating as necessary, but it's not like it needed a full time crew.

"Del'rennian, Rachel has explained to me what she is attempting, and I have given her provisional permission to install her modifications. Once we determine that nothing bad will happen, she will be allowed to test."

Del's ears rotated around, instinctively focusing on the source of the sound. Growing up on stations and starbases, Del knew that the AIs that humans put in charge of them were listening all the time, but she also knew that they mostly would wait for someone to query them before replying. It was a little unnerving when one decided to just jump in to a conversation. The AI that ran Reasonable Request was known to want to be a part of conversations and had a habit of butting in, but it was still odd. "You're telling me you're in on this nonsense, Request?"

"Yes Del'rennian. I think that Rachel's work could offer significant benefits to me in defense, as well as humanity as a whole. Ever since the convergence, we've had to increase our defences.

Del had to admit, Request had a point. Ever since the usurper Emperors Nick and Eastern did their little stunt to try and defeat Empress Raaden, things in human controlled space were much more... active than in decades previous. The influx of the Gren seemed to worry the K'laxi administrators more than she thought really was warranted, but they probably knew something she didn't.

Del sighed. She wasn't going to get anywhere with these two. A human designed AI was entirely too human to not go along with something that "seemed cool" when a human came up with the idea. "Fine. If you're okay with this Request, let's finish the install."

Two hours later, they were done. Del'rennian had to admit, it was more interesting that she thought it would be. She had never been that deep inside a laser battery, and it was - at the same time - much simpler and much more complicated than she expected. The actual laser part was incredibly simple. It was the power delivery that was complex. Rach's additions were made to assist with that.

As they put their tools away, Rach explained. "We've had wormhole generators for generations now and nobody has really done much with them. When the Others came over with their Flip drives, we were able to... er... borrow one and discover that while they concept was the same, the actual implementation was completely different! Theirs was more efficient, but ours was more accurate. Don't even get me started on the FlashWarp drives, I still have no idea how they work, and we've been warned against tinkering with them."

Without waiting to see what Del was going to say, she continued. "Anyway, it got me thinking. What if we used a wormhole generator to... boost the power delivery of the laser batteries! We could use a microscopic wormhole instead of superconductors and we'd be able to get a massive increase in power delivery in a much smaller package! With the generator that we installed, I should be able to increase the output of the laser by 3 or 4 times while making it smaller!"

Del'rennian's tail flicked. "Will it work?"

Rachel nodded. "Probably."

Request added. "Most likely."

Del crossed her hands over her ample chest. "So, when are we going to test it?"

Rachel looked around. "I don't see why we can't do it now. Request, what do you think?"

"I will query the commander."

They continued putting tools away for another three or four minutes when Request came back "The commander has approved a single firing of the secondary battery for testing purposes on my recommendation. She thinks it's 'a little strange' but I assured her that it was a routine test."

Del's fur bristles "Wait, you didn't ask the commander first?"

Rachel shrugs. "I asked Request. It's their body. I figured this was close to the same thing."

"But, you're messing with the weapons systems! What if the Gren attack?"

"We have the primary battery. Del, it'll be fine. Everything will work great. Request, please power up the battery for the test."

"Yes, Rachel. Powering up Secondary Battery."

While they watched, the laser battery powered on and warmed. Del felt rather than heard the emitter fold out of is storage blister on the side of the station. While she stood there, she heard a rising whine of capacitors charging and her fur began to stick out on it's own.

Wormhole generators are interesting things. They effectively punch a hole in space-time and allow things to pass between the two points instantaneously while the wormhole is open. For the majority of time that humans have used them, they have been used for spacecraft. Del couldn't remember a time when one was used in an atmosphere, or at least in a place that someone could hear them.

She had no idea that they made a noise.

When Reasonable Request fired the laser, the wormhole generator activated, punching a tiny hole in spacetime between the reactor and the laser. There was a noise that Del could only describe as a... twang.

Del'rennian and Rachel came to on the floor. Sirens were loud in her sensitive ears. As she sat up, her head pounded in protest. Rachel, who was closer to the laser, fared worse. Most of the hair on her head had flashed off, and she was unconscious on the floor.

"Request! Rachel is hurt!"

"Yes Del'rennian, I have already alerted the medical team. Quick Alert teams are on their way now, they'll be here in a few seconds. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know... I don't think so. My head hurts pretty badly though. Ugh, what happened."

"It appears that the secondary laser battery... linked away."

Del's eyes focused beyond Rachel. In the smoke and sparks of the room, she could see bare wires sticking out of the walls, mounting brackets sheared so cleanly as to shine like mirrors and a large empty space where the laser battery used to be.

As she marveled at what happened the Quick Alert team came in and rushed over to Rachel. They applied a heal pack to her and the Nanites within got to work. After a few seconds she groaned and tried to roll over. "No no, don't move yet. Let the Nanites do their work" One of the Alert team said as they touched Rachel's shoulder.

Del turned back to the door and saw Commander Hollister standing over her. "Del'rennian, kindly tell me what is going on here? I get a report of a wormhole generation inside my station and now my secondary laser battery is gone. What. Did. You. Do. "

Del stood up and shakily saluted. "I apologize Commander Hollister, Rachel was trying to... improve the performance of the laser batteries by installing a miniature wormhole generator." She intended to explain more, but that was as far as she got before she collapsed.

For the @sambuckylibrary Anniversary Event!

This is my favorite trope, but I didn't have much inspiration for writing something new, so I thought I would compile all of my Post-WS/Sam-Finds-Bucky fics here instead. Of course, read all warnings on the AO3 pages!

Convergent Lines // Rated G // 4.8k words

Sam finds Bucky six months after the fall of HYDRA. And keeps finding him.

This fic has the same energy as when you leave a can of tuna out for a feral cat every few days and slowly become friends, except it's told from the cat's point of view

Eyes in the Sky (heart on the ground with you) // Rated T // 7k words

With a secret up his sleeve, Sam Wilson manages to find Bucky Barnes over and over again. It's driving Bucky nuts.

Rescue Me // Rated E // 7.4k words

Sam Wilson is having a bad night. Bucky Barnes helps

Bucky takes care of Sam, pwp

Out of Touch, Out of Time // Rated M // 7.8k words

When Bucky Barnes falls out of a train in the Second World War and lands on the ground in the present day, he figures that's as weird as his day is going to get. Then there's a voice in his head, a handsome man trying to fight him, and his own doppelganger dating his crush and he figures he should stop daring the universe to get weirder

(Multiverse/Timeline shenanigans)

Only vaguely adjacent to the Sam Finds Bucky trope, but I still like it

Stained // Rated T // 10.3k words // MCD

When Sam and Riley find a man wandering in the desert, they can't fathom the repercussions that will follow for years to come.

This is in the same spirit, even if it's many years earlier

Putting Bandages Where Stitches Should Be // Rated M // 4.6k words

Sam Wilson's bad day (getting kidnapped, not finishing his errands, Steve being right about something going wrong) gets worse when Bucky Barnes is kidnapped right next to him

Bucky Barnes's bad day (getting tricked in returning to the States to rescue Steve and/or Sam and getting kidnapped instead) gets worse when Sam Wilson has to act as his nurse

Bid Your Heart Goodbye // Rated T // 4.4k words

Every year the Avengers host a "Date Auction" for charity fundraising. In his first year, Sam Wilson is in for a surprise bidder.

I'm sure there are others and I've definitely mentioned it in fics that weren't focused on the Post-WS/Pre-CW era. (The first section of The Truths Beneath Our Ribs is post-WS) I just love this trope and its uniqueness to Sambucky

"You Never Forget Your First Love."

The other day, a mutual (hi! you know who you are I think probably hello hi! thank you for the Posting Impetus!) said something that made me curious (for, like, the 80th time, actually; lol. I Have Thoughts) about something: what's the split on people who subscribe to the "Stranger of Paradise probably intended for us to believe that Jack & Sarah were in love" mindset, vs. not? In general, but ESPECIALLY around these parts.

I genuinely didn't read it that way myself (& I do NOT normally give media (general) this much credit, but the writing in this game is sublime; I had no choice but to fully engage Scholar Mode on it), + I think it's interesting that SPECIFICALLY any of my fellow tumblr people / AO3-heads / Gay People Online / etc. seem to have. (I expect nothing from people who haven't been basting themselves in the same online sub-subcultures as me for over a decade. They're allowed to write wrong things on wikis, and have done so already; it's whatever.)

I wanna metapost badly again, so let's go. Join me. No poll. If you have an opinion on this, I'm looking directly into your eyes and beckoning you towards your own keyboard + also the reblog button / comment section, like a weird ghost. What did you think when you first played the game?? What do you think right now? What are you about to think after you have read a bunch of my words. Tell Me. I Need To Know This.

Spoilers for, idk, everything? Today we will use everything we've got to talk about Princess Sarah.

1. As a Narrative Element

This game makes a point of referring to Sarah as things like "a symbol of hope and peace" as often as possible, & when it isn't doing that she's usually in the role of An Object Or Device Of Some Kind, anyway. She's important because she's capable of holding light and dark in balance & SOMEONE'S gotta hold onto this dark crystal for safekeeping, and also we're gonna need to upset that balance on purpose later. There's that conversation in the Wicked Arbor about whether the Strangers would "choose" her (as opposed to "treasure") as the "reward" for succeeding in their mission[1], & there's the one in the Sunken Shrine where Jed asks Jack what he thinks of her and Jack says that he doesn't care about her as a person[2] BUT that protecting her is mission-critical (lol), too.

Sarah's death is metaphorically charged. It's the point of no return: the dark crystal breaks, the balance of light & dark gets extremely ruined, & Literally All The Darkness In Cornelia converges in one place (Fool's Missive XXVII). That's the payoff for the "symbol of hope and peace" motif, and communicating this idea that "the metaphorical light of hope just For Real Died, Like Catastrophically Imploded, No Take-Backs" feels to me like it was the highest priority here. Second-highest goes to "Jack had way more humanity before, but he set it aside on purpose and is actively in the middle of losing the rest of it." "Sort of." "I'm not getting into what counts as humanity or doesn't because if I did we would be here forever."

Basically, I'm saying that the tidiest read on the situation is "Jack despairs because Sarah dying means in a very literary and final way that everything is ruined forever, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with, like, Love (romantic)." I don't think the text of the game is particularly signaling that Love (romantic) is involved, and I think that if it meant to, it would be more obvious about it. You could bundle "an romance" into the "humanity" thing if you wanted to, but I'm not inclined to, based on some additional list items that you can read below this one.

[1] The fact that Neon ALSO says she feels bad for her for being thought of in this way only reinforces my conviction that the game is pointing at Sarah & yelling "REMEMBER THAT SHE IS MOSTLY A SYMBOL!", tbh. Who wants to go point out how freaky the mechanics of Being An Royalty are w/ me and the boys??

[2] I will give the Wiki WrongPosters this: I can totally see this as some kind of irony thing, given that he's still missing like a fucktillion of his memories when he says it. However! As mentioned above, I have other reasons not to read it as evidence that he was ever, like, romantically interested in her.

2. As a Sheltered Youth™

We don't have a TON of information to work with RE: Sarah as, like, a person, but here are a couple of hard facts to start with: she's 19 (per the data book, but she'd have to be somewhere in the 18-to-early-20's age range regardless or her whole deal wouldn't really make much sense, imo. She's a baby...!), and she's royalty. I think this ties into her utility as a walking metaphor, among other things; she's archetypically young, fresh, & idealistic. I'd call her naïve but the game obviously isn't interested in portraying it as a weakness, so positive words only; why not.

You could argue that people look to her as a symbol of hope because she hasn't directly experienced enough strife to exhibit hopelessness or fear in response to bad news in the abstract. I find it interesting that before Jack, like, knocks the wind out of her & tells Sophia to take her outside so she can see for herself how bad things have gotten at the end of the game, she says that her duty is to die with her people if she has to, & it doesn't even seem to occur to her that she could lead at least some of them away to safety...? When she changes her mind, she still talks about herself as a symbol before she ever uses the word "leader". She sees HERSELF in terms of symbols and metaphors, and takes action based on her designated role As One Of Those. Not very practical.

There's also the dialogue you can have with the queen the first time you're allowed to run around in the throne room at the beginning of the game, where she asks Jack to smile in front of her daughters (NOT just Mia; daughters, plural). Even if she only means "dude can you be polite please," the fact that this is The thing she has to say to Jack is telling. Is it going to upset your 19-year-old daughter to see that the Guy Whose Job It Is To Kill Monsters looks serious? Why do you think this? Does your 19-year-old daughter understand how serious the situation is, generally speaking? Do you not WANT her to for some reason? Boats don't work anymore unless a weird elf messes with them first. Not thinking very hard about the implications of this is something a sheltered person does.

Residual time loop un-memories aside, a young woman in this situation is so obviously going to have a huge crush on Jack Garland no matter what. He Is So Cool, first of all, & he's also Different from the adult men she gets to see on an everyday basis (family, guards, rando townspeople[3]...). It's not like the political social scene could POSSIBLY be thriving in this world, either; it all seems to be one kingdom we're dealing with and they're kind of busy with the external threat of being Under Fucking Attack By Monsters. Does she even get fun treats like "handsome visiting dignitaries" & what-have-you? The game doesn't present us with any potential options, here. Jack is mysterious, he has special-boy Warrior of Light status, his one job & apparent life's purpose is protecting the kingdom she loves, he's pretty nice to her (even in later cycles he at least goes out of his way to be polite!), & additionally, he's shredded. THIS makes sense to me.

There's a Q&A in the data book that has something to say about JACK as a symbol & what that has to do with this whole thing but we'll get there. We'll get there.

[3] Tangent: what's up with how Cornelia's entire adult male population appears to consist of aging queens. Why did they only make models that look Like That for the NPCs? It's awesome but I have 1 quastion

3. JACK JUMPSCARE !

I'm not about to say that he's just humoring her, or anything, but please humor ME for one second & put yourself in Jack's shoes. Not the default shoes; we can have more fun than that. Maybe the Banded Boots. Blurple ones? Shaped like a cartoon would wear them? Big spikes on the back for no reason? I love those things. Anyway, you're Jack. You're working for literally the king, & the work means Everything to you for reasons you can't even necessarily explain except to say that it JUST does. The king's eldest daughter (very young adult; Never Been Outdoors; a little overly-sociable but nice enough & what do you expect from a princess, anyway) has imprinted on you like a duckling for whatever reason. You would be nice to this person, yes? You'd be patient with her while you're in town. You have Brutal Murders to be doing, but not until, like, 2 days from now, or whatever; you're sharing space with her in some capacity in the meantime & it's in your best interests to keep her happy. (You probably even enjoy doing this, if you're Jack of a Way Earlier Cycle; I'm in no way ruling that out. Sharing your music collection with an enthusiastic Baby Adult? That's fun. I think he was probably having fun. Okay, you can step out of the fun purple shoes if you want; the Humoring Me Minute has concluded; thanks.)

Also, @2000sanimeop and I think that if Jack felt that way about her Astos would have been a little More Something about how much it was gonna suck for him when she died. In Fool's Missive XXVII he uses the word "painful," but that's about it. He doesn't even bring it up in XXV, which is the one where he says he's curious about whether she'd survive being turned into a fiend (side note: Astos fucking rocks. Why did he write that down?? I love him). & Hey SPEAKING OF ASTOS,

4. I wouldn't put Jackstos on a wiki, either.

The writing in Stranger of Paradise, SERIOUSLY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATION, is some of the best I've seen in literally anything ever. It suits not just its medium but also its sort of Place in History Relative to Other Video Games & the things it chose to DO with that medium & that niche INSANELY well. It is CUSTOMIZED. It's SO INTENTIONAL. I can't get too far into this or we'll be here all day, but the essence of what I want to say here is: there are relatively few facts presented to us by this game, compared to the implications we can go about drawing from those facts & other, external sources of context.

Sarah calls Jack her first love; that's a fact. No facts are presented to us that REALLY say much one way or the other[4] about what Jack thinks of this, himself; "fucktillion memories missing" Jack says he doesn't care, but he's missing a fucktillion of his memories, and DLC2 Jack has a set of dialogue options (hi Anne the Malboro I love you Anne the Malboro) that can point either way depending on what the player chooses, which is kind of nothing, on balance. As the audience, we can (should!) draw whatever conclusion we want about it, but none of those conclusions are text.

[4] I WILL GET TO THE DATA BOOK IN ONE SECOND. HOLD ON.

And, okay, please let me level with you. Let's be on the same page. Jack & Astos had some kind of thing going on, imo, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to be CLEAR and I want to get CREDIT for the things I'M bringing to the table to help generate this conviction. I drew that conclusion & I read that reading based on subtext, context, personal history, personal preference, & sheer gay zest for life. It is also, emphatically, NOT TEXT.

Astos refers to Jack with the ol' "...friend" in Fool's Missive XXI. He calls him "my Jack" in Fool's Missive XXXI. Canonically, textually, he has some big fucking COMPLICATED fucking feelings about this man. These are facts. If you're playing this game as Some Guy, I can see how you could potentially absorb these facts & still pay them much less regard[5] than I did & continue to. My argument here is that god I wish I lived in a world where Some Guy could extend the same courtesy to me and not treat Sarah's textual affection for Jack as something that necessarily indicates Some Kind Of Reciprocal Romantic Whatever, Definitely, Obviously, Of Course.

[5] Longer Tangent: I have been informed that the Some Guys of the world are currently pretty good at Recognizing a character that behaves in a way that's Pretty Gay, but tend to stop there, possibly for the combined reasons that A. they're not very familiar with a lot of the the ways gay relationships often work (you know, soul resonance. mutual recognition. sharing a brain etc.) and B. the Object Of Affection is usually the player character and they subconsciously shy away from thinking of a Guy They're Supposed To Identify With as gay. This is practically a lead-in to an entire separate post I could make, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

The writing is too good for that kind of assumption! I'M SERIOUS!! It's mind-blowingly subtle & endlessly fascinating to hold up to the light & view from every possible angle, and "Jack & Sarah were in love" + "Jack & Astos were in love" are BOTH ANGLES. I'm personally very very interested in giving the text credit for that. I think it's impressive. I think it's really, really cool, and I think it was on purpose. Speaking of which,

5. Word of God agrees with me, btw

This is from the Q&A section on page 156 of the Confidential File. The translations below are my own (I think they're straightforward enough, but lmk if you know more than me & I'm actually being stupid in there somewhere. Alt text has the JPN, if you want to copypaste it or something). Someone asked:

Why is it that you established Garland as someone Sarah has a romantic interest in?

The answer is from Daisuke Inoue (director, one of 3; the other 2 are from Team Ninja; he's from Square Enix):

That was because, from a narrative standpoint, we wanted Sarah to be the kind of person who holds onto hope. You can imagine that she saw the "hope" to save the world in Jack, a potential Warrior of Light. Sarah is seen by her people as a symbol of a bright future, but if there were nobody to give her hope, that might destabilize her emotionally. As for whether she felt genuine love for Jack, or just mistook her feelings of admiration towards him for "first love," we'll leave that to your interpretation.

The first time I read this, I thought the question was implying the aforementioned Reciprocal Something, but on closer inspection that doesn't even seem to be true! "思い人" seems to indicate a directional relationship; as in, the question assumes that Jack is an object of affection to Sarah, but assumes nothing about what Jack thinks.

Also, the answer uses the word "初恋" (hatsukoi), which is a very established Concept as far as "first love" goes, but in that one cutscene, Sarah says "初めての恋" (hajimete no koi), which is. Different, but I couldn't tell you how, lol. It's Not The Exact Same Phrase, but I'm not sure whether it's meaningfully different in this context. If I had to guess, I'd say that IF ANYTHING it could be a way of saying "first love" without invoking the cultural CONSTRUCT of First Love (as much)? But it's whatever. The localization holds up. All sources show that Sarah had Feelings about Jack, and all sources CONSPICUOUSLY neglect to mention Jack's feelings about her.

It was on purpose. This is my license to be as annoying as I want for one second here. I am right. All the other writing in this game is notably subtle, efficient, intentional, and skilled, AND ALSO, WHEN do you ever see anyone write such a richly beautiful, mostly-subtextual relationship between two men, which can easily be read as a romantic thing, and NOT explicitly canonize a very possible romantic relationship between at least one of those men and a woman, like not even in an interview or anything. What the fuck, man.

I'm putting away the Respectable Scholar Hat now. This is so funny. The person asking this question didn't EVEN go as far as assuming Jack & Sarah had any kind of Actual Romance going on, & the answer STILL dials it back to "she might have been conflating her feelings about Jack AS A SYMBOL with actual affection, also. We'll let you decide : ) ". This game is everything ever.

hi! here from your Leon yandere post, i rlly love it <3

may i request a part.2 where he finally have the time to make a move with reader, he gets sm more possessive <3

Part 1

Deciding to do this today in honor of the RE4 remake out today. ❤️ In celebration and since you implied that some time passed in between, I'm going to set this in RE4 time. Tried to follow prompt, but I think Leon has too many responsibilities at this point to be reckless and act purely on his feelings.

spoilers, obsession

Yandere Resident Evil 4 Leon Scenario

A normal life became impossible for any survivor after the night of the outbreak and subsequent nuking of Raccoon City

With the years of police training, Leon's and experience of surviving a zombie apocalypse, it is no surprise the government drafted him to use as their own agent

Even if it was against his will

Being a survivor at his side, you were no more fortunate

The context of your work experience before the incident would affect what uses the government might find in you

But let's say that you have some useful skills and qualifications, and the government decides to draft you as a trained agent

You have some combat training, but perhaps a more intelligence based focus, and for this reason, you never worked alongside him

When the President's daughter goes missing, there is a heyday in your department with all the pressure that's on you

Frantic, the government sends you and Leon to recover her, running only on the information that she is sequestered by a fanatic cult in a remote Spanish village

Perhaps you are knowledgeable in languages, and are sent with Leon to help him communicate with the locals and watch his back

Even after all this time, Leon hasn't forgotten you, not after he fell for you so quickly

But, with his training and new responsibilities as a government agent, he's not had the time to look into you and see where you are

So imagine his surprise when he discovers that you're his partner in the upcoming mission

Meeting him again is bittersweet, as you went through so much together that night, and lost everything

He tries to ignore the sharp, lovesick pang in his heart, the moment he lays on eyes on you and hears your voice

After all, Leon is a professional now, and can't be distracted by the whispers of his heart

The years have been hard on him, but very kind on your appearance, even after all these years

The original RE4 Leon would be much more openly flirty in comparison with the remake or RE2 Leon

Time has not only enhanced his combat abilities, but also his confidence and social abilities

In comparison, the remake Leon would be more serious and try to keep his attraction more under the wraps, only revealing his true feelings through subtle one-liners occasionally

Having been through the worst together, you two work together like a dream, understanding each other's cues and needs instantly

But even if he knows you are trained now and can look after yourself, he can't help feel the need to protect you, just like all those years ago

This time, though, the two of you are more prepared

Once the two of you locate Ashley, it's easy even for her to notice how Leon's gaze lingers on you

His feelings grow stronger over the course of your mission, to the point it's hard to hide

Leon knows better than to do anything irresponsible that would jeopardize the mission, but at the same time, he doesn't want to let you go and be separated from you again

It's been so long and since he's seen you... and you've been on his mind for all the years that you've been apart

After this is all over, he will make sure to have your number and invite you out for dinner or drinks

He may seem casual and laidback about it, but only because he's become very confident in flirting

Regardless of what you say, he will keep tabs on you through...misusing certain information databases

Even if you have different aspirations in life, he will make sure that, one day, your paths converge

It's been so long, and there's no way in hell he'll let you slip off the radar

----------

Hope you all are loving the remake as much as I am!

I've recently finished TLOK & there for joined the fandom and... Did we even watch the same show???

(Very long & passionate rant under cut)

Like mf wdym Korra is the worst/weakest Avatar? It's physically not possible for her to be the weakest as the cycle goes on the Avatar spirt gets stronger so technically the weakest Avatar is Wan!! But I still want to point out the many reasons why Korra isn't the weakest or worst Avatar.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge vaid criticisms of Korra. Yes she constantly underestimated her opponents but in her defense she was severely inexperienced. She'd spent most of her life in that training facility in the south Pole and then once she got to republic city was almost immediately thrown into dealing with the equalits so she underestimated Amon due to lack of experience. She was then manipulated by her uncle so can you really blame her for not realizing he was evil till it was too late? THAT WAS HER FAMILY!!

Anyways, Korra has faults like every Avatar but she also has feats that you all seem to forget/over look!

My main example and my favorite to bring up in this argument is; Korra on harmonic convergence after having Raava RIPPED from her (need to emphasize the fact that Korra did not give Raava up willing like some of y'all like to think, she fought to keep Raava with her and was devastated when she lost her and the past lives. She didn't give it up willingly) meaning she didn't have the Avatar state and this fight was just her pure strength against UnaVaatu.

KORRA BEAT HIS ASS WITH NO BENDING, NO AVATAR STATE, NO PAST LIVES, NO NOTHING. KORRA FIST FOUGHT THE SPIRIT OF CHAOS AND DARKNESS AND WON!

But I have more examples of how strong she truly is (there is no order to them lol).

Korra broke out of Blood bending without the Avatar state (something Aang couldn't do).

She had control over 3/4 of the elements at like five, and the only reason it took so long to master Air bending (which still only took like a few months) was because she didn't get a teacher until she was 17!

Korra fought one of the strongest air benders WHILE DYING, like ppl forget she was slowly dying during that fight. She was weakened and still won.

Now let's talk about another one of my favorite feats of hers, REDIRECTING THE AVATAR UNIVERSE VERSION OF A FUCKING NUKE. Like it was so powerful it ripped open a whole in space & time, creating a new spirit portal and she redirected it and wasn't even fazed. Like I'm 90% sure she didn't even break a sweat!

She's the first Avatar to metal bend, ik it's likely because she's the first Avatar to exist when metal bending was more common but she was metal bending in like a week! That's not something anyone can do!!

Another reason I have is technically not about her strength but more about the strength of Korra's version of Raava. When Korra re-fused with Raava, the Raava spirit was bigger than it was when it was ripped from her and alot bigger than the version Wan fused with meaning Korra has a stronger version of Raava than previous Avatars making her inherently stronger than them. When Korra re-fused with Raava, she was big enough for Korra to ride on her but when Wan fused with her Raava fit in a tea pot.

Now time to defend Korra's loses!

・Korra lost against Amon because she was inexperienced, she'd spent most of her life away from the world and wasn't prepared to fight a master water bender.

・Korra lost Raava because it was supposed to happen. Ever Harmonic convergence Raava and Vaatu fight so it's likely that ever 10,000 year's the avatar cycle will restart, also did we not watch Korra be absolutely DEVASTATED that she lost her connect with the last Avatars? Like she spends most of the time during the 4th season wishing she could talk to Aang!

・Honestly I don't even know if Korra won or lost against Zaheer but I do know she was slowly dying during the fight. She was no where near her full strength! Also, the red lotus was actively surprised at how well Korra fought against going into the Avatar state just showing her control over it.

・Korra got her ass beat in that ring in the earth kingdom because she was rusty and GOING THROUGH IT! Like she hadn't fought in 3 year's and she was still working through her turama, it's the samething when she lost to old Toph, she was rusty, still being affected by the poison, and traumatized. There was on way she was going to win in that state

・ Korra lost in her 1v1 with Kuvira because she was rusty, she hadn't fought in 3 year's and you expect her to be as good as she was before her hiatus? Bitch please! Korra quite literally goes on to go toe to toe with Kuvira at the end of the season when she'd worked through her rust.

In conclusion, Korra isn't the wort or weakest Avatar your just over looking her feats and dumbing her down because you can't except your fav isn't as strong as you think. She was ment to restart the Avatar cycle, and she also isn't even in her prime! She's 17 in the first season, 18 in season 2 & 3, and 21 in the last season, Korra is still at the beginning of her career as an Avatar. She's only going to get stronger.

Also no, I'm not a Korra glazer. She's not even my favorite Avatar, it's Kiyoshi.

We just needed time- pt1

"Listen up everyone!" Maria shouts, her back to the east gate entrance, holding a log book in her hands. The heat of the morning sun blistering onto my skin with the only relief a slight breeze swaying its way through Jackson. "I'm calling out pairs for today's patrols." I sling my rifle onto my shoulder before leading a horse out to the stables, stopping just before Ellie, Jesse and Dina. I'm extra cautious not to get even a millimetre into Ellie's peripheral vision, in fact I wouldn't even dare meeting those pale green eyes that held so much disdain towards me. As Maria calls out the names, my body freezes as she calls out mine and Ellie's names. Oh fuck me.

Shoving supplies into my backpack I jog over to Ellie, with my horse trailing behind, and she's adjusting her saddle and the two of us are the last ones left to head off.

"Wanna slow us down any longer or are you actually ready to go now?" Annoyance evident in her voice as she rolls her eyes and jumps up onto Shimmer. I mumble an apology- like a fucking coward. I mentally kick myself as I tail behind her and head off onto our route.

//

I kneel down, picking the white daisies from the ground bordering the stream, my horse a small distance away behind me. Ellie had gone with Shimmer on the alternative route, the plan being to meet up where the paths converged. It was safe enough, only minutes of distance by ride away from each other at any given point on the two paths in the woods, so we'd both be able to hear any struggle.

Flowers in one hand, I use the other to wipe off the thin layer of sweat off my forehead. This sun was not letting up, but there was only a few hours left of the sun this high in the sky. My ears perk up at the sound of an animal- probably a rabbit or a squirrel- snaking through the tall grass behind me. I dismiss it and turn to stroll down the path back into the woods and onto the converging routes. I remember at the start of spring, once all the snow and ice had melted away, there was no way to this stream unless you waded through the tall greenery but months of patrols, all of which probably had the same idea of seeing the stream and surrounding scenery out of curiosity, had worn down a path where the tall grass was replaced by shorter blades or patches of mud.

The decision to dismiss my instincts came back to bite me in the ass. Well a runner was coming to bite me- hopefully not in the ass. The achy cries gave it away, giving me time to evade it flung its body at me, jumping out from the greenery surrounding the worn down path. I have my gun trained on the straggler within seconds and I fire. It lurches downwards, grappling for my feet and I miss the shot. Daises still in my hand I leap backwards, tripping on a rock and this gives the runner the perfect opportunity to clutch onto my ankle, its teeth and vein stricken face ready to bite. Even with the wind knocked out of me from my fall, the adrenaline surges through me and I drag myself backwards, attempting and failing to kick away the straggler.

I keep slumping backwards and kicking it away, its cries almost washing away with the sound of the rushing stream as I get back to where I originally was. I deliver a kick with a brutish force in the centre of its face and I get the precious few seconds I need to aim my gun and shoot. The bullet lodges burrows into the space between the eyebrows- or wherever the eyebrows would have been if this thing was still human- and a deep red circle gushes out blood. Bullseye. I go to mentally high five myself before that raspy voice I hate yells at me.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ellie rushes off of Shimmer and storms in front of me as I clamber to my feet, the daisies long forgotten and flattened on the floor with blood splattered on them. "I was waiting for you at the end of the routes and what were you doing, taking in the fucking view?"

"Nothing is wrong with me, it was one straggler and I had it. It's no big deal." I argue back, trying with whatever declining patience I have left for this girl. Ellie has had it out for me since day one. I can't hang out with Jesse and Dina, my own fucking friends, when she's there otherwise she throws a fit. Why? Fuck knows. All she does is throw disapproving glares at me or send venom seeped scoffs my way.

"Not a big deal? What if you had been bit? Then I'd be the one dragging your pathetic dead ass to Jackson." "I'm not going to die if I take a break for a few minutes. I am more than capable of handling myself." I say that last sentence with a firmness my tone isn't used to when talking to Ellie. Scratch that.My voice isn't even used to talking to Ellie anyway. It's always been her yelling at me for looking her way or giving me shit for 'not focusing' on patrols. Hell I can't even eat my dinner in peace without her making a comment.

"You think just because you're a semi-decent shot that you're suddenly invincible and-"

"I'm not semi-decent, I'm good. In fact, I'm probably the better shot out of all of us." I interject and she laughs in disbelief. She marches closer and she's close enough I can practically feel the anger radiating off her body.

"I'll get them to write that on your gravestone. Famous last words of the world's biggest idiot." Fuck patience.

"Alright what the fuck is your problem?" She takes a step back, almost shocked that I finally have the balls to call her out. Her jaw even sharper now that she's spitting her next words through gritted teeth.

"My problem is that your arrogance is going to get one of us killed." She jabs a finger at me with the same intensity of hatred that her eyes glare at me with before continuing. "All you care about is yourself. You think you're brilliant at everything and that you can just waltz in here and take everything and everyone I've worked so hard for just because you can." What the fuck is she talking about? I didn't take anything. How could I do anything to her without even uttering more than a greeting to her?

"I didn't take anything from you. Where is all of this coming-"

"You took Joel from me!" She cries and her voice splinters, all her hatred intensified to the point where it rattles through me. I swallow hard as all the puzzle pieces of Ellie Williams fit perfectly into place. Joel had died a year ago, maybe a bit longer now but I can't remember exactly. She's right. I can't even deny it. Joel Miller died because of me. Because he saved me.

The blizzards that winter were extreme. The wind screeched around us, piercing our eardrums. Anything less than a loud yell was inaudible. It all happened so quick and bloody. I remember tumbling to the floor as a clicker tackled me, it came from nowhere. Joel who was a few paces ahead heard me scream, he must have, and he rushed to me. Memories of him tearing it off me only for another runner to launch itself at Joel. He stumbled with a grunt and that was the last thing I heard from him before he was ripped apart from the throat. Tommy and Eugene were too far away to even hear the screeches and screams over the winds. He died in the middle of nowhere for a nobody. I had only been at Jackson less than a month and that was one of my first patrols. I can't even place where the patrol route was, only that I never went that way again. He didn't even know me. And I hated myself for it. I hated myself even more know realising Joel meant something to Ellie, unlike me, who meant nothing to either of them but I still survived.

I always wondered why Jesse and Dina were always so tight lipped whenever I asked them about Ellie. It’s not like I didn’t feel anything for him, for his death it’s just that I had made my peace with it. People died all the time in this world but Joel wasn’t just another person, he was Ellie’s person. And I took him away.

I say nothing to her as I drag myself back to the stream. What could I say to her? There were no words that could describe the guilt that consumed me and there was no apology I could possibly muster to give Ellie even the slightest drop of closure. I think even if I did have the words, I’d never have the courage to look her in the eye and say them. I pick new flowers to replace the flattened blood smeared ones and head back to my horse, passing Ellie without even so much as a look, my head down and heavy with shame. Before I can carefully place the flowers into my bag on my horse, I hear the quick thudding of Ellie’s boots on the ground getting close before she smacks the daisies out of my hand and delivering a harsh shove into my chest, sending me hurtling backwards. “Fucking say something you coward.” Another shove. “Do you have anything to justify taking away the one person- the only fucking person I loved?” She shoves me again and this time our horses shuffle around getting increasingly antsy. “I’m sorry.” Is the only thing I can bring myself to say, my own voice cracking as grief just floods through me, ripping apart any resolve I had. “I’m sorry that Joel died because of me."

The rest of patrol passed by painfully slow and unbearably silent but deep down I preferred it. The minutes ticked away and Ellie, with glassy eyes and a permanently locked jaw, didn't spare me a look even as we made it all the way back to Jackson.

Theory: History of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy

Fair warning that I went nuts with this one and am absolutely reaching in some cases. Also, this will contain leaks about the upcoming Sigonia relic set lore, so please keep that in mind!

I established in a prior HC post that Ratio, as far as I'm concerned, is from the Laurel Wreath Galaxy. However, it was while thinking about this that I realized I missed something crucial from a Memory Bubble in the game: Rationality's Fall was a direct consequence of the Mechanical Emperor's War (referred to hereafter as MEW).

We learn from this bubble that the Philosopher's Union was overrun by robots after they massacred all of the philosophers, as well as destroyed most of the planets in the galaxy, before sentencing the Philosopher King Aurelius to his death by the Union's own laws and demanding he drink poison. We also learn that he does in fact do this, and this part of the war is what is known as Rationality's Fall, supposedly.

We also learn from Fu Xuan through Glimpses Into the Beyond that it was in fact Aha's followers who infected the robots with a virus called the "Philosopher's Poison," overthrowing the mechanical army in the Union with irony and a taste of their own medicine.

Naturally, this sent me down a long and spiraling rabbit hole, trying to place the time of this event.

My conclusion: Fucking Ancient.

You see, we know from Baiheng's journal that Screwllum is at least 800 years old in the Star Calendar, as Planet Screwllum had already been established during her travels. Do we know how many Amber Eras (AE) that is? No. Is there any sort of means of comparison or consistency for AE? No. Do we know how long the Star Calendar (SC) years are? No. But it's different from the Trailblaze Calendar, which is the closest to the Gregorian Calendar, and I guess we can assume that based on the Xianzhou's inspirations, the Star Calendar would be more similar to the Lunar Calendar. Regardless! This doesn't help us with the Amber Eras, but it's a nice point of reference all the same given that the MEW had been happening since before 3287 SC. The year now is around 8100 SC. Furthermore, we can't really tell whether Screwllum established Planet Screwllum while Rubert I was still alive or not, but it is implied to have been after Rubert's death, given the Anti-Organic Equation still infects machine life to this day and Screwllum isn't... exactly sure of the circumstances of Rubert's death. We do know that it happened many years ago, as it was "countless Amber Eras" ago. I'm going to choose a nice round number, overestimate how long the war lasted, and say maybe 5000-ish SC. That gives us 3000 years to the modern year.

So Rationality's Fall happens some time in this era, long before 5000 SC, and much of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy is destroyed as a result. What happened to the survivors?

This is where the theory gets wack.

We know that the people of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy were a space-faring people, as they were able to travel to the center of the Galaxy to engage in the Philosopher's Union with the King. Those that could escape likely did, traveling to other planets to seek refuge. I don't think it is too far of a stretch to suggest that Sigonia may have been one of those places.

Situated near the convergence of three major star clusters, Sigonia-IV has long been subjected to stellar winds from multiple stars, earning its reputation as the "eye of the storm" throughout the Cosmos. The planet's surface environment is extremely harsh, leading many civilizations to either migrate to other celestial bodies or succumb to natural disasters.

Such a harsh environment would not necessarily lead to widely available resources for space-faring -- we see this as it is with Belobog, a perfect in game example. Nor is it exactly an optimal location to settle in either, but when faced with the alternative of certain death, who wouldn't consider it? They were desperate. Is it not possible to consider, then, that perhaps the Laurelian escapees sought refuge on Sigonia, only for many of them to find they were unable to adapt to the environment and thus move on, while others attempted to survive? I posit this theory for a few reasons:

Ratio and Aventurine obviously share similar eyes, and yet only Aventurine's are commented on as being Sigonian (yes, I know this could be because of Ratio's dumb headpiece, but he also doesn't make any sort of indication towards the similarities himself, so hush).

We know from the Sigonia relic lore that the Avgin genocide was relatively recent, happening in modern history as Aventurine was just a boy when it occurred. This gives plenty of time for the Laurelian settlers to undergo genetic divergence and ultimately evolution to adapt to Sigonia's environment (under high evolutionary pressure, adaptation can happen fairly quickly as well, so at least 3000 years ish of extreme evolutionary pressure is admittedly nothing to sneeze at).

This is admittedly something I believe is more of a funny coincidence than anything, but I love to chew on regardless due to my fascination with the evolution of language, is that αυγή (avgí) in Greek means dawn. If you know, you know.

So by the modern year, the Sigonians and the Laurelians are genetically distinct enough to not be recognized as similar people, but the Sigonians could, theoretically, trace their lineage back to the ancient Laurelians.

To give a general recap of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy with this context:

The Philosopher's Union has expanded throughout the entire galaxy, championing as one of the most profound galaxies for critical thought and where countless philosophers flock to vie for a seat in the Union.

The MEW occurs, taking with it much of the galaxy, destroying the Union, and killing the last Philosopher King, Aurelius (who, by the way, was named after the Roman Emperor). This is the incident known as Rationality's Fall.

The survivors who could flee did so, some of them eventually settling on Sigonia. Those who survive evolve and adapt to the harsh environment, or perhaps remain stranded on Sigonia and must make do.

Aha's followers introduce the Philosopher's Poison into the robots in the Union and overthrow them.

Eventually, life in the Laurel Wreath Galaxy recovers and stabilizes, now with robots joining their ranks, though the Union remains a vacant amphitheater -- more an ancient monument than anything else. Nobody takes up the throne of the Philosopher King.

The IPC encounter Sigonia and try to profit, as they do.

Fast forward to the modern era, where Ratio and Aventurine are born.

...and the rest is history, if you know your lore and your leaks.

Admittedly, I do have a bone to pick with this theory, outside of the blatant overreaching, and that is Rationality's Fall. From the Curio it's my understanding that Rationality's Fall was a civil war wrought by the folly of man, and yet every other source I see, like the Memory Bubble, implies an invasion of the Union by Rubert's followers. I see two possible explanations here, one of which is more heavily likely than the other:

There were two Rationality's Falls: one by the robots invading and another after that WAS the civil war, which was man and machine alike. This is unlikely, weird, doesn't make sense, and thus I don't think this is the case.

The robots were in fact native to the galaxy and revolted after being subjected to the Anti-Organic Equation. This is more likely and a method Rubert used for converting machines to its cause, and thus it makes sense. It's possible the robots of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy didn't have sentience until the MEW, so there's little conflict here.

I had a hard time admitting to the second possibility because it meant needing to adjust my prior headcanon somewhat and it still doesn't sit right with me given the initial description of civil war, but I'll address that here:

I maintain that Ratio was from the Laurel Wreath Galaxy, and perhaps a warmongering trait still remains within his blood, but maybe it is because of this trait of his people that the Laurel Wreath Galaxy was so focused on by Rubert during the MEW in the first place. We know Rubert accused organic life of being flawed in calculation, leading to their own end and destruction, and thus needing to be eradicated. Does this not sound familiar? Rationality's Fall, the collapse of mankind, which prides itself on the ability to think and reason -- that is rationality, not calculation and probability -- and thus the world's impurities, in this case, is not referring to arrogance nor ignorance, the original philosophy of the Union, but to rationality itself, to mankind as a whole.

So, fast forward once again to the modern era. Where does this leave Ratio? A descendant of survivors who managed to stay on what few habitable planets of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy remained. Someone with personal ties and reason to care so much about the Philosopher's Union and its history. Someone who, inflamed by curiosity and with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, ends up chasing the very same philosophy that the Union, which no longer exists, prided itself on. If the previous era of the Philosopher's Union were the Roman Empire, with all of its Ancient Greek associations as well, then Ratio's era -- Ratio himself -- is the Italian Renaissance, the revival of ancient Greco-Roman culture, and thus one could argue the inheritor of the Philosopher King's legacy.

explaining the previous ask—Ariana grande has a big pattern of getting with men she knows is with someone else/married. the latest guy had a newly postpartum wife iirc and she literally was friends with the wife and held one of their kids before she found out. anyways the anon was basically hoping that your Persephone is the type to support other women instead of betraying them for men. (and yes the man is a piece of shit too but what Ariana grande keeps doing is literally the same thing as what OG perse did to Minthe which is prob why they drew that comparison.)

ohhh okay, I didn't know that about Ariana so it was completely going over my head LOL

So when it comes to Kore, Minthe, and Hades, there's a LOT more at play in all three of their backstories that will instigate the overlapping problems between the three of them. Minthe has her own deep fears and doubts of being with Hades that stem even deeper than the issues with his family, Hades has attachment/abandonment issues as well as trauma from his past that manifests in his relationships, while Kore is sort of the complete opposite where she's reluctant to form strong bonds with people (we'll be seeing this more and more as the comic goes on).

I'm really excited to get into all three but for now all I'm really gonna say is that Minthe is gonna be given a much more satisfying ending this time around that won't put her in the position of being cheated on in her own relationship. Kore won't necessarily come out of it all a hero either, but both of them are going to have their own development that will both run parallel to one another and converge at some point in time in a way that I'm really hoping y'all will like <3

What advice would Mera and Arthur give teenage Garth if Roy was bullying him

Sorry that it has taken me so long to answer this, but to be honest, I've had a hard time formulating a response to it. I feel like there's so many different nuances that I have to explain and I don't even know where to start...

Okay, I suppose I'll try to answer the base ask first: They probably wouldn't have much advice for him. It would probably be something along the lines of "ignore him" or "try not to worry about it." Unfortunately, I doubt that either Mera or Arthur would have much good advice for him in a situation like that.

Beyond that, it really makes me want to ramble about Roy and Garth's early relationship because it is so messy and complicated. To be honest, Garth really wasn't around Roy all that much during his teenage years. They converged on a few missions through the Teen Titans, sure, but after Roy joined the team permanently, there wasn't all that many times that Garth got to interact with him. (Retcons have changed this a little bit, but.... I prefer this version...) In those few interactions they had, most of them were negative. Roy had a lot going on in his life and that caused him to lash out at people. This wasn't fair to them, mind you, but he did it to just about everyone.

Eventually, Roy started to grow a lot as a person and stopped being so much like that. The other Titans got to see his growth and they all grew pretty close. But since Garth was absent most of the time, he didn't get to bond with Roy the same way the other Titans did.

Because the very limited interactions they had were mostly negative, Garth held onto the idea that Roy was a total jackass and specifically didn't like him.

On Roy's side, that's not at all true. Yeah, Roy was definitely a douchebag when he was younger, but he does not hate Garth. The things he said to Garth that came off negatively weren't specifically about Garth. He would have said it to anyone in those situations.

When they started to interact as adults, they held two VERY different views of how their relationship was. Garth thought Roy not-so-secretly hated him (and also thought he was racist towards Atlanteans), and Roy probably felt fairly neutral towards Garth but also had a little bit of nostalgia about him by proxy when talking about the old Teen Titans. I think that he WANTED to be closer with Garth, so he defaulted to the old jokes and jibes that seem to have worked for the other members regarding Garth.

Garth... wasn't fantastic at standing up for himself when he was younger, so he didn't make it very clear how much those comments upset him. He would tell Roy to stop, but never really enforced it much, thus allowing Roy to think it was all part of the little "game" between them. He thought he was coming off as affectionate in his teasing, and Garth never set the boundaries in an adult fashion to make it clear how much he didn't like it. (That isn't to say that Roy shouldn't have stopped when asked-- he just didn't understand HOW serious it was.)

That was until Gargoyle manipulating their emotions sort of forced them to confront this whole thing. I very much wish that comics meta hadn't made it so the confrontation became slightly moot after that point. Regardless, Roy's reaction to Garth actually telling him what he thought about him/his actions is VERY telling about Roy as a character and how he viewed all of their interactions.

They still clashed after this, but also had some very interesting conversations where they were able to meet in the middle.

If I were in charge of writing for them, I would LOVE to go and explore their relationship more and build off of that conflict. I would love to set up a situation where they are forced to confront this stuff again.

I'm off topic now tho.... But my point here being that Roy really didn't bully Garth in the classic sense. He absolutely DID put Garth down and make him feel awful, but the vast majority of it came from misunderstandings, miscommunication, and simply not being around each other much. So many of their issues could be resolved if they just TALKED.

So idk if the opportunity for Garth to ask Arthur or Mera advice on this would even arise, necessarily? Garth didn't really talk to them about this kind of stuff, and also the situation was far more complex than your typical childhood bullying.

I hope this provides at least a somewhat satisfactory answer! And sorry that I don't have more specific things to say on the Arthur/Mera front!

Hello if you have the time simply put who are brainiacs family members.. and like how are they related? I never knew he had relations of any kind but im picking up the house of brainiac event but twitter has pushed me down a rabbit hole and now im trying to piece together brainiacs family tree. I am in no way an expert in comics or well read in anything im searching things up but idk what different universes/ dimensions/ timelines mean and who/what is canon. thx 💜

So I made this family tree a few years, which is still largely accurate but I still kinda want to remake at some point. Still, a decent visualiser for now.

I think it's important to note that we don't really know what is and isn't canon right now. We will probably have a better idea of it come June-July, but at the moment everything is a little all over the place and it may also remain that way. Comics.

The ones we know are relevant to Williamson's story are Brainiac and, as per the most recent issue, the pre-Zero Hour version of Brainiac 5. I'm also reasonably certain we'll see Vril II and Brainiac 3.

But, the full-ish list:

Kaja Dox and her unnamed mother - Appeared in Humphries' Green Lanterns in a story set "10 billion years ago". We don't actually know if they're supposed to be related to the others, but we can probably assume as much.

Brainiac/Vril Dox (I) - Big man himself. You know him. Man of many faces and origins. Brainiac 12 and 13 are upgraded versions of him.

Vril Dox II - Brainiac's son. Initially adopted, later either a biological son or clone artificially aged into adulthood. In both versions granted as a boon to Brainiac by Colu's machine overlords.

Techne - Brainiac's clone daughter as introduced during Convergence. Maybe canon. Maybe not the child of the main universe's Brainiac.

Unnamed siblings - Techne had several mutated siblings who Brainiac appeared to have used for experiments. The same has been implied to be true for Vril. They're dead.

Project Alien Farm - A clone made out of Brainiac and Lex Luthor's DNA, probably meant to be a parallell to Superboy/Kon El. Had the misfortune of being born a few months before Flashpoint and hasn't been seen since.

Indigo/Brainiac 8 - An artificial being supposedly created by Brainiac 6 to go back in time to aid Brainiac in his mission. We've never seen Brainiac 6 in canon and she kind of just existed in her own corner with the Outsiders and Titans.

Pran Dox - Formerly the son of Vril Dox II. Only ever appeared in narration, we can assume he doesn't exist now.

Lyrl Dox/Brainiac 3 - The more canon son of Vril Dox II.

This is where things get a little spicy timeline-wise. There are essentially five different versions of the future of the DC universe. Each one is its own universe, but has been the canon future of the main universe before. Like this:

The first timeline is the pre-Zero Hour version, the second the post-Zero Hour/Earth-247, the third Earth-Prime, the fourth is an divergent version of the pre-Zero Hour, and the fourth is post-Rebirth. These characters exist within these timelines:

Kajz Dox (both versions of the pre-Zero Hour timeline) - The son of either Lyrl or Pran. Both have been canon.

Brainiac 4 (post-Zero Hour/Earth-247) - An unnamed female child of Lyrl.

Unnamed female Coluan (Earth-Prime) - A character who appeared for two pages in one comic. Probably Lyrl's daughter.

Post-Rebirth lacks a version of Brainiac 4. Among other things.

Querl Dox/Brainiac 5 - Exists in every timeline/universe. The great-great-grandson of Brainiac, by various means.

There are a couple of other characters who can sort of be considered members of the family, but they're not super relevant at this stage.

I don't know how understandable all that is, feel free to shoot me another ask if you want me to clarify anything.

ok so I actually completed SotO's new story chapters on day 1, but I've taken a little while to put my thoughts together on it. some of it's good, some not, but I did my best to be fair and direct on it.

so anyway here we go, major spoilers under the cut!

The Good

I like the map, I like the writing direction, I like the lore. I liked most of what we got, honestly. dungeon fixes, customizable character screen backgrounds, bugfixing the new 'green circles' mechanic, and adding a mount ley-line toggle are also all huge things that people have been wanting, and I'm very very glad they listened.

Peitha is shaping into an absolutely fascinating character too, and it's getting a lot more obvious why she connected to the Wayfinder so quickly... they feel very much cut from the same cloth, two strong leaders fighting to make their worlds better. and yet they're also burdened by the weight of that choice, and the sacrifices that must be made for their vision to be made into reality.

moments like this hit me like a bag of bricks; there's so much going on in the Kryptis homeworld. it's fascinating starting from the perspective of the Ward, seeing them all as just these vicious invaders... to now finding out they have names, ambitions, homes, maybe even families. we're told time and time again that their motivation is fear. the Wanderer, Irja, the little grunts we kill en masse to power the beacons, even Heitor herself.

'There's a version of this world where she joined us.'

like... just thinking about that. man. a version where Heitor hadn't lost hope so completely that by the time we come along, Peitha informs us that she wanted to die-- if only because she knew that at least we'd make it quick. it's horrifying to think about on its own, but the reality that it didn't have to be that way makes it so much worse.

it's... such a clear illustration of why their world has to change. they're fighting and dying to preserve the status quo not because it brings them comfort or privilege, but because they've been living in hell for so long that they don't believe an alternative exists. for as alien as the Kryptis seem to us, we're every bit as alien to them.

it feels like there's a really solid direction here, and I hope that it continues being solid through to the end. I could talk WAY more about my feelings on the story, but I'd better keep going.

I also like the Convergences; they're fun and I hope they survive. having public vs private instanced content seems to cause issues with publics staying populated long-term though, which... concerns me. I STRONGLY prefer publics just because you can bring Jade Bot protocols in, which makes it easier to travel freely and keep boons.

and now that I've dug into all that, uh... let's get to the less fun stuff.

The Bad

there's a lot of things to like about this release, but there's also a lot to... Not. the main 'drop' for Convergences outside of raw essences are Concealed Unstable Kryptis Essence Coffers... lootboxes which can only be opened with an Unstable Kryptis Motivation, which at the moment costs... upwards of 10 Gold per pop if you buy them off the TP. the only other way to get them is grinding tier 2 and 3 rifts, and good luck getting one because they're RARE.

I do not like this direction, for a LOT of reasons. the biggest one should be pretty obvious: it's making a portion of the victory rewards inaccessible to players who can't shell out the gold or the rift farm time to get the keys OUTSIDE the Convergence. the other is that the rewards aren't even worth 11 Gold anyway, so the coffers are dropping rapidly in price while the keys stay high. at this point it's arguably better to just sell the keys on the TP than to ever actually use them. the market on these is gonna get wacky I'm sure.

I don't want to see that become a trend. just.......... no.

the other main gripe I have is that... there's no portal of entry in and out of Inner Nayos. no, really. you can't get in and out at all without porting one way or another. it's right next to the Wizard's Tower but there is no entry point connecting these two maps. I thought I was going insane at first so I turned on the story again while in the Wizard's Tower to see if it'd point me towards a door. nope! it just sticks the story star icon on the Inner Nayos map and calls it a day.

aside from making travel in and out unnecessarily irritating and costly, this also means that you can't easily get alts into the dang map without a TP to friend. otherwise you have to do the story on them, whether you're ready and willing to or not.

I don't like that shift either, and really hope they remedy it when the 'under construction' gate opens in the future. that said, that should have been made available as soon as you finish the story.

and now the final segment, you know where this is going.

The Ugly

it's... short. really, really short. like, no, really. I finished all the story chapters in an hour and a half tops. now at maybe three, four days in I already have enough mastery points to top off the last mastery in the new line. I've map completed the new zone twice. both of the new Vault tasks are done. everything went so so so so fast.

and for reference: this cycle is going to last even longer than the last, based on the Vault reset time period.

additionally, the weaponmaster training underwent a stealth change: the new weapons can no longer be equipped on characters under level 80. this was not listed in the update notes. while that didn't affect me, it does seem kind of cheap to pull the rug on that when a lot of players were using that to level their characters since, well... a lot of core weapons just aren't that great. I can't really blame anyone who would rather use weapons that don't hit like a wet paper towel.

there have also been some... interesting bugs on release, of which the biggest one was unlimited hero's chests per day from the Inner Nayos meta. some people got a month's worth of chests in one day before they turned the chest drops off entirely to fix it.

they're back now, but that was still... something to behold.

I've also heard rumors that the new Legendary Kit from the Vault may be bugged; some players are reporting opening the kit and getting nothing out of it. I can't confirm how frequent that issue is, but... yeah that's a little concerning. I'll hold onto mine for now, just to be safe.

Overall Impression

despite the many sore points mentioned, overall I'm... okay with it. I like what we got, but I wish there was more there to like. from the much smaller Vault selection, to the shorter story, to the single-waypoint but otherwise very cool map that feels like it could have more going on in certain areas... I dunno.

but on the other hand... if my biggest complaint is that I like it enough to want more of it, that's an alright problem to have when we know we're going to get more. I'd be more worried if what we got was a miserable slog and I didn't even want to return to the maps-- and in fact, the opposite is true! I want to return to the map frequently and I want more to do in it-- and mostly I want easier access to it.

my hope is that the slowdown is an indication of resources being put into other backend work, such as the dungeon fixes, the character select screen, and so on. because, realistically, if they can fix up the core more, that would streamline their workflow a LOT and make it easier and quicker to work on things in the future.

I guess in short, my impression is... tentatively optimistic.

that's all I've got on it for now, maybe I'll talk about story more in-depth in the future though because boy I do have a lot of thoughts on that-- which... is part of why I had to redo this post like 6 times. it kept getting way too long and rambly over story. (oops)

hey, i hope you’re doing alright! could i ask you to describe some of your favorite dreams with fawful? your art about your dreams is beautiful and i would love to hear the story behind some of it!

Thank you so much! I'm fine, I promise <3

How about I start this off by telling you about the first dream he ever appeared in? I went back and found a post I wrote back in early 2021 where I described it, so I'll be sharing that again here. The original time of this dream was in August of 2020.

For context this was a very difficult time in my life where I was intensely overworked at my job to the degree that it was impacting my physical and mental health horribly and causing me to question myself and my capabilities, so this dream couldn't have come at a better time than it did.

08/28/2020

I dreamed I was outside during a quiet rainstorm when a skeleton key fell out of the sky and landed at my feet. Around the end of it was tied a bright, red ribbon. I remember looking around and trying to find where the key might fit but having no luck.

I woke up.

08/29/2020

Tonight I dreamed again. I found myself standing in what can only be described as a white void, a place devoid of emotion or color… That is, until I looked up. Hovering above were doors of many different colors and shapes, all of them unique in their own way. Upon observing each you could see various things happening around and within each one of them.

Some seemed to create music, others seemed to move as if they were alive. I could hear a quiet whispering inside a few, or knocking behind others. Inwardly, I knew they were all portals to other dimensions and worlds beyond my own. It was if I had found myself at the crossroads where the entrances to many universes converged. 

My gaze then shifted downward where I suddenly realized I was holding the skeleton key from the dream prior in the palm of my hand, the end of it still wrapped in the same red ribbon. When I lifted my head back up, my gaze met a door directly in front of me: one that not only happened to be the same red as the ribbon tied to the key in my hand, but that was also the only door planted firmly on the ground. I knew the key must belong to it.

Just as I held up the key and started to walk forward, the door began to open on its own and a very familiar figure stepped out. It was Fawful, dressed in the same red cape I knew from Bowser’s Inside Story. He looked almost… lost? Like he didn’t entirely know why he was here. (Not that I can blame him!)

As he stepped further out the door, he noticed me and we locked eyes for the first time. There was a long moment of silence before he started to walk towards me, and when he was about four feet away he paused and just… stared. Everything about his expression said he was trying to figure me out, perhaps in an attempt to make sense of why any of this was happening at all. However, the longer he looked at me, the more his expression began to change… from confusion first, then concern, and then finally the most unexpected one of all: understanding.

And that’s when it hit me… Fawful understood. He knew exactly what it was like to overwork yourself. In the game, his minions spoke about how hard he worked, how stressed he was, and he himself lamented towards the end over the fact that he did his absolute best and still fell short despite it all. He was no stranger to any of this. 

And just as this realization had hit me, I felt his hand on my chin. He was here now, directly in front of me with that enormous, beautiful smile of his that I had grown to love so much. At this point I started to sob, and in response he wrapped both of his arms around me in a tight embrace of what I can only describe as pure comfort and relief. 

Things stayed like this for a while, and the dream seemed to melt away slowly until I found myself awake in my bed, my eyes and pillow beneath my head still wet with tears.

After that... well, the rest is history. I've had countless other adventures with him since, both in sleep and wake alike.

Cold Water

All right, so let's talk about this Dragon Ball theme park that doesn't exist.

@jasminewave brought this to my attention last week and I mostly got interested in the Saudi Arabia connection. I saw some hype about the park news on Twitter, and people excitedly asking "Where is this?!" I guess they were too blown away by the announcement to actually notice any of the mentions of its location.

I mean, it's not like they're keeping that a secret. This 56-second "trailer" features a newscaster reporting that people are converging in Saudi Arabia in search of the Dragon Balls. Then the narrator says "coming to Saudi Arabia". Even if you don't look up "Qiddiya", the answer's right there in the press release.

There's nothing substantive to the video. A lot of special effects, shots of people interacting with buildings and other attractions based on the Dragon Ball franchise, a kid shoots off a Kamehameha, some women ride a roller coaster, you get the idea. But none of it is real. I mean, the roller coaster was probably real, but they probably filmed actors in a different park. They may plan on building a roller coaster shaped like Shenron, and they may plan on building a replica of the Capsule Corp. building, but it's not what they showed in the video.

That kind of irks me, because I've seen plenty of people get swept up in the hype for this thing. They're excited because they saw this:

And they think it's the coolest thing in the world and it's a real place they can go to right now. Except the Dragon Ball park looks a lot more like this:

This is a still from a video on Qiddiya's YouTube channel, so it's not like I'm talking behind their backs here. The video's from three weeks ago, and it shows a lot of footage of the construction work going on at the site. It's a lot of cuts of construction crews and equipment, with powerful, uplifting music playing in the background. This is what Qiddya looks like in 2024. The Saudi government has big plans to construct a bunch of parks and other attractions on this site, but it'll take years to finish it all.

To put this in perspective, they're also building a Six Flags park in Qiddiya, and that project began construction in 2021. I found a message board called "themeparx.com" where people share photos of resorts and parks that are under construction. And the Six Flags looks a lot like this:

I mean, it's coming along. There's some other photos that show roller coaster tracks and other structures that you can recognize as theme park-related, but you can tell it's nowhere near ready for the public. And this is about two years' worth of construction. It'll take a while before this thing has its grand opening.

And let's be clear: The Six Flags construction started in December of 2021. Six Flags Qiddiya was announced way back in 2016. The Dragon Ball theme park was announced last week. So this construction site we're looking at could very well be a peek into what the Dragon Ball park might look like eight years from now.

Now that I think about it, that makes some sense. Qiddiya's also supposed to have a water park too, and I wondered why they planned all these theme parks for the same location, but they're not building them all simultaneously. By the time the Dragon Ball park is ready to build, the Six Flags will probably be ready to open, along with whatever else is ready, and that gives them time to see how well the whole thing performs. If Qiddiya succeeds, they can move ahead with the next wave of projects. Or if it fails, they can scrap the whole thing, or just stick to the initial set of attractions. I guess my point here is that they might not even build the Dragon Ball park. A lot can happen in a decade, and plans might fall through between now and then.

What I find irritating is how they basically "announced" the thing with a slick video "trailer" that uses images of a park that doesn't actually exist. At best, it's based on a bunch of conceptual artwork and blueprints. At worst, someone just slapped a bunch of stuff together. The park images in the video remind me a lot of the Conton City map in Xenoverse 2. Just a bunch of familiar settings from the anime, all smooshed together into a single area. It wouldn't take much effort for a skilled CGI team to make a similar layout for a hypothetical park. So there's no guarantee that the imagined park in the video has any ties to the park they're actually planning to construct.

I find the whole thing misleading, because the "announcement" and the video are presented like a commercial, promoting the park like it's a real thing you can go to right now and it'll look like it does in the ad. It'll be years before we can see for ourselves how this turns out, so why bother hyping it up at all? Wait until it's done, and then promote it.

I'm not sure what the point is of these slick video packages. Normally, I'd chalk it up as an attempt to showcase the work being done, as a way to reassure investors or taxpayers that their money is being put to good use. Except this whole Saudi Vision 2030 project is being financed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is under the direct control of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country. Maybe they're just making videos to show to him personally, or maybe he wanted the videos made to show off to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, it all boils down to propaganda. They're not announcing a theme park because they want people to visit tomorow. They're announcing a theme park to get people talking about how cool Saudi Arabia is for building the theme park. Like I said last week, watching the video packages WWE ran for Saudi Vision 2030, I got the impression that one of the main goals of Saudi Vision 2030 was to promote Saudi Vision 2030. They just want everyone to know about all this stuff they're building, even while they're still in the middle of making it.

I just find it obnoxious, especially when the video's not even a minute long and shows zero images of an actual park, but you see bottom-feeders like Geekdom101 rushing to "report" on the story. He's got a six minute video up where he presumably "reacts" to the official teaser and talks about how cool this is going to be. Maybe he has ideas on what they should put in the park. It doesn't really matter, because I already know he has nothing to say about it, since he only knows what everyone else knows, which is in the teaser video, which doesn't actually show anything. It's all a mirage until there's an opening date.

And maybe the initial hype has already died down, and I shouldn't be giving this non-story more oxygen than it deserves. But it is a Dragon Ball theme park, and we'll probably hear more about it in the coming years, so maybe it's worth writing this down for posterity. I just kind of wish I could skip ahead to the part where it all goes hilariously wrong, like Willy's Chocolate Factory, or the Heroes of Wrestling PPV. That's what's so frustrating about this. At this moment, the Dragon Ball Park in Qiddiya is probably just a stretch of empty desert. At best, there's some trucks or something on the lot. It's not even a failure yet. It's just... nothing.

Ethereal: Part-I

It's been quite a while since our paths first crossed. Despite attending the same university, we've pursued different majors, and surprisingly, we've never had the chance to cross each other's physical paths. We forged a strong online friendship, sharing photos and exchanging admiration. Our conversations spanned topics from academic pursuits to the quirkiest of interests, and we found common ground amid it all. Our bond grew stronger through shared music sessions, thanks to our similar tastes. Additionally, our mutual passion for writing further connected us, even though he expressed himself in Hindi while I favored English. As time passed, our online connection deepened. He displayed genuine concern during my difficult moments, offering comfort during cramps and nightmares, while I reciprocated by being a supportive listener as he shared his past experiences. Our exam schedules coincided, and we developed a study routine where we not only focused on our own preparation but also supported and encouraged each other throughout the process. We both possess a unique blend of assertiveness and tranquility, which occasionally led to spirited discussions between us. However, our ability to communicate effectively always helped us resolve any conflicts that arose. With time, our understanding of each other deepened, and it's at this point that an unexpected twist enters the story. It felt truly surreal, like it emerged out of thin air, catching us completely off guard. Our luck took a turn for the better during the university's cultural fest – a rare moment when our paths were destined to converge, and we were on the brink of meeting face to face for the very first time. Surprisingly, despite my introverted tendencies and his extroverted nature, the prospect of meeting him in person and attending the musical fest, which featured our beloved singer, filled me with immense excitement. I opted for an all-black ensemble, pairing a black dress with matching heels, fishnet stockings, and an open hairstyle. Completing the look, I added black boots, carried a black bag, and topped it off with a stylish black coat. We had arranged to rendezvous outside the concert venue before entering together. As I was about to meet him, my heart raced with anticipation, and my introverted tendencies suddenly felt more pronounced. Our meeting began with a handshake, but in that moment, it felt like electricity surged through my veins. Then, he held onto my hands, and his gaze traced a path from head to toe. I initiated the conversation by saying, "Thank you, thank you," as I embraced him in a warm hug, feeling the pounding of his heart against my skin. His voice is husky and throaty as he asks, "For what?" while gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I pulled back slightly, cupping his face in my hands, and said, "For being here, for being my friend, for everything." His eyes glisten before he crashes his lips to mine, growling low in his throat as he does so. He urges me to wrap my arms around him and I do so. My hands fist themselves in his hair and his once again are glued to my waist. His tongue sneaks out and darts against my lips. The feeling is so exquisite and I'm instantly greedy for it. Hesitantly, I open my mouth allowing out tongues to touch for the first time and it is sheer bliss. I moan as I'm filled with the taste of him, pressed up to every inch of him.He kisses me fiercely like his life depends on it and try to up with him. I found myself breathless and a bit disheveled, my heart pounding loudly in my chest. There was a palpable electricity sparking between my thighs and a warm sensation in my stomach. "Aaron", he whispers against my lips. “That’s the only name that will ever leave your lips from now on, especially when you’re making yourself feel excellent. And when I’m making you feel excellent, then you can call me God."  His words ignited an exhilarating sensation within me, causing my heart to race with anticipation, making my clit ache for him.