#this post is just extremely fucking incomprehensible . sorry. my bad

[aq2003]

martha jones is kind of like if horatio and ophelia were one person tbh

this post by darkcomedies

s03e08 human nature // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // hamlet to horatio, act 3 scene 2 // martha about ten, s03e09 the family of blood // s03e03 gridlock // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 1 // canary in a coal mine by the crane wives

s03e02 the shakespeare code // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 1 // ophelia about hamlet, act 2 scene 1 // s03e07 42 // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // s03e05 evolution of the daleks // hoping on another life by madds buckley

hamlet's letter to ophelia, act 2 scene 2 // s03e13 last of the time lords // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 2 // the shooting script for s03e07 42 // the tags on darkcomedies' post

#martha jones #tenth doctor #10th doctor #doctor who #hamlet #david tennant #<- because this IS his fault . at least a little bit #dr who #10 era #ten and martha #my edits #i do NOT know how to title my webweaving posts sorry and also my sources look like a nightmare #this post is just extremely fucking incomprehensible . sorry. my bad #so proud of the parallel i drew between the scene at the end of gridlock and alas poor yorick i'm so smart <- deranged #also despite the fact martha clocks closer to horatio in my head and it's way easier drawing parallels between those two #so proud of the parallel between hamlet's love letter and last of the timelords my brain is huge <- DERANGED #no this isnt a ship post bc im not built like that but i do realize i've set myself up for failure completely with this one #DONT LET ME COOK [BANGS POTS AND PANS] DONT LET ME COOK

[b-a-pigeon]

The thing about Kindle Vella is that it is a dumpster fire, but not even for the reasons people think! (Realized this post is extremely long and about a topic few people care about so I'm dropping it under a read more now sorry)

There are some weird rumors going around (which is fair imo since the ToS is like notoriously vague & untransparent) but nothing as funny as the truth: it was an absolute fuck-up of a money pit on Amazon's part that totally failed to retain authors even after throwing random quantities of cash at (some of) us, and everyone just took the money and ran.

To clarify a couple of rumors I've seen: no, nobody signed a contract guaranteeing Amazon indefinite weekly updates!!! (Lol.) There are also, like, some pretty arbitrary rules about availability, but nothing close to KU's draconian exclusivity policies; my story was serialized concurrently on multiple platforms & has since been published wide in the same places as usual while still available on Vella.

What happened, I think, is that Amazon began offering these mysteriously generous bonuses* (calculated through some arcane and ever-shifting metric that nobody has ever been able to figure out) to attract authors. The problem is that Vella sucks to use for readers, too. It's in beta with almost no visible improvements in two years; it looks like shit, especially on desktop; there was no quality control for a while, so the charts were dominated by scammers posting AI-translated gibberish; there were all these weird glitches that made entire chapters of different stories randomly swap; it's actually more expensive than indie e-books in most cases, etc.

So there were not enough readers to sustain the bonus pool, which used to increase every month but has stagnated at $1mil for several months. Everyone got pissed about the drastic drop in income (mine dipped almost 50% between months despite performing better by all metrics) and left; now this website, which nobody uses, is a graveyard for unfinished stories. Even if they did promote it for once, so much of the stuff there is abandoned! I truly doubt it is long for this world unless they massively overhaul it, but it's clearly not a priority, so...

Anyway I find all of this very funny & think it's a bummer that people don't know about it & instead believe that a bunch of people voluntarily signed up to be permanent content generators for Amazon. Like, no... they were obviously trying to create a system of financial dependency to coerce authors into sticking around a la KU, but made such a bad website that they couldn't even afford that :)

*For reference, just to show how absurd the bonus system used to be: my first year on Vella, I made $100 in royalties (meaning people spent around $200 to read it in total), which is nothing. Only 150 people ever paid to read my work by reading past the sample chapters; of these, only 35 finished the first story arc. I made $4000 in bonuses that first year and stayed on the bestseller-equivalent list (typically bouncing around the top 50-150) basically the entire time. I still don't understand how or why & it still didn't stop me from jumping ship the moment my bonus decreased, but yeah... I made like $30 for each individual person who paid any amount of money to read my story. Incomprehensible.

#man this is so fucking long i'm so sorry. not sorry for talking shit though!! #tbc i don't fault anyone for still using it... like if they were still paying me like $500/mo just to copy and paste #over something i was already writing for patreon and then not bother promoting it most of the time... i would still be there & mad about it #kindle vella #vella #kv #self publishing #indie authors #serial authors

[jpivblog]

7, 9, & 20? For the weirdly specific artists ask game :3

(weirdly specific artist ask game)

this is a long one because I rambled about filenames for a long time. so it's gettin the readmore treatment.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate 9. What are your file name conventions 20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

I think oils are cool, but I've never used them. long dry times so you can work on and blend areas for longer, but then having to wait for it to dry over days... it forces you into doing a specific approach to get things done, which is neat cuz it affects the way things look. however I don't have the space to have wet canvases lying around and my neurotic ass would worry too much about handling generally toxic oil painting materials. and the cleanup... no thanks...

9. What are your file name conventions

i think people who keyboard smash filenames and toss them into a folder live their lives in a completely incomprehensible way. what da hell.

anyway i usually do [topic]_brief-description or something like doodles_[mm-dd-yy] if it's a collection of misc stuff. If I am drawing for a specific fandom consistently it has its own subfolder I shove everything into but I still keep the filename prefix so I can do a windows search later. its not actually that organized or helpful because I don't keep to the system that much... -_-; my tagcen stuff might be labeled TAGCEN_shelterdogrizz.clip or character-specific like basil_lessofabitch.clip. the important part is just to label it enough that I can remember what's in it with the thumbnail/filename combo.

I started putting dates on stuff more both in the filename and in the canvas cuz my window file properties was fucking up and overwriting the "date created" field so I never knew when I started drawing something. I have bad memory so this is the only way I can keep track of time.

I usually clear out my pictures folder every year or so (and then back that archive up in 3 different places)

I started doing [yyyy-mm-dd]_filename more though because I got lazy about archiving and year-first made it easier to sort. I'm sorry for doubting my coworker on this it's actually a better choice

also when I save out duplicate versions or part1/part things I use filename_A, filename_B, filename_C instead of numbering them. holdover from fighting maya all my damn life (it will automatically increment trailing numbers when you duplicate meshes and uh. it causes conflicts. so I always use letters now)

if I'm working on a big file or a long project (rarely) I save out a copy of my file to serve as a checkpoint intermittently. this way if the file I'm working on gets corrupted for whatever reason I only lose some progress instead of all my progress. you want to get used to doing this if you don't want to get used to tragedy and file loss

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

people get so dramatic about drawing mechas and armor. it is not that bad. but I also think it's fun to figure out how to approximate/simplify designs, so that probably has something to do with it.

also i spent a lot of my youth drawing red vs blue fanart so I was forced to come up with halo 2 armor design shorthand one way or another. I'm burying the lede by not bringing that up first LOL

please look at this extremely relevant and comedic post for more information

#ask game! #pivasks

[boilyerheid]

Hey! I don't mean to be rude but I've got a question to ask. Why do you use me/my interchangeably when you post as you? With your own stuff, not in fic or characters. It seems like you're either typoing or posting partly as Tozer? I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude genuinely asking.

hey!! nah no worries you're chill asking so politely! I code switch both with informal text (so like answering asks on tumblr as opposed to work emails) and also verbally, which thank fuck you can't hear.

I'm Irish/Cockney/Yorkshire/Glasgow and it's all a horrible mash verbally and I code switch a lot. like me mates tell me I'm incomprehensible when I get off the phone with me extremely cockney mum (naw you want summink you farrrkin barstarrrrd) whereas I realised recently that I give the dog commands only in mash-northern (you're a good lad aren't ye ee none ay that now) and sort-of-scottish (gonnae no be a wee shite are yeh). it's really really weird and ugly to hear and I very much hate how I talk IRL but it is what it is. I'm trying to do better about not feeling bad about how I sound.

but yeah that's why I type a little bit in dialect rather than standard UK english when it comes to just me, because I've hated meself a lot about having such a fucked up way of speaking and I'm trying not to do that anymore.

#asks #this was actually interesting to spell out so please don't feel rude about asking #nothing about me is consistent and I'm very sorry my language use isn't for clarity's sake #but I'm doing me best #<3

[darkpoisonouslove]

I'm offering you an empty salt shaker - asks 2, 5, 6, 15 (go ahead, I know you have something XD), 16, 20, 25 (about Bloom searching for her parents storyline)

Starting this again because guess who accidentally hit the key combination for undo and lost half an answered ask! This bitch right here.

I answered 2 here.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Not that I can think of. It’s usually the source material that ruins things and fandom is tasked with fixing them later.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I didn’t hate it but Bloom x Icy was incomprehensible to me. Fics helped a lot and so did other posts from here and there and I can see it now. Also, I totally couldn’t see Griffin x Codatorta but that changed, too. Though, that was less fandom and more trashcankitty12 with an ask that made me think about it a little more in-depth so it was pretty much me roping up myself into yet another ship. But ooh, I also don’t think I had considered Palladium x Avalon before fandom but, yes, indeed, it is right there in canon. And I was so puzzled over the Riven x Nabu content I was seeing but after watching seasons 3 and 4, I can totally see where this is coming from. The people are right. That is a bromance right there.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I have no idea what is popular and what isn’t (but you’re right that I have something aka A LOT) so I’ll just list my strong opinionsTM, okay? I will try not to dump on Bloom too much also because it is not a secret that I don’t like her so there is no need for me to go in too much detail.

4kids is the superior dub. That is probably the most controversial opinion I hold. But don’t worry, I’ll try to top it and up the ante. XD

I love Enchantix but it has so many flaws as a concept and even more as an execution and the thing that is really pissing me off is how obviously centered around Bloom’s arc it is. It was clearly created for the advancement of her character and the other girls’ stories came as an afterthought which is why Tecna’s Enchantix was total bullshit. And for having a transformation that is specifically created around Bloom, hers was bullshit as well. I think they should have let her reearn it in order for her to be able to use all of its functions like miniaturizing. Also also, at so many points it totally sounds like Bloom is not upset about the fact that Domino and all of its people were destroyed but about the fact that that means she won’t get her Enchantix. Which btw was a hasty conclusion because at the time Enchantix became a thing, she was still on a mission to find her parents which would have definitely been a way to earn her Enchantix and she had a sign that they were alive. So her angsting over not getting an Enchantix because of what happened on Domino was bad form on the writers’ part.

That spell for good decisions in 1x05 was one of the show’s lowest and most ridiculous moments. It was only included to flaunt in your face how naturally being a leader comes to Bloom because “See? See!!!!!! She can make a good decision without using magic to help her!” So can the majority of the population (note that we are talking about ONE good decision, not an unbreakable sequence of such). She ain’t all that special. Plus, Tecna was written wildly OOC there in order to boost Bloom’s stats so to speak. I’m sorry but Tecna would’ve known that three against four doesn’t give them advantage since they are freshmen and the Trix were seniors at the time. God, that scene was stupid.

Flora is the most boring character in seasons 1-3, fight me about it.

The writers totally had no idea what they were doing with the witches throughout most of season 1 which is why Griffin’s characterization in that season is so inconsistent. Also, wtf was that in 1x06? She straight up tried to kill a bunch of 15-year-old girls. Take a chill pill! I’m glad they figured out a much better balance with her later on.

Not using the fact that Cloud Tower is a living organism more was a fucking wasted opportunity. Especially in season 3 when Valtor took over it. That could have made everything so much better. Also, the witches should have been used more. They were interesting but deserved so much better in terms of development.

Sky should have just fucking died in 2x10. What were these resurrections and Bloom getting healing powers out of nowhere for a total of 5 seconds? You know, that could have been a good setup for a Bloom x Diaspro romance. It would have been so much better if they’d gotten together right after 1x17 and dumped Sky’s sorry ass. Also, Diaspro deserved better.

Riven is the best Specialist but he is especially better than Sky. Remember 1x22 when he was trying to escape CT? He was trapped deep in enemy territory with monsters everywhere and so high above the ground, yet he found his way out. Sky would’ve fucking died out in the open at Magix against one single monster if Bloom hadn’t shown up to rescue him. And the show has the gall to imply that Sky is a better Specialist than Riven is? Please!

The teachers should be fined and sued for emotional and physical damage they haven’t protected their students from. Especially the Alfea teachers who in 1x02 practically admitted that the witches might maim a fairy and they still won’t do shit about it. Nice one!

Griffin and Valtor is canonical subtext and I have nothing more to say about this. It is all there.

Valtor up until 3x18 and Valtor from 3x19 to 3x26 are two different people and the prior is superior in every way. The show ruined him in the last third of the season because there was no other way for Winx to defeat him.

Speaking about Valtor, his whole thing with the Trix is despicable and I hate it so much. It is extremely cringy on their part and extremely underhanded on his and I can’t stand it. Not to mention that it is wildly OOC for the Trix because they are obviously better than that.

I cannot understand saying that Bloom x Valtor is love-hate. I see only hate.

It is ridiculous how easily the Trix beat Griffin in season 6 and how they nearly take control over CT in season 2. And it is also ridiculous that she had to wait for Winx to unspell CT in season 3. She is a teacher, the headmistress of the most prestigious school for witches, a veteran and has been Valtor’s partner (and he himself admitted that together they were unstoppable which means that she has to be pretty powerful and even somewhere close to his level of power). Can the show stop acting like she is defenseless?

The teachers should have been used more. It would’ve been so much better if they were there to at least help Winx if not lead their battles. And it would have made much more sense. Also, how come Ediltrude and Zarathustra literally disappear when it’s convenient and then reappear again (like they did in season 1 when the witches went to Alfea)? That’s just bad writing.

Sky is adopted. He doesn’t resemble Erendor or Samara neither in appearance, nor in character and I hate them enough to headcanon that he was adopted but nobody knows because they don’t want to have claims that he is not an “official” heir of the throne because he isn’t part of the bloodline.

Mike and Vanessa are much more parents to Bloom than Marion and Oritel are, especially when the latter were first released from Obsidian, and the fact that Bloom starts calling them Mike and Vanessa instead of mom and dad after she learns she has other parents is abysmal. Also, they are literally the best parents ever and I love them to death. (I also like Marion and Oritel but Mike and Vanessa are definitely the superior pair of parents if we’re ranking them. I like the idea that the two couples are actually super close and love each other like relatives, in fact.)

What the fuck is up with the magic in this show? There is literally, like, NO FUCKING CONSISTENCY WHATSOEVER! You can’t blink without the rules of it changing in some way. But what am I saying? That would imply that there are any rules which is just not true. Also, there is no clear distinction of how powerful anyone is after season 1. The balance of powers especially between Winx and the Trix is pretty much whatever works for the episode. Same for Winx vs Valtor. The fuckery on that account is unreal. Plus, some of Bloom’s major power explosions happen due to her getting angry. According to the official Wiki - “While practicing or harnessing positive magic, one must keep a compassionate heart, primarily by keeping their thoughts and feelings clear of all negativity, making them capable of attracting positive energy more easily. Thus, if one is plagued with negative thoughts or feelings such as sadness, anger or fear, then their magic will grow   weaker until they may even be left incapable of casting magic until said feelings pass.“ Read that and then read it again, let it sink in. According to the rules of the Winx universe, during some of Bloom’s most powerful moments she was actually using dark magic, not light such because it was fueled by rage. Way to keep it fucking consistent. And that is not just Bloom! FLORA out of all people attacks the Trix in rage in 3x12 when they hurt her sister aka she was also using dark magic at that situation (and then you have Wizgiz scolding Mirta for it in SotLK like it is a sin to use dark magic, smh). In some instances I would argue that it was more of determination to protect rather than anger which I would say would still result in light magic. But The Flora thing, Bloom vs Stormy in 1x09 (Bloom even says she got so angry so that was not a case of protectiveness), Bloom vs Icy in 1x26 and Bloom vs Valtor in 3x14 were definitely rage aka dark magic. And then Bloom is all “fairies don’t have any demons”. Guess again, bitch! Also, writers, you need a dictionary to start comprehending the words you are actually writing?

Now that I think of it, the whole arc in the Resort Realm was bullshit. If it is a magic-free realm, nobody should have any magic in it, period! What is this bullshit that you can use Charmix and Gloomix there because they have higher magical energy? That absolutely doesn’t matter! If there isn’t any magic in the entire realm, having a higher amount of magic in you will not matter because you still can’t use it... because there isn’t any in the realm!!!!!! What the hell! Honestly, the writers can’t comprehend what words mean and that is not the only instance in which it shows.

Someone told me that SotLK is better than Magical Adventure and I don’t mean to offend but that is simply not true. Magical Adventure is leagues above SotLK even if it has some structural problems. Like, literally everything is better. Bloom and Sky are even likable and communicate!!!!!!!! Literally when have you ever seen a better moment for their relationship than in Magical Adventure? If it had been all like that, I would have liked them as a couple.

I think I got everything that comes to mind rn out. Might think of more at some point. I was done and then came back to rage some more because I remembered I had more material.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

I would have them make smart decisions because 99% of the shit they pull is so stupid it is unreal. I literally cannot tell how they are still alive. Oh, no wait! Plot armor. Yep, that’s it.

But if I had to pick something specific? Bring Nabu back. I sure as hell wouldn’t have killed him. That was an asshole move and I have no idea what the hell the writers were thinking when they wrote that.

And my second choice is - implement a magical system into the series because there isn’t one. Magic always works the way the writers need it to work to pull off their bullshit plot even if it contradicts everything that we’ve seen before. Please, for the love of god! Consistency is already dead; stop stabbing its corpse!!!!

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

Purest ship? Lmao, asking me this question is underhanded. XD If you mean no drama, then Flora and Helia Mike and Vanessa. But I think my actual answer would be Griffin x Faragonda because they have been through so much that we know of or we can deduce and they still stuck together. Sure, they had their ups and downs but it is obviously a love for life that has lasted through so many obstacles and keeps lasting. The reason why I can’t say the same for Mike and Vanessa is because we don’t really know that much about their relationship with each other. But anyway I love both these ships so much.

If you’re talking about a canon ship, though, then Brandon and Stella (I do not recognize the stupid relationship drama in season 4 as canon). He did lie to her about his identity in season 1 but it was for his friendship with Sky (alternatively, for his job and duty as Sky’s squire). I just love how obviously in love Brandon is with Stella and how much Stella doesn’t care about anything but him. She didn’t care that he was a “commoner” and - one of my fave moments - in 1x08 she only cared about his well-being rather than the competition. It was adorable and they are adorable and I love them so much. Pure serotonin, right there!

25. How would you end the Bloom searching for her parents storyline/Would you change the ending?

I would certainly change the logistics of the whole thing because, boy, did it make no sense at all. As for the actual ending, I’d argue that physically finding them is not the end of that storyline and she needs to “find” them emotionally as well which would definitely take more time than SotLK cared to address. Like, she got them out of Obsidian and boom, everything’s fine! She literally doesn’t know them! Those are her parents and she doesn’t know anything about them! Their touch and their voices are unfamiliar to her even and they have missed on so much that they will never be able to get back and you’re saying that everything is fine? Yeah, right.

I would have had her spend a year on Domino with them before season 4. The school year that started in SotLK? She spends that with them. Possibly even the one that starts in Magical Adventure as well. She learns everything she can about them and the family history. She also learns how to be a proper royal because she is the Crown Princess now and she has no idea what the fuck she is doing. I would have made seasons 4 and possibly 5 about that and added more politics in it. Layla and Stella are also princesses who will run their kingdoms one day so we could have had adventures in political relations with Winx Club. They are pretty famous so I am sure there would be rulers of other lands that see them as threats and don’t like them. There could have been tension about that and the whole thing with Domino being the planet of the Dragon Fire could have been addressed. Who would dare oppose them when they are the most powerful force? Are they the most powerful force after the 17 years the planet spent as an ice block? Are there old alliances to be reforged? What is the political climate in the Magic Dimension? All absolutely fascinating questions that would have helped the worldbuilding and made place for Marion and Oritel in Bloom’s life and in the show. We could’ve gone back to the feel of season 1 when they also had other things going on besides the big baddie of the season and it could have been a little more episodical with a loose theme to connect the season and the overarching story of Bloom finding her parents and her place in the world she was born in. That could have been positively epic... And a great way to retain the cast because the Company of Light were allegedly friends so we could have seen Marion and Oritel reconnecting with Griffin, Faragonda, Saladin and Hagen. There could have been resurfacing debates left over from the war. Kingdoms angry at Domino for something that happened back then in order to include flashbacks with the events. AND that would work out with the fact that the Ancestral Witches were still around and could have led to another epic battle that wouldn’t end with the destruction of a whole planet. Like I said, there were amazing possibilities... and they were all wasted.

Well, this was long... and just what I needed. I hope some (civilized) discussion will spark out of that because I am tired of screaming in a void and I want people to talk to me.

#winx club #anti bloom #anti sky #too many opinions to tag #meta #winx club meta #ask #her-majesty-wears-jeans #winx griffin

[depressedtransguy]

don't read this unless you're @thedragonemperess or I will come to your house and shave your teeth with a razor

@angelwiththeblue-box you can also read

10/07/21

Stephen took me to the carnival for our two year anniversary yesterday night. It was... phenomenal. Normally I don't like going out so publicly on our dates, especially in something as popular as a carnival, but it might be my favorite date of ours so far. He picked me up in his dad's Lamborghini at around 7:30, just as the sun was beginning to sink below the tree line of this stupid little town, and kissed me up against the car as soon as he got his hands on me. The start of his beard pricked me lightly as we did. Then he squeezed my hand lightly and told me he had a surprise that he hoped I liked. I told him if it was from him then I'd adore it. We shared another kiss through giggles before we slipped into the car and began to drive off. Our hands were intertwined on the center console the whole time. He always told me that it was hard to keep his hands off me with me in range and my consent. God... I love him more than anything. But, anyway, the carnival. As we neared, his thumb slid over mine and he told me to close my eyes, which I properly did. He's the only one I trust enough to do that with. I could tell he was excited and a little anxious just from the way he kept squeezing my fingers. It was adorable. Even cuter when we stopped and he temporarily let go as we stopped, only to move to my side of the car and slowly lead me out onto the gravel of the parking lot, practically buzzing with anticipation. I didn't even care what it was at that point, whatever made Stephen this thrilled to show him had to be good. Then he told me to open my eyes. And Jesus Christ I think I audibly gasped. I didn't know what I was really expecting, but when the bright lights spread all throughout the fairgrounds, exploding the navy sky with color, I could swear I was in another realm. As Stephen asked me if I liked it, I noticed his eyes were nervous, so with sparkling eyes I pulled him close and told him I loved it. The smile on his face was worth everything and more. He actually told me the same thing about mine. That was before he took my hand once more and led me past the ticket taker, pulling them out of his jeans and handing them off, us receiving a smile from her as we continued walking out onto the grass. "I know it's not traditional, but when I passed this place the other day I suddenly wanted to take you here," is what he said. "We can leave any time you want." "As long as you're here, I don't care where the date is," is what I said back. And boy was I right. It didn't matter that there were a ton of other people there, they all faded into nothing but background characters as Stephen miraculously won the balloon pop game and happily gifted me a little goat stuffed animal, one that I held close to my heart as I beamed at him. As I pressed my body close to him on the roller coaster, my fingers digging tightly into his bicep, and he held me steady as I stumbled onto the platform post ride. As the ferris wheel stuttered to a stop as we sat at the top, Stephen's hand on my thigh and my hand on his shoulder, and we kissed there, surrounded by nothing but the lights and the infinite abyss of stars. Once the night was over we had slow, sappy sex in his car, too filled with adoration and the need of skin against skin for us to drive back to one of our houses. I lazily drew shapes in the mist on the windows as I was brought back to my place, my mind filled with a soft bliss, and my body feeling like I had been washed over. I had never felt more at peace. And I still did, even as we had our long goodbye kiss and I went to sleep alone, the goat pressed against my chest. I was at peace. So how the hell did I end up here?

A tear slipped off of Loki's cheek and splattered onto his messy handwriting, bleeding the words together and making the many sections of his diary incomprehensible. It made him want to cry harder. That night could very well be all he and Stephen had together, and he was destroying the only stable record of it. Loki tilted back his head and squeezed his fists as tightly as possible.

On 10/07/21, at approximately 11:27, while driving from Loki's house to his, a speeding car struck Stephen's from behind and sent him spinning out of control off a cliff and forcing him to end up upside down near the river below. The person who caused the accident is yet to be found. And Stephen had been in surgery for 17 hours by the time Loki arrived at the hospital after school, right after he had gotten the news. He was still unconscious by then and practically looked like he had been forced through a meat grinder. Loki couldn't even glance up at him anymore, it made his heart twist into knots and make him want to throw up and sob. Not because he looked disgusting, although he certainly didn't look great, it was solely because of how his state reminded him of how hurt his boyfriend was. Loki couldn't imagine how much pain he was in. The cuts and scrapes on his face, the bruises on his arms, and the absolute wreck that his hands appeared to be, it all made him want to tear the skin off his bones. It hurt so much.

With a loud curse Loki snapped his notebook shut and pressed his face into it, doing his best to clear his mind instead of thinking all that he and Stephen had had together. The late nights of 'studying', the private dates, the stolen kisses at school... it had all slipped through their fingers because of one fucking idiot on the road.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe, despite it being a school night, Loki should have insisted on Stephen staying the night with him. None of this would have happened if he had done that. Of course it's my fault.

Although they were trembling badly and the fact that he was still on the verge of tears, Loki slowly opened his fists to check up on the mess of blood that was beginning to pool up under the curve of his claws, smeared across his pale skin and nails. As he heard the door open, Loki closed them tightly once again with only a tiny hiss of pain. It was the doctor.

"Please tell me he's going to be okay," Loki whispered after a few seconds of nothing but tentious silence between him and the doctor, the concerned expression that she had exhibited when she entered and noticed him already making his stomach churn. "I don't care if it's not the truth, please just tell me he's going to be okay."

She-Dr. Palmer, as it read on her name tag-sighed gently and walked over to the young man, placing a hand on his shoulder as she sat down next to him. He didn't consider that a good sign. "I'm not going to lie to you hon. But let me ask first. How are you connected to Stephen?"

"He's-*hic*-he's my boyfriend."

"Alright honey. I'll give you the bad news first. His hands have suffered an extreme amount of nerve damage to his hands, and the surgeries so far have done nothing to correct them. It's looking like his hands are irrefutably damaged. He's never going to be able to use them normally again. But that's only if he comes out of the coma, which he only has a 50% chance of," Dr. Palmer explained as gently as was possible as it was to tell a teenager how badly his partner was injured.

It was like Loki's already broken heart shattered. The previous night could very well have been their last time together. And sure, it was perfect, but was he satisfied with never being with Stephen again? "What?" Loki choked out.

"I am so sorry. I truly am, but there is some good news. The probability of his awakening has only been getting higher, so that 50% chance of him not coming out of the coma could very easily become zero percent in no time. And you can help with that too."

For the first time since the school day did Loki look hopeful. "I can? How?"

"Talk to him. Despite his state, he can hear you in there. Talk about your time together, the past- I know it might hurt you, and please don't push yourself out of your comfort zone, but do what you can. Okay?"

With a bit of hesitation Loki slowly nodded, once again removing his nails from his palms. "Okay. I can do that," he told her.

Dr. Palmer gave him a small smile and gently patted him on the back before she stood up again, quickly checking Stephen's vitals, and then left to most likely check on another patient. Loki then took advantage of the silence and pushed his chair over to Stephen's bedside, ignoring the blood smearing on the chair's armrests as he did so. He still stared down at his lap once he was close, fearing breaking down in tears for what seemed like the hundredth time, but he did have the courage to lift up one of his own hands and rest it on his bicep. "Hey." An immediate voice crack wasn't a great start. Not that he knew any other way to begin. Any thoughts of their past two years together made Loki want to sob, now especially since he knew that he could very possibly never make any new ones with him. But he couldn't just stay silent. He had to say something, anything to make his guilt of not making Stephen stay the night with him lessen just a little bit. And according to the doctor, talking about their happy memories together could actually help. Hopefully. But it was nonetheless better than crying his eyes out for no reason. "Remember how we started dating?" Loki paused as if he was asking for an answer. "We were sophomores. You were in my chemistry class, and I always thought you were really cute, but I was too scared to talk to you and you were too nervous to, so we passed nothing but awkward glances and sarcastic comments for months on end. Until we got paired up for a project and you asked for my number. I gave it enthusiastically of course. From there we started talking and flirting a bit, although still too anxious to actually make a move, until you grabbed me when we were in the library and pushed me up against the back wall and asked to kiss me. You can guess what my response was." He chuckled dryly. "I might be able to say that I was already in love with you when you pulled back for air and gave me that little gorgeous smirk of yours, pulled my hips to yours, and whispered 'can I do it again?'. I was putty in your hands in the Greek philosophy section."

Loki quickly fell silent at the mention of his hands. With a small swallow, he managed to continue with a low voice. "When we were science class partners, you would tell me about how much you wanted to become a doctor. A neurosurgeon to be specific. I didn't exactly know why yet, you told me that a few months into our romantic relationship, but I eagerly listened about your plans for Columbia nonetheless. Not that-" he was crying again, "-not that that'll be possible now." Loki cleared his throat and tried to wipe his tears away with his trembling hands. "Even if you wake up." The student began to gently stroke his boyfriend's bandaged bicep while still staring at his lap, watching water splash onto where the excess of his oversized hoodie was rolled up and darkened the gray fabric.

It was Stephen's hoodie.

Using his feet, Loki slowly began to push his chair back until he eventually hit the wall, bunching his hands up in the hoodie's collar and raising it up to his nose, inhaling the signature cologne that he had fallen in love with over the last two years. The hood was soon flipped over his head and his knees were brought up to his chest, curling himself into the fetal position, and then finally letting all his tears out into the secure housing of Stephen's smell. That's where he had always been safe, and no matter either of their states, it still worked. Loki actually fell asleep like that after half an hour or so.

Stephen's parents found him in the morning and called Loki's family, and Thor ended up carrying him back home.

But as soon as he woke up he went back to the hospital. He wasn't missing the possibility of Stephen waking up.

10/31/21

I've still been going to school. Because my parents want me to. But I'm not doing well. My grades are beginning to sink from it, and the teachers don't care. I can't focus in class, I'm just thinking about if Stephen's going to wake up or not. What if he's waking up alone while I'm in Calculus? What if he flatlines when I'm in history? There's just too many probabilities. I don't give a shit about my grades, I just want Stephen back. I know that's such a stupid little kid thing to say since we are high schoolers, but it's been two years! And he's shown me so much love and care in that time that I don't know what I'd do without him. Not that anyone else seems to care. This is why I want Stephen back, he's the only friend I have left. In real life friend I mean. And I don't say that like I'm attached to his hip all the time, we have our own private time that I respect, but they all moved away. Why am I defending myself to a notebook? God this hospital is making me crazy. Stephen looks better, which I'm really glad about. Dr. Palmer tells me I've helped a lot by staying and talking to him, he should most likely wake up soon, but she did tell me that I can go home soon instead of only leaving for school and for showering. But I'm not doing that. At least not until he wakes up. If- WHEN he wakes up, I bet I'll get a lecture for not taking care of myself well enough just for him, so I'll probably be forced to go home more. God, I want him to lecture me. Just to hear his voice again. It's been over three weeks. I don't think I've worn anything besides underwear that isn't his. Jeans, sweatpants, shirts, hoodies, everything. It's the least I can do to replace the feeling of him being with me. At this time, I can't help but think of our Halloween's together. The first one we weren't even a month into dating, so we just bought a bunch of candy and ate candy at home while watching horror movies. But the next year, after a full 12 months of being in love, we dressed up as Gomez and Morticia Addams. Stephen looked unfairly hot in that striped suit with his hair slicked back and a teasing smile on his face. That was some good sex we had later on. Stephen said he had a thing for the dress I had on, as well as the red lipstick, which I believe since his hands barely left my hips the entire time I had it on. He also grinned from ear to ear when he saw the lipstick kiss marks I put on his collar. I love him. God I do. Please... I need him back.

Loki closed the notebook after his last few words of desperation and slipped his pencil behind his ear, raising his head up to look at Stephen with glassy eyes. He looked peaceful. By then all his scrapes and cuts were mostly healed, which made him look way better, but his hands were still pinned up in suspended holds with ragged scars lining his rough skin. More surgeries had been done on them, and Dr. Palmer once again said that he would be permanently disabled when he woke. Once again it hurt Loki's heart to think about how much pain that he must be in. The swollen scars didn't look like they felt nice. "I'm so sorry," Loki whispered as he reached up to his face and gently brushed his overgrown hair out of his face, still feeling guilty about the incident. "If I just made you stay you would still be here with me." Moving around the bed's guard rail, Loki sat on the edge of the mattress and sunk his fingers into his thick hair once more, gently toying with it as he began to talk again. "Remember junior prom? It was on February 26th; on the same night as the public prom that the school had put together. (We wanted to be alone.) You put on this navy blue suit of yours that perfectly brings out your eyes, and I bought this short green dress that made you grab my ass as soon as I came out of the house. You gave me an Agapanthus corsage that you had made yourself. And then, you kissed me, and told me that the flower meant 'never-fading love'. Like ours." A tear fell down Loki's cheek and plopped down onto Stephen's bare bicep. "I don't exactly know where me telling this story was going, my mind is a bit fuzzy and has been for weeks, hospitals being bad places to sleep plus depression isn't really an equation for good sleep, so I'll just say this. I'm not going anywhere until you return. And when you do, I'm not leaving either. Your recovery, physical therapy, going back to school, I'm going to be by your side. Okay?" Loki gently kissed Stephen's forehead and continued to stroke his hair, his other hand resting on the crook of his elbow and gently stroking his skin as if he was soothing him. "So please wake up."

With one last small peck Loki reluctantly slipped off the bed to enter the hospital bathroom, quickly using the bathroom before rubbing the sink water on his face as if that would wake him up from the haze that he had been living in, just moving from the hospital to school to the hospital to school and so on so forth. It was just a cycle of being depressed and near and being depressed and far. Fun.

Just deciding to repress his emotions for the billionth time that month, Loki shoves it down and goes back out into the main room, taking a book of Hamlet out of his bag to pass the time before he uncomfortably fell asleep in the chair. Most likely in just an hour or two since it was almost midnight. Every time he knocked unconscious in the overly small hospital chair with no support whatsoever, in front of the bed that Stephen laid in, Loki missed their cuddling more and more. Stephen's arms around him and his nose buried in the back of his neck was always the highlight of Loki's day/night. And it had been weeks since he was actually held. And by god did he need it.

But these thoughts quickly made him feel selfish. The thought that he was whining about not being held or not having his boyfriend confirmed as okay while Stephen had been struck disabled and in a coma sickened him to his core. More and more guilt stacked on top of his chest until he felt like he couldn't breathe, forced to snap his book shut and slam it on the floor. Why did everything have to hurt so much even though he didn't have a scar on him to show as evidence of his pain? It just made him feel so fake.

Loki sunk down into his seat and covered his once again teary eyes with his palms, bouncing his leg against the floor and digging his nails into his bare forehead, letting everything crash over him like a third wave tsunami. Not as extreme as the first, but it just made the present damage worse. Stop it. Stop it. STOP it. STOP IT. Loki was three seconds away from screaming out all the pain in his heart. But then he heard a groan that didn't belong to him echo in the otherwise empty room.

His palms flew to his thighs and he looked up at Stephen.

And his eyes were open!

With a gasp Loki jumped up from his chair and cupped his boyfriend's face, trying not to get too close to shock him, but just needing to hold him and let him see him. "Stephen, you're up!"

"Dewdrop... what happened?"

The student wanted to cry. He could speak. His voice was a bit strained, clearly tired and weary from lack of use, but it was there and that was all that counted. But besides that, the question couldn't be ignored. "You were in a crash baby, right after you left my house. Someone tail-boned you and you skidded off a cliff. Darling... it's Halloween."

"What?!"

Maybe he could have put it better. But Loki didn't really know how to explain it in any other way. "It's okay, darling, it's okay. Please, just focus on me for a second. Could you do that? Not the pain, not the fact that it's three and a half weeks later than you can remember, please look at my eyes and focus on me," he instructed as best he could, gently stroking his cheekbones with his thumbs and praying that he didn't glance down at his hands that he most likely could barely feel. He wanted to break that to him gently.

"I can do that."

"Alright, good. So yes, you were in a car crash and have been in a coma for about 25 days. Most of your scrapes, cuts, and bruises, have thankfully been healed. But your hands... they were crushed on impact.

#i hope you like it #to delete later #i am totally not hella nervous #lower your expections #now #do it

[sofhtie]

all i want from life is a second season of fantasy high where aelwyn gets out of jail, and moves back to elmville to (begrudgingly) reunite with adaine where they end up bonding over spell work and their shared trauma and become actual sisters instead of rivals who have the same parents (and maybe elianwyn joins them after she leaves her bastard husband)

FINALLY someone who GETS IT

anon i’m so sorry about how long this took me to answer but i just have a lot of feelings about her and am bad at expressing them consisely! anyways im now using this ask to rant about aelwyn and give my Thoughts on her so…. thats under the cut

so first of all. she’s seventeen (at most!!!) which is crazy to me bc like. i’m seventeen so i feel very qualified to say that seventeen-year-olds are just tiny balls of stress who have no clue what they’re doing. even tho her crazy shenanigans are fun for like, entertainment purposes on the show they’re actually extremely worrying if you take them seriously (which i, being an overthinker, of course, do). like, she shouldn’t be secretly partying and trying to get as messed up as possible and joining up with an evil dragon, she should just be. enjoying her life and hanging out with friends and maybe worrying about fantasy college. but she doesn’t get to do any of that! 

it seems to me that most of what aelwyn is trying to get throughout the season is some kind of attention and validation. her parents like her more than adaine, sure, but they still treat her more like a trophy to show off than a real person. she doesn’t have any friends at school. so instead she goes to parties hosted by people she doesn’t even like and summons them elementals to hook up with just so she’ll keep getting invited back. 

i think what is most heartbreaking to me is how isolated she is–her parents have raised her to believe that to have any value at all she needs to constantly be proving herself to superior to others which. needless to say is an absolutely terrible midset. personally i believe that her lack of empathy towards others is a pretty direct result of this, because the only way to really keep this up long term is to earnestly believe that others are lesser to you. like, spend enough time with parents (and likely other adult figures that she gets praise from) telling you you are exceptional, and you’ll start to believe it. 

but as a result of all of this, there is legitimately no one in her life who is soft and gentle and caring towards her. i doubt anyone’s ever told her that she matters to them. vulnerability, tenderness, simply isn’t a thing in her life. and that can fuck up a young person so much. 

that being said, i’d bet she also deals with something a lot of kids who were designated as “the smart one” when they were young deal with: never learning how to cope with any type of failure or struggle. messing up? it’s just not an option for her. both because she never learned how to do that without hating herself, and because even if she did, her parent’s affection is so blatantly conditional that she’s probably terrified of losing it in an instant. ultimately, it seems most of who she is in her life has been built specifically to please them, so i’m sure that would seriously hurt her. 

so i wonder if maybe, when kalvaxis asked her for help, she agreed because to her it felt like finally, someone truly appreciated her powers. someone admired what she could do, and in a weird, twisted way, it made her feel wanted. even if just as a part of a team, even if just as a minion. it’s something. 

anyways to conclude i just. i have a lot of feelings about this girl and what she’s been through and what she’s become. to be willing to become a part of a plot to basically destroy the world as you know it, you can’t think that world has much to offer you.

i really hope that someday she’s able to get away from her shitty parents and realize how toxic of an influence they’ve been on her, and how unhealthy all her behavior was. she can apologize to adaine and together they can finally develop a healthy relationship and just. have fun. be sisters. and aelwyn can become an adventurer or maybe take up some form of art or maybe just be a counselor a la jawbone but. most of all she can be happy

sorry if this is incomprehensible i just have a lot of feelings and have given up on making some version of this post that makes any real sense and isn’t just me crying

#fantasy high #aelwyn abernant #dimension 20 #aelwen abernant

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?

==>

yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

:C

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

:C

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff  :D

Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

D:

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #Upd8 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #BlastYoBoots

[marshmallowgoop]

(Part 1 of 2) Controversial? Oh, no. I forgot tone is hard to discern on the Internet. I wasn't angry, just puzzled. I think I thought this way because my admiration of Satsuki's character (after the reveal of her noble motives) made me gloss over the finer details of her cruel, villainous behavior. Furthermore, her smile here seems related to how she seemed happy to have tea with him later in the episode, a reversal of how cold and distant she was earlier.

(Part 2 of 2) As for “pain”, who knows if the process was super painful? Iori could have used anesthesia. Still, it’s very disturbing for just how extreme it was. You relating it to your fanfic moment was a good choice to illustrate this point.

Anonymous asks: Honestly, the Uzu thing seems to be a deeply polarizing thing! I’ve never read it as Satsuki forcing Uzu to blind himself implicitly or explicitly through her influence. From him meeting her, her lunge with the teacup handle, she was assessing him and his response disappointed her given that she didn’t come to watch. And he understood what she had seen in him that night and his overreliance on his uniform’s abilities led him to blind himself for the sake of the plan. I argue for his agency in this instance and for Satsuki’s reaction to be a complex one that included a pleased sort of surprise at the forthrightness, ingenuity, resolve in his rededication to the cause he displayed. Even when I believed she was a villain this is how I read it, especially considering that this is one of our first glimpses into the incomprehensibility of the cast but also that her quiet affection for those closest to her. Her reaction isn’t perfect yes but arguably she’s emotionally fucked up as well.

I’m enjoying this discussion by the way. I hope it comes across that I’m not looking for an argument!

I should note that I didn’t mean “controversial” in a bad way!

I was just surprised, is all. My first post discussing the Uzu incident is probably one of my more popular essays, and I hadn’t received any disagreement for my argument before. So, to see multiple comments understanding the scene differently now was just not something I was expecting. 

I mean, I have plenty of Kill la Kill opinions that I know are controversial, and I’ve even noted in the past that I could respond to most anything said about the series with an image that reads, “I’ve written—or can link to—lengthy rebuttals” because I recognize that a lot of my thoughts on the show really aren’t widely held. I just didn’t realize that my Uzu statement was one of those thoughts!

But I don’t at all mind disagreement! In fact, I’m often kinda sad that I don’t see folks disagreeing with me much. I enjoy listening to what others have to say about things I like.

I do apologize if I came off as snappy in my response, though. It doesn’t excuse coming off as angry if I did, but it really wasn’t my intention to sound mad; I’m just very passionate ^^; I’ll work to be better on that front.

Now, I do have a few more things to add here, and warning, it’ll get pretty personal. But, basically, I think the whole situation is a lot more complicated than I’ve probably expressed in my short posts.

So. I kind of relate to Uzu, in a way. Yeah, I’m not at all a delinquent like he is, but I totally get feeling like you’re not good enough for your family and are kind of a disgrace to them. While my family might not have a konnyaku shop for me to shame, they do have a history (on both sides!) of smart, educated people that I can dishonor by not being particularly intelligent—and I’ve felt over and over that I’ve done just that. Sure, I got a college degree, but that’s really expected here; after all, my grandfather earned a Master’s (and considering he was a black man doing so in my country decades and decades ago, I can only imagine how difficult that was), and my parents both graduated with degrees in engineering.

Growing up, I felt constantly pressured to be smart, and much like Uzu, I felt constantly compared to an older sibling. My mother even stated explicitly at a parent-teacher conference, right in front of me, that she thought I wasn’t as smart as my older sister. So, I put it upon myself to be smart. I took all these difficult honors classes in high school to look smart.

But at the end of the day? Those classes were too much for me. I was a miserable wreck. I really hurt myself.

Just like Uzu did.

So, here’s the point of this overly long anecdote. Satsuki and the other Elites, as well as Shiro, are another family for Uzu. And like many families, such as Uzu’s very own blood family, there’s pressure placed upon its members. I don’t deny that Uzu definitely made a choice to sew his eyes shut because he absolutely did, just as I definitely made a choice to sign up for classes that would be the cause of horrible emotional suffering in high school. Satsuki didn’t beat Uzu over the head to go and do something that drastic to get stronger, just as my parents didn’t force me to register for the hardest classes possible. We’re all responsible for our own actions, as Ryuko would say, and I dislike putting blame solely on someone else for decisions we made of our own free will.

Plus, there are a lot more factors at play, too. There are so many more reasons that Uzu would want to be strong than to please Satsuki and the others, just as there was a lot more influencing my desire to be smart than my family.

But I think it’s undeniable that family is extremely significant. Would Uzu have been so driven to do what he did, had he not been following a leader who absolutely does not tolerate failure? Who calls him “pathetic” and insults him even when Soroi is the only one watching—and even when his self-confidence has already been bruised and his image marred?

Satsuki: I’ve no time for losers, Sanageyama.

Satsuki: Pathetic.

In another situation, Ira nearly killed himself when he lost to Ryuko and Senketsu in episode 9. That’s partly just how Gama is, but Satsuki’s leadership is most certainly encouraging that sort of behavior. Just look at how awful the scene I posted above is! If losing brings you that, I mean….

In any case, I argued in my other posts that Satsuki drove Uzu to sew his eyes shut, and that’s exactly what I’m getting at here. No, Satsuki didn’t make Uzu do anything, but just like how my childhood environment of a mother who frequently reminded me of how similar I was to a sister of hers who didn’t have the family smarts (and whom she considered to be about as intelligent as a bag of bricks) drove me to overly challenge myself in high school, Satsuki’s regime undoubtedly drove Uzu to be as strong as he possibly could be—no matter the costs.

But unlike my situation, I feel that Uzu’s was manipulative. My parents didn’t just say nothing as I threw myself into something I couldn’t handle. They actively told me not to take those difficult classes. But Satsuki? She knew Uzu was 100% going to lose, and she lets him go make a total fool of himself anyway. Compare this to Ryuko and Senketsu in episode 3, where Senketsu is still a pretty robotic, unemotional baby, but he still tells Ryuko straight out, “Hey, we’re probably not gonna win this thing.” He lets her know exactly what she’s getting into.

Senketsu: Ryuko, I feel I should warn you. Your opponent is more powerful than you are.

Satsuki doesn’t let Uzu know exactly what he’s getting into, though. And that’s because she doesn’t really want to. When Uzu loses, she’s well aware that he’ll do whatever he can to to be worthy of fighting in her war again. And that’s exactly what Satsuki wants: good, useful tools for her battle.

Now, of course, Uzu, like Ryuko in episode 3 and like myself, probably would have just done whatever he wanted no matter what anyone else had to say about it. I bet he totally would have challenged Ryuko to a duel without Satsuki’s blessing. But I think there’s definitely a level of manipulation here that’s not present in Ryuko’s situation or mine, and Satsuki even admits to using such tactics later. She purposely led Ryuko to believe that she killed Ryuko’s father in order to push Ryuko to be stronger, and, in the same way, she purposely allows Uzu to fight a doomed fight to push him to be stronger. It’s… kind of cold.

And while I’m here with the Ryuko and Senketsu comparisons, there’s actually something quite interesting about the placement of the Satsuki-sees-that-Uzu-sewed-his-eyes-shut scene. As it turns out, the moment plays directly after Ryuko irons Senketsu in an interaction so sweet that this adorable music box variation of “Before my body is dry” serves as the background music (starting at around 1:08 here).

And… the two scenes are actually kind of similar?

In both cases, a character had inflicted pain on themselves to be stronger. Senketsu let himself be torn up so that he and Ryuko could win against Uzu, and Uzu sewed his eyes shut so that he wouldn’t be overreliant on his sight in battle. 

But Ryuko and Satsuki have wildly different reactions to their friends getting hurt. Just compare Ryuko’s troubled expression and “sorry about that” to Satsuki’s smile:

When Ryuko realizes that her method was a painful experience for Senketsu, she’s hurt and regretful, and she later apologizes to Senketsu before attempting the tactic again.

Ryuko: Sorry about this, Senketsu.

In contrast, when Satsuki realizes the drastic decision Uzu made to be stronger, she’s impressed and pleased and doesn’t seem at all concerned with how painful—both physically and emotionally!—the procedure had to be for him. 

The fact that these two similar scenes are presented one after another only serves to highlight the coldness and cruelty of Satsuki’s rule. She’s not at all behaving as a friend would with Uzu, as Ryuko does with Senketsu. And while the pain both boys endured was arguably very much worth it—after all, Senketsu even states directly that he wouldn’t have been able to enjoy that moment with Ryuko if he didn’t get hurt, and Uzu becomes leagues more powerful and learns an important lesson in humility for his actions—Ryuko is notably affected by the costs of their good outcome in a way that Satsuki really, really isn’t with Uzu.

So. This all got super out of hand for what I was (seriously!) intending to be a short response, but the gist is that, personally, I find Satsuki’s actions in the episode to be… not the nicest. I’m not saying that her reaction is outlandish given her situation—it’s really, really not—and I’m not even saying that Satsuki doesn’t care about Uzu. She does! Heck, Uzu himself seems to recognize as much in the episode when he points out that Satsuki had to be holding back when she attacked him (which implies that she doesn’t truly want to hurt him).

Uzu: I assume you were holding back.

I am making some assumptions in my analysis; I do believe that the sewing had to be physically painful, and I also feel it’s emotionally painful in that Uzu is literally blinding himself and making it impossible for him to enjoy things he used to (such as drinking tea, which becomes too much for him after the procedure). But no matter how painful Uzu’s situation, it definitely is drastic and extreme, and Satsuki’s reaction to it comes off as unfitting from a friend.

Which I think is sad! Satsuki values and loves Uzu. She doesn’t want harm to come his way. And yet, she drove him—at least on some level—to sew his eyes shut. 

And all she can do is smile.

#argentdandelion #kill la kill #satsuki kiryuin #uzu sanageyama #Anonymous #replies #ramblings #spoilers #klk spoilers #injury mention #whoops this got to be a bit much huh ^^;

[rieshon]

Best of 2019

It wouldn't be a best of the year post if it wasn't hopelessly late.

10: Shinchou Yuusha ~Kono Yuusha ga Ore TUEEE Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru~ ∥ White Fox ∥ Dir. Sakoi Masayuki: The title makes this sound like it could be terrible but this series has a Konosuba-like aplomb that makes it one of the best comedies of the year. Toyosaki Aki is absolutely brilliant as the shithead damegami Listarte and the animation consistently matches her over-the-top comedic masterclass. The show even has a real ending; opinion is split but I found it surprisingly satisfying.

9: Babylon ∥ Revoroot ∥ Dir. Suzuki Kiyotaka: This is the first Strand-type anime. Babylon is incredibly hard to describe and, having only seen it once, I'm not even fully confident in saying what it's about. It is a wild ride that meditates on some serious themes and seems to come to conclusions that won't be entirely comfortable for a lot of readers. This is one you really have to experience for yourself.

8: Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari ∥ Kinema Citrus ∥ Dir. Abo Takao: The most discoursed-about series of 2019 ends up being a surprisingly mature take on the isekai tensei genre. Like the best entries in the genre it features a protagonist who is deeply flawed and Naofumi's journey to learning to trust and love again is genuinely moving. It definitely does come off a bit like an incel fantasy at first but it is ultimately way more nuanced than that could ever suggest. Also, Raphtalia is best wife.

7: Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai ∥ Gemba ∥ Dir. Mizushima Tsutomu: Tsutomu, you son of a bitch, you did it again. While Kotobuki doesn't reach the rareified air of Garupan (pun not intended) it is very much in the same vein, and offers unending joy to any nerd who loves warplanes or just aviation in general. The script from the always-excellent Yokote Michiko is tight and compelling and gives a genuinely interesting backdrop to the frenetic plane action. Kotobuki is an excellent example of the power of showing rather than telling, something anime is woefully bad at: the fact that Kotobuki's isekai setting is never really expounded on makes it that much more interesting.

6: Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu ∥ C2C ∥ Dir. Anzai Takefumi: If Katsuwo's other work to be adapted into anime, Mitsuboshi Colors, is about being a child, then Bocchi is about the fraught transition from childhood into early adulthood. The titular Hitori Bocchi will be a frighteningly relatable character (my comment for the first episode on my blog was 'We Are All Bocchi') but unlike other series clearly aimed at alienated nerds, the show never feels sorry for Bocchi and most importantly, Bocchi doesn't feel sorry for herself. The show is explicitly about the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone and although it's hard for Bocchi to do this, with the help of her friends she's able to work up the courage necessary to grow from a scared child into a functioning young adult. Also she's cute as fuck.

5: Machikado Mazoku ∥ J.C. Staff ∥ Dir. Sakurai Hiroaki: This is one of the best Kirara anime in ages. Kohara Konomi and Kitou Akari are a wonderful comedic combination, and Shamiko is probably the cutest girl of the whole year. She's pretty much the definition of the phrase "moe through helplessness" which makes her quest to be an evil demon truly hilarious. Like all the best Kirara anime, Machikado Mazoku slowly becomes a yuri anime as Momo's character develops and it becomes increasingly clear that she's just hard gay for Shamiko. I could watch these two be tsundere for each other forever.

4: Joshikousei no Mudazukai ∥ Passione ∥ Dir. Takahashi Takeo: There were a lot of excellent comedies this year and I always find them hard to review. Where Mudazukai particularly excels is the crassness of its characters: like the title suggests these aren't your typical cutesy anime JKs. They crack dirty jokes, take the piss out of each other, and feel more genuinely like friends than a lot of high school girls in anime. Akasaki Chinatsu in particular is pitch-perfect as 'Baka,'  its like she was born to be stupid. Probably the funniest show of the year, even though I have one comedy ranked above it.

3: Senkizesshou Symphogear XV ∥ Satelight ∥ Dir. Ono Katsumi: The fact that a Symphogear series could end up this high on the rankings is something like a miracle. After years of me shitting all over it for incomprehensible plotlines and disposable characters, they somehow not only fixed it in the last season, but even retroactively redeemed some of the elements from those shitty third and fourth seasons and created some of the most thrilling moments of the year in the process. It even goes as far as to reach back to the first season and address the latent themes of Japanese nationalism that have always hung over the show in resolving Tsubasa's character arc. XV delivers such a satisfying conclusion that it fully justifies the past six years spent on developing the Symphogear series in a way I never thought possible. It's a beautiful thing to behold.

2: Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen~ ∥ A-1 Pictures ∥ Dir. Hatakeyama Mamoru: The romantic comedy is probably the most prolific genre in late night anime, and Kaguya-sama stands shoulder to shoulder with the greats. Everything from the voice acting (Koga Aoi should be a superstar, and Kohara Konomi is already on her way to being a household name) to the animation to the direction to the writing is superb. Kaguya even delivers in spades in the "romantic" side of "romantic comedy" which isn't something every rabukome can say. The number of series that I can say have made me cry from laughing and from emotion is pretty small, but Kaguya is proudly among them.

1: Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo ∥ Lay-duce ∥ Dir. Andou Masahiro & Tsukada Takurou: After all these years, Okada Mari has finally delivered her magnum opus. There has perhaps never been a more frank discussion of female adolescent sexuality than Araoto, drawing heavily as it does from Okada's own lived experience as a confused and bullied teenager. These girls are fragile people who are walking a knife's edge between childhood and adulthood, and they don't always keep their balance. As someone who didn't grow up as a girl, it's not something I can intrinsically understand, but it's a testament to Okada's writing that Araoto MAKES you understand what it's like to be a teenage girl going through puberty. It's ugly, it's dangerous, it's scary, and... it's something every woman goes through. Araoto deftly tackles themes of discovering ones sexuality, homosexuality, and the pressure put on young women by a society that both sexualizes them against their will but also demands that they remain chaste and pure. It is unlike almost anything else that's ever been made in this medium, and that's why it's my anime of the year.

Honorable mentions... Like I said above, this was a strong year for comedy so some good series didn't make the cut. Ueno-san wa Bukiyou was a great showcase for Serizawa Yuu's comedic chops (which us Pripara fans have known about for years) and featured some of the most memorable gags of the year... Kemurikusa saw Tatsuki triumphantly return to television with his first full length work since Kemono Friends, and I frankly found it to be better than Kemofure; a truly enjoyable work of post-apocalyptic science fiction... Speaking of science fiction, I also feel compelled to mention Kanata no Astra, which seemed underappreciated but ended up being an extremely well-written SF series. Of course, we also have to mention Kono Yo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo YU-NO if we're talking about science fiction; I didn't particularly like YU-NO's second half that much, but it's worth watching if only to understand where so much of modern anime comes from in the first place.

The awards go to...

Best Actress: Koga Aoi as Shinomiya Kaguya, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai. I mentioned above that this girl should be a superstar, and it's frankly absurd that she hasn't gotten more leading roles considering the considerable talent she shows off as Kaguya. She's a one-woman wrecking crew in this series, with her ability to effortlessly straddle the range between "cold and detached psychopath" and "petulant 8 year old throwing a tantrum" being the lynchpin of a lot of the series fundamental humor.

(Honorable mention: Akasaki Chinatsu as "Baka," Joshikousei no Mudazukai; Yukino Satsuki as Magase Ai, Babylon)

Newcomer Seiyuu of the Year: Kohara Konomi. It's a sweep for Kaguya-sama, and the voice acting is a big part of the reason that show was so exceptional. It kind of feels like cheating to give this to someone who's already played a Precure, but Toei were just really ahead of the curve on this one. 'Koko-chan' exploded onto the scene in 2019 between her roles as Fujiwara-shoki and Shamiko in Machikado Mazoku, with a distinctive vocal style and a knack for comedic delivery. Several of the most memetic lines of the year, like Fujiwara's "Don da yo!" and Shamiko's "Kore de katta to omou nayo!" come courtesy of her, and I feel like that ability to stick in people's minds is a testament to her level of talent. Though I gave Koga the nod overall for her performance as Kaguya, it's clear that Kohara is the one the industry has earmarked for future success with the level of prominence she's had over the past year or so, so she gets this award.

(Honorable mention: Fairouz Ai. "Fai-chan" made a splash thanks to her unusual background, but she's also proven to be a talented actress after appearing from seemingly out of nowhere to play Hibiki in the Onegai Muscle anime. It's out of the scope of this post, but she really made an impression in Oshibudo as Eripiyo, but her body of work is still too thin for her to win this award outright. She's shown she has a knack for the funny with her brusque and aggressive delivery, but I'd really like to hear her as a dramatic lead sometime soon.)

#best of the year

[pilotedstreamofconsciousnes-blog]

first post, get to know each other and such

Greetings fellow consciousness! This is a conduit stretching through time and space from one mind to another, also known as writing. Although the point of origin is a bit of a mystery, (more on that later) the ending point of the transmission seems to be somewhere within the mental construct of your current state of being, whatever that is. I don’t really know anything about you as of right now. You could be reading this at any time or any place in, basically, the entire known universe. I say known, because although it seems possible that maybe you’re existing outside of the known universe in some extra-dimensional realm that I am unable to comprehend, at this point in time I am unable to comprehend of that. Incomprehensible, I know. Sorry if that causes any inconvenience on your part. But anyways, the reason I’m writing this is because I need somewhere for my thoughts to flow. To be perfectly honest, that doesn’t require a reader. Or maybe it does, since it does seem sort of impossible to write something without simultaneously reading it at the same time, unless maybe you closed your eyes, but then you’d still be “reading” it in your mind as you wrote it. For the record, I just closed my eyes while I typed some of that to test this theory, and I can confirm that I was still quite aware of the words I was stringing together even though I wasn’t able to physically see them. Also, yes, I can type with my eyes closed, no need for applause. Thank you.

So I know I said that I don’t know anything about you, but I can make some educated guesses, at least in the context of a certain not-so-long future timeframe. You’re probably what most people would consider alive, although I think I’ve heard of some people in vegetative states being able to experience sights and sounds and other senses while being completely unable to react to them in any way. Oh god, that’s actually a really claustrophobic terror inducing thought. Let’s try not to think about that right now. Wow, do you ever have those times where it’s really difficult not to think about something? Like to the point of complete distraction from what you’re doing? I’m going to take a break, brb.

Okay, now that we are, or at least I am, back on track here, I believe I was discussing things that I may be able to guess about you. In addition to being alive, you’re probably also capable of reading, assuming this text has never been transcribed into some form of audio or other sensory means of transmission, which, let’s be honest here, is probably never going to happen because why would it?

So you can read and you’re alive, I’m pretty certain about those, but here’s where I’m going to take some leaps. You’re probably bored. You probably have an internet connection. You are probably old enough to have already been through an uncountable number of different days, experiences, passing faces in your life of people who you’ll never see again. Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch because I’m sure a lot of people have sat down and calculated how many days they’ve been alive, but that’s not exactly what I’m referring to here. Sure, you can divide your age by 365 or so and get a pretty good idea of how many days you’ve been breathing (probably nearly non-stop the entire time, good job btw), but for how many of those days were you actually fully conscious? Do you ever drive somewhere and wonder how you got there because you were lost in thought or distracted by music or a phone call? Do you ever wake up not having any idea what time it was when you went to sleep? There’s a lot of points in human existence (I’m also currently under the assumption that you are human because to the extent of my knowledge there aren’t any other species or entities that are capable of reading the English language that aren’t human) where you aren’t really fully conscious of what you’re doing or experiencing. It’s like you’re on auto pilot.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I tend to think it’s really common and there’s nothing inherently bad about not paying full attention to what you’re doing or whatever, I mean sometimes you just don’t get enough sleep and can’t afford the extra energy. But what I’m getting at is that at this very moment in time, you’re pretty focused. You’re reading this, and unless you jumped around through the paragraphs, you’ve been reading it for a non-insignificant amount of time so far, and going forward with that assumption, you’re participating in the act of direct consciousness invasion, courtesy of yours truly. Direct consciousness invasion, or DCI as I just made up, is a bit of an odd experience when you think about it. It could just as easily be your brain producing these words, but as far as you know, it isn’t, it’s mine, and you’re just reading them. There are a few things involved with that which are kind of cool: Firstly, these words could go anywhere. I believe the extent of their reach is probably limited to my creativity and ability to wield them in a comprehensive way, and I would apologize for whatever I may lack on those departments, but you’re still reading so obviously this is interesting enough for you to devote your precious time and life energy on and I’m not going to say sorry for how you waste your own time reading my bullshit. Where was I again? Oh yeah, the other thing that’s weird is just how unlikely this connection between us is to ever happen in the first place. Think about it, we both had to be born, which, evolutionarily speaking, is like, a miracle in itself, and then we also had to grow up enough to comprehend language at a similar level, and then we both had to find ourselves in a situation where we had access to either produce or consume these words, not to mention the motivation to actually get this far. So congratulations to the both of us.

Another thing about this whole ordeal, is that it’s essentially just a one-sided conversation playing out in your brain. I’m not really sure about the typical inner workings of your brain, so I can’t make many assumptions there, but for me, a lot of my thoughts end up being more like a conversation between myself, and maybe that’s expressing itself here somewhat, but I haven’t reread it yet to be able to tell. (I just reread it and wasn’t paying enough attention and don’t really know what the fuck I’m talking about to be completely honest) My point is, I’m trying to be considerate of you, the reader, the receptacle for these thoughts, the endpoint of the consciousness conduit or whatever I called it earlier, because on a deep level, I really appreciate you being here and taking the time out of your life to read this, even if it’s just a bunch of inconsequential ranting from one mind to another. Hopefully I’ll be able to offer something of value to you. That is my ultimate goal, although there are a lot of significant secondary goals as well. One of which has a lot to do with the fact that you are essentially offering me your time and attention for a brief period while you read this. That may not seem like a big deal or anything to even give second thought to, but it’s extremely meaningful to me on a very personal (and I believe universal) level and I will discuss it in more detail in the next post. Hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have. Until next time, best of wishes to you.

#text #first post #oh my god what am i doing #help #i'm sorry