#I mean a little bit in the crab section

[gfdazai]

Combing his hair. ♡

Dazai is implied to have a negative mental health episode, established relationship, blah blah blah. GN reader. 750~ish words. I still don't know how to end fics.

Dazai feels broken. Useless. He still hasn't gotten out of bed, and it's 11am. He should've been at work three hours ago, yet he can't find the will to.

He's lying there, wanting to move, but he can't. He can't bother even rolling over to get a drink. The bottles from the previous night lie by his bed, some knocked over, some still standing up.

He forces himself onto his side, trying to ignore the stinging pain of his back, and the pounding, repeating pain of his headache. His groan goes quiet when he hears the front door unlock, open, and shut.

You're here... Again. He did say you could stop by whenever, but he doesn't want to see you right now. Not when he's like this — not when his apartment is like this. He wishes he could shove you out, deep clean and then let you back in.

"Doors open." He barks lazily once he hears you approaching the door. He wants to turn and get up, give you a kiss; but he can't find it in him to even roll over and face the door.

He can barely spare a blink when he hears the door creak open — he's been meaning to get you to fix that. "Osamu?" He slowly blinks, forcing his gaze away from the wall and to your form.

"Bad day?"

"Mm." He hums blankly as an answer, his eyes slowly following you as you get on the bed beside him.

"Wanna talk about it?"

He doesn't answer, feeling you move him a little. His head isn't on the pillows anymore, now on your lap. It's a bit of a distraction from him feeling his clothes on his skin.

"...You wanna take a shower?" You question softly, feeling his forehead to check for a fever. He seems colder, rather than burning hot. He shakes his head a smidge.

"Well, uh... I'll admit, I don't know what else to offer." You chuckle, and he melts a little at the sound. You're always so sweet and gentle to him, it makes him nauseous. He doesn't... Deserve this.

"...Can I brush your hair?" You ask softly, placing your hand gently on the back of his head, rubbing your thumb against his messy, greasy hair.

He blinks slowly, forcing himself to nod a little. "Mhm.." He swallows, trying to wet his dry mouth. "Please." His voice is weak... Broken, and shaky. Like he hasn't had a drink in the past week... Or maybe that's because he hasn't water in the past 24 hours.

You smile a little, "okay." You say softly, looking over at his nightstand. You grab a dark blue comb, gently sectioning off his hair, before starting to comb through it.

A few minutes pass, and you're onto the next section. "I bought you more crab. Some of it is canned, but I got some of that fancy stuff that you said you wanted last time we went out together." You say. He blinks a few times, clearing his throat halfheartedly.

"...Really?" He mumbles softly. "That's... Too much. I can pay you back." His finger twitches as he starts to force his hands to move, but he stops when you press him back down.

"No, it's really nothing. Think of it as a late, uh... Present for national crab meat day?" You smile a little, and he smiles a little back.

"Oh?... Thank you." He sighs softly, feeling you move onto the next section of his hair.

A few moments pass... "...Are you mad I didn't stop by last night?" He mumbles, his eyes fluttering closed, not wanting to see if he hurt you. He hears you sigh, and his heart drops. This is it — he fucked it all up, he's gonna be alone again, and you'll move on, and he'll end up —

"Of course not. You did say that you might be too busy to stop by." He blinks, opening his eyes and looking up at you.

"...Oh." He mumbles. "I didn't think you'd be so... Okay. About it." He swallows, eyes falling back down to his mattress.

You finish combing his hair, grabbing a hairtie from your pocket and gathering as much of his hair as you can, tying it up. "Ta-da." His heart melts at your giggle.

"Mhm..." He yawns softly, closing his eyes. "Love you." He mumbles, exhaling gently...

"Love you too, 'samu." You press a gentle kiss to his forehead, before leaning back against the headboard, letting the silence play for the both of you.

Please don't steal my work, nor feed it to any sort of AI. Thank you! ♡

#꒰ ＃ 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑠' 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑠.ᐟ ࿐ ꒱ #dazai x reader #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #dazai osamu x y/n #osamu dazai x reader #osamu dazai x you #osamu dazai x y/n #bsd x gender neutral reader #bsd x you #bsd x reader #bsd x reader comfort #dazai comfort #bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd fluff #bungou stray dogs x reader

[thelampisaflashlight]

Strangely Human Rewrite 2: Pretend

[Dew struggles behind closed doors. This one is a bit heavy as a heads up, and deals with the rougher part of Dew's transformation into a ghoul.] Below the cut.

It has been a little over a week since the ghouls decided that they'd had enough of Mountain and Dew's petty little... whatever you wanna call it.

At the very least, Mountain can't ignore Dew anymore, not with a section of their shared wall missing, and, try as he might to cover the hole, Dew lacks the motivation to do anything beyond hang up Mountain's stupid beaded curtain.

Which, admittedly, doesn't look too bad.

Dew's honestly not sure why he's even still mad at Mountain, or if he's just mad in general.

It's hard to distinguish what's genuine anger and just... him being in irritable from feeling sick.

Dew doesn't have the energy these days to unpack his suitcases -still set in the middle of his floor mocking him- let alone pick through his feelings.

Perhaps that has something to do with it.

His lethargy, the perpetual feeling of malaise... it's one thing to deal with it behind closed doors, but now he has Mountain, who isn't in his space per se, but within sight more often than not these days.

Who shifts noticeably in his sleep whenever Dew gets up in the middle of the night or glances through the partition if he lays in bed for too long.

Sometimes, Dew's heart will warm a little when he sees Mountain's face pop into view from around the corner.

He tries not to be obvious with his concern because they're sort of fighting, but kind of not.

But, at times, it's... it's too much to be seen when he's feeling bad, and he knows the guy means well, but Dew needs his alone time, and he hasn't been getting much of that lately, and not just because he and Mounty are roommates now.

None of the ghouls are leaving him be.

Not since Aether discovered the rough patches on his skin had begun to spread.

"I... I don't know what's happening." he admitted, brow creased with worry as he tried and failed to make the scaly skin smooth out again to no avail, "I don't know how to help."

What's worse, is that the patches have started to itch now.

The only thing that seems to soothe the persistent ache is water.

Not lotion or a cooling balm -they tried that and it had burned so bad soaking into his skin that Aether all but threw him into the shower to wash it off of him- just water.

He spends a lot of time in the bath, soaking, leaving the door open so he can talk to Mountain even though they're totally still fighting.

Totally.

Neither of them have really apologized to one another, but Dew can only go so long sitting in silence before he starts to go a little stir crazy, and being sick certainly brings out the worst in him in that regard.

That said, it's nearly impossible to force two unwilling individuals to share a room, especially two grown adults, so, perhaps, the fact that Mountain has not abandoned his room, and Dew hasn't returned to his old accommodations is their own stubborn way of saying sorry.

Who knows.

Any which way, as Dew lets the water run over him like a dehydrated houseplant, Mountain is sat with his back leaning against the edge of the tub, fiddling with one of the bath toys Sunny had happily tossed into Dew's bathroom that morning.

It's a light blue crab with its eyes poorly painted on, made of a soft, hollow rubber that squirts water when squeezed, and although Dew had been a little annoyed being given something clearly for toddlers... he did have to admit it made wasting his days soaking in the tub a lot less boring.

"Hey, Mount?" Dew asks, shoving a small red and yellow octopus beneath the water, releasing it so he can watch it pop above the surface and bobble about.

"Yes?"

"Do you think... Do you think I'm dying?"

The earth giant turns to him, letting his elbow slip over the edge into the water, fingers still worrying the toy and frowns.

"I don't." he says.

"Why not?"

And Mountain pauses then, arm drooping further beneath the soapy water as he breathes.

Green meets amber, and in a voice so painfully small, he says...

"Because I don't want you to."

.

.

.

"It is possible that the last ritual had some delayed side effects." Papa says, wincing as he sees Dew practically clawing at his own neck, scratching at the long, angry looking marks already drawn there.

If he weren't so preoccupied itching, Dew would make some kind of witty remark, but his throat is sore, so he just glares at him, bemused.

"Then does that mean Dew is becoming a ghoul? Or is he... is he cursed somehow?" Aether asks, hopeful that it's the former not the latter.

"We suspect that Dew is undergoing the transition gradually, as opposed to all at once as the ritual was meant to do." Papa explains, "However... it's unclear which..."

He breathes in.

"It's unclear which element his body is shifting into..."

Aether tenses, "Elaborate."

"They tried turning me into water first." Dew says, cutting into the conversation, still dragging his nails down his neck, "Then fire. Twice."

"How come it didn't work the first time?" Aether wonders, grabbing Dew's hand to stop him from tearing at his skin anymore, "How is that even possible?"

"Well..." Papa clears his throat and sighs, "...we don't know. One theory that has been proposed is that Dewdrop already has a demonic attachment, which would explain why the previous rituals did not take... and, perhaps, that entity, the one preventing his transition, is finally tapping into the magic from the ritual."

"How would I..." Dew holds up his hand, "How the fuck could I have already been possessed and not know it?"

"I did not say possessed, I said you might have an attachment. It's not quite the same thing." Papa says, "But that's just one theory. I am more inclined to believe the second one, being that you may have had an ancestor who laid with a demonic entity at some point, meaning you were already technically a demon, and the rituals made it more... pronounced."

"...I personally do not wanna imagine being a monster fucker is a familial trait-"

"I mean that IS how the original ghouls were made..." Papa trails off, "But I digress."

"I don't think it's too much of a digression to imply that rawing demons may have lead to my current predicament... Maybe I caught something from the ghouls?" Dew mumbles, "Some kinda weird demon STD...?"

Aether frowns, "Dude."

"What? We all fuck around. A LOT. I'm just saying-"

Papa coughs into his hand.

"At any rate, we will look into the cause more thoroughly soon enough. Until then, monitor your symptoms and report any notable changes."

Dew pouts the entire way back to the dorms.

"That was completely fucking useless." he complains, scratching at his neck again, leaving the skin raw underneath his nails.

"Dew-" Aether starts, then tenses, "Dew, stop scratching, you'll make yourself bleed at this rate."

"It fucking itches." Dew grouses, then adds in a tired voice, "...It fucking hurts."

Aether furrows his brow, "It's only going to get worse if you keep that up. C'mon, let's get you back in the t-"

"I don't want to get back in the fucking tub, Aeth, I want to be able to actually get shit done, but I can't, because it feels like someone fried me and ran my skin through a cheese grater..." He hisses, itching the dry patches on his arms now, "I can't even fucking sleep-"

"You haven't been sleeping?"

Dew mumbles something under his breath.

"What?"

"I said of course I fucking haven't!" Dew cries, "I'm either shredding myself to pieces or trying not to drown, and any time I DO get the chance to lay down, my spine feels like someone is pulling it out my ass!"

"...You didn't mention the spine part when we had our check-up earlier." Aether says, "I told you to tell me if there was anything new! You-"

"I-" Dew gives a frustrated shout and stomps his feet, "I'M TIRED OF EVERYONE BEING UP IN MY BUSINESS, OKAY?!"

"D-"

"Every fucking day. Every fucking day! Someone is asking me, 'Hey, are you alright?' or 'How are you feeling?' and you know what?! I FEEL LIKE SHIT!" he digs his hands into his hair, "I feel like shit, Aether, and it's not getting any better."

"It's not getting any better..."

"Dew, it will. It will get better, it's just going to take time." Aether tries, reaching out to pull Dew into a hug, but as soon as his fingers brush the other man's sides, Dew flinches.

Hard.

"Fuck!"

Dew curls into himself.

"Dew?!" Aether startles, placing his hands on Dew's shoulders, "What's wrong?!"

"Don't touch me!"

.

.

.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Dew's getting worse.

A lot worse.

Every day seems to drag on and on and on.

And he doesn't sleep.

Just lays awake, too tired to even think of raking his fingers across his skin.

Mountain keeps the others updated, lets Aether in to check on him, but no one else really visits anymore, because every time anyone starts to speak, Dew snaps at them.

Physically.

He's taken to biting anyone who gets too close.

Even poor Rain, who had just been trying to ease his symptoms with a bit of his magic met the painful bite of blunt teeth.

"You should apologize." Swiss tells him late one night, sat beside his bed, he sounds like he's angry, or trying to be.

But more than that, he just sounds worried.

"When you're better, you have to-"

"Swiss..."

"Yes?" the multi ghoul asks, feeling hopeful.

That hope fades quickly as Dew rolls over to face him in the darkness, replaced with grief.

Dew's entire face is flaking like ash, like he's one breath away from being reduced to nothing but dust.

"...I'm sorry."

#Lamp writes #nameless ghouls #dewdrop ghoul #mountain ghoul #swiss ghoul #ghost band #ghost bc #the band ghost #ghost band fanfic #strangely human #this one hurts

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

Little details you might have missed in the Splatoon 3 Direct

I meant to get this out pretty soon after the Direct, but I came down with a cold like a couple of hours after it aired which knocked me out for most of the weekend. Additionally, I had a lot of stuff that I noticed in the Direct that got elaborated upon in the official website, meaning that I posted them in the post about instead. I also omitted all weapon kits, as I posted that as a separate post.

As a result, a lot of what I’m about to bring up might be things you’ve already seen or heard of elsewhere. I’ll make this post regardless, just in case it has something any of you haven’t heard before!

- We’re actually gonna start off in the Japanese version of the Direct, because this detail is hidden in the English version:

Here’s the overview of Hammerhead Bridge, but wait a minute, what is that in the distance?

Why, that’s the NILS statue!

The reason this isn’t visible in the English Direct is that the “Hammerhead Bridge” title card is so long that it covers up most of the statue for the entirety of the shot.

- Next, a neat little detail about the Splatana Wiper: If you one-shot an opponent with a close-ranged charged swipe, you get the direct hit sound effect, just like Blasters do.

- Now, let’s talk about two things I noticed with the Reefslider. The first is that it seems to have some invincibility frames during parts of its animations, as we can see the octoling in the video stand right in the line of fire of a Hydra Splatling and be perfectly fine. I can’t imagine it having full invincibility for the entire duration of the Special, but it is probably invincible during the final slide.

Another neat thing we see much later in the Direct, in the Splatfest section, is that it seems you can stop prematurely if you want to, as this octoling detonates about halfway through the duration of the Special.

- Let’s have a bit of a Salmon Run-down, as I have several things to discuss here. The first of which is that it seems there are now more than four Specials you can randomly be assigned.

The initial Salmon Run next Wave trailer showed that two of them are the Crab Tank and Killer Wail 5.1, but the Direct also showed several more!

Booyah Bomb, Inkjet, Reefslider, Triple Inkstrike, and Wave Breaker are all shown off very clearly, being the Specials held by some of the players in the clip.

Next up let’s talk about the [[Big Shot]].

More specifically, it seems that after you’ve defeated the big guy itself, you’re able to use its machine yourself to fire Golden Eggs! We’re not shown the specifics of where they land, but based on the initial clip it seems the Big Shot might always aim somewhere in the vicinity of the Egg Basket, and the same will likely be true for the eggs fired by players as well.

Next, lets talk about a choice of wording. When introducing the Cohozuna, the narrator calls it “one of the King Salmonids”.

“ONE”.

This likely implies that there are several other King Salmonids they’ve yet to show us. How exciting! If I can dream for a moment I think it’d be really cool if we got to fight ω-3, the Salmonid band, piloting a giant mech, DJ Octavio-style. That probably won’t happen, but hey, might as well dream big.

Now, let’s move onto my next segment, the Single-Player section. There’s a fair amount to cover here, so let’s start off with something easy.

Aw, hey, Splashdown, we thought you were dead.

Splashdown is back, but likely only in Single Player. We haven’t seen it on any weapon kits, and that is probably because it is thoroughly outclassed by Reefslider, which seems to have designed to replace it. Single Player, however, need not follow those rules at all, so anything goes. Additionally, the player is shown actually gaining Special Charge the old-fashioned way, by turfing.

There is something odd going on here, however. Pay attention to all the UI elements in the screenshot above.

Now look at this one. Noticing anything?

This second screenshot does not have the Sub Weapon wheel (if you can call it that) shown in the earlier clip. In fact, it is only shown in the first clip, where Agent 3 is wearing their uniform. That’s not the only difference, though.

We also seem to have both Hero Mode AND Octo Expansion-style end-of-level gates. Again, we only see the Zapfish in the first clip.

And hey, hold on a moment. One of the notable differences in these clips is that Agent 3 seems to wearing different clothes in them.

We actually SEE when they lose the uniform at the very end of that section of the Direct! I think this means that the Single Player campaign is actually split into two distinct sections, one more like Hero Mode and one more like Octo Expansion. How very intriguing.

That said, I am just about finished now, so to leave you off on something else that is very intriguing, let’s think back to this clip:

Now, is it just me, or do these things, up close, look a lot like moray eels?

Now, do we know anyone that is associated with eels?

Hmm. Food for thought.

#Splatoon 3 #Splatoon 3 Direct #Deep Cut #frye splatoon

[sapphicgarland]

karkat or Dave playing animal crossing for the first time and getting really into it please!!!!

I interpreted this as davekat as it gave me more room to work with since I could have dialogue. It was a bit hard to expand on the prompt since there's no conflict but I did my best! I hope I made it cute enough to be interesting

“Okay, so how does this thing work?” Karkat asks as if they haven't had a Nintendo Switch for a whole year now.

Dave just shakes his head and gets up from the couch, once again showing him how to set it up. “How are you this bad with electronics?”

“Listen, last time I tried to do something more complicated than open a Google Chrome window I got a computer virus so bad it killed my crab dad. I think I'm allowed to just give up and accept that I shouldn't touch this shit.”

“Maybe you're right,” Dave says with a bit of a smile. “Okay, I got it hooked up. Ready?” He asks as he sits back down on the couch. 

Karkat follows and sits next to him, grabbing his pair of controllers. “Ready!”

“Okay, so, Jade said this isn't immediately two player so I figured we'll take turns setting up our characters and stuff and then play it together?”

Karkat nods in agreement, so Dave starts up his profile first and opens up Animal Crossing for the first time. “This game better be worth the $50 plus tax or I'm making Jade pay us back.”

Karkat laughs a bit and playfully slaps Dave's arm, a gesture that Dave has gotten used to over the years. No more flinching now that he knows it's a safe affection. “Shut up, I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, it's not like we can't afford it.”

Dave just shrugs and goes quiet as the game continues. He mumbles the dialogue and text aloud so that he's not skipping too fast or too slow for Karkat. Karkat gives a chuckle, which causes Dave to stop and look at him. “what?”

“Oh, I just like the little voices,” he says with another chuckle. Dave cracks a small smile and nods in agreement before continuing. 

“pick your style…oh yes. The two genders; short hair or ponytail,” Dave chuckles.

“Hey they say style!” Karkat chuckles. “which will you choose?”

Dave lingers for a moment before just picking the short hair, non-pony tail one with a shrug and continues on. They debate on which island to pick before finally settling on the one with the River cutting the island straight through into 3 sections, and finally moving on.

“If you could only bring one thing…huh. What do you think, babe?” Dave asks.

Karkat thinks for a moment, “well, presumably there'd be something edible on the island. I'd say a lamp? Though I'd prefer aflashlight.”

“That makes sense but there'd be no electricity. Once the battery dies you're screwed if you can't make a fire.”

“You'd have to make a fire anyway to cook a lot of the food you'd be eating.”

“Ah but if you bring food you can buy yourself time until you can make weapons and figure out what's edible or not.”

“See, this is why I always say a survival guide based on the biome and general geographical location of the island.” *karkat says with a huff,* “why isn't that an option??”

Dave rolls his eyes and picks lamp, a small smile on his face, “because they don't have your brain, I guess.” 

They move on and finally arrive on the island. Their first two villagers are Canberra and Raold. They rush through Tom Nook's dialogue a bit, Dave reading it out loud quickly. They're bored at first, too much exposition for their taste. Though, Karkat isn't complaining, and Dave knows that this is just how games work sometimes. It probably means there's very little non-skippable dialogue for the rest of the game. 

“Finally.” Dave says as they are released into the wild to explore.”okay, we've gotta put up our tent. Where are we putting this bad boy, babe?” 

“Uhhh probably pretty close to the plaza right? I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of walking back and forth.”

“Agreed. I'm sure there's a way to move it in the future.” Dave sets the tent right next to the plaza. They go back and Dave finishes the beginning missions while Karkat watches. Eventually, Karkat's Head is in Dave's lap, just quietly watching as Dave gets their island ready. It takes a bit but eventually Dave stops and looks down,* “Okay, ready to join?”

Karkat nods and sits up. They switch profiles so that Karkat can get his character ready. 

“Okay, so should I just keep going or do we wanna switch back to your profile?” Karkat asks once his character is ready and his tent is placed.

Dave shrugs, “Nah. Go ahead and do some…uh….collecting? I was about to say mining,” he chuckled, “this isn't minecraft. Whatevering. I'll watch you for a while.

Karkat nods and just continues. Eventually Dave's head is on Karkat's lap, watching Karkat play. This continues for a couple of hours actually. Before long, almost everything that can be set up in just a day with no time travel is already set up. They switch profiles so that Dave can finish up some stuff that only he had permission to do (much to Karkat’s snarky disapproval). 

“I'm not sure what else to do for right now." Dave says after about another hour of playing with Karkat's Head in his lap. His hand goes down to pet through Karkat's hair a little. "I feel like we should wait for all this stuff to open up y'know? Like the museum and stuff.”

Karkat nods, “I mean we could grind a bit and get a bunch of…what was it, bells? But I don't want to sell all the resources and find out we actually needed them. Oh, we could bug the villagers, though.

Dave smiles a bit and nods, going to talk to Raold first and then Canberra. They both smile.

“aw the villagers are kind of cute. Okay, okay, I see what Jade meant,” Karkat admits. “I really like this game. It's cozy and really relaxing.”

Dave nods in agreement, “this is fun. We should play tomorrow too.”

#fanfiction #davekat #oneshot #answered #homestuck #animal crosing new horizons

[kobblefort]

Orbsarmor: What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Here we go again.

Not a tree in sight, nor another living being. Which means no beds, at least not until we've made it to the caverns. But uhh, speaking of which...

The very first frame I unpaused, I was told "a section of the cavern has collapsed," which is really quite strange. So I went to reveal it, just to check - and see how far we'd need to dig down before we hit trees, and, well... we won't. These are not cavern layers. That green stuff? It's grass. Trees do not seem to grow in it, or at least, none of them have yet. Oh, and some of those little "HFS tubes" might have shattered down on the third cavern layer. If you don't know what that means, absolutely do not worry about it one little bit okay. Either way, if we want any kind of farming to ever happen here, we'll have to get down there and get to work on it. And we basically need farming to happen here, but before any of that we need stairs, a way of dealing with the aqueduct (I'm just going to reuse the Blackfaint method since decapods actually like waterfalls) and some kind of meager little production setup.

And fuck it, here we are at -62, starting a production area with Amontillado'able doors. Unfortunately, we have no underground seeds, 3 logs, no trees in sight, and a long time before our first caravan. But the queen gets what the queen wants, and the queen wants the perfect library - far, far away from any and all distractions. Well, it's more than a bit likely we'll just die trying. But I think sometimes you have to think "what if I DON'T fail?" And yeah sure that's been co-opted by all the morons who really run the world and get to blow billions killing themselves in submarines or trying to make AI write all the movies. But I think it obviously has some kind of value anyway.

There's a yeti up on the surface. And well I'm not saying that we could hunt it for food if we get hungry, but... we could hunt it for food if we get hungry. Just a thought!

Oh huh, that's pretty early. Well you snooze you lose right. You guys got here early!

When they ask us what we want, we're not shy. We explain the fucked up caverns problem to them and they just sort of shrug because they don't really go to the caverns.

We've gotten enough marble blocks carved out and good enough rough gems to get enough plants, meat and fish to tide us over a good while longer, but before we can bring any of it downstairs... this happens? I've never seen this before.

I think it's because of this?? Are they all about to die of exposure?? Should I be glad I haven't even gone through everybody's character screens yet???

Nope after a few minutes everyone turned out fine. Nice. Another huge W for crabs. So here we have the beginning of our "starter base," where we intend to make sure we can get self-sufficient before we bother killing ourselves for the paper economy. It'll be... well more than just a little hard, all things considered, but up on the top the orthoclase buildings are our construction workshops, and all the cobaltite ones are for kitchen-related activities. Except for the farmers' workshop, which is kinda food but it kinda flexes to textile production too, which I suppose we'll need to do at least some of.

Then a random cave-in kills one of our bobbit worms and it just gets me thinking, dude something is really fucking wrong with this whole fortress. I just... I don't think this is going to work man. We can't grow anything, anywhere. I bet you think I'm exaggerating.

Look this is fucked. Cavern didn't work. Literally nothing up on the surface. We gotta pack this shit up man. We're gonna try this shit somewhere else. Tell the Queen that shit didn't work. Daarunbay Detevay is a glitchy fucking world sometimes. We're just gonna build the library somewhere else. Did you guys take the caravan apart yet? No? Ok good cause we're not going this far man. We're not doing the glacier thing, it's stupid. We're going to the woods a little south. Let's pack up and try this again.

#dwarf fortress #crabfort #one-off

[zeroandfour]

ONEWE as Youtubers !

Admin: Kenny 👻 (first post woohoo!!!)

________________________ ♡

DONGMYEONG:

Does a little bit of everything actually

Mostly make up tutorials, talking about his day or reviewing shows/movies

Hauls and product comparisons

Often invites friends or does collabs

Vloggs when he takes a trip and shows off his cooking skills

Abuses the voting feature in the community section

A gay girlies fav youtuber 

Has a cute animated intro and a fandom name

GIUK:

High effort covers with actual MVs

Shows how he works in the studio

Drops Music every once in a while

Does MV reactions but every time he doesn’t like a part he’s not gonna be mean, he just looks at the camera like 🫣 and goes „that’s…interesting..haha“

Collabs with Kanghyun once in a while

Makes tier lists of albums and songs

Video descriptions are stacked with links to buy his equipment

KANGHYUN:

Guitar covers once in a while

Rant videos where he goes off about his loud ass neighbours but then cuts himself off with „Anyways that Kentucky chicken lowkey bussin“ as if he didn’t just go into explicit detail about his neighbours divorce for 30 minutes straight

„The worst TikToks I have ever seen“ and it’s just him pausing the video every 3 seconds to go „What the fck 😶“ with the most ear assaulting distortion edit

Always breaks something in his video or spills a drink

Invites Giuk to watch TikToks with him

Lowkey a boomer but he tries to go with the flow (uses words in the wrong context or mispronounces them)

HARIN:

Review channel- may it be a new Lego set or his grandmas kitchen. also takes it too serious- so serious that he comes off as unserious

posts every 5 months

Apology videos with titles like „I am sorry.“ „I know what I did and I apologize.“ and it’s just him apologising for not posting only to vanish for another 4 weeks

Posts random questions like „How do I get dog food out of my headphones“ in the community section

No one knows where this man lives and what he does in his spare time 

Will make the most mentally unstable comments but just moves on as if nothing happened

YONGHOON:

The most annoying MF on this app

Has too many friends to collab with and they’re all LOUD

Does Pranks and Challenges - especially 3 A.M challenges

Clickbaits and scams children

„TRYING THE NEW SPONGEBOB HAPPY MEAL - REAL CRAB MEAT ?!? | NO CLICKBAIT !!!“

Always has to be in frame

got a restraining order from at least 4 restaurants 

calls his fans Hustlers

lowkey acts fruity with his friends but shouts „no homo ho homo“ afterwards

#kpop #onewe #yonghoon #dongmyeong #giuk #kanghyun #hyungu #harin #kband

[bornforastorm]

U are so mysterious about your writing hannah bornforastorm!!! I have 2 for the fic specific ask game about "crabapple crabs": gimme a BTS of your fave scene (im gonna guess that it is either BJ and hawk at the rocks or the scrabble game).

aaand i have a million dollar question for you about offscreen events: how do you imagine hawkeye and trapper's postwar reunion went, which in your fic led to them living together :)

oh beloved ben majorbaby!!!! you are so nice to send these!! to be called mysterious is so funny

to save space because boyyyy do I blather:

BTS:

lol so my favorite scene is actually the “are you fucking my man??” scene between Trapper and BJ. I'd be so happy to deconstruct BJ and Hawk on the rocks (which is as much about the two of them as it is about Hawkeye's relationship to his hometown to me), or the scrabble game (I did sooo much scrabble score calculating lol), which probably had more active thought put into them. Here, I don’t know if there’s good behind-the-scenes work to share, except that the early part of that scene where Trapper is like, "wtf is wrong with you" was absolutely fixed by you!! Personally!! You were so right that it needed clarification on the conversation Hawkeye and Trapper have already had off-screen (the burden of the limited BJ perspective!). Initially I had imagined BJ goes to bed the night before and Hawk and Trap immediately talk before going to bed themselves. So Trapper has been stewing on it all night and getting more and more pissed off at BJ, and so in the morning, he's already mad as hell. But it needed a little more finesse in the overheard conversation to make that all clear. Figuring out when Trapper is nice regarding BJ (to Hawkeye's face, because he clearly needs the reassurance), when he's trying to have a productive conversation with BJ (the "be nice why don't ya" section) and then when he actively turns against BJ (after BJ tries to pull the "you weren't there!" card again) took some tinkering. The very first draft of this scene was a lot meaner to BJ a lot quicker.

as a side note on this scene-- I am p pleased with my little "the coffee is exactly how I like it but it tastes too good to be right" bit between BJ and Hawkeye, because I think the difficulty of continuing things post-war for everyone is that the things that felt right over there do not translate to back home. Is the underlying connection even still there? I'm obsessed with the scene in Mash Goes to Maine where Trapper shows up in Maine for the first time and Hawkeye is so scared things will be irreparably different between them. And things are different, but they are the same. So I tried to bring that into a lot of moments in the fic, including this one!

And then of course Trapper is mean to BJ, BJ tries to push back but he's in the wrong so he can't win. I do like writing BJ as someone ready to get into a physical altercation here. It feels right for him-- as a defense to his masculinity, against his underlying attraction to Trapper (bc Trapper is undeniably hot and is walking around shirtless and totally confident about it and BJ loathes it), against Trapper's implication that BJ doesn't care about Hawkeye in a healthy way.

Then Trapper is smug about BJ’s insecurity, and happy to rub it in BJ’s face a little. At this point the scene sortof wrote itself. The power of that iconic tumblr post 🙏. BJ working himself up into a fit at the concept of Hawkeye and Trapper fucking, and Trapper like, "yeah man" is inherently powerful.

I am however VERY proud of the "I wouldn't have thought I'd have to explain it to you" bit, which I think feels in character with Trapper while also being like, so fuckin mean and biting. I like that Trapper can be mean sometimes. He's not a mean person, like I think BJ often is, but he sure can turn on some cruelty when the situation calls for it and I liked writing that.

I actually love all the Trapper-BJ scenes, where it's just the two of them trying to suss the other one out. Like the scene where they decide to get drunk together I really like too! Both the moment of understanding on the stoop and then the afternoon of toasts. Love to write this dynamic that has no precedent from the show to mirror or ape! Fun!

OKAY! Moving on!

The Off-Screen Reunion!!

I have written 9,000 words of this that I hope to actually finish as a real fic someday. So you may get all this in real story form at some point bUT here's the gist: basically Hawkeye gets back, is having a weird time, staying with his dad because the house he owns doesn't really feel like home (he barely lived in it before being drafted). One night he re-reads the letters Trapper sent him (which are part of Crabapple Crabs. For the sake of this, Trapper wrote and Hawkeye just kept it to himself. Too personal! But he also never wrote back. Too painful!) and then digs out the tape-recorded letter he sent his dad that has Trapper's voice on it. Wanting more of that voice, he calls Trapper in Boston and they have the most stilted, uncomfortable, who-are-we-to-each-other conversation where Trapper is like, "I figured you didn't want anything to do with me" and Hawkeye says "Well I was pretty mad at you but I want to do with you, I love you." Trapper hangs up sortof abruptly and Hawkeye is like, okay that was it, I blew it, I'll never see him or hear from him again.

But Trapper shows up on his doorstep the next day, in the rain of course, and they talk all night about this and that and BJ and it's easy and comfortable and by the morning it's like... yeah things aren't the same, but we can be. We want to do the work to make it work. We care about each other more than the hardships.

Meanwhile Trapper's already divorced and is having a hard, miserable time in Boston. It's too busy, he's still operating on meatball time, working too hard and too fast and it's fucking him up. So when Hawkeye suggests he stay for a while, he does. And then he just... doesn't leave.

He fixes up Hawkeye's house, makes it a home for him, for them (cleaning and furnishing a house as a metaphor). Having Trapper around creates an excuse to introduce him around town, gets Hawkeye out of his head and back into the community. They decide they can do good by starting a clinic, which is an invigorating project for Hawkeye. Another instance of me being really into Mash Goes to Maine lol. Trapper likes the town and the weirdo people, and now they have something to work towards together. They play scrabble and eat lowkey vegetarian at home and the town is like, well those Pierces have always been weird so why shouldn't Hawkeye have a war buddy come live with him? Ain't any weirder than the other weird stuff. And we like the war buddy, he's a good fella and his kids are nice girls and ain't it nice they come up sometimes.

So that's how I imagine it happens, more or less!! Someday I'll finish the full fic version, which honestly so far is hugely about the rest of the town and Hawkeye's relationship to the town too lmao I can't help myself

#mash #oh man this is too many words BUT I hope you find it kinda interesting #ben majorbaby you're a dream #my writing

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

The Reaper and The Death Angel Snippet 4 - The Charming Gazette

Who doesn't love a bit of world-building?

Series Masterlist

Part 30

Contains: A little it of fluff

895 Words

Comment if you want to be tagged.

From meaningless scuttlebutt to breaking news The Charming Gazette has it all.

Living in a small town meant a small-town newspaper, in this case The Charming Gazette. Run by a mix of fresh out of high school kids who want to be journalists, in the know towns folk and small-time writers and photographers.

For just three dollars a week, the paper could be delivered to your door seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year. It wasn't the largest publication, there was a section for the local businesses, another for school sports and obituaries.

Sometimes, they wrote about the Club, Clay was good friends with the head of the paper so it was never bad. Sometimes they wrote about weather events or the change of seasons. There was the occasional huge story, like when the new fish monger was caught selling fake crab but most of the time, it was such small-town gossip and fluff pieces.

Although, that didn't stop everyone from reading it, and you can best bet at least one article would be the topic of every breakfast table in Charming.

"Did you see the front page today?" You took the paper from your brother.

"The guys at Teller Morrow help local business."

You nodded, "yes I did. I'm pretty sure what Clay has going on with Jerry is illegal, I thought the news was supposed to be impartial."

Sam shook his head, "it's not when the head writer's sons works for Unser and Jerry's been getting free services for years."

The article was simple, and went on to talk about how after a truck fire, the local ice cream man was out of work, so T-M built him a custom truck and offered half-price service as long as he was in business.

"To be fair, he makes the ice cream himself and it's amazing, I don't blame them if they made him pay them hin chocolate chip Sundays."

****

"Wow, they've really got it in for Hale." Clay tossed the paper to the side, everyone had stopped by Gemma's for a nice weekend breakfast and the paper this morning was being passed from person to person.

"Dirty development done dirt cheap."

"Good, does anyone in this town want what Hale does. Even his brother dislikes him."

Jax shook his head, "you should have heard Earl go on and on about Hale harassing him to buy his house, he might wanted his lawn mower fixed but I'm pretty sure he was looking to hire Happy for some other work."

Gemma laughed, "wouldn't that be a story."

****

"Fun at Francine's Fabrics."

"Are you going to the sewing class on the weekend?"

You nodded your head, "Of course, I mean, I know how to sew but she always orders the fabrics I need so I want to support her."

Sam nodded, "yeah, some of the guys are going to be there. She's a good lady."

The piece about her shop was nice, the author had won the high school textile competition that year and wanted to give credit for all help Francine had given them. You hoped it would drum up business for her. Francine was a kind woman in her mid-fifties who went out of her way to help everyone who entered her store.

"She deserved every cent of what she makes this weekend, I'm glad the paper decided to run the story."

****

Jax put the paper in front of you, "what have I told you about sharing your achievements with me?"

You shook your head, "it was under duress, the museum made Holt force me to do it."

"Charming's own Miss Frizzle."

Jax dramatically opened the paper, reading the article out loud.

"Our tour started with a warm hello and the statement that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. Dr l/n took us through her lab where she and her colleagues help law enforcement identify missing persons."

"Dr l/n or y/n as she insisted we call her believes that science should be for everyone, and when she's not giving a voice to those who had theirs stolen, she's teaching the kids of Charming Elementary all about the world on her wildly popular tours."

"But that's not all, the quiet Charming resident is also an author and activist who spends her free time lecturing at various universities and speaking at the UN."

You shook your head, "ok Jackson enough. You are insufferable." He smiled and went to the cupboard, getting out the scissors, "what are you doing."

He picked up the paper again and started cutting, "I'm framing this."

You thumped his arm, "do you enjoy embarrassing me?"

He smirked like a cat who just caught a mouse, "no, I want to hang it in my locker."

****

Jerry answered the phone, "hello sir, I have a story I'm sure you'll love to run."

He picked up his notepad, "what is it?"

He could hear that the person was outside the paper's office, "in two days, something is going to break and you're going to want to be the first person to talk about it. Outside in the rose bush is a folder filled with photos, with plenty of proof to your story. All I ask, is that you run it under my headline."

Jerry sent someone out and sure enough, they came back with a thick yellow folder. He was shocked when he opened it. "Done, what's the headline?"

"Fascists at our door."

Part 31

Just a short one to add context for the next chapter which should be up tomorrow. I hope you liked this plot device.

#Jax teller #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #fluff #soa #jax teller #sons of anarhcy fanficton #sons of anarchy fluff #jax teller imagine #jax teller fanfiction #jax teller x you #jax teller x reader #jax teller x oc #samcrow #jax teller fluff #charlie hunnam #fix it fanfiction #jax teller smut #charlie hunnam imagine #charlie hunnam fanfiction #jackson teller

[pulsetower]

ATttMaN Devlog 3/11/2023

A saloon where the party can rest after a long journey.

Hello Everybody, despite my lack of updates, I’ve been hard at work on A Trip to the Mall at Night. I’ll be honest, I went into this thinking I’d be able to get all this done really fast, like in the span of a year, I released ATttSaN like a week after I started work on it, though that game was very different. Game Dev is tough, but I truly believe that when this game is finished it will all have been worth it. I’d like to give an estimated release date, but I can’t do that quite yet, although, hopefully before the end of 2024. 

The entrance to the Museum, what lies beyond the threshold?

As of today I have finished mapping and story sequencing the third floor of the mall. I know it seems a bit strange that I’ve spent so much time on the third floor, but that’s because this Museum is about as big and dense as the first two floors combined. The Museum is guarded by a mysterious curator who, unlike the other guardians does not wish to fight you,as for the past year he’s been trapped in his office by his own security system. He’ll let you through as long as you can flip the 4 override switches to his security system, each one being somewhere inside of one of the 4 sectors of the Museum. Each sector can be tackled in any order you wish, which means each person will have a slightly different experience with this museum. 

Guy is the last to enter this magical painting of a bridge.

The most straightforward section would probably be the Art Gallery. This sector contains several magic paintings by an unknown artist. Guy and friends will have to blue skidoo into these paintings to navigate through this gallery and track down the override switch.

Inside is a massive highway, where the Five Eyed Fella has set up shop.

While the Art Sector is straightforward the space sector is the exact opposite.

The entryway to a space odyssey.

The space sector takes the party on an odyssey through “realistic” models each planet (except earth, because you’re already on earth). Strangely the terrain of the planets seems to be based on ancient mage legend rather than science for some reason.

What is this building doing on Uranus?

The famous Jupiter docks don’t offer much shelter from the rain.

Out of the sectors in the mall I must admit my favorite to work on was definitely the aquarium sector, (although I enjoyed all of them quite a bit.) 

The central well of the underwater village Little Depita.

The standard crab blacksmith of every underwater village.

The aquarium is an underwater village built by many sea creatures who have ended up in the mall under their own circumstances. Over time they’ve developed their own form of government and economy. It’s a peaceful village, but it just so happens that when the party arrives an awful crime has occurred and an innocent man will be sentenced to death if he’s found guilty. This sector is a break from the typical gameplay, instead switching to an adventure game style, but I don’t want to give too much away. 

The geology sector has its own balcony.

Last, but definitely not least is the Geology sector of the Museum. A massive journey where you’ll see all kinds of things, like rocks, stones, boulders, and even pieces of earth. 

An elevator with a rather dated interior.

Along with the 3rd floor I’ve also made general improvements to the game at large. Graphically you probably noticed that the character sprites have slightly more detail, Guy and Alma have smiles, Clerk has dark circles under his eyes, and Witch has a lazy eye. Also the lighting of the game has been improved, certain areas may be tweaked slightly, but the script I’m using adds a lot more atmosphere to the game overall. There’s also the addition of footstep sounds in every area of the game. Different floors have slightly different sound effects when walked on which is something I really like in games, so I had to add it. There’s also the addition of an elevator which is unlocked in the third floor. It’s a sort of fast travel mechanic, which will come in handy for backtracking and/or sidequests.

Conclusion:

As I said before I’ve been doing a lot of work and I don’t think the game will be out any time soon that being said, it will come out, unless I die in a sudden awful accident, but even then I’ll have my co-developer finish it for me. Even though it seems like I’m the only one really excited for this I want to see it through because making this shit is really fun. I love my little characters in their wacky world and I want to share them with everyone. (Honestly I’m worried about finding something else to fill my life with when I’m done.)

The story that I have written is nearly finalized, and there are many twists and turns that I doubt many people will see coming, and that’s where I get into the bad news. I don’t think I will do any devlogs from this point until I’m in phase 2 of development, where I add sidequests (of which there will be many) and focus more on battle scenarios. Because after this point we get into some major story spoilers that I really do not want to ruin before the game is even out. The next floor will be the shortest, but most story dense segment and after that is the final area of the game which typing that out is getting me really excited actually. 

Until then you’ll probably only hear from me through random bullshit I post here when I think about it, so for now.

Goodnight,

-Worm

#gamedev #indiedev #rpgmaker #jrpg #indie rpg #a trip to the mall at night #a trip to the store at night #ATttMaN #oc #devlog

[deada55]

Being There - Chapter 3

crossposting: ao3

synopsis: There's bickering all around the Explosion household, and Nathan tried to hide a keg in the garage.

Rose made sure the door was shut before setting her sights on re-hanging some of the less-orderly sections of her closet, like her knitted mock-necks. She tore the hangers off in twos and threes, flinging the shirts to the looped berber carpet underfoot. “I can’t believe you’d do that. I can’t believe you.”

“Why wouldn’t I tell him? It’s his life. How else is he supposed to find out?”

“He just woke up, Oscar! He’s not going to remember anything you’re saying!”

“We can tell him again, it won’t hurt anything-”

“Don’t be smart, just don’t.”

Flecks of white paint fell on the shoulders of her collared shirts, peeled off the closet rod with the force of her wire hangers being pushed to the right. It had to line up just a little better. Oscar stood out of her way, within reach of the doorknob. She was a strong person, and it held through the years. She’d never lost sight of the things she wanted, so what did it mean that she didn’t want to tell her own son about failing out of high school? After all the time they spent fighting to get him there, she wanted to throw it away to save his feelings for another month or two?

She pushed her clothes around, crushing all the date-night negligees and the maternity shorts she fit into again with the weight she’d gained. They came back into rotation over the summer for gardening but eventually tagged along for grocery trips and quick date nights at Applebee’s.

When they came out of the bedroom, the rice had gone cold, and they found Nathan dragging a torn crab rangoon through a puddle of brown beef-and-broccoli juice.

Rose sighed when she sat down, and started forking up a row of shrimp out of her haystack of broken lo mein. While her right hand stabbed the little guys through, her left hand folded behind her ear, where she picked at her scalp. Oscar wasn’t so bothered, but he’d lost steam, and pushed rice into the sauce on his plate with the back of his fork.

Nathan finally swallowed his food and sat back, the springs of the chair creaking with the stretch. “So, uh, thanks for telling me. I’m gonna… I think I need to think about it over the break.”

“You don’t have to,” Rose lifted her eyes and shook her head. It was sweet what Nathan was trying to do… she smirked like a little kid had told her a joke. “It’ll work out.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s going to work out.” He broke into what was left of the noodles, dumping the compact square that was sitting in the bottom of the carton onto his plate. “So I’m going to figure out what I’m gonna do over the break.”

“Nathan…” The air conditioner on the wall rushed back to fan the room, and the grocery list stuck under Rose’s purse fluttered on the kitchen countertop. It kicked it’s little corners hard against the granite counter, making sharp little sounds of protest. The end of it, a loop, unfurled gradually until it was flapping free, too.

“You don’t have to do anything, sweetheart.”

“Mom, I know .” Just when they all thought it was tense, Nathan went all-in. Even still, the lack of anxiety in his face as he waited for his mother’s answer hit Oscar like a chill.

“Uh- alright, Nathan, I’m… Just saying.” She backed down into the kung pao chicken on her plate and Oscar’s mind started to change. He looked up at Nathan, who came just short of rolling his eyes, and watched him polish off his plate, leaving Oscar the only one still thinking. The food started to set him off, but he bit into a piece of cold beef anyhow.

The next day, it was time to decorate the house for the holidays. Oscar usually did the outside, but getting everything untangled and tested was always the tedious bit, so it was a family affair this time around. While Nathan and Rose looked over light strands (and Nathan abused their tree with a staple gun when he thought they weren’t looking), Oscar pulled fishing coolers of lights and fake-pine boughs out of the garage..

There were two dry rotting rubbermaid tubs that he hadn’t gotten out for a couple years, and behind that was a shiny new keg! He hadn’t bought a keg since his brother’s wedding.

Rose came back to help Oscar carry anything else, and saw the keg just as he was turning. 

“So what’s that?”

“It’s not mine, Rose.”

“Are you sure? I’m not upset, but-”

“I’m sure.” 

Nathan trudged in and got stuck in the spotlight. “Need me to carry something?”

“Nathan… Do you have anything to do with this keg?”

“Uh…” Nathan had a certain way he held his bottom lip when the gears weren’t locking together right, but neither Rose or Oscar could push past their scowls long enough to wait for him to catch on.

“How’d you even get it?” If anyone were to store a keg, their garage was a pretty good spot, and there were definitely stricter parents in the neighborhood…

“The convenience store.”

“They didn’t card you?”

“Were they supposed to?”

“It’s beer , Nathan! You’re nineteen!” Oscar held his hands out, open-palm, like he were waiting for a watermelon to fall through the ceiling.

“Yeah, but restaurants and stuff…” 

They order that kind of shit themselves, Nathan! While Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose, Rose sucked her teeth and made Nathan run from her eye contact.

“So what’s it doing in our garage, huh?”

“I needed somewhere to put it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know-”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I don’t know!”

“Were you going to drink it?”

“Yeah!” 

Rose had to doubletake that Nathan would really be that kind of dumb, or backhanded , to fall into that trap. Her mouth got stuck open as everything she could have said fell out of her ears. Eventually, she choked out:

“Nathan! Of course you were going to drink it !”

“Ok, yeah, so? Don’t fucking ask!” With his hands in his pockets, Nathan was leaning slightly back on his heels towards the door. Eye contact was a daydream on a good day, and somehow he hadn’t turned his back to them yet. Oscar stepped forward.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!”

Before he could tell Nathan to go inside and wait for them to talk to him later, Rose feathered her fringe and rolled her eyes back towards him, coming back into the conversation with a balloon of air stuck in the center of her chest no matter how hard she huffed.

“You know you’re not supposed to be drinking. The neurologist said-” 

“I know what the neurologist said, ok? It’s fine.” 

“No, Nathan, it’s not fine !” Oscar was so red that he looked fit to burst.

His mother talked a mountain of shit about Nathan being spoiled because he was an only child, but Rose knew he was spoiled from the desperate guilt she felt from holding him accountable for hiding a keg in their fucking garage . 

Nathan tossed his hair to the left, pulling his posture further towards the door, and Rose’s shoulders fell. Before Oscar could give him a piece of his mind, she cut him off.

“Go inside. We’ll talk later.”

Any nerves evaporated like gasoline with an eyeroll and a grunt. The door from the garage to the kitchen slammed. Faintly, heard through two or three interior walls, so did the door to his bedroom. Oscar slid the keg back into the corner and pulled the ten-foot ladder out from behind it.

“So, are you going up on the ladder or am I?”

…

“It’s not optional. You can’t be drinking at these parties.” Rose pulled her terrycloth robe closer to her chest and leaned her elbows back onto the dining table. 

“Yeah, I know .” 

“I’m serious, Nathan. It’s illegal, it’s not safe… I don’t want to have to worry about that when you go out. And when you drive our cars-”

“Mom, I get it, really-”

“Do you? Because this isn’t new. You don’t get to hide alcohol in our house, no matter how it comes to you.”

Nathan’s eyes were trained on the table, tracing the borders of a scab of dried-on spaghetti sauce. He moved his cheek off his hand to pull his hair out of his face- it was overdue for a trim. He hadn’t cut it since his last game. 

“Ok, so?” Mumbling, he returned his hand to his ear.

“You’re grounded until Christmas.”

“Fuuuck.” He sat up and leaned back with all the drama of Flashdance but twice as pissy. “Mom-” 

“ And if that keg goes anywhere, you’ll have to buy your own car to drive yourself home in.”

Despite his frustrated grunting and the way he bit the inside of his cheek, she sat up and watched without a flinch. 

“You know the rules.”

“Yeah-” The wicker of the chair whined and threatened to splinter as he stirred with fresh agitation.

“It could get you arrested, Nathan. If your friends drank themselves to death at a party, or drove… It’d be horrible. It’s too much alcohol. We love you. We won’t let you do this to yourself.”  

“Fine.”

“Yeah, ‘fine.’” Her tone mellowed out, and she tried to give him a tight-lipped smile for the evening. “That’s all I had to say.”

Once he stood up, the smell of that mountain of laundry she’d cleared flew back into her memory. “Nathan? One more thing-”

She moved her chair back when she caught his eye. “Next time you get hammered and blow chunks, aim out of your lap so it doesn’t get stuck in your fly. I had to buy a new nailbrush, but I got it out.” 

“Sorry.”

“It’s my job.” She got up and skirted around the back of two chairs until she could get to him. “Come here, can I have a hug?”

She wrapped her arms around his back the best she could and closed her eyes. Ever since she realized he’d gotten taller than her, she knew she’d have to start counting down to the day when she wouldn’t be able to walk up to her son and hug him. Hell, she could barely touch him as it was, but eventually there may only be pictures and phone calls.

Or, nothing at all. She wouldn’t put it past him to leave the nest and never think to turn back. Not for her sake, no matter how much she loved him… Still, her love could never be conditional. She would have stopped a long, long time ago if she waited for him to return her sentiments in any way she could understand. If he trusted her enough to make sure he didn’t go out covered in last week’s vomit, he had to think something of her. 

“I love you.” 

His arms rested on her shoulders for only a second.

“Love you, too.”

“Don’t tell your father you’ve been drinking. It’s bad enough that I know… it’s not good for you right now. Please be careful.”

“God, Mom-”

“Preachy, I know.” She leaned back and looked up at him. Never in her life could she figure out what had seeped into the water and made his eyes so green, but his hair was less of a surprise. Blonde Oscar’s lily-white mother would give her the side eye and accuse her of cheating until the day she died, but Rose knew that the timeline between her mother’s widowhood and pregnancy was muddy. 

“Like it or not, you’re my favorite kid.”

“Tough competition.”

“Yeah, well…” Rose stepped back and tightened her belt. “You never met them.”

That got him to think twice. Watching it play out on his face almost made her ruin the bit. “What?”

“Ever wondered why the grass doesn’t grow by the shed?” She heaved her shoulders up and looked wistfully towards the mounted, stuffed squirrel, the one that was dressed like Elvis, on a side table by the phone. “That’s where Matthew was when he…” She bit her knuckle like Tim Curry in that one movie- you know the one, with the clowns?

“... Mom?” 

A snort burst out of her so quickly that she nearly choked on it. “I’m just messing with you.”

“Jesus, Mom-”

“Oh! Come on, you knew better! That was too easy!” She sighed and waited until he forgave her to say anything else. Tonight, it only took a couple of seconds for his face to relax. 

“Well, don’t stay up too late. Goodnight, sweetheart.” With a pat on the arm, she stepped away.

Nathan grumbled into the empty living room: Oscar had already gone to bed.

Not really. He was sat up with a gun catalog in their bedroom. After Rose had put on her eye cream, she rolled onto watercolor-peony bedspread beside him and snuggled in to sneak a peek at the semi-automatic rifles. Against the powder-blue theme of their bedroom, the hunting magazines and the gun safe looked as brutish and out of place as a tree stand in an HOA, but when ladies from the hunting club came over, she couldn’t wait to show them. Every anniversary thereafter, she struggled to get a gift half as good.

“How’d it go?” He lowered his reading glasses.

“Good. I think he got it.”

“And being grounded?”

“Better than last time.” Last time, she walked away in tears. It wasn’t every day your son called you a bitch, but in hindsight, she suspected he was tipsy, and he always seemed prone to drama. He fought her like a daughter, but not tonight.

“Good…” He let the magazine flop shut. “I still think you should have just let me handle it.”

“It’s done, Oscar. It’s already done.” The bolster pillow shifted right when she sat up, disturbing the balance and pushing nudging one of the shams into the nightstand, bumping over her vitamins into her citron-glass ring dish with a clatter. Somehow, her movement set Oscar off-balance, and he sunk further into the mattress.

“I think he’s taking advantage of us, I really do. He needs direction.”

“He might not be able to follow it. Really. He might not be able to take it-”

“Can’t take it?” The glasses came off all the way, and Rose leaned her head back against the protruding, satin-coated foam border of the upholstered bedframe.

“You didn’t let me finish.” 

“ You need to understand that he’s not a baby. He’s not a little kid, I keep saying-”

“You do ‘keep saying,’ but last time I checked, you’re not the one home with him all day!” Finally, her finger came out and stuck itself right at Oscar’s pinched mouth.

“I could probably see more of him if we woke him up before dinnertime, huh? Like a normal person?”

“Oh, so you’re the doctor now? Ok-”

“You’re the one who likes to talk about the damn doctor- like he remembers that! He can remember what a doctor told him while he was half-asleep but he can’t go back to school? That’s one smart kid!” His temples were bulging again… It used to be so difficult for her to make him angry, but they’d hardly had a pleasant conversation for a month.

Oscar was the only guy she’d dated who loved to see her at the bar. When she went out, he went out too. And he didn’t make faces at her friends, some of them lesbians, some of them just plain weird, and he didn’t make her out to be an embarrassment when she tried to get along with his friends. It wasn’t like her to keep to herself, or stay loyal to a pack, and he was one of the only people of the world who seemed to like it (without being the center of her attention.) 

But now, it felt like she couldn’t say anything she really thought without stepping on his toes. If he’d yelp at a game of footsie, what was the point of treading lightly? How embarrassing was it that it took her twenty years to figure out he might not be that guy? Or, she’d finally worn him down: a potential that left her feeling twice as wretched.

She tried to tone down how high her voice lifted, but there was no way Nathan had been ready to go back to school.

“Great idea! Let’s send him back to school tomorrow so he can buy the town out of Excedrin and fail out at the same time! At least now the school knows-”

“-the school thinks he’s not ready, because that’s what you told ‘em. The neurologist ,” he mocked, “said he’d be good to go back in a month. It’s been a month!”

Rose held one end of her belt in her hand and gave it a squeeze, but it wasn’t enough to keep her hands from flying out. “So what do you want to do about all that now, huh? School gets out on Friday. Want him to poke his head in for the last couple days?”

“Maybe, but-”

“Oh, but you felt so strongly before, didn’t you?” His serious re-consideration deflated back into bickering as she pushed herself off the bed. “Here, I’ll go tell him to set his clock-”

“Rose, don’t. I don’t want to fight about this anymore.” He swung his legs over his side and jammed his feet into his slippers.

“So why the hell bring it up?! Just to piss me off?” 

“Rose.”

“What?!”

“Just come back to bed.”

Tired, she conceded, although she took on the same surly, reluctant mask Nathan wore at the table. They folded themselves into bed like mealworms crawling under someone elses’ skin. Things had been sour before, but the answer wasn’t quite as clear as it had been in years’ past… Nathan was usually the one who made them hash it all out, whether he knew it or not, but now that he was in the middle of the problem at-hand, it was even harder for Rose and Oscar to set aside.

When the lights went out, she felt Oscar nest himself around her, but after moving his hand off her thigh three separate times, she gave him a swat and turned onto her stomach.

#my writing #nathan explosion #metalocalypse fanfic #rose explosion #oscar explosion #i'll update the rest of the chapters on ao3 soon for line edits and things I've made #metalocalypse

[wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i]

Polish update!

Today, I started to buckle on my desire to learn this language. I had a few reservations about not being able to find the resources I needed, the practicality of this language in the United States, and just personal reasons as well. I thought that it was too hard, but I must have been talking about another girl because this girl can do hard things.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's what I did today:

1. I got my polish workbooks in the mail early today. One of them, Beginner's Polish by Ewa Wanasz-Bialasiewicz, is a bit thinner than the other. However, it does appear to be very useful. It's from 1995 😂

It's vocabulary heavy, has a good summary and simple explanation of grammar rules, and great conversation examples.

The other book, Polish: A Complete Course For Beginners by Teach Yourself, is much thicker. This book will likely be the most helpful as it is an actual course on learning polish complete with units, vocabulary, quizzes and commentary. I think I'm really going to enjoy this one!

2. I went to Barnes and Noble and found a singular book on Poland in the travel section. I went to the language sections and they did not have anything on Polish.

Out of ALLLLLLL these books, they had nothing in Polish. 😐

Anyway, I ran over to the travel section and did find this!

It only cost me $25 🙃 but whatever. It's the best I'm clearly going to get where I live (an honestly, unfortunately online too). I learned quite a bit about Poland from just a few pages though.

The bit about Easter eggs surprised me. I knew it was a Ukrainian thing to do elaborate Easter eggs (and I think some parts of Germany do this too but I'm not 100% on that), but I didn't know that Poland did it as well.

Very fun fact!

Anyways, onto #3.

I got more study aids! Sticky notes, page markers, highlighters and my official Polish journal. I'm super excited to take notes in this journal because it's actually gorgeous and so, so me.

4. I will be switching Polish tutors, and I think I'm going to go with this one girl who speaks the language natively, seems to have really good English (wouldn't be judging if she didn't, but I get confused a lot so I need to be able to communicate in English to make sure I understand). I was nervous about switching to her because she's really pretty and kind of close in age to me 😂😂 but I talked to her and she seems super nice, so I'm going to give her a try and see how it goes. I think having a tutor who is close in age to me might be better because I can become friends (as much as one does with a tutor) with her, and I can also learn to speak it the way young people speak it rather than the way older folks speak it.

5. I worked on Duolingo as usual. Still working toward a 30 day streak.

6. Learned two new idioms. "Rzucác grochem o sciane." The e at the end of sciane has the little round thingy on the bottom. The s has an accent. It means "throwing peas against a wall". I don't feel like writing out the polish phrase, but the other one was "thinking of blue almonds," which is supposed to be an idiom for day dreaming. I love it, but it's not half as entertaining to me as the Spanish version which literally translates to "thinking of the immortality of the crab" 😂😂😂

Notes:

It's easy to get discouraged with this language, but that only makes it more fun. I plan to work more on learning grammar and vocabulary while I wait for my first tutoring session with my new tutor.

Goals:

Establish a study routine.

Sticky notes.

Translate one poem from Polish to English as best I can.

Study my flashcards!

[videogametako]

steam next fest feb 2024: aeruta

saw this, action platformer with anime girl, cool. link here

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2286780/Aeruta/

it had a bread theme to it too and in hindsight, the bakery half of the game should've been expected.

overview

so chaya is an adventurer in training who's apparently on probation and taking an exam. on her way to complete the quest she encounters an oven that explodes on her, effie thinks it's chaya's fault (naturally) and hijinks ensue.

by hijinks i mean she hires you to work for her bakery. the place she needs ingredients from is coincidentally where chaya needs to go for her quest, so she goes and does both at the same time yay.

effie is cute and kinda dumb

mechanics

this game has snappy combat, it'd probs be much better on controller (fingers hurt). you have a dodge too. one thing i particularly liked is the "drive" mechanic

proud for this action screenshot

you press x to hook an enemy towards you. the kicker is that you can hold forward + x to move toward the enemy instead. this is the main reason for why i find the combat so snappy. you can either isolate and pick off a mob or close the gap and engage a horde, and it's super intuitive with the way it's implemented (i mean, button press or button plus direction)

eventually you get heals. it's a really quick heal too but you can't restock any (at least as far as i got, a little <1 hr). dodges are important because you don't heal between stages. oh yeah this is a branching dungeon type kinda game (not too sure what the genre is called specifically)

combat gets very repetitive, though it's a demo so i expected that at least. overall, pretty good though i think. chaya feels really good to play.

i'll mention the bakery part in the next section

gameplay loop

the two main parts of the game are the "quest " and the "town" part as i'll be referring to them now.

the quest part is the whole dungeon combat action stuff. you advance chaya's career and farm materials to cook bread and upgrade the bakery. that's pretty much it i think, at least for now.

the town part is where you sell bread. it goes: wait for effie to bake > take bread > place bread on counter (button) > check out customer order (you do this ddr minigame of 2-4 arrow key presses) > clean up litter > repeat. it feels like it's missing something, but i think it's passable if you're not doing it too often (you can't dash indoors sadly)

effie gives you a calendar where on some days some types of bread sell better so you typically aim to open up shop on those days while you farm on every other day, at least that's what it feels like you should be doing because the bread takes a fair amount of mob drops to make

oh yeah you can upgrade your bakery from this architect cutie after you pay your debt to them, that would probs help in making the bakery feel better to play (no i didn't have any more gold to spend)

aesthetics

the sprites feel a bit stiff, but honestly the animations are extremely charming (especially effie's, she's so animated (i have no gif to offer, sorry)). OH also the architect (i already forgot name, bollie or something) was missing a walk cycle animation for one of the cutscenes lol. honestly they're pretty good as stills but definitely feeling lackluster as idle animations (still no gifs). enemies looked a lot better in terms of animation, and combat stuff was passable i think.

anime aesthetic i also like, oh and the enemies are admittedly cute and goofy (hate those crabs, they're annoying to fight (both types))

found a screenshot, i was one letter away

now, the music is pretty good. a few tracks felt reminiscent of touhou, i enjoyed listening to em. the boss had uh, well it's audio felt broken sometimes. feels like its attack sounds just cut out unnaturally. well, it's a demo, so not too big of a deal i think

closing thoughts

this game has a lot of promise i think, i recall recettear when playing this. it's obvs not recettear but i was reminded of it, except aeruta has a lot more action elements. i'm excited to see more of the quest part honestly, weapons, abilities (though not sure what can top drive unless it just straight up has better numbers) and maybe characters too. the town part too to a lesser extent, but it's fun in its own right.

i think their art direction has a solid foundation (it's the standard pixel anime stuff, nothing too groundbreaking) but could use a bit more refinement. more dynamic idles, the sound design on that boss please it bothered me please be broken so the devs can fix it i don't know how i'll fight it knowing that's how it's supposed to sound like orz

i'm looking forward to see where this game leads, i have wishlisted it on steam, and maybe if it sounds nice you can go wishlist it too it helps the devs

#video games #aeruta #fromdawn #indie games #game review #next fest #steam next fest #demo

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

A Goal is Not a Plan

A little bit ago I "should all over myself" and listed out a bunch of my intentions and goals.

This isn't a bad thing to do! In fact it's good to do on a fairly regular basis - not every week, but like, at least twice a year - to keep track of what actually matters to you, because that can change over time.

Let's turn some of those goals into events to which I need to Show Up.

Java Specialization: This one's the easiest to grok because it's a class. I succeed at it by completing the assignments within the deadline period. In general I complete the assignments by doing the readings, watching the lectures, and then programming stuff in the IDE they provide.

Get a Job: This is a very fishing-oriented process. Or a better analogy would be crabbing, perhaps. You lay out a lot of lines, and you examine what bites you get, and you throw stuff back when it's unacceptable for your standards and eventually take one that you're okay with. I'm not willing to start this process until I'm at least halfway into the final course of the specialization, so that I can be reasonably assured I'll be done with the course before I interview with anyone. The plan for now is to gather info on groups I might want to work for, based on their corporate behavior and their overall mission.

Lose 15 Pounds: As a man without any known illnesses, this has a good chance of being as simple as "proper diet and exercise." This involves staying within my calorie count on my app and making sure I get 3 workouts (30-minute aerobics, 1-hour hike, 20-minute slow walk) each day. My overall goal is 25 pounds, but not necessarily by the end of the year. I want this to be a sustainable shift.

Catch Up With OCR Formatting: Done!

Prod My Publisher Re: Shadowrift: Oh yeah! I need to do that. That's a single email so it's less of a "plan" and more of a "do the thing."

Complete Work on the Book I'm Editing: First is to finish reading it, and make sure that Section 2 is comprehensible. Section 2 is a toolkit, meaning on the one hand that less is subject to editorial input and on the other hand that what editorial input is allowed is absolutely necessary. Once that's done, we look into rearranging Section 3 for style and flow, much like Section 1. As far as an action plan I think I'll start setting a timer for 30 minutes a day. This will both keep me from getting bogged down and give me an easy way to mark my hours.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

There are as usual a bunch of things I've played that I have things to say about but haven't said yet and a bunch of things I've wanted to play that I haven't played yet, and a lot of that has been because of trouble getting my Concerta refilled. Now that that's finally hopefully sorted out for the immediate (and hopefully indefinite) future maybe I'll make a little bit of progress on both of those things, but in the meantime I started replaying Xenoblade Chronicles 2 instead because for some reason those games are something I can usually do even when my brain doesn’t work. I forgot how weak the first 2-3 chapters are compared to the entire rest of the game (and almost all parts of all other games in the series too), but once it finally gets going there’s lots of good stuff.

That’s not why I’m here right now though. I finally kind of impulsively grabbed the first Atelier Ryza game because I’d been meaning to check it out for a while, it was on sale, and I needed to not go over my annoyingly low bank account limit and get kicked off SSI. I have such mixed feelings about it a few hours in, which my ranting on Discord can explain.

viBRAToryblurriness: Also initial thoughts of Atelier Ryza: it has the worst opening sections of any game I've played in a long time

viBRAToryblurriness: Not even bad, just totally fails to be engaging in any way until you slog through the first hour or however long it takes to unlock being able to do literally anything

viBRAToryblurriness: The characters start out pretty generic and there's almost nothing you can interact with at first before you learn how to harvest and craft stuff, which takes way too long to be given to you

viBRAToryblurriness: You're just running through reasonably nice looking environments with absolutely nothing you can do in them at first, like not even most of the people can be talked to

viBRAToryblurriness: Once it finally gets going it seems like it has potential though, even if the crafting system is moderately poorly explained

viBRAToryblurriness: But also even then it feels like a mid-budget PS3 game with more polygons

viBRAToryblurriness: Like the world has moved forward but this game absolutely has not other than spending more money on art

viBRAToryblurriness: Also more money on boobs and thighs, which are present in truly preposterous levels for something that presents itself as so wholesome

viBRAToryblurriness: I swear every female character has boobs the size of their head and thighs the size of their torso, even if they're not adults1

viBRAToryblurriness: Video games continue to be a mistake

viBRAToryblurriness: But also I can harvest crabs from a barrel and use alchemy to transmute them into...I forget, maybe it was desserts?

viBRAToryblurriness: Bombs?

viBRAToryblurriness: I don't even know

viBRAToryblurriness: I know sea urchins can be turned into explosives, and also they come from trees, because reasons

viBRAToryblurriness: Atelier Ryza really should've taken like 20%+ of its art budget and put it toward like...making other stuff actually good instead of just good enough

viBRAToryblurriness: Like take a few extra months to figure out slightly less clunky menus, explain how things work a bit more clearly, and do a bunch of polish on various things

viBRAToryblurriness: And like spend a few weeks doing research on how other games have solved those problems since like 2008

viBRAToryblurriness: The crafting system seems potentially pretty flexible and interesting...after I looked up online how a couple basic things about it work because the game failed to explain them

viBRAToryblurriness: And the combat system is increasingly satisfying the more stuff gets unlocked, because the more stuff you do in a fight the more it rewards you by giving you what you need to do even more stuff, so it kinda snowballs if you do it right

viBRAToryblurriness: But then there are so many little things that just Should Not Be That Way if they'd had a few more months to make it actually good

viBRAToryblurriness: Like the range for interacting with things always feels slightly off from what it should be compared to every other game I've played in the past five years

viBRAToryblurriness: Or it not explaining that you have effectively infinite storage but a limited inventory, but your limited inventory is only limited when you're in places with enemies and not at home, and you have to go through a couple menus to check how much more space you have instead of there being a quick and easy way to see, which should really be in the HUD when gathering items is like half the game, and it tells you none of this or that they're automatically transferred to storage when you go back home

viBRAToryblurriness: Or like...everything else in the game is basically like that too

viBRAToryblurriness: It's always oh that's a neat idea that would be good if they'd spent another 20 minutes thinking about how to implement it before actually putting it in the game, or they figured out a good way to do it but needed to do another pass on it to fix weird quirks with it

viBRAToryblurriness: Also progressing the story is absolutely baffling

viBRAToryblurriness: Sometimes it doesn't advance because it doesn't wanna, sometimes it advances on its own without me doing the very specific things it told me to do, sometimes little skits pop up when I enter an area that feel that they're chronologically out of order

PJ O'Reilly of Nintendo Life [...] also recognized the game for its emotional narrative and strong main characters

viBRAToryblurriness: I assume all of that must happen later, because I've found no evidence of either so far

viBRAToryblurriness: Like they're fine, but so far it's all extremely generic

viBRAToryblurriness: It's like the least interesting starting party possible in a Tales game

viBRAToryblurriness: Not bad, because that would be interesting, just most of the game is the embodiment of "fine, I guess" so far

Also the map and minimap could use some work, and the camera is tolerable but not great and has the typical problem I have specifically more often with Japanese games than anything else where the max setting for camera speed needs to be straight up doubled before I’d be happy with it.

And sure that seems like a lot of complaining, and it is, but the stuff that works works well enough that I’m still going through it a bit at a time, and it has gradually been getting better overall. I hope it keeps that up to the point that it can make up for the fairly large pile of minor annoyances it’s accumulated so far.

#atelier ryza #xenoblade chronicles 2 #sort of #atelier #xenoblade chronicles #xeno

[aulorawright]

May 30 - Tea Ceremony

Today was a very long but good day. We started it off with a Tea ceremony at Hama-Rikyu Gardens. This place was absolutely stunning, tear jerking if I may. We were split up into two groups, and got to have tea with a world famous tea master. She is the most famous tea master in Japan. We were started off with a sweet snack called Namagashi, they are made out of rice four and sweet bean paste. They were delicious and very pretty. We were to eat the sweets before drinking the tea to give the tea a bit of a better taste. We learned about the traditions and routine for a tea ceremony, and watched the tea master prepare and cleanse the tools. It was a very unique and special experience. We were then released for the day, so myself and a few other students explored the gardens. After a little while we decided to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market; it was very very busy and had many food vendors. I tried some foods I have never had before like crab cake with mustard and mayonnaise, wagyu beef, and eel. It was very cool. After that a few of us decided to go thrifting, so we explored a different town and found a bunch of cool shops. Then headed home for the night.

Academic Reflection

The Hama-Rikyu Gardens is actually quite large, and has many different sections and ponds. The whole garden is a reminder of the Edo ere. The Shioiri-no-ike pond is the only seawater pond in Tokyo, left from the Edo era, it is connected to the Tokyo Bay, separated by gates. The Shogun Oagariba was the Shogun's landing place, from their ships. At the teahouse, the ochaya, Shoguns would eat meals and rest here. These are some connections to the things we have learned so far.

According to the Following Ceremony article, Eisai believed that tea was a great aid in nourishing health, and the secret to long life. I feel this can be interpreted in two ways; literally, where tea is actually healthy for you, and mentally, the peace it brings is good for the health. To support this, during the tea ceremony, we found out that match tea is very high in vitamin C and has a lot of antioxidants. We were also told about the 4 principals of a tea ceremony, which are harmony, tranquility, respect, and purity. This meaning that tea ceremonies are a good stress relief, which is also good for the health.

The tea master also talked about ichigo ichie, "this meeting could be our last", every encounter with other people is unique, which helps people to appreciate each other and the time spent together. I believe this is a great way of thinking, and really appreciated this experience and learning from it.

[imsupposedtobestudying-whoops]

Watery Grave  An aria composed by me, with lyrics arranged from James Clavell’s fantastic book “Shogun”. Written originally for bass - In this version now sung by me.  Losing a companion overboard, the captain of a ship tries to weather a terrible storm, and muses on his greatest fear of dying at sea.  We made harbour, but without Rodrigues  He was washed overboard when his lifeline snapped The Oarsmaster was pounding the drum,  making a final effort. Our ship had been on the brink of safety... when the great wave came out of the North! And drove us, backwards, towards the rock-infested shore I saw Rodrigues go, and watched him gasping and struggling in the waves We were almost on the rocks Everyone on board knowing that the ship was lost There’s a smell of death over all of us all of us are lost

The ship is lost! Rodrigues..... Flailed for the life-ring but the sea swept it out of his reach an oar crashed into him and he grabbed for it the rain slashed down... and the last I saw of him was an arm and a broken oar... ...and just ahead The sea raging against the tormented shore I could have dived overboard... ...and swum to him... and survived!  ...perhaps There was time! ...perhaps But my first duty was to my ship and my last duty was to my ship, and my ship was in danger, in danger so I turned my back on him! Oh God... oh God... Protect me, from a watery grave... All sailors pray, helplessly, for death ashore and burial ashore. All have seen too many sea-bloated corpses and half-eaten corpses or crab-mutilated corpses... In every crevice, and cleft and gully, In caves and hidden places that can never be explored! And if the body isn’t too windward then it is hidden, or swallowed up...  ...or already carried out to sea! Into the deep. Ohh the horror of a sea-death to a pilot! I never learnt how to swim, too dangerous. Better to drown quickly than slow. Oh God, oh God... Protect me, from a watery grave...

#james clavell #shogun #new music #modern opera #dying at sea #composition #music #Tromroan #by me #drowning #drown #mutilation #body horror #kinda #I mean a little bit in the crab section #corpses