#<- really spitballing with these tags here lol

[conkreetmonkey]

So. I'm tinkering with something that will probably not pan out in the end. Rather than try to create an OC character for my latest Fallout 4 playthrough, instead I just went with fully vanilla Nora, down to the name, who I've never played as before, and am attempting an rp run where I try to act reasonably and realistically, and I'm recording the whole thing in hopes of putting it on YouTube eventually. I want to evolve her character over time, and reflect her evolution visibly with looksmenu as her tale unfolds and her character develops, for example adding scars after a big fight in which she sustained damage, cutting her hair for a big moment of emotional catharsis, or making her visibly buffer as her strength stat increases. My thought is it might be cool for the Nora that the story ends with to look completely different from the original, with sick sci-fi gear and battle scars and shit, despite starting out fully default. Of course, there are already some issues with this idea (longie under the cut):

The first episode (yk, the important first impression one) will be boring as hell, simply because everybody has seen the intro to Fallout 4 at this point, and watching somebody play through it as vanilla as possible as a default character will probably be very uninteresting. Even people who haven't played the game know the plot of the intro.

This being a decade-old Bethesda game, the animations are janky as hell, and so as early on as the pre-boom intro segment it's hard to remain immersed. Objects appearing and disappearing, characters bugging out and clipping into walls, voice lines constantly getting cut off... you never realize how unpolished this game is until you try to record "cinematic" and "immersive" footage of it. Codsworth cries upon realizing Nate and Shaun are really gone while half clipped into a doorframe.

The story of Fallout 4 is, let's face it, kind of nonsensical. I know some love it and some hate it, as with most things about this very controversial game. For me, personally, I love the aesthetic and art direction, and while the vanilla building system is pretty limited, with a few modsit quickly becomes ridiculously good. But the story? Wasted potential incarnate. I love the idea of synths and the Father reveal and all that, but the stakes never feel real, both because, unless you speedrun the game, your character gets sidetracked in their quest to find their infant child, who was kidnapped by their spouse's murderer very quickly. That's some of the strongest motivation imaginable, especially when from Nora's POV the murder-kidnapping, as well as the end of the entire fucking world, the death of everyone she ever knew, and travelling 200 years into a nightmarish future, happened like 30 minutes ago. Like... lady, you just experienced 5 lifetimes worth of trauma. You just saw the city you live in get nuked, and escaped the blast by mere seconds. Then you got locked in a pod, frozen, thawed out, helplessly watched as your husband was shot in the face while trying to defend your can't-even-crawl-yet, still-breastfeeding infant, and then your baby was literally ripped from his cold, dead hands and abducted by nasty looking men. Then you got frozen again, before finally being ejected from the tube, dumped hacking and coughing onto an ice-cold linoleum floor. Your beloved husband's corpse limply slumps over the edge of his pod, still covered in frost, and all your neighbors are dead. In fact, everyone in the vault is dead. You, a lawyer, have seen like 25 dead bodies within 15 minutes. And then you were attacked by terrier-sized cockroaches, narrowly escaped a slow death in an abandoned bunker with no food left by sheer luck, and emerged into a dead world littered with bones. You just stepped over the sunbleached skeleton of your neighbor to see your house dilapidated and overgrown. You enter to see your baby's crib, pristine the last you saw it, now an empty, battered husk, his toys scattered and broken, the cheerful wallpaper you saw just minutes ago long since having rotted away. All of this, from your point of view, happened within like half an hour tops, and you'd just woken up. You never even ate breakfast. AND YOU JUST... SHRUG THIS OFF? Lady. Lady. I'd have vomited from stress and had a gibbering, scream-crying, wall-punching emotional breakdown by the corpse part, like Jesus Christ. No wonder the emotional stakes in this game don't feel real. Codsworth, your off-the-shelf, basic model robot butler (which is kind of a problematic thing to "own" btw, especially considering that the game's plot), has a far stronger reaction to this than you, despite being a series of ones and zeroes with the computing power of a pregnancy test. He cries, despite lacking tear ducts or a face to emote with. Despite believing all three of you were dead for the past century or so. Meanwhile, you, a human mother who just had her baby stolen, don't shed a single tear or shout one expletive over any of this. But you do immediately risk your life leaping to the aid of a bunch of American Revolution larpers without even understanding the context of their plight. You've got your priorities straight I see, mama bear.

Finally... the game is very clearly written around Nate. It at least makes sense that a seasoned veteran could withstand the sight of mutilated corpses and gore, and immediately know how to use guns and power armor. You've done all of this before! You've seen active combat! You executed resistors in the invasion of Canada (you piece of shit)! WHY would Nora, a lawyer, immediately know how to hold, aim, and reload a pistol with no guidance, let alone a suit of power armor or a fucking aircraft-grade minigun?? Ma'am, you are an academic. You fight legal battles. Prior games established that you need special training to operate power armor, which makes sense because it's basically a lite mech that quadruples the width of your fingers, removes your external sense of feel, adds two feet to your height, halves your FOV, adds two tons to your net weight, and superimposes a UI over your vision. It makes sense for the devs to bypass this by making the MC already experienced with power armor, and to establish this in the opening cutscene so the player doesn't question it. BUT ONLY ONE OF THE POSSIBLE MCS, THE ONE THE OPENING CUTSCENE ASSUMES YOU'LL PICK, HAS THIS BACKSTORY. The other is basically an emotionally healthier Kim Wexler. Her ass ain't ever held a rifle. Get real. It's like if Pokémon Red and Blue had an opening cutscene where the player character talks about how much they love their charmander, and THEN you get to pick your starter, and throughout the story people reference your love of fire types and charmanders, and you're inexplicably able to start fires at any time "thanks to your pokémon partner!" It's just bad writing when picking one of the gender options is going against the narrative grain, especially when older games were able to handle it seamlessly.

Regardless, I think I'm giving this a try. I'm still at the stage of recording footage and installing mods, but maybe I'll have something to show for it in a few weeks? Or maybe the project will piddle out or prove itself unviable. Who knows!

[imtrashraccoon]

Just a thought but imagining Nightmare in a fairy tale where he would be the prince is so funny because he's an evil and grumpy guy and would be the second villan or something

on that note. Rapunzel Au.

I'm reminded of the fairy tale about the swan princes who's sister had to make them coats so they could turn back into humans again. I'm otherwise not super familiar with fairy tales lol.

This is funny to picture!

Mkay. cracks fingers

Here is a quick spitball for a Rapunzel AU.

The queen is about to give birth to the Royal family's first child, however she falls ill and like in the original fairy tale, someone steals the witch's flower. Although this time, it's not a flower but a magic apple. The apple cures the queen's illness and she gives birth.

The witch is angry that her source of eternal youth was stolen and she decides to steal the Royal family's new child out of revenge. Only there's two children instead of one. The witch steals them away for nefarious witchy purposes but is nearly caught and so only manages to escape with one - Dream.

Nightmare is injured in the commotion, possibly being dropped by accident, but is ultimately rescued and survives his injuries. The kingdom mourns the loss of one of their young princes but life goes on.

Dream is a happy child and grows up in a secluded tower, far away from the kingdom in a forest. He's kept from the world outside by his supposedly loving mother, the witch. Maybe he makes a few odd friends like Ink or other wanderers but he never gets to see them or actually leave the tower.

Meanwhile, Nightmare also grew up and took the throne after his mother died; maybe there was an attempted coup or something. He was cold and often cruel to those who'd supposedly wronged him, earning himself quite the fearsome reputation. The problem is, his injury left him disfigured and he often struggles to function at the same level as those around him. He's also incredibly lonely but has no one willing to be friends with him. Maybe he creates an inner circle of men he tasks with doing the dirty work.

MC is a dashing rogue that has earned a rather high bounty. They stumble upon the tower one day while on the run after a job (possibly from the Royal Guard) and meet Dream. After some humourous shenanigans, they agree to take him to go see the outside world since he's been wanting to leave for a while. Maybe Ink tags along for fun and they meet some other interesting characters, like Blue who's an aspiring guard.

They travel around and see the sights of the kingdom. Their presence doesn't escape Nightmare's eye and he sends some of his men after them. (Cue Horror, Killer, and Dust.) Dream and MC don't know why Nightmare is after them but they really don't want to be caught. So an epic fight scene ensues!

Eventually, there is a confrontation with Nightmare and Dream actually recognizes him but doesn't know why. Nightmare doesn't either and hesitates to attack them. MC decides to be a hero and creates a distraction so that Dream can escape.

Dream finds himself in the forest again which is where the witch finds him and acts overjoyed to see him alive and well. The witch entreats him to return to the tower where it's safe and he does, for a time. During his time in the kingdom, he heard the tale of the lost prince and eventually he realizes that he's that prince. His "mother" only wants him for his healing powers and so he confronts her but it doesn't go well.

Meanwhile, Nightmare can't stop thinking about how familiar that golden skeleton felt and so he questions a captured MC. At first, they don't want to tell him anything but when they make the connection that Dream must be the lost prince, they agree to work together to find him.

MC is released and they make their way back to the tower, although the guards are slower to follow. They find Dream has been tied up and go to free him, only to be attacked by the witch. Nightmare arrives just in time and turns the tide of the fight. He can't kill the witch on his own, despite how powerful his magic is, and it takes the combined efforts of everyone to finally slay her.

With the witch dead, Dream returns to the kingdom with his brother and they work together to rule fairly. Although, Dream has a habit of sneaking out to go see his friends, which irritates Nightmare to no end, until he is eventually persuaded to by his men to join in as well of course!

[inbarfink]

My homie I have amazing news. In one of Finn's past lives he was a butterfly. Fionna is probably dreaming of one of her past lives. Like yeah I know dream analysis and stuff and the shwo is very deep. But maybe it's just a cute easter egg.

Okay, I was actually totally planning to add a lil thing in the tags of that post that I was like "hmmm or maybe it can also be related to Finn's past life as a butterfly" but then I, like, had a brainfart and forgot about it lol??? I literally don't know what happened there, honestly.

But also, there is a reason I only meant to leave this idea as a little-side-addendum in the tags - because I don't consider it very likely at all right now. First and foremost because, yeah, one of Finn's past life was a butterfly - but that doesn't necessarily mean anything about Fionna.

I mean, we know that the F&C verse sometimes flips around characters' species. For Glob's sake, literally the second-most important character in this universe is a cat whose Mainverse counterpart is a dog! As far as we know, Fionna's past life could've been a maggot or a Kiwi bird!

Also, an important thing to remember here is that Fionna isn't having this dream alone. Cake is ALSO dreaming with her

While it's been kinda implied that Finn and Jake keep reincarnating as best bros throughout their lives and maybe you can extrapolate that would be true of Fionna and Cake as well. But there's nothing in this little visual that could be a 'companion' to the butterfly so I think it's worth asking.... why is Cake dreaming of Fionna's past life as well?

Also, I would buy the idea this was just "Fionna dreaming of her past lives" more if, like, the first episode's title sequence showed her dreaming of a shooting star or a pink slime or a genderswapped version of Shoko or anything else also related to Finn's past lives. But instead what we had was this:

What seems to be a simplified version of the Hotel from her dream sequence at the start of the episode (note the little beach chair on top). I mean, if Finn has a comet I guess Fionna's past life could be a building but... yeah I'm pretty sure that's just the hotel from the dream. It seems like the emerging pattern is Fionna dreaming about a location from the episode at each Ending Title Sequence.

Because the most important thing is that Fionna in the EP2 ending isn't just dreaming of a random butterfly....

That Butterfly is sitting on the MASK WORN BY THE 'EVIL BEAR' FROM THAT SAME EPISODE.

So Fionna is dreaming explicitly of a butterfly flying around in the Heart of Ooo. So if THIS is her past life that actually has far more Lore Implications than if the dream is just symbolic of the series' themes.

And you know, I was just kinda spitballing with that "Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly" thingy. I still think there's something there especially with Fionna dreaming of Ice King and Ice King dreaming of Fionna but... there's a lot of interesting thematic meanings you can take from the butterfly if you don't insist on refusing to engage with it for silly reasons.

The aforementioned 'Butterfly Effect' concept is one. But you can also look at more general symbolism associated with butterflies. Such as Freedom (which is, when you get down to it, what Fionna is dreaming about more than anything) or Change and Transformation. You know, kinda like how the ending of this episode signified an important Change in the status que of both of our main leads?

And Transformation is a HUGE theme in this particular episode. You know, Simon's struggle of having being transformed into Ice King and now back to Simon again and how much it messed up his sense of identity? Or how his trauma Changed him? Or how he has a hard time coping with the Changes in his life and the world in general?

We'll probably need more than two episodes to really see what the pattern is with the ending titles and thus more reliably speculate on What Could It Mean. But with the information we have, I don't think it was just Fionna dreams of her past life. And even if it is, I think it's silly to totally discard all the thematic possibility of the butterfly. There's a reason why didn't just dream of being a Pink Slime, after all.

(edited to remove a factual error because I made a point about Fionna's surname not being related to Finn but forgot that was Minvera's name lol)

[inquisimer]

Okay question. Obviously lol.

This post https://www.tumblr.com/inquisimer/761747646075535360

You said in the tags Maric x Rowan x Loghain and I need to know who is who. Pretty sure Loghain is the hunting dog, so Maric the lamb? Maybe?

Please explain your galaxy brain if you feel like it

ehehehe >:] I don't know if I can claim galaxy brain, since you hit at least part of what I was thinking, but thank you for the excuse to ramble a bit about them.

I actually think there are multiple ways Maric/Rowan/Loghain could fit in the herding dog x lamb x wolf dynamic, but the most compelling one to me has Maric as the lamb. He's naive and frightened; he needs to be protected and guarded in order to survive, and he needs to survive, because his survival is a benefit to those that are protecting him - that's basically the plot of the first half of The Stolen Throne, lol.

So then it's a matter of who's the herding dog and who's the wolf, where I 100% agree that Loghain is the herding dog. He is loyal to and beyond a fault. He brings to mind the image of an injured dog, bloody muzzle, and still facing down a wolf to protect the herd, even knowing it will be at the cost of his own life. The herding dog's entire purpose is to keep the lamb safe - and isn't that what Gareth asked of Loghain? Isn't that the root of Maric and Loghain's entire relationship? At the same time (and I'm by no means an expert in animal behavior so I'm just spitballing here lol), there must be situations in which the herding dog has to sacrifice one or two of the lambs in order to save the herd as a whole. And that is the driving core of this trio's relationship: one or more of them was always going to have to give some part of the others up, and Loghain made the decision for the other two that he would be the one to sacrifice.

Which leaves Rowan as the wolf. Admittedly, I don't know if this fits her quite as well as the other two, but I think that might speak more to how well Maric & Loghain fit as lamb & herding dog rather than this necessarily being a poor fit for Rowan. There's a certain inevitability, a "tale as old as time", if you will, between the wolf and the lamb and that echoes in Maric & Rowan's betrothal. The world they were born into determined the nature of their relationship; how they felt about it, how they felt about each other never really mattered. But I think Rowan as the wolf is best seen through the lens of how her relationship with Maric is different than Loghain's. Whereas Loghain is willing to self-destruct for Maric's survival (regardless of what Maric actually thinks about that), Rowan's relationship with Maric is founded on her perception that they will act as equals. Except they won't, not in the beginning, because Maric is too spoiled and used to being coddled. So Rowan, the wolf, is looking at Maric, the lamb, and asking "why are you not acting like a wolf?" and they butt heads over it, and hurt each other because of the disparate expectations.

ANYWAY that's what my tipsy brain was thinking when I tagged that last night - thank you again for the excuse to ramble :3 I am always spinning these three on the mind rotisserie.

(the other configuration I'm pondering, btw, is Maric as the herding dog, Rowan as the lamb, and Loghain as the wolf, but that's for another post)

[synthwavecryptid]

Good afternoon friends migrating from Twitter

I intended this account to really only be a gallery space, because the community/social aspect of it is GARBAGE tbfh, I much prefer twt for that, but. It is what it is, I suppose.

I’ll try to be more active here to compensate, chat a bit more and try and regrow my audience, but I make no promises lmaaaaaoo

✨All art available here can be found under the ‘art crimes with koko’ tag.

✨I’m contemplating a free Patreon to put up everything, including the NSFW pieces, because twt allows it but tumblr does not. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in

✨I run an 18+ DinCobbPaz discord server that’s (imo) very chill. We yell a lot, but also share recipes and spitball ideas and go bananas over worldbuilding. I also post all my WIPs and full NSFW pieces there lol. Feel free to DM me for the link, even if you’re primarily a DinCobb or PazDin person. You’re still welcome in the catacombs

✨ if you want to support me, I do have a tiny INPRNT store. There’s almost always a sale of some kind going on, and I keep my prices at baseline by default. https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/synthwavecryptid/

[starburstfloat]

saw your tags in that one photoset for the "clarity" concept and omg you phrased it rly well that the styling for the concept photos don't seem to carry as much of a story compared to tnc:t (well, maybe aside from the "melancholy" concept imo)

and that reallyyyy got me thinking about how so many people are saying that txt will be moving on from their lore after tnc: freefall since the concept photos so far seemed to be referencing past eras so heavily

and idk, just spitballing here but like, if you were a casual txt listener, you wouldn't really be able to pick up on these references from the styling alone and what if that's a deliberate course of action (if they really are departing from their lore after this album drops)?

kind of like one last adventure with MOAs in Magic Island (even if they are leaving it already lol) before they really go back to "reality" and start producing music outside of the star seekers au? 🥺

(ofc if they do still stick to their lore after freefall, then maybe it's a styling/creative misstep lol)

Right, like besides melancholy it's giving clothing line photoshoot, or perfume commercial!!! Which isn't exactly bad but it's also a little boring. I feel like concept photos, when done well, are kpop's forte in telling us a story before the album is released. And with a lore as thematically intriguing as txt's, with friendship, betrayal, exploration of love and lust and coming of age, I feel like I'm not getting much of a compelling story from the photos. It's lacking the captivation of previous concepts because it's so heavily reliant on references to previous comebacks that besides connecting to those, it doesn't feel like it offers anything enthrallingly new. (Again, besides melancholy, we love you dystopian bestie).

So the theory that this comeback is their way of neetly closing and departing from the star seekers au is interesting, and something I'd be down for! It would allow them to really expand the kinds of stories they tell in the future.

And if they don't, then...yeah, agreed, this one's a bit of a creative misstep 😆🤷‍♀️

[onewomancitadel]

This is really me spitballing, but expanding upon my Raven anabasis theory (Raven is involved in getting them out, see more under the tag), my assumption was that it would be realised through her connection to Yang.

This is still spitballing - but thinking more on Neo's Hekate influence (whose torch lights Persephone's way) - and the fact that a Ruby and Neo showdown (fight, psychological) seems near-inevitable, I have to wonder.

Mostly I was thinking about the fact that Summer 'failed'; Summer is 'dead' (or alive as a Grimm-human abomination), meanwhile Raven is the mother still hanging around in the story - but she's the bad one, and Summer was the good one. There's clearly some middlepath between the two - Summer wasn't perfect (and Ruby doesn't need to be perfect), but Raven's redemption is possible. Raven returning to help Yang - when she's so emphasised (and broken her word before) that she would not help her again - makes a lot of sense for the reasons I outlined in the original post.

But then it had me thinking - because I think the dramatic set-up should be that Jaune and Weiss, Blake and Yang aren't initially successful trying to find Ruby, just as a narrative rule. So then how do you set it up such that they find Ruby first, and then Raven returns, and then whatever thing happens with Neo (who finally lets them pass, see also Hekate) happens with Neo?

I'd been wondering if the 'there's no place like home' thing would figure in somewhere, and I really don't know how this is going to play out - I can only think of the emotionally intuitive reasons - which is that Summer was a mother to Yang, but one has to wonder if Raven ever felt a connection to Ruby. She's been disturbed by her before ('You sound just like your mother') in a way that might suggest some sort of emotional wall.

This hinges on the idea (that I personally hold) which is that Raven knows to some degree of what happened to Summer, on the basis that they were bonded through Raven's Semblance (the particulars aside - perhaps even the possibility that Raven couldn't mercy kill her, as Jaune did Penny). I think given what we're learning about Summer now, the introduction of this knowledge (Spring Maiden, lol) and Raven's redemption arc makes a lot of sense.

But I'm sort of implying here that Raven is bonded with Ruby. We know positively that she's bonded with Qrow, Tai, and Yang, but Raven is very good at concealing her feelings because she wants to run away - but as far as she runs, she can't deny the bond. Maybe - devastatingly - she found out Summer was dead through the bond not working, or maybe Summer's transformation into an abomination severed it. Again, I really don't know the particulars (and this would inform how Raven knowing about Summer, to what extent, would change things - at the very least, I think Raven was aware that Salem couldn't be killed the same way Summer likely was, which was a twist in V6, remember).

I just can't shake the feeling that maybe as much as Summer loved Yang, Raven might have loved Summer's little girl.

I think it would be really interesting if something eventuated with Raven finding Ruby first. Mid-Neo confrontation, perhaps, which would mirror her introduction.

[cedarbranch]

okay so: Playing With Matches, Sweet Tooth, Truth or Dare (my beloved), Convicted Criminals of Thought (my beloved!), Moth To Light? sorry i'm pretty much obsessed w all of your fics. humiliating . send ask

omg this is extremely flattering... i have stans... stroke my ego some more why don't you anon /j

this is going under a cut, i'm about to YAP

sweet tooth: i wrote this one for a holiday exchange in the gm server i was part of at the time! (cat, if you're out there, i think about your story about being mistaken for a lush corporate tester every damn time i walk into that store). i used to really dislike writing for prompts so it was a mark of how much i loved that little community (and how much it energized me) that i worked up the nerve to write something like this, lol. i had also never written a coffee shop au before. michael's dislike of coffee and subsequent anxiety over what to order was 100% a projection from me, LMAO, i was like how can i write a coffee shop au when i hate coffee and have no idea how coffee shops work?? (oh, i can make that the whole premise!) i had to watch a few youtube tutorials on how to do latte art so i could make sure i was describing it well. oh, and the hot chocolate gerry gives michael is my personal spice blend that i love to use in hot cocoa! protip: hot milk, melt a heap of chocolate chips directly into it (with a sweetness level of your choice) then top with cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a little bit of allspice. god tier.

also, i'm writing this while drinking a latte, so needless to say I've Changed.

truth or dare: okay this is hilarious to look back on because i... CANNOT remember for the life of me what possessed me to write it. i think this was something i started spitballing in the gm server and then everyone went "CEDAR IF YOU DON'T WRITE THIS I'LL AAHDHSFHDFHSGJK" so, i got enabled, basically. i'm pretty sure this was also written when the trans gerard keay AO3 tag wasn't an official archive tag yet and i was trying to brute-force it into existence... there were a couple tags i did this for (see also: it/its pronouns for michael the distortion, monsterfucker gerard keay). i was kinda making it my mission to churn out enough fic under these tags that they got recognized by the tag wranglers, lol, especially trans gerry. because i started writing gm SO early i was like "i have the opportunity to shape the fanon dynamic here and i am making SURE everyone sees gerry as trans, dammit!" this fic was also a milestone for me because i think it might've been the first pure pwp i ever wrote :) still not something i do very often because i am so frequently led astray by Plot, but it's nice to have in my skill set!

moth to light: MY BELOVED!! excluding current wips, this is the fic i am most proud of. it definitely marked a shift in my writing where i was starting to introduce relationships that felt less fanfic-y/easily romantic, and more akin to the dynamics that compelled me so much in the various source materials i interacted with. i've already discussed the main points of what i was doing with this story in various ask/ao3 comment responses, but the core of it was about monstrosity and self-acceptance, how gerry could fall in love with a monster, and the uneasy space where trust and fear coexist. there are definitely some things i'd change about it if i could - i think certain bits are a bit choppy and rushed, scene transitions were not a fully developed skill for me - but overall i think the dynamic between gerry and michael is what makes it hold up so well. and i also can't help but look back at it fondly because that kind of dynamic is SO characteristic of my writing now, and i consider this fic to be the first time it really emerged.

i also think it has some neat prose and exchanges of dialogue... at this point i'd already written several fics that captured the mind-breaking physicality of the spiral, and it was a challenge to keep finding new ways to express that in words without it becoming repetitive - but a very fun and stimulating challenge! i laugh because this, too, is something that's become characteristic of me. turns out i just really enjoy trying to capture fantastical, overwhelming mental-physical sensations on the page. i think physicality is a big part of my narrative voice and i also enjoy writing in extremes, so it makes a lot of sense why i like it so much!

there were a few points that everything else in this fic grew around. the entire exchange leading up to "i could change your mind, i think" was one of them. see also, "it's not the spiral i belong to, it's you." "that doesn't make you a monster" / "doesn't it, though." michael and gerry being protective of one another. gerry lost in the hallways - it was very important to me that michael actually come close to killing him at least once, and that the reader felt that danger. it was something that i felt was missing from gm fic at the time (and there was barely any fic to begin with - moth to light was the second ever gm fic on ao3 that broke 20k. i'm not sure how long you've been around, anon, but MAN those first couple years of being a gm shipper were wild).

i also had a ton of fun setting up gerry's complicated pull toward michael!! it's romantic, but there's so much psychology beyond that. like, when he first finds out who michael used to be: "There are a hundred new questions bouncing around Gerry’s brain—what did Michael think of Gertrude, before she betrayed him? Why hasn’t he tried to take revenge on her now? Does he remember his descent into the Spiral? Did he know what was coming? Did it hurt to lose himself?" it's his own future he's scared about, and if he'll end up just like michael. i hope that came across.

ah... so fond of this one. i crack myself the hell up with how obvious it should've been that i'd wind up writing hannibal fic. a character who drives every conversation by responding with some indirect, metaphorical bullshit and a distinctive speech pattern? a character whose descent into monstrosity is well underway but he can't stop agonizing over whether he can tolerate that part of himself, much less embrace it - but his love interest's presence allows him to? a relationship dynamic where it's constantly uncertain whether one's intentions are lethal, and the answer always feels like "obviously yes" but also "obviously no"?? they're literally hannigram. hannigram is the fucking BLUEPRINT of this dynamic, i just didn't know it yet. i actually caught myself in one of my current wips a while back accidentally fucking recreating the michael-at-gerry's-throat "please don't" scene damn near word for word, and i thought to myself, HOLD ON,THIS VIBE FEELS A LITTLE FAMILIAR...

so yeah, uh, if you like the vibe of this fic, maybe watch hannibal?

convicted criminals of thought: i felt fucking insane when i was writing this one fr. it took me like 4 days, i think?? NEVER have i banged out 19k so fast.

the fic was mossstly just born from me loving the concept of beholding avatar powers used for smut and really, really wanting to write that with gerry, LOL. i didn't expect it to be so long and plotty, but the dynamic i wanted ended up requiring more setup than i originally thought it would... i was really trying to push the sexual tension and i was also taking a step into writing much more explicit kink than i had in the past. like moth to light, i would say this fic represented a turning point for me, because these days explicit d/s makes up most of what i write haha. turns out i'm just super into exploring power dynamics in fiction and using sex as a vehicle for said exploration. there are some things i'd write differently if i did it now... i wrote criminals during the era in which ~safe and communicative sex in fanfic~ was really being pushed online, so i made sure to include detailed discussions of boundaries. the fact that i wrote in the stoplight system makes me cringe a little now, but the saving grace that allows me to not care too much is that i do think it's in character for that version of gerry and michael. it's a very reasonable choice for a young man who's naive when it comes to both the supernatural and the sexual, and a more experienced dom with a protective streak. (these days, i'm firmly in the camp that no matter how insane the sex is, characters should not be negotiating their kinks onscreen unless it is in-character for them to both a) have the knowledge of kink required for such discussions in the first place, and b) initiate those discussions. obviously in REAL life these things should always be prioritized! but if i see a fanfic scene interrupted for two characters who are normally wildly emotionally stunted and non-communicative to go "wait, what's your safeword!!" it'll completely take me out of it... i also think this is just one aspect of a much broader issue with people being unwilling to make their characters (even morally gray/straight-up cruel characters) take actions that they view as unacceptable. i certainly struggled with this for a long time (more on that later) but thankfully i've gotten over it.

an unrelated detail for this one - the flesh monster gerry and michael encounter was inspired by the mindflayer in season 3 of stranger things :)

anddddd... yeah, there was supposed to be a sequel... technically there is, it's just that only ~75% of it exists. it features: workplace sex and edging, michael being a brat, collaring, new beholding abilities, and a new appreciation for degradation. i say this purely to be evil, because it's unlikely it'll ever get finished (oops). onto the pile of incomplete wips it goes, along with all the stranger things fics... i promise this pains me as much as it does you.

playing with matches: oh my darling magnolia verse, always on my mind. fun fact, the original title of this fic was "a journal of the plague year," one of the leitners referenced in tma. naturally, Certain Events Happened while i was writing the fic, and that title took on... new, unintended connotations!!! so i changed it (though i did keep referring to it as 'plague year' in my head for quite a while). i'm actually happy i changed it, though. obvious blase is such a great song for this gerry, and (if i ever FUCKING finish it!!) the agnes fic is titled after the very next lyric in the song, which is perfect for her + the fact that it tells much of the same story from her pov.

where to even start with this fic... there's so much going on. one of my lasting impressions was that it was a DEVIL to get gerry's characterization right... this is where i mention how i used to be really, really bad at letting my characters be bad people, haha. gerry thinks of himself as sooo prickly and mean in this fic but he really... isn't? very much at all? lmao. i literally had to go back in after the first draft and make him meaner and i STILL don't think i did enough. he was meant to be a lot sharper than he actually turned out to be. (Yet Another reason i hope i can return to the agnes fic eventually - we'll get to see more of a different side of gerry. honestly, with the way things unfolded, a lot of him being an asshole became just because he's stupid and inconsiderate rather than because he's mean. and i think that works, ultimately).

some scenes that came to me early and made me decide this fic needed to exist: gerry and agnes smoking on the roof, talking around jude. gerry laying in the road at night and stargazing. agnes burning woodchips. shaving agnes's head. the exchange between agnes and gerry leading up to "i'm tired of being angry" (this might have been the source of it all, though i can't quite remember now). breaking into chapman hall (this is something that my friend group actually did around the time i was writing the fic - i wasn't there, but i was so delighted by the photos that it ended up in the fic).

overall, a LOT of this fic was relishing in writing the first-year college experience after i had just gone through it. (well, more like 60% of it). i was writing it in my freshman year - spring 2020. the fall 2019 semester was honestly a highlight of my life that i'll always be nostalgic for... i found a family near-instantly and felt true joy and acceptance for possibly the first time, and then it was snatched away from me in the spring with covid evacuation. writing it out allowed me to kind of re-live it through the characters. magnolia university is a BLATANT copy of my own uni - to the point where multiple people from my school ended up reading the fic and commenting that they recognized it. zeeeero subtlety from me, lol. a lot of the physical settings and details are thinly-veiled adaptations from real life. the queer frat our gang attends parties at is, in fact, the one i was part of (with its name changed) - it may be a stretch characterization-wise, but it was too big a part of my college experience to leave out. (and yeah, the buzzcut queer who welcomes gerry in the first time he visits was a self-insert. just couldn't resist).

ex altiora, too, is heavily based on my own experience being in a band with my friends during college. i've been pretty upfront about that, haha. when they reference a song which is about "murder as a metaphor for internalized homophobia," that's a real song, it just has a different title and hasn't been released yet. should i have linked my irl music in my fic notes? mmm, maybe not, but i do like the idea that someone out there could enjoy my music after discovering it through my fic. if only we had more than 2 songs on spotify... the EP is about three years late now, but it SHOULD be out very early next year :')

anyway. as you may have guessed based on the scenes i highlighted earlier, agnes and gerry's relationship is reeeaally important to this fic (and the 'verse as a whole)... which is why i feel so damn bad that i've left what was really supposed to be a duology as just one fic!! the incomplete/unpublished agnes fic fills in so many gaps, it drives me crazy. i keep getting dragged into other hyperfixations and i really don't control what my ADHD lets me work on, but there is so, SO much more of this 'verse that hasn't seen the light of day. nearly every character has a ton of unpublished lore. melanie and georgie almost got their own fic. tim and sasha almost got their own fic. don't get me started on oliver - i get so mad at the gang when i think about him, he's got SO much going on that nobody ever notices just because he puts on a good front of being well put-together. obsessive perfectionism, borderline substance abuse, and situationship drama... (when he takes care of mike crew tripping balls at that one party? yeah, that's the start of something much bigger). julia and her relationship with her dad. the conflicts between julia and gerry because they're so upfront with the way they fight, but end up missing all the important underlying issues in the process. agnes. agnes. AGNES. HER INSANE RELIGIOUS TRAUMA. the undiagnosed autism and legitimate compulsive pyromania. her gender expression issues, her fucked relationship with jude... 15k of it in my google docs and that's not close to half the story.

i'm getting distracted as always being vague about what's not out there, so let me clarify some of what is. first and foremost, agnes's lighter is her coping mechanism. the first time gerry meets her, she's forced herself to go to a party because her parents demand her to be social, and gotten so drunk she threw up. humiliating. time to start a fire. when she goes to the first punk show with gerry and he tells her she looks like a catholic schoolgirl, it makes her want to scream. Unresolved Issues There. at that show, jude is rude to agnes, agnes nearly fights her in the pit, and jude is immediately enamored with her. the toxic yuri begins. their first hookup happens after the chapman hall break-in. jude is the one who shows her the rooftop spot where she later smokes witth gerry. she has very little sense of identity and jude gives her that, in the most destructive way possible. eventually, shaving her head is a desperate attempt to do something for herself instead of jude (she knows jude will hate it), but afterwards, she doesn't actually like it, and it feels like just another way that jude has driven everything in her life. jude cannot take responsibility for a damn thing, and she blames agnes's growing distance on the band, hence their later fight at band practice. after that, when julia follows agnes, agnes has her first real vulnerable conversation about it - which she's been trying to do with gerry for a while, but gerry's fucking awful at talking about feelings and has barely even picked up on it. this is what pisses julia off so bad, she feels like he's been a bad friend to agnes. agnes and julia get very close after this, especially over the summer. (agnes isn't mad at gerry at all, to be clear - julia is mostly projecting because she also wants more intimacy in her relationship with gerry, but he never gives it to her. around michael, he's warm and open and communicative... but he doesn't show the same growth with his friendships. rip julia).

ugh, they're all so REAL to me. thanks for giving me the excuse to rant, i always love to <3 feel free to ask me whatever you want or message me directly, i'm an open book!

[storiesofsvu]

I wanted to ask you something as an adult in the room? So I’ve been writing for a while now, I’ve made some real close friends that until recently were reading and commenting on all my fics and updates.

Now, they all have a lot going on, most of em are neurodivergent, are in college or have jobs, and said they don’t have the capacity to leave comments anymore (or sometimes even read my stuff at all) but they still like it, which was fine, we still talk about our writing and we’re all still really close.

But one of them recently sent me a screenshot of a conversation they had with another writer, on another brand new fic, and it’s thrown me a little? Like, you have time to read someone else’s stuff, and have nice thoughtful conversations, but to not do the same for your friend?

I haven’t said anything, but they know how much the whole commenting trend has gotten me down. I haven’t gotten a comment on anything in months, to the point that i’m considering quitting writing altogether. I just don’t feel very supported anymore by my own friends?

But I feel like an asshole even thinking that, I obviously can’t force them to read stuff they don’t want to, especially if they tell me they don’t have time, but that now feels like a lie. So like, am I being an asshole? Would it be unreasonable to bring up a conversation about it? How would I even do that without sounding so pathetic?

me?! the adult? oh man lol.

okay. so this situation is tricky no matter how you put it.

in my perspective as a reader, writer, tumblr blog and online... persona? lol... here are my thoughts:

-first off, MOST mutuals, online "besties", reading/writing buddies, fandom friends, they will all come and go. they are exactly that, online. i've had some VERY good friends through tumblr/discord over the past almost 5 years now. some of them were suuuper gung ho about stuff at the start, they were there to read everything, comment on everything, spitball with and come up with ideas in the dm's. they were active watchers of the shows and active writers themselves.

then it can happen slowly, they trickle away, they're less active, less talkative, a once bumping discord is mainly now crickets. Or they just disappear out of thin air.

-second, it can very easily be that life simply got in the way for various reason (such mentioned). or that they've lost all motivation/time for fic reading. it happens to me this time every year (yet i continue to host bingos LOL).

now onto reading another fic but not yours; personally there are a plethora of reasons that people fall out of steady reading/commenting, even for their friends. for myself i find:

-sometimes you just lose interest in a specific fandom or character. especially if there i a new blorbo in rotation that is taking up all your brain power/thoughts.

-some people don't like to read series they just want one shots. some vice versa. i personally don't like to read series until they're completed. so even if i'm tagged or chatting on discord about ideas and being all "omg this sounds so good i can't wait" (i will generally try to reblog each chapter as its posted and save the masterlist for later.

-sometimes when i'm looking through my TBR pile of fics, or see something i'm tagged in, i have to check a few things: how long is it? what character? what genre? how much time to i have right now to complete it? how much energy to i have right now? becauase sometimes i have the energy and time to read things but not set out a thoughtful comment. normally in that case, esp if it's a mutual, i'll wait to read it til later. if i DO read it, i'll reblog and usually add an emoji in the tags but some people don't do that.

comments are WAY down right now, on everything. it's partially why i've stopped writing, and definitely factors into my utter lack of motivation to write anymore. people are up the wazoo demanding requests but can't be bothered to interact. they beg to be let on tag lists and then don't even have the time to hit it with a like. it's just lazy now.

i've got a couple of discords, one of all svu people and i'd say it's safe to say 90% of them are no longer reading my stuff. some because they simply are busy, some have kids, lives, its the holiday season. mental health struggles are hard. you don't want to be reading about all these fluffy happily ever afters when you're feeling down on yourself/just got dumped. some simply aren't in the fandom as much anymore or have moved onto new shows. some of them have let me know, others haven't.

and that's totally fine because in the end as fanfic writers who post things on the internet, our readers owe us nothing. it sucks but it's true lol.

for your last question, i'd have to ask you a couple in return:

-is the fic you posted a one shot or a series?

-is the other new fic a one shot or series?

-are they the same fandom? if so same character/ship?

-is the other author and old friend or someone new?

like, if i had been posting a rafael barba x reader one shot and this new person was posting a jemily multi chapter that someone was raving about, esp if they were different genres, i honestly can't be upset about that. ya know?

anyway, that all i got

[eliotquillon]

when cameron tells foreman about the time loop, does he immediately go tell house and chase? or does he respect confidentiality?

ok admittedly i have not thought about this because ch 4 starts in a VERY different place from where we left off at the end of chapter 3 lolol like this loop is WELL behind me now. BUT (and i'm spitballing here):

foreman doesn't tell house--he takes one look at that rat cage and the weird stacy song and dance and is like Ok i do not get paid enough to add more fuel to this meltdown fire right now lol. and he doesn't tell chase OUTRIGHT because even foreman isn't as much of a dick to completely air cameron's business to other people when she's clearly distressed and not feeling well. but this is the malpractice hospital where nobody respects confidentiality ever and everyone is perpetually up in each other's business. so i imagine the conversation to go something like this (after cameron has left work):

foreman: hey this morning was really weird and i think there's something seriously wrong with cameron. maybe you should talk to her. actually maybe we should both talk to her

chase, attempting to cover both his and cameron's asses post-methgate and also annoyed that foreman is suddenly acting like he gives a fuck: Erm what makes you think that????

they then have a classic #choreman terse standoff about it where neither of them are willing to give an inch because both of them think they know the situation better than the other does (which is technically true in this loop lol--foreman knows about the loop even if he doesn't believe in it, chase knows about everything else, neither of them are drawing from a full picture) and it ends with them sniping at each other and not really getting anywhere with it. bizarrely sweet in the sense that both of them are coming from places of deep concern for cameron but also utterly fruitless and just pisses them both off lol. both of them privately resolve to confront cameron tomorrow--chase about what she said to foreman (because he's smart enough to realise she must have said Something), foreman because he thinks she needs a psych visit--but obviously this never happens because Time Loop.

cameron remains blissfully unaware of this conversation which is probably for the best. the last thing her paranoid ass needs right now is the knowledge that foreman had (disastrously) tried to tag team chase into confronting her, she'll run out of coworkers to avoid LMAO

[oogaboogaspookyman]

Accidentally found that blog that made that one comic about a slasher and his bubbly happy-go-lucky gf (edit: found it again, it's @/bludragongal , go look at her stuff lol (DO NOT TAG HER PLEASE I AM FEAR)) thought "there should be like... A monster genre version of it"

My head started spitballing shit for it immediately after.

Concept under the cut because beeg

Human character: Sandra H. Prolly a goth girl (or at least like- not bubbly but also not deppressed, still can and WILL kill if she's angry enough, just like the og) with a ridiculous love and interest in animals, especially freaky creatures, flora and fauna and shit like that. By "ridiculous love and interest" i mean like- she loves these things so much her vibes walk up to you and say "dude idk bout you but i think she's autistic"

Monster character: Krang. Alien monstrosity that is currently hiding here and there because. It's. It's an alien. An extraterrestrial living being, stuck on earth and decided to just vibe lol. Instead of killing because yes, it's only gonna maul you if you piss it off or something, like- oh you slapped them? Hm. Death :). It's also highly smart, prolly learns how to speak english with a certain someone's help and he learns REALLY fast. Design wise i'm thinking it's based on the creatures from that horror movie called A Quiet Place, minus the hearing shtick and the feral is lessened down to like. Cat levels of gremlin. Yes it's also a smug, snarky and mischievous bastard, but that's not stopping the fluff potential.

The meeting: Sandra is walking around with friends after having set camp purely to vibe because god damn it it's nearly the end of the year and shit they get to have a break for once from their work and stuff, and they're all like chill and jokey, cracking the worst of jokes (some dark ones too, Jared you can't friggin' joke about INFIDELITY that's horrid nooo get smacked upside the head you jerk lol), and they suddenly hear screeching and growling from somewhere deeper in the forest, and one of them goes "ayo who's gonna check it out" and Sandra one proposes rock paper scissors to decide. Sandra loses and kicks the winner in the knee because man fuck you honestly.

Sandra walks deeper into the forest to find the source of the noise. Deeper and deeper and deeper... Until she finds a freakish, monstrous creature trying to break free from a bear trap, growling and screeching from the pain of the little cursed machine biting into it's flesh. Sandra gasps and runs over to the creature to get the bear trap off his leg, and it just growls lowly as a warning. No. Get away, life form. I can do it myself anyway. It's just a little primitive machine. It's smart but not enough to hold me back. Stay away. But she's stubborn and convinces the creature to let her help... It reluctantly accepts, and she pries the bear trap open, letting him get out of it.

She tells the creature that it's gonna call for her friends, who are also of her species, but it's not for anything malicious, it's to help him heal. The alien creature growls lowly as a form of expression Aka it's offended that Sandra is willing to help him THIS much when it can heal on it's damn own, but she insists because she genuinely cares a lot about it and doesn't want him to be hurt. The creature reluctantly accepts but only because he doesn't want to be too mean.

She calls for her friends, they find it and try to help (and control themselves, Andy no you can't take pics of him to post on your Instagram that's risky and besides you can't take mean comments towards you well at ALL) they help her heal the creature's wounds and done! He has bandages and shit! Usual health things! She asks him about his name and it just. Whispers in it's alien language. She doesn't understand it and asks again, to which the creature responds by grabbing a stick and writing on the dirt it's name... In the same alien language. Sandra just goes "i'll ask again later, you should learn english..." and it just growls lowly in disappointment like- god damn it i gotta learn english because human don't understand my language >:(

After that, Sandra waves goodbye and the creature runs away, back into hiding and vibing, and she and her friends go back to dicking around, not knowing it's not the last time she's gonna see it...

Their relationship: Krang develops a crush on Sandra not right after finding it or something like that- Krang is not familiar with human life forms and doesn't trust easily (also canonically semi tsundere lmao it's funny for me)- it's only developing a crush on Sandra once it decides to stalk her and spots her just. Vibing. Thriving happily in peace and tranquility without a care in the world.

She has a cat, she has a family, friends, she has a lot in her life... What does he have? Constant fear, worry, dread and anxiety from living in the wilderness, from having to hide from every single human, just so it can simply vibe. It takes shelter in sewers and caves and abandoned places, for crying out loud, it's lonely!

He's obviously not developing that attraction the moment it stalks her, no, they stalk her purely to learn because this human just. Saved me?? Human cares??? That's weird i should learn a bit more. It started as a little learning expirience, following her wherever, watching her do things just to learn a bit more of this particular human that decided to give him another chance in life.

Then it starts going a more "i wish that was me" route. It starts to feel envious of Sandra's peaceful life, her happiness and how comfortable she is in her own little world... It became a desire for a better, more comfortable life, following her wherever, watching her do things, just so calm and happy, without a care in the world... He has to take shelter in the most disgusting, lonely spaces just to have a tolerable chance of survival.

One day, it spotted Sandra walking around with her friends again, throughout a mall, supposedly planning to "watch that one movie they waited for so long to see", according to what it heard... It catches a glimpse of two men wearing a black disguise, making them nearly unidentifiable. It's not going to let them ruin Sandra's little joy, even if it's meaningless, it's joy nonetheless.

Two male young adults went missing that day, nobody knows what happened to them. Krang knows. They did it. Sandra's safe now and nobody has to know or get in their business.

After that, Sandra and her friends went walking back to their respective homes, gushing about the movie, just goofing off like they always do.

Sandra didn't expect the creature from a while ago to be in her house, playing with her dog. And Krang expected her to be happy to see him, but instead he got a very surprised /neg Sandra processing the fact there's the fucking creature in her god damn house what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

After that it's just a slice of life SLOW friends to lovers kinda thing, it learns english and finally answers the million ages old question /j: his name...

"So, funky thing... Now that you know english, what's your name?"

"..."

"I... Ammm... Krann..g"

"Krang, huh? It's a pretty name!"

"Pretty name for a pretty creature!"

"... Pret... Ty...?"

"Hrm... ////"

"Heheh! I'm Sandra, if you're wondering"

"... Pretty name... For a... Pret.ty... crea...ture"

"Eheheh... Thanks, i guess ////"

[thegoldenherd]

Great addition, especially the tags.

#now I’m just spitballing here#but Jacob could be a sort of solid character who doesn’t change much himself but perseveres and inspires others?#like paddington?#not that he couldn’t know from the start what he ought to be doing but have a self-doubting crisis about it anyway#second-guessing his own carefully- and rightly-chosen path because#everyone else seems to be changing and growing though?#what if I really am making the wrong choice and I just don’t know it yet??#nope it’s just the horrors in your brain bro#anxiety representation lol

Big Mood @sisterdragonwithfeathers, This is canon now.

okey dokey now to write out how The Body of Christ/Personal discernment effects my OCs!

(basically what MLP did with harmony, but with more Jesus symbolism)

Nimbus badly wants to be a village guard, but she's very small and not very strong. She's the first to go out and hunt the demons to prove herself, but learns on her journey that instead of fighting them hand to hand, she's meant to fight them with her art by putting beauty back in what they've destroyed.

Cotton is a goat who is extremely envious of sheep (with some self loathing issues on top of that), and disguises himself as a sheep to work as a spy for TSF, but after leaving TSF behind, he becomes an ambassador between the goats and sheep.

Aurea was obsessed with her beauty, and is still vulnerable to vanity post redemption. She has to give up her jewelry and a lot of other things when she joins the Golden Herd, but because she's already been in the deep end and crawled back out, she's one of the sturdiest members to TSF's manipulation, and can give valuable information on how he thinks and uses people.

My unnamed wolf character (NOT Luna, please, there are too many characters named Luna, I'll edit this out when I have a name for her) has to give up most meats (because eating sentient mammals is wrong), and provides both strength of muscle and strength of will to the herd.

And IDK what to do with Jacob yet, he sort of starts and stops in the same place as a village guard, but I'll figure something out.

[insertdisc5]

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

[equalseleventhirds]

Okay so this is GM anon, to answer your questions: as a friend group we definitly lean towards sci-fi and adventure, as in we enjoy movies in those genres so we know and enjoy the conventions thereof. Horror too, but in the style of Scream watch-alongs, or watching scary movies to make fun of them (and hide that you're feeling creeped out) no actual like gore or serious contemplative horror. I don't really know if it's better to go with more serious of more silly games, I was def looking at the more silly stuff bc the serious ones feel really awkward to me (but that might be informed by the fact that most serious RPG's I've heard are longform? The actors get really deep and attatched to their characters and I can't really picture feeling that intense? But maybe I'm just biased to think that short games are always more comedic and silly?). I think I'd prefer more rules/guided games to start with, I think it'll help with getting started and not freezing up when you can't think of something. I think puzzle games or like a heist or mystery sound great! Social interaction too, that's def one of the plus points of RPG's and games over watching something, that you're spending the whole time talking to eachother. Tbh I really don't know what would be best to focus on, I'm just spitballing, I just think something with a clear goal. We usually have at least a couple of hours time together, but it's not necessary for a game to last that whole time. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!! I'm in a different timezone, it's actually pretty late for me so if I don't answer any follow up questions, it's bc I'm sleeping LOL

hi again gm anon! glad u did not wait up for me bcos it took me a while (i have...... many games), but here is a handful of recs for you!

first up, i think generally caltrop core games might be p good for a beginner; it's a very simple d4 system with very structured rules (how much depends on which game, but generally it's turn-based with set actions to choose from). there's still room for roleplaying & improv ofc, but it's easy to keep a handle on the table. there's been a caltrop core game jam with lots of submissions before, and ofc u can browse the tag on itch, but something like crystal souls or cursed confections might be fun for your group!

futuristic scifi 'group of thieves/scoundrels/rebels/etc do a mission' games are also very popular (i own like........ 20? 30? some are cyberpunk and some are spaceships and just. lot of em.) and also generally have a decent structure to work with (altho less turn-based than caltrop core, usually). a lot of them are geared towards longer campaigns, but can be done as a one-shot if you ignore some of the between-missions stuff. or do it as a post-mission cooldown thing. u kno. (lots of them are sorta forged in the dark based, but the slightly less complex ones i think are good for beginners; fitd can get really involved, but there are also simplified ones!)

you might enjoy offworlders, off the grid: resurgence, xanadu, subway runners, what's so awesome about hacking the planet, weasel overdrive, make our own heaven, bubblegum wizards 2, or dwindle.

and finally, i do love a dungeon crawl; keeps everything to a relatively small & defined space, but you can get weird with it (npcs in a dungeon? yeah! timespace fabric folding in a dungeon? yeah!) and it's a place to do all the puzzles and riddles and inexplicable creature encounters you generally don't get a chance for in a 'here you are in A World' sorta game. also, easy to keep short (my game sessions tend to run 4+ hours for oneshots, but in a dungeon crawl you can just. skip to the last room lmao.) games designed for dungeon crawling tend to lean more horror (if they don't lean..... d&d, basically), but i tried to pick ones where you can either take out most horror elements, or choose to play them lighthearted and chill/campy. you may like crwlr, the dark below, or the empty house.

.......and that's some basic game recs for your group; should be fine for 3-4 players, or even for one-on-one play if you can't get everyone together, altho that's not the ideal. as far as games specifically designed as two-player games, i know there are a bunch of them on itch, but most of them are gmless (usually asymmetrical gmless, but still gmless), and many of them lean heavily emotional (altho some are silly!). i'm not sure if you have different requirements in mind for a two-player game; lmk and i'll see what i can do? altho probably not until after this weekend, i got some stuff to work on for school T_T (this is....... part of why i'm not actively looking to gm rn, even tho i waaaaaant to. too many school.)

oh also podcasts! i know there's more than this around, but you can always check out oneshotpod for shortform games of many kinds! international podcast month also has some oneshot ttrpg episodes; i gmed a game of dwindle this year that was lots of fun! i'll poke around for more sometime, but for now i rly gotta get some sleep lol.

[stevethehairington]

Congratulations!! Honestly I’ve never seen a fic get anywhere close to 1k so 2k is so fucking impressive. That’s insane! I was wondering if you have any tips for bringing in readers? Obviously your writing is amazing. Currently I’m struggling to get 20 kudos. 😅

so sorry for the late reply, it's been a busy week! but thank you so much!!!!! i'm honestly so like shocked that it's managed to get up to 2k! it just baffles me that at least two thousand people have read/liked something that i wrote. it's incredibly validating and i just feel so so so grateful.

ooh, tips for bringing in readers hm.

share your fic on multiple platforms! obviously, once that fic is posted it's going to show up in the tags you've used on ao3 (assuming that's where you've posted it!), but you want it to reach more than just those looking on ao3, because not everyone looks in the general pairing tag or narrows their search down to the trope tags you may have used. so my advice here, is to take that link and make a tumblr post with it! make a tweet that includes it! throw that link up on instagram if you use that for fandom stuff. if you're in any discord servers for that fandom/pairing, drop the link there too! spread it around as far and wide as you can so you can get as many eyes on it as possible!

do not be afraid of some good ol' shameless self-promo! in the same vein as #1, don't be afraid to then promote those posts you've made about your fic! self-reblog, self-retweet, self-rewhatever! get your fic circulating! it's your blog/page/account, so you shouldn't ever feel bad about boosting up your own content!

find yourself a good group of friends who will hype the hell out of you and your works! not only is it ridiculously nice to have a group of people who you can talk with about fandom stuff, and spitball ideas with, and discuss theories or headcanons with until they turn into something more, but it is also soooo incredible to have people that are in your corner and that will read anything you put out and who will then also reblog/retweet/rewhatever your fics too! even if you run in the same general circle, they're still going to have connections with other people that you won't, so if they help you out by reblogging your fic, then that spreads it even further than just your own followers. and like, in my experience, fandom friends will be some of the most ride or die, supportive people that will stop at nothing to hype you up to the highest point they possibly can, so like hang onto them as tight as you possibly can because they are just the absolute best things ever <3

create some sort of banner/moodboard/graphic to go with the fic i have not personally done this, just because i am usually far too impatient once i finish a fic and i just want to get it up asap lol, BUT. i know that there are fics i've seen that have totally eye catching banners or moodboards or things like that that the writers will attach to the beginning of the fic but also to their promo posts, and those absolutely will grab attention! like, someone will be scrolling through the tag and see the banner/moodboard/whatever you made and go woah, that's cool, what is this? and they'll check out your post and if it's something they decide they're into, then the fic itself too!

i'm trying to think if there's any other advice i could give you, but tbh these are the things i stick to doing the most with my own fics. hopefully that was at least a little bit helpful!! i wish you the absolute best of luck, though! trying to get engagement on writing can be very difficult, but it's really awesome that you're putting yourself out there no matter what and sharing something you've created! that's so special and you should be very proud of yourself for that!!

(also, if your fic is a steddie fic or another st pairing that i'm into and you want to drop me the link i would totally love to check it out!!)

[thatspookyagent]

Affectionate headcanons with Mr. Gallant (Male!Reader)

Requested: Nope!

Warnings: None!

A/N: Decided to write up some soft headcanons for Mr. Gallant with a Male!Reader! I'm honestly not ENTIRELY sure what the Outposts have in them or what are the rooms that we don't see and what do they contain in them, so I hope y'all don't mind me kinda spitballing some of this! Lol just think of it as an AU or sumthen, anyway hope y'all enjoy! :))

Tags: @darlingkitt @sojournmichael @xavierplympton

(If you want to be added to my permanent tag list, just shoot me an ask or message!) :))

Important: Whatever the reader says is in italics!

Gallant is 100% the little spoon, he just lives for being coddled and wrapped up in someone else's arms no matter his partner's height

If you're shorter than him then he slides underneath you so that your chin rests on top of his head and your legs can wrap around his waist securely

If you're taller then he still slides underneath you but instead plays footsies with you beneath the covers while you tickle him here and there

One of his favorite cuddling positions is to lay with his back against your chest and at an angle so that his weight isn't completely on you while he rants about his day and anyone who got on his nerves

He absolutely loves talking shit about his grandma as you rub his shoulders and comfort him, reassuring him that he's incredibly strong and brave for enduring her existence

He'd also discuss his job as a hairstylist before the nuke hit, the two of you would laugh together as he tells stories about clients rushing to him because they were having a really bad hair day, or he'd talk about the time some rich lady's expensive poodle got loose and she had to chase it across the street while half of her head had rollers in it and meanwhile the other half was dripping wet

Occasionally you'd notice a certain glint in his eyes appearing from to time as he talked about his profession, one day you asked him what was wrong, and he started to cry but he quickly reassured you that everything was fine

"You sure hon?" "Yeah. I just...sometimes I miss everything. Everything I had before the world went to shit yanno? I mean I know I was still dealing with my shitty grandma but I still had my clients to distract me. You're literally the only good thing to come out of this whole Outpost situation. Thank God for that."

Beaming from ear to ear, he'd kiss the top of your hand, making the area tingle for a bit as he laid against you while the both of you look up at the ceiling, most likely dreaming of future events to come

At times your late night conversations with him would turn into talks about the possibility of being fathers together which admittedly made Gallant anxious but he was completely open to it

"I mean, lets just say that we became parents? Wouldn't that be exciting? The two of us taking care of new life within a place surrounded by death?" He stares upwards as a smile grew across his face, a soft string of laughs coming from his mouth as he went on about how he would teach his kid to style hair

You two make up stupid little question games were you both take turns asking each other questions, no matter how stupid

"So like...what scares you the most? And you can't say your grandma's bunion covered feet!" "Bad hair days." "Gallant... seriously..." "OKAY OKAY IT'S ACTUALLY GOING BALD. I JUST WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PULL OFF A RECEDING HAIRLINE DAMMIT!"

An unlikely habit that you found out Gallant had was his tendency to hum softly into your neck, similar to a cat purring as he'd rub his soft and short stubble against your chin

You noticed that whatever record was playing in the sitting room area tended to be the tune he'd hum, whether it was while he held you in his arms and swayed back and forth or during nap time which became a way to help both of you fall asleep much easier

When it's time to eat or socialize with the other Outpost members, you two aren't shy when it comes to showing affection in front of the others which technically doesn't have a rule against it

Gently pushing up Gallant's purple shades whenever they start to slightly slide of the bridge of his nose and in return he likes to fix and adjust your outfit here and there whenever he notices that it's off or needs maintenance

Making sure to rub his back when you see him getting visibily upset during the shitty cube dinners and just reminding him that the two of you will make it through all of this while at each other's side

He gets serious anxiety and stress from being cooped up in the same place all the time while the world is shit so you decide to make little songs out of the tunes he occasionally hums

Now you're the one who's softly singing to him while he tries to sleep after a long day, which is his favorite time to place his head on your chest and close his eyes while he feels the vibrations flowing throughout his body

Whenever he's in a much better mood, he'll offer to slow dance with you while in the privacy of his room

If you're shorter than him then he places his forehead onto yours while his arms are wrapped your sides

If you're taller than him then he places his head around your collarbone while his arms are wrapped your hip area

Sneaking away in order to have soft make of sessions with him, in which one of your favorite things to do is twiddle his one earring within your fingers gently as his caress your entire body

If you two are making out in his room, then he definitely throws out some dirty talk here and there which you sometimes reciprocate and it drives him nuts

Gallant doesn't really mind you ruffling up his hair but he likes to pretend that he hates it, he'll make a big fuss while you give him little noogies but soon he is a mess of hiccuping giggles

He's kinda tender when it comes to getting his head touched so things like noogies and hair stroking is actually very intimate and shows how much he trusts you within the relationship

Probably the thing that sends him to sleep the fastest and deepest is singing to him while running your hands through his hair, not a worry on his mind as he snores softly within your lap

Kisses on top of his head give him immense butterflies, similar to the hair touching it's something that he only lets you do to him

One of Gallant's largest kinks love languages is words of affirmation, the quickest way to his heart being praise and having terms of endearment being applied to him

An assortment of pet names and uplifting words will instantly make his heart flutter and his body fill with heat, things like "Good boy" "My beautiful boy" and anything to do with calling him handsome will immediately put a grin on his face

If he does something, no matter how minor, and you compliment his performance, it always brightens up his day especially on ones he feels the most useless and unproductive

Gallant is quite fond of long warm baths with plenty of foamy bubbles surrounding him and candles around the tub that illuminate the both of you as he melts into your chest

Sometimes he's so relaxed that he falls asleep, gently resting against you as you plant delicate kisses onto his bleach blonde hair while stroking his arms

If you're feeling particularly brave, you'll secretly steal some Outpost supplies and make your boyfriend some edible face masks to enjoy with his baths

He really seems to vibe with them and appreciates how you smuggled really good cucumbers and face rub so that Gallant could not only look good but eat good

Eventually you would succumb to your playful desires, while enjoying the peaceful silence you'd randomly tickle attack him from behind causing the vegetables to fall from his face and plop into the bath water below

The entire bathroom would fill Gallant's snorting laughter as you manage to pin him softly against the bath tub wall, nipping at the mask that covered his face then eventually migrating to his silver earring

At some point the white haired male moved to grab your face, lifting it up and forward slightly so that he could place a tender kiss on your lips and soon the two of you would completely forget about bathing and even the apocalypse itself as you embrace and test the strict rules within Outpost 3