#I’ve had a much better experience this era with the people I follow which has helped a lot

[17isrighthere]

— what’s up guys 😭 i just wanted to share my own little two cents on some colouring trends i’ve seen lately (particularly for kpop gifs!) which includes really distorted pink/red hues for skintones or oversaturated yellows so maybe i could give some tips that also helped me in the past!!

and of course because i love to talk a lot — this is a very long and image heavy tutorial...

❓ why is it an issue? i think its a very clear given that whitewashing is wrong and problematic for a vast number of reasons (with a history steeped in colourism and racism) and how there’s no excuse for changing the skintone of a person-of-colour.

— but with that said i want to make it clear that this is not an accusatory post! i’m not jumping on any one content creator or tumblr user to call them racist or colourist or a bigot 😭 and i don’t want to accuse anyone of having bad intentions with their gifs or images that they post! i really just want this to be a helpful post for anyone who is struggling to colour their gifs properly and more of a learning step instead of a call-out! 

however pink-washing (i’m aware there is another definition for this term but i’m referring to washing out a skintone to make it red-pink) and yellow-washing are equally as wrong! and they are also easily avoidable!! 

in the past it was a commonly held (and incorrect) belief that european people (a term i’m going to use broadly for non-poc) had a ‘fair’ and ‘pink’ undertone to their skin [and it was an encouraged beauty standard to try and emulate that fair pale pink skin] while asian people (particularly east asian ethnicities) had ‘yellow’ skin (as seen in racist caricatures and a plethora of terrible and outdated race theories).

thus pink-washing and yellow-washing both embrace two extreme ends of the scale and it’s simply better and more respectful to try and maintain the skintone of the idol in your gifs! there are deeper contextual explanations of this if you would like to learn more!

❓ identifying pink/yellow gifs

let’s start with recognising what colouring is a no-go ❌ if you’re a gifmaker you’re probably fighting a battle on two fronts — against the whitewashing music shows and then the struggle to restore skin colour without turning the dial up so much that you’ve changed their entire skintone.

for this example below i found a kpop psd posted recently (in the past few months actually) and applied it to a basic bright-lighting sort of facecam. 

the original facecam has no heavy stage lighting (as stages can often have really strong red or pink lights that also darken the colours) so it’s an easy one to follow along with.

the gif on the left has only a basic curves layer while the gif on the right has the added kpop psd on it. it’s a very stark difference in jungwon’s skintone and i would definitely classify this as an unnatural skin tone.

following a selective colour layer (to subtly increase the warm tones of his skin) / a photo filter (to counter the pale blue sort of lighting) and a colour balance - we can end up with a product like this.

now of course, this is only a very simple sort of colouring. and everyone has different colouring styles so you can go bonkers with all the colour manipulation for the blues and greens and purples as you like!

but what if the stage is just naturally red? 

may i introduce you to the dreaded seventeen stages during face the sun era then 😭

as you can see there is already a very heavy sort of pink-red cast on his skin (that only gradually got worse as the stage started because of those damn lights and shadows 😭) but we can easily work around them!

so here’s our stage lighting with no adjustments 

and now even though we got rid of the pink-tone it’s been replaced with a very strong yellow. (you might think i’m exaggerating out here but there are unfortunately a mite too many gifs like this). jeonghan’s skin (not to mention the members in the back) have been dialled up to a wasp yellow.

and unfortunately (at least in my experiences) there have been quite a few of the below instances (especially for this stage) so ultimately it is all about finding the right balance between getting rid of the harsh, unsaturated lighting while also bringing back warmth to the skintone while ALSO not giving the idols a spray-tan.

❓ so what can i do?

well i’m glad you asked! let’s go back to the jeonghan example we just used. here’s the stage gif once more without any adjustments or layers.

now i’ll add a simple curves layer (to even out the general lighting) and we end up with this. it’s obviously much better. the red-brown cast has no become darker creating a greater contrast with jeonghan’s skintone versus his black and white outfit! it’s a nicer gif overall but i want to bring out his skintone ever so slightly to make up for the harsh white lights on the highlights of his face.

i added another selective colour layer (increasing the reds with the cyan slider and then the black slider while also pushing on the yellow slider as well) and a gradient map (fading from black to orange and set to soft light at a 20% opacity)! and this is my final result!

❓ tips and tricks

— colour balance is your best friend! if a gif seems too blue (and hence giving your subject a pale purple-red sort of look) bring back the slider to the yellow side. or vice versa. it often sorts out all the little hiccups that a curves layer might have provided. — create layer masks to compare skin colour. it’s always useful to just have a little circle where you can see the skintone before and afters! — don’t just rely on selective colour to bring colour back into skin. this is where i find that i often trip up to overcompensate for whitewashing. a gradient map works wonders if set at the right opacity and you can adjust the skin colours minutely afterwards! — this might seem like a reduntant theme but it’s more than okay to ask for help! even i’ve found that i struggle with colouring a gif right and it’s better to get two or three heads in the game than one 😭

there is no one method or psd that will automatically graces oneself with perfect and correct colouring but it’s a matter of practice and figuring out what methods works for you!

i’d take a look at these very helpful tutorials! how to colour east/south-east asian celebrities how to fix orange-washed characters

#usergif #yeahps #allresources #photoshop tutorial #chaoticresources #usermills #userxoames #useralison #userives #usernanda #userfern #usershreyu #omgari #alielook #poc tutorial #gif tutorial #gif psd #annietrack #cheytermelon #uservince #userjoanna #usersha #creations #yeah idk what to tag

[misspearly1]

Yours

Pairing: Joel Miller x You (F!Reader) 

Summary: Feeling one particular emotion at the wrong time and place, how does it affect the friendship between you and your fellow survivor Joel Miller? Your only good friend and trusted ally amongst a group of twenty, who remains oblivious of your silent crush - how does the man react when you're running away from packs of Hunters and you are… aroused. 

WC: 3.2k

Warnings: 18+ Content. Minors DNI. Smut. Hunters doing hunter shit (no one gets hurt). Little bit of angst (With a happy ending of course). Unprotected PIV sex in a risky, unsafe location. Oral. (M receiving) Face fucking, deep throating. Dirty talk. Praise kink. Slight Ownership Kink possibly? Breast/Nipple play. And lastly, lots of fluff. 

AN: Yass, I’ve missed writing out oneshots and really enjoyed exploring this short story. It’s nice to take a break and use a different era/setting, so I hope ya’ll enjoy this as much as I did. (May pick it back up in the future, idk yet) <33

Emotions are a funny thing right? They’re just feelings, a chemical synapse in your brain responding to everything around you in some type of way - they’re funny to you because you can’t explain those feelings sometimes, and this is one of those times where you can’t explain why or how you feel the way you do. 

The harrowing experience in which you are going through right now is just like every other day in this dark world; passing through a town, and surprise surprise, you get ambushed, split up from your group and therefore have to fight your way out. Same shit, different day.

This would count as the third time it has happened in the last four month traveling on the open road with your small group of survivors, and honestly, you’re starting to get used to it.  

The Lakeside Lodges used to be your camp once upon a time, but just like every other camp as it seems, it fell to the hands of Infected and you all had to move on. Your fellow survivors aren’t all that bad, there are a few questionable people of course, there always are, but the vast majority are safe to be around, and besides, you can take care of yourself if any one of them tries to overstep. 

The rules are as follows; no stealing, no fighting or killing each other and if you see something first, it’s yours. You just have to yell it out like the boss can hear you - and so far, there hasn't been any push back with those rules set by Deacon - the leader of the group. He does a decent job at keeping the rowdy ones in line and a lot of people look up to him. Not you, but mostly the men in your group. 

They respect him, but you, on the other hand, respect his sister. You don’t dislike Deacon, but you don’t exactly place him on a pedestal like the others do. If anyone should be in charge, then it should be his sister Melissa, or maybe Joel Miller. Truthfully, Melissa would be the better choice and the only reason you nominate Joel is because you have a crush on him. He has leadership material for sure, but he’s not interested in leading twenty people into a new world. 

And you know this because you’re his only friend, well, sort of. You annoyed him enough to give in and open up a little, but not too much. The man is overall a quiet person, keeps himself to himself and doesn’t bother anybody. Initially you thought he did that to avoid a fight, but after seeing him fight on many occasions now, you know it’s because he could quite easily kill any man in this group, therefore he doesn’t get involved with anyone to avoid making a mistake that gets him banished. 

Today is day three of your hellish escape out of this town with groups of hunters and the dead around every corner, but lucky for you, Joel was at your side when your group got scattered. You weren’t on your own, which would seriously lessen your odds of survival, but the reason you are having a meltdown right now is because of that one emotion you feel during a time like this. Arousal - you are aroused, and that’s why it’s so damn funny to you. 

It’s funny because it’s confusing and silly. You should be terrified for your life right now. Joel and you ducked into a hotel with Hunters hot on your heels, but the way the man was grabbing at your arm, pushing you in front of him, as if shielding you from any harm, was driving you up the wall. Why? Why does this guy, who is so quiet and doesn’t get involved with anyone, stick his neck out for your safety? 

You assume that it’s because he cares. In his own little ways maybe, but it’s in moments like this where you really get to catch a glimpse of how far you and Joel have come together. It’s called friendship, people that you can trust. And Joel is your friend, but boy do you want it to be more than that. You want him to take you in his arms, seal his lips over your with a fervent kiss then fuck you senseless. Stop thinking about him like that! Now is not the time! You yell inside. 

“Keep movin’, girl.” Joel urges you forward quickly, but carefully too so you don’t trip and fall. “Keep going, just keep going.” He repeats and your mind thinks of him saying those words in an entirely different scenario. Sighing frustration, you needed to get a grip of yourself and act proper, especially at a time like this when you can hear the Hunters boots ascending the stairwell. There’s only five of them, easy numbers to take, but Joel seems adamant to put space between you both and them for some reason. 

Upon reaching the end of the hall, he looks into the empty rooms and sees that one of them has a giant hole in the ceiling. “Alright, up there.” He ushers inside fast. “We’ll lose them up here.” 

“Joel-” You try to protest, finding reason for his absurdly different fight tactics. “-Why are we trying to lose them? We should fight.” 

“Not now, Y/N.” He brushes you off, then forcefully turns you around to face the cabinet underneath the hole. Gasping from the contact of his hands boosting you up by your ass, suddenly you don’t feel the need to protest anymore and love his new fight tactics. Jesus! That small amount of contact was sparking pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more. 

Turning around and reaching out for him, he climbs the cabinet with ease and takes your hand to be pulled up through the hole, however he loses his footing and causes you both to stumble backwards, the action pushing your breasts into his chest as his thigh jams between your legs. “Oh!” You moan, and your cheeks instantly begin to burn, however Joel doesn’t pay any attention to it. 

“Shit, that was my bad. Are you hurt or good to keep moving?” He asks, completely oblivious to the fact you had just breathed a moan into his face, enjoying the contact of his leg grinding against your core. “Y-yes.” You stutter, hoping to keep your silly emotions hidden from him.  “I’m good. Let’s move.” 

Moving out of the room and into the hallway at a slow pace, you could hear the Hunters searching for you and Joel on the floor below, however there was a much more prevalent danger lurking on this floor. Infected were standing dormant, awaiting stimulus in their surroundings. “Oh shit.” Joel grunts softly, pulling you close to him and dipping into another empty room. 

As much as you like how protective he was being right now, it wasn’t like him and you had enough. “What is wrong with you?” You ask, trying to reason with him. “We’re putting ourselves into more and more danger here. We need to kill the threats and get out of here.” 

“Y/N - not now.” Joel persists, gesturing with his hand to get you to stop prying. “You wouldn’t understand anyways, darlin’.” 

“Understand what?” Asking him another question, even though you can visually see that he is pissed off, you felt comfortable enough with the man to know he wouldn’t direct that anger at you, but he doesn’t answer. Watching him look around the room for anything he can use to fight with, you watch the man you’ve seen fight enemies with his bare hands look frantic and distressed. It was worrying. 

Why is he so worried? You wonder. We’ve been in worse situations before. After hearing the distant sounds of Hunters climbing through the hole you and Joel climbed through, he looked at you with heavy eyes. His expression cycled through the emotions, as if there were too many to handle all at once. “Jesus, Joel.” You whisper, shaking your head at him. “Talk to me, what is wrong with you right no-”

“I don’t want to lose you!” He yells - actually yells, not caring about who or what he alerts. An imaginary gust of wind blows through the room between you and Joel as you just stand there, staring at him. Those words drifted around the room, clung to the air and held a heavy amount of weight. He doesn’t want to lose me? Your eyes widen with the meaning of that statement. A smile on your lips appears. That imaginary weight hanging in the balance drops and love wraps itself around your body like a warm blanket. Joel doesn’t want to lose you, because he loves you. 

Gliding across the room, your lips crash onto his in a searing kiss as you push him backwards. The sounds of Hunters fighting Infected fading out in the background as you push him into a closet. Joel pushes back, but only far enough to reach for the doors and close them, completely encasing you in darkness, wrapped up in his big, strong arms, wrapped up in his love. 

“Y/N.” He groans your name in a whisper, a soft breathy sigh, hinted with desperation. Fighting for leverage by grabbing your hips, the man pulls you into him as he bucks his hips forward, showing his dire need in this exact moment. Silly, silly emotions in a time like this, but it’s apparent that you’re not the only one with untimely emotions. Joel is hard, painfully hard, it’s currently poking into your lower stomach. And you - you are soaked through with desire. 

“Joel.” Breaking off from his passionate kiss, you hold a finger to his lips and whisper. “Stay quiet, handsome.” You plant a kiss on the corner of his lips then fall to your knees, the action drawing out a shaky ‘fuck me’ from him before he tosses his head back, biting the back of his hand. Your delicate hands roam the expanse of his clothed crotch, palming his bulge with intention before working the belt buckle open. 

Wishing that he could see you within the darkness of this small space, Joel focuses on your touch and pictures your beautiful face behind his closed eyes. The zipper to his jeans open and his cock springs free, audibly slapping his stomach. He breathes heavily with anticipation, feeling you pull his jeans down until they pool around his ankles, and then, your warm breath fans over him. The sensation of your soft lips and shallow breath trailing up his inner thigh making his cock twitch, you stop at his hip and plant a kiss on the skin. 

“Y/N - please.” Pleadings choking up his throat, he can physically feel you smiling into the kiss on his other hip before you reassure him. “We’ll get there, baby.” You say sweetly while dragging your tongue up his rock hard cock then back down again. “I want to take my time with you.” 

“I'm afraid we won’t have enough time, darlin’.” He grunts, still biting the back of his hand to muffle his moans, however he couldn’t stop the sharp gasping noise he made when your lips landed on his balls. You took the sac in your mouth, swirled your tongue around and very carefully sucked, just enough pressure that it was all pleasure for him. “Goddammit!” His growl hums through his hand, biting the flesh so hard it was close to drawing blood. “When the time comes, girl.” Joel's voice whispers down from above, laced with warning. “When the time comes, you’ll feel my payback for days, darlin’.” 

“Oh, I look forward to it.” You moan, then correct yourself. “In fact, I’m desperate for it, Joel. I’m desperate for you.” Licking a path up his cock again, this time you give the man what he so dearly wants and take the head of him your mouth, extracting a pornographic noise from his lips. You hum eagerly when burying your face into the hairs of his mound, holding yourself there for a few seconds before pulling back with an obscene gasp for air. 

“Show me how desperate you are, Joel.” You heave a silent request for him to take over, to fuck your face like he owns your mouth like it’s his own personal warm hole. “Take me, baby - I’m yours.” You mewl, practically begging him. It was disgraceful of you, on your knees with your mouth open, ready for him. 

“My pleasure, doll.” Joel grunts before threading his fingers through your hair, gripping it tightly before thrusting his cock inside your mouth. You choked, feeling the tip of his prod the back of your throat in the most delicious way. There was no time to wait and so he began fucking your mouth at a steady pace, giving you a break for air each time he pulled his hips back. “Play with yerself, babydoll.” He groans through gritted teeth, eyes rolling to the back of his head from the wet glucking noise of you taking him whole every time. “Go on, get that pussy ready for me, Y/N.” 

Moaning around him, the bliss-filled tears stain your cheeks as you slip your hand down your body and inside your jeans fingers landing directly over your clit. You jolt from the delectable sensation and coat your fingers with your slick before delving two inside your quivering hole. “Oh that’s it, darlin’. Good girl.” Joel praises, smiling from the sounds he could hear. “You’re drenched, I can hear that wet little pussy, baby.”

Moaning again, you nod when he buries your face into his mound and Joel keeps you there while using his other hand to palm your breasts through the fabric. “Know how many times I caught myself staring at these? Huh?” He asks, then pinches your nipple, drawing out a cry from you. “Oh, there she is.” He mocks a sickly sweet compliment. “There’s my girl.” 

Hips pulling back to give you a break for air, Joel twists his body and brings you with him, now with your back placed to the wall. “Keep those open.” He kicks your feet apart, then warns. “You’re gonna take my load, baby. I’m close.” You manage to utter a teasing reply before he forcefully opens your mouth and buries his cock inside again, muffling your moans of pleasure. 

Sampling a taste of him, you swallowed beads of pre-cum and used your other hand to cup his balls, fondling them gently to get him there. You jaw aches and the back of your throat felt bruised, but if you could, you’d allow Joel to fuck your mouth mercilessly for as long as he possibly wanted. His pleasure is yours, and although you like receiving, you love to give a whole lot more. Just hearing him grunting above and feeling his hips snap forward was driving you over the edge into the pools of ecstasy. You wish you could see his cock, but just feeling him in your mouth suggests that the stretch is going to be impressive when the time comes. 

“Shit!” He breathes sharply, resting his forearm against the wall while fucking your mouth. He slipped his hand behind your head, protecting you from the contact as his pace picks up. “Oh God. I’m gonna cum. Holy shit, holy shit! Baby, I’m cumming!” Joel yells, bursting ropes of his warmth on your tongue and you gulp it back, emptying your mouth to take more. The noise of your actions was loud, you could hear it yourself and you knew Joel could too. He even praised it. “Yes, baby, yes. Keep going, just like that.” He cries, thighs jerking from the sensitivity. “Take it all, Y/N. Nnugh! Good girl, there we go.” 

Pulling back and only hearing you catch your breath from below, Joel does the same and breathes through the aftermath of his orgasm. He misses the sight of your face, hates the darkness in this closet that keeps him from seeing you. Nothing outside this small space could be heard and he takes a gamble that the danger has disappeared. Standing up straight, he kicks the door open behind him with his foot and light floods the room. And he didn’t think you could look any more sexy than what you are. 

Sitting on the floor with your knees to your chest, spread out with your hand inside your jeans, where there was a clear damp patch in the crotch area, but your face…Oh God, your face drives him - a sound minded man - absolutely stir crazy with hunger for more. A mixture of his cum and your spit smeared across your chin, your pretty eyes blotchy with tears as your cheeks blossom red - you look beautiful. Beautiful and desirable. “Oh.” You say, crooking one eyebrow with a smirk on your lips. “Looks like someone isn’t finished yet.” 

Looking at his growing cock, it hardened again and you were right, he isn’t finished. Not at all. “C’mere.” He whispers softly, reaching down to help you off the floor. Kissing you on the lips while walking backwards until he meets the base of a bed, Joel slips his hands to your front and impatiently opens up your jeans. The man didn’t even wait until they were at your feet before sliding his cock through your slit, coating himself with your desire. The position was something you’ve never done before, he was rolling his hips forward, using your thighs that were squeezed together to give him pleasure, which was stimulating your clit. 

“I need you.” He mumbles into your mouth, desperate to feel your warmth wrap around him. “Take your shirt off, baby. I’ve fantasized about how your boobs look for too long.” 

Taking your shirt off along with your bra, Joel wastes no time with ducking his head down and taking your pert nipple into his mouth, sucking on the sensitive skin harshly with a gentle bite. “Joel!” You mewl. Tossing your head back as he grunts like some wild animal chasing his own high. Dropping an arm to your leg, he brings it up high, spreading you apart so he can take what he really wants. A broken whine escapes you as he inserts the tip of him inside, round and bulbous, stretching you open nicely for what's to come next. 

“I don’t ever want to lose you.” Joel repeats his statement from earlier, burying himself to the hilt inside your heat. Relishing in your moans of pleasure as you clench around him, he presses his forehead to yours and whispers. “That’s why we’re leaving the group. We’re never going back to them - they’re gonna get us killed and I can’t lose you, darlin. I can’t.” 

“Joel.” You sigh a breath of relief. After planting a kiss on his lips, joy floods your chest with a smile spreading across your lips. You look him in the eyes, feeling his warmth inside of you, wrapping you up in his love, and therefore bringing you to repeat your statement from earlier too. “I’m yours, Joel.” 

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[terrific-fish]

Church of the Doodler fight Analysis

With the Sparrow/Lark and Henry fight in Alright, there are some elements that I wanted to examine up front. We have “How much is Sparrow pretending to be Lark?” “How much did Sparrow mischaracterize?” and “How much was directed at Lark?”  I went through the fight argument pretty much line by line. The transcript I wrote is here if you want to follow along

 https://www.tumblr.com/terrific-fish/702290471169474560/im-about-to-analyze-the-crap-out-of?source=share

Firstly, when the scene begins, Lark and Sparrow seem to be hanging back. Scam Actually has all of the limelight, sitting on the throne. When Scam suggests that it has to be one of the Oak Boys, Henry isn’t looking at them. Henry addresses his next comment to Scam, implying he isn’t looking at the twins.

Then Lark says he can do it. We know from listening that Sparrow takes the place of Lark. I choose to believe, based on a pitch difference, and the implications it has for Sparrow, that this interjection came from The Real Lark.

Then, once Henry tells him no, that it’s crazy dangerous, “Lark” yells that he “KNOW[s] it’s crazy dangerous”. I believe that this line starts Sparrow’s act. Lark said he would do it, and Sparrow trusts his brother to do it. That said, he’s still upset that anyone is thinking of doing it, and that’s why the word KNOW is emphasized.

Then we get to see Anthony describe “Lark”. This implies that the group turned to look at him enter the room, which renders my theory plausible.

Sparrow proceeds to say that he’d do it because he wants to protect Henry. I see this as a bad performance of Lark, something Sparrow said because he had to say something. It’s something that Lark would feel, but not necessarily say out loud .Then when Henry says he won’t let Lark do it, Sparrow shouts and asks “NO?” a few times. The NOes, however, I think lead back to his experience in the season 1 finale.

The way I first understood the finale (which I’ve since adjusted my take on) was that Sparrow didn’t know Lark’s plan to stab Henry. From the Needlejuice Era, we know that that wasn’t the case, that he was in on it.

The way I see Sparrow’s “NO?” “NO?” is that he’s remembering the time where he didn’t keep Lark from putting their father in danger (i.e. stabbing him) and feeling a helpless rage at being barred from protecting him this time.

When Sparrow says it’s his fault, he’s talking about himself and Lark as a unit. The line about “punishing” hits deep. He cuts himself off from it, and I think it’s because how he feels himself being punished, and how he perceives Lark feeling punished are different. He doesn’t want to show his cards, or his brother’s.

When he starts stumbling over his words, and shouting “People don’t make mistakes like this” I think that anger is less at himself and more at Lark. He is absolutely angry at himself, don’t get me wrong, but his anger is spread over the both of them. His childhood ended because of Lark’s mistake, and while they have bonded over it, he still holds resentment over it. Not enough to separate him from his brother, but enough to fester.

When Sparrow talks about how it’s his fault, the way he emphasizes the word “fix” has layers to me. He has to fix the Doodler, period. That is a shared trait. But I think that he also feels like he has to fix the animosity between Lark and Henry. He thinks he’s the only one who can fix it, because he’s the only one close enough to them both to do so.

Then he says that if someone will die for this, it would be him. I think he says this genuinely as himself, while knowing it’s something that Lark would also say. I also think that perhaps Lark would’ve heard the truth in the statement, and been devastated by it, if not for him being younger here, with the rage so close.

Sparrow continues, saying “If you had just been better- If you had been-” and then he gasps, having run out of air, and Henry takes over. I think that Sparrow was going to finish that with “If you had been there.” I think, with Walter and Henry’s regeneration spell being brought up in the episode, that Sparrow was referencing when Walter’s legs got cut off, and Lark’s need for vengeance sprung up. If Henry had been there [to fix Walter and support his kids through the trauma] then he wouldn’t be like this.

When Sparrow says  “If you’d been a better father, I wouldn’t be like this” “Father” and “Be” are emphasized. We can read this straight as is, I think that this is something Sparrow agrees with for himself and for Lark both. I also think that the emphasis implies that he sees himself as Lark’s caretaker. This is furthered when Sparrow says “this is my fault, but it’s your fault too, you fucked this up- we fucked this up.” I almost see it as an angry kinship. He’s furious because they both managed to fail Lark, and the way Sparrow finds penance for that is to continue helping Lark do what he needs to do.

That’s how I see the end of his line, with “This FUCKING needs to happen.” He didn’t say that “I need to do this,” with the next Twin Action being Lark’s reveal. He said this needs to happen, as in, Lark needs to do this, and he’s under my charge and yours. I will let him do it, and you will not stop him.

After Henry has the Letter Monologue (not that he 100% read from the letter), the illusion fades from Sparrow. I think that Sparrow was the one powering the illusion, and that Henry got through to him. Sparrow’s brand of anger, in my estimation, could be alleviated by Henry’s apology and plea to keep Lark safe. The illusion failed at that moment because subconsciously, Sparrow wanted Henry to keep Lark safe more than he wanted Lark to do what he felt he needed to do.

Finally, we see Lark’s reveal, and his apology. Hot take, the apology was to Darryl and nobody else. “Sorry for playing a trick, guy who’s only tangentially involved in my eldritch family drama.” It could also be for Sparrow, for making him argue with their father when all he wants is peace between the three of them. It is, most importantly, the last thing he says to his father before his potential death. A simple “Sorry.” But the sorry was almost meek. In this moment, if he was addressing his family, he knew that all the sorries in the world couldn’t help them, but he felt the need to try, knowing it would be just another drop in the bucket.

And of course, Lark seeing himself in the Doodler, and deciding that it needs killing over rehabilitation. That’s an essay in and of itself.

Thanks for reading!

#pretty please interact I spent 3 hours on this #sparrow oak #character analysis #dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndads spoiler #dungeons and daddies spoiler #dndads spoilers #dungeons and daddies spoilers

[freneticfloetry]

weekend wip game

Rules: List your WIPs below (if you only write one fic at a time, feel free to include future WIPs/ideas!) then answer the following questions. Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs (or more).

Thanks to @welcometololaland for kicking this off, plus @liminalmemories21, @rmd-writes, @lemonlyman-dotcom, @orchidscript, @alrightbuckaroo, and @heartstringsduet for the tags!

1. WIP List: had we but world enough (and time) (the TiMER fic) a strong enough foundation (followup to tbah in the Roots Before Branches series, aka “five times Morgan was just like her daddy, and one time she was all her papá”) for better, for worse (bachelor party shenanigans) we were emergencies (the It’s a Wonderful Life/Sliding Doors-esque TK AU) the same in every language (five times Carlos says something in Spanish during sex and one time TK understands) show me the steps so i can go through the motions (4x18 Carlos & Gabriel tag) our hearts are haunted by the ghosts that i made (the no coma AU that angst built) Still Sadly Untitled Phone Fic (five times Tarlos had to replace a phone) Untitled HGTV AU Untitled [Film] Fusion Untitled Breakup Era Hookup (accidental club run-in where Jealous TK Makes Choices) Untitled [Redacted] AU (collab with @ambiguouspenny) The One Where Carlos Gets Shot …do you know how happy I am that to build a home is not on this list?

2. Which of your WIPs is currently the longest? The TiMER fic! It wasn’t even supposed to be second in line, it just bullied its way to the top of the list.

3. Which WIP do you expect will end up the longest? Oof. If I didn’t know myself so well, I’d say we were emergencies, but since I do, it’ll probably be the HGTV fic.

4. Which WIP is your favourite to write/the most enjoyable to write? Why? The TiMER fic has been a lot of fun to write, despite it being hurtier than I intended, but I think that’s just down to being in TK’s head for the first time. But every single snippet of for better, for worse makes me grin like a loon without fail, so it’s that one, hands down.

5. Which WIP do you find the most intimidating to write? Why? Hat trick for the TiMER AU. I think I was so excited about the premise and the possibilities of it all — I’ve wanted to write a TiMER fic since I first saw the movie, and a Soulmates fic for even longer — I didn’t really stop to consider that, after ~64k of building on and in-between canon, I was going to have to… build on and in-between canon. There’s a substantial element of re-imagining for this one, just because of the nature of the TiMER as a literal plot device, but there are times I’m still like fuuuuuck, I have to do this thing completely differently now.

6. Which WIP do you experience the most self-doubt about. Why? the same in every language. It’s not a plot-what-plot, it’s literally sex as plot, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about making it work.

7. Which of your WIPs will you seek out a beta/sensitivity reader for? Why? Both for better, for worse and we were emergencies will need outside attention to make sure they’re working as planned, and I’ll definitely be enlisting @hoko-onchi-writes’ Smutmancer services to make sure the same in every language is worth anything at all.

8. Have any of your WIPs been struck by the curse of writer's block? I’m just laughing right now. That’s my answer.

9. Which WIP has your favourite OC? Tell us about them? Definitely we were emergencies. His name is Simon, he’s a vet (as in healer of animals, not former military man, but he has Seen Some Things in his particular line of work so the latter isn’t far off), and he has a history with Carlos that he’d very much like to be a future with Carlos. He’s also totally scruff-and-curls era Zane Phillips in my head, and both @ambiguouspenny and I are sort of shamelessly infatuated with him. To quote Tay, after being virtually introduced to Dr. Simon: “do you even like TK?”

10. Which WIP is the sexiest? One would think it’s the aforementioned fic where sex is the plot, but the TiMER fic has some moments, y’all.

11. Which WIP is the angstiest? I mean, pick your poison. As I said, the TiMER fic is angstier than intended. The Breakup Era Hookup will be hot angst, but angst nonetheless. There’s one where Carlos gets shot. And I know it sounds like show me the steps so i can go through the motions might be an obvious answer, considering The Gabriel Factor, but the real winner is probably our hearts are haunted by the ghosts that i made. I told Tay the actual premise and they threw me in angst jail.

12. Which WIP has the best characterisation (in your humble opinion)? a strong enough foundation is a real contender here, because it’s the Carlos I already know and love, but I think it might actually be for better, for worse, simply because it’s all of Team Tarloft, and I have something of a knack for ensemble fics, if I do say so myself.

13. Which WIP has the best scene setting (in your humble opinion)? Either the HGTV fic or the Untitled Film Fusion. Probably the former, because pretty pretty interiors are like porn for me.

14. Which WIP have you worked the hardest on? Surprising no one, the TiMER fic. Snippets aside, I’m a “one WIP at a time” kind of girl.

15. Which WIP do you have the highest expectations for? Why? In a weird way, I think this is usually the fic I’m currently working on. Some Yuletide fic aside (mostly pinch hits and quick treats), I always want to feel like whatever I’m writing is the best thing I’ve done — that way I get the sense that I’m growing. That said, though I’ve written a kid in fic (Teddy from The Magicians), I have never written kidfic, and the plan I have for a strong enough foundation makes me really excited.

16. Do you dream about any of your WIPs? Not the actual fics, no, but I do dream about characters.

17. Do any of your WIPs have particular complexities that your other fics don't? our hearts are haunted by the ghosts that i made has to tread some very thin ice, due to its premise, and I’m hoping I can find the right balance with it. And that it doesn’t make people hate me.

18. Which WIP is the funniest or has the most humour? for better, for worse. And it’s not even close.

19. Do any of your WIPs contain outside POVs or a deep dive on a character other than the main ship? How are you finding that process? The Untitled Phone Fic has an outsider POV! An OC outsider, even. She’s an overworked, underpaid girl named Kelsey, and she’s sort of precious. This one’s still in early stages, just an outline and a handful of snippets, but Kelsey is very clear in my head.

20. Tell us one thing we don't know about one or more of your WIPs. One involves an unreliable narrator, one involves an inanimate object as a running theme, and one involves revenge.

I am so very late to this, so consider it an open tag for anyone who’d still like to talk WIPs!

#fic meme #wip game #writing #the proverbial plate

[pinkest-nekomata]

Finally gathering some words around my AFAB femme enbie experience, and a special thanks to the gender dysphoria bible for getting me over the line here.

Probably one of the more surprising developments of my gender journey has been that the more secure I’ve been in identifying as gender vague, gender queer, and nonbinary the more femme I’ve presented.

As I’ve followed what feels good, another key ingredient to gender euphoria to me has been some element of weird.

“I want to get neck tattoos,” I said, “So even when I’m on a zoom call people will know I’m Not Normal.”

I spent the first twenty four years of my life working incredibly hard to not appear weird. I received praise from my parents and adults for being “so mature” (which now I see as a red flag). I developed a constantly self-effacing attitude in social situations, working hard to create an easy conversation for everyone else. I was calm, sharp, self-aware. I would hedge and self-deprecate around my special interests, anticipate and proactively avoid complaints. I hated the arrogance and patronizing tone with which other “smart people” moved through the world.

I leaned into smart casual at work. A-line dresses, a retro bob. I wanted to be seen as fashionable, different, as caring about my clothing—but without spending tons of money or seeming too vain. I now refer to this as “dressing as the type of lesbian I wanted to date” era.

I walked a careful line when it came to femininity. I studied and worked in STEM, meaning the prettier I looked, the less likely I was to be taken seriously.

And as friendly as I was and am, I was also smart, cunning, driven, ambitious—and I wanted to be perceived that way. When I worked as an engineer, I would go out of my way to wear jeans and a polo (which, if I was honest with myself, I hated) to ensure I was taken seriously.

It chafed. I could never quite put my finger on why something felt “off”, even though on paper, dressing more androgynously theoretically should have been affirming to me.

Masculine elements were not foreign to me—I would have dreams where I was a man, and the emotional tenor was always curious neutrality. I had the sense that if I had been born a man, very little about me would be different. My me-ness ran much deeper than that.

When I write, I drift between masculine and feminine perspectives. Writing for me has always been a flow state—an unfolding of parts of myself that are usually suppressed, a safe place to explore emotions and identities and experiences that are unsafe or inaccessible in physical reality. Not everyone who writes the opposite gender inhabits that gender—but I do. I have written whole novels from the perspective of a man—not wondering what it’s like to be a man, but simply existing, expressing, experiencing as a man. (Though, not a particularly heteronormative man, to be fair.)

I never wished to be a man—but I did wish that being perceived as a woman did not bring with it expectations about my preferences and competencies.

It seemed at the time that my experience was well-explained by friction with misogyny, but there were other clues. The wordless not-rightness. An internal flinch whenever I was included in a “thanks ladies” or a “oh a girls meeting”, even at the same time as I felt strangely distant from the more masc-oriented women in my workplace.

I was, on some level, jealous that they were more comfortable in polos and jeans, more awkward in a blouse and skirt.

I felt the most affinity with our office manager, who wore flowing sundresses from Anthropologie and carried herself with feminine strength and warmth.

Meanwhile, I would reach for a dress in the morning and then correct myself—No, you see clients today. Better to be taken seriously.

The shifts happened slowly—and then in lurches. I realized I had ADHD, and then autism. I started to trace all the ways that I’d been compensating, all the signs that I’d never really fit in.

And with great relief, the thought settled over me—“I have never been particularly good at hiding how weird I am.” Now I understand it wasn’t just relief—it was a little jolt of gender euphoria.

I have never thought about gender a cis amount. But my flavor of autism means I think about most things more than most people do, and I had never hated being a girl, and I had never wished to be a man. “Non-binary” had still be framed to me as a matter of androgyny, but terms like “gender vague” and “auti-gender” and “demigirl” started to illuminate my path.

I felt simultaneously a disconnect with my gender and a not-yet-realized sense that my gender was so much broader than I realized—that it included my autism, my weirdness, my enthusiasm, my sarcasm, my interests, my intensity, my me-ness.

The switch to remote work with the pandemic left most of my closet irrelevant. When I was going to bother dressing up, it was for me. I bought goth dresses and thigh highs, mini skirts and crop tops. I reclaimed the adolescence I’d never had. I slowly learned how to do my makeup—something I’d spent hours trying at in high school, then scrubbed off in frustration, more terrified of looking like I’d tried and failed than that I didn’t care to try at all.

And it felt right. And I started getting tattoos—and then I didn’t stop getting tattoos. I donated one batch of work clothes, then another. I figured out I was bisexual and I’d been dressing like someone I wanted to be with, not who I was.

This essay was in part inspired by trying to figure out why I feel such a strong affinity with trans women. “I walked through the valley of gender fuck and emerged in bows and skirts”, I wrote last week, my way of cheering a group of trans women being excited about dresses.

It felt too fraught to say, I get this feeling. I love dresses in this same way. In a trans way. Not in a cis way.

I insisted on wearing a dress to school every day until the second grade, and really the only reason I stopped was undiagnosed sensory issues—when I realized that I could just wear a bike short and a t-shirt and be surrounded in cotton, that became my new obsession.

But I wore dresses in the dirt, dresses chasing bugs, skorts on the soccer field, bows with frogs on them. I knew, from a very young age, that “girl” did not feel quite right—but it did not feel quite wrong, either. And if “girl” didn’t feel right, then that meant I was supposed to be a tom boy and hate dresses and parties and cooking and makeup and dolls—but I didn’t hate any of those things. I just also loved heavy machinery and science and paintball. And, importantly, I wanted to be perceived as someone who loved all of those things at the same time. I wanted the very facts of my presentation to challenge people’s assumptions.

I have thought about, and wrestled with, and chafed at gender in a way that cis women have not. I have felt a rush of gender euphoria in adulthood and have a deep, deep appreciation of how much a skirt, a dress, an eyeshadow palette can mean to someone who is finding themselves in adulthood.

Also, thanks to genetically small breasts and an ED phase, I have also experienced watching my body gain/redistribute weight in a way that is gender-affirming. I can finally buy bras off-the-rack now. (Sort of. 38A is a specialty size, but the right 36B works.)

In retrospect, I can see how I always knew that I was a non-binary person and I was attempting to present in a way that non-binary people are supposed to—androgynous, practical. Dressing femme in a “normal” way felt wrong, too. But femme on my terms—weird femme, autistic femme, queer femme, hyper femme, divine femme—feels right. It feels like it can encompass and express the power, presence, and vitality for which I lacked an outlet for so long.

Alt fashion has given me a way for my gender presentation to say, I am not what society tried to make me. I cannot be told what to be. I don’t play by your rules.

I made a little “wheel of genders” for days I’m feeling indecisive. “Cottage core”, “high witch”, “bubblegum goth” and “athleisure” are a few of the options. And even on sweatpants days, bright pink hair and a rapidly growing collection of tattoos (my own form of bodily transition) are always sure to say, I am not normal.

While I may appear to have gone from subverting stereotypes to embracing (some of) them, my inner journey has been one of attempting to comply with stereotypes and then breaking out of them—as so many other trans people experience.

My goal in sharing this, other than to affirm to myself in so many words, I am nonbinary, is that it might resonate with someone else going through something similar.

I’ve read and read and read through definitions and descriptions of what it’s like to be nonbinary (another distinctly not-cis thing to do), looking for a glimmer of recognition. And slowly I collected those glimmers into a beam of light that’s guiding me now. And I hope my story can be a glimmer for somebody else, too 💕

#actually autistic #autism #nonbinary #enbies #enby pride #enby #trans enby #trans pride #trans #gender euphoria #cw gender dysphoria #gender dysphoria

[starlingflight]

2022 Wrapped

Post the top 5 works you're most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular)

ty for tagging me, @ashesandhackles and @lanaturnergetup​

Sands of Time - I wanted to scream from frustration when I got ‘sand’ and ‘chocolate frog card’ as prompts. I wanted to scream in excitement when I figured out how to work them into a fic. Also, my first foray into Jily

End of the Road - Founders Era is way out of my comfort zone and I really enjoyed exploring it. Also I accidentally made Rowena Ravenclaw my own favourite character lmao. 

Those Left Behind - I’m really happy with how captured some difficult emotions in this. I want to write more from immediately after the war but I find that period pretty intimidating because of the intensity of the circumstances/atmosphere. 

Let It Linger - I have said this previously on discord, but I used to be a total James Potter Anti and I’m low-key proud of myself for not being too rigid on my opinons and allowing myself to be swayed (thank you, @lanaturnergetup​). This was my first time writing James’ POV and I felt like I had a breakthrough with him.

Auld Lang Syne - I really enjoyed exploring the Marauder dynamics for the first time but I’m mainly including this because @hinnyfied​ said this was her favorite thing of mine and I live to please her. 

your top 4 current WIPs that you're excited to release in the new year

I wish I could give a list but I can’t because I don’t really have a plan for this year. 

I did Nanowrimo in November and wrote 70k of an original story - I’m excited to edit it in the New Year and figure out if I’m ever going to put it somewhere for people to read. 

I’m planning a fic about Cho and her life post-canon, I’m also planning a follow-up to A Bad Idea (a George/Angelina one-shot) and maybe something Parvati & Lavender focused with @lanaturnergetup​ which will be the MOST fun if we actually get time for it. 

your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year

Allowing myself to just write without worrying if it’s good and knowing I can edit later - something that really helped in nanowrimo. 

I think I’ve got better at Show Don’t Tell but also knowing when telling is actually necessary. I think I have previously been a little too scared of exposition. 

A weird side effect of depression (for me) is that it makes visualising scenes much more difficult - this has been frustrating but I think an unintended consequence of it has been that I have focussd a lot more on description/scene-building (for my own benefit more than anyone who might read my writing) and my descriptions have improved because of it. 

your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year,

I have really shied away from drama in favour of ‘realism’ previously, thanks to taking other people's advice way too much to heart. Sometimes drama is fun and exciting, which is what storytelling is about. I’m going to allow more drama into my writing this year and not worry about readers rolling their eyes at me. 

I’m going to pay more attention to characters I’ve previously written off. @ashesandhackles​ is my life idol and she has really nuanced takes on almost every character so I’m going to be more like her. 

and your number 1 favorite line you've written this year:  

‘However, rules, in James’ experience, were meant to be broken.

“It’s late. We should get back to the common room.”

Just not tonight.’

Okay, that’s three lines - the last line is my favourite but a tiny bit of context is needed. The way I evil grinned to myself when I wrote this. The way my evil grin spread when @lanaturnergetup​ beta’d it and left me this comment: 

Tagging: no one bc I'm super late to this party. If you haven't done this and you want to, consider yourself tagged.

#2022 wrapped #my writing

[yesterdayiwrote]

Some of the takes I see about George online are actually insane.

I saw someone saying basically the issue with the W14 is that mercedes followed how George felt about the car in development and not Lewis, therefore it suits George and that mercedes should not have taken georges opinion in development as seriously as Lewis's. That they should have focused on making the car suit Lewis and have George adapt.

Its like people aren't aware that these cars are a different era of cars to what lewis won his championship with. Plus it isn't like the engineers are gonna go sure we will go with George in this even though what Lewis says will be faster. They go with what they feel the fastest concept will be, they don't just decide to go with George because they like him more than Lewis.

Plus it ignores the fact that George was working in the Mercedes simulator all the way back from the brocedes era. It was his work in the simulator which gave him opportunities to test drive cars and do free practice sessions and tire tests. Surely he must have some abilty in the sim and the engineers have alot of trust in him. They are always praising his technical knowlege. Just look at last weekend. Lewis even admitted that George chose the better set up and strategy, even though on paper it shouldn't have been.

Honestly I feel for the lad. People insulted him last year because apparently he didn't do enough for development for the car and lewis was doing all the experiments and it cost him points and now because the cars a bit crap its all his fault because they put more weight into what George has said about development. Both cannot be true. You can't say George didn't do any development last year but also blame him for the car being bad this year because of what he said in development last year.

Okay, I’ve been trying to think of a way to answer this since I got it, and I’m really struggling to find a way that covers ALL the nuance of the situation whilst simultaneously airing my frustration and trying not to be a biased dick about it. I do genuinely like both of them.

This creeping narrative that everything that goes wrong is because of George and everything that goes right is because of Lewis really does fuck me off big time because it’s just such childish bullshit and I can’t be dealing with it. That said it’s so ridiculously childish that it’s barely worth giving much credence to. The people know what they’re doing and sometimes you just have to let people have their copium and just… laugh?

I think people need to allow Lewis to be vulnerable and this aching need by some people to paint this picture that he is a perfect, fully rounded driver with absolutely no flaws or weaknesses does no one any favours. Sure we haven’t seen them as much, because success has a tendency to conceal these things, but even the GOATs have areas that need improvement. Merc have no responsibility to treat him as a first priority in all eventualities, and doing so would do Lewis more harm than good? If they had insisted on switching the cars in Jeddah like some people wanted, it surely would have been ten times more humiliating for him when he got passed by his teammate five laps later going quicker on the harder tyre?

George has a really solid eye for strategy. He can call strategy in the car while he’s driving a race and that’s no mean feat. Personally, I feel Lewis is weaker in that area. He prefers the team to lead his strategy and he puts his full faith in them to get it right and that’s fine, plenty of drivers do that. It’s not a glaring void in his arsenal, but in times when things go wrong it gives George an advantage he can draw on. People get angry at him doing it, because he’s ‘putting himself first’ but equally sometimes you’ve got to control your own destiny.

The whole situation with the car design is getting a bit ‘He said, She said’. Lewis said no one listened to him and he had all the right answers. George said they all agreed the direction together. We’ll never know who is telling the truth. Chances are it’s somewhere in the middle. Some teams do design their cars to suit one specific driver over another. I don’t know that I buy into any theory that suggests in Merc it would be George, even if he did come out on top last year. I said before I was a bit disappointed with Lewis’ comments and I think they were ill advised and borne out of frustration, as did he in the press conference, and then effectively doubled down and said something just as contentious in the post race interviews 🤷🏼‍♀️

We know George has done car development. You can’t joke about him being locked in the Sim and then simultaneously accuse him of not assisting with development, and then simultaneously accuse him of driving the entire development direction to suit himself. Like any sane person knows all of those things can’t be true cos the maths ain’t mathing?

Lewis isn’t ultimately responsible for his fans and the things they say, that being said I do feel like he sees more than he lets on and he knows when to give a crafty stir of the pot. They all do? This is purely his fans doing it though, not him, even if Spinz hasn’t helped matters in the past 😒

I think it’s a shame it’s got to this state though. I feel sorry for George and I do feel sorry for Lewis as well. It is a tougher situation for him in light of 2021. None of this is George’s fault though and it’s sad to see the online discourse getting so… tribal at times.

#I had so many things I wanted to say and I lost my train of thought so this only covers like…half of them #I’ve also got a ridiculous blocked nose atm so I’m not working on all cylinders right now #tldr: lewis’ fans can be ridiculous but he’s not responsible for that even if he maybe stirs the pot at times. it’s a shame for everyone

[thefinalboss387]

Darth Sidious Appreciation Post!

I have SO much love for this character. Palpatine is the main villain of the entire Star Wars franchise, and arguably one of the greatest villains of all time. I felt the need to gush about why I love him so much and what makes him so great. There are a lot of little traits and tropes that I tend to be drawn to in characters, and Palpatine manages to check off pretty much ALL of them. This post will be long, so I’m throwing it all under a cut. Spoilers ahoy!

Star Wars is, as the name suggests, all about a galaxy that is constantly at war. It is a vast, ever-expanding saga, with countless films, books, comics, TV shows, and video games all constantly adding new chapters, new characters, and new perspectives to the story. The lore and history of the Star Wars universe has grown considerably, of course, but during the core story and present time of Star Wars - which spans nine films, and far too many spin-offs to count - Palpatine, AKA Darth Sidious, is the main antagonist, finishing off a revenge plan that had been in the works for a thousand years before him.

I’ve always loved villains, but I’ve always had an especially high regard for manipulative, mastermind-type villains, who are revealed to have orchestrated everything on their own behind the scenes. And Palpatine is very much the personification of this type of character. In all three film trilogies - and the eras in the Star Wars timeline that come with those trilogies - Palpatine was in the background, directly responsible for each massive conflict.

In the prequel trilogy, Palpatine came off as a kind, empathetic man. He was a Senator for the small backwater planet of Naboo, who eventually rose up to become Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic after Naboo was involved in a crisis. However, behind the scenes, Palpatine was the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, manipulating events and manufacturing that crisis to garner galactic attention and sympathy to ensure his route to the chancellorship. Once he was in power as the head of the senate and the Republic, he manufactured another, much larger crisis, throwing the entire galaxy into a war where he controlled both sides and benefited no matter the outcome. Publicly, he was the head of the Republic, but as Darth Sidious, he was the leader of the Separatist movement against the Republic. At the end of this war, he declared himself Emperor, with all of the unlimited power that came with it, and threw the entire Jedi Order into extinction.

In the original trilogy, Palpatine has even more political power and influence, having shown his true colors to disband the senate, create super-weapons to scare the masses into obedience, and placing his own sycophants and followers into positions of power beneath him. A rebellion forms to take down the oppressive empire and put an end to Palpatine’s rule. Although he largely avoids the public spotlight, preferring to experiment and plot behind closed doors while his minions do the dirty work, he gets directly involved in Episode VI, Return of the Jedi. Palpatine continues to show his penchant for manipulation and foresight, using spies and false information to lure the rebels into traps and control the narrative.

The sequel trilogy seems to be pretty controversial, especially Palpatine’s inclusion in Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker. Honestly, I was thrilled to see him back, and Rise of Skywalker was one of my favorite Star Wars movies - I know, people usually react badly when I say that. But, for better or for worse, Palpatine reveals himself as the mastermind behind the sequel trilogy, having transferred his consciousness into a decrepit clone body and once more controlling things from behind the scenes. He creates Snoke and puts him in charge of the First Order, a successor to the fallen empire, as a way to secure power and set the stage for his own eventual return to glory.

In the Expanded Universe, before the Star Wars continuity was rebooted to make way for the sequel trilogy, Palpatine did resurrect himself in a clone body in one of the many post-Return of the Jedi stories, but the overall narrative of Star Wars largely moved away from Palpatine’s machinations into newer territory, though it still dealt a lot with the fallout of Palpatine’s actions, those loyal to him attempting to reestablish his empire, etc.

Another trait I tend to love in characters, and one that many of my favorite characters ever possess, is when they take on a mentorship role, or have some kind of parental feelings toward other characters. I work with kids, I take my work as a mentor very seriously, and only recently came to realize that I have spent most of my life, even before my current career path, loving characters that also take others under their wing... even though, since I love villain characters, those mentor relationships are usually super toxic and unhealthy. Villains are a fun way to explore the dark side of our psyches, our consciousness, and seeing how horribly those kinds of nurturing relationships can go wrong because of those villains, or seeing how even the most irredeemable sociopaths find some good in themselves in their relationship with their mentee, is also kind of fun to explore. Palpatine has SEVERAL of these toxic mentor relationships - and actually, Star Wars as a whole is full of mentor/student relationships and the idea of leaving a legacy with the next generation, which probably is part of why I have so much love for Star Wars as a franchise.

The Legends novel Darth Plagueis is, so far, the only source to go deeply into Palpatine’s past, and it is sadly now non-canon. In it, Palpatine was a teen when he met Darth Plagueis and was taken in as his apprentice. Palpatine was troubled, hated his family, and actually grew close to his master. Plagueis was seeking to do away with the Sith custom of the apprentice murdering the master to acquire power and take in an apprentice of their own; instead opting to study ways to become immortal and, together with Sidious, rule together forever. Sidious, however, betrayed his master and murdered Plagueis in cold blood.

The first apprentice Sidious had was Darth Maul, a young Zabrak. In the Plageuis novel, Palpatine took him in as an apprentice while he himself was still apprentice to Plagueis, though that may no longer be canon. Maul was practically a slave to Sidious, taken against the boy’s will and tortured and abused into a loyal, brainwashed weapon. Maul was totally obedient to Sidious, but his master never really saw him as a true apprentice - just a blunt instrument to carry out his whims. When Maul died, Palpatine seemed to show no remorse or grief at all. When he resurfaced in the Clone Wars, Sidious saw him as a rival and moved to destroy him with no mercy. (I also need to say, that lightsaber battle in Clone Wars where Sidious dual-wielded against Maul and Savage Oppress is MY FAVORITE FIGHT IN THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE GAH IT’S SO COOL)

The relationship between Palpatine and his next apprentice, Count Dooku, is one that hasn’t been too deeply explored - at least, not in any of the Star Wars material I’ve consumed. (If anyone out there knows of material that explores this, please let me know, I’d love to see it!) Dooku fell into Palpatine’s clutches at a much older age, having several disagreements with the Jedi Order and how they are run, which Palpatine exploited to bring Dooku over to the Sith philosophy. Dooku was charismatic, and easily able to act as the face of the Separatists and sway people to his side so that Sidious could stay in the shadows, only known to his highest lieutenants. Sidious constantly tested Dooku’s loyalty and made him prove himself - I suspect this was because, given Dooku’s older age and how much freedom he had as the public face of the Separatists, Sidious felt the need to instill the fear of god in him and keep him constantly aware of who was really in control. Dooku was not as brainwashed or dependent as Maul was, he even attempted to find an apprentice of his own at one point, so Sidious needed other methods to keep him in line.

In the sequel trilogy era, Sidious was keeping a very close eye on Kylo Ren, effectively having a hand in raising him from birth to mold him into the weapon he wanted, mostly through Snoke as a proxy. I also have heard that Palpatine has an adopted son named Gallius Rax in the Aftermath trilogy of books, that he mentored and used as a key piece of his contingency plan in the event of his death, but I have not read those books so I unfortunately don’t know much about it - but I definitely am interested and intend to read those.

And then there’s Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Vader. Hoo boy.

Palpatine met Anakin in Episode I, when Anakin was just a child. Palpatine told him that he would be watching his career with great interest.... and he was not lying. For most of Anakin’s life, Palpatine was a mentor to him and practically groomed him. He heaped praise on Anakin, constantly telling him about the enormous potential he had and how much he believed in him. When the Jedi Order pointed out his flaws, Palpatine made it seem like they just took him for granted and didn’t see what he saw. He slowly, subtly, turned Anakin against everyone he knew, and planted himself as Anakin’s only real friend and confidant. He was kind to him, understanding, patient. He preyed on Anakin’s deepest fears and insecurities, making him believe that he had the power and the answers Anakin needed to solve his problems. But then he showed his real colors and Anakin was forced to pick a side, between the Jedi Order he couldn’t trust and the monster who believed in him and had the answers he needed.

When Anakin - as Darth Vader - almost died at the hands of Obi-Wan and is forced to become a cyborg monster, he loses a lot of his value to Palpatine. He also loses the love of his life and his humanity. With nothing else to keep him going but rage and loss and despair, he acts as Emperor Palpatine’s muscle, continuing to serve him but ready to take any opportunity to overthrow and replace him. But, as Emperor, Palpatine now has entire armies at his disposal, countless Imperial officers, a whole legion of Force-sensitive Inquisitors that hunt down the remaining Jedi...

In Return of the Jedi, Palpatine seems very eager to have Luke, Anakin’s son, strike Vader down and replace him as his apprentice. It’s also implied in later movies that Luke striking Palpatine himself down would allow him to possess Luke’s body, as Palpatine later tries to do with his own granddaughter, Rey.

Palpatine is a character that is always on the lookout for his next young, powerful apprentice. He puts up a caring, gentle, fatherly facade to reel them in, but truthfully he doesn’t seem to see anyone as anything more than tools to be used and controlled, and takes no hesitation in tossing them aside once their usefulness runs out, or a shinier new toy comes along.

That duality in his character is fascinating to me. Palpatine is an extremely patient man, his plan to overthrow and take over the Republic was decades in the making, and that whole time he effortlessly gave off that caring mentor facade and fooled an entire galaxy. As Darth Sidious, he was calm, quiet, and heartless, completely detached from emotion or sympathy. Once he took over as Emperor, the Jedi were slaughtered, and there was no reason to hide himself any longer, a whole new side of his personality emerged. He became a cackling, maniacal, croaky monster. There are so many sides to this character.

And it’s worth noting, Ian McDiarmid was phenomenal in the role, clearly enjoyed every minute of playing this character, and chewed the scenery in absolutely every moment of his screentime. Palpatine’s presence and the way he carried himself was very theatrical and extravagant, another trait I tend to love in a lot of my favorite characters. He is just so campy, and there’s a reason so many of his lines have become memes.

Palpatine is basically the devil. He is the ultimate evil of the Star Wars universe, hurting and manipulating so many people in the quest for his own power and immortality. But he is so FUN to watch. His scheming and plotting is super impressive, his relationships are fascinating, and the level of complexity in his character is surprising considering how one-dimensional he initially comes off as.

I love Palpatine. He is, after all, the Senate.

#Palpatine #Darth Sidious #Sheev Palpatine #Emperor Palpatine #Star Wars #There is SO MUCH MORE I could say about this devil toad #But this post is getting long and ranty #Might do a part two someday if I think of much more to say #Palpatine is legit one of my top favorite characters of all time #He's so evil and so problematic #But AMAZING

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.1.5 “What Horizon is Visible from the Top of the Barricade”

This is one of those chapters where I have to abandon the idea of doing justice to anything. In the interest of getting words down instead of freezing at the enormity of capturing it all, I’m just going to jot down some thoughts.

- I’ve had such a fight with Hugo ever since I figured out what he meant by “Progress.” Spoiler: it’s colonialism. That’s not *all* it is, but it’s pretty inextricable from the idea that the ideas of France need to be spread over the whole world until the whole world follows them, not necessarily voluntarily or consensually.

I’m trying to separate that out from Enjolras the character, who I want to think would never, but it’s hard, because Hugo really does truly believe the above. So there are beautiful and lovely ideas here, about liberty and equality and people existing for each other in universal brotherhood and the whole world cooperating for that goal, and I love that. I love it so much. And yet, I can’t stop hearing hints of what this book thinks is the path to getting there. And I can’t stop asking who sets the curriculum of the universal education that Hugo says is absolutely necessary for universal equality. Because if that curriculum doesn’t also come from many, many different kinds of voices, it isn’t worth anything like what he thinks it is.

- I know it’s just the nineteenth century being the nineteenth century, but the idea that there’s an objective truth that science will tell us, and then everyone will agree with the facts and what they mean and there’ll be universal peace because everyone will see the truth and be in agreement......... is bad. It’s a bad idea, and it’s dumb, and it’s wrong. People have different narratives and come from different experiences and worldviews, and they carry different values, and it should be that way. I agree with Hugo that there should be more education, more science, more effort to figure out what’s true, and more consultation of evidence in decision-making--but all those things have their built-in biases, and they require a perpetual open conversation and an iterative process for how they can be made better.

- Oof, the end of history stuff in here is hard. I grew up in the “End of History” era and nope, nope, nope, do not want any of that. And yeah, clearly, Enjolras isn’t necessarily picturing the 1990s “Liberal democracy + capitalism together hand in hand forever and ever” thing--he pretty obviously isn’t, given what he’s advocating--but man do I have a bad reaction to the fossilization that happens when people don’t believe that anything new or different can happen.

- It’s not really clear to me what 19th century tech innovation has anything to do with any of this? It’s the benefit of hindsight of course, but it’s very obvious from here that the path from the steamship/airship/train to worldwide Utopia was maybe not as straight as Hugo hoped. I’ve also gotten the sense elsewhere in the text that Hugo thinks tech innovation is a period that will end: we’d solve the things that needed technological solutions, and then we’d be done with tech innovation somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century.

Which........ yeah. No wonder he thought the 20th century would be happy.

For all that, this is a beautiful and extraordinary speech. It moves the barricade from being about tragedy for forty or fifty men to being about hope for mankind and its future. Enjolras’s love for his friends and his love for the way they changed him--which is how I read his apostrophe to Feuilly this time: a “hey, yeah, I *was* listening all the times you argued with me”--is lovely. He wants that love and brotherhood and transformation for the rest of the world, and he’s willing to die in hopes that his death will be part of giving it that.

I’m playing with the idea now that this is the peak and the climax of the novel, at least ideologically. We’ll explore other ideas, we’ll learn a whole lot about human excrement and it’s thematic significance which I’m excited about, and, less positively, and almost definitely less pleasantly, we’ll finally start spending some time in bourgeois drawing rooms, a thing we’ve hitherto avoided.

Some of that will be adding to our major themes, and some of that will be dust kicked up in the eyes of the censors. But it may be that a lot of the novel reaches its culmination right here, where doom is close at hand, but the future is closer still. I’m curious to see whether I still feel that way as the rest unfolds.

#brickclub #lm 5.1.5

[arleniansdoodles]

As an avid sunshine x grumpy connoisseur (both rokantic and platonic) i so understand the mc-sean thing. Its just so fun to write and read!

N e ways could you perhaps share your thoughs on The Olds (Jinfeng, Sifu and co.)? Pretty please?

Ooh I’d be more than happy to share my thoughts about the oldies! Regarding the Wood and Water Guardians, I don’t have a lot of headcanons about them except for creating OCs as their surviving relatives post-massacre 😅 So I’ll stick with Sifu, Sean’s father, and Jinfeng for now XD

Starting with Jinfeng, I didn’t know her backstory at the time of writing my fic (nor do I have the game, so I couldn’t check for myself), so I created one for her - only to realize much later that her backstory is written on a wall in the Tower 🙃 Basically, she was born to an impoverished family (which I’d already assumed) as the eldest of four sisters, only to lose her family and right arm in a terrible criminal attack. Following that, she relocates to the city, trains, and becomes the first female Sifu in that region, teaching poor families, women, and girls how to fight, etc.

I’ve kept all that as the basis and just added my headcanons on top loll Before the attack, little Jinfeng is sent to a kung-fu school so she can learn how to defend her younger sisters. And it’s there that she finds Sifu and Sean’s father, and becomes their little sister – not just as a fellow student, but in a more familial way XD She becomes the sunshiney one while Sifu is the voice of reason and Sean’s father is grumpy loll I’d say they’re kinda like the older generation version of Yang-Sean-MC, which presents quite a few parallels between Jinfeng and fem!MC.

Following the attack, Sifu and Sean’s father avenge Jinfeng by dealing with her attackers, though Sifu is affected enough by the experience that he vows to take the Wude path; on the other hand, Sean’s father has no problem beating people up loll And afterward, they support Jinfeng as she heals, and they all train and grow up together! 😁

Regarding Sifu and Sean’s father, I imagine they lived in a similar region as Jinfeng as kids – Sifu was probably better off; meanwhile, Sean’s father was in the roughest neighbourhood and developed a rough personality because of it, which is later passed down to Sean. I’d say Sifu was the most level-headed of the trio (though he’d still get in some trouble as a kid hahaa); he’s the “middle sibling” and the most conscious about the virtues in kung-fu. Sean’s father was protective of Sifu and Jinfeng as a kid, given that he’s the eldest; but he’s probably the reason they got in rough (or dangerous) situations in the first place loll 😅

In their adult era, I like to think that Sifu and Sean’s father are pretty smart when they’re separate, but when you put them together, they gotta share one braincell while Jinfeng gets the other to herself 😂 I even had this crack idea about putting the three in an escape room; Sifu would climb out the window (or search for the key if there’s no window), Sean’s father would break the door down, and Jinfeng would force them to solve the room lmaoo

I think having Jinfeng as their little sister adds to the betrayal later when she works with Yang to take down the Guardians. By that point, she likely had some disagreements with Sifu and Sean’s father about the talismans, but they didn’t realize how far she was willing to go to do it. I do think she truly believed what she did was for the best – she wanted to prevent others from suffering what she did as a child – but at the same time, I imagine she had to bury her guilt and grief so deeply that she wouldn’t feel it anymore.

I also headcanon that she’s kept her conspiracy board up for eight years because she regularly goes down to the Rift to look at Sifu and Sean’s father’s portraits, since she has no other mementos of them (which is something I’ve added to my extended Sifu fic XD)

And that’s the summary of my thoughts! I did start a mini-comic about Jinfeng last year, but it’s been sitting in my drafts forever and I don’t know if I’ll ever return to it 😭But anyway, thank you so much for your ask, anon!! I always love a chance to ramble about my ideas lololl (and feel free to share yours too, if you’d like! 😊💗)

#sunshine x grumpy is definitely mc and sean #and i love it loll #coming up with new ways for mc to make sean open up emotionally is quite a fun challenge! XDD #asks #anon asks #sifu #sifu game #fanfiction #my fanfiction #writing #my writing

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

[Games in 2023: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon]

Following Sonic Frontiers’ release in late 22, Sega announced a DLC roadmap consisting of three waves of content that would be released over the next year, all of them being completely free.  I’ve been meaning to summarize my thoughts on them as they’ve rolled out, but uh…the third and final wave has released, so I guess I’m going to cover all of them in one post!

I’m definitely going into spoilers, so tl;dr: if you already loved Frontiers, there’s now even more to love, and if you were on the fence, know that you can now get a significantly improved and expanded experience at no extra cost.  Frontiers is bigger and better than ever, and while the challenges of the newly-added Another Story can be quite frustrating, I absolutely still enjoyed the overall experience.

If you’ve been here for at least a while, you probably know that I fucking adored Sonic Frontiers.  I’ve been getting back into the series over the past few years, and this was the first major new game to release since beginning that process; Frontiers was designed to be the beginning of a new era for Sonic himself, so it all seemed to line up quite well.  It certainly helped that the tone of the game was highly reminiscent of the “Dark Age” titles I grew up with.  The game has its problems, certainly—performance issues like pop-in and some loose seams that show Sonic Team needed a little more time than Sega was ultimately willing to give them—but for me, the positive immensely outweighs the negative.  Frontiers is fun to play, ridiculously cool, and not afraid to be itself the way Sonic games of the past decade-ish have seemed to be; seams be damned, I love the story dearly, and I’m excited to see how it might be followed up on.  Frontiers was the exact kind of Sonic game that I personally needed at this point in my life.

Wave 1 of the DLC introduced a variety of new features with the theme of enhancing the “sights, sounds, and speeds” of the game.  One that I still haven’t messed around with much is the new photo mode—I’m glad to now have the extra freedom in setting up screenshots, but it just didn’t occur to me to use it yet.  Honestly I don’t think I’ve played many games that have a photo mode, it’s not something I’m personally used to thinking about.  Several gauntlets were also added, featuring both the Cyberspace stages and combat challenges.  It seems odd that the Cyberspace gauntlets are separated from the Cyberspace arcade mode: if I had spent a bunch of time perfecting runs in arcade mode to then find out I had to do it all again, I imagine I’d be rather annoyed.  As for combat challenges, simply providing a way to refight the Titans without going through the whole game again is enough to count as a win in my book (though being able to do so without the “warm-up” rounds would be the most ideal), and if you enjoy the combat, this is the best way to get a nice helping of it all at once.  I’m told that completing these modes unlocks the ability to use Power Boost in Cyberspace stages, and an Extreme difficulty setting, but I haven’t felt a desire to push for either of those myself yet.

My favorite addition of this wave is the Jukebox.  By tracking down Sound Memories scattered across every island, you unlock a few dozen songs that you can play while running around, these being pulled from various games all across Sonic’s history.  Most people know Sonic music tends to be pretty good (putting it mildly).  Having so much of it on-hand is a wonderfully tantalizing prospect.  The Sound Memories are all on the map, just like every other collectible—this is good, because it would’ve been frustrating to find them otherwise…though, it did enable me to run around and grab all of them in one sitting, which may have been an error on my part.  I’m eager to see what it’ll be like finding this as you go through a fresh game; I imagine it’ll be a very welcome additional reward for player progression.  Nevertheless, it was still fun to run around the islands and figure out how best to reach each Sound Memory and discover which new song it unlocked.  There are some great picks!  I’m also really glad that some of the songs are found on Rhea Island—for as large as it is, there was no real reason to explore it before since it was totally devoid of life and collectibles outside of the towers you progress through one after another.  But now, taking a quick stroll around its lovely locales rewards you with Open Your Heart and Stardust Speedway and Flying Battery!  It’s obvious that the devs spent a lot of time building Rhea, and nice to know that more players will be able to appreciate it now.

On to wave 2, released in celebration of Sonic’s birthday.  I was expecting only some small cosmetics, but it’s FAR more substantial than I was expecting!  The birthday cosmetics actually change a lot in the overworld, really changing the atmosphere in a fun way.  New Sound Memories were added, these being the themes that play while exploring the islands: they each have various “stages” that progress as you fill out more of the map (if I recall correctly), and every single one of them can now be unlocked for the Jukebox.  There are also several new Action Chain Challenges that lead to unique Koco which, when returned to the Elder, extend Sonic’s Boost Gauge!  Fantastic as this sounds, these challenges were a bit too much for me, though I’d like to think this is at least partly due to my being so rusty at the game.  I’ll have to try these again sometime, because on top of more Boost, completing all of them apparently unlocks the Spin Dash, and without even searching I’ve seen some sick-looking movement you can do with that.  The other big addition is New Game+, and though I haven’t used it yet, I am absolutely going to replay Frontiers at some point and this will probably be the way I do it.

It, uh, seems there’s a trend of me not actually going deep into a lot of the new stuff.  It’s good stuff to be sure, just primarily groups of small things that probably are designed to be done bits at a time as you go along like the other collectibles.  Since I’ve already completed the story, maxed out Sonic’s stats, and gotten the Platinum trophy, I suppose my sense of direction has been lacking.  I do my best when I have a specific, overarching goal to work towards.

Which brings us to wave 3, “The Final Horizon”.  Just about everything here is contained within a new episode referred to as “Another Story”, accessed through a big Warp Ring that appears on Ouranos Island; it seems like this becomes available as soon as you reach the island, but I won’t be able to verify that until my next playthrough.  This mode also has its own separate save slots, which is nice…because it’s really freaking difficult and I’m glad to know I can go back to the main game if it becomes too much.  But we’ll get to that.  Essentially, Another Story puts you on a completely revamped Ouranos with its own platforming bits and map challenges.  I didn’t see much in the way of standard enemies (maybe because I was playing on Easy?), but there are a handful of enhanced Guardians roaming about: Master Ninja+, Spider+, even more Ghosts!  I accidentally ran into one and had my ass promptly handed to me—they’re not messing around—so they’re still on my To Do list.  The map challenges can also be surprisingly tricky, from a ball and hoop puzzle with entirely too many hoops, to a time trial that gives you less than 10 seconds to run to the goal.  Another Ouranos is tough as nails, which will either delight or frustrate you…or some combination of the two.  Of note is that Sonic gets the Spin Dash for free upon starting if you haven’t already gotten it the hard way; it’s fun, but I’m not sure I’ve passed the skill floor yet lol.

But that’s not all!  Another Story kicks off with Sage proposing a new plan for taking on The End: taking on a new set of towers a la Rhea Island so that Sonic can learn to not only control his cyber corruption, but actually harness it to increase his power.  They’ll still need the Chaos Emeralds of course, so Sage uses her own abilities to keep Sonic’s corruption in check and brings back Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so they can cover as much ground as possible.  That’s right: for the first time in *checks notes* nearly two decades, these three characters are playable in a 3D Sonic game!!  Each of them get two segments of gameplay hunting down Emeralds interspersed with Sonic dealing with the towers, and after clearing the final tower you gain a method to switch characters at will.  Everybody has their own unique Skill Tree with a few standard abilities (like Cyloop, Boost, Spin Dash) as well as several unique ones (including character-specific variations on Parry that inflict debuffs), and I’d say everyone feels suitably distinct without having too steep a learning curve.  So, what can everyone do?

Amy is the one who surprised me the most, in that she only uses her hammer for two abilities.  Everything else involves her Tarot Cards.  I do like how hard they’ve been leaning into the cards in recent years, and they do predate her hammer; I imagine another concern was that a hammer-focused playstyle would be a little too similar to Knuckles, and yeah, the card-based moveset is very unique.  I’ll admit to finding it a bit jarring due to how long the hammer has been Amy’s weapon of choice, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.  Her Double Jump is far more substantial than Sonic’s, and if that wasn’t enough, she also gets a third jump that puts her into a hovering state, giving her enhanced aerial mobility in the same vein as Knuckles and Tails.  Another move is functionally similar to the way the Homing Attack in Lost World could lock onto multiple targets, letting her zip along an entire line of enemies in a flash.  If I had gripes they would probably be that she can’t wall run or Lightspeed Dash, but her insane verticality makes up for a lot of that.

Knuckles is the most in-line with expectations: he punches, he glides, and he doesn’t chuckle.  In addition to climbing the same green walls as Sonic, he can also climb exclusive red walls—though, again, no Lightspeed Dash.  The gliding is…let’s say contentious.  You need to Double Jump before you can glide, then it plays a short animation of Knuckles getting ready to glide, and then you have to try to figure out how to steer the damn thing.  It’s not ideal.  While that is a bummer, you can unlock a Power Boost analogue that lets Knuckles glide infinitely without losing altitude (while he has max Rings), and that’s a lot of fun even if the glide is a bit unwieldy!  He’s got a charge attack drilling strike that’s pretty cool too.  I’m kinda just glad to get to play as Knuckles some more tbh.

Now Tails!  Tails is interesting.  You’ve probably seen the wrench throwing memes by now—what’s nice about this ability is that it and another move where he uses a blaster make Tails the best character for ranged combat/interactions.  I’m a fan of them using wrenches rather than the ol’ dummy ring bomb, it’s a much better fit for the kid.  But what throws me off the most about playing as Tails is that he’s the one character who doesn’t have a Homing Attack.  Turns out I got real used to using the Homing Attack on springs and such, because I keep hitting the button and being confused when I start throwing wrenches at the spring instead.  I wouldn’t call this an issue, honestly, and I don’t think it ever even really messed me up, I just need to learn to suppress my muscle memory.  Of course, Tails can also fly!  I find takeoff a bit tricky: you need to Double Jump before you can use it, and when Tails starts spinning his tails he falls a short distance before they get going and he shoots straight up.  Definitely manageable, just feels a little weird.  He has limited stamina as always, but it seemed to me that he could keep flying for a good long while before he started to drop, no complaints there.  As for other moves, Tails uses some gadgets like a blaster and a giant pile bunker…and, also, there are abilities that let him summon the Tornado to fly around and attack enemies.  I haven’t unlocked them myself yet as I had other priorities, but just seeing that pulling out an entire-ass plane is an option makes me smile.

There are several challenges around the island designed with each character in mind, as well as some “Map Koco” that are like map challenges but can only be activated by a specific character.  They each have their own color-coded skill pieces too, which you mainly get by finding Koco with giant backpacks who give you a few thousand at a time.  Stats need to be leveled for each character separately, but to help with this, the Starfall in Another Story fills the island with Koco and seeds instead of gems for the purple coin gacha.  There are even plenty of new, optional conversations for each character, and they don’t even require certain amounts of Memories to access!  I wouldn’t say the implementation of the new playable characters is perfect, but it’s clear that a LOT of effort was put into them, and I’ve been able to have a lot of fun with them too.  As far as I’m concerned, this is a win.

While those three are off collecting Emeralds (and dealing with their own instances of cyber corruption), Sonic is climbing “Trial Towers”.  They can get pretty intense, but it seems playing on Easy gives you some advantages here and that was appreciated.  It’s irritating that there are no checkpoint pulleys like on Rhea, barring one at the top of the very last tower since the NPC there has the vital functions of both switching characters and starting the final boss battle.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!  The towers, while they can be tough, aren’t the hard part.  The hard part is getting to the top of each to speak with the Koco housing the soul of one of the Titan pilots, only for them to send you into a combat trial where you’re locked to level 1 stats and have a very strict time limit.  Shockingly, the easiest one for me was the trial that just had you fight a pack of Wolves!  The hardest one was Snake’s Trial, where you have to beat four shielded enemies within the time limit and with most of your skills taken away.  Apparently the intent is to parry the shields when they’re thrown to keep the enemy vulnerable, but I couldn’t pull that off.  You can still Cyloop these enemies to knock their shield away briefly, but when I say briefly, in this case I mean extremely briefly: they seem to regenerate their shield after a mere second passes.  If you time your loops and combos just right, you can barely take them all out in time this way, but yeesh, if any of the trials get nerfed I hope it’s this one.  Though there’s also the fifth and final trial…a boss rush of the 3 earlier Titan fights.  Doesn’t sound so bad?  You’re again locked to level 1 stats, and the Parry can no longer be held indefinitely—Easy gives you some leeway, but you still need to be fairly precise.  Still doesn’t sound too bad?  Well, the 400 Rings you start with when you spawn in Giganto’s arena?  Those have to last you the whole gauntlet.  There are NO other rings Sonic can pick up.  Since Super Sonic loses 1 Ring every second, assuming you don’t take any hits in the segments where you climb to the final Chaos Emerald, you have just over two minutes to wreck each Titan.  With level 1 stats and a nerfed Parry.  I didn’t realize just how essential Parrying was to these fights, especially Wyvern.  After a single attempt, I knew I had to put the game down for the night and search for tips online.  Thankfully, if you focus on Cylooping and Stomping the Titans, you can get by in decent time so long as you don’t botch too many Parries.  IMO Wyvern was the toughest part and Knight was actually the easiest.  But yeah, if you were wondering why people we so up in arms about the difficulty, these trials are the biggest reason of why.

Anyway.  Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and Eggman gather up the Chaos Emeralds, and Sonic learns to use cyber corruption as a power-up.  First, you have to go through the standard Supreme fight, but after that (and regardless of difficulty), The End descends onto the battlefield and connects itself to Supreme, causing it to grow five more arms and go absolutely feral to really drive home the Evangelion reference.  The title card for Supreme comes back up, but then glitches out before changing to say “The End”—I love shit like that, really slick.  After a short period where you can’t damage the boss (Supreme End, as I like to call it) or block its projectiles, Sonic unleashes the power of his cyber corruption, and transforms…into Super Sonic 2. (In-game it doesn’t really get named but apparently the files literally call it “Super Sonic 2”, and that’s hilarious and rad so I’m going with that.) I’ll go more into the form itself later—in terms of the fight, Super Sonic 2 is able to damage Supreme End and use the Perfect Parry to deflect its shots.  However, this is where things get…tricky.  The End is able to constantly refill Supreme’s health no matter how fast you deplete it, so you need to sever the cable connecting them.  Alright, so maybe try a Cyloop?  No?  What about a Grand Slam, will that make it vulnerable?  No, not that either?  Turns out the plug is a separate target that you can only hit by targeting it specifically.  In spite of the fact that the game always automatically targets the head.  Well, once you figure that out you can actually deplete Supreme’s health, but you still need to get to the next phase.  With no indication, you need to figure out that you can target the gun holstered in Supreme’s back, use Cyloop to pull it out, and then Cyloop the gun again.  I’ll admit that staying focused on depleting Supreme’s health and ignoring the gun after getting it out was a dumb mistake on my part, but there really isn’t a lot to let you know you can Cyloop the gun out in the first place, made worse by the way the trees surrounding the arena tend to obscure the camera.  Whatever—you Cyloop the gun (twice), and then a scene plays where Eggman grabs it with his own giant cable while Sage and Sonic’s friends form a barrier.  At this point, Supreme End can attack the barrier, and you lose if it breaks it.  I kinda lucked through this part, but if you attack the head, then dodge, you end up above the Titan, and after it flails its arms a bit you can Parry and Grand Slam to keep it from attacking while you finish whittling down its health.  After some awesome QTE attacks, Sonic loads himself into the stolen gun and brings out the full power of his cyber corruption, turning cyan and black with glitch effects and fangs and crazy eyes. (Again, saving that for later.) Eggman then shoots Sonic through Supreme and The End, obliterating them both, and this time Sage gets to go home with her father without needing to sacrifice herself.  Which I do like.  But anyway, the boss fight?  Epic scale, cool as shit…clear as mud.  If you know what you’re doing it’s a real fun power trip, but it’s more difficult than it needs to be to know that.  I dunno, maybe it’s just a skill issue, but I’m simultaneously frustrated and gleeful over this fight.

Not sure where else to put this, but Another Ouranos has its own set of Cyber Space stages—you can completely avoid them if you want to, but these are actually rather inventive!  One has a radar that tells you if you’re close to invisible landmines; one has capsules that give you a powered up Rocket Boost; apparently there’s one that switches the Boost Gauge out for a Gear Shift mechanic.  I haven’t been able to beat any of them.  Yet.  BUT, it’s still cool to see Sonic Team already experimenting more within this framework, with both these stages and the playstyles of the different characters.  Frontiers is meant to lay the foundation for the next era, after all, and I’m excited to see where these experiments lead.

Right though, those new forms!  We have to talk about the new forms!  Super Sonic 2 is visually very similar to base Super Sonic, which is a bit disappointing even if it does fit the reference.  Still, Super Sonic 2 does manage to be a more noticeable change than Super Saiyan 2: his eyes turn from red to blue, his body has a red outline, and he has a double aura somewhat reminiscent of the Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken.  What really sells it, though, is the way Sonic acts in this form.  As one last addendum to the DBZ comparison, his demeanor and movements invoke Ultra Instinct Sign to a certain degree: a casual and cold fury as he nonchalantly sidesteps and pushes aside the attacks Supreme End lobs at him.  When his Cyloop expires, he adds a finisher to it where he snaps his fingers and the light constructs he summoned crush the Titan.  The Grand Slam for this fight?  Sonic floats in close to the charging Supreme, arms crossed, then the screen goes black with golden slashes like the fucking Raging Demon from Street Fighter, and after watching Supreme hit the ground, we get a low angle shot of Sonic, arms still crossed, glaring over his shoulder at it.  Fucking sick.  For the final QTEs, he does a barrage of punches and kicks that launches Supreme into the sky, floats in place and slowly raises his hand as Supreme falls, and then slams one last punch into it the instant it comes close enough.  This could actually be the coolest Sonic has ever been.  And then there’s the glitchy blue form he uses for the finishing blow: the game’s files call it “Super Sonic Cyber”, and while the eyes and teeth are taken straight from Fleetway Super Sonic, the full-body cyan makes me think of fucking Nazo.  The Koco who gives him this power-up says that if he goes all out he’ll lose his cyber corruption power permanently, and he does revert to regular Super Sonic after going Super Sonic Cyber, so both 2 and Cyber could be one-offs seen here and never again—which would be just fine!  But I see two ways they could possibly make a reappearance: firstly, maybe Master King was just wrong, and Sonic is able to retain the cyber corruption power and reawaken it in a later game (I would not be upset with this); secondly, though, the text in-game refers to Super Sonic 2 as “the hidden power of Super Sonic”, making it seem like this power or something like it already lay dormant within Sonic, and maybe there are other ways it can be brought to the surface.  I dunno, if Hyper Sonic and the Storybook forms are anything to go by, the best we can hope for is 2 and Cyber units in mobile games if anything—again, I would not be upset with this.  The fans, however…they’re going to have fun with this. (I request Burning Blaze 2.  Please.)

This ending was definitely a happier one, though I don’t think it hit me quite as hard.  The only real difference is Sage’s survival, which again, I’m a big fan of; but that being the main win we’re focused on while she also gets much less to do in the final battle feels a bit odd to me.  Well, maybe that’s a nitpick.  I’m not sure if it’s been stated whether or not this new ending officially replaces the old one?  Either way we’ll have Sage going forward, so maybe they can skirt around the details if they want.  I’m definitely interested to see what direction they take her in, and how her continued presence affects Eggman.  I’m also curious to see what Amy, Knuckles, and Tails get into on their solo adventures.  The main plot also raises some serious questions regarding the Master Emerald, so I’m hoping those get dealt with.  Also…those meteors raining down…those are pieces of The End, right?  Are those, uh, safe?  Even if the moon form is gone, there’s no way that’s enough to permanently kill a godlike personification of death.  Honestly, I am hoping we get to see more of The End in some form: their philosophy of equating “order” with destruction and death is a great antithesis to the power of Chaos that Sonic and his friends wield.  The End, who embodies order, versus Sonic, who embodies chaos…there’s a lot of potential there.  And, even if Frontiers maybe doesn’t completely stick its landing, you still have that mountain of potential it opens up waiting for you at the end of the exhilarating ride it takes you on.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonic Frontiers #Games in 2023 #Game Night

[aboutthemponies]

Reflections on Whinny City 2023

Every pony convention has its special moments. Even after going to a dozen or so of these, every con has some unique special moment that jumps out, some wonderful little thing that you didn't expect which made your day. Normally those moments are things like getting to be a panelist on a friend's Pipp panel, adding an octave effect to Silver Quill's voice as he sings during an impromptu light saber duel, running the lighting rig for half of the concert and adding some really cool effects, winning a button during the SFM animation panel, blasting Discord while driving around Chicago, eating snow cones at a room party, etc. All those moments happened during this year and are treasured in my heart. But Whinny City this year was a different kind of special: it was the first time I performed on mane stage as a musician, leading the ukulele bronies to perform at the grand galloping luau. It's kind of a shock to me that this even happened. That I actually performed on Mane stage. That I made it; that I am a real musician.

I started out as a brony and a producer with my first DAW and no clue how to use it in 2014. That era was when MLP was at its popularity peak and after the hit musicians of the 2011-2012 era were firmly established. That environment was suffocating for a beginner, and it was hard to get any kind of encouragement with a music scene so large. Frankly, I wasn't cut out for it. After getting rejected from compilation albums so many times, I resigned to being a background musician, occasionally releasing tracks, never really getting better, and never making friends with any other musicians. After 7 depressing years of that, I stumbled into the dustcar Discord community, where I met most of my musician friends and where I finally felt like I had a place in this fandom.

That backstory only takes up a paragraph on your screen, but it was 7 years of my life and 75% of my fandom experience. That's a lot time to have experienced constant rejection, but at least it's made it clear to me how I want to interact with the fandom. Over that time, I've learned I don't like advertising myself, chasing popularity or trying to make it big because one, I'm definitely not at the same level as most of the other musicians, and two, chasing bigger view + like counts just leads to being unsatisfied with the following you do have, so I try to avoid playing the self-promo game as much as possible. That said, I do like making music, I do want to get better at making it, and I want my music to be valued, so despite this Celestia damned business, I put my stuff out there time to time. But what I've found that really motivates me is being apart of a tight-knit creative community, where every one is valued and supported at whatever their current level is. Dustcar (before the schism) was just that kind of community, and that glorious half-year of its existence was definitely my favorite time in the fandom.

A lot of people I know from that Dustcar/Busty's community like SOUND BANDIT, Evershade, rawrity, and even Chuckles started performing at cons post pandemic. It's been incredible to see my friends perform on stage, but it also invites the weird "should you be up there? When are you going to perform?" thought. It never felt like it fit well with my goals: performing is not going to make my production skills better, it's not going to help foster a community, I don't really want the spotlight, and I sure as hell don't want to get told I'm not good enough another freaking time. And yet... the theme was tropical getaway, and I just happen to play the ukulele more than any other instrument these days. I felt like I could pull off a ukulele-based set in a way that would actually be palatable, so I sent Snowy Charm a DM, pitched the idea to him, and he was down. I then sent DM's to literally anyone I could think of who played ukulele and attended MLP cons. The only other person who jumped on board was 4EverfreeBrony of all people! The application was accepted, I freaked out and swore for 5 minutes straight, and ukulele bronies was born!

Performing was stressful. I don't know if I would say I enjoyed it, with the 3 weeks of practicing every day for 1-2 hours, having a frantically fast sound check, and not being able to hear our ukes in the monitors. But I'm glad we did it, and it will likely be the highlight of my whole year. I want to thank every one of the people who performed on stage with me. Snowy helped me out so much, not only by figuring out by bringing the majority of the non-ukulele instruments and playing them, but also by being a second brain to bounce ideas off of. You brought so much experience as a professional A/V guy with you, and the set was sooo much better because of it! It also helped calm my nerves significantly. 4EverfreeBrony is such a legend; it's one thing to know that he's S tier, but to give him a new instrument (the baritone ukulele) and watch him learn it on the fly is astounding. It's such an honor to get to play with you; thanks for taking a chance on us! Thrack, thank you for DM'ing me last minute and jumping right in to the chaos with your bongos. JamesAsJames, I've always loved your record playing. Thanks for jumping on the invite last minute and adding to the synergy of the gang!

It was a really big honor to get to play on that stage. I don't think we blew anypony out of the water, and most people probably went to the luau because they wanted the food or already had a ticket, but the debut was incredibly well received by a lot of people whose opinion I cared about. Immediately after the set, I was floored when Koa congratulated us for the set and told me she liked some of my songs (huge Koa fan here in case you didn't know). Then we ran into the con chair Charlie en route to the elevator, who personally congratulated us. My friend Statoose (who also had his pony debut at this con) was gushing about the performance to me at a room party. Luck Rock congratulated me on a set well done and nailing the assignment of matching the set to the theme. And even some of the A/V team like Winchester gave their congratulations as well. All of those kind words mean the world to me; it's so validating after all these years of feeling terrible at music to have this kind of opportunity and feel like I made a valuable contribution to the fandom I've loved for so long.

There were so many wonderful moments too that came with the territory. My favorite was rehearsing on Thursday night before the con started; it was way more relaxed, everything was coming together perfectly, and the music was sounding fab. The mandatory musician meetups were a blast; spent the Saturday one hanging out w/ Statoose and talking about older fandom musicians, on Sunday's I brought the uke and was jamming w/ 4everfree, Canto, and Thrack. People came up to me to sign their con books, something I didn't even know people did, and I signed around 3-4 as well as Nexgen's shoes and someone's ukulele box. I gave away around 20 CDs of my music. Post con, all the musicians ran in to listen to the sonic rainboom together, and I organized a dinner with Pagan Pegasus, Ebunix, Snowy, Bolt, West, Blanket, + friends which was absolutely lovely. Later that night, I had a great time chatting for two hours about pony music with Luck Rock, BlueBrony, and TheOneGalen.

In all, I'm really glad I took a chance and applied as a musician. Not because it scratched some desire to perform, but because it made me feel apart of this community in a way I never felt before. And we did the thing: we showed the fandom that we can put on a successful set. I don't know if there will ever be a second ukulele bronies performance, but I am so grateful to this fandom for all the kind words, for the chance to shine, and the friends we made along the way. Thanks everypony!

–bramble <3  

#brony #my little pony #whinny city pony con #musician

[findingmypen]

On the warmth of friendship

I grew up surrounded by a lot of people. We either saw each other at school during the week or spent Sundays together at church. Or perhaps our parents worked together so it meant that we spent time with each other at end-of-year office parties or weekend socials. Or you came to play football with my brothers and because I had nothing else to do, I begged to be involved (and I was grateful for any form of involvement even if that meant being given the mundane, but fulfilling task of running after the ball whenever it landed too far away). Friendship with these circles was built on proximity and due to the ease of being in the same space, the process of nurturing and tending-to was easy.

But my most uncommon community of friends were the ones I built on the internet. Growing up in an era where deep connections were just beginning to find their roots through the world wide web, it meant that the iPhone 4 I begged my dad to hand down to me became a portal through which I built and sustained relationships. These relationships became a catalyst to learning about myself.

I met Letitia on Facebook — she was 19, lived in America and would share her short stories with me. There was Monisola who I met through a shared love for Mindless Behaviour; Casilda, who I met on Tumblr. She lived with her mother and would often open up to me about how lonely she felt. Rhoda, who was inspired by a piece I wrote which opened the doors to a journalism internship. I had crushes on Justin Bieber, Jaden Smith and RayRay from Mindless Behaviour, before finally settling on Wizkid. Through these crushes, I became part of fan groups and felt a sense of connectedness to strangers who lived in different continents. There was also Kingdom Family, a community of Christians I became a part of and whose support anchored me through sixth form. Through Blackberry Messenger, I met teenagers who went to similar secondary schools, some of which I still maintain friendships with till today. There are probably a host of other people and communities I crossed paths with in those years, but my memory is thinning and I struggle to recall every one of them. But what is key is that my internet friends, though never having met some of them till this day, carried my teenage self and created a foundation to allow me to bloom into my current self.

It is evident that I’ve always been inspired by love and connection. I think that as a teenager though, I valued the quantity over quality. Metrics such as the number of Facebook friends, which then evolved into the number of Twitter followers and today, the number of Instagram followers and likes were indications of social credibility. This is not a piece to bash my participation in that social dance in any way. Like I mentioned earlier, this experience was key to unfolding into my current self.

In my twenties however, I’m finding that my circle has shrunk, but the connections have deepened. My job is isolating and I struggle to present an authentic version of myself at work so in my personal life, I am pulled more towards friendships where we permit ourselves to exist without inhibition, a space where we are both able to uncloak and communicate heartfelt feelings like how we are inspired by the love we share and that being friends with each other is a fuel that drives our complex, adult lives. I value the result of difficult conversations and learning about how we can be better for each other. Friendships where we throw ourselves fully into each other and try as much as we can to provide warmth and safety.

My favourite way to spend my weekends is with my community — quiet saunters down London streets where we discover new galleries, foods and vintage shops. Days without a motive or destination, but only the fondness for each other pushing us to spend more hours together. Inviting each other into our lives through doing mundane activities together — meal prepping, settling into a new flat, cleaning, going to the gym. There is also something to be said about mutual love — how a love for one trickles into a love for another, “I fuck with you because I fuck with them”.

I value vulnerability, to hold and to be held, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share in friendships that bring me back into myself.

[midnightrowboat]

looking into a bedroom window

i left tumblr after the great porn exodus of however many years ago. the modern day burning of the library of alexandria if your literature was black and white gifs of aesthetically attractive men pumping and fucking. oh how i loved to read... 

and of course, it was far more than that too. it was a knife in the back of fandoms and immeasurable pain of hundreds of hours of effort and art gone in the blink of an eye.

but it also seemed like a good time as any to close the chapter on that era of my life. i had been offered an out from what had grown into an addiction, so all these years later it’s almost comical that i’m back here now with the flames of twitter in the background.

twitter was never a replacement for tumblr for me. first of all, as a porn sourcing algorithm it absolutely sucks. twitterporn is entirely populated by onlyfans accounts self-promoting. there are no artful gif collections, no aesthetically organized softcore image sets. it’s just mirror selfies with a “went to the gym who wants to do cardio winkeyface” caption slapped on and a follow up link to 5% off their onlyfans, this month only.

actually, i was on twitter from when it began. back when it was a static page you had to manually refresh, back before you could see likes. you would just say things into a void, and wonder if it meant anything to anyone else.

but as long as i’ve been on twitter, it’s never meant much to me. it helps me keep up with the news, in that twisted warped way it does, and it helps me keep up with a select group of friends. it also holds me hostage for more hours a week than i’d like to admit. if i’m going to sell my soul to a feed, i’d rather it be one like tumblr. one with a little more intention, a little more space to breathe.

there was a specific niche on tumblr that i’d like to find my way back to, which was the “depressed blogger who sometimes included nudes.” i’m not really seeking depressing content anymore, and despite how it sounds, i’m not really seeking nudes either. but i liked the way it felt like you could be a body and a mind. you could vilify yourself and be the vitality too. ...or something like that...

i remember when i first got on tumblr back in 2009 or so, my feed was so, so barren. and it took years of searching, and stumbling before it become something engaging and interesting. how do i find those people again?

is it possible that people are still offering these intimate, vulnerable windows into their lives after all this time? the kind where the blinds are open, curtains swept to the side, where they’re naked in bed and you’re standing on the street half looking, half hiding your face, thinking to yourself, “do they know that I can see them?” haven’t they learned better? all this time and experience on our sides and still doomed to make the same mistakes?

_

okay it’s december, and christmas is around the corner, and i haven’t even wrapped my little head around thanksgiving having come and gone. my skin has been acting crazy lately, and i’ve been dating a boy for a few months who told me he loves me and i said it back and it’s nice, but it doesn’t feel how i thought it would feel. 

more on that later, maybe.

for now, this is just a Hello World from my sunday night to another. i’m drawing open my window, but outside is just blackness. 

_

COLLEGE RADIO: “No Scrubs” by TLC

#tumblr the lost years #artists on tumblr #gay #lgbtq #fandom #hello world #coming back #not sure what to tag this

[twenty-one-froggy-pilots]

Yeah I'm honestly a bit surprised by how passionate and vocal people are about hating twenty one pilots? It's kinda upsetting that when I try to interact with content about them I'm always a bit worried in the back of my mind because I'm a pretty sensitive person and it's hard not to let stuff get to me.

I don’t know why it’s always felt like twenty one pilots has gotten a ton of hate for no reason? I’ve been into them since 2013-2014 so pure unadulterated vessel era, I’m a very old fan of them and their music, like one of the oldest picture in my phone is this

(This picture isn’t important I just love it, plus something fun to look at with a not so fun subject material)

(Long history as a fan rant incoming lol)

I’ve been an emo kid for a really long time, back when all of the emo bands were big, when seeing another kid wearing a panic! shirt always meant you talked to them in the mall, I still remember when I would wear the one twenty one pilots shirt I could afford outside, that anyone who knew who they were would come up and start a conversation with me

And it’s like through the years the hate has changed to be... somehow worse

Back in the early days tøp used to get called not a true emo band because they didn’t have anyone playing the guitar so everyone hated them because they weren’t emo Enough

Plus there was the whole ‘emo trinity’ ‘emo quartet’ infighting nonsense but that’s so long past idk if anyone even remembers it lol

Then blurryface rolls around and fans are being made fun of for dressing funky and going through that one fandom phase where everyone was calling the boys smol beans it was great and cute, we were all really close, we called each other frens, told each other to stay street it was great! So what people made fun of us or whatever we were absolutely vibing

Twenty one pilots felt like the coolest secret gang of fans, we were absolutely huge, more so than most people would think, and man it was awesome!! If you saw a tøp fan you knew that you were cool with that person and that person would be cool with you!! It was amazing!! Sometimes I do miss this vibe!!

But then Stressed Out ended up on the radio...

I feel like it really all changed here, all of the sudden the old fandom things were cringy, the boys were sell outs, and every family member you knew was suddenly the biggest fan despite only knowing stressed out

I remember being upset around this time because of strangers invading my space, this was my group, filled with people who understood what the lyrics meant and knew and understood how much they meant to all of us, and suddenly it was filled with people who didn’t belong

I didn’t blame the pilot boys, obviously they can’t control what’s on the radio, I’m fact, there’s plenty of pilot songs that mention never being played on the radio because of one reason or another, so my problem was never with the boys, it was with the influx of new people, and by new people I don’t mean new fans, I mean news outlets and tv show host, and with that influx came the people who didn’t get it, you know? That were rude and outright nasty and refused to understand anything about the genre and effort put into the story and why it mattered to us

(Tw for suicide mention, and uncomfortable themes involving people making fun of themes involving it, tw for mentions of school shootings)

All of the sudden we were the fans of Tyler Joseph the man who ‘Glorifies Suicide’ and actively is supposedly encouraging that behavior

We were the cringy fans everyone knew in high school and hated who were described as being ‘JuSt So QuIrkY 🤪’, instead of the mentally ill kids we all were, by people who hated us

We were the fans of those ‘white boys who look like school shooters’ (this one honestly rocked me to my core, it still hurts to even see??? Like idk why but it almost makes me want to cry)

At the same time a lot of the old fans were turning their back on the pilots, they didn’t want to be involved anymore, they hated ALL of the new fans whether they were respectful or not

It was a REALLY hard time to be a new fan, very few people were open to having them involved in anything, I think this is when a lot of hatred happened in the fandom not only fan-fan fighting/hatred but also fan-band sentiments weren’t great either

The more songs that ended up on the radio the more the hatred grew, in fact this got so bad Tyler did this

Here’s a transcript in case it’s hard to hear

Like... this was the state of our fan group.... it was suddenly cool to hate all the songs that ended up on the radio so much it affected every part of our music journey

There was a lot of infighting, it was an awful time to be a fan, new or old

Then came silence era, in which every tøp blog I followed except like 2, became kpop blogs and I’m not sure any of them ever came back lol, I actually really disliked kpop because of this for a bit in like a jokey kind of way in my own head lol (ahh how the turn tables have turned... kpop and tøp are the only things I listen to now haha, actually because of all my tøp mutuals becoming kpop blogs I vowed to myself to not change this blog to another group so I have two music blogs now, which makes me laugh but also shows how important music is to me so it makes me happy anyways you know?)

It was kind of a sad way to have the fandom disappear, everything was strangled, the boys were gone, and no one kept up with the fandom, it felt really lonely

When Trench era clues started back people started coming back, the mood was different, we had something to do and it was fun to work on something with others, we had the Clancy letters, and all the clues, and the tower of silence and the vultures!! It was great! It started to feel like we had rebuilt something from the rubble of what we had been

The fandom started calling Tyler stinky and he called us b*stards it was great, sometimes people were a bit meaner than I think they thought they were being, but it worked you know?

When the album released we had more people come back and things slowly started fitting back ok again, more songs ended up on the radio and a lot of older fans said the same things they’re saying now, but it wasn’t that bad, it was mostly very positive

And then we got to the over the summer drama, which........... is a sensitive subject, but I legitimately do not understand how it was Tyler’s fault that people assumed he was talking about something when he wasn’t talking about it at all... especially when people have been begging him for years to talk more about mental health, he wanted to introduce whatever he was going to do with a joke, I personally never though he was talking about the big issue at the time of the incident, but it blew up like wildfire and the next thing you know he’s canceled because Other People Assumed Something

So now it’s ‘Morally Justifiable’ to hate Tyler because he’s r*cist or something, despite it never being his intention and because people assumed something

It’s literally not even with good reason that people are doing this, but because it blew up when it did and about what it did, no one knows what really happened and people just wanted a morally justified reason to hate them because you can’t just dislike something anymore without it being justifiable I guess? I feel like with all of the years I’ve spent on the internet everything has only become more hateful...

All this to say.... yes, it hurts when people hate the things that you do, I get really sensitive about it as well, especially with how long and how many arguments I’ve seen, and I am extremely sensitive to discourse and hatred, it’s why I don’t engage with much of it online, in fact I was about to delete the post complaining about everyone hating on them before I saw it was really resonating with you guys

I guess my best advice to you anon, would to try to understand where it’s coming from, that’s what’s helped me, I know a lot of people dislike the pilots because of the fact that they became ‘mainstream’ during blurryface era, and people are really upset by that, so understanding that, even when it hurts, I can acknowledge that they feel that way and that it’s ok that I feel differently

It’s easy to take that point and test it against your own morals, ‘do I think twenty one pilots became mainstream, or only makes songs to get on the radio?’ If your answer is no, then you can both say ‘I don’t agree with them but they’re allowed to have their own opinion’ and kind of give yourself a wall and barrier against what they say

I know this isn’t perfect advice, but it’s helped me a lot

I know there are two big arguments against this album, that it’s mainstream and made to have radio singles (the underlying argument here I guess being Tyler and Josh are money hungry and no longer care about the music)

And that it’s no longer lyrically meaningful, but I think this has to do a lot with how involved people are in the Dema lore, if you’re not a fan of lore I would imagine this album being propaganda and supposed to be fake and bright to prove a point would really bug you if you didn’t really get it

To best thing to do is digest an argument (only if you can handle it emotionally of course 🖤) and know it’s ok that think differently than other people, and that the chances of someone being mad at you are very slim

A lot of things I’ve enjoyed have been stolen by the fear of getting hated on for something - while in actuality, the very few times I’ve gotten real hate over something barely affected me

I admit the fear of getting hate bothers me a lot more than actually getting it, but I just want to encourage you to stay strong in the face of it, it will pass, as it all does, but if nothing else in this post resonates with you, PLEASE HOLD ONTO YOUR JOY FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN! And don’t let ANYONE take it from YOU!!

If twenty one pilots makes you happy, just remember that the only person who can take that true joy away from you is yourself, remove the people who make you feel sad out of your life, I apologize if this is a physical person in your life as this makes it a lot harder, and sometimes impossible depending on the situation, but on the internet unfollow anyone, block anyone, don’t engage and leave them alone, it’s not with your energy or effort, and they’ll never change their minds but they can change yours you know?

Being sensitive in a time when everything is hateful is hard, especially when everyone tells you you’re a bad person if you aren’t engaged, but you really don’t have to be, you get to choose your own destiny you know? Don’t let other people choose it for you

#I’m am so sorry this post is so long and I still don’t know how to put readmores on mobile anymore #ajsjjams #I get told I ramble on about to much and that my stories are never concise and take forever to get to the point which might be true......... #I’m sorry #I kinda just rambled on forever but I feel like I finally aired out all my laundry I’ve kept to myself forever haha #it did have a point though! just trying to say like it’s always been a bit difficult but for the things that we love it can be #I’ve had a much better experience this era with the people I follow which has helped a lot #but to get to new content I’m digging in the tags which is where I’m #seeing all the hate so there’s kind of no avoiding it but I understood that going in you know? #anyways I think I’ve rambled on long enough! I hope this helped you out in same way?!?! #I’m not sure any of this is really helpful lol wjsks but one can hope haha #nic writes #tw suicide #tw suicide mention #tw school shooting #tw school shooting mention #tw racism mention

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Ch. 1

Shigaraki Birthday Week! MINORS DNI DO NOT PUT THIS ON TIKTOK

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki x fem!reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: reader is marked fem cause Tomura is a little sexist and hates you cause you’re a woman, no pronouns, incel!shiggy, collage au/no quirks, tomura is an asshole, gratuitous swearing, like so much, shiggy has a dirty mouth, mentions of shigs being anxious, let me know if I’ve missed something

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: Tomura gets stuck taking an English class to graduate and is partnered with you, a bitchy try hard (his words not mine) for his final project. But over the course of the semester he finds that while he hates everyone, he might hate you just a little...less. 

AO3 mirror

The door at the back of the room creaked open and jarred Tomura from his half-sleep state. He didn’t look at who’d bothered to slip into this fucking class late, and instead tried to let the prof’s inane droning on Timothy Whoever The Fuck’s 18th weirdo letter book lull him into day dreaming. 

He only made it about a quarter of the way back into his boredom induced coma until he was dragged unwillingly into wakefulness once more. 

“Sorry, could you plug this in for me?” 

Tomura jumped again when you leaned over to whisper to him, computer charger in one hand, gesturing to the outlet on the wall by his head. You’d left the typical courtesy seat empty between the two of you and he stared blankly at the way you leaned your weight on the vacant chair. 

He recognized you.

The classic, dumbass teacher's pet who was always front and center of the room, iced drink at the ready looking like you belonged on the set of some god awful college b movie. 

Well, almost always. You certainly had that loud ass drink, but you’d tucked yourself at the end of his row towards the back of the room and was clearly a bit embarrassed for bursting in almost 15 minutes late. 

Tomura swallowed hard as your shirt gaped in the front. It took an immense amount of control to not gaze outright into the swell of your chest. 

“You good?” you asked softly, head cocked like you were straight out of a fucking manga panel—tits on display with that stupid innocent, puzzled expression.  

“Uh yeah, sorry,” Tomura mumbled. 

You offered him this gross, clearly fake smile—because why the hell would you be grinning like that if it wasn’t just because you wanted something from him—as he threaded the cord behind his chair and plugged it in. 

“Thanks,” you replied and turned back towards the professor, typing away cause you actually take notes in this class. 

Of fucking course you did. 

Probably trying to impress everyone with how you typed practically every word the prof said. Tomura decidedly did not take notes, and didn’t really pay that much attention in general. Usually he just played some trashy phone game under the desk or dozed with his head against the cement wall. 

It had gotten to that portion of the semester when it was warmer outside but the buildings still had the heat cranked all the way up, especially here in the basement where the classroom was. That environment along with his usual hoodie/joggers combo created grade A napping conditions that Tomura took full advantage of. 

As a rule, he actually cared about school and he did relatively well. But this was just some dumbass liberal arts requirement course that had nothing to do with his actual major, so he was perfectly fine with coasting. Why his comp sci degree required him to take a fucking Restoration era English class, he had no clue. Apparently neither did his advisor other than that the ‘administration recommended it’ so their students would have a ‘well rounded learning experience.’ 

It was almost certainly just a cash grab to make him take more credits than was necessary to graduate, but whatever. He was here now. And so were you. Your presence was overwhelmingly clear, typing away and smelling like one of those insanely specific laundry detergent label scents—fucking rolling meadows and grandmother’s clean linen or something like that. 

He’d never sat this close to you before, but that didn’t stop you from annoying the shit out of him for the previous whole half semester and going since it was just now passing midterms. Long enough for him to have pegged you as a textbook try-hard, pick-me bitch. You contributed to discussion at every opportunity, turned in shit early, and debated other classmates regularly enough to disrupt his in-course sleep schedule. 

The way you dressed pissed him off too, with a particular style that was enough to stand out but not so over the top that it would cause disinterest from any potential mates.

And now you were filling his corner of the room with the overpowering smell of freshly washed hair and demanding he do things for you. 

Fucking disgusting. 

“Tomura Shigaraki.”

He jumped a third time, attention directed from his lap to the front of the room where the prof stood, listing out names from the board. He heard your name next followed by Kai Chisaki. The list was projected on the board as well, grouping everyone into twos or threes with “Final Project Partners” listed in bold Helvetica font at the top. 

Only fucking English profs used Helvetica. 

He vaguely remembered mentions of a final presentation—one of like three grades in this class cause the prof was almost certainly a sadist. 

No, not almost—definitely. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stuck him with you and that weirdo Kai pre-med student who insisted on acting so elitist you’d think he already had his fucking M.D. 

One time he asked Tomura to move seats at the start of the semester because he looked “dirty” and Kai liked to sit in the back—which, fair enough, it wasn’t like Tomura showered as frequently as he probably should but what the fuck??  

With you rushing in late, chest out and panting every now and again from your apparent sprint across campus, Tomura was certain he’d be subjected to a whole 6 weeks of watching you try to mount that fucking Kai dude instead of actually working. 

This was going to be a nightmare. 

From the end of the table, he saw you shifting and turned to find that stupid fucking smile flashed his way once again. 

If you had a tail, he’d bet it would be wagging. 

“Hey, well that’s convenient,” you chuckled and plopped down directly next to him, sliding your noisy ass drink across the table with you and brushing against his thigh when you shifted your bag to the side. 

“Yeah,” he nodded.

It most certainly was not. 

But Tomura would never say that because—as his roommate put it so kindly—he was kinda a pussy. 

People made him nervous, they always had. That’s why he liked computers so much. Code made sense, there were clear rules and when something didn’t work out, he could fix it eventually, but you couldn’t see people’s codes. You had to fucking guess at shit and it made his anxiety skyrocket which the sides of his neck and finger tips suffered for. 

So he cowered like the fucking dog you probably thought he was instead and kept his eyes on the floor, letting you set up in silence. 

“Who was our third?” you asked, glancing around the room. “Sorry, I was busy making a shared drive and I came in  late so I missed that last bit.”

Why the hell did you feel the need to apologize all the goddamn time? Seriously, who would believe you were actually sorry for being irritating as hell. 

And god if he thought you were irritating. 

“Kai,” he grumbled simply as the man in question sauntered over to the table and fucking Clorox wiped down the seat before sitting.  

Tomura watched your smile falter just a bit and grinned inwardly at the slip in your fake little persona. But you didn’t say anything more, just moved your chair back so the three of you were in a semi-circle and pulled up a few pdfs on your laptop. 

“Cool, so I was looking over the directions on the syllabus last week and I set up a little work delegation thing so we can distribute everything pretty evenly,” you jumped right in, tone matter of fact in the down-to-business manner he was used to hearing from you during class discussions. 

It was better than you so clearly forcing yourself to be overly polite, and he honestly couldn’t really care less if you wanted to take charge of this thing. You seemed kinda bossy, but he begrudgingly admitted that your suck up behavior did mean you sort of knew what you were talking about. He was just here to pass and you might actually make that a lot easier. 

It was okay as long as he was taking advantage of you, he told himself. And you would be too stupid to notice, so he could play your game and play pretend nice all the way to an A. 

That walking condescension on the other hand— 

“I’m not doing that,” Kai huffed through his ever-present mask. 

Tomura wasn’t actually sure he’d ever seen the bastards face without it. 

“What?” you laughed awkwardly. “Yes you are, you don’t really have much of a choice.” 

You stared at your classmate who simply stared right back with his own, equally confused expression. 

“Why do you look so surprised?” you asked after a moment of silence. 

You weren’t smiling anymore and your voice had dropped down about a fucking octave. At least you sounded more like a person and not some wannabe uwu gamer bitch.

“People don’t talk to me like that,” Kai looked at you down his nose, legs spread wide and elbow resting on his knees. 

Tomura could feel the pretentiousness wafting from him in waves, and waited with bated breath for you to get kicked off your pedestal. Just a bit though, he did need you around to do most of his work for this thing. 

But in a shocking turn of events, you just laughed dryly twice and turned back to your laptop screen, mumbling as you did. 

“Really? Well they should.” 

Tomura would have laughed too, but he didn’t feel like inflating your ego. Kai on the other hand looked a bit like you’d just spit on shoes and furrowed those stupid, plucked thin eyebrows at the back of your head. 

“So Tomura, you code right?” you asked, turning away from Kai completely to address him. “I just remember you saying you were in comp sci when we did introductions.” 

He was taken aback by the knowledge that he existed as a person in your head outside of this room for a moment and simply nodded—suddenly feeling far too hot in his black on black sweats and hoodie. 

God just talking to you made his skin burn. 

“Great, cause we’re allowed to chose the medium we present in and I was thinking of taking it in a more creative direction cause I’ve had this prof before and he eats that shit up,” you begin to ramble again, scrolling through a bulleted list, shifting the screen for him to see. 

“Right,” he murmured, still surprised you’d thought this far and not...actively hating what you’d brainstormed. 

Well, it was a bit juvenile and you clearly didn’t know what you were talking about but the concept wasn’t horrendous. He could work with that and it shouldn’t be too hard. It kinda seemed like you’d overestimated a bit with how challenging it would actually be and saddled yourself with most of the heavy lifting. That or you were just a control freak which was a little more believable.

He wished you would stop looking at him over the edge of the screen. He could feel himself starting to sweat. Rivulets falling down the nape of his neck and racing across his bare chest under the sweatshirt. Tomura sorta regretted not wearing a shirt underneath but he knew that he wouldn’t have taken off the insulating layer even if that had been an option. 

It would just mean you had more drying, pale as fuck skin to look at and judge him for because he knew that’s what you were doing. Fucking vapid and shallow like everyone else. 

“It’s really rough so far, but I have it the gist outlined,” you indicated to another tab and then turned back to Kai who had been sitting silently glaring daggers into your back. “So, Kai, since you’re in STEM I figured you’d be okay with doing more of the preliminary research—”

“I don’t think so,” Kai interrupted, shaking his head and pushing off his knees to lean back in the cheap, plastic seat. “Look, it’ll be easier for all of us if you two just make it look pretty and I can handle the oral presentation.” 

You gaped and looked to Tomura with this pathetic fucking incredulous stare, like you thought he’d back you up. 

Which actually, now that he thought about it was probably a good idea—he did need you to remain somewhat cordial with him—but he certainly didn’t care enough to defend you in any way. Kai was a dick, sure, but he wasn’t gonna let you rope him into being your white knight or whatever. 

He settled for a similarly disgruntled downward twitch of his lips. The movement pulled at the cracking skin which stung as it tore open even more. Tomura felt the familiar crawling feeling on his neck and shifted in his seat to resist the urge to scratch. 

He couldn’t pinpoint why exactly you staring at him was so uncomfortable. He didn’t like you, he didn’t care about you and by extension didn’t give two shits what you thought of him, but anything he might have said shriveled on his tongue when you spoke or looked in his eyes too long. 

Tomura had never made a habit of talking to females and they certainly had never wanted anything to do with him either. 

Maybe he was fucking allergic or something. 

Whatever the case, you seemed to take his half frown as a sign of solidarity and leaned back in your own seat. 

“Okay, look,” you retorted. “If you’re seriously not gonna at least try to cooperate, then there is actually an option to do the project by yourself and I suggest you take it.” 

The look on your face was distinctly impolite. There was a sharpness to the set of your jaw that Tomura had never seen before, but it looked practiced enough that he could bet it was simply the snake that resided in every woman just waiting to come out. 

“Look sweetheart—” that masked jerk began, also for some fucking reason looking to Tomura for support. 

For someone who was very much used to blending into the background scenery, this was the most eye contact Tomura had ever made in a day. 

Except on the rare occasions his roommate had friends over and he had to make the dreaded trek from his room to reach the fridge. 

“Oh yeah I’m not doing that,” you closed your laptop sharply and rolled your eyes. “I get it, but I’m really just trying to graduate. I don’t think this is going to work out and you,” Tomura froze as you shifted your gaze to him once again, “seem okay, so Tomura and I can just work this out by ourselves and you can find a different group.” 

Kai scoffed behind the black layer of fabric covering his mouth and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Whatever.” 

Tomura watched him saunter straight out the door as the room was filled with the shuffling of notebooks and zipping of backpacks. 

“God,” you huffed and turned back to him. 

His raw skin burned under the new wave of heat and accompanying moisture that slicked his skin when you scooted closer to him. That clean laundry and shampoo smell was suffocating from this proximity. 

Did you fucking bathe in the stuff? 

He was becoming increasingly aware of his less than pleasant aroma and the fact that you not scrunching your nose up in disgust just out of some stupid, ingrained need to appease him. 

“Well, that was...weird,” you chuckled in a way that was probably meant to break the tension. 

Unfortunately Tomura felt more like he was about to break out in hives if you came any closer so it really just ended up making the atmosphere ten times more awkward. At least for him. You, somehow, remained resolutely unaware. 

“Mhm,” he hummed in response and picked silently at the skin of his fingers. 

“Anyway, I have a meeting in a few but we can trade numbers and pick a time to meet up sometime tomorrow maybe?” you suggested, quickly saving the steadily degrading vibes of the conversation and pulled out your phone. 

He really hated the full body pulsation that rushed through him at the thought of getting a girls number. It made him fucking sick at himself for falling into your stupid trap to get him interested. Was your plan to just use him to get a good grade or whatever and then block his texts?

It wasn’t like Tomura didn’t know about his status as the class ‘freak.’ That one guy everyone whispers about and makes sure not to sit next to. And he knows you know, so why the hell else would you act so nice?

He wanted to say something scathing in return. That he could do the whole thing by himself too—which he definitely couldn’t but that was irrelevant—and that he didn’t need you bossing him around either. 

“Sure thing,” he said instead and took your offered phone all too eagerly, typing in his number and watching as you shot off a text back so he’d have yours. 

His phone buzzed against his thigh and he jumped a fourth time, but you seemed not to notice as you packed your bag and grabbed your basic ass drink. The ice clattered against the tumbler, dropping cool condensation against the searing skin of his hand. 

Tomura shivered as you waved over your shoulder and slipped out the door with another rush of students. 

He sat silently in the empty room for a moment, trying to process the last hour. He pinched himself idly, wondering if it had all been just a weird dream, but the results were inconclusive. A minute or two passed before he pulled out his phone to scroll through the list of reddit and discord notifs to find your text. 

Unknown Number:

— pEopLe DoN’t TaLK tO mE liKE ThAt 

— not very plus ultra of him...smh

— anyway, library at 6 tomorrow ?

 Tomura caved, digging his nails into the side of his neck and hissed at the pain, confirming the day's horrible reality. 

#tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki x reader #tomura x reader #bnha fanfiction #tomura shigaraki imagines #fem!reader #incel!shigaraki #college au #bee.writes