Avatar

ghastly7

@ghastly7

23 | Someone stole my pronouns | I have been a fanfiction writer for about 5-6 years now. Currently writing for Splatoon. Go search me on Ao3 and see if I've made anything that might pique your interest! Make sure to leave a lovely, lovely comment!

It's been a long time since I've brought up my fic on this blog, so...

From the description of the first story in the series:

Eight's fight with Agent Three was going just fine. She was winning, even. But then Three pulled a knife.

One After Another is my Splatoon Series which just so happens to be the best thing I've ever written. It's chock full of fluff, angst, action, and lore.

I have just gotten back to updating it, so there should be a new installment every few weeks for the foreseeable future.

I would really appreciate it if you would give it a look, and maybe leave some comments. I always respond to as many comments as possible, and it always fills me with joy to hear people's thoughts!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

Avatar

rating every Smash Bros. series symbol

Avatar

very good video! it got me thinking. the sonic symbol used in smash got put in C tier and i agree with the reasoning put forth so i tried to think of a better one. presenting:

this symbol comes from the title cards in Sonic Adventure 2 (and an animated version appears in Sonic Frontiers). it's a little less specific than the Literally Sonic's Head one but, crucially, on top of being a direct reference to a specific game, it resembles a character performing the Spin Dash, which has an incredibly strong link to the Sonic series, being introduced in Sonic 2 and present in most games since then, and most of the main cast can perform it. it's abstract enough that it could be representing any one of these characters, really. idk i think a ring could in theory also work but it would be a little too ambiguous in my eyes

Avatar
In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal claimed the tree work is simply an annual ritual at this time of year. “We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention. In partnership with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure that the canopies are light ahead of the high wind season,” they wrote. “We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to openly communicate with the labor leaders on-site to work together during this time.”

If those trees were pollarded annually, the cut areas would NOT look like that. There would be big knobs of old growth at the trimming sites. Not seeing any of that here. The way those trees were topped (not pollarded, which is a very careful process that has to begin when the tree is immature) is excellent way to kill them due to loss of hydration, open sites to infection and parasitism during the best time of year for both, lack of nutrition due to so little greenery and new budding growth being left, sunburn and other exposure damage, and a myriad of other possibilities. Plus, if they were topped annually, they would not have the lovely drooping branches seen in the other picture but would have tons of vertical suckers instead.

This is what an annually pollarded mature tree should look like:

If this was done by the city, the public works arborists should be protesting in front of city hall and screaming their heads off right now. I'm not hearing about that, so... Tree law!

Avatar

The Studios: *speak*

Botanists and other Tree Experts:

Update and confirmation of Imminent Tree Law:

He mentions later in the thread that not only do they not trim the trees annually, they’re trimmed at best once every 18 years. Supposed to be every five, and only in dormancy, which even my layman’s ass knows about tree trimming.

And yes, Universal can probably eat the fine. But it’s gonna be a whopper even if the trees survive (which is as mentioned kinda unlikely), California is a triple damage state for tree law, and it may increase dramatically if there were nesting birds in the trees.

All this to be a Captain Planet filler villain to some writers. And yes, it’s currently just the writers officially picketing there; SAG-AFTRA recommended against it for petty bullshit like this and the suddenly necessary sidewalk construction.

I asked my dad— a retired arborist—about TREE LAW and he just kinda blinked and said (i paraphrase because Dad Tangents, amirite?):

"Worst and best case I ever saw was a guy who was caught in the act of cutting down a C&C tree by two Department of Urban Forestry supervisors while they were randomly driving around on a Saturday. Not only did he have to deal with the cops showing up and months of paperwork and bureaucracy, but he also had to pay the fines AND cover the cost of the tree removal + stumping + buying a new tree + planting the new tree + wages for the regular crew plus the extra workers they needed to get the jobs done. That tree ended up costing him upwards of $35K, and that was over 20 years ago."

So yeah, respect Tree Law or pay out the bootyhole.

Tied to a chair waiting patiently for the end of the villainous monolog so I can give suggestions and constructive feedback.

You’re literally so mean to me

I'm telling you we can trim the fat from this monolog and easily tighten it up by two full minutes.

if you tighten it up too much you'll cut off circulation.

Don't armchair quarterback my backseat driving.

i'm backseat driving, you're tied to the armchair

If you're in the back seat and I'm tied to a chair, who is actually driving the car?!

... ah crap

Avatar

life becomes so beautiful when you start cooking rice in liquids other than water

Avatar

put that basmati rice in the cooker with coconut cream and chicken stock and an entire onion that you've diced and sauteed with garlic until transparent. and some salt and pepper. Trust me

"Uncle Benadryl's one minute rice" one minute what? awake? left to live?

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

There once was a man from Verdun

Avatar

There once was a man from the sticks Whose limericks stopped at line six. They were fine till line five Then they took quite a dive — But the problem is easy to fix If you just ignore the last line, it doesn't even follow the rhyme scheme oh god I've really lost control of this thing I'm so sorry...

There once was a man

From Cork who got limericks

And haiku confused.

There once was a man from the sticks

Who liked to compose limericks

But he failed at the sport

Because he wrote them too short

Avatar

There once was a fellow named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He replied, "Yes, I know-- It's because I try to squeeze as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can."

On Tumblr did lasses and lads Their way with fail poetry had. You're having your fun But you're fooling no one - It takes skill to do something this bad.

Avatar

It was kind of interesting to me that out of all the people in our training group, the ones that were the quickest to form social bonds were the people from way out in the country and the city people just kind of quietly kept to themselves.

But I was definitely accepted as one of the bumpkins.

Oh! This is actually an example of Rural vs Urban manners.

In rural/less densely populated areas, the polite thing is to offer people your time and social energy which is why country people will talk your ear off at the slightest acquaintence- it’s kind of lonely when you have to make an effort to see people, so you Make An Effort ™

In Urban/Densely populated areas, you’re meeting people whether you want to or not, because you are physically close to each other constantly. So the Polite Thing there is to kind of ignore other people and keep strictly to business, so you’re not imposing upon thier (probably already drained) soical spoons.

The city folks will warm right up to you once they get to know you well enough to know that talking to you won’t piss you off.

I grew up rural and live in the SF Bay Area now, and this is exactly how it is.

Appropriate city behavior is about *efficiency*, creating the least friction possible in every interaction because everyone has somewhere to be and is trying to pretend they don’t have strangers in their personal bubble *all day long*.

In SF, chatting with the bank teller a second longer than necessary is rude AF because there are 10 people in line and the teller is running behind and you are inconviencing *everyone*. They will deal with 1000 customers today and they genuinely don’t have it in them to form a friendly relationship with you.

In the little forest where I grew up you could stop your car in the middle of a one lane street to chat up a friend on the sidewalk. Any other cars would just go around you. There wasn’t much traffic, it was fine. If you’re one of 50 people the bank teller is gonna see today and there’s no line, it’s actually nice to ask how their day has been and commiserate about the roadwork at the single downtown traffic light.

City & country folks are operating under very different pressures and both are “right”, but it can be hard for city people to remember how to just…shoot the shit with strangers.

Avatar

thinking about older kay again

Kay: "The prosecutors at the office WON'T stop talking about you. You're very popular you know!"

Athena: "I didn't know we were celebrities..."

first day as a second century warlord i have my men tie branches to their horses’ tails to stir up dust and make it look like there’s a lot of us but i forget it just rained so there isn’t any dust and the enemy can clearly see there’s like twenty of us all spread out in a line

second day as a second century warlord i bribe a bunch of kids to start singing a nursery rhyme i carefully crafted to spread misinformation and further my strategic ends but they change the lyrics to be about poop and the enemy isn’t misdirected at all

third day as a second century warlord i lure my enemy into a narrow valley and send a team of archers to shoot them from the high ground but there was a feral hog napping on the trail up to the overlook and they couldn’t decide whether to try and shoot it or just go around and by the time the hog woke up and left on its own the enemy had already passed safely below

fourth day as a second century warlord we attempt to join a battle on the side of the guy we want to ally with but he and the guy he’s fighting have really similar names and it’s finally dusty and i misread the standards and attack the wrong guy. so now we’re stuck with this total loser of a liege lord, because how the fuck do you explain that after a battle?

fifth day as a second century warlord and some sort of wizard wanders into camp, my loser liege lord wants to execute him for being a wizard but i convince him to let the wizard stay, because i want to do more weather-based strategies and i’m pretty sure having a camp wizard can help with that. after the welcome to the team banquet the wizard steals half the treasury and my liege lord’s wife and leaves

sixth day as a second century warlord my loser liege lord sends me to reinforce a city he’s taken, but in the confusion of leaving i forgot to take the token that would have gotten us into the city, so my men have to wait outside the city walls for like eight hours while i ride back to get it

seventh day as a second century warlord and my loser liege lord finally joins me in the city, it turns out he’s actually a pretty cool guy, and he isn’t even that mad at me for letting the wizard steal his wife. i decide to shoot my shot but i’m really nervous and keep on stalling because what if i mess up our relationship and by extension jeopardize the security of my men, and eventually he just says goodnight and goes back to his room, where an assassin is in the process of setting up to kill him

eighth day as a second century warlord and my loser liege lord tells me to fake defect to his rival warlord, the one i originally wanted to ally with, to find out if he was the one who sent the assassin and why. but my whole way over to the rival warlord i’m worried that this has something to do with the wizard thing or how awkward i made it last night

ninth day as a second century warlord i try to tactfully ask my fake liege lord if he sent the assassin to kill my loser liege lord and it turns out the idea of using assassins never occurred to him, but now that i’ve suggested it he’s really into it. in order to save my loser liege lord i volunteer to be the one to kill him

tenth day as a second century warlord on my way back to my loser liege lord’s city i realize i won’t be able to collect my men from my fake liege lord until i bring back my loser liege lord’s head. this would have been a great thing to think of before i got myself in this situation. i go back to my loser liege lord and ask him to rescue my men, and he tells me that if he could sack my fake liege lord’s camp he already would have. that doesn’t change the fact that my men are still trapped. they’re prisoners, even. i go back to my room to sulk

eleventh day as a second century warlord i find a little caged pigeon in the rafters of my loser liege lord’s room and deduce it belonged to the assassin. without asking permission or telling my loser liege lord goodbye i let the pigeon loose and follow it north. don’t ask what i was doing in my loser liege lord’s room. it’s not important

twelfth day as a second century warlord i disguise myself as a wizard and enter the camp of the coalition leader the pigeon led me to. in the middle of my little sleight of hand performance i make eye contact with the coalition leader’s second-in-command. IT’S THE WIZARD THAT STOLE MY LOSER LIEGE LORD’S WIFE. after the banquet i corner the fake wizard and ask him what the fuck is going on and he just says “wouldn’t you like to know” and leaves. i don’t know what to say to that so i just let him go

thirteenth day as a second century warlord i’m honestly so sick of not knowing what’s going on, so i adjust my wizard costume to passably disguise myself as a woman and break into the women’s area of the camp, where sure enough my loser liege lord’s wife is. i ask her what she’s doing here and she tells me the fake wizard overheard her singing a poem she overheard on the street, not knowing it contains the coalition leader’s formation’s weaknesses. the fake wizard kidnapped her and assigned an assassin to kill her husband before they figured out the poem’s significance. she shares the first couplet with me but i’m discovered and thrown out before she can share any more. she doesn’t need to. through a bizarre coincidence of homophones, it’s the poop version of my misinformation nursery rhyme

fourteenth day as a second century warlord i go back to my loser liege lord and tell him everything, urging him to join with my fake liege lord to attack the coalition leader according to the weaknesses in the nursery rhyme. he tells me frankly that he doesn’t trust me anymore. i ask him to execute me if that’s really true, because i can’t bear to live if i can’t protect him and i can’t protect my men. he agrees to attack the coalition leader

fifteenth day as a second century warlord. due to the information in the nursery rhyme, and thanks to my loser liege lord reminding me of the weather conditions multiple times while planning our battle strategy, our alliance carries the day. my loser liege lord gets his wife back. my men tell me that our fake liege lord actually treated them really well and they’d like to stay with him if i don’t mind. i do mind, now that neither the men i love nor the man i love have any use for me, but i don’t tell them that

sixteenth day as a second century warlord i’m preparing to leave to i don’t know where, maybe to try to become a wizard for real, when my loser liege lord stops me and asks me where i’m going. he says he had hoped i would continue to work as his advisor. i was unaware i was his advisor in the first place. i agree, and he tells me he’s truly honored to have me in his service at last. he has known i am a rare and talented man with a strategic intelligence far above his ever since the day he witnessed me tying branches to my horses’ tails in six inches of mud, and could not for the life of him figure out why

Critical background info on our beloved second century warlord