#my one decent ish post made this exact point
Text
Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off
Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes.
Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa.
Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m:
A) Too lazy to play
B) Too broke to play
C) Too unskilled to play
D) All of the above
because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?*
*In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.
A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.
I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was:
Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*
*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here.
Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.”
Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article.
By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school.
Here’s how this shit went down.
First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love.
“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!
Her consent!
In ancient Greece!
The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!
Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading.
Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that.
Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.
And they lived happily ever after.
That’s the end of the post right?
NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me.
Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this.
There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend.
Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!
YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.
BUT WAIT.
There’s more.
The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!
For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon.
Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:
Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general.
Take that Zeus, for being so gross.
The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)
Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)
The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.
That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”
One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”
Mistress of Labyrinths.
Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!
Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?
And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!
What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.
Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them.
Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery.
Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big.
Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages.
Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason.
Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”
You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!
^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^
“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”
Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:
All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.
The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.
Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure.
A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!
Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?
ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!
Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy!
I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat. Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!
Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?
Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical.
Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot.
How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km.
The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.
Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.
Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.
Minoa was fucked.
The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.
Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.
Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year?
Mycenaea!
Guess who won?
Also Mycenaea!
Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs.
Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.
“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”
Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed.
Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi.
An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one.
In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories.
However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in.
This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.
The Mycenaeans were likely no different.
Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman.
Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.
Fuck the Mycenaeans.
* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more.
What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus.
With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy.
Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it.
All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more.
In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out.
#minoa#minoan#crete#ancient history#ariadne#mycenaea#mycenaean#I hate#HATE#HATE HATE HATE the Greeks so much#homer is a dick#So much spite and curiosity went into this#if I ever get a time machine I will travel to the first years of Mycenaea for the express purpose of burning it to the ground before#they get a chance#the opportunity#to look at Minoa wrong
137 notes
·
View notes
Text
Pokemon Journeys Episode 74 (Ramblings/Review)
Introduction/Background:
I'll be honest I haven't been watching the series as actively since episode 65. That's because the episodic formula they chose to use for the series was honestly starting to grate on me and if you read my post on my issues with the Pokémon Journeys anime. I did bring up one of my issues being the episodic formula.
As time grew on through my issue with the episodic formula and some of the other issues of the series begun to annoy me even more so I needed to take a break. When they announced Dawn would be making an appearance, I knew I had to watch (the one instance where the episodic formula kind of worked in my favour). As Diamond and Pearl was my first game, my favourite anime series and had some of the best story-telling in my opinion. In comparison to Journeys, I think my main issue with the series is the lack of direction and not knowing where the story is going.
That element of surprise might be great for some people and if you’re enjoying the series that’s great too. Personally, I love the story-telling aspect of the Pokémon anime and watching these characters go on their own personal journeys. This is why watching a story-driven series, I want that level of clarity and direction provided by a linear narrative. This is why the episodic formula was starting to grate on me, Journeys is great when they are focusing on furthering a character’s goal or development, my issue lies with the huge gap in between which later results in a huge pacing issue that could easily be resolved if they gave time for certain aspects to be fleshed out more.
However, that isn’t to say Journeys is a bad series. I’ve certainly enjoyed a lot of the episodes and the slice of life aspect the series provides in comparison to earlier series. On the other hand, given that the series is meant to be focusing on travel that can be construed as a negative point as well.
And I've realised as I'm writing this, this may come across as a rant about the series rather than discussing the episode. So, if you're still reading thank you ^o^ But I thought it was necessary to give some background to explain how my opinions have been formed and if you recommend that I re-visit some episodes that’s great too!
So far, I've only seen the episode with some really poor subtitles. So, if I've misinterpreted a scene then you can let me know. But I think I got the gist of most of the episode. If you’ve read some of my other posts, I always try to break down these reviews/ramblings.
The Beginning:
I feel as though this episode is going to end up drawing similarities to the DP episode Sleepless in Pre-Battle. In which, Darkrai causes nightmares and Cresselia is unable to help the town for some reason, I can’t remember the exact reason in the original episode although in this case, it’s obvious as we see Team Rocket’s Matori Matrix attack and injure Cresselia. This sets up, the boys’ side of this DP mini-arc in which they’ll investigate the Darkrai side of the problem and something I greatly appreciated ASH! REFERENCED! HIS! BATTLE! WITH! DARKRAI!!! It was something I greatly appreciated and kind of wished Journeys took the time to reference some of Ash’s other achievements and experiences more often. Give him more of a mentor-ish role like he was to May back in AG.
Rather than Chloe joining the boys in Sinnoh, originally, she was meant to be going on a trip with her family as the summer holidays had begun. However, those plans immediately went down the gutter as both her parents had work and her brother was joining his friend at summer camp (this is going by really horrible subtitles so I may be entirely wrong). I honestly don’t know if Chloe went to Sinnoh intending to join up with Ash and Goh or just going on a trip by herself. But I really liked the call back to Following a Maiden’s Voyage in which Chloe had packed too much the same as Dawn and her Mum ended up giving her a more appropriate-sized backpack. I think there might have been a Sword and Shield reference in there as well because at the beginning of the game the Mum says the backpack, she gives the player was the one she used for her journey and I think Chloe’s Mum said something amongst those lines. I don’t know I might be grasping at straws.
I loved all the Sinnoh/DP references earlier in the episode and to be honest I was focusing more on the Dawn and Chloe side of the episode rather than the boys (sorry Ash and Goh).
Chloe and Dawn:
Now I’ll be honest, I love Chloe for me personally she’s one of the stronger aspects of the Journeys series. However, in this episode, she annoyed me a little bit. From my point of view, one of the more subtle ways Chloe has developed after catching Eevee was that she learnt to relax and embrace being a kid primarily because of Eevee. This development was highlighted in the Glimwood Tangle episode where Chloe ended up playing with the group of Impidimp. If it had been Chloe from 20 or even 30 episodes before she may have handled that situation completely differently. Whereas, as of late she’s learnt to relax and have fun which at times was something I could have done when I was her age.
Anyways, I’m going on a tangent once again. I just thought the whole argument with Dawn was rather pointless, I didn’t understand the need to create any conflict when they were getting on perfectly well beforehand. That was kind of my biggest gripe on the girls’ side of the episode.
On the other hand, they also set up a good opportunity for Chloe to grow which I kind of hope they take. Another issue, I’ve been having with the Journeys anime is that they set up some great plot lines or potential development and fall through on delivery or never act on it. One aspect I loved about episode 63, was that they were setting up an interesting way for Chloe and Eevee to develop or find a goal by meeting other trainers that own an Eeveelution and learn why they chose that particular form. They could have even set up Ash getting in contact with May or Serena to talk to Chloe about Glaceon and Sylveon. But the writers never followed up on the potential storyline after episode 63, which is so frustrating.
This is why I’m hoping with Dawn’s influence Chloe actively begins to at least try things out to learn what is a good fit for her. This was an issue with Serena as well, before discovering Pokémon Performing, she didn’t really actively try out other things like battling as much. Even, Ash gave Contests a go and ended up developing some of his best strategies from those experiences such as the Counter Shield and the Ice Aqua Jet. Considering, Pokémon is an anime targeted towards children, it would be a good message to send, to at least try something once rather than not trying at all.
Climax:
Following their (unnecessary) argument and battle with a sleep-deprived Rhydon, Chloe and Dawn come across the injured Cresselia from the beginning of the episode. Going back to the Rhydon, in the original Darkrai film they did expand on Darkrai causing Pokémon to fall asleep and have nightmares but I can’t recall if the Pokémon were affected in Sleepless Pre-Battle. It was an interesting and small touch that I liked about the episode (also poor Rhydon).
The preview for the next episode shows Chloe calming Cresselia or at least gaining Cresselia’s trust, and it made me think again this might be me just grasping at straws. But perhaps Chloe has some sort of affinity with Psychic-type Pokémon because we had that whole weird vision aspect (that was again never addressed) in the Glimwood Tangle episode where Chloe had that vision of Galarian Ponyta and Rapidash. I don’t know, that’s a theory I just developed that probably won’t pan out.
Conclusion:
All in all, it was a decent episode to come back into for Journeys. If I’m honest if they were promoting the DP remakes, I’m surprised they didn’t try to do anything that focused on the Creation Trio rather than the Lunar Duo however the Creation Trio did play a huge role in the DP films and Dialga and Palkia in the original anime so perhaps they wanted to give more spotlight on the Lunar Duo or even hint at Tobias’ return with Darkrai?
If I’m completely honest I’m concerned about the pacing for the next episode as this arc is only meant to be two episodes, this episode did do its job of setting things up. In my opinion, it could have been faster in some areas, they could have even shown a Contest in this episode and have Dawn and Chloe meet in that way. Given in the next episode the two groups will meet up and attempt to defend Cresselia from Team Rocket and I don’t think they’ll have much time to show off anything Contest-related which is a shame because Contests were my absolute favourite aspect of the games and anime.
If this were a three-episode arc maybe they could have used this episode to focus on Chloe and Dawn, next episode focuses more on Ash and Goh finding Darkrai have the groups meet up and then the third episode half-battling and half showing off contests. I don’t know this is just me throwing some ideas out there. As I think Journeys just has a huge issue with pacing for some reason and this episode was sort of slow in some areas and as I mentioned I’m worried the next episode is going to be really rushed.
But overall, it was a decent episode and I’m hoping we’ll get to see the rest of Dawn’s team next episode as I love her Pokémon to bits. Also, Pikachu and Buneary reunion, please!!!
(And I may watch this episode again with proper subtitles)
1 note
·
View note
Text
Re: https://dramarising-replacement.tumblr.com/post/617916922335543296/so-ive-had-a-subspecies-since-september-i-noticed
TL;DR: Things are fishier than they seem, and M might actually be more of a thief than SB. At the very least, M 100% falsely accused SB of theft; at the worst, M stole SB’s idea and went on an editing spree to cover their tracks.
I don't have a tumblr so usually commenting on posts here is more trouble than it's worth, but I just have to on this one for some reason. Maybe it's because I think the entire concept of “subspecies” is stupid, maybe it's because thanks to a namedrop I could easily dig everything up... but from what I found the drama OP (M) definitely seems shady. Brace yourselves, my salty friends, for an unnecessarily long deep-dive into stupid drama (because what else are you going to spend quarantine doing?).
First, let's take a look at the timeline.
According to the original post date, the drama OP (M) created their subspecies in Dragon Share on September 13 2019. The thread has moderate activity levels up (~2 week post gaps max) until December 13 2019, when it apparently dies (barring any ghost bumping of course). The next post on the thread is made May 11 2020, when M suddenly becomes active again. M also created a new subspecies thread in Dragon Share on May 9 2020 at 13:05 FR (exact times will become relevant later on); it seems the posts were filled in with edits made within the next couple days, as is standard. Also of note is the fact that many of M’s posts in their original thread have edits made May 9 2020 from 10:39-13:27 FR (this will be key); additionally, a majority of these edits are made on posts that contain the guidelines for the subspecies- not sales, affiliates, pinglists, etc. that would require any sort of update.
The “accused” in this case (SB) created their hatchery thread in Dragons For Sale on December 24 2019. Aside from sales/affiliate posts, no edits to the main hatchery posts were made since December 29 2019 (likely filling in from a structure laid out 5 days prior), except for on March 19 2020, when it looks like they might have converted how they list dragons for sale to be linked to a tab instead of posted/adjusted g:t ratio. In any case, I believe these particular edits do not really play a big role on the overall timeline and drama, same as M's edits on their new thread. For a user that describes themselves as “barely active”, they do a decent job at bumping posts, with ~1 week between bumps except for 2 spans of ~1 month: from Feb-Mar, and after a short bout of bumping, from Mar-Apr.
The drama begins when M makes their post on SB’s hatchery thread May 09 2020 at 10:10 FR, which is edited less than a minute later (maybe a typo correction?). So here’s the timeline all pieced together:
September 13, 2019 – M creates the subspecies
December 13, 2019 – M seemingly goes inactive on their thread
December 24, 2019 – SB creates their hatchery thread
peace, until…
May 09, 2020 @10:10 – M accuses SB of “stealing” their idea on SB’s hatchery thread
May 09, 2020 @10:39 – M edits their subspecies requirement post
May 09, 2020 @13:05 – M creates a new subspecies thread
May 09, 2020 @13:14 – M edits their old subspecies main post
May 09, 2020 @13:21 – M edits a post about ‘Queen’ variant(?) requirements on their old thread (Important)
May 09, 2020 @13:27 – M edits a post showing examples of ‘Queen’ variants on their old thread (Important)
~BONUS~ May 12, 2020 – people start defending M on SB’s hatchery thread. The posts weren’t exactly the nicest, so who knows if they’ll still be around by the time this gets out of the queue
Ok, I know what you’re all thinking- what does all this mean? How is this shady?? For that, we will have to dive a bit more into the content of the posts to put some context to that timeline; but first, let’s take a look at the threads and see if the theft accusation is accurate.
M’s old subspecies thread:
Messy layout/design. Links are left as ugly long URLs, but most importantly… there is no consistency on what the subspecies design is! In the main post, no colors are listed, but the genes are specified to be Slime/Lionfish, Sludge/Bee, and Capsule. In their next post on the subspecies requirements, genes are listed as Slime, Sludge/Bee, Capsule- no Lionfish to be found! Color specifications are kept vague, with only a Honey tert required, though they do also lay out 4 specific named variations using Amber/Amber, Amber/Gold, Lemon/Gold, and Lemon/Lemon. The post with the ‘Queen’ requirements lists genes of Slime/Hex/Capsule, with no colors specified except for the same 4 variants made earlier.
M’s new subspecies thread:
Still a work in progress, but looks to be pretty much identical to the previous thread; the only main change is that banner is replaced with an original (credited!!) logo (good job on that, M). The main post specifies genes of Slime, Sludge/Bee, and Capsule. The color rule examples post contain the subspecies and the ‘Queen’ variant (Slime/Hex/Capsule), and include some additional variants as well- ‘Crystallized’ (Bee sec), ‘Wasp’ (Lionfish prim), Pollenators[sic] (Glimmer tert), and ‘Hornets’ (Pinstripe/Sludge/Glimmer).
So if you’ve been paying attention, M’s ~super special unique subspecies~ has color requirements of “anything honey-like” (while also having 4 specific color combinations) and a combination of random genes in addition to the “official” genes thanks to the addition of “variants” that have nothing to do with the original Slime/Sludge/Capsule premise. The only consistency seems to be Honey tert.
SB’s hatchery thread:
Aside from some hard-to-read colors used, has nice formatting. Lists 6 pairs, which are strictly either Amber/Amber or Grapefruit/Grapefruit, with a small range of matching terts for each pair (not necessarily encompassing Honey). 5 pairs give primarily Slime/Hex (+small gem gene chance), and 1 is Slime/Sludge. As far as terts go, 2 have terts weighted towards Capsule, 1 is Capsule/Runes, 1 is Opal/Glimmer, and 1 is Glimmer. So primarily Slime/Hex/assorted, in an xxy Amber/Grapefruit+assorted.
So to put that all together:
M’s claim of subspecies “theft” would really ONLY pertain to their ‘Queen’ variant, not their main subspecies (only 1 of SB’s pairs has a 50% chance at making M’s subspecies). In addition, the range built into SB’s pairs violate the only seemingly consistent rule of M’s subspecies: a Honey tert. The only argument for “theft” would pertain to the gene combo of Slime/Hex, which appears in 5 of SB’s pairs and M's ‘Queen’ variant (though again, SB’s pairs do not have the right tert color/gene most of the time!).
Now, do you remember that timeline? After accusing SB of “stealing” their idea (presumably for the ‘Queen’ variant), what did M immediately do? They went back to their thread and specifically edited the posts pertaining to the requirements for the subspecies and the ‘Queen’ variant! It’s theoretically even possible that the ‘Queen’ variant didn’t even formally exist when SB made their hatchery- all the dragons mentioned/posted in M’s thread are the standard Slime/Sludge/Capsule subspecies, and 3 of the registered dragons of the ‘Queen’ variant were bred in January (well after SB started their hatchery), with 1 other dragon acquired from untraceable sellers at some point (likely around the same time as it is the parent of the other 3). You might even say that perhaps M “stole” the idea for the ‘Queen’ from SB… M also posted the proof themselves in the OP that they use shady edits to change the narrative in their favor- SB specifically mentions this in the screenshots after calling out M for removing their link, who then backs it up by claiming they were “project” dragons; yet M placed them in the “Completed breeders” tab, which was hastily edited to now include “Breeders that need gene alterations”, a shady move that SB commented on and M decided to post proof of for some reason lol.
So if this is true, and M accused SB of stealing their idea, then raced to edit their posts to create a narrative to justify their claims… why would they do it? My theory is simple: an honest mistake combined with jealousy. There are only 12 registered dragons listed on both the old and new subspecies threads, half of which are owned by M. On the other hand, SB’s hatchery lists 22 dragons sold, only 1 of which is exalted. Now I don’t know anything about hatcheries, but I think that is a decent amount for just under 5 months of sales, especially when taking into account the periods of seeming inactivity. I think that M either went on hiatus or forgot/gave up on the subspecies back in December, before SB created their hatchery. SB then created their hatchery, using similar (but definitely not the same!) ideas. Time passed, and one day when browsing the sale forum M comes across SB’s thread. Seeing SB’s hatchery have the popularity they never had, combined with poor memory of the details of their subspecies after such a long time had passed, M comments mistakenly accusing SB of theft. However, not long after they find their old thread, and realize that SB isn’t at all copying their Slime/Sludge/Capsule xxy Amber-ish/Honey, and rush to make the edits needed to tidy up their claims. In the process, they quickly realize it’d be best to just start a new thread altogether, as the current thread was a mess and had no more reserved space past the ‘Queen’ variant (which may have been reserved/lore space before M covered their tracks). Far less sinisterly, perhaps M continued their subspecies idea after abandoning the thread, and after accusing SB they realized that they never actually officially updated their subspecies.
But who’s to say? There might not be a smoking gun one way or the other, but there’s enough circumstantial evidence to say M doesn’t look as innocent as they sound. As far as SB’s response, it was definitely out of line and way too harsh. But you’ve also gotta admit you’d be pretty peeved if you had been peacefully minding your own business for months and suddenly someone comes in out of the blue, wrongfully accuses you of being a thief, demands you give them credit for all your hard work, then proceeds to buy your dragons to make them part of their “rightful” hatchery, erasing any mention of you as just another slap in the face. From looking at the dragons they’ve sold, SB doesn’t really seem to care what happens to them- genes have been changed, links have been removed, no drama that I can see. It really seems like they are reacting more to M’s shadiness over the whole deal than anything else. That said, nobody likes being namecalled, so SB’s parting remark wasn’t right even if they were wrongly accused of theft.
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
Right/Wrong - 3
I really love this kind of discussion. A real shame that I can’t do this kind of thing more frequently. My family has the same view, so there’s no point in the discussion, and my friends don’t care and it’s always super weird to bring up very serious topics, so I never really get to do this.
There is a concrete answer. However, vast majority of the people don’t want to accept it. There’s a reason why vast majority of the scientists still cling on to the theory of evolution, even though all science points away from it. Because to accept the truth would mean that what they’ve been told before were all false, and that they have to change their lifestyle. How many people are going to do that? So they don’t.
The concrete answer has been found. Technically, humans started with it when Adam was created in 4001 (ish) BC. Then people forgot it, and got corrupted so much that in 2300 (ish) BC, everything was wiped out by water and reset. The geological evidence is everywhere. And even in culture. Why is the legend of a world-wide flood in every human civilization? And around 2000-1800 (ish) BC, the concrete answer was given to us once again in a more “concrete” fashion, in the form of actual books, aka, the bible. And fast forward, we forgot it again. And now we’re waiting in the last age, for the final judgment by fire. The last age began when Israel became a physical nation again, as written in Exodus.
... And if I don’t stop this particular train of thought now, it’ll go on and on, so... heh.
The book of Leviticus handles that. It’s... incredibly boring, to be honest, because it’s ALL about laws and rules, and most of them don’t apply to us anymore. Having roughly skimmed it the first time, I don’t know the exact specifics. But I do believe that if someone owns a land (ignoring HOW they came to own it in the first place), and lets other people farm on it, there has to be an agreement that was reached. Anything that does not match the initial agreement would be wrong.
But usually, human greed tends to take over. So those who already have a lot try to get more by f*cking over the weaker ones. But just because someone stole from you, it doesn’t mean that you have to steal from them. Responding to wrongness with wrongness doesn’t make anything right. It just makes you as wrong as them.
The bible is very clear on the matter of revenge. Simply put, don’t do it. It’s not your job. Just forgive. The reason for that is because you yourself is begging for forgiveness. Roughly paraphrased and using modern currency, it’s as if you owe your boss $5 billion, and you’re begging for forgiveness and leniency. And so the boss thinks for a while and decides to absolve your debt. And then you immediately grab your coworker, who owes you $1000, and start beating him, demanding that he pays you back. What do you think the boss is going to do, seeing all that?
It’s a biblical worldview. Anyone who claims to be a Christian should have the identical view. You can’t claim to be a Christian while claiming that the bible is incorrect. It’s like trying to plant a tree after you cut off its roots and base. You also can’t claim to be a Christian while accepting other worldviews. You can’t accept the truth and falseness at the same time. There is a solid, concrete correctness. Choosing anything else or anything in between is automatically wrong. That’s how logic works. Science and logic do NOT ever conflict with the bible. Because... who made science and logic?
The scripture is a flawless, unshakable foundation in which everything must be built. All philosophy has to have the basis in that scripture, because human knowledge doesn’t come from inside YOU. It comes from the outside. People don’t learn the truth by themselves. It has to be taught. So any philosophy made by a person who just sat in his room for a while, thinking about it, is not going to be an absolute truth.
So, morality. Where did it come from. Dig deep enough, and the only possible foundation is the bible. What about other religions, you could ask. Did you know? Christianity (and Judaism) doesn’t have a starting point. It started alongside the first human. Other religions have a starting point. Like... Buddhism. Starts with Buddha in around 500 BC. What was China’s religion BEFORE that point? It’s pretty hard to trace, given how a certain emperor burned all the books and buried alive all the scholars. But then you look at the ONE thing that was retained from before that point, the Chinese letters. Analyze those, and you realize that the ancient Chinese root religion is the same as Christianity and Judaism.
Everything has a source foundation. People forget about it all the time, but it has to be there. You can’t build anything on top of just dirt. You need a solid foundation. Religion, morality, science, philosophy... they all have the same base.
That said, all this might be a lot easier to understand if you were more... math oriented? Having been a “mathie” ever since grade 2, the mathematical approach to thinking has always been easier for me. So, for mathematical viewpoint... imagine if there was no point of origin. The entire cartesian plane falls apart and the coordinate system no longer exists. A coordinate (1, 3, 5) in 3D space, just lists the distance of that point from the origin. 1 unit in the x-axis direction, 3 in y, 5 in z. So if the point of origin is not (0, 0, 0), then everything is meaningless, and nothing makes sense.
I think this is incredibly important, because most people would have the same view. But at the end of the day, empathy is irrelevant to right or wrong. Also, this might not be super obvious, but... when people lost sight of God, the amount of misery that happens... can NOT be understated. Once the theory of evolution entered the education system in the US, and so the kids lost sight of God... divorce rates skyrocketed, abortion rates skyrocketed, suicide rates skyrocketed, SAT scores plummeted, gun/knife violence in schools skyrocketed, etc.
What does the theory of evolution teach you? That humans came to existence after billions of years of killing and extinction of other species, that the “stronger race” wipes out the weaker ones, and that you, as a person, is just a random one of these humans in a random planet around a random star, in a random galaxy. Physically, your size is nothing compared to the planet, which is nothing compared to the solar system, etc. So you are less than nothing. You live around 100 years max, in a planet that’s been around for billions of years. You are less than nothing. Who cares what happens to you? Your neighbors are your competition. If you don’t beat them, they will beat you. You are only alive because you survived. And for you to survive, it’s okay to do ANYTHING.
Compared to that, what does the bible teach you? This planet was created on day 1, and was refined over 6 days total. The entirety of space was made in the 4th day at once. This planet is infinitely more significant and important than any others, because this planet is where God created life. The first man was hand-crafted and was the only creation to be made in the image of God, and was the only one ordered to have dominion over the other creatures. Adam was meant to live forever, but he kind of f*cked that up. He still lived 930 years on a planet that’s been around for 6000 years. 930/6000 is a pretty decent percentage. Even nowadays, 120 (max) out of 6000 is a significant percentage. You are, as a human, VERY important and incomparably significant to any other creature, being specially crafted on a specially crafted world. Your neighbors are those who will work with you, cooperating.
And yet, what are you taught in school?
... Man, these posts are getting long. Haha. I pretty much wrote like a Legacy chapter’s worth of text in these three posts. But there’s so much more to cover. Hahaha...
I guess if people find these boring or “offensive” (somehow) or simply don’t care, I’ll stop.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
So I finished reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
This isn’t so much a review, as an attempt to cement some of my thoughts, and to at least write something down, the better that I will not look back in a year and not be able to remember a thing of what I thought of HPMOR. But overall... that was quite a thing.
HPMOR is long. Longer (by word count, which isn’t a perfect method of judging this) than War and Peace, the normal benchmark for “really long books”. I don’t consider getting through it to be an accomplishment, in the sense of say, getting through Homestuck, though maybe that’s only because I have tried, and failed to do the latter several times. It may also be because the plot is, for all it’s time travel and scientific tangents, less complex than Homestuck. I do not expect it to stick in my mind the way the canonical books do. While I do not consider them to be high literature, the canonical Harry Potter books, in addition to being entirely an entirely decent story, had a certain... Depth, of sorts, to them. Some of this may come from the midi-chlorian effect; the workings of magic are never discussed greatly in the canonical books, but much of HPMOR Harry’s efforts are devoted to understanding magic from a scientific perspective. I think it is more likely that it is because HPMOR simply had a more limited scope.
HPMOR set out to be a puzzle, an encouragement of rational thought patterns, a demonstration of how they might be applied to great benefit. And it does this. While potential plot holes and inconsistencies exist, it does this fairly well on the whole. But there isn’t that much beneath it, at least not that I have seen. It’s a good enough story, and the way it chooses to fill in the unfinished coloring book of Rowling’s world creates a compellingly interesting universe, albeit not a pleasant one. It has some good humor at some parts (more on that later), many clever moments, and some moments that are, frankly, just plain awesome, though these often contribute to the monstrously overpowered being that Harry is. Both versions shared the core theme of (spoiler warning: the rest of this paragraph. If you’re interested, I’d really advise you to just read it so that you don’t have the dramatic tension reduced) Harry ultimately triumphing by virtue of who he is. Triumphing by being, as we would describe it, a better human being than his opponent. The difference is that in the canonical books, this is a much more theological process. By the final book, Rowling is pretty much bashing us over the head with a crucifix. I still maintain that, unless the hill you wish to die on is unmarried teen snogging, declaring Harry Potter as heresy for the simple fact that it includes magic is to foolishly ignore the veritable flood of Christian messaging the books contain. I thought I’d made a post about that, but apparently not, so I’ll divert myself to that briefly.
Spoilers for the whole canonical Harry Potter main series in the following paragraph:
The entire story is based on an innocent child who was permitted to live because of the intensely real power and protection offered by the selfless sacrifice of another to protect said child. So there, straight off the bat, right in the premise. And then in the 7th book, Harry does the exact same thing, but more so, and pretty much pulls an Aslan, “dying” willingly to protect others, but not by this being truly killed. And it’s not like the Christian messaging in Narnia is obscure. And at the end of the first Harry Potter book, Dumbledore, the most “good guy” character that the series has to offer goes off explaining how “to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure”. Then, in no particular order, having not done anything like a read through specifically looking out for these: the primacy of the soul over the physical, the specifically soul-corrupting nature of evil and killing, the power of redemption and forgiveness, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, the concept of powers that, while attainable, will damage your soul forever, and the existence of life after death. Anyway, back to the main matter.
HPMOR lacks any semblance of this depth (not that this is the deepest thing in the world mind), at least that I have been able to detect, and this makes it a lesser story to me.
The first ten or so chapters of HPMOR were pretty great as comedy. Harry constantly befuddling the wizarding world, and being befuddled by it, makes for some great laughs. Later on it undergoes a pretty significant tone change, and I had a very hard time adjusting to it, and enjoying the latter portion (which makes up most of the fic) for what it is. I did ultimately reach that point, but it was jarring.
This fic has some pretty obscure references. Have any of y’all read “Negima!?”? The author of this fic has. ( or at least, he’s watched some of the show.) It also had an offhanded reference to Madoka Magica, which is less obscure, but I still appreciate it.
HPMOR Harry just keeps on getting more and more powers. (potential spoilers ahead, less severe): It seems like every month he’s making some discovery of how to do something that the entire wizarding world “knows” is totally impossible. It makes a certain sense, in context, but it certainly does contribute to some Mary Sue-like feeling. But on the other hand, Harry routinely oversteps his cleverness, failing to think things through enough, missing obvious points that would have counter-indicated his action. And some of the consequences are rather severe, so I don’t knock too many points off for it. Harry is powerful, but he is also rather a child genius in this telling, and all things considered, most of his discoveries don’t seem too ridiculous.
I earlier mentioned that the world HPMOR painted was rather interesting. It (mostly) doesn’t directly contradict the wizarding world as portrayed in the common, but it does color in many of the blanks, and this author paints in dark colors. Wizarding britain, as portrayed in HPMOR, would be considered barbaric to most of the people reading this. Or perhaps it would merely be considered “medieval”. It certainly has some things going for it. It is portrayed as a place with relatively little history of institutional sexism, or racism amongst wizards. Even the stodgiest pure bloods find it silly to discriminate based on skin color. Wizarding Britain sees little wrong with homosexuality, and it is entirely un-taboo. But things get worse from there.
It is implied, or at least, I took away the message from my last reading some years ago, that the Wizarding power structure in the canonical books is... incompetent. That the benchmark of being a “fully qualified” witch or wizard does not in fact entail very much true competency, and many of the more powerful figures are somewhat dumb. HPMOR confirms this, and brings it into the light, offering more examples of just how useless most wizards are in matters non-magical. Wizarding Britain is controlled by an incompetent government, which is primarily controlled by one or several “Noble and Most Ancient House(s)”. The extent of Lucius Malfoy’s influence is brought up often in the canonical books, and the same is true here. This is a world where (minor spoiler for something before chapter 10-ish) a young noble raping a girl, and yes, girl is the proper noun here, repeatedly, and getting away with it indefinitely, is an open secret. Where this young noble’s security is secured by: a) the victim and her families’ fear of his familial power, b) memory charms, and c) a court system where the interests of the Noble Houses are often a primary concern.
Wizarding news is minimal, and it seems to primarily toe the ministry (which is to say, aristocratic) line, save for the Quibbler, which... on the whole, isn’t great news either. There is no particular concept of a fair trial at play in this world, especially if your crime was committed against a noble house. Less than three days investigation is considered enough to go from crime to a sentence of ten years in Azkaban. And then there’s Azkaban itself. For all it is a prominent feature in the books, and Dumbledore’s opposition to it is often mentioned, Azkaban doesn’t get much light shone on it in the canonical books. This is likely in part because it is such an incredibly, ridiculously cruel place that it becomes very difficult for many of us muggles to imagine it being an appropriate punishment for anyone. I won’t go into great detail, but there are very few crimes capable of causing enough pain that, even working from a perspective of vengeance, instead of justice or rehabilitation, it becomes very difficult to mathematically justify Azkaban.
To clarify, by mathematically justify, I mean, what percent of the pain a criminal inflicts by his misdeed can fairly be unleashed upon the criminal as punishment. Is a beating a proper punishment for beating someone? What about two beatings? Or three? At what point does the severity of the punishment become so much greater than that of the crime that it stops being sensible? If you slapped me, would I, absent any concerns about self defense or ensuring my future safety, be justified in immediately shooting you? Or boiling you? Or beating you to death? The murders who are so successful that we stop calling them murders and start calling them statesmen might have a shot at a mathematically (if not necessarily ethically) justifiable cell in Azkaban. For everyone else, it’s pretty difficult. And in both versions of the story, wizarding justice is NOT perfect. Innocent people go to Azkaban, and are exposed to this as well. Azkaban is pretty terrible, and most of the wizarding world just sort of... accepts it.
Anyway, I probably have more to say, but I really need to wrap this up. This probably wasn’t very coherent, so sorry about that.
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Twenty-Six: On a Mission ]
[ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Itachi ]
[ SasuHina ]
[ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ]
[ AO3 Link ]
Once he formed the police force, Sasuke knew he would rarely - if ever - go back to shinobi work. The force was exactly what he wanted. A steady schedule, working in the village he was determined to better. He got to work with the people that had come to shun him, rebuilding his reputation on his own, with honest labor...forging connections and earning the villagers’ trust. Especially the civilians.
But...his power is undeniable. Naruto may also be on his tier...but as he trains to take on the Hokage mantle, he’s not always as available as he once was to take charge and be the village hero.
So...every so often, Sasuke finds himself receiving a notice from the administration building regarding a mission they need him for. In truth...they make him weary. He’d much rather say no and keep to his work, but...well, there’s little refusing these kinds of pleads for help.
In the middle of a case file writeup one afternoon, he looks over his shoulder at a pecking against his office window. A messenger hawk with the typical Hokage seal on the message.
Kakashi.
Sighing and bringing the bird in, Sasuke unravels the message, absentmindedly stroking the avian’s feathers. Another mission...and his brow furrows at the second half.
Hyūga Hinata is to accompany him.
...well that’s interesting.
While Hinata is, admittedly, becoming a powerhouse among her peers...comparing her to himself or Naruto isn’t exactly fair. What could she be needed for in a mission of Sasuke’s apparent caliber…?
As a knock sounds, he gives an acquiescing grunt, glancing up to see none other than the Hyūga in question with a notation of her own. “...so, they sent you one too?” he mutters, lifting his letter.
“I guess they wanted to be sure they caught us.”
“A bit late in the day for a mission, but...well, guess we’ll see what’s going on.”
“We might be being briefed early so we can have time to prepare before leaning in the morning.”
Sasuke blinks. In truth...he knows little of Konoha mission protocol. It wasn’t like he went on many before...leaving. “...makes sense.”
Clocking out and giving the rest of the on-duty staff a heads up, the pair head towards the Hokage’s tower. “Any guesses what this will be?”
“No idea, really,” Hinata admits. “It could be anything, given the combination they’re going with. I’m built for tracking and recon...and you’re a powerhouse.”
They don’t have long to muse before reaching Kakashi’s office. On one side of the room, as per usual, is Shisui on his guard post. Shikamaru stands beside the desk, the pair talking and looking up as the two officers make their way in. “Ah, good timing,” the Rokudaime chirps, steepling his hands atop his desk. “We just got some more information regarding the mission you two have been assigned.”
Arms folding, Sasuke just asks, “Which is?”
“Always straight to the point, hm? All right, here’s our intel so far…” Kakashi’s aura loses its light and airy mood, sobering as he leans forward. “With Orochimaru confined to one of the hideouts, the rest were cleared out not long after the war. However...one has begun to show signs of activity. Orochimaru has assured us they have nothing to do with it, but...well, we need to tread carefully. While Konoha did work with the sannin to ensure all data and projects were taken care of, we can’t be sure Orochimaru was totally honest with us. It might just be raiders looking for trouble, or...it might be something more serious. Either way, we’re coordinating with the ANBU to monitor the situation.”
There’s a perked brow. So...Itachi and his officers will be there. That should be interesting. “...so why are we being dragged into it?” Sasuke asks. Surely the ANBU could handle a few rogues on their own.
“Hinata has the best ranged Byakugan in her clan, according to most sources. We want her to get close enough to examine the entire underground facility from the surface, and see what exactly is going on before we send anyone in. Your primary purpose is to protect her while she investigates from a distance. Then, if there’s something average going on, the ANBU will move in to clear things out. If it’s something beyond them…”
“...I’ll get to do the heavy lifting.”
“Precisely,” Kakashi replies, eyes closing with a smile.
“...seems pretty straightforward.”
“Fantastic. You have the rest of today to prepare, and you’ll be expected out at first light tomorrow.”
“You know more about Orochimaru than just about anyone,” Shisui cuts in, finally speaking. “One theory is that there might be some of his old experiments involved. After you killed them, reports said many of the places went dark, and the people held in the hideouts got loose, including those the snake sannin worked on. There’s no telling who might be coming back to either steal research, or exact revenge for all Orochimaru did to them. If there’s someone there with unknown abilities, best you handle it.”
“True enough,” Sasuke replies dryly.
“This is the map we were given of the facility,” Kakashi offers, holding out a scroll that Hinata accepts. “But there may very well be rooms unmarked or hidden. Keep your eyes peeled.”
She just nods curtly.
“With that, I give you leave to prepare. Rendezvous with the ANBU captain on site, and confer from there. He’ll be keeping us updated here - consider him your commanding officer.”
That earns a short snort from Sasuke. Taking orders from Itachi...lovely.
With nothing left to say, the pair are given their leave, discussing preparations as they go. Unraveling the map, Hinata lets Sasuke hover over her shoulder. “Huh...the eastern hideout.”
“You know it well?”
“Enough. That’s where Suigetsu was kept. A lot of experiments were handled there. I can see why it might be a target. They all had their uses and potential for raiding, but a lot of genetic work was done there specifically.”
Hinata considers that quietly, looking over the map. “...this seems rather...intricate.”
“They all were. It was meant to keep anyone wandering in from finding anything useful.”
Once home, the pair pack their supplies, keeping packs by the door. Easier to get up and going come morning. Otherwise, they spend the evening studying the mission details, and resting up before the trek to the hideout.
As they prepare to leave the next morning, Sasuke can’t help but reminisce a bit about the old missions he and his team took. Nothing like this of course, given they were still genin when the team disbanded...but most of his assignments since returning to Konoha have been solo. Having a partner will be a nice change of pace. Especially one he knows, trusts, and works with as well as Hinata.
Heading through the gate, they quickly set a decent pace, taking to the trees and leaping toward the mark on the map. For some reason, something nags at the back of Sasuke’s mind...but he shoves the thought aside. It’s going to be fine. There’s nothing he can’t handle...especially if his brother will be there as a backup with his own officers.
Hinata, a few miles out, activates her Byakugan and scouts out the ANBU captain’s location, leading them right to him. Eyes on the hideout entrance about fifty meters away, Itachi gives a glance as they arrive. “You made good time.”
“We always aim to please,” is the younger brother’s reply. “Any activity?”
“Nothing yet, but a sensor has been able to identify at least two dozen signatures inside. Hinata-san...if you would.”
Nodding, she turns to the base, letting her kekkei genkai activate once more. Without moving, she scans over the entire underground structure, occasionally bringing her gaze back to check against the map.
...then her brow furrows.
“...something wrong?” Sasuke asks, catching the change immediately.
“...I think…” Hesitating a moment, she points to a place blank on the scroll. “...there’s a room here.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s...something. It’s odd, it’s like it’s resisting my kekkei genkai, but...something isn't right. It’s like...a strange static.”
The brother’s glance to one another. “...sounds like reason enough to head in,” Sasuke offers. “If Orochimaru withheld that information...there might be something there.”
“Especially if it’s hidden to a kekkei genkai like the Byakugan,” Itachi agrees. “...you go in first, start clearing a path. My officers and I will follow.”
“And Hinata?”
“Is likely safest with you. Besides, you need her to guide you to that room. Beyond clearing the base of the invaders, this is our new secondary objective.”
“Got it. Ready Hinata?”
“Ready.”
“...then let’s go”
.oOo.
I'm sorry this ended on a cliffhanger, BUT it's getting very late, and I didn't want to go way overboard word count-wise. Sorry guys! I'll try to have a sequel soon.
This is actually a canon-ish scene from the fic that I'll likely never write, lol - aka A Light Amongst Shadows, what I call this verse. I've only written it once back in the original RP that inspired the story, but it's changed a good bit...and will likely change again if I ever DO write the fic. What could be lurking in the hideout...? We'll have to seeeee! :3c
Anywho, on that evil note, I need to head to bed lol - thanks for reading!
#sasuhina#uchiha sasuke#hyūga hinata#hatake kakashi#uchiha shisui#uchiha itachi#a light amongst shadows [ canon verse ]#365daysofsasuhina
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
french in 1.5 years anon
Kinda random but I just found out that I’ll be required to be intermediate/advanced in French by the next 1.5 years; ALL I KNOW IS THAT MEIRDE IS A BAD BAD WORD! Idk if you’re a native speaker but I was wondering if you could provide me of any good French language resources (or language in general since I’ll be needing to learn Arabic soon as well), and like tips for language learning and how to go about it? Sorry to bother you haha this is MY stress but I appreciate any help! Have a great day!
HEY. so i really fucking dropped the ball on this one, i’m sorry. 2019 has been one health fiasco after another (or more like the same fiasco again and again) and i kept telling myself i want to sit down and make a proper post for this, until i realised that that’s just never going to happen given the way things are rn. and i’d rather give you a quickly-written post which is actually helpful than never write that perfect bullet-pointed one.
first of all, i’ve been in your EXACT position (so no, i’m not a native speaker) except i had about...six months to go from je m’appelle teesta to voyez-vous, le problème qui se cache derrière tout ça n’est pas le manque de respect mais la personne dont il s’agit or whatever. i was like, i can so do this. (spoiler: i didn’t, because i was 18 and overconfident and stupid and didn’t actually know how to learn a language.) GOOD NEWS: having learned 3 more foreign languages since then, i am now REALLY GOOD at learning languages REALLY FAST. 1.5 years is a good amount of time, so don’t stress.
i’m going to go generic on this, with some extra tips about french since i speak it, unlike arabic.
first thing, that typical thing everyone hates to hear but knows is coming from the mouth of an accomplished person (pat on my back) in any field whatsoever: you’re going to have to work really hard and practice like fuck.
there’s just nothing else that can replace it. i’ve filled up notebooks and notebooks with japanese verb conjugations, once i did like 1800 of them in one sitting. but you better believe that a bitch will never forget those now. resign yourself to putting in at least three hours of your day to this until you get to the level you need. (and three hours is...kind. at my peak i was literally reading through french dictionaries at the library, 10 AM - 8 PM. i treated it like a workday.)
now, what you need to establish is: are you a hands-on learner or a digital one.
i don’t really care for all the auditory learner and visual learner stuff, i don’t know about anyone else but i personally used those as excuses to avoid certain exercises. unless you have actual disabilities preventing you from accessing certain methods of learning, you can train yourself into anything. it’s a matter of practice. i could barely understand a new song without reading its lyrics first, now i eat up podcasts.
SO. the question here is different. a hands-on learner, like i used to be more or less throughout my bachelor’s, is someone who absolutely cannot retain information unless they’ve written it down BY HAND at least once. pen and paper. (i’m still like this but i’ve learned to combine it with digital methods to go faster.) if this isn’t a hurdle for you, congratulations. your process is going to go that much faster, at least for french. (you’ll have to spend hours practicing your written arabic however, if you’re not familiar with the script.)
now, if you’re a hands-on learner, you need to add an extra hour to your daily time. no matter how fast you write, you will take that time. and you cannot shorthand your way into languages. you need to understand how french is spelt, what accents it uses, that they put a space before exclamation points, question marks, and semicolons. (side tip: learn the IPA. it will be useful to you forever in language learning, at least for the romance languages.) i’m not gonna teach you how to make notes since i’ve never benefitted from copying someone else’s style, so if you don’t have a set method start establishing that. you need regularity and rhythm when you learn a language. my grammar notes look the same regardless of the language. i don’t have my french ones since it’s been years and i didn’t take good ones then anyway, but here’s my japanese and russian stuff.
JAPANESE NOTES // RUSSIAN NOTES
now, it bears mentioning that these notes are NOT the notes i take when i don’t know shit. these are final level notes. they’re brief, idiosyncratic, and only reminders. something to refer to when i’m revising and suddenly forget a rule. the first notes i make are much more elaborate, whether they’re pretty or not. i’ve gradually lost the fucks i had about really going ham on academics so my russian notes are very messy, but my japanese ones from back in the day are magnificent. here’s a look. during lesson one i realised that japanese and my mother tongue, gujarati, are syntaxically similar as shit, and i started taking notes with references in gujarati. it sped up my learning process 2x while my french classmates were still going “BUT WHY IS IT LIKE THAT”.
PRACTICAL GRAMMAR // THEORETICAL GRAMMAR
if you plan to learn more languages in the future, this will be so valuable. sometimes a phrase i learn in russian doesn’t make sense in its french explanation, but a phrase in english might use the same logic. bam, put down the translation in english then. you get what i’m saying? the more languages you learn, the easier it gets to learn languages.
now if you’re a digital learner, i’ve got great news for you. duolingo and anki are your best friends. duolingo’s memed to hell and has a system that might not work for everyone, but they’ll do the brunt work of compiling grammar notes for you in the beginnings/ends of their lessons. note those down and transform them into anki flashcards, and you can learn grammar concepts without doing 20 exercises. (do those exercises if you can, though, nothing beats mindless practice.) now anki is an intimidating-looking but actually super intuitive app that basically builds digital flashcards for you and shows them to you in a rhythm based on your own learning speed. it’ll show you the front of a card, let’s say merde. you say the english translation out loud, shit, and hit enter. correct! was that easy? anki’ll show it to you in 10 minutes. hard? it’ll show you in 1 minute. super easy? merde won’t come up again until tomorrow. eventually you get so good at it that you can bury a card for 2 months. anki will also show you the same cards reversed, which is harder but trains you better. you’ll see shit and have to remember what it’s called in french, which is more difficult than you’d think it is.
you can use anki for more than just vocab, like i mentioned. it’s a little tricky learning to convert grammar concepts into front/back flashcards, but you can do it. for example, here’s a sample of one of my russian grammar cards:
front ^^
back once i hit enter^^
see? not that difficult. now don’t be an idiot like me who manually entered every single flashcard into anki. you can find pre-made packages online (but you can’t guarantee they’ll be correct) or you can make your own without killing your fingers. what you wanna do is open up a spreadsheet and make two columns, A for front of the card and B for back. it’ll look like this:
then you’re gonna save that spreadsheet as a .CVS (comma separated values) and import that into anki. bam, your flashcards are made for you with half the effort. there’s also a script floating around somewhere to make excel translate words automatically for you, but i don’t recommend that unless they’re really easy words. google translate can fuck up. reverso is your friend.
you need to review your anki cards every day. it’ll take less and less time as you go along. i can review 300 russian cards in 15 minutes now. but you need to keep the rhythm going. download ankiapp and sync your cards, review them on commutes or in the hallway or whatever. trust me, it’s magic.
apart from this, if a traditional textbook helps, go for that. i’ve always used textbooks and workbooks, more as supports than as principal methods, but it does help. it’s structured and organised and these people know how to train you. bescherelle is a good go-to for french.
media is always a great way of immersion too, until you get to the country itself. it’ll show you how french people speak french. when i first came to france i didn’t have that experience and even though i spoke an arguably decent amount of french when i got here, it was like, if this is french then what the fuck was i learning in high school. if you like watching movies this is your chance. watch the classics first so that you can get an idea of french pop culture. amélie (though the pop culture aspect here is about shitting on it) and les intouchables, for starters. watch your favourite films, first subbed, then subbed and dubbed, then just dubbed. i watched all ten seasons of friends with french subs, it was wild. with music you want to start off with some indie-ish singers since they will universally sing softer and slower, making things easier to understand than idk, la tribu de dana. (if you’re into bts there’s a hilarious video of their baepsae choreo set to la tribu de dana.) anyway - angèle, cœur de pirate, céline dion, fréro delavega, uhhh that fucking french sufjan stevens. what’s his name. VIANNEY. don’t fucking listen to biglo and oli or like, fatal bazooka right away. you will not understand shit. i barely understand it. white people are wild. ooh listen to stromae. orelsan too, he’s a rapper but he has a relatively clean diction imo. he also sang the french opening for OPM. they call him orelsan-san in japan.
last but not the least: if you have the opportunity to interact in french with people, DO IT. native speakers will do their best to help you and be kind about it. people who learned french might sometimes be assholes from experience. it’s a whole superiority complex thing, and very hypocritical. anyway - online or IRL, wherever you can practice your french, do it. it’ll be immensely helpful. there’s nothing like the frustration of not being able to express simple things to get you motivated to get better. do your best to immerse yourself - changing the language on your devices can make a difference too.
i think that’s all i have and again, i’m sorry for taking this long to finally deliver, thanks for your patience! if you have any specific questions don’t hesitate to hit me up, on anon or not.
good luck - it’s not going to be the easiest but nothing is as gratifying as beginning to understand the workings of a language. you’re gonna love it!
19 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Still here…with all of my phobias🤦🏻♀️🤣🦎🐍🤷🏻♀️🐾
You know those memes on IG that say, “Nobody:____”, and the line under it says, “Me:____” and the blank area is filled with some info no one cares about/asked for? That’s me right now, logging in to write ‘Still here’; even tho no one asked.🤣🤷🏻♀️
I’ve been meaning to post my one and only decent shot from a recent wedding I attended, but I keep putting it off, lol. But since I haven’t had human contact in forever, I’m going to write about today’s shenanigans here.
I have a snake phobia. A crazy, irrational phobia. Which is very unlike me, I”m eerily calm (it’s almost kinda scary, lol). And yesterday, I cleared all the dry pine leaves off the hill (there was so much, it was like I was peeling back a fuzzy wool blanket with the rake). Also, I’m always on snake patrol..because the tiles in the walkway perfectly camouflage them. And the lizards. And other (cuter) things. But luckily, I’ve played “hot potato/don’t step on the phobia thing” only one other time.
This photo above, is my baby bunny friend, and I took it in August. I still see him/her running around when I clear/rake various places. Today, I was walking down to🐶Ginger’s patch of grass for tinkle time, and in that exact spot was a baby-ish snake. So, I screamed like a sissy right before I almost stepped on it. Of course it starts doing the wiggle run (i.e. what nightmares are made of)…right under Ginger’s patch of grass (aak!). I’m assuming “under”, ‘cuz at that point I was already running in the other direction up the walkway. Then, as I’m making a mad dash for it (still holding Gingy), I look up, and the friggen infamous red/black alligator lizard is on the ledge(!). So, of course I again scream like a sissy, the lizard panics (I say lizard, but it’s actually really terrifying, and huge, and looks like the other wiggly thing but bigger), and it kamikazes(sp?) off the ledge onto it’s head🤦🏻♀️on the floor, freezes, then runs off. I don’t understand how I can be terrified of things, and still be concerned about them? Did he/she hurt its head? Did I scare the other wiggle-y thing (the one that makes me have night terrors) too? And most importantly, is the baby bunny going to be safe?! Anxiety, table for one (again)...😕
Happpy Wednesday,
Jeinous
P.S. I also went to 3 Home Depot’s, and a Lowe’s today trying to buy one new piece of sod for Ginger’s tinkle time. Now where am I gunna put it, ’cuz sint nobody walking down them stairs to the old one anytime soon.🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🐶
#Snake#phobia#alligator lizard#phobias#sod#grass#dog#tinkle#anxiety#encino#california#baby bunny#nature
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Jason’s 9th Annual Post/Pre-Year Review/Goal
It’s that time of year again, the only reason I have a tumblr account is this annual reflection and goal setting exercise I do each year. This represents the 9th year I’ve done this in some form or fashion so let’s kick off the goals from last year and where I stand:
Get a new job – This one is important since 90% of my waking existence is at a job. If I’m not happy there, it’s too my core and I’m not happy in general. I wish I was better in this area since Caitlin works in the funeral business and has a better appreciation toward the little things but it’s still a thing since it is 90% of my waking life and I’ve worked since I was 16 yrs old. I would obviously like to get paid what I feel I’m deserved too – not just get a job to get away from another job.
(Accomplished) – As I recall, this was 90% expected to be achieved at the time I wrote last year’s goals since I was actively looking but this happened REALLY early in 2019. I remember trying to get a raise as a program manager at Aero Simulation Inc after being a project scheduler (most…boring…job…ever!) and being told I need at least 10 years’ experience in the simulation industry before even being considered. They handed me an annual raise, sent me off on the 2-week shutdown vacation and the wife and I went to Ashville.
Upon my return, I got notified that I was hired to start at Smartronix – this hands down was the best timing and possibly the best move I have ever made. I’m so happy working at Smartronix and working as a real program manager after what felt like an eternity working at places and either doing lesser jobs, jobs I didn’t have any interest in doing all for the sake of paying for my family, being bored to tears, or underappreciated and under paid.
Vacations – I have a cruise planned in May which is almost paid for and I would like to eventually go to Las Vegas. I wouldn’t want to go to Vegas without a little money in my pocket, but we’ll see. I also have the Bristol night race in August which represents the final bucket list race I could want to do with my Dad. Does that mean I’m done after Bristol? Probably not but I could certainly wish my Dad off should he die knowing I got him there, Talladega, Daytona, Homestead, and Atlanta.
(Accomplished) – I did go on the cruise and that was fun. It would have been better with the drink package which is just a lesson’s learned for cruising next time but it was a fun experience considering I missed cruises in the past. I did not go to Vegas and that’s still a hard sell with my wife considering she doesn’t want to go as much as I do. Maybe I can convince her one day considering all the other vacations we’ve had that were compromises.
Bristol was everything I expected and more.
Adam told me that Dad wasn’t doing so well and this race, in all likelihood, represents the last race I go with Dad. So for this, I booked suites which was the best! I think Dad and Adam were happy.
School – I got a long way to go for a DBA but I’d like to get the main classes started in 2019. I gotta wait until money isn’t so tight or there are options like tuition assistance but I’d like to get started in that.
(Failed) – This goal trailed off early after it became apparent I had to still pay for Caitlin’s school. Now, to be clear, that’s not the only reason, I was sorta going down the DBA route at first because it was something to do since I was getting bored but may get at it again in the future just not now. I don’t really have a pressing reason for a DBA career wise and there are other fish I could fry which I’ll discuss shortly but let’s put it this way, what I am about to do to cure my boredom is not something my wife is thrilled about….
Find more friends – A lot of my friends 8 years ago I don’t really relate to now. I’m simply not the same person. Those people, in most cases, are the EXACT same people and we don’t relate. Going back to 90% of my day with work, I need to find work friends but certainly not at my current job where everyone I work with me is 20 years older than me or are unsociable. I mean it can’t get any worse than now where I have a co-worker literally 5 feet behind me and insist to communicate primarily through email. Even if it’s not “work” friends, I need friends that have the same goals, likes, and what not. That’s why I like people like Eric or James– they have ambition in areas I like today. I still need to find a NASCAR buddy too but that’s surprisingly hard.
(Failed) – I wouldn’t say I gained more friends. I have the same friends as I previously did and while I get along with people I work with, I wouldn’t go so far as considering them “friends”
Health – Anyone that says getting older doesn’t suck can blow me. I know less than 5 years ago, I could run in the morning and had gym buddies which motivated me. Granted I was walking around like I was crippled half the time afterward, but it was fun. I really don’t have that same motivation these days. I still go to the gym periodically but not as I used too. I joke about my fat head so maybe in 2019, I’ll find that extra gas in the tank and while I’ve accepted not being 180 lbs again, maybe just looking better which will make me feel better as well.
(Not accomplished but not failed) – I would say it’s improving. Since the wife got pregnant and she had to stop drinking, to support her, I did the same and already lost 20 lbs. I’m pretty sure the rate I’m going I’ll lose another 20lbs by May so while my health improved, early this year, I really didn’t try that hard and my weight reached a point where I started to become self-conscience. This goal always ends up on my list and will likely again.
Financially working in the right direction – To get my house, I had to use retirement money. To fix the carpet that got destroyed in Caitlin’s library, I had to use more. I have quite a bit of old debt and new debt that is higher than I like but there’s always been this assumption that I’m just waiting for the right job to pay me what I deserve, AND Caitlin will finally pull her weight since I support her. Once one or both those things happen, we will be able to work off that debt and maybe see the chances of retirement….eventually.
(Accomplished) – The new job helped out SIGNIFANTLY! I finally am getting paid what I’m deserved and as such, I feel much better financially. I still have some debt to pay off and Caitlin is STILL in school but overall, this goal has moved rather well for the things I can do and control.
Potentially Move? – Given the job prospects, I’ve been looking at opportunities to leave Florida. I am so over “hot, humid, high of 100” every-freakin-day. Part of the upcoming North Carolina trip is to expose Caitlin to the cold. If she tolerates it, the option to move up north is more present. I mean hell, our house is an igloo anyway. Even still talking about moving north, moving east in Florida has the same possibilities. I know 2019 may be too soon given the dependency I have with Caitlin but given the right situation, it’s entirely possible.
(Failed but…) – With the new job and it being in Tampa, I did not move. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate the “hot, humid, high of 100” every day but the current salary and baby situation (more on that), changes things a lot.
Help Caitlin – I could jokingly say “well this is a huge project” but I don’t mean it like that. She’s been fighting her demons and I’ve been helping. I would also foresee myself assisting in her passing her classes and exams she needs to take but that’s really all on her and if she asks for it. In all, I just hope to continue to be a good(ish) role-model and help when I can.
(Accomplished…I guess) – Depends on who you ask. While I did try to help her study from time to time, it wasn’t consistent and it really was something Caitlin should address more than me. With drinking and the baby, I stopped drinking, as I said, to support and help and I think that’s helping her as well.
Iracing – 2 more to 10…geez, we’re hitting the bottom of the barrel now. This is just a hobby, be it an expensive hobby I built up, but I hope to continue doing well in the game and not get bored with it lol. It’s just too expensive to not.
(Failed) – I play it but I haven’t played it like I think I meant to with this goal in mind. I did get bored with some of it but not for the lack of desire to race, on the contrary, it made me want to race for real.
House Upgrades – I would like to upgrade the floors in the man cave and the bedroom in 2019.
This is a lot of work and shifting of things since I have the master bed which is huge in one room and the racing rig and desk in the other. I have the supplies sitting in the corner collecting dust waiting to be done, but I would need to shift so much around to do it, I’ve told myself it can only be done if we move. We’ll see, not putting a lot of hope in this one but it’s number 10 on the list.
(Accomplished) – I did complete the floor in the man cave and the bedroom.
***
Now for 2020 goals and this one has significantly different legs than the last couple years.
Be a good dad – That’s right all, after 38 years of life, the wife and I decided to become parents.
At the time of writing this, my wife is 10 weeks pregnant and we’re expecting “baby bat” in July 2020. We won’t know gender until later but we’ve already started thinking about names (Dante if it’s a boy or Nadja if it’s a girl). I hope that regardless, we can do this which I think we will. We’re currently planning on converting the library (Caitlin’s space) into the baby room and starting initial baby stuff now.
Begin my race car career – wait what? That’s right, after playing iracing for awhile and getting a decent raise at work, I decided to purchase a Legends car and will start my racing career in early 2020. I started “Head2Bed Racing” as the name of the race “team” in honor of Dad and I look for this to be my new hobby/equivalent to a bowling league.
youtube
http://head2bedracing.com/index.html
My goal is to be in the top 10 in points at season conclusion. I don’t have a goal to win just yet, I’m more concerned with racing and keeping the car under me. I would hate to damage the car to the point that would end my racing for a while. I already know I won’t be able to make all the races scheduled and I don’t know how I’m going to drag my wife into this (I hope she does and doesn’t want to leave me – lol). Wish me luck.
Vacation – This is ambiguous. I don’t have hard plans just yet but I know my window of reasonable opportunity is closing fast with a baby on the way. I need to talk to Caitlin about this one more but I’d like to find something we can do either before she gets too big and becomes the boulder from Indian Jones...
or, if we can pawn the baby to one of our parents, do something post pregnancy. Caitlin’s mom probably wouldn’t mind the later.
Health – The goal for 2020 given the wife is pregnant and not drinking is get my weight to 225 lbs. This is for a few reasons – 1) I looked pretty okay at that weight looking at older pictures 2) That will inevitably have impact to racing a Legends Car as my parents so kindly pointed out 3) It’s a reasonable goal that I should be able to accomplish relatively early in 2020.
Professional Development – I state it like that because I don’t exactly know the exact goal to accomplish this. I don’t want to restart the doctorate program just yet, I don’t know if I’m eligible for the PgMP certificate yet and even if I was, I haven’t committed myself to studying to the level I need to and even if I got it, I don’t know the career impact. I’ll leave this open ended for now and see what I have to say next year.
Pay off Debt – With the new job, I “should” be able to clear off a lot of debt. This will help in the goal later in getting Caitlin a new car and a new house before the kid hits 3 years old.
Friends (again) – I would like to find more friends. This, in theory, should occur because of the phases in life after getting out of the Navy. The first phase was my hair-on-fire party all the time phase. That ended shortly after settling down with Caitlin. Then there was the “retirement” period (I don’t know what to call it) where I stopped going out and the friends I did have before sorta just went away so it was just myself and Caitlin. With me getting a new hobby here in actual racing, I’m hoping to meet friends that way and with the kid, we may somehow meet other parents and meet people that way too. Bottom line, I need to be better at these whole “friends” thing.
I normally try to shoot for 10 but I’m coming up short and I don’t want to set goals for the sake of setting goals. I already failed several last year so if I focus on what I have coming, I’ll be better suited to accomplish the goals. So here we go, 2020…another decade. Let’s do this!
1 note
·
View note
Text
Analyzing Questionable Content: Pages 1-50
And so it begins.
The very first comic of Questionable Content, posted way back in 2003 and what would eventually be Jeff Jacques’ claim to fame, the reason why everyone remembers his name and what has made him a wealthy man today.
…’s alright.
Of course, by modern standards it’s not very good. This was the early 2000s, the wild west of online artists who had nothing more than an art creation software and a dream. The Webcomic Review has a VERY good post about it right here, which explains what the landscape of webcomics were like around this time and why exactly Marten has a pet robot (tl;dr, EVERYONE had a pet robot in ye early days of webcomics because Megatokyo).
But aside from the… awkward art, this comic at least serves to set up the protagonist (as far as we’re aware right now, we’ll get into the roles of protagonists in QC later). He’s a lanky, assumedly average guy who hates where he is in life but doesn’t know what else to do or even where else to go…
…as he goes on to spell out two comics later. He’s unassuming, not really much you can say for or against him, miserable and stuck in a rut in his life that he’s too scared to escape. Sooo basically, freshly graduated college students – the exact kind of audience a RomCom like this would go after.
Oh, did I forget to mention?
Yeah, QC started off as a RomCom.
This young woman is Faye, and she immediately cuts through the bullshit with an aggressive but to-the-point introduction of herself and her intentions.
While aggressive and to-the-point, she’s also set up as someone who meshes with Marten and Steve’s interests well enough and quickly makes friends. This is probably best exemplified in the seventh page, which serves two purposes:
Purpose the First: Showcase Marten and Faye have a shared niche interest, immediately establishing chemistry between the two of them. Be it platonic or romantic, they’re quickly hitting it off and, being a RomCom, will serve as the first rope potential shippers can grasp onto.
Purpose the Second: Jeff is a MASSIVE indie music nerd and he wants the fucking world to know it.
Also Pintsize is there doing funny robot things because 2003 webcomic.
It’s not long before this initial relationship is set up that two issues serve to sew the seeds of initial conflict:
This, likewise, serves two purposes: To show where Faye works and create a believable life for her to exist in when she’s not in the story with Marten, and as previously stated to sew potential romantic conflicts in the future. Jeff employs this tactic many-a-time throughout the course of Questionable Content, beginning a conflict and letting the implications sit with the reader while life goes on in the regular comics. Is this good writing? I honestly can’t say. Is it always done well? Oh good God no, some plot beats are outright dropped or left to sit for so long the reader straight-up forgets it’s there with this method. But does Jeff make it work? It’s all on personal taste I’d say, but personally it sits well with me.
Also, for those of you wondering why it looks like the word “hump” is just pasted onto the text bubble in post… well it was. The original comic implied sexual assault much more overtly, using the R-word instead of “hump.”
*Away from mic* Wait, can-can I say [NOPE]? Better not to risk it? Alright, fair ‘nuff.
But yeah, this was pointed out by readers to be pretty fucked up and it was swiftly changed, for good reason.
Later that night, Faye asks Marten to dinner with her. Platonically, of course. And here I believe I should point out the dynamic of their relationship as it stands – Faye is the aggressor. Marten is basically a doormat. Whenever something happens, Faye is always the instigator, be it going out to dinner or tagging along with him when he’s getting shopping done. This will feed into their relationship dynamic and sets up a decent inter-personal conflict: Marten is far too passive to reach out to Faye and make the move to start something, but Faye, despite how openly and quickly she attaches herself to Marten’s life, never takes that step into making it romantic. The two clearly have the hots for each other, but their respective personalities make it so neither one crosses that threshold.
Yes I know this is basic character writing for a RomCom 101, but the fact that so much about these characters are said in 12 four-panel comics says a lot. It hooks the reader quickly and gets them on the page Jeff wants them to be, and I respect that.
And in the next page, Faye’s aggression takes on a new level, albeit extremely briefly.
This is an isolated incident of actual physical aggression rather than implications and threats in these first 50 pages, but it becomes a trend as we go along – one that feeds into Faye’s character, mind, so it’s not just physical abuse for humor’s sake – so just keep it in mind as we go along.
Also on a personal note the actual restaurant they go to is simultaneously the worst and best idea I’ve ever heard of:
This is horrible. I should not encourage this. And yet some dark part of me finds the concept utterly hilarious even though I know I’m a piece of shit for liking it.
Actually, now some part of me wants to do the exact opposite – advertise a place as a steakhouse only serve an all-vegan menu. It feels less mean but just as funny to me.
…oh right, the comic.
After sharing dinner, exchanging banter that establishes good chemistry and parting ways, we come to this comic that I’m only showing because I’m a slut for good puns and I will take any and all opportunities to share with people.
(Pintsize totally won that round with the John the Baptist zinger by the way, if I’m allowed to judge this.)
And one page later, we get the biggest shake-up in the comic thus far:
It’s established Faye herself ended up burning down the apartment because she burnt toast, but that’s not really important. I know, the fact Faye BURNT DOWN A BUILDING isn’t important sounds completely ridiculous, but follow me here – the important thing for this setup isn’t the how, but the why. “How did Faye’s apartment burn down?” isn’t the question Jeff, nor the audience, is intended to be asking, that’s merely a vessel into the situation we’re in – the answer of “Why did Faye’s apartment burn down?” which is, of course, so Marten and Faye can become roommates and facilitate future antics and further their relationship. Familiarity breeds into both affection and conflict, and the obvious case of “Well you two are already living together, aren’t you?” will serve to further the flames of their potential relationship with one another.
…granted, a better reason to create this setup would’ve been nice, and from a writing standpoint it’s ridiculous that Faye never suffers any consequences for burning an entire BUILDING down, one that had many more people than just her in it. If present-day Jeff wrote this plotline… actually. Now that I think about it, Jeff DOES re-do this plot point and make it make a lot more sense and have a lot more impact on everyone involved.
But we’ll get to that when we eventually talk about Brun…. Three thousand and something pages from now.
Either way, my point stands: This plot thread serves mostly to create the situation we’re facing now, one where Faye and Marten end up living together. This shake-up to the early comic settles us into the new status quo, one that we’ll be riding with comfortably for the foreseeable future.
Further evidence of Faye’s aggressive and troll-ish nature… one that may or may not play into future revelations about her, now that I think about it.
Remember what I said about sewing the seeds of drama? Well here we stand now – a misunderstanding, or the beginning of genuine conflict between these two?
The answer is… they talk it out like actual goddamn adults, avoiding a stupid, unnecessary fight.
Honestly? Kind of refreshing. But what makes it better is the following page:
Honestly? This moment never fails to make me laugh. The one-two punch of complete betrayal of the reader’s expectations as well as the utter dismantling and defusal of the romantic interest subplot between these two dorks – while denying some genuine romantic conflict that may force Faye into being more upfront with how she feels about the situation – is a fun denial of the kinds of RomCom clichés that one might expect to find in this story.
Sure, there are other stories that do this better, I’m not denying that. But isolated in a bubble, this stands by itself and, frankly, works well enough for the story Jeff’s telling.
Also say goodbye to Sara, once she walks out that door she goes to join the little sister from Family Matters and the big brother from Happy Days on the twisted Island of Irrelevancy, visiting the story only when she can spare the time to craft a raft out of banana leafs and... where was I going with this?
…okay, personal story time. The Walmart I’m doing contract work for this week has a CD display of new-ish albums, and honest-to-God I completely forgot music CDs were even a THING. MP3s have spoiled us, and I now feel old for some reason.
Right, getting back on track.
I wanted to show this comic to establish three things.
1) Marten is the kind of person who sits on things that bother him and lets them stew for awhile. As established in the previous image I showed with Marten and Steve at the music store, it’s been at least a day since what happened with Sara and Marten’s still thinking about it. This, for better or worse, becomes a core part of Marten’s character moving forward.
2) Faye, for all her faults, is a genuinely good friend who cares about Marten and knows when to channel her natural aggression into support rather than ribbing.
3) This is another comic that always makes me laugh whenever I read it. Yes I know that’s much less of a real reason than my other two points but let me have this dammit.
This particular page itself isn’t terribly important to the ongoing narrative but I wanted to include it because it introduces QC’s unquestionably best character, Jim. Hi Jim! I like Jim.
(He’s a minor character at best but he’s just so earnest and fun and every time Jeff brings him back he just gets better and better.)
Oh, and for those who were skeptical that the more-than-platonic interest was mutual between Marten and Faye, the next two issues serve to showcase that… yeah, both parties TOTALLY have the hots for each other.
The first of those two comics, by the way, gets called back to much later down the line. And the fact that Faye speaks in a southern accent is more than just a joke, it’s going to be touched on more later.
Jeff says in the description of this comic that this is based on personal experience, and it shows – this is the most backbone Marten displays to my memory.
And in the very next page, we’re introduced to a new character – although you wouldn’t guess it from her appearance.
That’s Raven. I like Raven. Her personality changes a ton once she’s properly introduced as a character and not a nameless employee, but for posterity’s sake: Here’s her very first appearance in the comic.
There’s only one more important comic to touch on in this batch of fifty, and it’s about both Marten and Faye’s families:
While this could be as simple as a “har-dee-har, my family drives me up the wall,” this comic serves to say a lot about both characters once we know more about their families. Both Marten and Faye actually have very good reasons why they don’t want to see their respective families or go back to their hometowns… Faye especially so. We’ll touch more on that when we get more into her backstory.
Before we wrap things up, I’d like to do a quick comparison between page 1 and 50 to see in what small, subtle ways Jeff’s artistry has improved:
There’s not a LOT of difference, but the small details really showcases just how different they look. Small changes from the placement of everything on Marten’s face, to the size of the eyes, the width of the eyebrows… It’s good shit.
Overall, what did I think of batch 1? Well… for an early 2000s webcomic, it’s engaging. The characters are likable, the plot is progressing at an enjoyable pace, and I’m already on-board to see if Marten and Faye will get together. I mean, I know the answer, but my point stands.
Also because I’m a freak or something and like data compilation I went ahead and kept track of who showed up in what comic and made some numbers for it:
Not counting the one guest comic and two non-canon pages, Marten showed up in 45/50 pages, being in 90% of the comic so far.
Faye was in 38/50 pages, taking up 76% of the comic so far.
Pintsize comes in third place being in 15/50 comics, taking up a paltry 30% of the comic thus far when compared to the screen time Marten and Faye have taken up.
Likewise, Steve has been in only 8/50 pages, making up 16% of the comic up to this point.
Sara was in 5/50 pages, making up 10% of these first 50. That percentile will grow smaller and smaller with each update, believe you me.
Jim was in 2/50 glorious pages, making up 4% of the comic up to this point. And that was the best 4% this comic had to offer, let me tell you.
Raven, although still unnamed, I’m counting – she’s in 1/50 of the first batch of pages, making up 2% of screen time.
Tune in next week as we continue onwards to pages 51-100 where we’ll be introduced to the next major character in the series, who’s mere existence will further the plot more than anyone we’ve previously met. See you then.
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Recap time! After the longest week between episodes known to man, we’re finally here! And after the many different anxieties this episode - or the concept of it, in some way - brought me - I actually enjoyed it quite a lot.
Keeping track of my Most Important Characters: All 3.5 currently alive, all their grips on said life shakier than Euron’s grip on that scorpion when he decided he could have a go at Drogon’s plot armour.
In the light of this episode, I’d like to explain the ongoing ‘3.5 characters’ situation that I have. The main thing is, I care about essentially every character who’s still alive, but am actively invested in the fates of these particular ones. They’re Jon, Dany and the twins. It’s not that I care about the twins less than I do for Jon and Dany, or that I view them as a singular unit that doesn’t quite make two people.
It’s that I knocked .25 points off of each of them because every time they move a muscle, I lose an hour of my life. This episode and all their brilliant decision-making are yet another example.
Now that that’s out of my system...
- Daenerys Targaryen did nothing wrong (just to make sure y’all know where I stand on this).
- Everyone’s acting was phenomenal in this episode. Give all those people awards, but Peter and Lena in particular for that last five minute stare-down. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
- Same with Yet Another Baby Announcement (Euron Remix) where it all looked almost sweet, apart from the times when he couldn’t see her face.
- I loved the moments in the beginning before it all went to hell. The pyres, the gathering, the games and drinking and small personal moments here and there. It was lovely. It was also a well-directed scene in the sense that while people had grouped in their own corners (Sandor and Sansa, the Lannisters with Brienne and Pod, Jon with the Wildlings), there was still a sense of togetherness and it was palpable how understandably isolated Dany felt. It was painful to watch.
- I was disappointed by Sansa giving up the news quite so fast, to be honest. It felt too quick and while I understand there was the rush of them having to leave for KL and there’s really not much time left, I feel like they should have at least made the scene weigh more in its place. You can see that Sansa is upset and this secret is something she feels needs to reach the right ears/get her the support she needs to put anything into action, but it was still too fast. They should’ve made Tyrion work for it.
- Jaime in this episode was... well, Jaime. I get how this must feel for people who are mostly book fans, but this was literally just classic show!Jaime all around. It’d take three posts the size of this one to properly deal with it, but hey, at least they’re consistent with him. He’s a diсk, but he’s consistent about it and it all just felt such a goddamn predictable string of events. Lannisters is the same. It is known.
- Loved the speech. There’s no denying that. Yes, I’m garbage, but that doesn’t make a single word of what he said a lie.
- Speaking of... Tyrion’s speech at the city gates? Wonderful and touching and it made my cry, but it literally only fanned the flames. ‘Your life doesn’t have to end with your reign’ except it will, because what is she gonna do? Where will she go? Everyone knows who she is and the chances of her surviving as anything but a refugee in hiding on the other side of the world are pretty slim (and yeah, I know I have a whole canon divergent AU with this exact scenario, but in canon, she’s alone. She’s literally alone in the world. How would this work?)
- Both the Rhaegal and Missandei scenes were extremely brutal and while sure, it’s GoT, main-ish characters usually receive something better than that. I get that it had to happen, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
- Jon and Dany’s conversation was precisely what needed to happen and I’m afraid it’ll be used for evil. I just want them to have at least one more conversation - a normal, actual conversation, not drama - before it all goes where it goes if that’s really what’s gonna happen.
- I sort of saw the Varys thing coming. Tyrion is slightly more unpredictable, but in the end I don’t think it’ll be a Jon vs Dany thing for him; it’ll be Dany vs his family, which was the conflict there to begin with.
Not a single line of dialogue from next week’s preview. I’m sure that’s not gonna mean an hour and a half of bloodshed or anything like that. Pfft. Why would you guess such a thing. Why would I guess such a thing. Why would I hope for at least one character to make it out of this happy or at least in a semi-decent state.
Ahem. Anyway. I’m going to retreat in my corner to write fic and dread the episodes to come while still eagerly anticipating them. Loving this start of the week. See you guys in seven days!.
#game of thrones#got#got spoilers#episode recap#the last line probably sounds like the one from that horror movie#which is fair#should probably mail one of those funky tapes to the writers#also I've been writing this review so long that it's not six thirty#and too late to go back to sleep#guess it'll be another 'running on two hours of fuel' kinda day#it's probably a good thing that the other of my two shows is ending tonight#but I don't have the mental capacity to unpack that now#anyway#tldr: good episode several bad choices and a possibility of Worse Things To Come#fun times!
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Jix is Not Pickett! and Other Things I Feel I Should Say About My Leafling OC
Just like any other person with an OC blog, it’s been very difficult to get my fandomless OC character off the ground on Tumblr. I expected that. But it’s been a couple years now and I’m starting to realize that part of the reason why it’s been difficult to get activity on here is because people assume that Jix is a shoddy attempt at Pickett, or at the very least, a rip-off of a bowtruckle. He’s neither.
First of all, Pickett is only Jix’s FC. I was inspired to bring Jix to Tumblr upon seeing pictures of Pickett only because I had never seen a tree or plant person done quite in the way Pickett was before, and so I never had a very good FC for Jix. I like to have icons and edits and things for RP blogs, so without a proper FC I didn’t want to bring him to Tumblr. once I saw Pickett, I was like oh cool, a tiny plant person. It was the closest thing to Jix I had ever seen, so I thought he’d be a great FC... even though Pickett really doesn’t look much like Jix at all. It was more about the way he moved and being a plant person that was perfect.
I can’t draw AT ALL, so creating my own FC was not going to happen. (Believe me I’ve tried to draw Jix many times over the years and it was just terrible heh. Like a five year-old had done it, lol.) So I had to find a character that looked even halfway like Jix, and Pickett was the best choice I’d seen in a long time. That’s it. That’s the only reason I chose him as an FC. Jix is not meant to be a rip-off of Pickett, nor is he meant to be a bowtruckle at all. He’s a leafling, which is a creature of my own making that has more in common with the treants of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG than the bowtruckles of J.K. Rowling’s world.
I did not see/read Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts materials and then make Jix. In fact, I have never read a single J.K. Rowling book, and I have only seen the first Harry Potter movie and the first Fantastic Beasts movie. Sometimes people claim that I am just ripping off bowtruckles, but nothing could be further from the truth. I created Jix about 12 years ago for a set of short stories in a world of my own creation in which I was working on a book I had some 500 pages already written for. My exact thinking was that if there were giant talking tree people in D&D and in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, then why can’t there be wee ones? So I made a race of tiny talking tree people that were half plant and half animal in terms of biology and were magical creatures like elves or any other type of fae. Leaflings, I called them. Leaflings are diminutive tree fae. They are not bowtruckles.
I honestly do not even know what a bowtruckle is. Did Rowling get that from somewhere? Is that based on some mythology? Is it 100% a tree person, or does it bleed like a human if you cut it? I know it’s a magical beast, but beyond that, I have no idea. But I don’t really care either? I’m not trying to rip off or emulate bowtruckles because Jix was already created before I ever knew bowtruckles existed. It’s just that I only brought him to Tumblr when the first FB movie came out because that’s the first time I ever saw a picture of Pickett and realized oh hey, I might have finally found a decent FC.
Leaflings look like miniature trees. They mimic tree species according to what type of forest they were born and raised in. Take an entire tree, shrink it down to about 1 foot in size, allow it to walk on its roots, and give it the ability to speak, and you have a leafling. Really the only great things Pickett has going for him as an FC are his body shape, the climbing and walking on his roots and hands, and the structure of his face and eyes. They resemble Jix’s very much. HOWEVER... Jix’s body and face are not green like a fleshy plant, but rather are brown and bark-ish like the hard wood of trees. Also, he does not just have a couple leaves here and there, he has a full head of branches, complete with leaves just like you would see on a white oak tree, which happens to be the species of mundane tree that Jix mimics. Setting aside Pickett as an FC, if you want to see what Jix looks like, I will refer you to this absolutely gorgeous, amazing, spot on, perfect fanart that @simactire drew for me. It more accurately depicts Jix’s appearance, both in coloration and morphology. I am pasting it below, but the original post is here. As you can see, he is an entire tree, not just a little green leafy twig. (Nothing against Pickett, btw, I love him to bits, haha.)
To further distinguish my OC and his race of leaflings from Pickett and the bowtruckles, I have gone through the trouble of creating a chart that illustrates the differences between them:
And there you have it. I just needed to make these points, since this keeps coming up as an issue and I feel like being upfront and explaining more about Jix and how I came up with him can help dispel this stigma that he has.
Having said all of this, I would love, love, love for a Newt Scamander muse to RP with Jix. I think Newt would be really fascinated by leaflings. Maybe he would think they were cousins of bowtruckles in some way. But regardless, I think he would be floored by their level of intelligence and their language skills, which is something he does not often encounter with his magical beasts. If there are any Newt Scamander muns out there willing to RP with my OC and to treat him as the separate creature he is and not just some weird bowtruckle, I welcome you with open arms and please message me. If there are any other FB muns who want to RP with Jix too, that’s great as well. What I don’t want is: a) to have him be treated like a bowtruckle, and b) to be snubbed by FB muns solely because they think I’m attempting to rip off J.K. Rowling’s creature.
Okay, I’ve said my piece. Jix needs more love. He’s a very social little guy. So taking all of this into account, hit me up if you would like to write with me!
#open to anything really with Jix as long as it halfway makes sense#I've even stuck him in zombie apocalypses so yeah heh#fantastic beasts rp#fandomless oc#fantasy oc#jix the leafling#not a bowtruckle#not pickett#just his own little leafy self
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
//leslie's event story got me feeling the Gay tonight so here's some dumb zeusro headcanon-ish stuff that i've been meaning to post.
when they were kids, zeus kept telling everybody that he's going to marry hiro one day and god forbid anyone tell him otherwise because he would throw a HELL of a tantrum. hiro would just say "i wanna marry him, too" when anybody asked hiro about his thoughts on it. (bonus: when they do get married, nobody is surprised when they got the invitation. "oh! zeus is getting married? i wonder what pretty girl he managed to settle down wi-- oh. it's hiro. i don't know why i expected someone else; those two were made for eachother.")
also throughout their entire lives zeus has called hiro "my hero" b/c he thinks he's being smart.
hiro had a scene phase when he was younger, and zeus also had a scene phase out of pure solidarity. zeus tells people that "the clothes were cool at the time", but hiro knows.
these two idiots were eachother's first kiss. it wasn't good because they were 15, full of feelings that neither of them understood at the time, and it was 2 in the morning, but it was a kiss. hiro initiated it.
you know how hiro has his insecurities about being zeus' retainer? consider the following dialogue: "i'm your retainer. your royal shield." "you're not my royal shield. you're my royal treasure."
lucious will actually call them "mom and dad". he started doing it because he thought it'd annoy them, and it did at first, but they grew used to it so much that they'll sometimes slip and call lucious their son.
matching magical earrings? more like weird promise rings.
they still sometimes sleep in the same bed. not as much now since the academy's beds aren't that big, and that zeus is a massive heat source, so hiro complains about it being too hot.
zeus loves playing with hiro's hair at any given moment. tiny braids, zeus struggling with said tiny braids, zeus saying "fuck it" and just runs his fingers through hiro's hair.
"i love you" isn't a common phrase for them since they don't always need words to express how they feel, but also because they get super shy and embarrassed when they say it out loud.
hiro confessed (and came out) to zeus first. zeus was 100% still in the closet so he didn't understand at first... but years later when he figured out "oh holy shit i'm not straight" you bet your ass he came to hiro first and begged him for a second chance at a Real Thing. zeus started crying when hiro said yes. then hiro started crying when zeus started crying and oops now we're both crying idiots on the goddamn floor.
"what a fucking idiot. god i love him so much."
zeus's favorite physical thing about hiro is his fangs. hiro's favorite is a birthmark on zeus' back that looks vaguely like a cherry blossom.
they've boned and everyone around them fucking knows it. one girl went so far as to straight up ask hiro what zeus likes during sex at one point.
they sometimes steal the other's clothes since they're almost the exact same size. also totally not because hiro actually does laundry regularly and that zeus loves taking his jacket out of the dryer and wearing them. not at all.
they do not care about sharing drinks and stuff whatsoever. they don't even waterfall, they always go for that sweet indirect kiss.
zeus taught hiro the fuck word, hiro taught zeus the fuck word in hinomoto (hinomotan?).
hiro gets along decently with zeus' younger siblings, but they always put him on blast for being in love with their idiot older brother.
honestly they're just eachother's biggest supporter and they're wholesome idiots who have been in love for a long ass time even if it was one of the slowest burns in all of gedonelune and the fact that hiro's reaction to zeus asking him if he loved him wasn't "no that's gross ew" means so much to me and i'm crying now because i love these idiots goodnight
#wizardess heart#not mcl#mia speaks#im fuckcing emo right now#so help me god when i get back from this trip i'm drawing the event story scene#zeusro
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
lowkey part-timer!Jisung
Pairing: Yoon Jisung x Reader
Genre: Fluff, Christmas-themed, bullet-point scenario
Summary: A Christmas romance sparks between you and the cute, bubbly part-timer in your local grocery store.
Warnings: None
A/N: First story in the Christmas-themed scenarios I’m doing! I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish all of the rest 17 scenarios by Christmas!
Jisung was the cute part-timer at your local grocery store
He’s been working as the cashier in aisle 8 after he’s graduated from uni after he couldn’t find a job that pays decently
He decided to stay in his hometown, after suffering in a totally new city, and got a part-time job as a cashier that paid pretty well
You on the other hand, bought your own studio after moving out of your hometown
Your job as a photographer caused you move out and go to other places rather than your small town that always made you feel caged
You were putting together all your pictures you had taken the past week since you had to put out a new project soon
You decided to take a break and have a quick lunch then walk around to the parts of the city that you hadn’t been able to see yet
When you come out of your studio with all your necessities, you realize that a bunch of people were putting up Christmas decor and trees around their shops
It was Christmas? Already?
You celebrated Christmas, for you were a religious person, but you never got the whole holiday spirit type of thing
You didn’t really enjoy Christmas songs or the cold really
when you came out of your house you had only slipped on a thin cardigan with your camera and everything in your purse
You hated the cold
You had once been locked out of your house one winter and had to wait outside until your parents got back home from work
You were practically frozen when your dad discovered you covering your body with the welcome mat
So yah you had a trauma of the cold
You quickly take some pictures of the snow and all the people getting on ladders to decorate the light posts and rooftops
You smile at your work and skip down the sidewalk to the farther parts of town
You find yourself in front of a market which you had never seen before even when you were driving around when you first came
Maybe it was new?
You went in since you were hungry anyway and they most likely had samples
Meanwhile, Jisung was helping some of the other workers take out boxes and such, since no one was really in the lines
You were eating some of the sample dumplings when you see a chip bag fall
You’re about to pick it up when you feel more chip bags falling on you
You lift up your arms to shield yourself and let out a small shriek
You lose your balance when a heavy box falls on you
“OMG I’M SO SORRY! ARE YOU OKAY!?!? OMG OMG!”
You’re ready to give the guy a piece of your mind
But then all your thoughts are lost bc
Wow
This guy was cute
He was almost pouting while putting the bags back in the box
He noticed that you were standing back up so he quickly got up and bowed to you
“I’m so sorry….I-I didn’t see you there!”
You’re about to tell him it’s okay, but then suddenly a man who seemed like the manager came storming over
“YOON JISUNG!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? JUST BC IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS TIME IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD LOSE YOUR WORKING MENTALITY! YO-”
“It’s fine! It was my fault! I suddenly stepped in front of him while he was passing.”
You defend jisung and he’s actually really surprised!?!?
Bc a normal person would be complaining w/the manager
And it would end up w/jisung mopping the floors or something
Yea this wasn’t the first time jisung caused trouble lol
But here you were LYING so he wouldn’t get in trouble
The manager is left speechless bc he kinda looks down on Jisung
So he storms away annoyed
Jisung glances at his furious manager then thanks you
“This isn’t the first time this happened & i prob would’ve gotten fired. thank you so much”
You grin bc omg he was so cute?
His santa hat was about to fall off so you reach over and straighten it up
Making jisungs cheeks turn soo red you thought he was gonna burst
You leave after that whole incident and you come back a week later
You just couldn’t get jisung out of your mind
You were sorta hoping to see him somewhere around the area where you live but no luck:P
So you just decided to go to his workplace yourself
When you entered, you were really shocked bc it was reallyyyyy busy
There were so many more ppl than last time
It was prob bc Christmas was now a week away
And ppl just buy presents last minute ya know
They were also preparing more food for family&friends so yah
You grab a pack of gum and head to the shortest line which was aisle 8
You were looking at your pics that you took earlier and that’s when you hear a familiar voice greet the elderly woman in front of you
You look up w/hope that it was Jisung and boi oh boi yes it was
This time he was wearing a headband w/reindeer ears that were somehow slightly slanted
After he greets the woman in front of you goodbye he turns to you with a smile then it falters when he notices
Wow it’s that really cute girl that defended me from my devil-ish manager
You just politely smile, not knowing if he remembered you since you were irrelevant ya know
But then he totally remembers you bc
“OMG IM SO GLAD TO SEE YOU AGAIN! DO YOU REMEMBER ME? AH~ AGAIN, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAVING ME FROM GETTING FIRED!”
“......uh...no problem?”
He grins and tries to make small talk w/you which is cute aha
Even tho you’re only buying one pack of gum
He somehow takes ten minutes to scan the barcode and charge you ???
I can’t with jisung he’s such a cute, underappreciated bean
You were in the middle of a very intense convo about beavers so you decide to meet him at a nearby coffee shop on Christmas Eve (may or may not be where barista!daniel works but you should go check it out :P shameless self-promo)
Both of you forget to give ea. other your numbers
But hopefully both of you will remember about that date meeting
AND YOU DO
fate really is on your side
You enter the coffee shop at like 6pm bc you weren’t sure if you guys decided the exact time to meet
You guys didn’t lol
But ya know
Fate will bring the two of you together right?
You wait for thirty minutes, but still no Jisung
You’re starting to think that he forgot, but then remembered he had a shift that ends at 9pm
Idk how you knew that but...it works
so you decide to just sit there and sip on some drinks
you take pictures and all
You’re so immersed into taking pictures of everything around the whole shop, that you don’t notice the timid and nervous looking man entering the now, almost empty cafe
You’re frowning at the picture you just took when you feel a tap on your shoulder
You turn around to see Jisung with a sorry, but excited grin on his face
You greet him with a wide smile as he apologizes how he didn’t know what time he had to come
He starts to ramble and you shush him
Like why does this guy say ‘sorry’ so many times?
“It’s fine. We both forgot to say a time to meet up. Besides, I wasn’t here that long”
He seems a tiny bit less sorry so the two of you start the convo about the beavers again
The talk about beavers went to zoos then went to how your lives went then led to your jobs, your interests, your hobbies, what that girl was wearing, blah blah blah
You felt like you really had a connection w/jisung
The two of you, as cliche as it may sound, clicked immediately
It only felt like five minutes passed, but the coffee shop owner had to kick you guys out since it was thirty minutes past closing time
You swap numbers this time and plan to meet each other at the same place tmrw @ 7pm for the annual Christmas tree lighting at downtown
Both of you lived alone and you suggested “why not have the loners meet up on Christmas Day?”
Jisung didn’t have work and you didn’t want to stress about your projects, so the two of you had agreed
As you walk back home you cant help but feel so giddy
How was a man having this much of an effect on you?
BECAUSE YOU HAVE A THING FOR HIMMMM
You smile at all the snow piling up and gape at how beautiful everything seemed
You have never felt so excited for Christmas
The next day comes by SO SLOWLYYYY
You weren’t able to sleep from the anxiousness and expectation you had for the next day so you were sorta tired
But you got dressed in simple clothing and went out for a walk and to buy Jisung a Christmas present
You didn’t know what he liked since you literally starte talking to him a wk ago
So you settle for some Christmas-themed socks, beanie, a pair of house slippers, and a gift card to the coffee shop you had been at yesterday
As you walk in and out of stores, you couldnt help but sing along to the Christmas carols that were playing
which you had never done b4
you did a double take and stopped singing, but you found urself humming along to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”
And you also couldn’t help but oogle at all the stuffed animals that filled the walls
They were SO CUTEEE AND FLUFFYYYY
One of the stuffed ducks reminded you a lot of Jisung so you decided to buy it
You bought a lot of things, but they were all for a decent price so :))
It gets really dark really soon and it’s 6pm
ONE MORE HOUR TILL YOU MET JISUNG
You hurry back home and quickly dress in layers since it was going to be collldddd
The weather forecast said there was a 99.99999999% it was going to snow, so you couldn’t risk it
Even tho the weather forecast is always wrong
You pack your camera again bc you were planning to create a Christmas themed project nxt
As you run out the door you send Jisung a txt saying that you’ll be right there since it was five minutes till seven
When you arrive in the warm shop, your glasses immediately fog up causing you to groan
You try to fan the fog away but to no avail:)
Then you hear a big laugh and you turn to sorta make out a figure that looks like Jisung
He takes the end of his sleeve and cleans your glasses and you’re met with the brightest smile you have ever seen in your whole entire life
Maybe that’s when you fell for him
Tho it was a person you had known for a little over a week
You felt like you knew Jisung since you were a kid
He hands you a cup of peppermint hot chocolate and pulls you along to get a good view of the Christmas tree b4 too much ppl come along
You get there just in time and wait a few moments until the announcer comes out onto the podium
You and Jisung both cheer as the five minute countdown starts
The minutes go by so quickly and you jump up and down to keep yourself warm
Then you see a few snowflakes falling on Jisung
You both look up to see that ITS SNOWINGGGGGGG
The whole crowd of people ooh and ahh
And some kids squeal in glee
You softly smile and get out your camera to take a few shots of the falling snow
When you’re done there’s a minute left on the clock
You suddenly remember your present for Jisung and quickly get it out and hand it to him
“Merry Christmas!”
Jisung gasps and says ‘thank you’ in such a genuine way that it fills your heart w/pure happiness
He then shuffles around his backpack and takes out a large box that’s prob filled w/similar things as you gave him
You start to hear the announcer countdown from 10
ten
And that’s when Jisung starts to speak
“H-Hey, Y/N?”
Nine
“Hmm?”
Eight
“I know it’s been only like two weeks since we met”
Seven
But I can tell you’re such a nice person, ever since the day I first saw you”
Six
“You’re such a great person…and….uh”
You furrow your brows
What was he trying to say?
Five
“We have so many things in common than I thought we would”
Four
“I really thought i would get fired that day i dropped the chip bags on you”
You smile at the memories as the crowd gets louder and louder as the time to light the tree get closer
Three
“A-And ever since I saw you....Y/N...I uh”
You roll your eyes at his weird stalling
Two
“JISUNG! SPIT IT OUT!”
He looks at you w/wide eyes
One
“I-I LIKE YOU!”
The crowd erupts in cheers and claps w/kids screaming and laughing at the lights that shown brightly
The announcer shouts “now go home!” with a hearty laugh
Jisung stands in front of you with his hand clamped over his mouth
You stay silent and stare at him in shock
What were you supposed to say?
Sure you liked him, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to date someone you had known for a week
“T-THAT CAME OUT WRONG!”
you tilt your head in confusion
“What?”
“I don’t like you! NO NO I DO LIKE YOU! B-BUT-”
You burst out laughing at his panic
“I like you too, Jisung! But how bout having our first official date after getting to know each other a bit longer than a week?”
And the two of you stand in front of each other w/goofy smiles on your faces, in front of the glimmering, 30ft tall Christmas tree, underneath the moonlight in the gently falling snow
dang this was pretty bad lol
#wanna one#wanna one scenarios#yoon jisung#yoon jisung scenarios#yoon jisung fluff#yoon jisung christmas#christmas scenario#thx for reading:))#christmas package#wanna one jisung#jisung au#wanna one au
42 notes
·
View notes
Note
how many tattoos do you have now?
i have three! i’ll post the new one a little later in more detail; i just don’t find a lot of benefit in soliciting public responses to something that personal (my body, essentially) while i’m still settling in with it myself. i have lots of plans though. i didn’t get any tattoos when i was younger because i didn’t have any money, and i’m glad i didn’t get any tattoos then because i definitely didn’t have any taste (or a sense of humor, or any creativity, or much exposure to any decent culture). i’m not very forgiving of my teenage/20s-ish self anyway. now, besides the fact that i’m finally more comfortable with myself and my thoughts, i also feel a lot of freedom to dive in because like...i’m 36. i’m not getting any younger or more full of potential. i mean i still like to be very thoughtful about my tattoo plans, but i’m way less afraid of making mistakes than i might have been as a younger person. this may sound weird because it seems like tattoos are usually an expression of something the wearer already feels very committed about, but part of me feels the inverse, like getting tattoos is somehow a process of figuring myself out. it’s hard for me to explain that more convincingly, but it’s true. all my life i struggled a lot with making staunch choices that have to do with my identity, which is partly a matter of cowardice and partly a matter of something like having too much empathy, feeling like i can see too many issues from all perspectives. like i admire people who are super committed to an extremely specific scene or lifestyle, like real dyed in the wool goths and punks or whoever, but at the same time i’ve never been able to imagine waking up and...i don’t know, being exactly the same person every single day? which of course is kind of an absurd attitude because i would bet that people who know me think of me as pretty distinct, and as adhering to my own little set of personal cliches. but i often feel myself holding back from devoting myself to different things because i just can’t fathom the notion of making indelible statements about who i am for some reason. i think this is the exact reason that (as some long-time listeners know) i have these super intense dreams about committing manslaughter, because that’s like the ultimate thing you could never take back, that permanently changes who you are in the world. so, getting tattooed is sort of a therapy course for that particular problem. so far, every time i get a tattoo, i have this deranged psychological experience where at first they look totally insane to me. like when i see them on my skin finally, my brain puts on some sort of filter that makes them literally look like scribbles on a cocktail napkin, not a design element at all, something messy and meaningless that makes no sense as a permanent personal alteration. it’s literally a mild hallucination. then over the next few days, my mind vacillates between that regretful anxiety, and the dawning recognition of what the tattoo actually looks like: that is, something good that i decided i wanted for sound reasons. i’m also learning to deal with imperfections, which has been interesting; like when you don’t take a lot of chances with your appearance, it’s easy to think of tattoos as these flawless pieces of art that are supposed to transcend and contain the chaos of having a human body. the reality is that tattoos are made by other human hands--in fact, they’ve passed from being an idea in your mind, to a design on paper [or vice versa], to being a stencil drawn by the tattoo artist, to being an image etched onto your body which probably has a radically different surface than any image you originally chose. so, they all have something a little unpredictable about them, even the really great ones, and i’ve come to think that should be part of the point. i also really enjoy the physical process of getting tattooed, for some perverted macho reason, so it’s hard for me to think of stopping. so uh yeah, i’ll show the new one to the world when it’s not so psychologically fresh, and then you’ll see plenty more in the future.
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
Do you think Sansa is knowingly poisoning Sweetrobin? I've seen a few well-known blogs making the argument that she's doing it on purpose but I'm not convinced. I don't think she understands how dangerous sweetsleep is. For reference: bluetheon(.)tumblr(.)com/post/165242694491/maidenoftheforestlight-alayne-stonecoldfox and I just saw another pretty popular blog say that she is willingly poisoning him too which bugged me so I thought I'd ask what you think. It's just so unlike Sansa. :/
now, given that I haven’t read anything from TWOW except the theon chapter because I’m weak like that but like I don’t want to form ideas based on pre-released chapters that might or might not get changed when they’re published, so like I’ve just read up what’s in that meta, and like... I think she’s aware on a subconscious level but hasn’t really realized it yet, but that at the same time it ties into a larger theme as in ‘grrm is making the stark children go through a lot of very dark shit and is putting in question a lot of things we should have assumed’. I had written something about it once let me see if I can find it, but anyway, basic background of my Large Starks Theory: they started out as the heroes and they will end up as the heroes, but right now they’re all going through a morally gray/morally questionable moment/phase while the Lannisters are also being turned on their head except for cersei - I mean cersei’s always been herself except she gets more bonkers with time, but tyrion started as a sympathetic figure who had to be on the villain side and now he’s going over to another hero side, jaime started out as OMG SO TERRIBLE (to the not-in-depth-read anyway) and now he’s turning out as one of the people in the series with the most sensed views about anything + one of the few reliable narrators when it doesn’t concern his feelings about being like cersei in asos + a fairly decent guy all things considered. Like, we started with good starks and bad lannisters and now we are with grey starks and getting-better lannisters and we’ll end with good starks and two good-ish lannisters on three. Now, what I mean with the starks are going through their morally gray phase, if I can find that post I made a while ago gdi I can’t find it AH WELL:
arya is training at an assassins’ school where the basic point of it is killing people after renouncing your identity
bran is turning into the westeros big brother pretty much and while I don’t think that in the show they realized that it probably will not turn him into a robot who sends meera off without so much a thank you, I’m 99% sure they weren’t making it up with hodor and like... he’s younger than twelve. that’s a lot of power. on top of that he had done exactly all the things varamyr said in the adwd prologue that wargers should not do (ie warging into people, eating meat while in an animal and I can’t remember the third but back when I checked, he did that as well), that’s not kindergarten material
rickon is being pretty much literally raised by wolves/wildlings on an island known because there’s cannibals on it and he hasn’t seen his family since he was four, as much as osha can be a good influence the moment he goes back to civilization manderly is going to be very wtf at least
jon has died and will come back to life which is most probably going to leave him fairly more traumatized than in the show and his entire arc in adwd was about how he has to do a lot of things that he’d have previously found despicable because he’s a lord commander and he has a duty (do we remember the whole deal with gilly’s baby?)
catelyn is a zombie who only wants revenge and she’s so past morally gray, she’s turned into riverlands!aerys which is why I’m putting my money on brienne killing her to save jaime but never mind that
and lastly.. sansa is stuck with LF who’s using her in his ploys while also being a total creep with her and who wants to marry her because he was in love with her mother (yikes) and who’s made her at least complicit in the whole sweetsleep scheme, which is what would put her in the morally gray column for now
now, I do think she doesn’t realize the extent of what she’s doing and that from what it looks like in the preview chapter she seems very immersed in her alayne part - I mean, again I haven’t read that, but looking at the quotes in that meta,
She put a finger to his lips. “I know what you want, but it cannot be. I am no fit wife for you. I am bastard born.”“I don’t care. I love you best of anyone.”You are such a little fool.
+
Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, though. Father and I have larger concerns.
now, idk the context, but that doesn’t sound like sansa to me, that sounds like how alayne should sound, but like... that’s the point, that’s not sansa. that’s sansa at her lowest point while she’s being made complicit in the scheme, but who doesn’t fully realize the extent of it yet I think - the second person has a point when it says that LF is also building this so he can frame her but he won’t get his way, most probably because that person is not sansa and sansa wouldn’t do that, so the moment she actually realizes it and puts two and two together she’ll stop it or do something to change the tide. like, LF has to die and he most probably will because he underestimated her (also as the other meta-er said I’m 99% sure she’s gonna run into brienne and jaime so there’s that too), but sansa has to go through the ‘what the fuck are you doing this is wrong WHAT’ moment because that’s what... all of her living family is doing.
I don’t think she can’t know at all because I mean, she’s not an idiot and those conversations with the maester plus LF laying his plan down are fairly obvious - anyone would put two and two together and I think she has but she just doesn’t want to admit it, which is why I’m midway - I don’t think she willingly is doing it but I think she knows she’s doing it on some level.
mind that I think it might go like this also because grrm already did all of that with theon - in adwd if you start from reek you see him knowing things but apparently denying them in the pov/trying to not think about them/saying or thinking the things reek should say or think or do same as sansa is doing above with alayne - a lot of shit theon does/says/thinks in reek 1, 2 and 3 is not him, it’s what he thinks he has to be in order to survive ramsay and like, the concept is exactly the same, but the more adwd went on the more he was forced to realize that he was not reek, he could not be reek and he didn’t want to be reek, and like... he knew that jeyne was jeyne and not arya, he tried to ignore it as long as he could, he knew what was happening to her and tried to block it out, he couldn’t, the moment he puts two and two together and realizes where he went wrong/who he wants to be/what he wants to do with his life and his choices, the first thing he does is saving her hide. it’s the exact same pattern except that we saw sansa going from sansa to alayne and we didn’t see theon going from theon to reek (THANK FUCK), but we’re going to see sansa to alayne to sansa again I think, and that includes her admitting to herself what the hell they’re doing and realizing it’s not who she wants to be or what she wants to be. which would put her back in the good guys camp, though with a lot less naivety I suppose, which is what I think is going on with all her siblings, so... yeah that’s what I got.
tldr: I think she knows what she’s doing on a very deep/subconscious level but doesn’t want to admit it and that she will have to and that it’s part of her family’s overall arc as ‘go from good guys to morally gray and then back to good’ and in order for her to be *properly* grey at least for that chunk of her arc she has to be aware of it on some level. obviously I don’t think it makes her a horrible person also because it was all LF’s ploy and she’s being manipulated/convinced into it by a fairly creepy guy who couldn’t care less about her well-being and only wants to marry her because he was in love with her damned mother so she’s also LF’s victim in all of this along with sweetrobin but it’s another level of it and I think that assuming she has no idea whatsoever.
btw meanwhile I did find that post where I discussed the thing so if you want the more in-depth version http://janiedean.tumblr.com/post/134282706508/hi-i-that-post-you-answered-about-theon-being XDD
24 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
randylynn7699
Lynn ❤️
answrbeauty
ANSWR Beauty
ahsengmc
☁️
nevadakebabs
Untitled
zizitzatza
Mindennapok és mindenféle