#its one of those things that i dont entirely know how to criticize without sounding Overt

[wundersmith-squall]

ramble about your Ezra Squall redemption arc please?

Absolutely- id be very happy to! I'm quite aware that im about to sound like this:

but you asked so this is what you signed up for /j

Soooooooo it basically wormed its way into my head because of the one time where Squall said something like 'We're wundersmiths we take all of the blame and none of the credit' and I was like, okay sir are you speaking from experience? What was the 'credit' of your actions? And also the mention of the shared enemy, which I at the time took as meaning partially something in the republic that threatens Nevermoor, and partially something to do with the system, the Wunderous Society and like, all the people in charge who are against wundersmiths and are trying to hold Mog back.

Along with these two things, I'd like to think that 100+ years of banishment are long enough to rethink your actions and become a better person.

So, I'll explain it in a way that wont take an entire essay to write out. Basically it goes in my head that, Courage Square was, at least partially an accident, and over 100 years the story got skewed, and the current population turned against Ezra and the Wundersmiths, while the population at the time knew how, Wundersmiths ultimately were trying to help Nevermoor. Courage Square was bad, which is why Ezra was banished, but he wasnt killed. After a tragedy, it would be expected that he'd be punished, but at the time, the Republic as we know it didnt exist, and so being banished out there was a very bad fate, but it was definitely better than death.

Ezra went through a, lot of bad mental states during the first few decades of his banishment, but as he grew older, he came to terms with both his past actions and his current situation, though he still feels guilty about it.

In my head, the Wundersmiths were originally established to protect Nevermoor from the weird creatures of the darkness that the Wunderous Society takes care of now. Those creatures are attracted to Wunder. When Ezra was banished from Nevermoor, there were no longer any Wundersmiths in there, and so WunSoc had to step up and find a way to cover for him. Meanwhile, Ezra, who still loves Nevermoor, establishes Squall Industries, partially to improve conditions in the Republic and partially to provide a bigger, brighter beacon of wunder to attract the majority of the dangerous creatures to a place where he could still handle them. In this same thought, the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow werent something he created, but a group of these dangerous creatures that he managed to tame.

On the same subject are the other cursed children, those who, gather wunder but are unfortunately dont have the gift to control it. The creatures of the darkness, who chase wunder, hunt down these children to take the wunderous energy from them, which they dont survive. Ezra does his best in this situation, but one man can only do so much, and the creatures are relentless.

When he first discovers Morrigan, he's not exactly sure what to do. He tries to just get her as an apprentice through the usual means in the republic, but after a certain mad ginger got in the way he sent the Hunt after her, himself being busy trying to help the other cursed children, but we all know that that attempt didnt work. Ezra, knowing about the wunder critical-mass gather-too-much-without-using-it-makes-bad-things-happen thing, so he used the gossamer to get back into Nevermoor.

Having to enter and view Nevermoor again, even though not physically, took a bit of a toll on him, plus having to interact with someone new while being himself, which is not something he's had to do in a long time. He's also never, had to teach anyone before.

From there, I imagine he goes from frustrated and angry, to irritated but starting to get attached to Mog, to actually being a genuinely good teacher (aka the floof you saw in my drawing, who doesnt sleep nearly enough but still tries his best to be a good person), who is Tired™ and also just as chaotic as Jupiter when he wants to be.

Thank you for listening to my ramble- I can happily expand on anything if anyone happens to like this train of thought. I have further specifics on, basically everything, but this is a solid overview.

#im also working on a new drawing #so hopefully that will be finished in the next few days #nevermoor #jessica townsend #ezra squall #wundersmith #wunder #morrigan crow #ramble #ezra squall redemption arc

[autismvampyre]

https://www.tumblr.com/autismvampyre/741462958593441792/hate-how-its-practically-impossible-to-find-anti?source=share

I saw this post and I couldn't agree more and Im asking anonymously cause I don't want to get judgement and stuff and I know this is going to sound a little dumb but I'm having a crisis about like. Whether or not I should support Taylor anymore like. Im going for the eras tour soon and I'm obviously really really excited but I've been seeing more and more anti swiftie media and it all really makes sense. Your blog was like the only anti swiftie one that didn't say all swifties deserve to die lol (at least from what I could find) but I just wanted to know if you have any advice on like letting go of the music in a way. I love her music, and one of the reasons I'm really scared to let go is that my childhood best friend and I share so many precious memories over her music and I don't want to disappoint her in a way by not listening anymore and her music helped me through really really hard times, which feels kind of dumb to say cause I'm 15, but like it's always really helped me and I don't know if I can or if I want to let go but at the same time I'm huge on ethics and a big part of my life has always been helping people and empathizing, and I just don't know if I want to support an artist who can't seem to publicly do that. Idk I was just wondering if you had advice? Thank you so much :)

P.s. feel free to ignore this ik it's loaded and not related to your blog entirely

hey! thanks for the ask. i wanted to respond to this before i forgot so this might be rushed but i hope i can still help.

i get your dilemma, i really do. i like her music a lot and one of the worst things about the anti swiftie community is how much it relies on the "her music sucks" card. its lazy and just personal taste, and i absolutely hate the puritanical idea that if you enjoy a single taylor song you are in some way morally lesser. people like what they like, and i think it's completely fine to enjoy her music because that isn't really an ethical concern

you can separate the art from the artist. its fine to do so. you shouldn't force yourself to stop listening to music you like unless you feel thats right for you. im very critical of taylor but i still occasionally listen to her music because there are a lot of memories attached to it and those memories are precious to me. art can make you feel so much, and you're not dumb for feeling comforted by it.

i dont think you have to let go of her music unless you want to. i believe the most important thing is to let go of the idea of taylor as a brand. people tend to get attached to her due to clever marketing; to a lot of people she's their friend and they feel very protective over her for that. taylor thrives off the parasocial relationship of her fandom which is financially beneficial to her. the most important thing to remember is that she is a billionaire with more money than you could ever imagine and it is impossible to get that rich without fucking over the poor. the image of taylor in the media is not real, she isn't the girl next door, she isn't your friend, she's an ultra rich celebrity who gets richer by pretending to be your buddy. once you've realized that, you're pretty much done

now, i definitely wouldn't recommend financially supporting her. if you're going to the eras tour don't go alone, be safe, wear earplugs(seriously this one is so important you dont want tinnitus believe me). i know there are a lot of different factors and ethics about the shows but as someone who a) hates live music cause im autistic and just end up overstimulated and b) was never in a financial situation where i could or even would buy eras tickets i feel very under qualified to tackle any of that so i'd recommend talking to someone else who knows about that.

to end, i'll just say piracy isn't theft if buying isn't owning snd there are guides out there so you can listen without paying her dime. sorry if this was incoherent, i am tired. have a good rest of your day/night/whatever time it is and please take care

#asks #nydias post #anti taylor swift #anti swifties #you can always send me another ask of message if you have more questions

[babygirltangerine]

I don't know, what exactly I hate about ladybug. I think it's the way he acts, and how everything always seems too go tight for him because he's the "funny American guy".

you're so right for that. like for real. but i also feel like things tend to go wrong for him, but they end up okay because he's the protagonist. and we're supposed to see him around these awesome badass characters and laugh because the contrast is so intense and he's clearly a bad choice of protag, and that's meant to be his charm (obviously a very bold choice). i do find it endearing a lot of the time, but it's definitely very important to question why he was made to be american and how his americanness affects the story, the way he interacts with the other characters and the environment. in a way i think his americanness is meant to add to his characterization as a very clueless person and as a protagonist that's out of his element in more ways than one. but at the same time it was a very tone deaf decision when the story and the characters are originally japanese. i don't think it was intentional, but regardless, making ladybug into a white american man who absentmindedly wreaks havoc on these other characters of color (and eventually multiple trains and an entire fucking town!!) and is one of the few survivors does seem to be uplifting american voices and perspectives and presences and you do have to look into the implications of that. so you're right to be annoyed with him!! this post hits on a lot of things that i'm talking about and that you seem to have picked up on, and i want to reiterate that you're incredibly valid for feeling that way, and you don't have to change your mind about it!

back to your initial fic-related question, i'm not sure if there are any fics that can change the way you feel, but a lot of people tend to write ladybug as a more fleshed out character who doesn't seem to begin and end with this clueless american ignorance. ladybug is interesting because i feel like he has a great basis to expand on in fanon, and in fics he can be silly and misguided and make the wrong moves with his heart in the right place, but i also see a lot of fics where he genuinely has grown a lot since the events of the movie and he's more emotionally intelligent after taking his therapy more seriously. those are the kinds of fics i like to see because i do feel that he doesn't really grow enough in the movie.

so he is more fleshed out in fanon, he's less caricature-ish and his americanness is less in your face. but that being said, its also important to acknowledge that as fanon (and tangybug fic in particular) tries to avoid characterizing ladybug as orientalist, it tends to do so by cutting out japanese characters and japanese culture entirely. movie ladybug can be read as this extremely american, sillygoofy white man who, even without meaning to, creates conflict along racial lines. and one of the reasons we don't tend to read him that way in tangybug fics is because his whiteness and his westernness become less of a source of contrast between him and the other characters, because tangybug fics are romance stories between a white american man and a white british man. i dont want to sound like im bashing the creators in this small fandom because i completely understand not wanting to write an orientalist character, and also because im so extremely grateful for everything these creators have poured their heart and energy into providing for us. we have amazing fan-created content here. and i'm one of the champions of the tangybug ship, but the content i've made for this fandom is not above critique either! these are just points that naturally arise in a fandom for a movie like bullet train.

tl/dr: you're right and you don't have to stop feeling that way! but you can enjoy ladybug/bullet train while criticizing it at the same time. in tangybug fics, these problems with ladybug's white americanness are often less pronounced, but the fandom is not above critique either. still, i hope you're able to find a balance somewhere between being aware of the flaws with ladybug/fanon/the movie in general and your enjoyment of these things!

#ladybug #thank you for this ask i bet you werent expecting something so long-winded... sorry!! #and if anyone agrees or disagrees with anything i say here please feel free to add to the conversation! #ask #meta #i guess its meta? #bullet train

[satoumafuyuss]

I'm the fandom headcanon discourse anon! And yeah I fully agree with your addition!

More thoughts about this: I read a post in the BG3 fandom a couple months ago on how you can pick any voice regardless of your character's genitalia. They said that while it was nice trans inclusivity, it doesn't actually represent the full scope of what trans people sound like. It sort of moved me, and I wish we had more of that in general!

Not to say that trans people can never pass because that's absolutely wrong, but I wish it wasn't so universally treated as the absolute endgoal of being trans. I wish the full spectrum of bodies that comes with being trans or cis was represented in media.

And also that people didn't immediately headcanon characters who fail to very strictly conform to gender roles as "trans people who aren't there just yet" or "trans people who you can clock as trans because they act/look like their agab". It's super uncomfortable. I think there is a lot of worth to be found in respectfully representing early transition trans people/trans people who dont care about passing, but it just feels like fandom spaces are enforcing gender roles instead of supporting that. I don't think it's healthy to have that level of scrutiny over the way people simply exist.

I don't think people stop and think about why they associate thinness, whiteness and youthfulness with femininity both outside and within trans circles. There is this mentality of thinking that as soon as something is lgbtq its absolutely morally pure, and I truly hate it! People should be more critical of things!

But anyway feel free to use those thoughts for your video!!! I wish to remain anonymous but I'm happy I can help you with it.

you are so right anon..!!!

Passing is not the end-goal for many trans people, myself included. It honestly kinda bothers me that the go to compliment for trans people is "you pass so well!" cause like.. unless the person in question was specifically asking if they pass or not or felt like they don't and it bothers them.. it's kinda weird. I've seen so many trans people make posts talking about the fact they don't care about passing or don't want to but people STILL comment "omg but you pass so well!" cause to them passing is the ultimate goal for us and they cannot fathom someone being comfortable and happy in their visible transness.

All trans people deserve to be represented and heard. We're all individuals with different goals and needs for our bodies and identities. Listen to the individual! So many people who know I'm trans for some reason always ask each other things about me instead of just asking ME. And it's just lead to no one understanding who I really am and it's so hard to correct them anymore. It's like a game of telephone.. really does not help I was outed to my entire outer family even though I told the person who did it I wanted to tell them all on my own terms and one at a time so it could be personal. but whatever.

I've had many people in my life comment things like "if you're a boy why do you still wear skirts? why do you carry a purse? why do you have long hair? why do you paint your nails?" etc etc and it made me dysphoric not because those things made me feel that way.. but the fact my identity was questioned purely based on my interests and clothing. Why can't I just say I'm a boy without it being questioned? I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.

Anyway, sorry got a little personal there but I guess my feelings on this matter are very personal so.. ahem.

And yeah I totally agree with the point of people believing things to be 100% pure and good when it has even a little bit of LGBTQ+ representation in it. It's a huge problem with media literacy I think. There are plenty of extremely bad and problematic medias out there that have queer rep in them but I still see people praise them for purely HAVING queer people in it. Meanwhile god forbid a media have nuance and subtext and coding instead of blatant representation and suddenly its the worst and most problematic thing in history for not saying anything outright..

What makes a trans headcanon offensive or not is down to the context of the character.

For example. Say you have a character who's interests do not align with the traditional things their agab "should" enjoy. They have a big character arc about being their agab while still enjoying these things because their interests don't effect their gender identity at all.. this is a character who is offensive to headcanon as trans.. (atleast when you try to make their gender identity align with their interests instead of the identity they heavily express in the media. like hcing a male character who wears skirts as a transman is fine imo cause it doesn't change his gender identity, which in this case, is very important to him.)

Now this time we have a character who has no arcs relating to gender identity or expression of anything like that. if you headcanon this character as a trans it is 100% okay! There's no gender roles to point to here!! you're just having fun!!

Then we have an ambiguous character, a character who doesn't particularly care about being treated one way or the other and just enjoys what they enjoy which happens to be different than what they are "expected" to like based on their agab. This character is also fine to hc as trans cause obviously their gender identity isn't that important to them.

And finally the most offensive. This character is heavily implied to be a trans already. They express gender problems relating to being trans one way but people read this and somehow cannot fathom that a trans character has ALREADY transitioned (socially and/or medically) and assumes this means the character is a trans the other way. Ignoring all the obvious signs and coding that they are, in fact, very wrong. Because a lot of people these days have no media literacy or reading comprehension. (also works for nonbinary characters where people insist upon them being binary one way or the other which is.. annoying(such as Crona from Soul Eater))

Anyway SORRY I RAMBLED FOR AWHILE LMAO ahem ahem thank you for offering your thoughts for my video on the topic! It's good to get other peoples opinions and thoughts on it cause I don't want it to be one-sided and only from my pov lol I hope everything I said makes sense idk I have a bit of a headache lmao

#nil rambles #asks #i love my brother but also i hate when he comes over cause he smokes and i cannot get the smell OUT OF MY NOSE #GIVING ME A HEADACHE I WANNA DIE #if i come back and read this and it makes no sense btw no one can blame me cause i have a headache and can barely focus my eyes #cause headache make astigmatism worse and font small and HARD TO READ. #it took me like an hour to write this i think i ate in the middle of it IMDFSJGKHS #im opening my window maybe that will help

[shoezuki]

see im the same with tone indicators. I'm bad at tone, I know this, but I'd never force someone to use them. cuz I use em, but only when I'm like. real nervous. and think the other person or people Won't Get It. like yeah it's great to clarify but for me they're so wrapped up in Fear (for the most part) when I use em that I don't care if someone doesn't use em cuz I don't want others to feel that way, if that makes sense?

also it smacks of policing people and I hate that. let people live they life. of it don't vibe with you don't follow. block, move on. it's the internet people gon be people my dude

oh absolutely i feel you like. i am Not good all the time w tone either. usually in the sense i just... assume people are joking unless i find reason to feel otherwise. n like. i feel that finding tone or intentions online is Hard just. objectively hard for Anyone. because ppl are so reliant on body language its insane. 

im a weirdly good read of character and People irl. but like only in terms of body language. what people say and try to convey to me is where i trip up. so online is. weird. but ive found ways to get at least an Idea of what people mean and looking into context and if im just Unsure i’ll just... walk away? 

the use of tone indicators is like. its good in theory And in use too. ofc ppl will always misinterpret words or not quite ‘get’ it n thats fine. if theres an easier way for that fuck yes go right on ahead. 

but i like. more and more that i see em used on twitter i feel tone indicators are just...... not used as they should be. im talkin i see tweets of someone just saying words bout something Good that happened to em and the end it has ‘pos/ gen/’ or something. like its not necessary for ppl to Say that them getting good grades or something small and personal is Positive and Genuine on the end of it cuz................................. theres connotations. 

same with like. twitter threads i see titled things like ‘heres a thread of donation goals to support!’ with ‘/srs’ on it. like YES i can see youre serious? if you werent id kick your ass. 

like yea i seen em used Good. asking questions with ‘/nm’ at the end so ppl dont think theyre Mad makes sense. or if they are asking for clarification and have ‘/gen’. like it makes sense. because its when youre interacting with someone and therefore Want and Need your intentions to get across. but not Everything needs them. the idea that neurodivergent Desperately need tone indicators on Everything from serious information about real world problems to yelling into the void posts is........... like i dont like that ksjglkshghg

if theres a genuine feeling that Maybe the connotations of what u say or what you intend isnt like. so clear. or u see it like ‘wait would I Get This’ fuck ya tag that shit go ham. but when its the idea that its Always Needed and people are just Ableist if they Dont add /j or /s to shit. like. nah

#i ended up goin Off sorry tiny slkhflkshglkh #its one of those things that i dont entirely know how to criticize without sounding Overt #because theres DEFINITELY uses and Good reasoning and Intent to it #but how i keep seein it on twitter is just..... like. why don you just say u think we cant think analytically #tiny #ask to tag #tinydemondragon

[alwaysabeautifullife]

How did you learn so many languages. Do you have any tips?

Yes!!!! Yes I do!!!

Everything I wish I could tell myself before starting my language “journey” lol:

🦩Dont be intimidated

Don’t be intimidated, specifically by doing listening or speaking practice. I know in the US (or for most English speakers), when we hear someone that speaks perfect English but merely has an accent we think “they don’t speak English”, but from experience this mentality is not shared with other languages. When you know even a little bit of a language or can’t speak it very well, natives speakers are really really encouraging. I think since we view not being 100% fluent without so much as an accent, as “not knowing any of a language” we are hard on ourselves and give up pretty easily.

🦩Listening practice is as important as studying vocabulary and grammar

When you listen to native speakers talk, you are training your ear even though you don’t understand it. Listen and listen, eventually your brain stops picking out English words that aren’t even there, but rather, starts to catch patterns in the language (for example, the same words sticks out to you over and over).

🦩Set realistic and doable goals or you’ll get discouraged and quit

If you are a busy person, make small goals to fit language study in. Don’t tell yourself that you need to master _____ within a week. Instead give yourself 15 mins of reading in the evening, and 25 mins of language listening in the morning. It’s also easier to add the language into stuff you do on a daily basis anyway. For example if you are religious, find your prayers you pray daily in the language you are learning.

🦩learn to read the language first (obviously this tip might not be applicable for character based languages like Chinese)

I know everyone says “immersion is the best and most important part of language” but honestly, a lot of our native speaking knowledge comes from our literacy education. When we are taught how to read, it’s through reading we can discover new words through context. It’s also easy to pick up new language reading since it’s available anywhere, where immersion is only available when you are surrounded by native speakers. The first thing I do is learn how to read and write the language, then the entire language becomes accessible to me.

🦩Spend time perfecting the sounds of the language that are most difficult for you

The vocal sounds of a language is the foundation of a language. I know we are all impatient and want to simply learn as many phrases as possible as fast as possible, but if you get down the unfamiliar sounds of a language that don’t exist in English, you’ll have a better foundation of the language and your speaking and listening will be better from the very beginning. So take the time to practice those weird sounds by looking into the position of the tongue and where the sound comes from, from the chest to the lips. Look into how tense the mouth is, how much air comes from the lips, what the sound is like next to other sounds. When you master this speaking becomes more instinctual and it’s easier to pick up the language.

🦩Search YouTube, google, Instagram IN THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE STUDYING.

Don’t search “korean music” or “korean kids tv” or even “korean vegetables” in google. Just translate how to say them in a translator app, then copy and paste them into the search bar. This way native korean information, videos, posts will come up. For example, if you’re in the mood for some horror comics, and want to read/watch them in the language you are learning, go to the translator app, and figure out how to say them, then search it. It works way better, even if the translation isn’t correct or more natural, you’ll still get the information, posts, and videos you want to see.

🦩Find ways to practice speaking the language (I use HiNative) and don’t be discouraged by corrections.

Getting corrected does not mean you’re wrong, corrections are the most useful part of learning a language. If you are the type of person who is sensitive to criticism, you need to remind yourself corrections are NOT criticism. They are NOT a reflection of your progress, they are NOT you failing! You will always be corrected as a language learner and the sooner you are gentle with yourself in learning the sooner you will learn more. Get those first corrections out of the way, allow yourself to butcher pronunciation, get corrected for the first 10 times, let it sting a little and move on. Eventually you will be begging native speakers to tell you every little detail in where you went wrong!

🦩Tv and Books seems to be more useful for immersion and listening practice then music does

So far in my experience music is its very weird and abstract, and the things said in music aren’t really useful in speaking? It’s good for gathering vocab, but if you want music listening practice that’s music based try searching for rap in that language, although obviously you’ll be picking up a lot of informal language in music/rap. Tv shows however are typically how people really do talk, so turn off English subs and just listen! Books are really useful for learning new vocabulary, but sometimes written language is different than spoken (often), although when you speak it the way you’ve learned from a book the worst you’ll sound is “formal and poetic”.

🦩Look up “insert language you are learning phrases and words that aren’t useful or correct”

There so many programs and books that teach you phrases you’ll never use or that are only appropriate in very specific situations. I don’t know why language programs do this, but learning which ones are weird or only in specific settings before you start learning really helps. Chinese Especially does this...like I learned so many phrases and words that natives will never use and have no purpose???

🦩Know the different subjects of learning a language and which apps to use for that

Everyone uses Duolingo, but this app alone won’t make you speak a language. Duolingo and Memrise are great for memorizing vocab, but, is it vocab that in the context of your reading and listening practice? Are you learning words you are hearing and reading all the time? Duolingo is a lot of fun but I feel like the vocab is so broad and it doesn’t go deep enough into the language. Feel free to use it at first to get used to the sounds of the language, but try using flash card apps like quizlet or Anki instead where you can write down and study words you are hearing constantly. Memrise does have actually study sets for many language books and lessons! So you can study words you are hearing in specific programs and books which is pretty useful in regards to vocab.

There obviously is more than just learning vocab. What about grammar, listening practice, speaking practice and reading? If you are wanting to use primarily apps find out which apps are available for your language. Here is an example of the apps I use for each subject. Be aware some languages are not available on them.

Vocab: quizlet, anki

Grammar: books (printed or kindle), YouTube grammar lessons, websites

Reading: books (printed or kindle), beelinguapp, instagram (posts that have text), Netflix/YouTube with both subtitles in the language you are learning and spoken in language you are learning, epic app

Writing: just use paper and pencil/pen

Listening: audio books (beelinguapp/epic/kindle/YouTube), tv and movies (Netflix/YouTube etc with no English subs), conversations on YouTube (search in language you are studying, don’t search “Spanish conversations” or “Japanese conversations”)

Speaking: HiNative (pretty much all I use since it’s all languages, quick, and you get immediately answered and corrected by native speakers), get friends in language you are learning through lots of apps

Translator: it’s really hard to find a good one, most of them are really weird so only use them for words and the most basic or simple phrases and sentences, otherwise use HiNative to ask native speakers directly, or ask people on the apps that connect you to native speakers

🌱I should note that for talking to native speakers I only like HiNative, since it’s built to NOT be a form of social networking at all. It’s not personal in anyway, and there’s no way to private message or speak to other users outside a asking questions publicly. The people on there are only about learning or teaching a language, not usually making friends. I’ve found the sites that are built to make native speaking friends aren’t useful to me personally, as most of the native speakers are either dudes looking for a woman to date or people wanting to only practice English with you, so they wasted a lot of my study time. People who are willing to help you learn are there, but it takes time to filter everything else out. If you would find it helpful to make friends by all means use them but I don’t really use it myself.🌱

You don’t want to really study EVERY SUBJECT every single day (unless you have the time). It can get really overwhelming, and you don’t really absorb information that if you are just cramming. While I would say it’s good to read and listen daily, spread subjects out over the week. Grammar on Monday and Friday, vocab on Tuesday and Thursday. Take one day to review all of what you’ve learned all week. Pick a day you have the largest block of free time. Bi-weekly works fine too.

I have an old post on how I organize my study time for multiple languages: https://alwaysabeautifullife.tumblr.com/post/182817883372/what-do-you-use-to-learn-your-languages-im

🦩Write sentences daily of everything you’ve learned (no THIS I RECOMMEND DAILY)

Write as many as you can. Use all the grammar you’ve learned, the words you’ve learned, everything! Write them in your notes and submit them to be corrected in HiNative. The sentences they correct, put them in flash cards!

🦩It’s ok to abandon languages you aren’t passionate in

So you’ve learned to read the language, and you know basic phrases, and now you just don’t want to do it anymore. If you can’t think of any reason to maintain it and don’t know why you are studying it, learning some of the language is good! Fluency does NOT need to be everyone’s goal. You can hold a conversation, and that’s good enough for you. Feel free to try out various languages, there will be one or some that really are your passion, it’s fine to have the goal of fluency in those and conversational in others.

Don’t abandon languages however because you feel discouraged. Discouragement is just a bump to get over, when you train your brain to maintain study habits through the days you feel discouraged, you make it habitual. Habits are harder to break and abandon! Evaluate your reasonings for wanting to speak a language, and your reasons for abandoning them if you want. Don’t let difficulty, disorganized, discouragement, or poor time management get in your way!!

🦩With all that said it’s ok to take breaks

It’s ok to get overwhelmed and take breaks from language learning. If you can still maintain what you’ve learned by listening to music in your language or staying connected in some way that’s good, but the “you’ll loose a language” isn’t entirely true. I’ve taken year long breaks and refreshing what I learned previously is pretty easy! Your brain really does go “oh yeah I do remember this!” when you’re studying information you studied years ago.

🦩Be gentle with yourself

Be gentle with yourself. People that claim to be fluent in 6 months are selling something or want to be an influencer. Don’t compare yourself to them. Language learning even for natives is a lifetime education. It’s not something you do for 6 months then stop. It’s continual and that looks different for everyone (yes native speakers included). Don’t bother watching YouTube videos on how to learn in 10 mins or 3 months, you’ll only get discouraged about your own amazing progress and all the work you’ve done.

🦩Plan your “can you say something in it” phrase now

This one is just for fun but after hearing you are learning a language the first thing you’ll get asked is “oh cool you speak (insert target language here)? Can you say something in (insert target language here)?” It does not matter what level of fluency you are at, you will absolutely forget the entire language and your own native language when you are asked this because it sends your brain to another dimension. So think of some funny phrases to say to people who ask, master them, then when they ask what they mean you can have a laugh. Other wise you will say something stupid of jumbled words (my go to was ‘we women are fruit’ for some reason thanks brain you’re incredible) you’ve learned that don’t belong in a sentence, or even worse you’ll run a blank and you’ll just look at them like:

🍳👄🍳

So think of inside jokes to tell your friends, funny phrases, even goofy insults! Memorize them and tell them at your friends and family to torture them because they can’t escape sound waves! It’s a good way to memorize the language but also to become confortable speaking it!

Please excuse any errors I don’t wanna go over my mistakes so pretend u can’t see them 🙈

#langblr #learning languages #korean #spanish #italian #portuguese #lang resources #lang apps #lang

[menalez]

Okay, so I want to be clear when I say again that white women in the suffragette movement said/did racist things, just as white women in feminists movements today say/do racist things,. Even white anti-racist activists will, at least on occasion, say and do racist things simply by growing up in a white supremacist society. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m disputing that reality. I only mean to illustrate some of the nuance (and why that matters today).

I sent those quotes in an effort to illustrate how the women’s suffrage movement was intertwined with universal suffrage, both white women and black men campaigned for each other’s right to vote. The women’s suffrage organizations grew directly from the basis of abolitionist movements. The initial suffrage (and wider women’s rights) movement was indistinguishable from the civil rights movement. When the 14th/15th amendment was proposed splits in the civil rights movement deepened — both white women and black women (and presumably some black men) campaigned against any amendment that didn’t include women. Similarly, black man and both white and black women favored the 15th amendment even without including women (of any race), who argued that women could wait. Ultimately the latter group saw their wish, and the division resulted in two separate organizations that continued to campaign for women’s suffrage.

The quotes you screen-shotted are undeniably terrible and exemplify the racism within the movements. To be nuanced however, they also span a wide range of individuals — from actual slave owners to women who said something racist but also directly participated in anti-racist activism.

To illustrate (from the quotes you provided):

Rebecca Latimer Felton - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Carrie Chapman Catt - she later said “our task will not be fulfilled until the women of the whole world have been rescued from those discriminations and injustices which in every land are visited upon them in law and custom”, lobbied against the word “white” being added to the 19th amendment, and lobbied congress/used her presidency of the League of Women Voters to advocate for people of color and Jews

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - she also founded the Women's Loyal National League that led the largest abolitionist petition drive at the time, organized the American Equal Rights Association a suffrage organization that explicitly supported universal suffrage. The organization split when (mostly) the black men in the organization supported the 15th amendment without advocating for it to be extended to women. (She definitely said racist things around this time, similarly Frederick Douglass, who was both her friend and one of her main critiques at the time, said many sexist things.) The split was later merged back into one organization that she headed.

Anna Howard Shaw - I know very little about her. She definitely said many racist things, but she did champion universal suffrage and campaigned to end racial violence (arguing that universal suffrage would end lynchings). Still, she also failed to condemn racist actions by her peers.

Same as (1)

Belle Kearney - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Frances Willard - confusing mix of actively recruiting and working with black women and also promoting racists myth that white women were in danger of black men that facilitated lynchings (due to her “temperance reform”). Also appeared to be more laissez-faire when president of the WCTU since she let conservative states hold on to conservative and/or moderate positions regarding reform for both women’s rights and racial justice.

Same as (1)

As for why it matters today:

No, women definitely won’t have the right to vote revoked for discussing racism in past movements. But there’s a difference between discussing racism, and perpetuating misinformation. One of the main ways the American government disrupted activist movements throughout history was to sow dissension in their ranks. (And the American government/military taught many of these techniques to foreign countries.) An excellent example of this is the COINTELPRO operation, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Their goal was to divide and conquer - a movement can’t make progress if it’s busy fighting itself - and poison the public’s opinions of the movements, so as to dissuade new members from joining. (At this point, I want to reassure you that while this may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is very much proven and it/other programs did much harm to domestic and foreign reform movements.)

The myth that the suffragette movement was specifically racist, rather than operating in concert with and emerging from, anti-racist activism contributes to this divide and conquer method of disrupting activism. If you (general you) can convince women of color that the “original feminist movement” (ignoring the ahistorical nature of such the label itself) actively campaigned against them, then it’s much easier to dissuade them from considering feminist activism or to divide activist movements. (And, if it were true, it would be entirely justified!)

Of course, that’s not to say that feminists shouldn’t criticize (or disavow, to the extent possible) white supremacists like Felton or Kearney, or that we shouldn’t discuss and reform the racist sentiments in past and current movements. (In fact, I believe, and expect you do as well, that doing so is not only permissible but necessary, because to deny the racism that did exist in past/current movements would alienate women of color just as much as the idea that the feminism-of-old was solely for white women, and would in fact be an expression of racism in and of itself.)

I hope this clarifies what I’ve been trying to convey.

im surprised about the claim that white women and black men campaigned for each other's right to vote. i was under the impression that the civil rights movement was largely focused on black men and often outright excluded black women having a say, so i don't really know why they would support other women (such as white women) having a say when i heard they didn't support that for black women, who were always black men's biggest supporters.

i do get your point, to a degree-- and i think we agree overall but simply word things differently. i don't think that the women's suffrage movement was Bad and i don't think the white suffragettes back then were like, all evil and more racist than the avg white person in their society. i would say overall, those women were quite forward thinking and progressive for their time. i don't doubt that a significant portion of women were far worse than that, and even opposed women's rights (bc of the society they grew up in where this was a controversial thing). my only argument is that pretending they weren't also racist and had traits worthy of criticism (such as their racism) is innaccurate. a lot of prominent suffragettes were quite racist, and that's not to say that their feminist beliefs lead to that or that women's rights is interwined with racism, but just to point out that even those women who fought for the right to vote for women were not particularly good allies to poc but most specifically black people, and more importantly, black women. i also wanted to point out that being anti-slavery and campaigning against it, did not mean they were generally anti-racism or fighting against racism overall. they were fighting against the worst and most extreme forms of racism in their time, but they were all still racist in their own right. i'd like to reemphasise what i initially shared that you disagree with (+ my tags, and my previous comment on it so as to be fully transparent), which is not that different from what you're saying imo:

now i'm not trying to argue the origin of the movement, what it rose out of, how it relates to racism or anything else; my qualms are with the claim that the suffragettes were not racist. maybe back then, they were closer to allies to black people than most, however they were still quite racist. similarly, since you brought up white allies, white allies today may be the best we have and the best in our time, but they are also still often quite racist themselves.

my main and only point is that these women were still racist, and this is not to discount the women's suffrage movement, i just think that when we deny that aspect of the past then what we're doing is alienating woc. i've noticed a general trend of white women on here saying that white women were targetted by the KKK for example, fixation on stuff that is targeted at white women like 'karen' and placed on equal grounds with calling black women 'laquisha' to berate them, arguments that white women dont have racial privilege, etc and while i don't think the people making such arguments are necessarily coming from a bad place, many woc seeing this will end up feeling like the movement is geared towards white women and does not properly consider & include woc. that's why i take issue with the claim that xyz white female historical figure wasnt racist bc she was pro-slavery abolition, like, sure that must've been really progressive for its time but at the same time it doesn't change that the same woman did work w white supremacists and white supremacy was used as an argument to support white women's suffrage. it probably worked as a strategy and helped pave the way for other women, but its good to acknowledge these issues and criticise them esp since they remain relevant today when people are still indirectly debating how much woc should be considered in feminism.

[megastarstriker]

★{𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗧𝗼 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹}★

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{ℕ𝕀𝕂𝕂𝕀 𝕊𝕀𝕏𝕏 𝕏 ℝ𝔼𝔸𝔻𝔼ℝ}

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𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: Bullying and Abuse, Slight Cussing, Depression and Anxiety 

Contains: FLUFF AND ANGST

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: Nikki Sixx x Asperger’s! Female Reader

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩:

Summary: (Y/N) a 13 year old girl goes to her first day in high school. Despite the hard attempts and making friends because of her socially awkwardness she finds herself distracted by a certain boy in her class. (Note: This isn’t made for discrimination or stereotypes to people who go through anxiety, depression or have autism. This is all real stuff and written for the sake of notice and to betaken seriously. I won’t be portraying any kind of offensive or critical stereotypes nor will ever in this one-shot. This was based on personal experience and point of view. IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION AND ARE TRIGGERED BY THESE SAME THEMES. PLEASE DO NOT READ FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. AND IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM EITHER ONE, PLEASE FIND SUPPORT OR HELP, WE ARE ALL HERE FOR YOU EVEN IF YOU DONT THINK SO WE ARE. WE WILL HELP YOU GET THROUGH IT, AND IN THE END IT WILL HELP YOU ALOT💕 )

𝙏𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩: @metalheartofgold, @ginny-rose-sixx, @xxqueencolourxx​, @littlemisscare-all​,

💕 LOVE YOU GUYS AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANNA GET TAGGED  💕 

Keys:

(Y/N) - Your Name

(L/N) - Last Name

{Photos and gifs aren’t mine they belong to their owners. I only own the editing} 💕

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 1971

“Mommy, what if the other kids don’t like me or hate me.....”, I managed to utter out as I looked at her through a glimpse as I looked down at my shoes, while sitting on the stool near the counter. 

“Oh Honey, don’t say that, you know that’s not true.”, Mom said in a cheery voice as she was working on breakfast listening to me as she did,” Some of those kids will like you. Might even want to be your friend.”

I looked up at my mom only glancing at her back as she was stirring the ingredients in a bowl, my attitude and mood not changing from its gloom state as I heard those positive words, as it should.’ Is she only saying that to make me feel better?’ I thought in my head as I felt a bit angry at the thought, a bit happy too that she cared, though it didn’t change my idea of it nonetheless. 

......

......

......

“They think I’m a freak and a monster.....”, I said suddenly without emotion my voice breaking a bit as I felt tears building up a bit on my eyes at the idea of it, trying my best not let them crawl and trace down my cheeks as I didn’t want her to see me cry.

My mom then turned around from what she was doing in the kitchen towards me her eyes widening at what I said, almost dropping the pan she was holding that held a small stack of pancakes, as she heard those sharp and painful words out of my mouth. She gulped slightly making me quirk an eyebrow, waiting for a response and obviously worried and confused for her silence, feeling insecure as I awaited her answer. She then put the pan down and walked towards me kneeling down unto my level as I tried my best to dry roughly at the tears. Only for her to gently push them away from my face and take her soft and delicate hands and brush the tears away with her fingertips as she grabbed my face gingerly, her eyes filled with concern as she did.

“You are not a freak or a monster....Ok. and definitely not a monster.”, My mom corrected me sincerely as she said in a whispering tone to me letting her forehead connect with mine as her gaze met mine.” You are just different from the rest of the other kids.”

“You are special.”, She said as she kissed my forehead, embracing me as she did, returning the hug it a few moments later as I registered the action in my brain. Letting my arms wrap around her for warmth and comfort, as I left the few remaining tears drop unto her clothed shoulder, cursing myself for it.

......

......

......

“Yeah Right.”, I muttered under my breath sarcastically as I replayed the events from this morning. Holding a pen and flicking it repeatedly, as I felt my anxious state grow with every step I took towards what was now called my school, trying to take my stress away roughly at the writing utensil gripped tightly at my hand as I repeated the process. This was a soothing technique for me for whenever I felt overly stressed or anxious in a situation. Despite the annoying sound it would do, I couldn’t help but feel calm and relief wash over me as I felt the tensing energy leave my body, easing my breathing, nerves, and muscles. I then stopped as I calmed down putting the pen on my pocket as I released a sigh, gripping my bag tightly.

------

This wasn’t the first time my mother has said or used the word special in those exact occasions. To be honest there was nothing special about me. This wasn’t my first school that I was attending either. I’ve been to many, and seen many faces from kids my age and younger to teachers and parents. Despite their differences they have one thing in common when it came to me. They all gave me the same look. Whether it was pitiful or dirty it didn’t matter. All the different kids from different schools gave me that same stupid and meaningless face. At first I thought it was because I was new to them, but then I started to quickly realize it wasn’t just that.....I was a shy girl so I never really understood at that time. All those times I would try to talk to people or waiting for them to approach me as I sat alone calmly doing my work....Being friendly and confident as possible as I greeted them with the best and nicest smile I could muster on my young face...They never responded back they simply whispered something to another kid and simply left me standing there stranded as they went to play with the other kids... Avoiding me entirely even when I went to speak with them again....Sometimes I tried asking the kids if I could play but they would either ignore me and walk away or say that It wasn’t a game for me to play......

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Was I not suppose to talk to them?”

“Why aren’t they talking to me?”

Those were some of the thoughts I had, but I knew those weren’t the exact reasons, knowing fully well I wasn’t bad when it came to speech or greetings when I talked to other people. The teachers blamed me for it of course, when I asked them why the other kids avoided me.

“Maybe if you weren’t and acted like such a freak, they would be talking to you.”, One Teacher I remembered bitterly saying to me with the fakest smile as she then turned her back towards me walking away from my small frame not caring whether those words struck my small heart or tear up and cry.

------

I shook my head and decided to think of something else as my sneakers grazed the cement floor on the sidewalk. I then looked towards the sky seeing the sun shinning and the pure white clouds forming picturesque structures as they floated above. ‘I wonder if there is any people living in those fluffy clouds?’, I thought with a smile,’ Is there such a thing as cloud puppies too!?’ 

I giggled a bit as I thought about what a cloud puppy would look like. Sort of like a poodle or    but more fluffier and soft fur like marshmallows and cotton candy combined.  “Are clouds tasty?”, I whispered out loud as I kept staring at the edible-looking clouds, ‘They do look a lot like cotton candy....so maybe.’

I then starred at my feet laughing at the thought, only for then to look up and noticed that I was already in front of the school.

I gulped as I was frozen in place.

“Here goes nothing”, I said to myself a bit nervously as I let my feet drag slowly towards the horrors of what was now officially called my school.

Walking towards the doors of the school, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of nausea hit me, totally uncomfortable on how all of this was going to go. After I enter the entrance to the school through the double doors I couldn’t help but notice one unnormal thing.

Empty halls.

‘Weird.’, I thought in my head with a raised eyebrow.,’ I thought it would be crowded by this time.’

Reading the letters on top of the doors, I checked to see my assigned class as I looked at each one on both sides of me in the empty halls. Seeing the exact one I enter it only for then to see a crowd of unfamiliar faces turned all of their heads in sync towards me.

I then closed it behind me with a jitter in my hands as I felt belittled by all the beady eyes of the students that were staring at me while sitting in there sits.

“Mrs.(Y/N), You’re late!”, A female voice said harshly next to me.

I then turned towards the origin of the voice to my right, seeing it was a middle aged woman with long hair that was tied up into a bun and was wearing glasses underneath her brown caramel eyes. Her faced was adorned with makeup and an angry scowl in her face as her eyes met mine, obviously unhappy and pissed.

“Care to explain why?.”, She said in a dominant tone, and with stern eyes as she crossed her arms across her chest and her heels clicked underneath the marble floor of the classroom as she tapped her foot impatiently.

“I-i....”, I started with a stammer and whisper obviously nervous and uneasy about all of the students who were staring at me in the front of the class.,”I-im sorry..”

‘Way to go me....’, I thought sarcastically at myself as I said those words.

The teacher squinted her eyes with a humph, only to then close them. Then as if on cue....

An erupting choir of laughter resounded in the entirety of the room in sync as all of the kids started to laugh at me. In that moment I felt humiliated and irritated,  I wanted to just throw myself in a box and at the same time tell the kids to shove their mouths up their own asses to shut them up. But I felt completely vulnerable at the moment unknowing of what to say. as I felt small....

‘So much for good impressions.’, I thought in defeat as I looked down at the floor.

“Quiet down class, quiet down!”, The teacher said as she stared at room full of teens as they all kept quiet some of them still snickering softly, or trying to control the laughter that was still trying to emit from their lips.

“I’ll let you off with a warning since you did apologize, after all. The next time though I won’t and you will be sent to the principal’s office as punishment if this repeats. Understood.”, She said a bit more warmly still keeping a strict poise as she turned towards me.

I nodded slowly of course as I listen to her words looking down a bit ashamedly as I did.” Yes Mrs....”

“Mrs. Johnson.”, She said with a small smile and then she gestured towards the empty seat,” You can go ahead and sit next to Frank over there in the back.”

I then followed her arm towards were she was exactly pointing and to my thoughts, there was a boy with an orange pale button up shirt in the far back right next to were my assigned seat was, looking and snapping his thoughts towards the teacher as he heard his name from the teacher’s mouth. I gulped ‘Why the far back?’ I then looked towards the front row and saw the whole aisle filled students already, ‘Oh that’s why...’

Taking a deep breath, I stepped towards through the rows of filled seats, hearing whispers or name-callings as I walked past them towards my seat. Of course I glared at the students a bit in front of me while also trying to put a fake smile for them as I tried my best to ignore their harsh and childish remarks. As I reached the desk, I couldn’t help but notice the “Frank” boy from earlier stare at me from the corner of my eyes as I sat beside him, knowing that he wasn’t in the beginning until he heard his name being called. His bright green eyes observing me as I put my backpack close to my side and slumped into my seat. I then saw as the boy stared for a few seconds at me more before looking away from me in boredom just like a few minutes earlier. 

As he looked away, I couldn’t help but stare at him as I got good look at him clearly compared to when I was in the front of the class. “Frank” had brown blondish hair that was a bit long and slicked back neatly, green and slightly dark eyes as the color of leaves in the trees during springs or summer as they stared boredly away as one hand was held towards his cheek, leaning his elbow against and touching the table on his desk propping his head up, wearing his orange pale button up shirt and white pants, along with some sneakers. 

“Cute.”, I whispered a bit too loudly as I stared at him my cheeks dusting with a violent red as I realized what words fell from  my mouth. Frank being near me ,considering he was beside me and the whole class was quiet at the moment, turned his head to me as he heard what I said with a confused face, either not catching what I just heard or uncomfortable with what I said from my understanding. I then stared to the front away from him, my shoulders tense, my face completely red, and my heart beating out as if it were to rip away from my ribcage and body. I breathed steadily and sighed, as I felt his stare drift away as he huffed a bit going back to his usual stuff to staring at nothing. ‘Geez, what are you thinking girl.....’, I scolded at myself with a mental facepalm,’ You already messed it up with coming late, now your making it worse by telling a boy he is cute....Ugh, at least I hope he didn’t hear me.’

The teacher started lesson as if a few minutes prior and after the incident. Staring mindlessly at the chalkboard, I couldn’t help but feel a bit tired and suddenly....bored as I tuned out the teachers words. ‘School sucks.’, I thought for a moment before a lightbulb suddenly went above my head with a silent yawn,’ I’m gonna draw.’

I then took my separate drawing pad, pen and pencil, while flipping to and empty page. I then started to work my magic as I began to doodle what was on my mind as ideas spurred through my brain. I was pondering on what to draw as I held the pen close to my chin. I had a great influence and overall interest in music, I loved it so much especially when it came to rock music. Because of that, I wanted to become a musician or songwriter one day. I then thought about drawing puppies or rockstars.....

I then did just that as I drew cute little doodles of puppies along with a rockstar sketch of my favorite musician. As I kept listening at the teacher to the class while also distracting myself with some quality time for me, I noticed something soft yet solid grazing shoulder slightly, landing at next to my feet on the floor. It was a crumbled up piece of paper that was made into a ball. Rolling my eyes, I didn’t think any of it as I kept tracing my pen on the paper. 

‘Psst. Hey.’ 

Fixated on the paper I kept on drawing cute little stars and details on the drawing oblivious to the person that was calling someone else, whoever did. 

‘Psst!’

This time it was a bit more louder but still made into a whisper as I didn’t bother to check who it was that made the noise.

I then felt another hard thud on my shoulder this time still soft but harsh as the solid material hit me directly. Leaving my eyes from the paper as I had an angry frown in my face obviously annoyed at the person who threw the paper at me, I looked towards the person who made the ‘psst’ sound again only to see that it was the so called ‘Frank’ boy from earlier. 

He then gestured towards the crumbled sheet of paper in front of my desk. I narrowed my brows at him, with suspicion but complied either way so he could stop bothering me, despite the fact he seemed friendly. Grabbing the crumbled sheet, I heard the sound of the bell ringing before I could open it. The class was then dismissed but before I could read the note that the boy passed to me. I felt a harsh shove as I fell back on the seat causing the note to fall from my hands and into the floor, nobody noticing as they let their dirty shoes graze and paint the paper. Seeing that everyone left including the person that shoved me by accident, I went to pick up the note from the ground only to see that it was indeed painted with shoe prints and ripped in half harshly. ‘Ugh...’ I groaned in disgust as I went to the trash to throw it away,’ I hope it wasn’t something important that I needed to know.’

I then looked towards the back of the class were Frank was, only to find out he wasn’t there anymore. Frowning a bit at the thought as I was hoping maybe I could talk to him, I went towards were all the students were going....probably the cafeteria..

‘Maybe I’ll see him there’, I thought lightening up a bit with a smile.”

‘We’ll even be friends probably....”

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{AUTHORS NOTE}

Hey there I hope you all enjoyed this little miniseries I’m doing. The reason I made this was because of personal experience in my early years in high school, and I felt I had to write them down. I also wondered how it will be like if Sixx to ever meet a girl with autism. I’ll be uploading part two as soon as I can of course .hope you liked it and Thank you for reading.

💗{LIKE OR REBLOG TO SAVE}💗

#nikki sixx #nikki sixx x reader #young nikki sixx #young nikki sixx x reader #motley crue

[ronnytherandom]

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

 Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

[sanstropfremir]

it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh. 

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax. 

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated. 

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least. 

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc. 

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably. 

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition. 

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do. 

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

#kingdom #ateez #btob #ikon #sf9 #the boyz #stray kids #military uniforms are a weird one and i always find it a bit....(squiggly face emoji) when they get used in kpop stages #everybody is one of the exceptions because its used as a direct critique #but this is a very personal opinion as someone who has done a lot of historical research on military uniforms in particular #so im hyperaware of that kind of thing #be cool about this one people please and thank you! #im so glad this came in under 3k #kingdom review #kpop analysis #text #ive had to write a lot of deeply critical art practice analysis in the last week and i would like to sleep

[freshlybakedspiderbread]

I brought up hanyang type 88 here and i said i’d explain, so here I am!!

okay so first off here’s a bunch of likely useful context about girls frontline. There is this feature in the game called digimind upgrade, or mod 3, where certain t-dolls can be upgraded past the normal maximum levels and stats, and at the same time gaining whole new abilities and also a new design. Basically a reinvention. There are like hundreds of playable characters in the game, and only a fraction will get mod 3s, typically the ‘main characters’ who are relevant to the major ongoing plot.

two things about getting a doll who has the ability to do digimind upgrade, to actually do that. One, is that it can be very costly in terms of in-game materials. like, maybe i just played the game wrong but I would have to grind for weeks in order to amass the materials to upgrade just one doll to mod 3. So even though by now there are dozens upon dozens of dolls who are capable of this feature, i’ve only actually done so with like, less than one dozen. A normal player probably has to be picky.

secondly, and this is the big one, every t-doll’s mod 3 comes with story cutscenes that become available for you to view upon upgrading them. Personally, i think most of the only worthwhile mod 3 stories are the ones that are associated with the actual major characters of the main story, especially since their upgrades actually happen in-canon and their mod 3 stories fill in blanks or otherwise expand upon the regular story chapters.

for the t-dolls who aren’t major characters that get digimind upgrades, their associated stories tend to follow a very basic pattern. They’re feeling like they are falling behind other T-Dolls in abilities or are otherwise experiencing a drop in confidence in their abilities, but then find the resolve in them to either change themselves or stand by an aspect of themselves, and this leads them to heading to the lab to get upgraded. obviously theres some nuances here and there depending on the character, but a lot of them, from what i saw, follow this basic pattern.

hanyang type 88 has a mod 3 but i certainly never wanted to see it. Firstly, using the feature at all takes up resources are kinda precious so i wasn’t just gonna use it on anyone. Secondly, she is just one of many one-off t-dolls that basically dont ever show up in any actual main story cutscenes or even funny events. Thirdly... you saw what she looked like in the linked post, i was in no rush to make use of her.

That being said, even if you don’t ever upgrade a t-doll, simply having them in your possession allows you to at least view the first of four parts of their mod 3 story, which nets you a small amount of those materials needed to see the rest (its a pretty fiendish system, huh o_O). I was lacking in some materials to upgrade a doll i cared about, so i just mucked around, eventually happened upon type88 again and decided that instead of just immediately feeding her to the furnace, I’d watch the first chapter of her mod 3 story. I watched it, it made me just curious enough to look further, and well. ...I got into it. Exactly what I got into, i shall now just elaborate and summarise the whole thing in my own way! Warning, it’s long!

(disclosure: my summary will bias towards my own preferred interpretation whenever any aspect is somewhat vague.)

The story starts with type 88, or as she is called by others in griffin base, Ai, working her shift in the base’s cafe, because what else would she be doing.

i hate looking at her! Anyway, its just a pleasant peaceful day and Ai is taking the logistic person, kalina’s order when suddenly in the middle of a conversation, Ai freezes in place and starts making worrying sounds.

kalina here and the t-dolls present in the cafe are concerned, and talk about how Type88 has actually been crashing like this more and more frequently lately, yet has not reported any of this to the maintenance crew despite the advice of her friends. They try rebooting her on the spot, but it has an even more concerning effect, because she starts erratically acting like she doesn’t recognise the others, and talks about how she is a maid in “Jiangcheng Cafe”. Afraid that her neural cloud (her mind) has been scrambled, they put her to sleep and bring her to the repair bay.

Its in the repair bay where they explain exactly what is wrong with type88. She is a fairly old doll, and her processing capacity has been severally clogged up for a long time. Her internal memory is overflowing because many large sections of her mind is filled with very large encrypted files (memories that she stored away). she is likely to keep crashing and possibly even cease functioning entirely one day if those encrypted files are not deleted, but nobody is really keen on just deleting parts of her mind without her consent. For now, kalina just opts to try and decrypt the files and see what they are.

And from here, we watch type88 memories from her perspective. Sort of. Kind of. It gets complicated later but for now, we view the first memory of her life, not as a combat t-doll type88, but...

...as 59898, a doll designed to be what is basically a ‘crash test dummy’ for testing artillery technology in a research station. With a purpose like this, 59898 has an (ostensibly) rudimentary AI. Her learning ability is intended to be used to better aid the results of their testing, but she also knows how to understand and even imitate specific human gestures in order to better respond to instructions or conversation, even though she herself has no voice module to speak with. She is assigned to assist one specific person.

first off, i was pretty shocked right off the bat that this story above so many others actually has unique assets to it. The above two sprites don’t show up anywhere else in the game, i don’t think. Secondly, this woman’s name is only ever spelled with those white squares, so I’m stuck with having to just calling her ‘the pilot’, as dry as that sounds... I just don’t want to type out weird characters every time, or call her ‘triple cube’...

Anyway, so 59898 is assigned to help this woman in testing artillery tech (stuff like mechs and tanks). I should mention really quick that in the game’s story, during this point of time is when world war iii is happening, but that’s just a backdrop for robots to eventually gain more prominence. Anyway, we move on to the second memory, where some time has already passed. At the beginning of this memory, the pilot is visibly depressed, which 59898 takes note of.

Her ‘comfort mode’ consists of patting the pilot on the head, who while surprised, actually is grateful. She feels comfortable enough to talk about her worries aloud to the doll, mentioning how she is a war refugee and has to make a living in the research base because she can’t go back to her home in china, at least not before making enough money for a very expensive and exclusive train ticket. She continues to talk at length to the doll...

...not that the test doll is capable of responding to anything she says. The pilot insists that she’s happy just to have someone listen to her though, since she feels like she can’t really express her feelings to any other person on the base. Despite that-

That aside, the pilot says that referring to 59898 by her serial number all the time feels a bit weird, so she decides to give the doll a name. (I sure wish the story would give this woman a name too, other than ‘three white squares’ but oh well...)

She talks more with Jiangcheng Ai, or just Ai, after that, asking her if she’d like a change of clothes sometime, like some casual clothes, or an old maid outfit from an old cafe job she used to have (I guess they had to throw in any explanation for that outfit somehow) Point is, more and more time passes.

As time passes though, and we go into the third memory, the pilot brings up complaints to her superiors about how the more recent testings, becoming more increasingly intense and frequent, are putting a great strain on Ai, and even repairs can only help maintain her chassis so much. She insists on wanting to take Ai’s place in the testing, but they refuse because, well, Ai’s entire purpose is to take the strain of these tests so that the human pilot doesn’t have to, and the doll is just a tool there to pave the way for the pilot to eventually take over the mech in action

The next time Ai wakes up from her most recent repairs, the pilot is there to greet her, and Ai can tell straight away that she’s unhappy and tries to comfort her again. The pilot is not surprised at this and talks about how this is how Ai has been since they first met. She goes on to say how all the other people on the base don’t know her half as well as Ai does. Ai tries to understand and determine what the pilot’s intentions with saying all this is, but she cannot do so and can only listen while offering ‘executing - affirmative nod’.

The pilot talks about how once the war is over, she’d like to take Ai back home with her, where they could go to all sorts of gatherings, and the pilot would introduce Ai to her friends.

Ai reviews her personal data, confirming that she has no owners or obligations other than the pilot, so she executes another affirmative nod, and the pilot says this:

As Ai tries and fails to further determine this, something bad happens! if you’ve read this far, i’m sure you’ve already guess what happens next...

At that exact moment, a warning goes out and the research base is being attacked by nebulous enemy forces. With no time to talk anymore, both the pilot and Ai head out into their first real fight.

They spend a good long while repelling enemy forces, working well together and apparently using all sorts of wacky anime weaponry like beam blades and whatever ‘retrograde evasion’ is!

obviously though, you already know this isn’t going to end well for them... When the pilot takes a breather, Ai moves to protect her, but at a critical moment, a sudden high-speed projectile comes her way. In the next instance there’s a crash, and we move onto another memory. Where its all fire and debris, and Ai can’t move.

^ this text box actually repeats several times, indicating that she is repeating her scan for life signs over and over. She gets an internal warning from her systems (differentiated with red text) that she has insufficient power and it warns her to immediately cease ineffective operations. [Unable to detect owner life signs] repeats again.

At this point, uuuuh, its a little stupid actually? because two humans show up, reusing generic ‘bad guy’ sprites from other events that don’t match the current environment and situation at all (one is in a suit and the other is in casual clothes). but the reason they’re here is to provide exposition out loud about what happened. It looked like the human’s mech took a hit for the doll and was blown to bits, though they talk about how that doesn’t make any sense.

Ai at this point tries to execute a bunch of different actions like hugging [target not found] and screaming [no relevant module] but they all fail, and her internal systems tell her that her power is running out and she will cease to function in 30 seconds.

So in those last 30 seconds, Ai decides to quickly review her internal files. the damage she took has corrupted her memories and she doesn’t have the time to properly go through them, so she executes a ‘simulated processed records’, which basically mean she’s just filling the blanks of those memories herself with simulations.

And I have to say. I was decently into and enjoying this little story so far, but its this part that’s the reason i became forced to make this stupid giant post. the first ‘memory’ loads up, and we see the pilot.

Different ‘memories’ of the days spent with the pilot are loaded back to back, each are very short and only last a few lines. Across these files, the two of them talk comfortably with each other, Ai is invited to go get coffee with her, the pilot talks about how going alone is boring and would rather spend time with Ai, Ai saying back with her own words that she always likes spending time with her, etc etc etc.

And then finally, she loads one last ‘memory’, from earlier that same day, before the explosion and the fighting.

and she shuts down.

i passed by this scene the first time all calm, but an hour or so later when I was in the bathroom replacing shampoo bottles, i started thinking about it and I literally started sobbing. And then again later that night when i was in bed. I hate this game!!

so that’s the ‘end’ of that, and the next scene opens, once again in griffin base’s cafe, except...

Ai is sporting a brand new (ugly) look. She says she’d like to take kalina’s order but she was just leaving on other business, as she likes keeping herself busy with all sorts of work around the base ever since she got upgraded into a gundam gajinka. and after she leaves, kalina talks with the other dolls about how Ai used to have some cache issues because her neutral cloud was too full, but upgrading into this new chassis easily fixed that and even allowed her to make use of her old locked away abilities.

Because of the way this scene in the cafe opens up exactly like the very first one at the beginning, it makes me believe that this final scene is also a simulated ‘memory’, that is, Ai filling in the blanks of her corrupted memories with what she wishes to be reality. And i feel confident in believing that because after the scene fades to black, we see more of her internal system monologue.

She (the system) says that the priority execution is to preserve those encrypted memory logs. She does so, and the neural cloud upgrade is complete with confirmation of no loss files. With no risk of deletion in this new form, she executes the command to unlock the encrypted memories. And finally...

[spiderbread dies]

i still wouldn’t use her in gameplay because i can’t stand looking at her design but  i told you all i eat up robot with feelings stuff and this is like prime example of exactly that... and if i didn’t make this post, i think my own neutral cloud’s cache would be at risk of overflowing x_X!

#spider bread crumbs #gfl

[daisy--sorbet]

heyyy, hope you’re having a good night!! if you have the energy and feel okay answering, what’s up w taz graduation? i haven’t checked it out yet but i was thinking ab it. just asking bc you’re the first person i saw talk ab the show having serious issues, but also feel free to not answer this!! hope you have a good week!

i took a nice hot bath, had a strawberry kiwi capri-sun, and did a nice face mask and i’m feeling pretty good - so, y’know what anon? let’s talk about it. 

for anyone who likes taz grad who sees this post: it’ll be tagged with “taz grad hate” (although i feel hate is definitely a very strong word - it’s for the simplicity of tagging it) - so please block the tag if you don’t want to see this post (especially because i put a readmore on a post before and it didn’t show up on mobile and instead gave the full post). mobile tumblr has a tag blocking system, so please feel free to use it! i don’t mind haha

anyway, so this is... probably going to be a lost post, and i wanna go ahead and preface it: this absolutely isn’t any hate on the mcelroys themselves. i love the brothers and their dad a lot, and while i doubt any of them would ever see this (or have it sent to them, or shown to them, because im pretty sure they try to distance themselves from this sort of thing), i just want to make it clear that criticizing a product is different than bashing a person. which brings me to the point of if i do end up sounding as if im bashing someone - please call me out on it! it’s not my intention to target anyone.

with that said, let’s talk about this campaign.

so my problems are as thus: the railroading, the shipping (a fandom problem, but it’s present in the podcast), the NPCs, and some misc problems others have addressed better than i have.

which. i know. that’s basically the entire podcast. (i promise i’ll bring up some positive points to balance it all out). keep in mind i’ve only personally listened to... what, six episodes? and it was enough for me to drop it. some people dropped it first ep, some dropped it ep four, and others are still forcing themselves to listen.

the railroading

there was a time i could handle travis and his railroading [making sure the story goes exactly the way he has planned], because it was the very beginning of the podcast and that’s what you can kind of expect from a plot-heavy podcast. hell, i wouldn’t mind it if the interactions and goofs weren’t a huge part of why i listen to TAZ in particular (which, by the way, is why amnesty still stuck out to me - even if there was a direction griffin wanted to push them towards, the interactions between the players (or players and npcs) made up for any railroading). it’s kind of hard to not railroad a little when it’s story-heavy and you’re trying to built up a world that you’ve put a lot of thought into. however, a huge part of d&d is the spontaneity. 

it’s kind of why i think balance was so popular. while there was railroading towards the end, there was the presence of improv that made it all good. most mcelroy content is enjoyed because of the goofs. the magic brian moment is memorable. the jenkin’s fight still stands out because it was funny (albeit a result of some bad rolls). the boys teasing angus sticks out because the four would play well off of each other. even without that - griffin had talked about how he had to roll with things (the fact he had planned for a fight atop the train, but ditched the idea for what his family members came up with instead). even in amnesty, a couple moments that stick out to me still are ned with the jetpack taking out a pizza hut sign, and the scene with the water where jake was trapped inside. they aren’t as fun, but they still stand out as “things i didnt expect to really end the way they did.”

with grad, it’s just. one after another. the thundermen want to subpoena a xorn? cool, let’s run with that until actually the xorn gets fed rocks and goes home and who cares about the subpoena now. fitzroy wants to keep his cloak? lets talk about it for a while and you also get no rolls to even try to keep it. fitzroy goes to meet higglemas in his office? oh, why are you here fitzroy? im going to keep asking you until you answer fitzroy? you arent getting out of this scene until you answer me, fitzroy, so just tell me why you’re here already, alright, fitzroy? 

and even later in a episode i read a transcript of: hey argo, remember how you have this whole secret motivation? fuck you, im gonna talk about it here in your dream and reveal it to listeners and remove any tension you had building up, and you dont get a choice to talk about it because this all-knowing villain knows all about it :)

and even NOW in the latest episode, there’s a comment that “we should cap argo’s skills here” instead of just... making the checks higher. rogues are good at certain things and usually arent the best in battles. better hope argo never makes it to level 11, because who knows how people are gonna handle the fact that he gets a skill that’ll make it so certain skills can’t have a roll below 10 (reliable talent). 

(griffin, thankfully, calls travis out for that, but still - travis, why would you even imply that, considering you should be aware of how rogues work considering magnus multiclassed into rogue and you played one on tiny heist?)

and in the newest episode, their Big Bad chaos (which, god, i personally hate that name) straight-out says “dont do this” to the thundermen. travis tries to say, on twitter, “a character saying “dont do this” is different than me saying it” but i need to point out that it’s one thing if you’ve said “no” in character but worked with the PCs doing otherwise, but the railroading says differently.

the shipping

ill try to make this quick, because it’s nothing to do with the fandom (ship however you want, man) - but i really feel the need to draw attention to this.

fitzroy, as confirmed by griffin in a ttazz episode, is asexual. not aroace, but ace nonetheless. and i find it... troublesome that the idea of rainer and fitzroy having a relationship is still pushed nonetheless, despite the fact that fitzroy (to my knowledge) was never once shown to reciprocate any feelings. not to be that person, but i really hope that grad doesnt have any sort of romantic relationships in it (at least - not between NPCs and PCs unless they’re actually like... warranted?). 

i dont know, man. one of my closest friends is ace, and i know she wants a relationship, but i think it would reassure her a lot to see an ace character who isn’t pushed into one in case she ever changes her mind. someone once mentioned that they hope fi/tz/ra/in doesnt happen because theres relationships that have that “oh, you can just date” and it goes upwards there to “oh, you can have sex just to please them <3″  (which, to be honest, is kind of a gross mindset - if someone isnt interested, they arent interested).

also, uh, the TTAZZ where griffin states this, there’s kind of the mention tht the whole sexuality question was posed in relation to the episode “creative thinking” (the dream one i mentioned earlier) - which. uh. i don’t know if anyone caught this, but... rainer straight-up wrote fitzroy a letter in the dream like “are you going to accept my proposal? a girl doesn’t like to be left waiting” which. leaves me with some gross feelings because uh.

if... if the whole thing about fitzroys sexual orientation was addressed here, then why would you push your ship anyway? feels kinda iffy, man.

to which i want to say: fitzroy can date. he’s allowed to date. griffins allowed to do whatever he wants with his character. but when a lot of the flirting is met with nothing, i’m not gonna see the chemistry there. just because travis ships it doesn’t mean it’s canon.

the npcs

ah yes. lets talk about the npcs.

there’s... a lot. a lot a lot. i think travis trimmed down how many were present in a scene, but uh. there’s still a lot. and... uh... i kinda wish there wasn’t?

look, i know im going back to balance/amnesty, but just. hang in there for a moment. chill with me. vibe. 

balance didnt have too many NPCs present at all times in each mini-arc. gerblins had some big names like barry, klarg, gundren, killian, yeemick, and magic brian. rockport limited had angus, jess, graham the juicy wizard jenkins, and all of the tom bodetts mentioned. 

amnestys first arc had mama, barclay, jake, dani, pigeon, kirby, minerva, and that was about it for like. big names? and not all of them were present in each scene. 

in the first episode of grad alone: gary, hernandez, jimson, rolandus, zana, rhodes, buckminster eden, rainer, leon, tomas, hieronymous, higglemas, stuart, jackle, bartholomeus, mulligan, groundsy, germaine/victoria/rattles (the skeleton crew). and those are the ones i wrote down (minus groundsy, who i just. ignores. idk him).

like holy shit, my english prof got onto me for having too many characters in my first chapter and i didnt even have half the amount listed there! 

it’s just a huge cast. does this take place in a school? yes! theres bound to be a lot of students present - but you don’t have to name every single one of them, at least not in the first episode!

the miscellaneous

i don’t know if travis ever actually addressed it, but wheelchair users have actually like... said that rainer’s introduction bothered them, because she was like “please ask me abt my wheelchair :)” when travis saying she was in an ornate chair would have sufficed. 

uh. the colonization vibes people have discussed within the centaur arc. mentioned here, the replies here, and this post (and its replies) here as well.

the overall lack of d&d when the campaign was kind of advertised as a return to d&d if i remember correctly

also no one seems to be taking literally any criticism at all which like. ignoring the petty shit, sure, but people have stopped donating to taz and their listener-ship must have dropped some during this entire time - you’d think that maybe someone could say “we need to find out why people dont like the thing and fix the thing” consider this is. yknow. their livelihood.

anyway uhhh 

tl;dr: travis railroads way too much (even now), the shipping in-game has become pushy and gross (especially bc its shoving a relationship onto an asexual character), theres too many npcs that dont stand out well enough, and no ones taking any criticism about the major issues with grad. 

#taz grad hate #taz graduation hate #Anonymous #ok im gonna go to sleep now goodnight #maybe ill wake up to hate tbh that'll be wild

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 15

death awaits!

oh god the cover. I aint ready 

the cover of overlords open mouth w/rodimus floating inside or w/e,,,,the overlord mouth fixation continues i see

and of COURSE its by nick roche. of course

oh god the tension and dread in the first page, as we get overlords sinister promise to murder everyone, starting with rewind, and then seeing chromedome rush over to open the door, and knowing that 30 minutes have passed already...

that full page spread of everyone vs overlord is amazing

also I always thought that ambulon was trying to kick overlord but now that I look closer he’s actually jumping away from overlord, having just crashed one of those hover...thingys....into him...which is honestly cool as hell. also I'm never over the fact that ambulon kinda looks like he’s smiling here, just having a grand ole time as overlord tries his best to murder everyone

and chromedome just seeing this and saying ‘rewind?’ is fucking killing me thanks

PIPES NO DONT DO THIS. YOURE JUST RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND. PLEASE don't talk about how much fun you're having on your wacky space adventure oh god, that’s just asking to be murdered,

GOD AND THERE HE GOES, DRIVING TO HIS DOOM. PIPES NO

AUGHHHHHHHHHH AND THERES OVERLORD WITH HIS GIANT FOOT. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PIIIIIPES ;_; 

his messed up goodbye thoughts are brutal...plus the final shot of him laying all busted up....god :( 

that guy seriously had some awful luck this trip. rip lil guy

BUT he sounded the alarm!!! so good for him!! that's a pretty amazing final act right there

oh my god I forgot abt this scene where rewind is like ‘so brainstorm why is my husband saying your name in his sleep :))))’ and brainstorm is like ‘haha idk its certainly not because we’re working on a secret project together, so jot that down!’ lmao brainstorm....

also dw rewind brainstorm is not fucking ur husband, just look at his evidentially extensive collection of perceptor-style microscopes...my man is microscopesexual 

I forgot abt the metabomb omfg

‘some of my favorite words are monosyllabic’ rodimus ily, himbo of my heart,

fort max :( rung :( 

oughhghghg I forgot abt the scene of tailgate making cyclonus a new horn ;_; and then cyclonus materializes menacingly bc tg dared to volunteer their room for movie night hvbfshdjkfbaskj cyclonus anti-social icon

AUGHHHH GOD THE PANEL OF RATCHET TALKING ON THE COMMS AND OVERLORD IS JUST, RIGHT BEHIND HIM, WITH HIS BIG STUPID LIPS, OH MY GOD

what the fuck, is drift a flying car??? hello??? what the hell????

seriously he’s got like, rockets and shit, what the fuck

anyways, the entire exchange b/w ratchet and drift here kills me, for multiple reasons.... ‘my faith and my sword’ lmao love it. and then ratchet refusing to leave drift and calling him his friend ;_; aughhh

rodimus w/the squad like ‘lets go gays!!!’ 

also I guess cosmos WAS on the lost light lol, totally didn't remember that, I'm guessing he left at some point to go be in the other series lmao 

I'm sorry but ‘amazing. you speak entirely in name’ is so fucking funny, but also like stfu overlord you're not allowed to be funny

MAGNUSSSSSSSS

now I'm confusing myself lmao, rodimus DID know abt overlord, didn't he??? wasn't that the whole thing???? I don't remember if he was involved w/the whole mnemosurgery plan but he at least knew that overlord was there...but we haven't been told that in-story yet so now I'm questioning that lmao

oh god I forgot that overlord almost kills magnus, jeeeeesus. good thing he’s a russian nesting doll otherwise he probably would've died fr 

also damn that's gotta be scary for everyone else, bc magnus is The Big Guy, and a renown fighter...plus drift got all fucked up...yall are in for a bad time 

tailgate gettin his panic on I see

swerve w/the meta narration lmao 

cyclonus ily sm.......

rodimus charging at overlord....ohhh my boy not your best idea

cd and rewind both saying ‘I thought you were dead!’ HHHHHHHH I'm destroyed fuck it all

rodimus (inadvertently) saving the day by saying ‘til all are one’...iconic!!

FORT MAX IS HEREEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

drift just casually chillin w/no legs

chromedome going into extreme detail about all the mnemosurgery he’s been doing on overlord for WEEKS while rewind is Right There....my dude.

this issue has a LOT of completely white backgrounds but I cant even rlly blame milne bc this seems like more drawing work than usual

oh god cd don't say ‘we’ll finish this conversation later’ at a time like this, that’s never a good idea,

rewind no don't do it :( :( :( 

that panel of cd’s arm getting cut off...AUGHHH

GODDDDDDD IM FUCKING CRYING. AUGHHHHHHHHHHH I.....

so incredibly fucked that cd does what’s best for rewind by blowing the pod up....hhhhh god 

and then that last panel of cd laying on the ground....fucking destroy me!!!!!!!!

also I love that at the beginning of the issue we see whirl with the missile launcher thing, and that’s what cd uses at the end here....good bookends. jro is really great about putting stuff in the story that just seems like innocuous filler/fun character building but turns out to ALSO be plot relevant later

HOLY SHIT I forgot about the cast page with the big red X’s thru the dead people’s profiles....jesus christ 

AUGH this issue was a rollercoaster, phew...and the emotionally devastating conclusion to this arc is still yet to come! 

I will say that it’s super interesting looking back on this, in the sense that rewind & chromedome are introduced as the first ever gay tf couple, and a few issues after we get told this explicitly, rewind is killed. this doesn't really end up being an issue representation-wise bc literally everyone is gay and there are a bunch of other significant gay characters/relationships later on, AND rewind comes back later 

but still! it’s interesting to think about how, at the time this came out, the phrase/concept ‘bury your gays’ wasn't really something that was talked about a lot (or like, it was, but not as often as nowadays, and not really under the term ‘bury your gays’ iirc), but at the time of publication this would have fallen under that trope (though rewind coming back later negates it imo). I think it would've been tough for this story to come out nowadays due to the backlash that would've occurred from rewind’s initial death (it also makes me wonder if there was any backlash when this DID come out) 

to be clear, this isn't a writing criticism - in fact, the reason this is able to work at all is because of the crazy amount of representation mtmte has. it’s like, youre able to kill off gay characters without it being ‘bury your gays’ if literally all your characters are gay by default, and there are a bunch of significant gay relationships happening - technically speaking, any death in mtmte is bury your gays lmao 

this is a completely disjointed rant but my point is like, if this issue came out in 2020 people would probably be pretty put off by rewind dying (understandably), but in the context of the series as a whole I don't consider this to be bad writing/bad representation/bury your gays 

and like, WERE people really mad about this in 2013? I am curious now, bc I would definitely feel kinda betrayed if I didn't know all the stuff that happens later 

but its pretty nice, because now I'm free to enjoy the writing and be emotionally devastated by rewinds death in a normal way, and not a ‘I'm angry at the writers for killing off one of the only gay characters’ kinda way

anyways I'm tired as hell so I'm going to bed, ill continue the emotional devastation later, phew

#lj rereads mtmte

[hereidinathoreauwrites]

Chapters: 6/7 Fandom: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Zoey Clarke/Joan Characters: Zoey Clarke, Joan (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist) Additional Tags: it's the headcannon fic!, your #2 choice, two people start having sex for fun and oops they're in love, Women Loving Women, Developing Relationship, Boss/Employee Relationship, Bisexual Female Character, joan's pov, so I wouldn't have to deal with songs, Lesbian Sex, Fluff and Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Cuddling & Snuggling, Post-Coital Cuddling, From Sex to Love, Sex Toys, Bad Dirty Talk, zoey has a lot of emotions, but she doesn't want to talk about them, Joan is concerned but doesn't know how to ask

Chapter 6: I Can’t Help (Falling in Love)

“I think I’ve been…working you a little too hard lately.” That was the best she could manage in her office the following day. 

Zoey seemed surprised. “What? No…no everything’s…”

Joan held up a hand, wincing. “Zoey…I hurt you. You’re limping.” It still sickened her to see the damage she’d done. “Let’s…cool off a bit?”

Zoey looked like she wanted to protest more but she only said: “O…okay…”

“I dont mean stop!” Joan insisted, her heart rate picking up, “Just…” she sighed, hating herself. “look, what are you doing tonight?”

“N…othing…?”

Joan tried to smile. “Want to…go out and do something? No funny business: you need to heal. Just…let me make the other night up to you…as a friend?” It was all she could think of to start trying to apologize to Zoey for her recent string of bad behavior.

Zoey considered for only moment but it was long enough that Joan started to feel real fear of rejection crawling through her insides. Finally, the coder shrugged. “What did you have in mind?”

They settled on a dive bar several blocks away from work. It was just seedy enough that no one they knew was likely to be there but upscale enough that Joan didn’t fear for their wallets.

She bought Zoey a drink and they tried to chat over the music. Zoey was friendly and easy-going, telling Joan all about the pre-baby antics going on in her brother and sister-in-law’s life with an unforced smile. But Joan still saw the occasional wince as Zoey shifted in her seat. She took note of every time Zoey’s hand drifted to her lower stomach.

Joan felt unworthy. She didn’t deserve to be here. She kept her hands to herself, lest they wander the younger woman’s form again and reawaken the urges to harm her. If nothing else, she was determined to salvage their friendship from this disaster. And so she wasn’t allowed to touch Zoey, not after everything she’d put her through and certainly not if their friendship was going to survive this.

But Zoey couldn’t seem to stop touching her. Small taps on her knee, brushing her hand where it rested on the bar, leaning forward to speak into Joan’s ear. Every touch set Joan on edge and she couldn’t tell if she liked it or hated it.

After awhile, she excused herself to use the bathroom.

Joan leaned against the sink and stared at her reflection. The alcohol was making her sad and magnifying the guilt still twisting up her insides. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just tell her I’m sorry?

The words felt hollow by now. Was the fact that Zoey was here and treating her so casually enough? Had the coder already forgiven her…?

Joan shook her head. No. No way. Even Zoey, the woman who’d forgiven her own best friend for selling out to the 6th floor couldn’t possibly forgive her that quickly. Not after all that.

She left the bathroom and turned her eyes back to the bar. She frowned as her gaze immediately fell upon the epitome of a douche giving the poor girl in front of him a smarmy-drunken smile.

Her blood boiled as she recognized the woman. 

He was looking at her Zoey. And Joan didn’t like it. 

Without thinking, she stalked over and slid between them, eyes laser-focused on Zoey’s. Her arm wrapped towards Zoey’s on the bar, her hips angled towards hers but didn’t quite touch her. Joan didn’t care what the guy thought; her body language couldn’t have been clearer to either of them: back off, she’s mine.

She trembled at the strength of her feelings, at the impulsive desire to just claim Zoey and protect her. Zoey may not ever let her be intimate with her again. But Joan wasn’t going to let anyone else hurt her. 

The douche had no sooner left than Zoey just fucking grabbed her. Hands slid under her shirt, tugging Joan’s hips against Zoey’s. A tongue probed at her lips until they opened. 

Joan stumbled, shaken. “Zoey…”

“I don’t care…” Zoey mumbled, lips still mashed against Joan’s. “I want you. Now.”

The demand mixed dangerously with the alcohol, completely shutting Joan’s critical thinking processes and lingering guilt down. She gave in completely to the coder. It had been so long since she’d just let Zoey tell her what to do. It was intoxicating.

They ducked and wove through the other patrons and stumbled back into the empty bathroom, barely able to keep their hands off each other. 

Joan was hesitant to undress Zoey but even this drunken pawing at her through their clothes had her heart returning to those days on her couch, watching movies together. 

Zoey had no such hesitation. She tore open the top of Joan’s shirt and popped one of her breasts free from its cup. Her tongue found Joan’s hard nipple instantly. 

Joan fell back against the stall door, breath catching. “Zoey…” The aforementioned only slid her hands around Joan’s back, mouth drawing her in deeper. Joan’s hands went to the coder’s head, fingers tangling gently in her fiery hair.

It felt so good to just be them again: not forcing anything just doing what felt right.

Zoey pushed Joan back into a stall and slammed the door shut behind them. Her fingers went to her boss’ waist immediately, sliding down Joan’s thighs to lift the edge of her skirt.

“Zoey…!” Joan bit her lip as the coder confidently pushed her underwear aside to give her fingers access.

“Shhh!” Zoey chastised her, even though the bathroom was empty and the music pounding loudly outside. She slid two fingers inside of Joan and did that thing, that gentle scissoring motion that always threw Joan right to the edge.

“Nnngghhh!” She clamped her free hand over her mouth but she was already so close. “Zoey…” 

Zoey just nipped at her neck.

Three seconds later, a strangled cry ripped from her and her back thumped loudly against the stall door as she came hard and fast around Zoey’s dexterous fingers. 

Zoey started to laugh, fingers still buried in Joan up to her knuckles. 

“What?” Joan couldn’t help the punchy-drunky smile that her face adopted at the sound. She felt so loose and calm, all of the tension in her body evaporating from the orgasm. She stroked Zoey’s head. “What’s so funny?”

Zoey couldn’t seem to stop giggling. “I’m…I’m fucking you…in a bar bathroom…” she buried her face in Joan’s shoulder, biting back her mirth and shaking.

Joan stroked her head again. “Zoey?”

The coder looked up at her, an expression on her face that Joan recognized. Her heart jumped as she realized she hadn’t seen that expression in the longest time. And she’d missed it.

“Come home with me?” Zoey asked.

She was weak. She couldn’t say no.

The trip back to Zoey’s was a blur of drunk stumbling, yelling at taxi drivers, and Joan desperately trying to keep her torn shirt and wet panties hidden under her jacket. 

They stumbled into Zoey’s apartment, giggling and knocking into things in the dark until Joan finally found the light. 

Murmurs became whispers and the whispering quickly led to more kissing. Zoey hooked one leg over Joan’s hip, her free hand pulling Joan’s down to her breast.

Even through her drunk haze, Joan recognized the signal. “Zoey…no…” She pulled back. Joan frowned down at her, one hand rubbing the coder’s stomach gently. “You’re still healing.”

Zoey pouted but didn’t argue. “Then I guess you get another turn.” 

Her eyes darkened. “If you insist…”

Zoey jumped up to straddle Joan’s hips and Joan carried her to the bedroom. It was so easy.

Zoey’s bed was unmade but it hardly mattered. Joan sat down, bringing the coder with her so that Zoey was straddling her. Through desperate kisses, they freed each other from clothing, moving only to slide their underwear from each other’s hips.

Joan was drinking in the sensation: Zoey, naked and pressed close to her once more. The warmth was as delicious and soothing as her final glass of bourbon had been. 

“Joan…” Zoey broke in in between kisses. “if you’re up for it…let’s try something?”

Joan moved her lips down to Zoey’s neck, teasing Zoey’s spot. “Like what?”

Zoey shuddered but gripped Joan tightly. “I got a new toy…”

Her breathy response had Joan pausing and pulling back. Zoey climbed off of her and opened her top dresser drawer. She held out a small dildo for Joan to see.

“You got me so good with yours…” she gave Joan a timid smirk that was clearly meant to be seductive. “want to see what I can do to you?”

Joan recoiled at the memory, the guilt crashing back in. She turned away and hugged herself, once again struggling to find the words to apologize. 

But a gentle hand on her shoulder stopped her from falling back down her guilt hole. “Joan…it’s okay. Really.” Zoey gave her a soft, genuine smile. “I’m not mad.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

It seemed Saint Zoey really was capable of instant forgiveness, even on Joan’s part. That or this was all some diabolical revenge plot. 

So, Joan figured, why the hell not? Let Zoey hurt her if she needed that. Joan deserved it. 

She watched Zoey get ready, part of her apprehensive the other just a little excited. 

When everything was in place, the coder smiled and pushed Joan down onto the bed. She gasped, already feeling thick desire for a dominant Zoey pooling in her stomach.

Zoey crawled over her, completely ignoring the strap-on. Instead, she focused entirely on Joan’s breasts. Each one received a thorough once-over by Zoey’s fingers and lips until Joan was squirming in anticipation. 

But even then, Zoey didn’t enter her. Her hands traveled the length of Joan’s body, tickling the sensitive spot on her left side and pinching the edge of her butt. She gently parted Joan’s legs and ran her fingers through Joan’s slick folds.

By this point, Joan was on the verge of begging. But before she could find her voice, the tip of the toy was pushing slowly past her entrance. 

She tensed but relaxed almost instantly, shocked. It didn’t hurt. Zoey’s thrusts were gentle, timid almost. She wasn’t trying to hurt her. 

Zoey glanced at her, checking in on her with an unguarded smile that had Joan melting into her. Zoey ran her hands up Joan’s arms and wrapped her in a brief hug as she thrust again. Joan trembled. Everything the coder was doing was effortlessly turning her on.

“Oh god…!” Joan clutched Zoey to her, her body rocking in time with the younger woman’s thrusts. How did she just know what to do? She wrapped her ankles around the younger woman’s thighs and drew her closer. Zoey responded instantly, thrusting deeper but keeping the same rhythm. 

Joan gasped, riding the sensation as a current of something welled up from deep in her chest. 

She only fought it only for an instant before Zoey’s gentle thrusts and soft nibbles on her shoulder had her dropping her guard entirely.

She couldn’t help it…she’d been so afraid of things getting complicated but…

Joan stroked Zoey’s hair and moaned into the soft release. It wasn’t a mind-blowing orgasm. But that was okay. It was just what she needed. A gentle reminder of how good this thing they had could be when they didn’t force it.

Zoey brought her down gently, smirking playfully at Joan as she slowly withdrew the toy. The coder flicked the side of Joan’s breast. “Gotcha.”

Joan had to laugh, the action just as necessary and fulfilling as the orgasm had been. Between the alcohol, the guilt, Zoey’s words, and the intimate sex, all of her walls were well and truly shattered by this point. Zoey had easily knocked them all down.

She’d been fighting it, fighting feeling exactly this: the sensation of belonging with someone, of trusting someone completely and feeling satisfied with that. No matter what Zoey did to her, she was always going to forgive her. She wasn’t afraid to be herself around Zoey. She’d known that since the L-word. She’d just been denying herself the chance. 

Joan tugged Zoey forward, pressing their lips together. She smiled into the kiss, letting it warm her from the inside out. 

It seemed that she couldn’t help falling in love with Zoey Clarke.

The thought had no sooner crossed her mind than Zoey stilled. The coder pulled back slowly, her eyes distant and unfocused. 

Joan watched her in confusion for a moment but before she could make a move to rouse Zoey, the woman shook herself out of it. 

Now Zoey was giving her another of her wide-eyed stares, as if Joan had said her thoughts out loud. 

Joan felt her insides turn to ice. “Hey…hey.” She tried to sound soft, despite her heart beating unnaturally fast. There was no way Zoey could know what revelation she’d just had, right? But as she reached for Zoey’s arm, the younger woman flinched back.

“Zoey?”

“R…rolling Stones.” Zoey stuttered. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly modest in her nudity.

Joan sat up, hardly daring to believe it. “Zoey?” The coder couldn’t seem to look at her all of the sudden. She fumbled the toy out of its harness and threw it aside.

“Joan, I think you should go…”

“Zoey…what did I…?” Zoey had never kicked her out of bed before. Joan didn’t know what she’d done. Had it been the kiss? Or had the whole night simply been too much?

But unlike their first time, Zoey didn’t reassure her that she’d done nothing wrong. Unlike the previous night, she didn't let Joan comfort her.

Zoey stood, wrapping herself in a towel. “Just…just go?” She asked, in the softest whisper Joan had ever heard. She pointed to the door. “Please?”

How could she deny her anything when she asked like that?

“O…okay.”

#why not? #fic #zoey x joan #the smut is back!

[feral-anarchy]

Drama with TDP... Again

Quick Edit:  I am NOT choosing sides. I am still open to any and all information. I am simply giving you a side of a story I believe plays some part in all of this. Do with it what you will.  I am going to continue doing what I have been doing since the beginning until more information presents itself. If Aaron is bad- He will be dead to me and I will advicate for his immediate removal within the prefession as well as protection for these girls. Justice. If the girls are lying- I will continue to support Wonderstorm and keep doing what im doing now without much change. 

If you come to me aggresively, I will not aknowledge you, I will block and move on. Though I will still answer questions and take in any information with an open mind and a calm tone.  Secondary Edit:  I realised some of my times were off and a helpful anon was able to present me with a more accurate timeline. Ive copy and pasted their message to me so that you can have the accurate times.  Please be aware of this before reading the post below. I will not edit my original post as I wish to keep the original content intact to avoid possible confusion.  “The story with the aaravos blog can't have happened last year in april. That would make it april 2018 and the dragon prince wasn't even released before october 2018. All of this happened this year. Dani left in June. Lulu left like a couple of months later. August or september? But anyways it's not true that they left wonderstorm a year ago. It's been merely a few months and Lulu's departure is super recent.“ Final Edit: After searching on Twitter, I have come across this image. Aaron has spoken about this when it originally came out and had this to say of it. (This is a private message to someone who then went on to make it public.) 

~~~~~~~~~~~ Original Post Below ~~~~~~~~~~~ I really do not want to give any more effort into this but I feel that I must post. Im unsure of how many this will reach but I believe you need to know something before you continue to blindly choose sides. 

Listen, at the end of the day you will choose your ‘side’ though I wish there was no need for sides. 

This drama that is appearing all over twitter is OLD NEWS. Danika and Lulu DO NOT and HAVE NOT worked at Wonderstorm since this all went down a year ago. 

Here is my take on all of this: 

A year ago, I believe it was April? There was a very popular blog called Ask-Aaravos-Anything. This blog was liked and followed by a lot of the fanbase.  Well, out of the blue there were accusations of AAA child luring, having NSFW material littering their blog and not taking into consideration the younger fans. 

Now, anyone who actually interacted with this blog knew all of that to be absolute lies. AAA was always very traight forward, took everything into consideration, repeatedly reminded us to be mindful of how we tag things and never had actual nsfw materials on their blog. 

At the time Danika was managing the tumblr tdp blog. Danika DMed AAA and was vile and aggressive in her messages, enough so that AAA deactivated shortly after.  You can still find some of the screenshots of the actual DMs as well as some DMs of AAA conversing with others about what happened and how they had felt about it and why they were deactivating.  Soon after AAA’s deactivation, we got news that Danika had been scolded for her actions (As the entire fanbase who knew what was going on got up in arms about it) and she suddenly, convenietly had ‘another better job oppertunity’ And shortly after that we began to hear of general workplace harassment and gaslighting and sexual harassment from Danika.

As you know, that brought everyone up in arms once again and there was discourse. Then her friend, Lulu popped up as well with the same talk of harassment and having to deal with a negative work enviroment. Being in this industry for one is absolutely grueling, its not for everyone. It can be as bad as being in the film industry with actual actors.

Eventually things simmered down and life moved on. 

Both Danika and Lulu have had an ENTIRE YEAR to talk about this, to continue pushing the issue, to continue speaking of these issues- they were fine speaking of it last year. Yet they remained quiet for all this time. 

Now, when season 3 is about to drop, when Netflix likes to cancel shows, at this critical moment- they suddenly both pop up again?  Neither of them work there anymore, this shouldnt be an issue for them anymore. Especially when they had ALL THIS TIME to talk of it. Yet they didnt. 

And in regards to Danika stating they already had season 3 ready long, long ago- I have been in this industry briefly and I know people who are still in it, thats not how these things work. I doubt they were done months and months ago and were just sitting around doing nothing. Animation takes time- I wont get into it but its a lot. 

Now listen.. As hard as it might be to swallow, we DO NOT know all the facts, only what we have been told by Danika and Lulu. And with Aaron refusing to make any statements or even acknowleding theres anything going on its hard to gather any real information- and we wont. We will not get anymore information, we will not get any more facts. 

Unless authorities are involved or someone brings in a hidden camera into the studio, we will never know what the actual truth is. If it comes out that the girls are right then I’ll eat a spreader bar. 

But I am going to continue supporting TDP and those who are part of this creation. (I dont care about Aaron, I care about the animators, voice actors, sketch artists, ect) I am going to continue posting content, continue writing fanfic, continue interacting with TDP related blogs. 

Because I find it VERY suspicious this crap pops back up right now when its been so silent for an entire year. 

If you couldn’t tell already, I already am wary of these girls because of what they did to AAA and the community at the time. 

I refuse to be a mindless follower, I will not take sides until there are actual FACTS presented.  I know this all sounds harsh, but I am wary of trusting anything spoken without proof. I have proof- just look it up, the old screenshots are still floating around.  Im a assault survivor too- I am in full support if this all comes out to be true- and Ill eat that spreader bar. 

I just thought I would put in my two cents and let you all know what originally went on, and why i am suspicious of this all flaring up again after being silent for so long.  I will not be speaking of this again, nor will I be posting another big post such as this. However I will answer any questions you may have on this topic.  Im not bashing on the girls, I am simply wary of believeing anything they say after what they did to AAA. 

#tdp #the dragon prince #give us the saga #i choose no sides #I want facts #wary of everything #danika and lulu #wonderstorm #ask-aaravos-anything #what originally happened