Rambling - Blog Posts

Aphmau Rewriter TRY NOT TO challenge: IMPOSSIBLE

Call your story or one of your chapters something like “Rebirth” “Reborn” or anything to do with reincarnation

Use canon ships only and don’t add any ship fulfillment this includes, Garrence, Garmau, Laurmau, etc.

Give characters more animal like traits, furry feet’s and arms, antlers, horns, large teeth.

trauma dumping and projecting onto the characters.

Oh yes, I’ve been thinking about it whole day. Actually it’s so interesting that even though it’s such an obvious parallel and it’s such an important parallel in Y and D relationship I’m so invested in Yashiro’s impotency as a symptom of his own psychological health and his process of healing and letting pieces of his trauma to his consciousness that the “one and only” trope in that aspect is completely secondary to me. Not even secondary but a play on that trope even. And Y’s reaction to Doumeki’s questions about it makes it even more evident. It’s not a revelation to him, it’s not about “getting together” after revealing the secret. It’s much more about the expectations which Yashiro seems to be so aware. I mean, he in a way seems to be aware of the trope (and that’s so amazingly meta). The whole conversation about his orgasms, his “body reactions” to Doumeki seems to sadden him. And I know it has many layers to it and the sadness also consists emotions and thoughts about Doumeki and their relationship but it seems mich more loaded and much more about being reduced to a body for the nth time. Also there seems to be a need even from Yashiro to be only his body. To trust it and even reduce himself to its reactions cause it would make things so much easier and he’s been doing that for such a long time that it’s a safe mechanism (“safe” meaning a coping mechanism which enable you to survive in a least painful way in your current circumstances). But he’s aware that he can’t do that. It’s not that simple and he’s too far in the process of processing trauma to ignore the internal conflict. To ignore every contradicting aspect in his emotional reactions and his bodily reactions to reduce it only to his relationship with Doumeki. It’s about himself. About his “inability to change” even though it’s such an evident symptom of healing. But he can’t be understood, he can’t satisfy even himself, he can’t be “a good slut”, he can’t be “Doumeki’s woman”, he can’t be neither. He’s stuck. As always stuck in-between space.

i'm aware that yashiro's inability to get an erection during and after the time skip is heavily playing into the whole "doumeki is the only one" narrative, but i don't think it's that simple

You mention polyamory in the tag of your previous ask but D made it clear that he doesn’t want that and doesn’t that matter? I don’t think Y genuinely wanted an open relationship either considering his reactions about d with other people.

it does matter that doumeki is monogamous and it's perfectly fine to want that type of relationship, i'm sure that in ideal circumstances that's what yashiro would want too. my issue is that it was never even discussed. well, not that there was ever a proper conversation about dating in general, so it's part of a bigger problem. like, yes, doumeki makes it very clear what he wants, right before having sex with yashiro that he never explicitly consents to. it's not really a "let's talk about how i can be with you in a meaningful way that works for us both", right? doumeki wants something and takes it, and that's the end of it. something to be said about how much that conversation revolves specifically around yashiro's body, too. it's always about the body at the end of the day. so, yeah, i'm not saying that polyamory would've fixed anything, it wouldn't actually work, but that's interesting in itself

regarding an open relationship, i meant it in a more one-sided way, where yashiro is still free to have sex with other men. "unfair", yes, not exactly healthy, but neither is what he and doumeki have currently. i guess to me this form of compromise just feels natural, considering everything. sex for yashiro isn't just about his physical needs after all. it's also about getting information or forming useful connections. body as a tool, body as a payment. i don't think it's a stretch to say that sex work is part of yashiro's yakuza work. then there's the whole question of how much of it he actually wants, how often it's not entirely up to him, how his feelings have nothing to do with it and so on. it's complicated, and i think if doumeki understood it even a little bit (which he doesn't) he would consider being with yashiro without demanding to be his only sexual partner, even if it would be hard for him. we're talking about a man who's willing to make (some) sacrifices and die for yashiro after all. but then again, dying for someone doesn't require understanding them, so i guess in a way it's easier

i agree that yashiro doesn't genuinely want an open relationship (in this case i mean one where they both sleep with other people), but i do think that if it came to that he'd be able to make this work. as much as it hurts him to see doumeki with other people, he doesn't lash out on him for that and usually just distances himself to try work things out. it's very different from how doumeki reacts and acts on his feelings. even when yashiro's cornered and actually expresses his anger and frustration, he still agrees that it's none of his business who doumeki has sex with when asked directly instead of snapping at him for the hypocrisy. so again, i agree that an open relationship is not ideal and not something either of them genuinely want, but i do think that with enough effort and communication yashiro would be able to make it work if it came to that. doumeki wouldn't, thought

What are books but a fanfiction of reality?

Older Disney movies, too.

They were heavy on the marriage trope, as well...

I have mixed feelings 😭🙏

I have mixed feelings about Gojo coming back. 😭

If he came back:

it’s like, fuck yeah, kings back. We all love him. He has so many people he could save. Plus so many people care about him.

but then it’s like

now he’s probably in the afterlife with Geto 😭 he might finally have found peace and is happy. Plus literally almost everyone he cares about is dead, so like 👀.

Man why do these new chapters have to be so sad?! 😭

mixed feelings all around guys

☁️☁️☁️

I wonder how many eras of Earth's natural history have been completely lost just because they didn't make a visible mark on the planet.

I wonder how many species have been forever lost to time only because they never fossilized or left behind and traces of their existence.

Who knows what incredible, terrifying, or seemingly alien forms of life once called this planet home, that we'll never know once existed?

Ancient life is incredible. It makes me sad to know that so many species of flora and fauna and everything in between will never be known. Things so odd they seem straight out of movies.

Life and evolution are just so incredible, and deserve so much more appreciation than they get.

There's like, so many things I wanna do in life.

I want to find fossils and prep them for display.

I want to write a children's book.

I want to make my own comic.

I want to write my own novels.

I want to try voice acting.

I want to try acting acting.

I want to make ceramics.

Why does there have to be so many interesting things you can do in life, so many things that I wanna try, but I still can't settle on an actual career???

The thought that dinosaurs and other prehistoric life forms were at one point truly alive and roaming the earth and just behaving no different from any other living thing today just makes me so happy.

I don't even know if happy is the right word, I just couldn't possibly describe the type of amazement I get from thinking about it, I can't put words to it.

Like, these were real living creatures, they aren't from fantasy or mythology.

They breathed and ate and slept and did all sorts of normal animal things, because they were normal! Not some bloodthirsty monsters, they just did what they had to to survive, just like modern day animals.

Looking at the fossils I have in my collection and really thinking about it just amazes me. My little fish, at one point, was swimming around in the water with all the other fish, except this was millions of years ago. It's a little piece of the past, frozen in time, letting people today have even just the smallest glimpse of things that happened so long ago that we'd otherwise have no idea about.

It just, amazes me that at one point, all these creatures that, by comparison to today's life, are so strange or creepy or alien or whatever were once just the norm. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary to see a huge beast of a reptile looming ominously in a forest, or a flying creature far more deadly looking than today's birds of prey soaring through the air, or just, whatever the hell was going on in the Cambrian period, and it was all normal.

I know I'm just repeating myself a lot but wow I just get all sorts of feelings when I think about this stuff

Fuck man the past is so cool

oh no tucker slavery and dictatorship is bad

right lol i just watched like 4 eps of dp it was nice

danny n val were so cute in flirting with disaster like might be my fav ship so far. i just like their vibes and all the identity stuff going on. also val got a winx transformation hell yeah. i like the black belt martial arts badass vigilante x some dude dynamic too haha. val's new suit is kinda meh tho, the old one was cuter. i think i just don't like how her face is like, visible in the new one. like i get that it makes showing her expressions easier but she just looked really cool with the faceless evil helmet

sam is cool, i like sam

ngl with the name 'micro management' i thought it would be a jazz episode, but instead it had that guy. he's eh, bullies suck. sometimes he has his good moments but like the whole asshole thing really overshadows them.

i hope that fuckass creep prince guy died or something. double died. like why is bro looking for a bride in a SCHOOL. welp dorathea overthrew him so that's cool. dorathea is a sick name, don't know if i'm spelling it right tho. sam looked sick riding a dragon in that outfit

don't you just hate it when your bffs aren't listening to you so now you gotta become a tyrant and enslave the whole school and make them build the sphynx

lol i hated that episode just because of the embarrassment like damn. i get why tucker was mad abt nobody listening to him tho that looked annoying.

'who the hell is wes'

killed me. also from what i know wes is like a fandom-wide oc, i guess this is how he got his name? lmao

ooh next ep is called 'masters of all time' sounds fun, i like time related stuff

eugh i should really watch the new mlb season im falling behind

finished this thing finally it was annoying

random ass items like that bread did NOT last, pretty sure the chess club always ate it so it was replaced with a new loaf every time i came? The eggs kept moving, at some point they disappeared. The wooden shoes thingies were a pain and i also drew one of them with the lights off cuz the other clubmates were doing something with a projector so then they turned the lights on and i got jumpscared lmao. Oh and the wheat and the metal curvy knife thing also moved a lot. Now that i look back on it tho the knife thing was like extremely rusty i prolly should've made it brown instead of vaguely blue. I like how the metal cup turned out tho! Kinda made me realise i should use more water cuz what the hell. Bread looks kinda moldy but it prolly was irl so that's accurate. It was actually way greener before i slightly changed the colours last minute.

I did NOT like painting the eggs. The colours were so off and the shadows were so weird and the shape was a pain but it turned out okay i think.

Ugh i need gouache paintbrushes. Like at home i only have watercolor ones and it's a pain using gouache with those. At the club obvi there are all the brushes you need tho lol

My volume button on my phone is broken. It's annoying.

Metal cup's my fav part here. White cloth least fav.

Also the photo's kinda shitty it's all a bit blurred oof.

oh i watched the fright before christmas yesterday

that one's my favourite now actually

I really really really really hate it when a character gets accused of something they didn't do with a bunch of evidence like i hate it, but in this ep the rhymes almost distracted me from that lol. i liked the rhymes

and all the ghosts having a christmas truce and working together was so cute like omg??? i love it when a hero teams up with their enemy haha

oh and ghostwriter's the coolest like

1. sick powers

2. sick outfit

3. valid crash out

4. kinda actually taught danny a lesson? like that was genuinely his goal instead of just beating him up for shits and giggles

i mean it's not cool that he broke the christmas truce i guess but danny was highkey being shitty like imagine just finally finishing a whole book only for some random kid to come over and destroy all your work like that?? and then not even feel bad abt it???

LOVED the rhymes

oh and i watched the secret weapon ep too it was nice. i love jazz.

also vlad should appear more often i love watching him get destroyed by a teenager. they should bully him more. the "no. not surprised." note was amazing

i’ve been thinking about The Lamb’s life before being sacrificed and Yaelokre’s newest song is not stopping the voices😍

The hills were left quiet

And I am in hiding

They've forgotten, they've forgotten

I do not want to see

I could hear and that's enough

The clashing of the hoards

Hoof by hoof, horn by horn

Raging song and an encore

The moment i heard the lyrics , lamb lore been upon ye

so here’s what i’ve cooked:

I could barеly speak

I could only hum a tune

And with that I am met

With a chorus I am soon

Sought and safе behind a wing

I’ve been thinking about making my Lamb non-verbal ( from trauma)but from time to time when they’re comfortable likes to sing; reminiscing their tribe’s love for music and singing.

I’ve been wanting to make my au(? (it’s more of a self-indulged personal portrayal of COTL ) music themed , with the lamb’s cult having the same cultural love for music as their late tribe.

And since i’m a hardcore Narilamb shipper, i want to incorporate that theme into their relationship too. So their love language would be singing to each other (Although on the death cat’s part he’s more reluctant ). And that last lyric is obvi talking about Nari lol.

Next:

My farewells to the fields

To the man made of straws

To my name

To the hills

Oh man okay

So being the last of your kind is not easy ( shocker ik) and being shoved into a prophecy where you become a tool that brings divine beings down isn’t easier.

And coming with the terms that the old life you had ; everything and everyone you’ve known is gone forever. You’re no longer in front of the sea your village resides next to or in the bright meadow anymore.

Now, you’re facing death constantly. Taking care of an entire civilization that’s devoted to your “savior”, The betrayed brother of your murderers. Any misstep and the flock is against you. 

Now, you’re a symbol of power and faith to your nation,a useful tool to a wronged god to use for getting his revenge & glory back , a bringer of death and destruction to the bishops of the old faith and their followers , a graceful and undaunted beast with unwavering determination to everyone.

You are the last sheep,

You are The Lamb

I'm really bad at leaving comments because I'm always super worried about not having a lot to say or coming off a little too excited. But I saw something similar to this post that made me more willing to put in at least a minimal effort to thank the author for their work and a little bit about what I liked. I don't write, and what little art I make rarely gets put out there, so I didn't really fully understand how encouraging little comments like that are to artists.

TLDR: Encourage your favorite writers/artists to do what they do. Make an effort to interact with their work and let them know what it made you think about. Insightfulness is contagious :)

how to have a healthier relationship with your stats page

1. Understand what stats can tell you - and what they can’t

AO3 stats tell you whether or not another user clicked something. That’s it. Hits tell you whether a user clicked the title of your fic. Kudos tell you that a user clicked the little ❤ at the bottom of the page. Comments tell you that a user typed something into a box and then hit the comment button. 

Stats do not tell you why a person did any of those things. They also don’t tell you why a person didn’t do them. You know why you do those things yourself, but there are many types of people in the world and we all have our reasons why we do things. You can’t assume that every other user of AO3 uses the site the same way you do. 

Stats are not a reliable way to find out if you’re good at writing. They’re not a way to tell if you are loved. They have nothing to do with the quality of your work or your worth as a person.

2. Don’t compare yourself to others - or yourself

Because stats are not a reliable way to judge quality or skill or the effort you put into a story, comparing your stats against another author will also not tell you which of you is the “better” author or which of you has a “better” story. They can tell you which story was more popular, but popularity itself has very little to do with skill or quality. 

This is also true of your own work. Chances are very real that the story you’re most proud of is not the story with the best stats. Don’t let one story’s relative success or failure affect how you feel about another’s. 

3. Focus on things you can control instead of things you can’t

Once you’ve posted your story, the reaction to it is out of your control. It will get however many hits, kudos, and comments other people decide to give it and you can’t do much about that at all. 

What you can control, however, is the work you put into the story before you post it. Celebrate statistics like word count or time spent writing or the number of WIP you’ve managed to finish. Those are all numbers that are in your control, that you have the power to alter and affect. 

Find something in every story that makes you happy. It doesn’t have to be the whole fic. It could be one particular characterization, a scene, or a line. Maybe you wrote a particularly funny joke or a really moving description or a hot love scene. 

Highlighting positive emotions and being proud of your own work will make you less reliant on the opinions of other people. You’ll develop more confidence, and that will help you avoid the stats spiral in the future. Finding motivations inside of yourself is much more reliable than getting motivation from people who might or might not continue to provide it.

4. If you can’t ignore stats, avoid them

The first time I had an unhealthy relationship with my stats page, I ended up quitting fic entirely for about a year. I still wrote, I just didn’t post anything on AO3. I couldn’t trust myself not to focus on the numbers and make myself crazy, and so I didn’t allow myself to look at them at all. 

The second time I found myself starting down the stats spiral, I knew the signs and I was able to pull myself out of it. I stopped looking at my stats page, but I was able to continue posting work. I still refreshed the page for the first day to see the hits/kudos/comments but after that first day I only returned to the fic in order to post a new chapter or answer another comment. 

There are tools you can use to help you avoid stats. This AO3 skin hides stats entirely. This code hides hits. Here’s one for hiding kudos with additional instructions on how to hide any stats you choose. 

5. Be your own cheerleader

When it comes right down to it, the reason why we focus in on stats is because we’re looking for reassurance. We want to know for sure whether we’re a good writer or not. Unfortunately, our stats are never going to tell us that. 

A lot of us are also told by others that being proud of something we’ve done or liking something that we’ve created is boastful or bragging or other negative personality traits. But there’s a difference between bragging about how good you are and acknowledging your own skills. 

Give yourself permission to like your own work. You might never get that permission from someone else, so you need to take that on yourself. 

Start talking to yourself the way you’d talk to a friend of yours who was working on a fic or a piece of art or doing anything else that requires time and skill. You wouldn’t tear them down, so don’t tear yourself down. Build yourself up. That positive self-talk can be difficult at first, but it’s a habit that pays off over time. 

6. Know that I’m proud of you

It takes courage and strength and determination to have an idea and then to act on it. It’s easy to think. It’s a lot harder to write things down. No matter whether you post your story online or you keep it to yourself. No matter whether you get a thousand hits or a dozen. You’re still amazing, and I’m so glad you took that leap ❤

Circumstances.

So, back in…. May. The 17th or 18th thereof. The laptop I was using hit the loading screen singularity. It booted to an error message. I could restart, and get the same error message, or I could try to run recovery, watch it fail, then restart.

So geared up in my informal hazmat-lite disposable attire, I stepped out of the front door of my little Fortress of Crazitude, and went inside the house, where the functional human beings live, to use a laptop there.

Searching for something I liked was going to take a while. In that strange Before Time, when people went outside without being masked, Dad zipped out and kindly got for me the cheapest laptop he could find.

Now I could begin my search in earnest.

Starting with the gaming rigs. Hideous, hideous, awkard design (that was hideous). The closest to what I was looking for was an Alienware model… that was hideous, and came with something called Tobii eye-tracking. I don’t want my computer staring at me. Plus, this was a gimmick, I don’t play the kind of intense shooters where every picosecond counts.

I kept looking.

I found a laptop marketed as a ‘desktop replacement’. Just the sort of thing I wanted. Something with the power of a desktop, but without needing me to do a major cleaning job to find space for it, and/or rig up something to hold a monitor where I wanted it? Perfect.

So I looked around, a place in the US, it had them in stock, and they would even customize it. Great, a bigger hard-drive! Okay the thing needed two power-bricks to work, which would be a hassle, but I could live with that.

In the meantime, the budget laptop could just about run an older version of Minecraft… as long it was on the server my bff’s hurricane child had dragged me onto, I could make do.

I made my order. ……….

3 weeks passed. I heard nothing from them. Okay, the world is in chaos, I expected some delays. Still, I wanted at least some idea for how much longer I would be making ersatz icepacks to keep my new little laptop from overheating from the overworking I was currently giving it, even as I did my best to cut down on my usual habits to lessen strain on it’s CPU.

I sent in a request for an update. “Oh yeah, turns out we didn’t actually have one in stock”. So how long till they could get one? “Oh they’re discontinued. How about one of these?”

All the ‘these’ were ones I’d looked at and already discounted. Wait, here’s one on eBay, how I about I send it to you, and you upgrade that one? I’ll pay the extra shipping fees.

“Oh no, we wouldn’t be able to honor a warranty on that.”

My domain is the black hole of electronics. Once it’s in here, it won’t leave again. My OCD means I cant have something sent out to be repaired and have it sent back. Once it’s here, it’s here. I tried to explain this, and said I would waive any rights to a warranty. It would be the most expensive idiot tax I’d ever paid, but I was willing to pay it.

June passed and I heard nothing.

Time to look again. I had toyed with the idea of a custom rig from another place in the US, but, oh, the price tag. And the wait time. …Mainly the price tag. Okay, major purchase for me, and I was going to crack open my savings. But still, I’m on a pension.

Okay, another look, see if I can find anywhere in Australia. More cash could be spent on the laptop itself and not the insane international shipping tool.

I found a place. Custom configurations, in a shell that isn’t painful to look at.

Could it be?

I checked some reviews. Chunky…. I like a bit of heft to a device. Besides, it wasn’t going to be doing a lot of moving anyway. 1-2 metres on average at best. Fans can get loud…. that means they’re working. I can get a headset if I need it.

Ooh, and they have a sale on too. I consult with in-house tech support. I’m told I can get the hard-drives cheaper elsewhere, and another M2 memory stick, then put them in myself.

Sweet, more cash to spend on the graphics card and CPU. Not quite top-tier, but heck, I hadn’t been running any of my games on the old laptop at full graphics settings anyway. No dvd drive though, but every other maker seems to have dispensed with those as well. Oh well, it’s not like I used those much anyway, and I can always get an external one.

And it only needs the one power brick.!

Better specs than the discontinued model, I can max out on hard-drive space and have a second M2 drive just for my games, with plenty of room!

Before the end of June, I make my order.

I find a big hard-drive, a good sized M2 stick, and even an external usb enclosure for the hard drive I pulled out of the blue-screened purgatory.

July, that place in the US actually mails me back. Since I was willing to waive a warranty, they might be able to source a model off eBay. Ship has sailed, I’ve found me something nicer, and I’ve picked out the extra drives for it.

A few days later, the new place emails me. They’re having delays, but we have a new range out which will be coming in sooner, here are the stats, we can switch you over to one of those?

I forward the stats to tech support. Nope, the hard drive you got in anticipation won’t fit. New place “hmm, that’s true, we’ll do our best to keep you updated”.

They do, and and my order’s been put in priority for assemblage.

As August gets into gear, my new workhorse arrives, and the poor beleaguered budget laptop can retire to light browsing duty.

Only the big hard drive I got? Turns out it’s fat ass can’t fit in the drive bay. Oops. But with the help of tech support, I found an external enclosure that will fit it, so I have a roomy and easy to use backup device.

And then I stripped the head on the screw holding in the M2 memory. And the other slot, that requires a lot more work to get to. But I’m already wiped from the ordeal, the files on the now external drives run fine, and I still have plenty of room on the drive. I can wait for the sales, and pick up some (carefully dimension-checked) drives then. (This beast will hold 2 standard hard drives!) and get around to putting in the second M2 stick.

And that concludes this chapter of Crazy Shut-in Searches for Their Dream Laptop.

Argh.

And like a dumbass, I didn’t bookmark http://acetechnologist.tumblr.com and my brain can’t hold information well, so I had to spend a while finding it again. I was in the mood to re-read some of the reactioncaps, only to find I didn’t have it in my bookmarks. I like the reactioncaps, it actually got me motivated enough to finally watch through Kuuga- allthough it was something of an adventure finding the fansubs for it. Still, I’m glad it got me to finally watch it though. -Although ‘Odagiri effect’? Shouldn’t that be ‘Katsurayama effect’? Ichijo is where the real hotness is at. <3 As for lately, finally took a look at some Agito. Got through 12 episodes so far. Was thinking of looking at the reactioncaps for it to help put me in the mood to tackle some more eps, only to find out, no bookmark.

That’s the downside of keeping everything open in tabs. Circumstances happen, and everything disappears, and you realize there were a lot of things you should have bookmarked, but didn’t. Anyway, at least I’ll have more context for the fanfics. Yes, I read fanfic for series I haven’t seen yet. Some things, I do backwards. ....and some things I do in such an out-of-order fashion it goes beyond comprehension.

Well it can’t be called an FAQ...

More a combination of OAQ, possibly RAQ and ANAQ...

Occasionally Asked Question, Rarely Asked Question and Almost Never Asked Question.

Rare/Occasional: Gnarynhar?

Well, my preferred handle of Thordis is usually taken. Most people then go for adding a number, but, I just don’t like that, I need something I can resonate to, and a number just doesn’t work for me. I have sometimes used AusThordis, but that feels like too much work.

And Gnarynhar is easier?!

Well, no. (It is one letter shorter though!) And it’s a couple of noises of frustration put together, slightly altered and put into letters, but it’s something I made myself, so the resonance I want is there. Usually shortened to Gnar or Gnary by others,,,, it is a bit of a mess to type, I know. The ‘G’ is, well sort of silent, it’s there to twist your mouth as you pronounce the ‘n’ to get the right sound. Nyarr-nn-haarr.

Not easy to spell, not easy to remember, not even my first choice. But it’s mine, and... at least it’s never taken.

Almost Never: Professional Crazy?

I am on a disability support pension, heck I qualified for it back when I was, frankly, better than I am right now. I reason it out thusly: I am crazy. I get money for being crazy. Therefore I am a professional crazy.

My psychiatrist has said I’m not crazy, and I’m not saying having OCD = being crazy. In the end, it’s how I choose to self identify. Read Mara Wilson's article on OCD on Cracked.com Point 2 is where this comes into play.

Looking back into my childhood before the OCD developed, I can see at least one thing I did and say “Yeah, that was OCD right there.” But beyond that, I was always that extra bit different from other kids my age. Hitting (and mostly finishing puberty in primary school rather than in high school like everyone else also contributed to some of my quirks.)

Also, I seem to approach some things differently than most people. I took psychology as an elective in high school, and when I left high school, in the adult ed classes I took as an alternative. I’d be saying something in class, and the teacher was always cutting me off, saying I was off topic.

As far as I was concerned I was on topic, she just never let me finish, so I could show what I was saying did tie into the discussion. I was just approaching things from such an oblique angle, no-one saw the connection I was trying to make.

Plus my social skills were never the best, and towards the end of primary school I was starting to isolate myself. Then in high school, well my friends all went to a different school, and I was left with a combination of people I knew from primary school and didn’t get along with, mixed with strangers that mostly wanted to pick on me. I didn’t have friends in high school, I had acquaintances that occasionally weren’t interested in making my life hell.

So what little social skills I had atrophied, and as I moved closer and closer to my current housebound state, they withered even further. I see myself not only as an introvert, but shy. And for many years I really was. My classmates in TAFE did not see things the same way. But that’s because if I do feel comfortable enough to start a conversation, I tend to verbally hold people down and talk at them until they run away or beg for mercy.

Social interaction is important, Terry Pratchett put it something like “people need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society”. I, barely even watch tv anymore.

Roping that tangent back to it’s origin of crazy. It’s also a shorthand I use with my family. Anything related back to my OCD, requests, restrictions, explanations, instead of a long, frustrating explanation they know they’ll never fully ‘get’, it’s easier to just say “It’s a crazy thing.” and move on.

Sometimes it’s more of a discussion, with them offering suggestions, most of the time, I’ve already considered what’s been brought up. Other times, they can add that little piece I’m missing.... for a problem that by all rights shouldn’t exist. -I feel ‘crazy’ is an apt term.

I start with a simple question, and I produce another stream-of-consciousness wall-of-text attack. At least I paragraph it? ....time to look up how to put this under a cut.

ok ok ok so recently i've been playing through the ace attorney games (i haven't started three yet but i remember most of the plot bc of the anime) and for some reason i wanted to take a shot at what an "accurate" no DL-6 AU would look like! I just think it's interesting to see what might've actually happened if DL-6 never happened bc DL-6 is kinda the major butterfly effect in the AA world. Idk if i wanna make this an actual AU or just a ramble on how the series would be completely different without DL-6 lmao. We'll see! Maybe you guys decide :D anyway MAJOR AA TRILOGY SPOILERS AHEAD

I'll start with the characters. Gregory Edgeworth would still be alive, Miles would become a defense attorney & work with his father at his law firm. Phoenix would most likely pursue his artist career. Narumitsu/Wrightworth tbh would still happen bc they need to be canon PLEASE CAPCOM. Just that there would be no rivalry.

Anyway the Dahlia case would've been so different but also kinda the same without DL-6. It was because of DL-6 that Misty Fey left Kurain Village and Mia also left to become a defense attorney. Without Mia, it would've most likely only been Diego Armando taking on the first Dahlia case with Terry Fawles. Fawles would probably still commit suicide, and I believe Diego still would've investigated Dahlia further & gotten poisoned by her, but without Mia becoming a defense attorney & being killed by Redd White in 1-2, Diego would've never had a reason to become Godot so he probably would've stayed as a defense attorney. Furthermore, without Mia it most likely would've been Miles taking Phoenix as a client in 3-1 bc childhood friends never losing touch bc no DL-6 (you get the point lmfao).

Like, I think about maybe half the cases in the original trilogy would've NEVER happened if DL-6 never happened bc we would've never met Mia or Maya or Pearl, Yanni Yogi wouldn't need to take out his revenge, Von Karma wouldn't have been arrested, Franziska would've never wanted revenge so she most likely would've never come to Japanifornia, I think the only person that would never change is fucking LARRY and that's honestly the craziest part LMAO.

agh i'm getting kinda tired bc it's late so i'll probably finish this ramble tomorrow. there's so much I wanna talk about but my mind is going at like 1000 mph so I need to get my thoughts together lmfao

TLDR: DL-6 is the butterfly effect for the entire ace attorney world & many of the characters we know and love wouldn't even exist/be introduced if it weren't for it.

EDIT: removed the censor for suicide bc apparently tumblr is weird and idk how it works (please be nice ab me making mistakes next time I didn’t appreciate you guys basically yelling at me)

It’s the fact when I told some of my cousins about this band who I‘m close to, and despite me directly saying their faceless, they don’t want who they are to be publicly known, even though it’s out there on the Internet the first thing they did was look up who they are. Another family member did the same when I told them I listened to a Japanese artist named Ado. Her face has been leaked and she hates it. But despite her being faceless and hating the fact that her identity was leaked being the first thing I said, when talking about her, they googled literally ‘Ado face’.

To them for some reason the fact that I can enjoy music without knowing exactly what the person who makes it looks like is illogical and weird. I listen to predominantly faceless artists and a lot of the creators I watch are faceless as well. It pisses me off that such a basic thing as ‘I don’t want people to know what I look like’ is taken as an insult and a challenge.

Like the Internet is a scary place when you’re a little blog who nobody knows anything about who can just scroll around, however you want. Let the people who do blow up stay as anonymous as you can be when you have five followers, and all of them are one of your friends who just has a lot of alts.

caramel hits like a truck.

vessel is clearly grateful for everything he achieved and the fanbase that came with it. but there is a bitter taste to it. there always is.

"I try not to talk about how it's harder now."

because he doesn't want to sound ungrateful, but hell. it feels like hell. instead of clearly stating that it's the toxic "fans" that are the problem, he projects the problem unto himself:

"I guess that's what I get for hiding in the limelight

Guess that's what I get for having 20/20 hindsight."

but this almost sounds sarcastic. because that's what people have been telling him and the rest of the band. "well, if you want to stay anonymous, people will get curious. it's your own fault that you think staying anonymous in a digital age is possible."

and that is the fucking point. people can just decide not to engage and not feel entitled to know everything about this collective and the mind behind it. people can just decide to respect other's privacy and not be arseholes about it.

but it never gets better. the breakdown just perfectly summarises the dilemma for him because he is a musician, he loves crafting the lore and everything around it. but at what cost?

"In these days of days

I wish it all away

I thought things had changed

But everything's the same."

success is sweet and feels great, you are high like from sweets. sweets like caramel. but it leaves a bitter taste.

like burnt caramel.

A more literal interpretation of Jevil's "freedom" (also some rambling)

The last post I did on Jevil- I talked about how his "freedom" could be like a sort of "inner freedom." He is trapped physically, but free from the contraints of responsibility, society, morality, etc. Now, I think that mindset is exactly the thing that led him to do whatever he did to get imprisoned, but the freedom he talks about in game might be a different thing entirely.

The thing that got me thinking about that is a video by halfbreadchaos. (I forgot the specific video but check them out- they make great stuff) They led me to notice the fact that Jevils prison is very oddly positioned, and the entire "???" floor area as a whole is really strange as well.

The room itself looks eerily similar to that first area we wake up in on chapter 1. The creepy atmosphere, the color of the floors (kinda), and the torches are literally the same as the ones found in that pre-castle town area. The entire place looks so incredibly different from the rest of the card castle. The walls and surrounding area don't even seem to be like... there. Like it's some sort of abyss. Like the entire room is out of bounds of something.

Jevil's cell/room shares a very similar vibe in that aspect as well. On the outside, the bars just seem to lead into nothing. And even on the inside, It just looks... wrong. The spinning carousel thing is so different from anything else in the game. I mean, toby said it's made out of 2D parts, but it's obviously supposed to look kinda 3D. The characters aren't even standing on the thing properly. Even behind the carousel, it's just more nothingness.

____

Now, let's look at Jevils dialogue directly.

"BUT I'M FAST, FAST, CLEVER, CLEVER." "THEY LOST THE CHASE, AND LOCKED UP THEIR ENTIRE RACE." "BUILDING A PRISON AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD. NOW I'M THE ONLY FREE ONE." Ralsei: "But you're clearly the one behind bars..." "THINGS DON'T SEEM SUCH FROM HERE LIGHTNERS!"

Looking at this completely literally, this is what we can gather: The guards and/or Seam chased him around, but he was too fast and clever for them. They somehow decided to build a prison around the dark world and trapped everyone behind bars, making Jevil the only free one. This is obviously not the case. If we try to fit this interpretation into what we know about the dark world and Jevil's situation... it uh, kinda looks like he's joking about how it looks like everybody is trapped because he's looking at them through bars.

But that answer is pretty boring, isn't it? There is obviously a lot more we can read into the dialogue. Jevil is shown to speak with a certain bit of abstractness. This analysis is supposed to be a more literal interpretation, but it's clear we need to look a little more deeper than that.

____

Let's take what I brought up before the dialogue, along with some other points.

Jevil's prison is very clearly separated from the rest of the dark world. Hell, maybe even the rest of the game with how odd it is.

Jevil talks about how everybody else is trapped, and he is the only "free" one.

This freedom doesn't exactly seem to be "inner freedom," as he directly connects his prison with this "freedom" by inviting us "outside" when we use the key on the door.

They way he doesn't elaborate any further when we do enter his room, and because the characters don't seem to have like, any sudden revelations or something inside of the room, leads me to believe that it's that inherent oddness, that separation from the "normal" part of the game that Jevil is finding freedom in.

Nobody in the world of Deltarune technically has automony over their choices. Every single choice, every event, is because of the plot. All of these people are characters in a video game, able to be manipulated by higher forces on a whim. Gaster/the mysterious entity made Jevil realize this and drove him insane with the knowledge.

Now, Jevil doesn't actively dispise that fact like Spamton does. He might almost relish in it- as he did go on that "NOTHING MATTERS EVERYTHING IS A SIMULATION! UEEHEEHEE!!!" rampage that caused so much chaos.

But then he faced the consequences of his actions. His own coworker/quite possibily a good friend locked him up in this dark, creepy place far, far below where the regular prisoners are supposed to go. And it all felt quite... stupid.

"Look at all those little people, obediently following the rules of this worthless world. They don't realize, don't they? They've simply placed another peice in the great game being set up by the higher beings. They're just walking themselves closer and closer into their eventual end. It's almost as if... they're trapping themselves. Building a prison around all of them, allowing themselves to be puppeteered by the people who control the world.

Hah! I'm quite clever, aren't I? Thanks to what I've done, I've been relagated as even lesser than a side character, sitting in a little haven tucked away from the influences of the outside world... No, I'm the one looking from the outside this time. I'm the only one here who truly understands, aren't I? But it's not my job to enlighten such fools. I'll be content watching from the backseat as the chaos unfolds..."

___

I, uh... didn't mean to write a fanfic- but I'm pretty sure that's Jevil's mindset. He fully accepts this messed up world he's inside, but he defnitely wouldn't mind if he was granted a little more freedom. And somehow... that's what he got. As a secret boss, he's... basically fully separated from the main story, but his presence is still enough to make it clear he exists in the world.

He's "free" in a much more literal sense than I intially thought. After all, isn't being that pedestrian on the streets who (hopefully) doesn't get caught in the crossfire of the MC's the best freedom any story could give?

Some spamton art and rambling

Spamton is a very interesting character. Anybody who had payed attention to Deltarune after chapter 2 would know this. And his sheer popularity makes sense. His odd way of speaking, the perfect mix of quirkiness and terrifying insanity, the tragic backstory. The elements are all there to make a insanely well written character. But uh- I'm not here to gush about how good of a character Spamton is. (I mean, technically I am) I'm here to look at his character specifically through the lens of him being a spam bot.

Despite what the addisons said about Spamton being "like the rest of us," I think Spamton always was meant to be a little different. The way his appearance is very similar to the addisons but not quite the same - I'm pretty sure his marketing tactics followed the same principle. Whether it was because he was simply a bit more pushy with his advertisements, or that there was something a bit unnerving about his character even before gaster/the mysterious entity came into play, I'm sure there was a reason the customers ignored him. Just like how people ignore real life spam emails. They're annoying, unsafe, weird, stupid. Spamton was always meant to be ignored. To be that one email guy popping up at people with advertisements on the streets. People just DON'T LIKE SPAM.

Then the mysterious entity came into Spamton's life. Somehow, defying all logic, they made spam emails popular. They made Spamton popular. But they also gave him knowledge on the nature of their world. That everything is controlled by the plot and other such unseen forces, and that nobody can truly make their own decisions in this world. With this, Spamton knew his popularity really wasn't supposed to have happened in the first place, but everybody already loved him, (well, the addisons left him- but that was just because they were jealous! He didn't need them!) and he'd ride the wave as high as it'd take him.

But it all came crashing sooner than even Spamton expected. Without the entity's help, the world corrected itself, and everybody went right back to hating spam emails. Spamton would go back to being that forgetful email guy. No, it was even worse now. At least back then he had some people that were friendly to him. Now... he had nobody. He didn't even have a house.

He was always meant to be this way, wasn't he? No matter how hard he tried, the world simply wouldn't let him be a big shot. Spamton absolutely hated that. He wanted to fight back against this cruel world. Now, he didn’t just want his popularity back, he wanted freedom. To escape the confines of this story and his role as a personified spam bot, to become something… more. To truly become a [BIG SHOT]!

But that didn’t change the fact he was still a spam bot. And what do spam bots do? They just keep sending emails to as many people as possible, just in the off chance somebody will click that link. That’s exactly what Spamton does to try to gain his freedom. He latched on to a ray of hope- that robot in the basement- and repeatedly attempted to sneak inside the queens mansion to get to it without regard for exactly how good his plans are, in the vain hope one of those attempts would succeed at one point. He just kept trying. Over and over and over… slowly losing his mind even more in the process. There is evidence that he tries multiple times to get inside the basement, with Sweet Cap’n Cakes mentioning a “funny little man” asking them for help to sneak in the mansion, and Swatch mentioning an impersonator- which is probably Spamton. Which uh… the image of the tiny dude dressing up as this huge bird guy and thinking it’s a clever enough disguise to get past everybody in the mansion in a funny thought- but kinda sad at the same time. Seriously- did Spamton really think there was a chance that’d work??? But I digress.

Even with his repeated unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate the mansion- there was one attempt that worked. When Kris and the player came into the picture. But even with the help of a lighter and a literal god-being on his side helping him with his plan… he still failed. That neo robot didn’t do anything for his situation. He was still trapped. And so he turned against Kris, and by extension the player, in a last ditch attempt to get his freedom. That was what fully solidified his utter failure. He was going against us. But even if he hadn’t attempted to fight the player, he would’ve have failed in any other attempt anyways.

From the very moment Spamton decided to oppose the rules of this video game world, to try to become something more than a spam bot, he was destined to fail. Even if he managed to get Kris’s soul. Even if he somehow became as powerful as Asriel in undertale, he still wouldn’t get the freedom he wants. Because he is a character in a video game, and he will never become anything more than that.

An analysis of the funny lil gremlin:

Jevil is a pretty facinating character. He's gotten obviously overshadowed by characters like Spamton. Which is justified as Jevil played an admittedly insignificant role on the plot of chapter 1 and was more confined to his role as a "secret boss" than Spamton, who did play SOME role in the plot (even though he kinda barged into it) and had a much more fleshed out backstory than Jevil. Though the clown man does play a pretty important role in the bigger picture of the game by introducing the theme of freedom in characters other than Kris, and setting the predecent of future secret bosses exploring said themes of freedom.

Jevil's whole "I'm the only one free and everybody else is the one trapped" thing is kinda odd, but it starts to make sense when you really think about it. Gaster, or whoever it was that drove him to insanity most likely gave him some degree of knowledge of the nature of Deltarune. (Or at least a bit MORE knowledge, as even regular darkners seem to be a little aware that their world works on video game logic- ie. the tutorial puzzle guys- Lancer and his sign telling you not to take the darkfruit) This is a videogame. With main characters, npc's, and a set storyline everything is supposed to follow. Everybodies actions are dictated by the plot, the creators, (toby fox) and everything in this world isn't even for the darkners or the lightners. Everything is just for the convinience and enjoyment of some otherworldly being. (the player) Nobody can choose their own fate in this world. Nothing anybody does truly matters because the story will find SOME way to keep going. (take the weird route as a prime example of that)

This knowledge obviously broke Jevil, but his mind rationalized it in an extremely strange way. If nothing he does matters, than that means he could technically do anything. There are no consequences. At least to him. This is what he means by "being free." He is free from the limitations of society, responsibility, morality. This, of course, led to him doing whatever he did to get himself thrown into prison. A prison separated from even the ones in the normal basement.

Though, even faced with obvious consequences, Jevil was way too deep in his insanity. Being stuck in a prison alone defnitely didn't help his mental state either. That's part of what makes Jevil scary in my opinion. He's somebody with absolutely no restraints. He has absolutely nothing to lose and nothing to gain from fighting you. He just does it because he's desperate for SOMETHING to happen after probably years of being stuck and alone.

He represents the joker card (I mean it's pretty obvious, but is there anything actually confirming he's the joker card?) pretty well, with all that said. Obviously there's the whole thing of "being abandoned," as typically for most card games, (there are actually games that require the joker card) the joker is set aside without being used. And also to my knowledge, joker cards can be used for pretty much any purpose you want. They can replace a missing card on a deck, be used in magic tricks, be put in the bottom of the deck to prevent anybody from seeing the bottom card, or even be something like a "skip card," forcing a player to skip their turn. It's specifically because of their lack of functionality and adherence to the 4 suites of the deck that they are able to [I CAN DO ANYTHING!] I found that pretty cool.

I also find it interesting that Spamton seems to have the exact opposite mindset as Jevil. Jevil probably(?) didn't have to struggle too much to get his position as court Jester. Even before he went crazy, he most likely always was just a little goofball who just happened to get the attention of the king with his antics. In contrast, Spamton most defnitely struggled a lot to even keep himself afloat - Wondering why all the other addisons seem to be doing fine, when he was (probably) doing the exact same thing. (at least before gaster/the mysterious entity) He was most likely given the same knowledge the entity gave Jevil, and he absolutely hated it. He actively tried to fight against it, unlike Jevil who basically embraced the idea of a world where your choices don't matter and used it as an excuse to do whatever the hell he wants. Spamton didn't want to be confined to a story. This... game. He desperately wanted freedom, and he would do anything to get it. Even when he failed he would keep trying. After all, perseverence did let him become a big shot, even for a little while, so he just had to keep trying... right? Uhh... this wasn't supposed to be a Spamton analysis, but I just found that contrast cool.

All in all, Jevil and Spamton set a really interesting precedent for the future secret bosses and I'm excited to find out how toby fox handles the next one and how that boss will tie in to the whole freedom theme.

Do you think animals other than humans understand the concept of kinship, is it a great tragedy for the lions when brother turns on brother, or is it simply the fact of the matter

If I remember very correctly, when I gave myself a rewatch this year and getting in that scene where Woody begged for the mutant toys to help save Buzz by reflecting on how wrong he was on mistreating him back then. And said the line: "He's the only one I got." ????

I remembered this line SO VIVIDLY on my childhood days rather than the whole thing. Would it be the way he said it? I DONT KNOW-

me, as a child unaware as to why I like Toy Story and Buzz and Woody’s relationship so much:

me, older realizing now that Buzz and Woody’s story was a classic “enemies to friends to lovers” spaceman and cowboy romance:

i gotta draw more cookie run yaoi

What brushes do you use? They're so pretty!~

Thank you!! I mostly just use the stock brushes in procreate and they all kinda overlap with what i use them for but here’s a little compilation (im on mobile so i hope the formatting s okay):

For sketching i mainly use the ink bleed and gelinski ink in the inking section of the brush library and the elder P4 brush from this brush set (there’s 18 brushes in this set but i mainly use ELDER P4) here’s examples in that order

For linework sometimes i do end up using one of these brushes but I mainly use the gelinski ink brush and a modified/cleaner version of the elder P4 brush i got from a friend

For colouring and shading i usually use the syrup brush in the inking section and the nikko rull, spectra and sometimes the gouache brushes in the painting section (again examples in that order)

I hope this helps!! Thank you for the ask!

big fan of this specific character eye trope

NEW ENA SHORT ⁉️⁉️

wally’s little secret “you won’t write back” message in the guestbook from before the update makes a lot more sense now knowing his growing frustration with not being able to hear the viewer

No because when ever I'm sad I think about how JFK never fucking saw the moon landing on live broadcast, he never fucking saw it happen and he never will because his head into hamburger helper, he only was around for like the test flights with like, the monkeys that kept dying and like, *maybe* the successful test flight with a human but who gives a shit about that when the Soviets all ready did it like... So everything was in a sad dead monkey tone at the time like that's so unfair