Anya has been an incredible new edition to the strahd party dynamic and I think we're reaching peak levels of chaos

went to the best store on the planet aka barnes & noble yesterday with my heart set on shakespeare and had a crisis over whether i should get Fantasy Space Lesbian Necromancers or Man in Coma Loses Memory and Saves Human Race but with Real Physics (both of which i have yet to read but desperately want to) so of course i walked out with hamlet and the four swords manga *sighs in nerd*

okok ik im posting alot today but u wanna know y briars last name is sawyer?

haha a classic dino move, naming the character after a slasher love it

tehe

Wanda and Skitch definitely have separate rooms after they move in together.

I think the concept of couples having separate bedrooms is pretty neat; not having to compromise on your own aesthetics and things to display in your own space? Plus sleepovers? That eats 🤌🏾

Though Wanda and Skitch can overlap in some ways with each other, aesthetically, they're pretty different:

Skitch totally collects figurines and CDs, they're not the tidiest in the bunch when it comes to organization. They definitely have a "hidden" drawer for snacks while watching movies and playing video games.

Wanda on the other hand is very tidy when it comes to her room, organized bookshelves full over her old sketchbooks and maybe some of her favorite novels (giving very much Charlaine Harris type). She keeps an electric kettle in her room, with her go-to tea when she settles in to read or draw, or get some last minute work done.

Wanda definitely chose who got which room, though; Wanda likes a lot of natural light in her room, whereas Skitch doesn’t really pay attention to that sort of thing and is used to hermiting out

Wanda and Skitch really decide who's room they're sleeping in based off the vibe for the day or what they have planned. Skitch's room is definitely used for movie and/or game nights and Wanda's is more for lazy day cuddling.

They're both homey bedrooms in their own ways.

Y'all can sound off on other decorations/furnishings/trinkets you think they have in their rooms and/or around the house, I'm curious

Me @ Netflix if they cut Foxglove and Hazel or A Game of You or yassify any of the girls

it's nice that we're getting anything i guess, but, i'm gonna be what may come off as a little petty and whiny here; it'd be cool if either iteration of the gen 9 anime so far was actually about gen 9's characters instead of using them as cameos to promote original stories we have no investment in yet

it's like, i dunno, like the bait and switch with sonic appearing in wreck it ralph ads, except if wreck it ralph existing meant there would never be a sonic movie, and if you were invested in those characters and recognized they weren't generic platformer mascots, sucks for you, nobody cares

maybe they're just giving the DLC space to do its thing with them first (if they do anything at all...) but idk, i was cautiously optimistic about nemona in horizons, only for her to be a character of the day that the episode wasn't about, and pretty excited by "gen 9 prequel anime" only to find out it's going to be like, four short stories about OCs who have quick brushes with them. these are like the lacroix hint of what an anime about the game could've been like and you're left to imagine the rest yourself

i shouldn't be that surprised if the gen 8 anime reduced hero of galar hop to a character of the day with a level 5 wooloo in order to let the galaxy revolve around ash battling his brother because epic charizards, but man. what if it wasn't like that that now that ash is gone.

we haven't seen penny and team star at all because they're the hardest to talk about without bringing up the trauma of school bullying and the fear of being yourself at school when you're way too young to be dealing with all that drama responsibly. she's still learning to love and forgive herself and feel wanted.

arven's story is about, like, being a latchkey kid to a self-absorbed parent, being unsure how to feel about repairing the relationship or how seriously to take them saying they love him, and struggling to make friends due to misdirected resentment toward people he's jealous of for having apparently normal families and the stubborn self-reliance he was forced into. he's still trying to process things, find himself, and let people in.

nemona is supposed to have been a directionless lonely and depressed kid who hated being called gifted when everything was hard for her, until she met the player character and gained a peer who understood and appreciated she was a little different and she didn't have to mask her true self to have friends anymore. she's happy for now, but may still be under a little too much pressure to be perfect at the expense of her own personality, and probably won't deal well with being abandoned.

as much as they resonate with adults and are a little darker than usual pokemon fare, they're also smaller scale and realer. they are all stories that are explicitly about and meant to be relatable to kids going to school! y'know, your audience! you don't need to paint over them with 3-4 new characters and new stories every time like there was nothing there, or something shameful you need to sanitize and cover up! you can just use the game the way it is!

this got a little more heated than i intended, i just feel a little ridiculous waiting anxiously for loose scraps of a sign that this story isn't over and in the trash already and nemona's life-changing attachment to the player character isn't going to go totally ignored, as we are bombarded with what is supposed to be followup material that almost all seems eager to talk about literally anything else like they think the main story was a mistake they need to run away from

now, i'm not one to complain about original stories being told, but this was already a story that had room to grow. imagine a world where the gen 9 anime was actually about nemona, arven, penny, and the friend who brought them together. or what their lives were like before that friend came along. every episode. that would get me to watch the anime again and whatever movie came out for it. ask yourself why we don't have that, or even the traditional, like, 1-2 characters tagging along with the MCs per region thing that would leave us knowing them better than we know some irl friends

how was starting over with 100% original characters and new lore that might conflict hard with the upcoming DLC the safer bet? why is a 44 minute miniseries specifically for fans of the game making up OCs for them to get invested in and scrambling to tell their stories as quickly as possible before throwing them in the trash instead of being about the damn game?

sigh. i shouldn't get invested in a series that's about selling monster plushies just because it had one story that stuck with me

Yanno what, I like high fantasy just fine, but the older I get and the more I read, the more I'm starting to think I like high fantasy better when it's in-universe fantasy fiction for a different story instead of like. Me, directly reading/watching/etc it.

So I’m having another… let’s call it an internet crisis. A thing that typically happens when I have Big Problems I can’t do fuck all about which means now it’s time to get Really Upset about problems that are comparatively small but do affect my daily routine (sorry again for no cut, I still can’t remember how to do it on mobile and I fucking hate hate hate the desktop post editor as much as someone can hate a piece of code)

It’s… getting harder to use tumblr. This isn’t about the sidebar, I don’t actually hate the sidebar cause we used to have a sidebar on the other side and I’ve missed it every since it left, but it’s about other things. A lot of things, but I won’t get into them all right now. For me, the new post editor is just. Really fucking difficult to use. If you’re just doing an unformatted, unplanned ramble (like this) or a little shitpost, it’s fine, especially if you’re on mobile (somehow the shitty mobile editor is now less shitty than the desktop editor, how tf did that happen), but if you’ve got multiple paragraphs and literally any formatting is needed? Well, you’re fucked, quite frankly, it is the most dense and convoluted post editor I’ve seen in like roughly 2 decades spent online. I’ve never seen anything more counterintuitive and difficult to use

And I’m sitting here with all these twitter posts I want to move. Some are little and would be easy. Others are a lot longer and more complicated and would shove me into that formatting hell I despise so much (and given how much feedback and unanswered asks to wip I’ve sent with no improvements, I’ve given up hope of it ever being made better). Like god I really, really want to save those posts but is it even worth it to do it here? But where else would I do it?

And the secondary layer too is… there’s no fucking posts here. No engagement on posts either most of the time. 90% of my posts come from my archive cause the kylux and Kylo (plus a few others I check less regularly) tags have very few daily posts and there’s hardly anything on my dash anymore. My original posts maybe get 10 notes on average, and these posts are ones that sometimes got near triple digit rts alone on twitter. Just seems there’s exceptionally few people here to enjoy them

And I’m still on twitter. It’s slowly dwindling but it’s still slightly more active than here. I’m on pillowfort and bsky too and they are truly dead (unless you’re a furry, good on the furries for populating every site in existence). There’s just. Nothing anymore. Maybe my fandoms are just dead but it feels like the meme about passing around the same $20 among friends cause capitalism is destroying us except with posts and likes

Idk. I feel like I don’t have an online home anymore. 90% of my socializing is online and 100% of my creativity is expressed through fandom and. I don’t know where to do that anymore. I have friends I chat with on discord and I love them but it’s… it’s not the same as a whole community, you know? And now that our homes are falling apart with every sign pointing towards imminent foreclosure like. What do I do. I know I’ve been through site losses before but. It feels different. Something new and shiny always came along before the end. I fear that’s not coming and we’ll all just be lost

Idk. I don’t have a conclusion. Twitter is doomed. I hate how the new owners are running on tumblr and I’m still posting here more out of a desperate desire to remember what community felt like than any real actual want to do so. The new sites have nothing going on. Idk. I feel lost. And maybe it’s the 15 other problems I have going on right now and hormones and shit but. I just don’t know what to do and I’m scared of what the future looks like for online communities and how alone I’ll be if I lost them (even though in reality I already have lost them aside from a small handful of people)

Soulmates AU in which when your soulmate is in a situation that can result in their death you get to see through their eyes. Like, I don't know how to explain this- it kind of flashes between what you see and what your soulmate sees. You know those edits where there's a scene going on and there's another one faded in the background happening at the same time? Similar to that. The idea is that you get to see what your soulmate sees too, on top of what you're seeing.

Now, this AU but JeanMarco. With Marco asking the others where's Jean, just for him to start seeing a corpse right in front of his eyes not even a second after asking. Seeing through Jean's eyes as he's trying to get hold of that gear and stuff. And once Jean's safe, once it clicks that you know his best friend is his soulmate Marco can't wait for them to graduate so he can you know tell him that.

Then, you know. That happens. And Jean is so fucking confused because he keeps seeing Annie crying, looking down on him. Only when Annie starts getting off the gear, when his soulmate starts moving around trying to get away he starts panicking, starts moving around faster than before. And maybe he's too late. Or maybe he shows up in time and kills the titan. I don't know. That's not where I'm trying to get, but to the second option AKA Marco pulling an UNO reverse on Annie because he's a smart sneaky bastard like that and being like 'Hey you can't kill me, my soulmate will know it was you' which makes her stop trying to take off his gear. Reiner keeps telling her to do it, Bertholdt keeps yelling about that titan coming closer, but Annie... she has seen things, at some point. Flashes of moments that weren't hers, happening right in Trost- right in that moment. And she didn't give them too much thought until that moment, until it got confirmed that it has nothing to do with her titan powers.

'What do you mean by that?' she asks, because she needs to know more. Because she wants to know more. And Marco starts explaining how it works. Tells them that he has found his soulmate, that they will put all the blame on them for his death. Reiner doesn't believe him, keeps insisting that he's playing them around - he, and anyone born and raised on Marley, has never heard of something like that before, it doesn't exist - but Annie tells him to shut up and to let Marco go. Cue to the plot of any fic in which Marco doesn't straight up die after finding up their secret.

Anyway I don't know man, just,,, We need more soulmate aus for JeanMarco. That's an order.

gun to your head. top 5 svt songs 😤

first of all, how dare you?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? second of all, how am i expected to respond?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!? this is hard. if the gun were to my head, i might simply bite the bullet, but you are my wife and so ofc i have no choice but to respond....

don't mock me

circles

lie again

don quixote

shadow

don't wanna cry

FOR THE TIRED PEOPLE: Some new research about Chronic + ADHD(inattentive) related fatigue, and BCAAs

[DISCLAIMER // I AM NOT A DOCTOR. I AM NOT A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER. I AM NOT A DIETICIAN. I'm just a big tired nerd with way too much time on my hands who likes science. I am however, sharing this because this could potentially help others and BCAAs are already safe for human consumption, widely used and easily accessible. If you are uncertain about adding BCAAs to your diet please talk to your doctor first. There are also some medications which interact negatively with BCAA's. Do your research. Also generally be careful about taking medical advice from the internet! ]

I was going to post about something else but I went down the rabbit hole of explaining this study I read and decided that no, this needed it's own thing or it's gonna be a mile long.

So in one of my usual weekly fatigue breakdowns where I was scraping the internet for any kind of information that might point out something I've SURELY missed to explain why I feel the way I do, I stumbled across this study published last year (2022) -

[ The relationship between central fatigue and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder of the inattentive type ]

The TL;DR on the paper - our previous assumptions about the tryptophan-serotonin system might be wrong (tryptophan being the precursor for a bunch of stuff, including melatonin which is the sleepy chemical - aka why people say drink warm milk before bed to help sleep, that's tryptophan) what was previously assumed was reducing tryptophan = bad because it could affect serotonin production.

Testing in rats (so grain of salt here) indicated that higher levels of tryptophan =/= higher levels of serotonin and when reducing the level of free tryptophan in the bloodstream it returned to baseline. High levels of tryptophan were associated with fatigue and inattention, and rats on a tryptophan deficient diet by contrast took longer to reach a state of exhaustion. I'm skipping over a bunch of stuff but basically - research is now pointing to both Chronic Fatigue and ADHD related fatigue being related to Central Nervous System Fatigue which up until now, has only really been associated with the fatigue athletes experience when exercising really hard (now just picture me doing jack shit and feeling like that every day. Yeah). I've only just stared to see bits and pieces pop up about this recently but nothing in relation to this tryptophan study.

Anyway, the thing about BCAAs: BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids) are currently used to reduce the uptake of tryptophan in the brain for better performance in athletes, help with reduction of exercise fatigue (CNS fatigue) and muscle building. You can pretty easily find BCAA's added to protein-shakes or in it's own kind of supplement. It also occurs naturally in some foods (Beef, Chicken, Eggs, Lentils, Chickpeas, Brown Rice etc.) so it is absolutely safe to consume. It's also generally fairly affordable (especially compared to the lengthy process of treatment + medications that might not even work and you have to keep changing them, yes I am talking from personal experience).

Again, this is all very new and absolutely needs so much more research because up until now, no one has really been sure what causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but tests have shown that those suffering CFS demonstrate similar activation of their muscles as fatigued athletes - as in they could activate them but not to their full capacity. This connection is only considered 'possible' and it might take a good few years before we can say anything with certainty.

But as an extremely tired bitch who is extremely tired of being extremely fucking tired, I am sharing this because it's easy to get, safe, and affordable and if you're like me you're about ready to try anything. And it's not another goddamn pill (I'm on 14 a day).

Also for the ADHDers specifically: protein rich diets are usually advised for us because it helps with the metabolism of stimulants, and can help with softening medication crashes when they wear off. So adding a protein shake with BCAAs to your morning routine might be a good idea. Or just any protein shake in general.

There can be side effects to taking BCAAs, but it is considered rare and this depends entirely on the person. Cross check existing medications, talk to your doc etc. if you are not 100% certain adding BCAAs to your diet is possible. Stay safe peeps.

the one thing about toh is now i crave more kids that seem cool at first but they’re actually huge dorks. and this becomes progressively more apparent as the series goes on as it should be

Day 16: Angel

Okay but currently looking at Silverlight's future friend group and remembering the description of Hailstrike and Trailfire as "Mean girl sidekicks", and there's Influx the jackass nerd(affectionate), it's really obvious that Silver is the group's Good Guy™️ friend and the rest are moral support who're ready to break your knees if you even think of being a dick to Silver— that's their job and only they are allowed to do that🥰

This does not include Silver's future sibling(s?), as Stargazer is instantly dubbed the shy scaredy cat and thusly is to be protected as well.

Why killjoys use masks and their development

At first they served as one would expect, purely to hide the wearers identity. This was one of the main reasons why everyone wore them even when the war was still hidden behind the horizon and BL/Ind was barely grasping at it's power. After the war and after the city hid behind walls and locked it's citizens inside, masks were more about protecting the wearer's family than the person themselves, they confused the algorithms and when the computer can't recognize your face and match it with your identity in it's database it can't tie you to illegal activities which means you can protect your close ones even when you can't be with them personally, when you're outside scrambling to survive under the scorching sun while they're waiting for you at the diner table with already cold meal. At this point the masks were nothing fancy, any cloth, plain domino mask or old carnival mask did the job and that's what mattered.

With the zones becoming more and more toxic as a direct fallout of the war full head masks and helmets with filters and sun rays protection became widely popular. Plain gas mask was your best grab but motorcycle helmets were also good enough.

This was long before the outcasts even thought of calling themselves killjoys and the rebellion was still on the edge of it's birth but as it goes even masks and helmets had to become part of fashion and so crazy colourful designs representing the wearers personality and name became the heat. Perhaps that did quite a bit for messing with the computers as well but who cared the old days were too far gone to hang onto safety.

Only long after all this happened the belief that your soul can be tied to a physical object such like a mask arose in minds of the people lost in endless sand. Perhaps in the beginning The Phoenix Witch wasn't roaming the lonely dunes, perhaps she was born from the electric waves and unheard prayers, perhaps she was there all along but the teenage martyrs didn't need a god to cry out to but now she's the main point behind it all.

mike thinking el wouldn’t want him around anymore if they weren’t in a romantic relationship gets even sadder when you think about how the reason he decided to focus on saying ily to el in the monologue was probably because he thought him simply caring about her wouldn’t be enough to save her...he already thought so low of himself in their relationship and basically felt like he was worth nothing next to her if he wasn’t even able to reciprocate her love. so he decided that a love confession was the way to go because what if in the end it all goes to shit because of his own inner conflict? what if he wasn’t able to fulfill the role of the knight in shining armor that she seemingly saw him as in the painting, and in the end he couldn’t be the person she thought she needed? what if el died because his caring words alone weren’t enough to save her unless he expressed his romantic love for her? what if he couldn’t live up to being her heart?