#will expand on this later if i want to but essentially this was on repeat in my mind in my dream

[1overbaby]

Just had a dream and all i heard on repeat was: how am i gonna question myself when i saw it and know i saw it?

#will expand on this later if i want to but essentially this was on repeat in my mind in my dream #seeing is just imagination here. in my dream it was because i had an image of it. and so the main thing i was hearing: u just imagined it. #so u know u have it. how can u question urself? u just saw it. so u must know it #its this acceptance. and it is #how things have manifested before. perhaps always. in my life recently #with my shoes for example that were about £130 i just saw myself wearing them and said ‘omg! now i own these shoes!’ and two days later #my mother took me shopping for shoes specifically. this has happened other times too #unconscious ones are more like - i see myself with them- and go ‘ah cool’ but it still materialises #seeing self with desire - cannot deny its possibility. its existence #mine #i used to think that its abt the knowing its going to reflect which is true u need it bc self concept. why wouldnt u have it in the world of #caesar too? BUT #its moreso the knowing u just had it. u just experienced it. u know u have it in imagination (which is why itll reflect as a byproduct)

[lumi-klovstad-games]

Hey, 343. We call "expanded universes" that for a reason.

It also hurt for those of us who actually LIKED Fireteam Osiris and saw potential in the characters. Halo 5 sets up a neat "Brothers in Arms" relationship between Chief and Locke like Chief had with Arbiter in 3, maybe even a little bit of Master & Apprentice, with Locke standing to learn a lot in the days and battles to come from the much older and more experienced Master Chief. But then the next game comes and... wait where is everyone? 343 wants me to buy more books?! A lot of fans already had to buy half a library's worth just to grock Halo 5, and here's 343 repeating that mistake again!

The Halo games really have just become a means by which 343 plugs the Halo novels. "There's a book that explains that" is the constant refrain I hear these days. No. I WANT THE GAMES TO EXPLAIN IT. The games are the only thing literally EVERY Halo fan buys. EXPLAIN IT IN THE GAMES.

I will give the audio logs in Infinite SOME credit for answering SOME questions I had, but mostly it was used to introduce irrelevant subplots that actually WOULD be better as a novel. Escharum doing his damnedest to keep the ragtag and ill-fitting family that are the Banished together with the disappearance of his protege Atriox, a warrior who was like a son to him, knowing full well he doesn't have Atriox's charisma and he can't maintain the cult of personality Atriox cultivated at the core of the Banished in the same way? Or a fireteam of Spartans, feeling lost and surviving without any real support, realizing that they'll likely die one way or another, deciding to risk it all on a single desperate all-or-nothing Hail Mary attempt at cutting the head off the snake, only to fail, with their only monument being their broken bodies, and their armor that Chief has to scavenge for gear with little if any knowledge of what happened to his comrades? These are plots TAILOR MADE for a spin-off novel. But instead a HUGE CHUNK of the total audio logs gets devoted to this kind of stuff, instead of explaining where Blue and Osiris are, if they survived, and setting up a reunion in a later story — you know, something actually relevant to Master Chief's story that connects with the plot players are already familiar with.

I get that 343 wants the Halo Universe to feel like this big connected thing while keeping the "mysterious" feel of the original trilogy, but for 343 that takes the form of locking players out of the loop: deny the players critical information necessary to understanding characters or the plot (even if the players can operate without that information) and then demand they cough up $8-15 a pop to gain access to that information (or just wait until Halopedia editors inevitably do). What they keep forgetting is that the original trilogy told players everything they needed to know as the game naturally progressed. The Bungie novels were interesting and sundry, but nothing they related was essential — not even The Fall of Reach (often considered the most important book in the expanded universe) was necessary to understand anything in the games proper. And then, when Bungie actually made a GAME about Reach, they made a point to showcase a separate cast of characters on a different part of the planet, playing a different role in the battle, with an entirely different team dynamic, all for the express purpose of keeping it so that the book wasn't essential to understanding what was going on. That's the secret that 343 just doesn't get: keep the books interesting, but keep them at arm's length — the GAME should tell the players everything they need to know.

More than game mechanics or graphics, if 343 can learn to tell stories in the games the way Bungie did, and learn to keep the books away from the games, then that alone will MASSIVELY improve Halo's appeal and bring back much of what was lost.

#video games #halo #halo infinite #343 industries #halo 5 #halo 4 #halo reach #the fall of reach #master chief #spartan locke #Bungie #expanded universe #blue team #fireteam osiris #the arbiter #microsoft game studios

[astra-nomy]

hi! what is reality shifting?

hi love! sorry this took for freaking EVER, but i did want to make a post about this. i wanted to explain shifting in the most simplified way possible to help people who aren't even sure what shifting is yet, so i hope you enjoy this post!! <3

REALITY SHIFTING

𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒

♡ What is shifting?

Desired Reality Current Reality Waiting Room

♡ How do you shift?

Affirmations (+ examples) Methods (+ examples) Awake vs. Asleep Methods Symptoms

♡ How do you determine where you're shifting to, and how do you come back?

Scripting Safeword

What is shifting? Simply put, reality shifting is the movement of your consciousness from one reality to another, essentially making yourself aware of another reality. Think of yourself not as one physical body but as one conscious being that expands over all realities. When you shift, you tune into that consciousness in another reality.

And when it comes to where you can shift, the possibilities are endless. You can shift to Hogwarts and be a wizard, or you can shift back to the 70s and go to concerts, or you can shift to a reality exactly like your current one where you try out how different haircuts would look on you (yes I did this and yes it is very helpful).

𝐕𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐘

Desired Reality: the reality you are shifting to, the one you desire. Often referred to as the DR.

Current Reality: The reality you are shifting from, the one you are currently in. Often referred to as the CR.

Waiting Room: An intermediate room you can shift to before going to your DR. Having a waiting room can help people who are afraid of shifting. It can be a place to relax and meditate before moving forward. These aren't necessary, but they can be helpful.

How do you shift? First of all, don't let that definition sound daunting! Shifting is very very easy. All that you really need to shift is the intention to do so. With that being the case, many shifters use Methods in order to help them to shift - methods are not required for shifting, but they are tools that you can use to help!

𝐕𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐘

Affirmations: Repeated phrases you use that can help you shift by impressing certain statements into your subconscious mind. These can be customized to fit you and what helps you, but here are some examples: ♡ I am shifting ♡ Shifting is easy ♡ I am already in my desired reality ♡ I intend to wake up in my desired reality

Methods: something you can use to help you shift. Methods often put you in a deep meditative state, which makes it easier for you to shift. Methods often involve sitting or lying down with your eyes closed, counting, and using affirmations until you fully shift. Here are some examples: ♡ The Intention Method: Go to sleep with the intention to shift, repeating the affirmation "I intend to wake up in my desired reality" until you fall asleep. Keep the intention right up until you fall asleep. ♡ The Raven Method: Lie down in a comfortable position with your eyes closed. Count up to 100, repeating affirmations in between numbers) you can do it in between every number, between number in multiples of five, multiples of ten, etc. Do this either until you shift or until you fall asleep. ♡ The Julia Method: A close relative of the Raven Method. Lie down with your eyes closed and begin repeating the affirmation "I am" until you begin to feel symptoms (I'll explain what those are later in the post) or until you feel ready. Then, begin counting and saying affirmations. Do this until you shift or until you fall asleep and you'll wake up in your DR!

Awake vs. Asleep Methods: There are two types of methods - awake and asleep. During awake methods, you repeat the steps of your method until you shift while conscious. During asleep methods, you repeat the steps until you fall asleep, after which you wake up in your desired reality.

Symptoms: signs that you are shifting. You don't need symptoms to shift as they are just signs that your body is deeply relaxed and falling asleep, but they can be helpful indicators of your progress. There are just about a million symptoms, but very common ones include tingling, numbness, feeling like you're spinning, seeing flashing lights, etc. Again, they are not needed for shifting, they can just be helpful indicators.

Now, how do you determine where you're shifting to, and how do you come back? You determine where you want to go and who you'll be in this new reality by scripting, essentially writing out all this info (I'll go more in-depth on this later). Scripts can help anchor you to your DR and clarify any questions you may have. Now, as for returning, you can create a safeword. A safeword is a word or an action that you use in your DR to bring you can to your CR.

𝐕𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐘

Scripting: Scripting is writing out exactly what desired reality you are going to and who you are there. This can be writing your DR name, age, appearance, who you're friends with, etc. Scripting is not needed, but it can help you determine where you are going and what to expect when you get there.

Safeword: A repeated word or action that you use in your DR to return to your CR. For example, when I say "Jumanji" in my DR, I return to my CR, but my friend's safeword involves clapping three times. It really can be anything you want, but safewords aren't needed. Even the sheer intent to return to your CR is enough to bring you back. You cannot get stuck in your DR. It is impossible. But safewords can help provide comfort for those who do have that fear.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍

I hope this post is helpful for you! It was a little rushed and confusing at times, so feel free to message me with more specific questions. I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have!

♡ Astra

#shifting realities #law of assumption #reality shifting #manifesting #neville goddard #manifestation #affirmations #loa #self concept #manifest #shifting #reality shift #desired reality #shiftblr #shifting community

[consul-valerius]

Apprenticember Day Two: Idiots in Love

Who is their LI? What’s their relationship like?

Not surprising at all, Donna's main love interest is..... Valerius !✨ The snobbiest, prettiest bitch in Vesuvia lmao Donna was always designed to be a Valerius main, and while some other ships take over my brain, they will always be the end result for me lol

I write both Donna and Valerius as being poly, and they have a very open relationship. Diverging a bit from the game in some ways, Donna knew Valerius prior to the game's events and had been in a relationship with him for a few years prior (don't ask me specifics on timelines--I don't know besties LOL). They initially began dating when Valerius (poorly) disguised himself as a commoner and happened on Donna by chance. Sparks erupted during a very intense palm reading, and what was supposed to be a casual fling eventually evolved into a long-term and serious relationship for them.

They both grew A LOT together pre-plague; Donna really helped break down a lot of Valerius's archaic views and motivated him to be more active in his work, and Valerius really pushed Donna to think of themself and their needs first and fight for things they want in their life. While they outwardly seem to be very opposite of one another, they've always been very dedicated to one another and pulling out the best in one another.

Donna brings a sense of spontaneity and excitement to Valerius's life while Valerius brings a calming, reassuring presence to theirs :') They definitely have their moments, and they've had to trial and error their communication skills A LOT, but at the end of the day, they're it for each other lol

A lot of this does wind up getting nuked due to Donna's death; both their memories and Valerius's memories of them are gone when they are resurrected. That means they wind up redoing most of their relationship during the game's events and after. They like to joke that they were ~fated~ due to them repeating their relationship twice essentially lol and they also eventually settle down and have one notorious problem child too ;P

In some continuities, their endgame also involves Nadia! They both care for and adore her as much as she does with them, and their lives are already very intermingled (both pre and post-game events). Donna also is very close (very VERY close hint hint lol) with a few other LIs & courtiers (will expand later) and they are no stranger to smooching another OC lmao

TL;DR: They're queer, they're poly, and they just want to settle down and keep their family together lmao :'))

#apprenticember #bottom draws #fan apprentice donna #consul valerius #donna x valerius #the arcana apprentice #the arcana #your honor.... it them. #i wasn't planning on doing too much for the art with this but then I. blacked out did just that LMAO #i may or may not draw for EVERY SINGLE DAY but that's a good challenge for myself I think

[mockiery]

Hey. Hey. Pspspsppss. Explain your writing process to me. Please?

asjdghs ok in all seriousness idek fam. it's very disorganized and nonlinear and irregular af. much like this answer that got away from me so i'm gonna put it under the cut <3

i start with an Idea™ that has bonked me over the head. i am then possessed by the Idea, and i dump the concept onto a page in onenote as quickly as possible. it pours out of me like a fountain and the scene just kinda. creates itself.

it's pretty much always dialogue that comes to me first, with some major framing and emotional beats of surrounding paragraphs. sometimes the dialogue doesn't come for certain parts of the scene or i already have a vision of this particular section, so i'll describe the scene simply in a paragraph and sometimes later i'll come back and flesh it out. dialogue is something that tends to be the easiest for me. maybe not always voice for some characters, but their meaning and character-drive, absolutely.

and then from there, once the possession ends and what i have is out of me, it's mostly just. staring at the doc and making minor edits and additions around it over the next few days and/or weeks until i get bonked over the head with Idea: Part 2 Electric Boogaloo and so forth, always scrambling to keep up with them.

since writing mk fic and being actually interactive with other ppl and posting my writing, i've started sharing more little bites or even full drafts of my stuff and getting feedback, which, a lot of the time, is like. keysmashes and feral all caps comments, but they definitely help me know what's working and help me in the motivation department. recently i've specifically had the lovely @fdelopera help me out with full blown beta reading and some editing, they have been an absolute godsend (ily btw, tysm 💕).

Music helps me get in the zone sometimes, and keep me on track. I listened to Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers about halfway through writing "your grounding touch", and it gave me some ideas about imagery and sensory stuff i wanted to focus in on more. There are also details in that fic inspired by some of the lyrics, if u feel like looking. It's also a general Vibe and a good marc song.

Music is just generally good for ideas for me too. Very good for calling on the Bonking of Ideas. When I'm hyperfixated on something i make a playlist about it so I can be in that world all day. I'm an all-day music listener, it's essential. (though when i get in the writing zone it can be silent and I won't notice for like an hour or two).

There's also the focus aspect of music too. If i start to associate one song with a piece, I'll listen to that song on repeat while I'm at work and it keeps my adhd brain on track (or close enough to it) so I can keep thinking about and planning it even while i'm busy.

I rarely write anything wholly linear, some parts getting expanded later after what was going to be minor edits snowballed into another few hundred or even thousand words. originally in "your grounding touch, marc's initial scene with layla was a lot shorter, and when writing, the first line for a while was him asking layla what she saw during their blackout. the section of steven's scene with layla researching DID was originally one paragraph before i fleshed it out and gave it dialogue, and was blessed with "you're based on the hero." and then jake at the end of was a late game addition only in the last 2 drafts, but felt essential.

sorry i rambled a lot there but that tends to happen when u let me talk about my writing, so thank u for enabling me <3

#tysm actually fr idk why u'd wanna know and i highly doubt u wanted THIS much but yeah lol 💕😚 #asks answered #kier speaks

[critfumbled]

Hi! I'd honestly love to talk about Akira because there's no one I know who even knows what it is :') Excuse the long rant, but I guess my main issues with the movie were:

Kaneda was so ready to kill his (basically) brother even though 10 minutes before he was essentially ready to die to save him

The fact that it appeared to me that Akira was most powerful being and all the other children were just trying to replicate him, but the government tabled him away? I see no need to rip Akira apart because they wanted to use him. Was it for later? Surely Tetsuo going apeshit qualified the use of Akira

The worldbuilding was a struggle for me because it seemed like the children (and Akira) were basically gods with absolutely no rules or limitations to their power. it seemed to me like all of them could manipulate time, space, and matter, so there wasn't anything that made each special or more powerful than the other

the kids really sacrificed themselves for a random teenager they didn't know, despite the fact that they seemed to follow the goverment and the government were clearly trying to take down Tetsuo

what's to stop this scenario from happening again, because the government could totally make another Tetsuo/Akira and the entire story can just repeat itself. other than city damage and deaths, there were really no consequences because it's not like the entire government died. This seems like a small part of a bigger story that was left unfulfilled

I didn't understand Ryu's role, as seemed like he was working with the government but Kei was pretty confident he was working with their freedom group? was he working both sides? his side of the story and his goals weren't clear to me

I do know that the pills have a big role in the manga (Kaneda's jacket) but the way they were just mentioned in the movie, it gave Tetsuo a lot of power, then was never explained bothered me.

Also this is totally a personal thing but one of my biggest book/movie pet peeves is when everyone knows something, but they're just using the vaguest terms to describe it to not let the audience know. not between Tetsuo and Kaneda , but between the military, all the scientists, and the kids, they kept just saying the VAGUEST terms for Akira to not let the audience know even though they all knew what they were talking about and that just grinds my gears because it's a way to build false tension instead of naturally letting it build up

I'm sorry for doing a super long ask, but I can't reply to people on my tumblr :/ but yeah those were my issues. I appreciated the art and the music slapped though, and I appreciate how it pioneered certain animation tropes, but overall I was super confused the entire movie

I want to start by saying that basically everything you mention here is expanded upon within the Manga. As I said before it is a lot longer and it is entirely different from the movie. If you are interested in the world, and the story, and you want to know more I would definitely recommend it. I feel kind of remiss in giving you all the details here as I think it will take away from the manga if you do intend to read it. That being said I'll try to give some broad strokes.

Firstly I agree it was a little rushed in the movie, but it was basically the death of Yamagata that turned Kaneda against Tetsuo, Yamagata was also a very close friend of Kaneda, being his right hand man within the gang.

The children were not an attempt at recreating Akira's powers, Akira and the children were apart of the same experiment that consisted of 41 test subjects. Akira was just the most powerful of said subjects.

Akira was the cause of the explosion at the start of the movie, this is why he was iced by the government/military, basically because they were incredibly scared of the power that he had, and the destruction that he could cause. Also they didn't have any way of controlling Akira, so releasing him would mean they would be releasing a world endingly powerful free agent, who they weren't sure they could stop again.

Regarding the children's sacrifice, I don't want to say too definitively as I don't exactly remember but broadly I believe it is because they are altogther altruistic, and they are still children. They are afraid of killing people, and they don't want any more people to die. Also they are very afraid of Akira returning.

Ryu was working with the resistance the throughout the entire movie. Im unsure as to where you got the idea he was a double agent. It's been a while since I saw the movie. Again however the resistance and their motives get a lot more "screen time" within the manga, which I would imagine would help to ease this confusion.

In regards to it all happening over again, we see in the movie that the government do not believe in Akira, and it is only really the Colonel who is pushing for more research in this area. The rest of the government see Akira and the project as a failure and a waste of resources. This also gets expanded on by the manga, with an entirely different ending.

In regards to the pills, I agree they could use more explanation within the movie. They basically ease the migraines that Tetsuo gets, as well as giving him a short term power boost.

I hope that helps. Admittedly it has been a while since I watched the movie, so don't take these as 100% fact. Also I tried to stick with the content of the movie, however it's hard to not think about it with the context of the manga as well.

[aohendo]

Death to Redundancies!

I don’t know about you all, but I vastly over-write. It’s great during NaNo, but when I was trying to fit Reverberate into a standard publishing length (ie. less than 120,000 words)? It sucked.

I managed to take it from 146,958 to 122,991 words, filled in some missing scenes, and squished it all back down to 133,268 words. I then decided Reverberate needed some larger plot overhauling, but I digress.

Say you’re in the “grah book too long no agent will look at this” boat. How do you edit down?

Kill the redundancies.

I like thinking of editing as making a manuscript into a TARDIS: it needs to be bigger on the inside. To me, that means more meaning per word. That means not writing what is implied.

The first thing to go were most of my stage directions. For example: “He picked up the mug and raised it to his lips, drinking” became “He drank.” That example is rather extreme, but within the context of the scene, modify these questions and ask yourself: 

Has the cup already been established as a mug? Has the fact that it’s a mug been implied by the presence of a hot liquid or this guy just not having any normal cups in his house? Does his picking up the mug have any special meaning or subtext, or is it an action to add words? Is the pacing of this scene meant to feel tedious, slow, middling, quick, or abrupt? Is this meant to be a dialogue beat? And so forth.

Be sure to also expand those questions to the paragraph level.

Note!!! I did things backwards, starting with the little sentence-level redundancies and then working my way to a macro level (scene, chapter, and act). The reason that second draft was only 122,991 words? I completely cut over 10k of unnecessary scenes. I did the micro first because it made my brain happy, but that also means I edited more than I had to. Consider going macro to micro.

What I looked for during the macro edit is… you guessed it! Redundancies: things which are unnecessary to the plot, don’t have any bearing on character development or worldbuilding, or which needlessly repeat things revealed earlier—or later. So that really cool scene with some Marines dropping from orbit a la Halo Helljumpers? Moved to the “Stuff I Deleted” doc. Why? Because I asked myself: 

Who is this scene about? How does this scene affect the pacing? What bearing does this scene have on the plot? What information (worldbuilding, characters, or setting) is revealed in this scene? Is that information already given elsewhere? Does this scene add nuance to that information, or just restate it? What changes to the manuscript would be needed if this scene were cut, and how large would those changes be?

Although those questions are framed for larger scenes, they’re essentially the same as the paragraph and sentence-level questions. Unlike on the micro level, when doing macro edits, I would strongly suggest, especially if you’re more of a panster/discovery writer (like me!) that you map out your plot. It will help you determine what plot points are actually necessary.

For what it’s worth, asking those questions as I was editing resulted in large swathes of Reverberate Draft Two looking like this:

[image ID: a double spaced printed page of writing in a three-ring binder, the text liberally crossed out and added to in pink ink /end]

Once you’ve done a few rounds of redundancies edits, hopefully your word count has shrunk. If not, or if you’re in the mood to really tear into it, hit it with Ken Rand’s The 10% Solution. The long and short of it is to ctrl-f for these words/syllables, one at a time, and then determine whether or not they’re actually needed: 

-ly, of, that, said, was/were (as in, passive voice—“he was killed by zombies”), by, his, her, very, about, -ing, And, But (starting sentences), like, -ion, felt, hear, smell, saw, taste, touch (notice: all head verbs/distancing verbs/filtering verbs/whatever you want to call them), aloud, and whatever your crutch words are (for me, just and barely) (page 57).

Below is an example of how I took all that into my own editing. Snippet from Attenuate/Reverberate. CW: language.

 Draft One: 132 words.

Stumbling into the armory, Madison barely wheeled around a trio of Marines putting on their gear for an exercise. Why the worship did her and Cal’s lockers have to be so far away from the entrance? Finally. Madison fell onto the bench more than sat, wriggled out of the straps more than set the bag of gear to her side. Her head lolled against the cool metal. It was the aftereffects of the vaccumshock. Had to be—or the emergency cryo. Or maybe whatever final painkilling cocktail Modise had pumped into her veins before he removed that IV. Madison ran her hands down her face, swollen fingers catching on the freeze-peeling skin of her face. She sighed and forced herself to sit up straight, unlock the bag, begin unloading into her locker.

Draft Three: 132 words.

Stumbling into the armory, Madison barely wheeled around a trio of Marines putting on their gear for an exercise.

“You see that, Jose?” the female Marine said. “That’s what happens if you don’t fuckin’ listen. You want the godfucked vacuumshock slippers?”

Madison staggered out of range of the Marines and collapsed on the bench in front of her locker and wriggled out from her case of gear. Her head lolled against the cool metal. It was the aftereffects of the vaccumshock. Had to be—or the emergency cryo, or maybe whatever final painkilling cocktail Modise had pumped into her. The general achiness and bruising was from the N-9’s sound gun. Swollen fingers caught on the freeze-peeling skin of her face. Madison sighed and willed herself upright to begin unloading into her locker.

Draft One and Three are the same length, but that is almost entirely due to the fact that I managed to sneak in a line of dialogue. Is it necessary? Not at all! Do I think it adds character to the scene? Yup.

The key edit between the Draft One and the Draft Three version is that I got rid of most of the first half of the Draft One paragraph. It added nothing that wasn’t already shown earlier in the manuscript, and I didn’t feel the repeated information well-timed.

You’ll probably notice that the Draft Three version can be further cut down. Say, for instance, by getting rid of that dialogue snippet. Something to watch for when you go full throttle on editing is that you open yourself to risks of stilted paragraphs, record scratches, and time jumps (characters teleporting, things which logically happen after something happening before, etc). Be sure to keep an eye out for those, and to find a buddy to call you out on them.

Hard Edit Just Now: 92 words.

Stumbling into the armory, Madison wheeled around a trio of Marines and collapsed before her locker. She wriggled out from her gear-kit, and her head lolled against the cool metal. It was the aftereffects of the vaccumshock. Had to be—or the emergency cryo, or maybe whatever final painkilling cocktail Modise had pumped into her. The achiness and bruising was from the N-9’s sound gun. Swollen fingers caught the freeze-peeling skin of her face. Madison sighed and willed herself upright to unload into her locker.

Which draft version do you prefer? Do you all have any go-to tricks for editing? Is there anything that would benefit from a different explanation or more examples? Let’s get that discussion rolling!

[image ID: a gif from the 12th Doctor’s last season. Bill Potts stands in the TARDIS door and exclaims, “It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!” And Nardole responds, “Hey, hey! We got there!” /end]

#writing #writblr #writerblr #editing #writing tips #hendo's toolbox #writing reference #writing resources #attenuate/reverberate

[goldenhydreigon47]

After playing so much of The Division 2, I wanted to talk about and take into account that one of the enemy factions we fight in the game, The True Sons, basically represented all the wrong and corrupt aspects about the U.S. Military. The True Sons are a group of paramilitary warlords bent on using their combat expertise and overwhelming firepower to dominate their enemies and expand their territory. Smart and organized, the True Sons are led by a former JTF officer whose ruthlessness and combat prowess make him and his combatants a horrifying force.

For the summary on the factions leader Anton Ridgeway:

When the pandemic broke out (leading to the events of the game), chaos and panic quickly spread across Washington, D.C. In an attempt to control the spreading of the virus, the newly formed JTF established a quarantine on Roosevelt Island, Colonel Antwon Ridgeway formerly of the Maryland National Guard was given the responsibility to enforce the quarantine and ensure that everything ran smoothly. Seeing all the tragedy caused by the virus and how overwhelmed the JTF had become, Ridgeway started to lose faith in his commander's ability to save Washington, D.C. He quickly came to the conclusion that there needed to be drastic actions taken to ensure their survival.

General Ridgeway started taking increasingly aggressive and often lethal measures against insurgents, looters and even relatively benign protest crowds inside quarantine zones throughout January and into February. As a result, he earned repeated reprimands from JTF brass. He also diverted supplies meant for the Roosevelt Quarantine and CERA camps away from the camps for his troops.

As a strong believer in the need for proper authority and discipline, Ridgeway decided to take matters into his own hands. In frustration and fear for the city's future, he ordered his guards around the quarantine to bar the entrances and exits and not let anyone in or out even the medical staff attending to the sick. He started to redirect essential resources from going into the quarantine, letting people starve to death and withholding medicine. In his eyes, the sick and the weak were already dead, so his number one priority became to secure the future of his own men. When confronted by a CERA doctor that she would report Ridgeway's actions to his superiors, he murdered the doctor right in front of terrified civilians. He then ruthlessly ordered his men to put down any resistance from inside the quarantine.

Ridgeway's actions were tainted by his willingness to do whatever it took for the well-being of his soldiers and his repulsion of the sick. Due to the chaotic state of the city, he was able to abuse his authority for a long time before the commander of the JTF found out and dispatched a Division agent to investigate. This led to a confrontation at the CERA Constitution Camp where the Division agent witnessed Colonel Ridgeway murder a civilian for breaking quarantine, this led the agent into shooting one of Ridgeway's unit and place Ridgeway under arrest on 55 counts of murder. He was then court-martialed along with several officers of his unit and found guilty on all counts and imprisoned in the American History JTF stockade. However, it did not take long until Captain Keates and Major Ashford, two loyal members of Ridgeway's unit seeing the JTF's actions as a betrayal, broke into the stockade with Corporal Masters and Staff Sergeant Greystoke and freed him.

In Ridgeway's eyes, he had done nothing wrong. According to him, he was the only one with a realistic and viable solution to the situation. Therefore, the betrayal of his fellow JTF officers and imprisonment filled him with rage and hate towards the JTF and the federal government. As soon as he got out, he gathered men from his former unit and the stockade where he was held, prisoner. Together they captured the JTF officers that had imprisoned him and held a symbolic tribunal for them, only to execute them all moments later – and so the True Sons were born.

Nice

[somethingvinyl]

I’m gonna do a series on my Frank Zappa collection. Mind you my collection isn’t complete—there are some missing pieces I want to add, and some I’ll be just as content to leave missing, which I’ll discuss as I get to them. But we’ll start with LP no. 1!

Zappa’s band the Mothers debuted in 1966 with the Freak Out! double LP, one of rock’s first double LPs (beaten out by a week by Blonde on Blonde), a bold move for a debut. Verve insisted on expanding the band’s name to the Mothers of Invention (because they knew what Mothers was actually short for). They had obviously wanted to harness a cutting-edge experimental rock group, but Zappa’s recording process was certainly more than they’d bargained for—especially the all-night-long recording session with hundreds of dollars of rented percussion equipment that resulted in the 12-minute Return of the Son of Monster Magnet which is all of side D. Zappa uses two quotes in the gatefold that he repeats on all his early albums: a record executive telling him his group has “No commercial potential,” and his hero Edgard Varèse saying “The present day composer refuses to die!” Two fitting rallying cries for Z’s whole career.

Sides A and B are the pop songs—twisted versions of the doo-wop Zappa and the band unironically loved, some straightforward rock, and some experimental excellence (Who Are the Brain Police is a highlight). Side C is probably the album’s most important: the socially conscious Trouble Every Day (one of the few songs about race written by a white person in this era that holds up today) and the incredible Help I’m a Rock suite. Side D slips all the way into the weird. This is a stunning debut. It’s a bit overlong, but I honestly don’t know what I’d cut. It’s essential listening.

Later reports allege that Zappa himself didn't sing or play a word on this album, that he acted merely as bandleader. I guess you could believe that if you didn't know what his voice sounded like, but no, he's obviously all over this album—trading lines with lead vocalist Ray Collins, and I'm pretty sure the guitar solos are him too. But the point is well taken—Zappa isn't primarily a musician on this record. He's the composer. This will be variably true throughout his career.

There's a lot of Conceptual Continuity to be had here—especially the character of Suzy Creamcheese, who is all over the Mothers' catalog.

This was the second FZ album I ever heard. It isn't necessarily where I'd recommend starting for a new fan, but it's not a bad place.

My copy is a 70s pressing on MGM instead of Verve—not a prized copy by any means, but it sounds great, so a wonderful playing copy.

Maybe my future captions will be shorter. I kinda doubt it. Zappa forever.

#frank zappa #vinyl

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s 25 Jan 2023, and my hands are extremely cold from being outside since 5:30. It’s after 6AM.

A light went on. The switch turned last night when I realized the D2 points are 0-1-0, meaning the middle point, which is an interesting ideal for concepts like the us sharing the middle matzah. And the light this morning showed that this point can move anywhere except to the points of infinity, which are idealize to the cardinal counting line x with its Irreducible, which becomes the ordinal counting line. So D2 exists in these little drawings of ours without invoking the enclosing sides we so often see as demonstrating 2 dimensional area.

This light was preceded by another light, which I wasn’t able to comprehend until this additional information arrived, which was the repeating image of a bT manipulating through what we describe as 3 dimensional space, and which we describe as a series of grid Triangular sheets put together as they flip through the fundamental inversion process inherent all the way from D1. This is perhaps most easily seen from the perspective of a 1-0Segment: the midpoint line and the BEnds represent what occurs in D1 expanded into a larger drawing. As in, information hits and Halves at various places, but let’s start with the midpoint and think in ideals. At the midpoint, it splits into 2 lines, meaning D2, meaning the entire sweep of a disk or at least a boundary orthogonal to the line, where the midpoint is the 1 in the 0-1-0 and we are just moving the 0 Ends to where we want, which in this case is where we find ideals.

So, we have a basic D2 construction where the point is ‘shared’ so different Starts connect to a shared End or different Ends connect to the same Start. Very basic arrangement that manifests the essential quality of a 1-0Segment, which is that it segments, meaning that it is a unit, a 1Segment, across its length, and that it is made of 1Segments which scale to fit across that unit 1Segment, meaning there is a division algebra which fits the pieces together at this particular fundamental counting level. The most basic expression of that is take 2 Starts and combine to an End or take 2 Ends and combine to a Start. This literally draws as the inversion of an fD, an End to a 1-0Segment to an End. This writes out as a Start to 2Ends, which rewrites as 2Starts to an End.

This embeds 1-0-1. As in, 1Start to either End as 0 to other End as 1, then other End of 2Ends as 1, count back to 0End, count on to 1End. There are other ways to write this out. I find that deleting the space in 1End or 0End conveys the label-to-location fairly well in my head.

Note that this makes Triangular. It’s obvious, but I wanted to point this out: we now have looping. Just run around one of these 1-0-1 processes as a loop, so count one side of the fD around and around and it comes up to a number. And that number has the needed ambiguity: depending on where you Start and where you End, you can have different counts at different locations. This connects to ideas like ripeness is all: you can see what is becoming, like a ripening occurring, but the loops haven’t counted around enough. This means we have a built in counter at the 1-0Segment which pulls the interior looping into externalities. I’m thinking about grain ripening and then being eaten.

This connects to the image I had yesterday of how sacrifice evolved, particularly human sacrifice (which continues to this day in various forms). The reaping is a Counter and a Counter has an Observer.

So, as desired, we have defined D3 as being made of 1-0-1 D2 threads placed in various orderings over the inherent 1-0Segment.

The challenge I set for myself was to go over why the concepts and the drawings represent dimensions. When the ideas of dimensional analysis appeared in a massive Metaphoric Bundle, I decided to accept first and question later. Each acceptance step generated a deeper understanding, and now the process has looped all the way round to complete the understanding.

———-

I’ve become much more adept at flexing my skull, at applying tensions across the surface of the skull so it is felt inside, and vice versa, starting with the interior tensioning which spreads outward until I can isolate it as coming from the other side relative to other side points. That is, my perspective, which is all I have, reaches the level where I perceive a chain of tensioning running across imaginable points on the outside of my body, even to the point of full visualization in a mirror, so I can more completely visualize the sequences occur across each segment. That’s a point I have been unable to make well: that processes run on levels. This work is so incredibly simple in some ways and this is one of them. A triangle can used to count 3 dimensions, and a square to count 4, and so on, because we have built a model that connects the dimensions that way. And along the way, we define what dimensions are.

Here is a rough cut. Dimensions are the count of the divisions of an End into Ends connected by 1Segments to make 1-0Segments. D1 is an End connected to an End over a 1Segment. That is a 1Segment, not a 1-0Segment. Then D2 is the 1-0Segment; a 1-0Segment embodies 1-0-1 because you start at 1 count down to 0 and back. This makes the bent line. Think about that: a bent line.

In this method, D3 is then another bent line coming together to make an ideal, which counts that perfect 13 of 6 and 7, (0)-1-0-1-0-1-0 and 1-0-1-0-1-0-1. That is, we keep the level at 2, meaning that the End has 2 attachments or 1Segments sticking out, then we’ve built up to a 2nd level in winding and thus in 1Segments. You see in that how D4 contains D3: it literally contains D3 because you reduce the overlap so they project as a square. And in that movement, you see an essential truth that the pole between the layers is still there in the ideal, but tips over to lay flat, which is another view of the mechanism we described earlier in which Fan(open,shut), this time that being the pole projected as an ideal pole is Fan(s) and tipped over is Fan(o), which means the ability to read a situation combines your Fan(o,s) to comprehend. We’re really getting into the exchange of information. I love this.

All this work to say that we use ideal shapes to convey the conception of dimension. Once you grasp that, you grasp the concept of higher dimensions shaping the lower dimensions. For example, the conception of rebound, that the insides are generated by the rebound of higher dimensions as they reflect off lower dimensions. I visualize this as Objects, both tangible and intangible, are D3-4 and D4-3, so the communication from higher to lower develops as the D3-4 Objects develop. I just realized this sets up a Counter at the Mirror of LUS, which acts as the bend in the line, which acts as the Bridge which separates End from End. This really connects perfectly with the points at infinity because one is the internal and one is the external.

Oh, I think I just got it. It occurred to me that we don’t move an actual volume but rather we move the image we need to move to convey that volume. As long as there are representations of volume which construct to that volume. And this reality is that occurring as those representations of volume become tangible. There are, after all, radiations that sustain or take life, and those are often not nearly as immediate a rock or a burger.

So what this means is we exist and these poles tip over all the time. On us, through us, mapping us, and that occurs because we occur within a larger web of this process and that generates the energy, the motivation. And that gets to the oft-heard remark that we’re trying to preserve the higher dimensions from lower-dimensional infections, in which the infliction of harm expands out of the animal and into higher realms. I’m not happy with that wording. I’m trying to say that the negative motives, that triumph requires victory over someone rather than success with someone, make cooperative efforts difficult and make worse those which exist. Adversarial systems have their limits.

———-

The area that draws me down into the depths of despair is the issue of the midpoint line. A bunch of very deep thoughts are percolating just below visible enough to type. The real number line with Extents drawn over it. The hidden Triangular, which appeared above as the pole that tips. Go back to that winding staircase structure: at the edge of a higher to lower level there is a transition, a leap if you will because you know that’s a meaning, because at the lower perceptual edges you will tend to see just the leap’s Ends, meaning there is a transition between states when the pole is hit, meaning that is the ‘escape’ route by which these interactions occur, meaning they don’t all have to fit into the same level.

Again, this is enabled by the ideal form. So a triangle is a triangle and it represents a bT and Triangular. I like to think of it as you lay a triangle flat and you look around at all the dimensions which feed into one side, then the next, then the next, and then you’re back to where you were but now you have these experiences so you aren’t exactly you in exactly the same place, but that can be held in place, maybe a fixed place like I have been held in place, or in a fixed place inside yourself, meaning it segments across the tangible and intangible. Each time you wind around, it could be the light on Daisy’s dock. It could be any cycle.

Why a cycle? We went over this in regards to motivation, so yes I noticed we said motivation comes from on high. It actually also comes from within, which is the rebound effect, meaning the bad side gets more powerful as the negative potential increases, because increasing abstraction needs direction to fit into higher existence. There is no need in higher existence for harm causing. It is minimized.

Need a break.

But before I do, I just remembered the big inspiration about my troubling issue of the midpoint line was that there’s a pole, a hidden pole, at that point, which of course can be anywhere along the line because any point is halfway when each point is separated by infinities and you’re picking a scale out of that. We merely abstract the idea to a mipoint line on a 1-0Segment. So there is a pole at the ‘midpoint’ which orders the interaction of End to End there, and in D2 that’s when the bip connects as the 1 in the 0-1-0 to the BEnd, meaning to the one of the BEnds because this is within a bT.

That clarifies the part about D3: the overlap is indeed that winding structure, as described, but we can count the pole. That gets us to the minimum state where each 1Segment appears one time, and there is a hidden 1Segment pole that links to a 4th End hidden behind one of the 3 Ends of the bT. That also embodies the shift to D4: the pole tips over and the process makes a grid square, which makes actual squares.

Also note the ordering is important: while each bT has its Irreducible, grid squares appears when the sheet rotates, at least sufficiently to see an fD. Rotating an fD rotates a diameter of 1.

Need a break.

———-

Too much occurred during the break to remember. Clarified that D3 exists ‘on the way’ to D4. I have this image of a bT with a leg sticking down, then a grid square with a leg sticking down, and so on, because a bT has 3 legs sticking down and a grid square has 4, and so on, so the mechanism is literally that we slide up a leg, a 1Segment, at each End, and that Regularizes, which now is the process of a constructing 1 at that level. So, thirds, 4ths, 5ths, and so on. I’m seeing this construct, say, a pentagon out of 5ths, so each side is not only a 1Segment but is made of 5ths or five 1Segments. This means we’ve found the fundamental mechanism where we add 1 in pieces. It’s the dimensional pole! Think about this at grid squares: 4 legs hanging down means 4 iterations of an End with 2 visible connections but with 3 dimensions.

Remember: D0 is the End turned so the pole is not visible; D1 is the separation of an End into Ends, meaning the pole is visible; D2 is the separation of an End into 2Ends; and D2 generates both D3 and D4. If we construct D3 as Triangular, then we get a hanging leg. If we generalize, we get a hanging leg at each, which makes D3 the composite of these layers. If we construct D4, we have a grid square in which each End has 2 visible and 1 invisible connection. So the process as I see it is that the 1Segments ‘lift’ or ‘lower’ into place until the pieces fit to make a count of 1. So ⅓ to make the 4th. Which yes is a fundamental 12. Isn’t that cool? When Triangular converts to gs, it takes the value of 12.

And this also means D3 of course counts around a bT: that’s one of the representations enabled by the construction of D2 pieces. And that means D6 then actually does become a Hexagon. Follow that through to see if it makes sense. We pull on the legs of a gs to pull down ¼ so a 1Segment constructs at the counting level of quarters, which puts us at 20 quarters, which is also 2*10 fourths. So a pentagon constructs to arrange all five 1Segments so they become 1-0Segments. That’s the key: if I don’t make 1-0Segments, then Triangular can become a quadrilateral, and that means more process potential. As in, take a square and rotate: every turn the square looks like it hasn’t been turned at all. Take some squashed square and rotate it: you only have the 1 match, so it’s true only in that orientation, not in other orientations, so you need to do something like rotate it the same quarter turn and test the identity of the inversion.

Why dwell on this? Just before that question appeared at my fingertips, I heard: but isn’t that fD rotation? Exactly. So the idealized fD rotation translates to grid squares as it does for a good reason: because it inverts that fD shape and that draws quarters

————-

Keep going. At a grid square, we have a square, but we also have the dimensional object with the 4 legs, meaning the poles through the 4Ends. So what happens? I’m trying to see this but my mind is tiring.

What happens? Pull a leg all the way is equivalent to each leg a quarter, except the image would be twisted, meaning there would be the ideal 5th and pentagon, and something else, whatever results from the shifts that aren’t ideal. And that means we’re saying this counting process is what occurs at the ideal level, that it always drops legs because it’s always at the level of 2 connections and a leg, no matter what other connections exist.

Now we’re getting to Hexagonal. We can generate that the same way, which makes the perimeter. All these shapes invert to a central End, so the count goes up, which reflects the division into pieces of that 1 of that ideal form, from segments on the perimeter to slices of the whole. This connects to area and volume.

Really running out of mental gas. Need a walk. Cannot believe the progress made. Except I do. I do.

———

Not going into the music running in my head. It’s a TV cartoon I hated. It sounds like a cheesy triumph or a parody introduction.

I love pantomime.

I’d rather go backwards, to retrieve the reason I felt so cartoonish, which was that I realized for the umpteenth time that we’re defining dimensions as the expansion of a point, which contains both no dimensions and infinite dimensions. I think we can now say why: we are defining n dimensions inverting in and out of an End along n 1Segments.

That generates the dimensional Triangular in the third End along the midpoint line, which is the Irreducible at the fD level. That says every count of dimensions also doubles because the Observer line has a Counter halfway along the 1-0Segment.

At some count of n, you have defined a boundary for the dimensions which invert to that End. That means you’ve defined the End which encloses a singularity.

An abstract way of saying it, but good.

So the reason was that I need to accept this definition of dimension works, that the inversion of dimensions to an End (and thus to a point and thus beyond a point to a singular point, etc.), and that we’ve built this structure. Accept that it’s done. The forms, the ideals, everything. This is the definition of dimension that enables the existence of a you, of any Object, of any Thing.

——-

I found myself asking tonight: where do we start? And while I was brushing my teeth, I saw that happen. The End goes first, because the dimensional structure, the D-structure, contains Triangular and grid squares, so they can be introduced in sensible positions.

Tired. Very.

[eyeballtank]

Main links post (WIP)

Will edit it later.

NewGrounds: https://eyeballtank.newgrounds.com/ Itch io: https://eyeballtank.itch.io/ Pixiv: https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/77420289 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_X_mTUAr3SPIC3To-lwA_w/videos Tellonym: https://tellonym.me/eyeballtank Retrospring: https://retrospring.net/eyeballtank Codepen: https://codepen.io/EyeBallTank/projects/ Discord: EyeBallTank#5681 GitHub: https://github.com/EyeBallTank Neocities: https://eyeballtank.neocities.org/

TAGS:

Essential: Important stuff https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/essential

OC: https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/oc

Art: https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/art

Gamedev: https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/gamedev

Update:

Reblogs of other people's works and interesting stuff: https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/reblog

Rants, opinions, random talk etc: https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/tagged/blog and this shit https://rentry.co/4i85w

And also this https://rentry.co/icvzk

Third: https://rentry.co/pbnbk

ABOUT RANTS:

Because i used to have a different handle and posted some opinions or “hot takes”, i thought of reposting some stuff on this blog.

But only so i don’t have to say them again and if someone asks, they could just look back into old posts so i don’t have to repeat stuff.

Whether i change my mind on certain topics, if i’m wrong/hypocritical/lacking/etc about them or even if they affect my works may be irrelevant.

Because i’ve been thinking of putting them in a specific corner for anyone that dare to look into stuff, while also not being annoying over it.

Because i want to primarly focus on actually making stuff that some people will like and don’t want to get into stupid fights or cause controversies that don’t need to happen.

(Or at least waste my time on better stuff like practice or having fun).

One thing is seperating art from the artist, another is seperating parts of an artist because humans are supposed to be complex creature.

Besides, even if some opinions of mine aren’t agreeable, they’re not horrible fucked up shit either.

And even if someone likes what i have to say or agrees with it, i still want to put my time on better stuff (Without having to regret opinions that aren't even bad to begin with).

And this sounds cliche but i really hope i don't get "cancelled" over shit i said because none of this is a crime or even horribly offensive.

At worst, it's me revealing that i may have been "too online" at some points but i drew a line at least and want to keep my word.

Also, i'm autistic and ESL, so i may have flaws with how i articulate myself; So take what i say with a grain of salt.

I also spent a good while on some topics because of self reflection or at least trying to see other prespectives and the "logistics/anatomy" of discussion.

I can also see someone go "i see where you're getting at but" and expand on the shit i way, because i know someone will say some stuff better but i also don't trust Youtube commentary guys.

At least i don't mind if an opinion is "stolen" because you know... i have ACTUAL content to make.

AND ALSO: If i do say something from this long post and outside of it (Like in a Tumblr or Newgrounds post), it might be about a topic like certain art styles or media, not drama or politics related shit that's contained in that link to begin with.

#essential

[licncourt]

Why does Lestat only get involved sexually and romantically with other people? Is it a way to seek validation and love?

How do you all always know exactly what I've been thinking because this is a really under-discussed part of Lestat’s character that I've been meaning to talk about. I absolutely think it's what you said and when you look at his history, it makes a lot of sense.

We know Lestat experienced childhood neglect and abuse, with the implication that he was quite isolated otherwise. The first meaningful relationship he recounts experiencing is with Nicolas. This also seems to be his first real romantic/sexual relationship, occurring at a formative age when a lot of the identity is beginning to solidify.

Throughout the series, Lestat meets a lot of people and they react to him in a wide variety of ways, but his looks and charm are the only consistent way in which he attains the attention he desperately wants and needs. I don't think I need to expand on that bit of Lestat’s characterization, I'm pretty sure we can all agree he's extremely motivated by attention and validation. It doesn't help that he's consistently desired for his looks and charisma and then rejected on any level deeper than that.

I would argue that, in addition to the childhood groundwork, his assault by Magnus exacerbated the issue in its own way. This "rape" was based extremely heavily on Lestat's looks, something Magnus makes him very aware of, and then they form a sort of trauma bond through the turning where Lestat experiences what he describes as an almost romantic and sexual attachment to his attacker. He actually repeats this trauma bond with Akasha under almost identical circumstances.

Regardless, this trauma with Magnus and the subsequent rejections that follow (Nicki and Gabrielle) really kick Lestat's need for romantic and sexual attention into high gear. The way he falls for Louis essentially at first sight and commits himself entirely within days really drives that point home. When he feels Louis slipping, he takes drastic measures to either hold tight to that connection, find a new one, or both (Antoine).

I'm actually going to acknowledge later canon now because one of the only Lestat-isms that makes sense is his sudden serial monogamy. In a world where he doesn't remain in a committed relationship with Louis (something that might soothe those urges to seek and seek and seek love) I can absolutely see Lestat behaving the way he does in the later books.

Maybe in this scenario, the sudden intimacy with Louis is too scary and overwhelming so he backs away, but then that love void returns. What's interesting about the way Lestat approaches his romances for this period in canon is that, bar his human body...adventures...none of them feel like flings in his approach.

He seems to genuinely think he loves (or wants to love) people like David and Rowan and Gretchen and Dora. These relationships, however brief and ultimately surface-level, are all-consuming for their duration. He needs them, and for him that becomes indistinguishable from love. Or at least he lets himself believe it is.

Lestat is lucky that he's attractive and charming because it makes it easy for him to acquire partner after partner. He can satisfy his desire for love and attention without the terrifying vulnerability and intimacy that comes with a long-term, committed relationship that might actually meet his needs in a healthy way. Instead, it's one fix to the next like an addict.

The only thing he has that consistently gets him "safe" love is his appearance and superficial personality, so it's not a leap to say that these traits become something he leans too heavily on, flaunts and plays up to an off-putting degree in his attempts to be wanted. That creates its own issue, his perceived vanity and narcissism making the relationships he can form all the more brief and shallow, tanking his self-esteem further and creating a vicious cycle as he tries to compensate more.

All the terrible characterization notwithstanding and with my fantasy of "Loustat definitely worked things out in-depth behind the scenes between PL and RoA" intact, I think his happy relationship with Louis and the sudden drop-off of those serial relationships tracks.

The fact that he was so devoted to Nicki and then spent 70 years trying to keep his marriage to Louis intact by any means necessary indicates to me that he does want that kind of commitment and longevity from a relationship, he just didn't know how to achieve it before. It's not that Lestat is magically able to be happy with one person overnight and stopped wanting to sleep around, but that his intimacy issues have been resolved to the point where his need for love can finally be met by one person. I sure wish we'd seen that happen, but I'm very glad that he eventually got there.

#answered #vc #lestat de lioncourt #meta

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 2 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Kwami

Kwamis are a fun concept and one of the main draws of the series. They make sense story-wise because, firstly, our characters need some support system. And since a lot of conflicts are centred around secret identities, characters should be able to discuss their double life with someone. As magical beings they could also be used to expand the lore, introduce new concepts and drive forward both the plot and character development. It doesn't always happen but Kwamis are a good idea. Some people who write AU's think that Kwamis are redundant, but I have to disagree.

Origins and nature

Where do Kwamis come from? What are they? It's never explained. Oh wait, it was explained in a comic people can accidentally find. You decide to explain the origins and nature of magical beings who are one of the key elements in your magic system and worldbuilding IN A SIDE COMIC, which has zero effect on your main story. Sounds legit.

Here it is.

So, Kwamis are abstract creatures. They can become tangible and interact with the world because of the miraculous jewels. Essentially, each Miraculous acts as an anchor to the material world for Kwami. They existed since the beginning of time and were invisible observers of the universe. Until they settled on Earth and observed how humanity came to be. This is where things get interesting.

Kwamis are the embodiment of abstract concepts. But, some abstract concepts were created by people (like everything mentioned in the comic: beauty, math, love, etc).

Kwamis wanted to help humans. And then, a human, who couldn't see, hear or touch a Kwami creates miraculous jewels. And now these beings can interact with the world, use their powers and grant them to humans. Yet, they are completely under control of their holder. I'll discuss it later, but why did Kwamis accept this deal? They are practically enslaved. At the same time they care about people and generally love humanity.

According to the wiki Kwamis grant powers because of "the privilege of having the ability to be perceived by mortals". What? Did I read that right? Kwamis agreed to be enslaved and used as a power source, because they wanted to interact with material world. That's it, guys, end of the story.

We also know these things about nature and abilities of Kwamis from the show:

1) need food, but only to provide the power for the holder;

2) can't phase through precious metals (Chloe's bracelet in "Rogercop"), their own miraculous and humans;

3) they can control if they phase through things or not – meaning that if they want to, they can (this way Tikki can stay in Marinette’s purse without much trouble and Plagg sleeps on Adrien’s pillow);

4) they can perform magic without a holder but they don’t control it very well, there are certain types of things that they can’t do without a holder;

5) they are immortal but can get sick for some reason, a non-magical reason mind you;

6) technology can't detect them in any way, you can't film, photograph or record their voices (writers establish this many times, but promptly forget all about their own rules in "Optigami", where Marinette talks with Kwamis over the phone without any problems).

If I missed something important, then let me know.

Look, the questions related to origins and motivations of Kwamis might not be very prominent in your story right now, but you must answer them in case you might need to involve these facts in the plot down the line. It's important to avoid contradictions in the serialised story with liquid plot, that can't be set in stone. It's a made up world for the sake of everything sacred! You can make up explanations and rules, of course as long as they don't contradict common sense.

Plausible ideas for origins and nature of Kwamis:

1) Kwamis are immortal spirits, whom humans accidentally summoned and bound with spells to Miraculous stones. They remember their existence before this. This version doesn't really explain their desire to serve people and love for humanity, however. It would be more logical for Kwamis to resent people for enslaving them. It doesn't explain how humans could create those spells and Miraculous stones either.

2) Kwamis are physical manifestations of abstract concepts who existed simply as fragments of matter for a very long time without sentience, until they were accidentally summoned through the Miraculous stones and bound by humans to serve them. Kwamis do not remember their existence before Miraculous. In this version Kwamis serve humans and love them because they have never known a different kind of existence. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide any explanation on the creation of Miraculous and spells.

3) Kwamis are gods, who created the universe with all its elements and concepts including humanity (similar to Valar and Maiar in Tolkien's Legendarium). They wanted to help their creations but discovered that their power was too wild and unpredictable for that. So, Kwamis decided to give up their free will and magical independence to help humanity. Together they created Miraculous stones for humans to use and sealed themselves inside. Kwamis as gods were abstract concepts, who didn't have a body. The act of sealing their power in the Miraculous gave them an opportunity to interact with outside world (an anchor) and each Kwami chose an small animal form (because humans easily formed bonds with animals, had animal companions (pets), small animals look non-threatening and familiar). Kwamis intentionally choose certain animal forms to suit the human symbolism. Humans later used magic that Kwamis discovered for them to place spells upon small gods (spells related to identity protection and so on). This version answers most questions, but if Kwamis are gods then powers they grant to people seem to be rather small.

Feel free to add more. I would be interested to hear your ideas.

Identity Protection

In "Origins" we learn that Wayzz can sense the aura of Butterfly Miraculous, a negative aura of activated Butterfly Miraculous, to be more precise. And yet, Tikki and Plagg are genuinely surprised to discover the identities of their holders in "Dark Owl". There are several things wrong with that.

Can Kwamis sense each other's presence? They shouldn't be able to do this to protect the identities of their holders. On the other hand, they are ancient spirits. So, their inability to sense each other seems weird. Unless it's the same situation as with the spell that does not allow them to speak the name of their holder aloud.

But if they can sense each other like Wayzz did, then it means that Plagg and Nooroo were living in the same house for over a year and nothing happened. I mean, Plagg could have just come upstairs, take off the brooch from Gabriel, while he is asleep and return it back to Fu.

This question lies right here, on the surface. And that's only one massive and very obvious plothole. How to fix it? Establish that Kwami can't sense each other for identity protection. In "Origins" Fu meditates on his balcony and Wayzz sees a charged Akuma flying by. That's how they discover that Butterfly is in Paris and the Miraculous is in the wrong hands. Perhaps, Gabriel akumatizes someone for the first time to survey the surroundings and general public is not aware of this. This works better in the narrative, giving Fu time to select holders for Ladybug and Black Cat. It also establishes whether Hawkmoth can remove the Akuma from someone without Ladybug and discharge it. Maybe it depends on the circumstances (sometimes he can, but if this person was akumatized many times or their emotions are too strong and their mind doesn't want to let Akuma go then Hawkmoth can't pull the butterfly out with his magic). This scenario allows for Volpina to happen on "Heroes' Day". Silly recurring Akumas like Gigantitan and Mr. Pigeon could still happen. In this case Gabriel didn't want to akumatize the guy more than 70 times on purpose. It just keeps happening against his better judgement because evil butterflies are automatically attracted to Mr. Ramier. This way repeated attacks of Mr. Pigeon annoy Hawkmoth just as much as they do the heroic duo of Paris (I did not sign up for this Nathalie!).

Let's come back to the spell mentioned earlier for a moment. Kwamis can't say the name of their current holder out loud, but apparently, they can exploit a loophole in the spell by confirming the identity of their holder in another way. The spell doesn't work with other holders. Kwami can say the names of other holders if they know their identity. That being said, can the holder order the Kwami to tell them the identities of other heroes if they know them?

Kwamis know how each Miraculous looks with or without camouflage. Can the holder order the Kwami to tell them how each Miraculous looks in disguise (I liked that Grimoire doesn't have pictures of camouflage for identity protection)? Guardians can recognise Miraculous in any mode (Su Han). Did Fu teach Marinette this? Does she know how each Miraculous looks like unactivated?

Oh! Since we are discussing camouflage, let's take a moment to appreciate the Mother Of All Plotholes. Plagg didn't recognise Peacock because of the plot.

Relationship with Holder

I absolutely loved the idea that Kwamis must obey their holder introduced in "Sandboy". This concept opens tons of plot opportunities. It's such a great idea that makes sense, has potential, can create conflict. Why, oh, why didn't writers develop it more?

Like, it was so good. It can be a great push for character development. This concept resolves so many existing inconsistencies within the plot. It's mind-blowing.

Why can't Nooroo simply leave Gabriel, so that he wouldn't be able to transform? Because Gabriel bound him with Miraculous to always stay near.

In "Sandboy" Tikki asks Marinette's permission before going to the meeting. Plagg lies to Adrien instead. This implies that usually Plagg's holders weren't kind to him or feared his power (Su Han's remark in "Furious Fu"). Perhaps, his holders were taught to keep the Kwami of destruction under constant control. So, Plagg in turn has learned not to ask, because if he doesn't ask permission then his holder can't deny him freedom with magic.

Can Kwami lie to their holder? Maybe they can't lie to their holder about their nature, origins and powers and other Miraculous (but Kwamis can't reveal the location of Miracle Box, Guardian's identity and can't confirm identities of other holders known to them in any way). Kwami would be forced to speak even if they don't want to. That's why Nooroo told Gabriel everything about the abilities of the Butterfly Miraculous and the wish secret of Ladybug and Black Cat.

But Kwamis can lie to their holder according to Plagg in "Sandboy". If Kwamis can lie about everything (including powers) then Nooroo didn't have any reason to be honest with Gabriel way back in "Origins".

Speaking of Gabriel and Nooroo. Can Kwamis harm their holder? Maybe doing so would harm the Kwami as well. Can they do it only when the holder is not wearing the Miraculous? Can Kwami take their Miraculous from their holder? Will they disappear if they try to do so? It seems like Kwami disappears only when the holder takes off the Miraculous with the intention of renouncing power, the words "I renounce you" are not necessary.

Other Kwamis can take the Miraculous from people if it's not their own (Wayzz in "Feast"). But what if it wasn't possible. Imagine what could happen if it's not possible to take the Miraculous by force from the transformed or untransformed hero. Just like Lady WiFi couldn't remove Ladybug's mask. A person has to willingly give up the Miraculous. Only in this case, it's possible to take it. For example, somewhere around the middle of season 3 Hawkmoth could have trapped Ladybug and Chat Noir and cut off any escape routes. His Akuma tries to take both Miraculous, but they don't budge. Then afterwards, every Akuma tries to manipulate the heroes using hostages, illusions or mind control. It's hard to say whether this version will be better than canon, but it's a fascinating theory.

You can use the idea of obedience to create more situations contrasting the relationship of Plagg and Adrien, Gabriel and Nooroo. I liked how canon created a storyline about Plagg learning to control his powers without a holder and Adrien helping him. However, why would you stop here? Give us some flashbacks about Plagg's previous holders, tell us what kind of people they were. Expand the lore and add some character development for Plagg and Adrien. The same thing goes for Marinette. What kind of battles did they have in the past? What kind of people past holders were? Did Ladybug and Black Cat heroes always get along well? Were they allies or enemies? Were they always lovers?

Give us more information about Butterfly and Peacock holders. Perhaps Nooroo has dreams about his past holders who were good people. Show us what kind of things a Butterfly holder with good intentions can do. Tell us more about Duusu and her past holders, sprinkle in a few bits of info about Emilie and Duusu's relationship, just a few vague hints to preserve the mystery. You have a lot of screentime each season and instead of doing filler episodes dedicated to love drama, you can use them for developing minor characters, relationships between them and lore.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous analysis #miraculous meta #ml meta #ml analysis #miraculous transformations #miraculous critical #miraculous ladybug critical #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #kwami #miraculous kwamis #miraculous holders

[theeslytherinslut]

12 Grimmauld Place (5/?)

Pairings: Sirius Black (post Azkaban) x reader, Remus Lupin x reader’s brother, Sirius Black x Slytherin!reader 

Word Count: 2,909

Warnings: lil angsty

A/N: The longest chapter yet and it’s entirely in Sirius’ perspective! Hope I wasn’t too far off from his inner monologue. Also lots of spicy Tonks cause I love her. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 6

Sirius’ POV

Feeling intrusive, I caught Tonks’ eyes as Remus and Y/N hugged each other, her sobbing into his shoulder. With a quick twitch, I signaled to her that we let them have a moment. She nodded and followed me into the living room. 

“Still haven’t gotten around to cleaning anything, have you?” she teased, gesturing to the layer of dirt and dust that seemed to cover every inch of the house. 

“Whenever you feel up to joining in...” I teased back. 

“Well, it looks like you’ll have Y/N to help you with that,” she responded, raising her eyebrows at me in a funny way. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Y/N,” she looked at me meaningfully. But not knowing what she meant, I stared blankly back. “You men--it’s a wonder you make it up in the morning by yourselves...Obviously, her flat is no longer safe. She’ll have to stay out of sight for a while too. What better place to both be safe and stay out of sight than here?” 

“Stay here?” I asked dumbly. Sure, I figured she’d stay the night, but it never occurred to me that this would be the best place for her. But now that Tonks pointed it out, it did make sense. Not like she could go back to her blown flat; besides, she was vulnerable there. Vulnerable and alone. 

“Yes, cousin. Are you alright?” she laughed at my bewildered state, but I didn’t find it so funny. It was difficult to ignore my feelings for her when I wasn’t seeing her every day. How was I supposed to manage now? 

At school, it was easier to manage. In the hallways, I’d look at anyone but her, smirking at any girl I caught looking at me, any sort of distraction. But when Moony wanted to go have a chat with her, well, I’d have to plainly look away, instead contenting myself with glaring at passing male members of her house, daring any of them to speak up or look at her. 

Remus had made his views very clear in the year of her arrival. He’d been gushing about since first year, always saying how she’d enjoy something or another. I still remember her terrified face during Sorting dissolving into a bright smile when her eyes found us seated at the Gryffindor table. Remus waved excitedly at her from his seat, the rest of us doing the same--all hoping she’d soon join us. However, upon seeing the rest of us with him, her face turned bright red, and her eyes went terrified once more. Before I could even shoot her a reassuring smile, she’d turned back to McGonagall. Unfortunately, she’d been placed in Slytherin, something we never let poor Moony forget. That night in the common rooms after everyone else had long gone to bed, he’d made us all swear to never lay a finger on her--to essentially be another three big brothers--never to look at her in any sort of way. Of course we all made the promise, but I couldn’t honor it. 

I still found myself scouring the Great Hall for her face at mealtimes, ducking around shelves in the library in between classes looking for her. I always made sure to be on my best behavior in front of Remus, but behind his back, my eyes couldn’t wait to hungrily devour his sister. Her witty remarks as some Gryffindor teased her, her filthy mouth when a fellow Slytherin made the wrong comment--and just when I thought I couldn’t fall for her any more deeply, I’d caught her hexing a Gryffindor in the corridor. The poor bloke came out a few seconds later, clutching his jaw and nose, both of which were expanding at an alarming rate. She came skipping round the next moment, smiling broadly at her achievement. It was all I could do not to kiss her right then. 

“Sirius?” Tonks asked, pulling me from my memories. 

“Sorry, yes?” I asked, trying not to appear as anxious about it all as I was. 

“What’s your problem?” she asked. Looking at her, I weighed my options. On the one hand, the only living soul who knew about how I felt about Y/N was now no longer, in fact, living. On the other, keeping it such a secret allowed me to continue in my friendship with Moony. Lovely as she was, I couldn’t have anything come between us. Not when we were the only ones left. 

“I--” I started to begin the story, but upon remembering James, I stopped. “Nothing.” 

“Sirius,” Tonks started, an offended look on her face. “I am your cousin. You tell me right now, or I’ll go get Remus, and he will.” 

“You would, wouldn’t you,” I said, a fond smile coming on my face as I looked at her. 

“I most certainly would.” she threatened. With her hands on her hips, I was suddenly reminded strongly of Mrs. Weasley, which only made my smile bigger. “Now, go on and tell me, you grinning git!”

“Alright, lower your voice. Can you keep a secret?” I asked, looking at my hands. 

“Course I can,” she indignantly responded. 

“Well, there’s a, a slight--er, problem, with Y/N staying,” I said quietly, keeping an ear out for her sniffles. 

“Problem? What problem? Not like you don’t have enough rooms. Or is it you fancy her or something?” she said, laughing. I kept quiet, and after a moment or two, realization began dawning on her face. 

“Oh, but Sirius, she’s Remus’ sister!” Tonks said, looking at me scoldingly. 

“Don’t you think I know that, Nymphadora?” I barked, angry that she responded the way I feared.

At the sound of her birth name, her hair began burning bright red, and I retreated. 

“Sorry, it’s just--I know, okay? I’m very much well aware of the fact she is Remus’ sister. Why do you think I’ve kept my distance all these years?” I said. 

“Likely cause you were in Azkaban,” she pointed out. I gave her a nasty look, and she smiled softly. “Next time, don’t use my full name.”

I rolled my eyes and began anxiously pacing the floors. This was wrong; this was all wrong. The one girl Remus said was off-limits. All he let me get away with all those years at Hogwarts. With a fresh pang of guilt, I recalled a put-out looking Remus looking at me while I talked to a tall, blonde Ravenclaw during Charms. It was only years after I learned he’d had a thing for her--but to my defense, I’d have backed off without a complaint if he’d only told me. 

“All these years?” Tonks said, liking working things out in her head. “Surely that doesn’t mean...since Hogwarts?” 

“Yes,” I admitted miserably. “Since her first year.” 

“First year?” she shouted. 

“Keep down your voice.” I hissed at her, pausing to hear Remus speaking softly to Y/N. 

“Sorry,” she winced. “But really, since first year and you’ve never said anything?” 

“Well, I couldn’t. Remus made us all swear to leave her alone--and bloody hell, was that a job. After school, it was easier, once I was able to keep my distance. Out of sight, out of mind, as the Muggles say. Sorry, you know how Arthur loves his Muggles.” I laughed as she gave me a funny look. “And then--as you so astutely pointed out--I was in Azkaban. So it really hasn’t been a problem these last few years.” 

“But now she’s living in your house,” she pointed out. 

“Precisely,” I responded, running a hand over the scruff on my face. She remained quiet, looking thoughtful for a few minutes before responding. 

“Well, this is just bloody ridiculous. You’ve got to do something,” she said. 

“Do something? Do what? How could I betray Remus like that? He’s the only one left, Tonks. How am I supposed to betray him this way, especially after James, and then all the time apart, and then managing to let Peter slip through our fingers? I can’t do this to him.” I reasoned, beginning to harden my resolve. 

“Oh, you are bloody ridiculous, you know that?” she sighed, running her fingers through her now bubblegum-pink hair. 

“Excuse me?” I said, stopping my pacing to glare at her. 

“Bloody ridiculous!” she repeated, “Sirius, that was years ago. That was a feeble promise forced to be made by an older brother before his friends got horny and couldn’t think straight.” 

“What?” I said, pulling a face as I considered her words. 

“Remus made you all promise that so young so she wouldn’t become a plaything of yours, especially when the both of you turned out to be such whores.” Tonks laughed. 

“Whores? I was not a whore! And certainly not James, why after fifth year I don’t think I ever heard so much as a comment about any girl besides Lily.” I defended the both of us, vaguely aware of how I’d ridiculously brought my hands to my hips in indignation. 

“Sirius, you’re family, you know I love you--but Merlin, you were the biggest sodding slut the whole of Gryffindor has ever seen! I’d bet there isn’t a room in the castle you haven’t done something naughty in.” she laughed once more. I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t come up with a room fast enough--only proving her point. 

“Now, you two are not schoolchildren anymore. You are a grown man, Sirius. There’s no need to honor such a trivial and unnecessary pact.” She took a step towards me and put her hand on my cheek, dropping her voice. “Think of how much you’ve suffered, Sirius. Think of what you’ve lost; think of who you have lost. Remus has suffered the same loss. He lost James just as you did, but he also lost you. He thought you’d gone bad, thought Peter dead--James and Lily were dead. And then, years later, you return--innocent. You came back to him, and he, you. Things like that change a man. I’m sure there’s no one on this planet he trusts more with his sister than you. Don’t sacrifice your happiness for one more minute, cousin. Especially not when things look so similar to how they looked before, back when it all went wrong. Don’t waste another minute; I’m not going to either.” 

Shaken at her words, I remained quiet for a few moments. So much had changed since that night in Gryffindor tower. Maybe he wouldn’t mind the idea so much anymore. Besides, he trusted me enough to keep her safe.

My happiness...I’d never given the idea much thought, never considered it much of a possibility after being imprisoned. Never had reason to since. But now, my brain was swimming with possibilities. 

“Hang on,” I said, remembering the end of her monologue. “You aren’t going to either?”

She cursed under her breath before looking at me.

“Noticed that, did you?” she grimaced. I merely looked at her expectantly. “Alright, fine. Can you keep a secret?” 

“I mean, if I outed you, you could just out me,” I pointed out.

“True, alright. Well, it’s Remus,” she whispered, avoiding my eyes. 

“You and Remus?” I asked, frowning in thought. 

“And what about it?” she said, looking at me testily. 

“Well, nothing really. It’s just I never thought about it...are you sure?” I asked after a moment. I loved them both, but the thought had never even crossed my mind once. Surely if there was something between my cousin and my best friend, I’d have suspected something by now. 

“Of course I’m sure, you git,” she hissed at me. 

“So then why aren’t you together?” I asked. I couldn’t think of any reason they shouldn’t be if they both felt that way. Not like I had a sit down with the lot of them about not dating her. 

“Because he too is being ridiculous. Refuses to even look at me most of the time. Says I’m too young, says I deserve better than him.” 

“Better than Moony? Good luck with that one, cousin.” I laughed, shaking my head at the thought. 

“That’s what I keep saying, but he’ll hear none of it. Says I deserve better than a shabby, poor old werewolf.” she rolled her eyes. 

“Is that really what he thinks of himself as? A shabby old werewolf?” I asked, sad for my friend. If anybody deserved happiness, it was Remus. Before she could answer, we heard him calling. 

“Pads?” I suddenly heard. He entered the room alone, smiling softly at the two of us. 

“Hey, mate.” I smiled at him, opening my arms once more. Remus had always grudgingly accepted my affection, which only made me more inclined to give it knowing it bothered him. And as I knew he would, he rolled his eyes and smiled as he accepted. 

“Perhaps we should stay...” Remus said, looking to Tonks and then back to the kitchen. 

“Ooh no, you don’t. We’ve got to go, cut up sister or not. Besides, who better to take care of her than Sirius? Isn’t as if he’s got anything better to do. Perhaps she could persuade him in actually cleaning something in this wretched house.” Tonks added, gesturing to filth. I glared at her but remained silent; she was right. The house was filthy, but it was painful enough to be here, let alone restore the bloody thing.

“Suppose you’re right...” Remus said after a moment, “Take good care of her, Pads.” 

“Course I will, Moony. Always took good care of you, didn’t I?” I jeered.

“Not bloody likely! And don’t you go taking credit for that, that was all Madam Pomfrey,” he scolded, wagging his finger at me like he used to as a Prefect. “The group of you could hardly stand to sit still in the hospital wing for half an hour, let alone get me through a transformation!” As Remus told his story, Tonks looked at him with a funny look, and with an alarming pang, I realized Y/N often shot me the very same look. Did that mean she felt for me as Tonks felt for Remus? 

“That is bang out of order, mate! I worked hard at becoming an Animagi! Took years, it did. Don’t remember seeing Madam Pomfrey out trotting about with a teenage werewolf. Besides, kept your arse out of trouble!” I bantered back, smiling jovially. 

“Oh, it just as easily could’ve gotten me in trouble,” Remus shook his head at the memories.

“But it didn’t, did it?” I teased, “You know you loved it just as much as we did, Moony. Try as you might to remain all high and mighty. Ickle Prefect Moony,” I jeered, poking at him as he laughed. 

“Alright, alright. C’mon, let’s go before the two of you really start down memory lane. We’ve got to meet Dumbledore.” Tonks said, gently steering Remus towards the door. 

“Hang on, you’re going to Hogwarts?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be jealous. 

“Briefly. That wretch woman gets nosy when we’re there for more than a quick pop in.” Remus said; the disgusted look on his face told me he meant Umbridge. 

“Ah, well, say hello to Harry for me if you see him. I hear the little scamp likes roaming round nearly as much as we did.” I smiled after them. 

“That he does; I still remember catching him with that map...I don’t even know how he got ahold of it. James would’ve been so proud, out in the dark corridors taunting Snape. Like father, like son.” Remus smiled fondly at the memory before hanging his head slightly and ambling off to join Tonks. My chest hurt at the mention of James and Harry, and I was once more painfully reminded of my solitude. What I wouldn’t give to see James again...

I followed them to the door, waving goodbye as the two of them popped out of sight. I stared longingly at the spot where they’d disapparted. 

Standing in place, I gave myself a moment to gather my thoughts before returning to the kitchen. 

Tonks had made many good points, but were they just good because I was looking for any kind of reason to be with her? Did they actually make sense, or was I just looking for an out?

Remus had only made us promise once in the wee hours of the morning in the Gryffindor common room. Besides, if family was off-limits, well, that made him a right hypocrite, didn’t it? He did leave her here with me though, with the promise I’d take good care of her. That meant, to some degree, Remus trusted me with her. Would I be breaking that trust by going with my gut with Y/N? 

Good and evil continued to argue on my shoulders, but if I waited for a decision, I might be here for years. 

What’s more, was she even interested in me? I mean, sure, I’d caught her staring in school--but that was years ago; a lot had changed since then. But then there was the blush that always colored her cheeks every time I said something cheeky, the relief on her face when I’d met her in the port key room. Surely she wouldn’t let someone she detested bathe her, right? 

I resolved to simply flirt. If that went well, then she felt something too. And if she felt something too...well, let me not get ahead of myself. 

*******************************

Taglist: @geeksareunique @fredweasleysbitchh  @green-intervention​ @stopbeingcurious

#Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #Harry Potter Smut #Hermione Granger #Ron Weasley #Granger #Ginny Weasley #Fred and Goerge Weasley #weasley twins #weasley #tonks #remus x tonks #remus lupin x tonks #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black smut #sirius black fanfiction #sirius #black #post azkaban sirius #sirius x reader #Draco Malfoy #Draco #daddy draco #draco malfoy smut #draco malfoy x reader #draco x reader #Crabbe and Goyle #vincent crabbe #Gregory Goyle

[myimaginarywonderland]

Besides the creator of FNAF being a piece of shit, can we also admit how Security breach was really not it?

Like, the game was bad. Objectively speaking, the designs were done great but the story was so rushed and completely in pieces? I have seen one ending so far and I am probably going to watch more but that ending explained nothing? No answer to what happened to even make us be there.

There isn't a start or an end to the story which makes it so lack luster. You want me to care about someone who I have no idea who he is? I get a name and that is it for really every character.

You want me to find someone evil because what? There's only one scene where I could start to find Vanessa evil but that is later on in the game and until that point I don't even know why she is the bad guy or supposedly the bad guy.

Also, there's no turning point. At no part in the story did I really feel like it's going a new direction, expanding around a conflict, nothing. I have small moments of that maybe but never anything that actually would give me an indication of how far into the story I am.

There's no introduction to any character, most of the OG ones just aren't there and that would be okay but the new ones kind of just got thrown in there? Without any comment on where the old ones went or what happened to them. Keep me guessing sure but then at least let me get to know any character at all.

During the entire game, I am marvelling at the design but I feel like as a player I genuinely don't know why I am doing what I am doing other than that I should get my character to escape. And that is it?

There's never an explanation for anything major and by not having any cut scenes expect when destroying the animatronics, there's also no story telling scences going on which yet again hinders the flow of the game.

It's like the put all the effort to the design and layout and forget that they have to use that. And there's still so many glitches that can just take the fun when you get caught without seeing the animatronic really. Let's not forget that there's personally for me a lack of instructions. Especially for people with ADHD or any other neurodiffergent small pieces of info that are essential to the story and disappear after like 5 seconds in those window mission would have been nice to maybe not add down since the general missions give you directions but maybe have them repeated in a dialogue or pointed out in multiple ways.

This isn't meant to shame the creators but that is not a game, it is a currently written and unfinished storyline. It's in the making, it's not to be sold.

#anti fnaf #tagging this just to be safe #anti fnaf security breach

[fyeah-bangtan7]

A Deep Conversation with BTS' RM on His Group's Early Years, Drake, Whether BTS Is K-Pop, and More

"I had a sense of urgency and desperation about going after my dreams," says BTS' leader

I was someone who wanted to go to a top college, an Ivy League school by American standards,” says RM, BTS’ leader. “I was a typical student who was trying hard to achieve. And then I trusted [HYBE founder] Mr. Bang, and I started to walk down a different path. And I had a sense of urgency and desperation about going after my dreams.” RM’s gifts as a rapper, songwriter, and producer have been essential to BTS’s development, as have his wide-ranging intellectual interests. In an interview from his label’s headquarters, the artist formerly known as Rap Monster discussed whether BTS should be considered K-pop, the uniqueness of South Korean hip-hop, the highlights of the Most Beautiful Moment in Life era, and more.

You quoted the great abstract artist Kim Whan-ki recently: “I’m Korean, and I can’t do anything not Korean. I can’t do anything apart from this, because I am an outsider.” You said that was a key thing you’ve been thinking about lately. How does that idea apply to your work? So much of the pop and hip-hop I listened to came from America. But for me, as a Korean, I think we have our own characteristics and some kind of localized identity. I can’t really explain it very well, but there are some characteristics that we Koreans have, or maybe Eastern people. So we try to kind of combine those two things into one, and I feel that we created a new genre. Some may call it K-pop; some may call it BTS, or some Eastern-Western combined music, but I think that’s what we’re doing. If you think about the Silk Road in the past, there’s this idea of Eastern people and Western people meeting on some kind of, like, big road and maybe doing selling and buying of stuff. I think this story repeats itself, and some kind of new, interesting phenomenon is happening. We feel very honored to be existing in the very eye of this big hurricane.

There’s so much great Korean hip-hop, including your early heroes Epik High, who are still active. What did you hear in it early on, and what do you hear in it now? There’s always a process of when something new comes into another culture, where the identity gets transformed and it changes and adapts to this new place. Obviously, there are differences between Korea and the United States that affect the music. For example, Korea is not a multiethnic country like the United States. So there are different sensitivities that are underlying the music. Korean rappers of course have their own unique and different lyricism, their own situations and hardships that they fit into the process. As a Korean, obviously, these are the things that resonate with me.Obviously, there’s a saying there’s nothing new under the sun. So especially for people like us, in the margins of the world, so to speak, we think about how can we transform this and how can we make this our own. So these are the things that I think about when I try to balance the inspiration of Korean and American rappers. And, I think, now though, there’s a convergence of all genres of music. 

When BTS first started, there was this conflict in some people’s minds and in your own between the idea of being a rapper or being an idol, which we’d call a pop star. This is obviously something you’ve addressed in song. Maybe you can explain a little about that conflict and why it seemed so important at the time? When I was young, I wanted to be a writer of prose and poetry, and then I found rap. And a lot of what I wanted to do went into the music. And, yes, there was this idea of being a pure artist or a pure rapper. So in the beginning, it is true that when we were debuting as a pop act, there were times when I had to sort of reorganize my identity and then reflect on what my identity is. And at the beginning we didn’t see positive results. We didn’t have a lot of fans. We didn’t have great results. There were some times when we were mocked.

So it is true that it took some time for that identity to develop and settle itself. But, you know, whether it’s rap or pop music, or whatever it is, it is another method for me to show my mind and express my voice, and having that resonate with people. So a lot of that conflict resolved itself. And I think things today are very different from what they were like in 2013, because even though there’s still a lot of discussion about what is pure, what is authentic, what is sincere, what’s an artist, what’s a pop musician, those boundaries have become less and less meaningful. As long as I can show what I’ve written, it’s valid as the continuation of my dream and what I always wanted to do.

It feels like BTS really found itself around the time of Most Beautiful Moment of Life. That’s where everything came together. How do you look back on that time? Despite the name, Most Beautiful Moment in Life, that was actually a very tumultuous period for me and for us. There was the tough image we had in 2 Cool 4 Skool, in those early stages, a sort of exaggerated expression of toughness and that angst. And then we sort of slowed down a little bit and tried to express the emotions of young people who have really nothing more than dreams. It was a more honest sort of expression, and we witnessed how it was resonating with a lot of people.There was some confusion because this was something new, and we were showing ourselves to be more vulnerable, more delicate, which was very different. But we realized that it was meaningful, and as we went forward to the Love Yourself series, we started to discover that more and more as we continued.

I know that many fans don’t see BTS as part of K-pop. And you, yourselves, have said that “BTS is the genre.” How do you see it? That’s a very important debate. Because what they call K-pop, that genre is expanding very fast. For example, some so-called K-pop groups have only foreigners, from Europe, India, China, like, everywhere. There are no Korean members, but they do the K-pop thing, they’re switching the parts, and so on. BTS is expanding very fast as well. And K-pop is now so wide. Somebody could say that K-pop is for Koreans who sing a Korean song. That could be K-pop. But what about “Dynamite”? We sing the song in English. But we’re all Koreans, so somebody may say it’s a K-pop song. Or they may say it’s just a pop song, because it’s in English. But we don’t actually really care about whether people see us as inside or outside K-pop. The important fact is that we’re all Koreans, and we’re singing a pop song. So that’s the reason why we said that our genre is just BTS. That debate is very important for the music industry, but it doesn’t mean very much for us members.

What music really changed your idea of what’s artistically possible? I started with Nas, Eminem, the golden age of hip-hop. And the turning point was Drake, in 2009, when he released Thank You Later. That album was kind of shocking for me because it was kind of a freaky thing that a rapper actually sang. So after that a lot of rappers began to sing, deciding to put the melodies into their songs across the genres, between raps and melody. So, yeah, that was the moment.

When you rapped that your “shadow … is called hesitation,” what did you mean by that? It can be called hesitation or cautiousness, but, I think, there is a form of hesitation that prevents you from taking risks and prevents you from challenging yourself.

I know you motivated the members by saying that your grandkids might watch your Grammys performance someday. Is that something you think about often? It gives me a lot of goosebumps sometimes that our every moment leaves traces online where everyone can see them. So, yeah, I think that helps us keep motivated.

Some film actors have a saying, “Pain is temporary. Film is forever.” [Nods.] Life is short. Art is forever.

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