#((readmore bc of length))

[luvrodite]

tw discourse

When I and many other writers/blogs on this app say that we don't want minors on our blog, it is for a reason. For me, it's because I regularly interact with content that is made by adults for adults, and I think it should be common sense to respect that boundary.

There are so many things I could say about how when we produce/reblog these posts it's with a basic understanding of sex and consent and relationship dynamics, but also, I just do not want minors in this space period.

The things I post on here often go untagged and that is the reason why this blog is an 18+ blog, as opposed to allowing minors to follow and interact with this blog on the condition they block a specific 18+ tag. It makes me (and probably a lot of other creators) feel incredibly disgusted and uncomfortable to think that not only has a minor read my 18+ content – all of which explicitly is marked as not being for their eyes – but has gone on to consistently interact with my blog under the guise of being an adult.

Disregarding the fact that you shouldn't be reading it, what about our boundaries? I often see the argument of being mature enough to handle topics that are marked for adults, but this sort of behaviour is completely antithetical to that. I as a sane, rational adult do not ever want to be discussing the topics I do on this blog with someone else's child, no matter how close to their 18th birthday they might be. (If you are that close, you can wait. It isn't that serious. You will not die if you don’t get to read the smut, I promise.)

Completely bypassing someone else's boundaries and potentially putting them at risk because of your behaviour doesn't scream mature or adult to me. As an older sister, the idea of finding out that my younger siblings had interacted with people much older than them in this capacity is horrifying, and the idea of being a parent in that situation is so much worse. There is absolutely no reason for you as a minor to be coming into the inboxes of adult blogs and interacting with them in an adult capacity when it’s clear you don’t have adult decision making skills or reasoning.

I don't know. This makes me feel so disgusted. This is an 18+ blog for a reason.

[the-king-of-lemons]

since fit’s on qsmp i finally have a reason to ramble about my headcanons for hack clients :O

[goldiipond]

ray autism essay finished

[gothprentiss]

hey, so i loved your recent emily prentiss post with the fatalism and providence quote and i was reading your tags about how the answer to doyle's question was both and i wondered if you'd be willing to share any more thoughts on that? i just found it really fascinating.

hi!! yes, for sure, and thanks for asking! sorry that this is long!! (gifset in question here btw)

the tl;dr for this is that while i do think i'm reading too much into this question, a primary tension in the whole doyle arc (beyond the obvious Will Doyle Kill Her) is what kind of person is emily prentiss, and what kind of person is she capable of being. and while i think that the quote is really meant to lean more towards 'person of action inclined to fatalism', the conditions of her survival are providential. the preventative actions prentiss takes are all sort of business as usual emily prentiss-- she's independent, instinctively and to a fault, suspicious and self-protective, and very concerned not to involve anyone who ought not be. (i've probably said this a lot but i do love how unique this storyline is to her particular moral status, and how she compartmentalizes. with another character this repeated insistence that her team shouldn't be involved might just read as like, a pretty boilerplate moment of self-sacrificing nobility but it's far more essential to her and her worldview i think.) but the central unit of criminal minds is the team, and the show's firmest belief is in that team-- so she can't do it alone. so repeatedly we see her trying to act against fate* (*something something how this show thinks about narrative and justice), and repeatedly failing to thwart it, or otherwise believing that the outcome is already set (e.g., "i beat you, ian, before you even got out of north korea, i beat you"). a simple and facile distinction i'm going to make here is between determinism (fatalism) and intervention (providence) (again, more under the cut). the presence of her team functions as the latter. you might say doyle is asking her, "do you think this is going to end with your death, or do you think you can be saved?"

annoying distinction: 1) what actually happens 2) what she appears to think and believe.

what actually happens is providential, point-blank period. her team arrives, she's saved, she's spirited away while they track doyle down; while the set up is the prentiss-doyle face off with their respective teams as auxiliaries, it is the entire bau that gets him. that's all intervention.

but i think what we see her thinking is really, like, teetering on the edge of this sort of grim determination to bring this to a close and this Tragically Beautiful hope that her entire worldview is wrong.

[the above is what i was going for with the first two gifs— emily on night watch in her own home, with that air of inevitability and expectation; and emily with derek in valhalla, when they’re talking about whether or not the shooters were trying to attract the fbi, and while she’s clearly agreeing with him to placate him, i kind of read that moment as hoping against hope that he’s right, and that what she knows to be true might somehow be false.]

where we leave the emily prentiss this season is, i think, sort of this interstitial position: on one hand, she's been rescued, but she's sort of doing lauren reynolds again. things haven't really changed for her-- but now the team is on the case. it's hard not to imagine her-- wounded, isolated, and in hiding-- being faced with the same existential question: what does she believe will happen? is it that this is going to keep happening until either she or doyle is killed, again and again tearing her life apart, threatening declan, and never letting her live beyond her time undercover? or is the team going to catch him?

okay! that's the short version! some notes below the cut re: terms and some sort of shallow interpretive stuff about the quote; and more on the gifset in particular. thanks again for asking and sorry for the length of this xoxo

first, the balzac quote (which, for whatever it’s worth, i actually went and found the source of because you won’t find the quote sourced anywhere! and it took a long time! it’s from splendeurs et misères des courtisanes)— It is a strange thing that most men of action have a tendency to fatalism, just as most great thinkers have a tendency to believe in Providence. // Chose étrange, presque tous les hommes d’action inclinent à la Fatalité, de même que la plupart des penseurs inclinent à la Providence.

i’m always kind of on the fence about how much to read into the quotes CM bookends its episodes with. for example, you might say it’s interesting that fatalism and providence are both, in a sense, deterministic. fatalism entails a belief in fate’s inevitability, and any sort of providential thought places true agency in the hands of god or another intervening force. determinism tends to serve as an argument against any philosophy of free will. providence is more complex (we can act, god or the other big force intervenes), but it also forecloses on the possibility that everything's up to you in the end, since there's an unknowable force which may at any time intervene to change things according to its will. the two aren't opposites, is the point.

i think part of what balzac is getting at in that particular excerpt is that a person of action’s fatalism hinges more on the individual, in a way that we can see as isolating, or self-centered, or solipsistic. balzac's big example of the fatalist is Napoleon-- at one point, he calls fatalism his religion-- and i think the fact that the paradigmatic man of action fatalist is also one of the Great Men of History is important here. i'm gonna go pretty off-book from here on out but that's a bit of due diligence. a fatalist is a person who believes they have a Destiny which is coming to pass around them. this might be their own personal Greatness; this might be a strong sense that nature and nurture come together and essentially automate your life (you couldn't have acted in any other way); god's omniscience; cause and effect. and so on. what i'm going to talk abut here is more like... narrative fatalism? basically, i think we get this question delivered to us in coda with the implication that this is going to end in death, and likely hers. we're retreading a lot of the major beats of the story of lauren reynolds, the stakes are the same, etc.

the way you can take the question which seems most strongly implied to me is “do you think you will die [you know, the other thing fatalism sounds like] or be saved?” when i am really overreading the show i think of emily prentiss as a character haunted by recursivity and the impossibility of change. like i said above, a lot of the doyle arc is a sort of redux of her time as lauren reynolds: her old team reforms around her, she's isolated and alone with doyle, and her false death at the end helps guarantee declan's safety a while longer. in this way,  there’s also the implication of “do you think this is how you’re supposed to die, or is there still hope for you?” and “will you act as you think you must, or do you think things might be different this time?”

in addition, i think we’re meant to see emily more as a person of action than of thought— certainly her preparations for doyle over the course of the episodes leading up to this moment at the end of coda have put their finger on the scales— and thus the question also implies that her essential nature is going to be tested. this tracks with where the episodes take us— her inability to trust and the way she favors working in isolation are dangerous, and her life is saved by her reunion with the team. providence!

second, i’m not really sure how much they set out to answer that question. for example, it’s one of the rare questions which is delivered diegetically, which would theoretically allow them to revisit the question. like “you know that ominous balzac quote you dropped on me a couple of days ago? well i’ve figured it out” [socks doyle in the face] or whatever. they might even have worked thematically across their opening and closing quotes if it was something they thought was meaningful rather than just a cool moment. the valhalla + lauren arc does end with this moment of providence, in a sense (her survival). but there doesn’t seem really to be a desire to actually deliver on the quote (i.e., both what she believes in and what kind of person she is are at stake in this whole character arc, but not in the terms that balzac provides). this is probably VERY obvious but i’m saying this to disclaim what i read as providence and fatalism in this context— these are pretty situational definitions and i’m sure any philosopher worth their salt would rap my knuckles for these readings.

okay those are my big disclaimers! more: re the gifset:

the doyle arc kicks off with this profound destabilization: this chapter of her life was supposed to be closed, but it isn't. as i said above, the gifs with the quote text are meant to reflect those particular forms of thought: her air of inevitability and falling back on old patterns; this moment of hope for change in her new setting, even though she feels it's impossible (faith babey! this is a fairly christian show but above all else its god is the team); and this moment where she chooses to go meet her fate, where everything's up in the air but is soon to come to its close.

one example of this is tsia: prentiss thinks her life is in danger and inadvertently leads her to her death by trying to save her. this has always struck me as very overtly about how prentiss can't change anything by falling back into old patterns (behaving more like a spy than a member of the team). emily's reaction to tsia's death is obviously one of immense grief and guilt, but also, i think, a sort of personal fear: she couldn't save her, she doesn't really have any way of managing the situation, and all places of safety are compromised-- the odds that she can save herself are looking pretty slim, too. so that's the sort of fatalism side of things-- the heavy hand of fate falls down upon her &c &c and there's nothing she can really do to escape its grasp. but that's not to say that this element of determinism is only negative: the whole thing about declan is, in her words, that she already beat doyle.

narratively, this is kind of dope. it works less like the fast-paced, gritty spy drama they're going for, and more like a pretty standard mystery: hidden at the center of it all is a secret, hidden narrative, and the story works towards its revelation (think of any mystery story where the detective puts it all together at the end). this has been foreshadowed all along, of course: right before doyle drops the balzac line on prentiss, he says "you took the only thing that mattered to me. now i'm going to take the only thing that matters to you: your life." this pretty heavily implies that he's either lost someone important to him (or that he's referring to his freedom, i guess). but the point is that even on the level of narrative, we're working towards an inevitable end which has already been set for us-- the revelation that she's saved declan, that she's already beat doyle, and has known it all along.

[i do think the declan thing kind of undermines a lot of the character work they did up until that point, but what can you do. it's a crime procedural.]

when i was making the gifset, i had this particular sort of thing in my head: on one hand, you've got this crushing inevitability; on the other, so much is revealed and changed. as i said above, the whole doyle arc has kind of a recursivity to it, both in its major narrative beats and its stakes. at the outset, we see prentiss on this huge precipice: will she live or will she die, and what kind of person is she? what kind of person has she been all along? if she lives, will she be different?

in coda, "lauren reynolds is dead" is kind of a lifeline-- this old identity has ceased to exist, and with her, the entire doyle case should be over. in lauren, reid says she said it like a mantra. a mantra is typically an object of meditation rather than, like, an argument or reminder you make to yourself (much 2 say here. not gonna say it), but the point here is that this seems to be kind of a touchstone for at least emily and tsia, a thing they say as a reminder that their safety should be guaranteed. there's a tacit flip side to that mantra, anyway: lauren reynolds is dead, emily prentiss is alive. and that latter fact is the whole problem.

similarly, i've always been fascinated by emily's "let me go" when derek finds her dying. after all, this whole arc really kicks off at the end of coda, when doyle says the thing that matters to her above all else is her life. now, you might just say that doyle is wrong about her. after all, he's only ever known her as lauren reynolds, a role she was playing, and imo paget brewster's character choices between lauren and emily are largely pretty distinct, enough that we can see (e.g. when doyle tells her the truth about declan) emily sort of emerging through lauren. but it feels in the scene like a bit of a character revelation: we're learning that emily prentiss has a whole different side to her, one which jars with the ethics of the show.

so you might say a couple of things here.

a lot of the doyle arc has been about what kind of person emily prentiss is. by lauren, it's clear that she will, at least to some extent, risk her own life to protect the team; and in the course of that episode it's also revealed that she's been risking her life all along to protect a child. so it's not the thing that matters most in the world to her, necessarily. this moment where she says "let me go" strikes me as potentially a VERY ham-handed moment of criminal minds writing in this vein: she's protected declan! her team is safe! she's not struggling to live because she's given her life for them! and in a similar vein, you might say she's decided that this is probably where it's ending. (i like that this has narrative and martyrological shape to it. i care very much that it's derek responding by telling her about herself almost hagiographically.) you might also say that she's trying to reassure her friend and partner who she knows will take her death so immensely to heart-- let me go as both let me die and let me go emotionally.

so on one hand, this is lauren again. the arc really kicks off with "lauren reynolds is dead" and, at least in s6, closes with a similar lie: "emily prentiss is dead." and she really is ready, at this point, to die, and if we take doyle's words about her to be true, this represents a fundamental shift in her values.

on the other hand, though, she's rescued. i think the providence reading is easier-- it's the team as the providential force. garcia's message for her really hammers this home: there's prentiss, alone and on the run, and penelope insisting very fiercely and very correctly that she's not alone. i think that final line from garcia (if you can see us, then come home. if you can't-- then you stay alive. cause we're coming) is an interesting revision on the balzac quote, falling heavily on the providential side. like, in this heavily foreshadowing metaphor, either emily sees the team coming for her (light in the darkness, c'mon, that's a belief metaphor) and returns to them; or she remains alone, acts as best she can, and they come to her aid anyway. that's the thing about providence, after all-- whether you think about it in a spiritual or secular way, it's not done according to your own will and capacities, and you can't really transact for it. you might merit it-- and i think derek's words to emily as she's bleeding out in his arms are partially to show she's merited her survival. she deserves to be saved, because of all that she truly is. (that's where, imo, lauren reynolds really dies as a way of conceptualizing her character.)

i ended the gifset with jj wishing her good luck because, beyond the moment of care this entails, wishing her luck feels, in the context of this arc, like a gesture which is predicated on a particular kind of hope. not the hope of, like, we've done everything we can to sort this out, or everything should go well, or anything in that particular and deterministic vein. like, sure, hope in the sense of "good luck staying in hiding" and so on. but there's a sense that her life is fundamentally restarting here, that her false death has also occasioned a rebirth. good luck, there's a whole new and different life opening out in front of you and so on.

like, i guess the point here is that i see it as both, neither, an open question too. this whole story arc is characterized by repetition & revelation, which suggest predetermination. when your past comes back for you with a vengeance, it does so because of what it contains. hauntings are and are of old structures. nothing that does not in some way preexist the moment of revelation can be revealed etc. etc. but on the other hand there's the obvious providential aspect of the team's involvement. and there's also the way we come to perceive prentiss throughout the arc. there's no peripatetic element here-- she still ran, still lied and kept secrets and closed people out-- but we learn that her motives aren't what they seemed to be in coda and valhalla. we're briefly given the possibility of her being Really Bad (i.e., that she'd have killed declan), and just as quickly this is dismissed. all of this kind of serves to morally rehabilitate her, at least enough for her to be seen as worthy of surviving. i'm sticking this up there with providence because i think this particular transaction of morality does fit into this worldview, one which you might say is more characterized by merit and grace (and their attendant emphases on virtue and morality) than anything else. it feels sort of microcosmically like william james' take on evil & theodicy-- there is a grand scheme in which goodness triumphs, and probably not perceptible to man-- insofar as we finally see the scale on which emily prentiss is being judged to be good. this all looks more than vaguely christian but i do think a lot of criminal minds is staked on the essential Goodness of its main characters, which is more my point than reading this all through an emily prentiss was raised catholic lens lol.

anyway, the point is that, because there's no really clear victory at the end of this arc beyond the then-pyrrhic victory of her survival, i think we end up in a position where you can’t really stake a claim in one or the other. i'm going to end this now due to length and also due to the fact that if anyone’s still reading, my god you are a brave soldier. but like—what actually happens? well, it’s kind of both. sometimes intervention thwarts inevitability, but not always, and not always in the ways that matter most. this is particularly relevant in terms of what emily prentiss actually believes, which is of course at stake in doyle's question-- the immediate and sharp blow of her failure to save tsia, the fact that she doesn't drop it all and go back to the team, the fact that she's even, until the last moment, still assuming that this is all happening outside of anyone's control. but the most important and most providential moment in all of this is her survival, and i think that lauren ends with emily prentiss not only having to like, find a new way of living under these new conditions, but also a new way of being in the world and seeing herself in it. and sometimes i think that her leaving the team is partially an act of apostasy but that's a strong weird and For Me take lol.

[iraprince]

I love the entire concept of Cookie... the look, the fashion, the gender... Would you mind telling us a little more about him? I'm also intrigued about why she's named Cooking with Gorgeous!

HI i would LOVE to talk about george thank you so much. also this makes me realize i've never actually sat down and just made a post unabashedly infodumping at length abt an oc before and it seems silly that i haven't. i ask only for all dear readers to please temper their expectations for this post with the knowledge that i just smoked half a joint before sitting down to answer it. a small one. but still. anyway

FIRST OF ALL FOR THE UNACQUAINTED THIS IS COOKING WITH GORGEOUS, aka cookie or george for short. he uses he/him and she/her pronouns interchangeably!

hi sorry that's not cookie that's a horse in a bridal veil that i. found in my stuff while trying to scroll and find my cookie art. i just got distracted and had to show you. okay no for real here's cookie

he's the character i'm playing in a playtest campaign of the absolutely mesmerizing sapphicworld, an in-development ttrpg!!! and if i'm going to be talking about cookie i feel like i HAVE to say i think a huge amount of her charm and dazzle and charisma comes directly from the charm and dazzle and charisma of the setting i created her for. i know i am laying it on really thick right now but that is on purpose. i want, desperately and unashamedly, for this game to get really popular bc 1. it's genuinely that good. and it's not even DONE yet and 2. i want everyone to get into it so that everyone will make sapphicworld characters and then i'll get to see everyone's sapphicworld characters.

EDIT i'm scrolling back up here and adding a readmore bc this is already getting so long lol. you asked for "a little more" and apparently i have graciously decided this means "literally every fact about cookie that exists in my brain"

SO a lot of the info/tidbits i haven't shared about cookie are i guess gameplay-specific stuff... his title (which is like a class/playbook) is "The Noble Sweetheart," though in sapphicworld "nobility" no longer has anything to do with wealth or class, and is instead entirely about amassing a court purely via devotion/popularity; her subculture (which is like, Who You Hang Out With; drifters, goths, poets, debauchers, cowpokes, etc) is Babe; and her kind (which is like ancestries but in sapphicworld is really just like, a physical form, which u can change more or less at will) is Lunarthrope, which is basically a werewolf!! or more broadly a furry, since u always look like whatever were-animal you are 24/7. just MORE at night, tho i suppose i don't represent that aspect much in my cookie art... ANYWAY i am restraining myself from just sitting here and like. transcribing her entire character sheet. but basically what all this means is that cookie's role in the world (at least at the beginning of the campaign) is "Professionally — no, VOCATIONALLY Hot Person who everyone loves so so so so so so much." cookie really enjoys this role.

he's named cooking with gorgeous because he's an avid cook, and he wants to share that with you, and he's gorgeous!! though honestly the cooking hasn't ended up as important to his character as it was when i first came up with him, lol — but my initial concept was kind of like, what's the equivalent of a bouncy normie recipe blogger/lifestyle influencer but in the context of the lush horny trans deathless psychedelic universe of sapphicworld. and it's cooking with gorgeous, a doggirl dyke with big blue boobs (six of them!!) who is so devastatingly cute and darling that a bunch of people just kind of pledge their fealty to him for no real reason other than he feeds them. and is cute

also her name is def influenced by the fantastic names of many canon sapphicworld npcs! like, quick example list of some npc names off the top of my head: the booty commie, death cybernetic, princess eureka!, the culinary goof (whom cookie dislikes. btw.), pizza friday (whom cookie loves!!!)

cookie is very very determined, and she's ALMOST always very confident. even when she isn't feeling confident, she's still very good at forcing herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other — maybe just while screaming or crying or uncontrollably barking or at least very ardently complaining. he has a tendency to be spoiled and, like, tactless-via-obliviousness, so sometimes he can be grating to interact with, and he has a petty/vindictive streak; but in general he's an AGGRESSIVELY kind person and usually aims all his shrill, cheerful stubbornness directly toward the goal of refusing to accept anything but the best for everyone.

at the beginning of our campaign cookie has JUST received a brand new castle!!!! (chateau gorgeous.) which he doesn't actually "own" bc, remember, no wealth or class in sapphicworld, but he's the ENTHUSIASTIC new caretaker and is chomping at the bit to renovate it so ppl can live there and he can throw a bunch of magnificent parties and basically continue living exactly as he has been, But Even More Fabulous. obviously this is exactly when the main plot threat of the campaign shows up and spoils everything and compels cookie to go on his First Ever Adventure!!!!!! she HAS to save the world otherwise NOBODY will be able to go to the first big party at chateau gorgeous :((((

at this point to prevent myself from just like, giving you guys a play by play of the entire campaign so far i am going to just start listing every cookie fact i can think of as bullet points

🎀 he owns a magical sword in the shape of a giant microplane. it's called The Microplane. he pronounces this "mee-crow-plah-nay"

🎀 george desperately wants to resurrect The Dog-Lich, an entity that once ruled over all beasts from its palace on the moon but was murdered and torn to pieces in a cosmic war far in the past. her attitude towards this desire is 50% devoted lunar cultist, 50% parasocially obsessive twitter stan

🎀 this isn't really a cookie fact but going back to how his title is The Noble Sweetheart — just for a glimpse at party composition, his fellow party members' titles are The Intimate Scholar, The Tentacle Advocate, and The Tw*nk Controversial (the * is the canon spelling).

^ aforementioned tw*nk. its name is Mwah ("pronounced like the kiss you blow at someone you just fucked over"). mwah is played by @/squiddelyfather on twitter!

🎀 mwah and cookie used to be very, very tight, BEFORE mwah became the tw*nk controversial. now that it's so.... you know.... controversial, well. they're still very close, but it has gotten a little stilted and weird (and watching them slowly un-weird it together as the campaign goes on has been one of my fav roleplay experiences ever honestly)

🎀 cookie's other adventuremates, skarligge and delaryn, are both very indulgent towards him. delaryn acts the most grumpy/dismissive about it but is honestly sometimes the worst about spoiling cookie out of anyone in the party (skarligge's player is twt@/clown_dream and delaryn's is twt@/glaiveguisarme and hey while im at it our fantastic gm is the sapphicworld dev, twt@/ddemoneclipse. hi guys i hope u don't mind me chattering abt ur ocs here lol it's just hard to talk abt the best of cookie w/o bringing up everyone else's characters and roleplay also!!!)

🎀 cookie is very VERY sensitive and will burst into tears at the drop of a hat. the precursor to this is her eyes getting So So So Big And Wet And Round. one of my favorite bits to menace the other party members with is when something is not going cookie's way i will lean into my mic and say "cookie's eyes are getting so so so big. they're getting so big and wet and round and shiny. they're so so round and fucking big her eyes are like big wet black glass marbles" and this is like kryptonite to them. this is like getting hit with deadly radiation

🎀 oh speaking of fashion!!!! one of cookie's perks from being a Babe is that she can always change her look whenever she wants. she will ALWAYS have whatever outfit she needs and can quickchange instantly. wait this reminds me i have a bunch of seasonal holiday outfits sketched out and i don't think i've ever posted them here but it'll only let me put one more image in this post. well here have this one

🎀 okay well suddenly i have forgotten all other george facts so that's all for now!!! from now on i will try to just dump oc facts like this more often tho this is really fun. ty for getting me going lol!!!

[huntershowl-moving]

SHIPPING INFO // ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR MUSES SO PEOPLE KNOW HOW SHIPPING WORKS ON YOUR BLOG.

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER(S)?

i don't have one particular otp — big ships change depending on the Era hellhound is in!

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?

nothing illegal obviously — other than that, aside from long-lifespan characters whose mental maturation is slower, i generally stay away from with 10+ year age gaps when the younger muse is under 20. just feels like a weird power dynamic i guess?

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?

yes! ships on this blog cannot be pre-established — i tend to lose interest fast if they don't build up naturally, either through lots of ooc plotting or through writing. on top of that, seph is ... piiiiicky. she has very specific Types. generally, ships with very gentle, soft, mentally well-adjusted characters are possible, but transient — seph falls out of love after a point, but remains staunchly protective of them.

the long and short of the matter is she's a freak, and you kind of have to match that to be compatible as a long-term partner. but even then they don't always line up perfectly! idk. seph's weird. simultaneously very easy to ship with and very hard to ship with.

WHO ARE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH?

oh i've got lots of good ones going on right now!! pls forgive me for gushing. focusing on currently heavily-plotted and/or written ones for this bit bc otherwise it will be pages and pages!! if i forgot someone you have full permission to impale me on a pike i am SO SORRY. (all of these will be under a readmore at the end of the post for length!)

there are more sort of beginnings/potentials for ships that haven't been explored yet which i haven't included here, but i'm truly excited to see where each and every one of them goes!!!

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?

yes absolutely hahaha — at least communicating ooc about it is necessary! i'm much more comfortable shipping with partners i mesh well with as a mun and have an easy time talking to.

ARE YOU SHIP-OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?

LOOK I. LISTEN. LISTEN... IM FERAL FOR SHIPS. FERAL. even though seph is picky about them — and i promise it's not personal if it doesnt work, it truly is just her dumb creature ass being unable to normal.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?

N/A for this blog, but as a fun trivia fact, i'm deep in satosugu hell rn

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?

it's all vibes babey. we just start writing their non-romantic dynamic buildup, and if it clicks (or even if u just think ur character would have a crush!) we talk about it ooc and plot some more, then plot some more and before u know it, the angst hammer looms over ur head

Tagged by: @bearratic (thank youuuu!!) Tagging: (points) do it

ship gushing below. <3

@vsagis' villain izuku— i had to put u first bc u kickstarted this shipping renaissance. seph and izuku clicked instantly and started a long-term trajectory that i don't think either of us writers expected. they're just freak enough to match each other, just soft enough to genuinely care. we're really putting these two through the horrors(tm) and watching them fall hopelessly, horribly in love. <3

@spiritcrown's pasha — how could i not mention pasha!! i was so happy to see you back, because pasha and seph's relationship was soooo formative for seph's development wrt romance. seph is absolutely, completely and utterly devoted to pasha. they worship at the altar of her. they would bend heaven and raise hell for her.

@crowshoots' jesper — UAHGHGBBHBH INCOHERENT CRYING NOISES. the first thing seph noticed about jesper was extremely respectable fighting skills, but even then they were definitely uhhhh touch and go for a while there before they started to simmer down and. pin each other down and — one thing led to another and jesper's being antagonized by her antagonists and they're too deeply in love to go back!! i love them. i l

@crowgreeds' kaz — HHHHHHHHH god. hi siri i know ur not around the dash much but idc im writing u into this. kaz and seph both have such a darkness in them that the other recognizes and not only feeds, but when necessary, balances. they're ruthless and violent and mean but at the same time, they have such a softness for each other that they both thought was dead. also, you're the recipient of probably the best rp reply i've ever written (that fucking. hellhound kill description. my GOD im feral for seph protecting him)

@tewwor.... goose is2g we really have the creatures ever. litho — FIRST SHIP!!!! FIRST SHIIIP i still cant believe it took 4 irl years for them to finally admit their stupid feelings. now they're soulmates and there's no turning back. he's the reason seph likes poetry in every verse. the softest snarkiest ship. probably the closest to a true YA-style soulmate seph has. she hasn't forgiven him for all the twilight jokes though tough luck jie & ricochet — the boys... the absolute chaos trio... i never expected seph and jie to fall for each other but honestly i should have. he falls so neatly into her "equally feral" type. ricochet is so calm and seph is kind of intoxicated by that. sheathed claws kind of vibe. just love these three their dynamic balances itself so well

@spungolden's dio — two femmes raised as weapons with deeply suppressed emotions, chillin in a murder alley, five feet apart cause theyre not g— (theyre gay. theyre so gay) these two are so sweet they sometimes make me tear up. they skipped the trauma stage and went straight into lesbian domestic fantasy with only occasional murder.

@chaoslulled oh boy(s). toji — brutally in love. they saw and embraced each other's monster, refused to shy away, and now they somehow revolve in this strange orbit of violent and incredibly soft with each other. i think he's the first of the current ship lineup that seph has in-thread said the L-word to. this ship was so easy to jump right into, the chemistry was like lightning in a bottle. satoru — one of the most genuinely unexpected slowburn ships i've stumbled into. these two read each other for filth INSTANTLY as lonely motherfuckers who, in some way or another, had loved and lost. they haven't even gotten to the oh-shit moment in the slowburn yet but i'm lookin forward to it yakuza sukuna — THE PAIN. THE SUFFERING. AUHHHGHGGGG HOL YOU'RE FUCKING KILLING MEEEE. these two are mirrors in the worst possible way. they've got their throats stuck under their boss' boot heels; they've been disfigured, they've had their siblings used as leverage, they've been made into muzzled dogs. despite hating each other at the start, they can't not recognize that, and it's led to this fierce protectiveness that isssss whoops evolving into feelings. i'm sure nothing will go wrong

@eraserisms' shota — AHHHHHHH god okay most of this ship has been pure plotting vibes and responses to memes, but i truly cannot wait to get into writing more of them because they own my heart and soul. i think they know each other to the marrow in a way that's not super common for seph, and the gentleness and caution with which they're starting to explore revisiting their care for each other is heartbreaking in the best way

@sasouken BEE!!!! ok chronologically(??): deku — so precious and wholesome from the start. your honor he's just a little guy with a big dumb crush. when i tell uuuuuu some of our plotting has literally made me tear up a little??? the absolute bleeding heart on this boy??? HURTS ME??? one day they'll hold hands casper — slated to be our angstiest dynamic, i just Know it. two motherfuckers who love their siblings, inextricably involved in a tangled web of crime and violence. two people who have lost so much and don't want to lose anyone ever again. i will die i WILL satoru — such... a different vibe than i was expecting in an amazing way?? his dynamic with seph is so fuckin sweet? so much physical touch born of trust and comfort. also again: her first ever fwb (for now), which is truly a wild thing to experience. sukuna — i .. . dont even know what to say about this one. (affectionate). he unlocked an entirely new dimension of freak in seph's psyche and attraction style that i couldn't comprehend before we started writing them but retrospectively makes so much sense. what the fuck is going on with these two i have no idea but i am OBSESSED with it. also writing them getting down nasty has been extremely fun, i'm enjoying it a lot

[thicctails]

Incomplete Merformers guide, because goddamn it I put too much effort into researching biology for a fake species to let it go to waste

a readmore bc its very long

Earth Mers

Biology

-Eyes have nictitating membrane, aka a second eyelid

-A facultative bipedal, prototherian, catadromous species

-Facultative Bipedal: they usually walk on all fours, but can switch to walking upright.

-Prototherian: egg laying mammals. Both males and females possess mammary glands, but lack nipples.

-Catadromous: lives most of their lives in freshwater, only travelling to saltwater bodies to mate and reproduce.

-Mers possess two sets of gills, one on their neck, and one on their torso. These gills help provide enough oxygen to a Mer’s large, complex body. They are extremely sensitive, and even non-fatal wounds inflicted in areas with gills may leave the Mer unable to move due to pain.

-The loss of one part of a set of gills is a survivable injury, provided that a Mer has a pod that can support them, as strenuous activities like hunting will no longer be possible. However, the loss of a set of gills is fatal, as the Mer will no longer be able to get enough oxygen unless they remain strictly on land, which would cause its own set of problems.

-Mers are covered in small, thin, semi-reflective scales. They become paler and softer on certain parts of the body, such as the face, the front of the neck, the chest, the belly, and the underside of limbs. Mer scales come in every colour and pattern, and are a good indicator of health and age. 

-Pups will have darker, less reflective scales, which helps them hide from any potential predators.

-Juveniles have more colourful scales, and any patterns or markings they have will begin to appear.

-Adults’ scales have reached peak vibrance and reflectiveness, and any patterns or markings will have fully appeared by this point.

-Elder Mer scales begin to lose their brightness, and may begin to flake off.

-Signs of illness in Mers can manifest in random scale discolouration or rapid/over scale shedding.

-Mers possess long, curved canines. Their unique shape helps Mers to hold onto their prey, as it is harder for the prey animal to pull themselves free without causing more damage to themselves. 

-Their wide mouths allow them to take bigger bites of larger prey, or swallow smaller prey whole. 

-A Mer’s facial structure, while human in appearance from a distance or in situations with low visibility, is actually quite different. They have snouts that can range in length, and almost feline-like noses. This allows them to peek above the surface of water without revealing themselves fully.

-Mers have diamond-shaped pupils. These pupils constrict into almost non-visible lines when they bask, which allows them to keep their eyes open to look for potential danger without causing any damage to their sight.

-Mers have unique vocal cords, utilising a syrinx and vestibular folds to produce sounds. They communicate verbally through chirps, hoots, croons, trills, calls, songs, growls and roars, although much of Mer communication is through body language, tail and fin movement, and facial expressions.

-They cannot produce sounds like humans do, but Mers can learn to mimic human speech like certain species of birds. The noise will sound noticeably off without years of proper vocal training, and unless a Mer spends time observing human conversation, they will often not understand the meaning of the sound they are copying.

-Mers communicate using certain frequencies. If a Mer is born with any abnormalities in their vocal cords, they may be unable to vocally communicate with others.

Eggs and Pups

-Both male and female Mers can feed pups, but only females can produce and carry eggs. Mer gestation is typically 16 months long, and often only produces 1-2 viable eggs.

-Mer eggs resemble shark eggs, being pouch-like in shape. The foetus and yolk is visible until the very end of the development phase, when the egg’s shell becomes brittle and opaque, allowing the pup to break free much easier.

-Pups are born with limited sight and hearing. They rely fully on their parents or caretakers for the first two years of life before they develop fine motor skills and have acquired basic swimming skills.

-Mers return to their pools to lay their eggs, as pups need to be able to easily access oxygen while their gills finish developing, and this can be difficult given the rough and unpredictable nature of the ocean.

-Eggs can only be out of water if they are kept moist, and Mers will do everything possible to not remove their eggs from the water, as they are delicate and sensitive to their environment. 

Pods and Pools

-Mers live in pods. Pods can have anywhere between 2 to 100+ members, and are an essential part of Mer life and culture.

-Pods can be made of blood relatives, mates, inlaws, friends, ect. Mers that do not know each other but that have been separated from their pods for any reason may form temporary pods for the sake of survival.

-Pods have their own pools that they return to to rear their young. Multi-generational, family controlled pod pools are called Ancestral Pools, while pools controlled by multiple, unrelated pods are called Communal Pools. 

-These pools are typically shallow, and are often near waterfalls or streams to insure that the water does not become stagnant. Mers will usually live around these pools for most of their lives, and being forced to relocate can be an extremely traumatic experience.

-Human influence on the environment has driven Mers closer towards extinction, as these pools are essential for raising pups. Adult mers can survive in rivers or oceans, but pups lack the skills and strength to adapt and survive in these environments.

-Some mers adapted to this rising problem in interesting ways. Mers that moved into darker, underwater caves or bayous developed larger eyes, long whiskers, and bigger, more sensitive head fins to help them navigate in dark spaces with more obstacles. Others developed stronger magic, and used it to disguise themselves as humans. 

-Human disguised mers spend years observing human populations and learning how to act and speak like humans, as Mers do not communicate in the same ways. This is a high risk - high reward decision, as these mers can own property and create their own secure pools, but they also run the risk of being discovered, either through a slip up from themselves, or from a human somehow stumbling upon an undisguised pup. Pups have high sensitivity to magic, and cannot control their own, which means that they cannot be disguised or disguise themselves.

-Most, however, simply try to find suitable pockets of deep forests or secluded beaches, tucking themselves away from humanity.

-Raising a pup or pups alone is highly risky, because this means that the parent will need to leave their vulnerable young alone to go hunt. Unfortunately, human activity has made returning to either Ancestral or Communal pools difficult or impossible, and expectant Mers may be forced to search for any water body to lay their eggs. If the water is stagnant or polluted, the pup inside the egg will die, as Mer eggs are extremely sensitive, and absorb oxygen through the soft exterior.

Sexual Dimorphism

- Mers have very little in the way of sexual dimorphism. The main visible difference between female and male mers is their chest fins. Females have larger, more rigid chest fins. Pods usually have a matriarchal system of leadership, and the most dominant female will have the largest, stiffest, and most vibrant chest fin. Males have smaller, softer, multi-layer chest fins, usually used for courtship. A male’s chest fin can rapidly change colour, usually going from a dull colour to a vivid colour, and they can be ruffled, not unlike the feathers of a bird.

Culture

-Mers are highly intelligent, and although their civilizations are not as advanced as humans (mostly because of humans) they have still developed multiple different cultures based on geographical location and adaptations.

[queenharumiura]

I'll just reply here with thoughts

I’ve mentioned it seldomly that Haru can go either way. She does have a stronger attraction for guys, but I strongly believe she could fall for a woman if cards were aligned right. Just a gut feeling I get (which I call ‘jimmies’).

I think, for Tsu-chan and Haru, they’d be a rather cute ship together. They’d both be supportive of each other and respectful of the others boundaries. They can trust in each other enough to know when to sit back and let the other do as they please—whether it be starting their own fights and ending them.

From what I’ve seen Tsu-chan has a bit of a teasing personality and that works well with Haru as she also likes to tease and joke around. She likes to tease people as a show of affection, and she also likes to see the reaction that others make. I see it as both of them being that kind of couple that just love to joke around and have fun, but they both know when to be serious.

At least on Haru’s end, she’s very affectionate whether it be publicly or privately, and she enjoys being able to do things for her lover. Haru is most definitely the sort who likes to make bento, have light night calls, creating small gifts, etc. She’s also very physically affectionate, but she can hold back if her partner doesn’t like it very much. A considerate bean, she is.

Just a gut feeling, I feel like these two would be the kind of couple that love to go on walks hand in hand chatting and stealing secret kisses when no one is looking. It isn’t to say that they’re ashamed of being in love with each other, but it’s the thrill of seeing if they can without getting caught. Silliness.

The main issue would probably be the fact that if they were dating, the topic of an heir would come about. Either it’s one of those things where you find a donor, Tsuna is forced to find a male partner for the sake of having an heir, adopting, ‘Vongola line ends with me kekw’, etc. Many options.

Personality-wise, they get along well and they’d be very sweet together, I think. There are different ways this could go about, but:

- If the setting was the same as our threads: Due to the fact Haru is great with kids and because she would want to support Tsu-chan’s ideals, that’s why she volunteered to stay behind in Japan to look after the kids. Any time Tsu-chan drops by to visit and check in on them, it’s really like a time for the two to be together. Since the place Haru is caring for the children is a well-kept secret, aside from the children, there aren’t anyone really watching them. It’s a place for Tsuna to truly unwind and be as average of a person she can be. It gives strong domestic vibes.

- An alternative setting would probably be that Haru also moved to Italy with the rest of them. She’d likely have gone to college there, graduated, and helps Tsuna with her endeavors. Just imagine two strong working babes just dominating the fashion industry or what. Imagine if they ever have to show up to some social function and they show up together arm in arm.

I do think out of the both of them, it probably would’ve been Haru that confessed first. Probably drawn to Tsuna’s charisma, her strong will, her motivations, and her gentle-side despite being a part of a cut-throat world like the mafia.

Just some thoughts on the matter. =w=

§

SEND ME “§” IF YOU’D EVER CONSIDER SHIPPING OUR MUSES ||Accepting|| @signorinavongola

Oho? 👀 Haru and Tsu-chan?

Well well well, I won't say I'd be opposed to it. Ohoho. Uhuhuhu

Sounds like a fun time, honestly 83c

[nyaagolor]

Hello! I have a sv question for you!

(Apologies if you have already answered something similar)

Turo/Sada’s time travel machine came up in conversation between me and a friend, and I mentioned out loud the ‘imagination machine’ theory, and the more we talked about it the more it made sense!

The theory is that rather than being a true link to the past/future, the machine only leads to what the operator wants it to lead to. This would explain why sada and turo’s versions of the machine are visually the same, why all the past/future pokemon have very similar traits (past pokemon all being extra spiky/dinosaur looking and future pokemon all having the same chrome & jointed look), and why there is no mention of hisui/hisuian pokemon in Sada’s research. It also explains why the pokemon seem to fit very well into the environment (too well, but the paradox pokemon aren’t on the bad end of that) and why all versions of the pokemon are found in a wacky occult magazine.

Please keep in mind we haven’t seen masters or dlc content, but if anything in there supports/denies the theory please do not hesitate to share!!

Also I apologise for the length of this ask, but Thankyou for reading!!!

No worries abt the length! Half my posts are under a readmore bc I'm longwinded so I get it haha. Anyway, totally agreed, there is no way in hell it's an actual time machine

Like you said, the time machines function identically and seem to have pokemon based on modern fictional interpretations rather than actual prehistoric pokemon. They resemble scifi costumes or children's dinosaur drawings more than actual genuine creatures, and I think that goofiness is supposed to be a clue that these are made from the professor's ideas of paradise rather than a genuine time machine

Not only that, but the whole game seems very centered around wishes moreso than time. It does have a lot of components of legacy, and you do get dialogue about "the future of Paldea" and whatnot, but most of the dialogue seems focused around treasure, wishes, and wants rather than time. It also makes more sense when you think about Terapagos-- it seems way more like a wish pokemon than a time pokemon, and since the tera crystals are powering the time machine anyway, I would hazard a guess that the entire thing is a wish granting machine. I also think that would elevate the themes of the professor's storyline-- hunting for treasure and wishes gone wrong, etc etc.

Anyway tldr I'm with you, I don't think it's a time machine I think it's a wish machine. DLC might contradict this so we'll see! Masters can suck it tho that game means nothing to me

[theradicalace]

htf gender, pronoun, and sexuality headcanons? (for pride month)

i think i've listed them before buuuut i can never turn down a pride month request Or a chance to ramble about the little guys + my hcs have changed slightly Again bc i'm indecisive so i'll do it again >:3

courtesy readmore for length

cuddles- he/him, the coolest cis man you'll ever meet, bisexual

giggles- she/her, cis woman, bi with a strong preference for women

toothy- he/him, trans guy, gay

flaky- mirror pronouns, nonbinary/genderfluid, demisexual bi

mime- he/they/she or other pronouns if they're funny, whatever gender is most convenient/funniest for the situation, bi

nutty- he/any neopronouns, trans guy, pansexual

disco bear- he/him, cis guy, bisexual in theory, pulls nobody in practice

lifty- he/him, trans guy, asexual (who's projecting? not me), bi

shifty+ he/him, cis guy ("what do you mean you only hc one of the twins as trans" shh i work in mysterious ways), bi with a strong preference for men

handy- he/him, trans man, bi

petunia- she/her, trans woman, bi

mole- he/they, if you asked he'd say "i just work here" but he's guy adjacent at least, bi in the loosest sense of the word but more accurately it's that he likes men and A woman (read: petunia)

(handy/petunia/mole polycule. it's canon in my heart)

sniffles- he/it/bot, transmasc nonbinary, demiromantic asexual

splendid- she/her, trans woman, aroace, shhh she's still figuring all that out give her a minute

splendont- he/him, trans man, gay

pop- he/him, cis man, he honestly believes he's straight just because he's never bothered to think about it but if he would stop to self reflect for literally five minutes he'd realize he also likes men

flippy- he/him, cishet somehow but he's cool about it

russell- he/him, cis man, aromantic gay but he'd never actually say that. if you ask hin he'll just say he's "married to the sea" and then disappear to hook up with a guy

lammy- she/her, cis woman but she's such a ride or die trans ally after she gets the 45 minute "transgender 101" lecture she'd need to understand what trans people are, a lesbian but she hasn't figured it out yet and she insists she's bi. sit her down with a glass of wine and that chappell roan song and she'll figure it out though

cro marmot- cro marmot

in short, i STILL have the disease that makes me hc nearly every character as trans and bi. it's called cool awesome epic swag disease and it's incurable

[red-eft]

creature corner, featuring my art wall and trinket shelf.. i ended up swapping everything between the 20gal long aquarium and quemada's 10gal. everyone's settled in and looking good <3

rambling about this under the readmore bc i think my animals are fascinating and i've learned a lot about their behavior + needs from this pfft

ok so first off- quemada! she's going into a growth spurt and is almost the length of her old 10gal. she was restless and seemed cramped, so i decided to upgrade her to a bigger terrarium. she's settling in nicely. depending on how big she gets, this could be her permanent adult enclosure, or i'll eventually shift her to echo's 40galB and then put him in a 4x2x2.

the fish weren't doing so well in the 20gal long- they never used the full extent of the tank and were very shy with how open and empty it was. no matter how i arranged it or how many plants i bought/propagated, i could never get it to fill in properly.

my fish had been passing away due to old age over the past few months- opal (betta), mango (honey gourami)... and now most of the corydoras catfish. i've had these fish for years so it sucks a lot. i feel helpless because no matter how i maintain the tank, they still wither away and pass.. ;-;

i don't want to get any more fish, so downsizing makes sense right now. i'll let my fish live out their lives and then keep it as a shrimp-only tank.

the 10gal has some harlequin rasboras, 2 bronze corys (the last ones left;;), and worminator, my yellowtail spiny eel.

i feel weird having wormie in what feels like such a small tank, but i've gotten to know her body language over the past year and a half. i know what she looks like when she's stressed- she's comfortable now. she has so many more places to hide than in the 20gal, which helps a lot. her size is maxed out at ~4", which would normally be too large for a 10gal- but she doesn't swim around like a regular fish. she's an ambush predator that hides in one spot and sticks her head out to watch for prey.

i also found one single shrimp when taking down the 20gal long. i have no idea where the fuck she came from or how long she'd been in there. here she is in the 10gal:

i'm honestly not worried about the 10gal being overstocked- the filter is rated for a 20gal and there are tons of live plants in there. there's a cleanup crew of pond/bladder snails, too, and i plan on getting more shrimp. their bioload is negligible + they help break down waste over time. add regular water changes like usual and it's gonna be just fine.

[kuruna]

OC rambling... putting this under a readmore cuz i predict it'll get long

I've had it so that if Xan appeared in the game he'd be a "post-game dlc" type character, but lately ive been thinking about what kind of role he may have if he were in the main story! namely i've been picturing a scenario where he frees AZ from the team flare lab 😭 sneakily following behind the protagonist... overhearing AZ telling the story of what happened during the war from his own POV (Xan would tell the story slightly differently as you can imagine) .... maybe when Lysandre goes to leave he gets jumped off screen so Xan can acquire a device needed to open the weird little cage/jail cell/illegal holding facility AZ is in.

(I also considered Xan entering WITH the protagonist and them doing double battles together which is cute, but there is No situation in which I can see him willingly using the spin-pad thingies. This scenario would also require Xan staying back a liittle while the protagonsit goes to confront Lysandre here, because I don't think AZ would say all that he does if he knew Xan was listening in on it. At this point in time their relationship is a absolutely better than it was near and immedietly after the war, but they're not at a point where they can actually discuss these difficult topics with one another yet)

I like this idea bc I think it could make for a really sweet scene. Something important about Xan is the lengths he'll go for his brother (even to his own detriment, sometimes even to AZ's detriment if it's a scenario where Xan thinks he knows best). But of course this is a scenario where it's just a very caring gesture. Something with AZ sorta tiredly stumbling forward and hugging Xan 🥺

I do like the idea a lot, but I would have to figure out why Xan is in Kalos to begin with 😭 for AZ the implication is that all his years of searching have finally led him back to Kalos. Xan isn't searching for Floette, he's a pessimistic and doesn't think she'll ever return (though he never says this to AZ, because he knows it would be cruel to admit what he thought deep down), so that couldn't be his reason. Of course it could just be a coincidence... something where during a conversation with the player he mysteriously goes "Hmm? You met a man my same height not too long ago? ...Hah. We two always end up in the same place, eventually..."

waaaiiiittt now that i'm thinking about it, it could be something as mundane as "yeah there's a mysterious super tall guy whose our neighbor. yeah it seems like despite living here for decades he hasn't aged at all. but he's really nice (if a bit overly serious and humourless and pushy) and likes helping out so everyone's pretty much gotten used to him." I actually do like this idea a lot, it's simple but it works... a point of contrast for AZ and Xan is that like... while AZ has been essentially deified, Xan is extremely, painfully human. Even when he's at his angriest he reacts in a very human way, he doesn't have the capacity to do such huge and horrific things like AZ does.

Anyways. I keep thinking about how I would handle the parade at the end if I did go this route because it's such a big moment for AZ and I don't want to lessen it for him or take the spotlight off him! But also "King-brothers AZ and Xanthos would like to battle!" is very charming and a good way to show the start of a new beginning for both of them. also something very, very sweet about the idea of floette returning to him in this context too, AZ choosing to stand besides his brother is very tangible evidence of him finally letting go of his anger.

[westerosiqueens]

Mun ask 1-26

mun ask

readmore for length

what does your URL mean, and why did you choose it? I write queens that are primarily from westeros, it is logical XD

what is your blog or graphic aesthetic or motif? why? I don't have an aesthetic or motif bc I'm laaaaazy

what fandom do you primarily favour? Right now HOTD is the big one, but I have separate blogs for each of my fandoms

what genre do you primarily favour? shippy stuff, unapologetically. also stuff with heavy emotions and smut.

what are your top five fandoms to RP within? HOTD/GOT, Sailor Moon, Star Wars, DBZ, Pirates of the Caribbean

what are you top five universes to RP within? Leashiverse ( @gentledoemuses ), general canon, Dany goes Green verses, modern verse, Rhaenyra/Daemon eloped and none of this happened verses

what universe have you never even considered writing in, and why? any verse that considers s2 of hotd or s6-8 of got to be canon

if you are an independent blog, have you every roleplayed in a closed group? Yes

if you are in a closed group, have you ever roleplayed on an independent blog? n/a

what year did you join the tumblr roleplaying community? 2017

what other platforms have you used to roleplay? Twitter, AIM (etc.), Discord (still active), Facebook

what was the first fandom that you roleplayed witin? lmao Cats the Musical

have you written original characters? Yup!

have you been a roleplay admin? if you have, did you enjoy it? if you no longer do, why did you stop? I have; most of the groups I was in died out. There are things that are enjoyable, but honestly it almost always ended up being more trouble than it was worth

what is your favourite part about using this platform to roleplay on? Flexibility

how have your faceclaim choices changed over time? Most of my characters are canon. Allyria has gone through a few different faces but that's more because of age uncertainty than anything else

who was the first faceclaim that was 'ruined' for you in the rpc? why was that? I... am capable of separating character from FC so like. none? I think this is silly? sorry if you are serious about it

how did you come across the roleplay community? I had already been on tumblr and decided to try it out

who was the first faceclaim you remember using, who for (canon or original)? Anne Hathaway for Meg @notaprincessaqueen

what age range do you most enjoy playing? Late teens to late 30s

what gender identity do you most enjoy playing? Females

what have you learned by proxy of roleplaying and rp researching? I cannot even begin to list everything. I look up EVERYTHING. I want to be RIGHT.

what skills have you gained by roleplaying? Research skills. Google fu. The art of ignoring people and blocking for my own health. Not taking things so seriously

what faceclaim did you start off disliking, that you ended up enjoying or even playing? how did that come about? (non problematic, a personal preference) FC =/= character

what faceclaim did you start of loving, and now loathe? (non problematic, a personal preference) FC =/= character

what faceclaim do you wish you could play, and why haven't you used them/yet? I don't have anyone bouncing around rn. I usually have the character concept and then find a FC that fits rather than the other way around

[millionsnife]

verse drop;; ff7/trigun fusion; building this verse with @lockhartred

important notes. readmore for length:

gunsmoke doesn't happen; instead the SEEDS ships land on the planet gaia. knives and vash are born roughly a year before the coordinates are chosen and input into the pilot program. they're roughly 2 years old when the ships land on gaia.

humanity begins colonizing the planet.

monsters are discovered, and in an effort to combat them and survive on their new home, experiments splicing plant dna into human dna begin using adult volunteers. success rates are high and the experiments are considered a success. there's now a mix of pure humans and cetra; cetra is the name they give the human-plant hybrids.

rem, wanting to be closer to her sons and understand them and their needs as plants better, also volunteers for the experiments. (unknown to anyone, a virus in space managed to infect one of the plants on board. at this time, the virus only affects plants. the plant rem's spliced dna comes from is an infected plant. this becomes the first strain of the newly named geostigma when it's discovered, but it is assumed they caught and eradicated the disease before it was a problem, not knowing.)

at some point within the next couple years, vash and knives get older and start exploring this new world at rem's side. they wander north, and something or other happens. rem, in an effort to protect the twins, loses control of the new powers she's gained as a plant hybrid and there's some sort of explosion or such. it's never clear even when they tell people what happened; regardless, the north crater results from the accident, and rem is sealed within an icy cavern below ground.

knives and vash are the ones to create the cetra of the watch; the intention for this is that when rem finally reawakens again, someone will always be there and ready to help her rejoin the world. the twins themselves resume traveling and living among humans, both to occupy their time and bc they think rem would prefer them to live their lives instead of sitting around waiting for her. most plants somehow end up in the crater via unknown (to everyone else) means.

time passes. cetra dwindle and only pure humans remain, somewhere along the way the history gets warped. rem's existence in the cavern gets forgotten by all but the remaining watch and even their stories somehow warp and shift so that they believe they're guarding against a calamity from the sky, instead of being there as guardians meant to protect and eventually reintroduce rem.

shinra finds rem eventually; gast renames her jenova, unknowing of what he's truly found and experiments begin. by this point, the infection of the original virus in combination of time and weather have degraded rem horribly; what's left is not the mother the twins knew, and at this point the twins begin to come in conflict on what to do about the situation. shinra also finds the plants and begins using them in ways they should not lmao

"Reunion" is not what hojo believes it to be, whatever the hell that is; "reunion" is just the plant dna trying to bring their new hosts into the higher plane/add them to the network of the collective plant consciousness. hojo's meddling has also fucked around and found out a lot of problematic ways, and rem/jenova's a little bit mad.

vash wants to cooperate with humans the way they always have, convinced they can work together to fix the rem problem and bring her back to the mother they remember. knives, after centuries of wandering, has grown a bit jaded by humanity and is all for letting rem/jenova just kill off humanity and leave him, vash and plants as the remaining survivors.

he's not actively killing anyone but knives is totally down for letting jenova just do the thing. vash is the one who firmly believes (and is right!) that what's left of rem's mind would be horrified of everything she's doing. he eventually convinces knives to work with avalanche to remove shinra as the problem they are and save the other plants, without killing everyone else off.

and the last point is where the threads take place; during the ff7 game timeline, as well as post

[saintsmith]

i probably ought to give a bit of a primer for tenuvo pronunciation. it's the same for all dialects, they just shape words and phrases a bit differently with the same sounds. gonna put a readmore bc this got a little longer than i anticipated.

consonants:

everything is basically the same as english, with a few small changes/caveats. "c" is never pronounced like "s" or "k," always being "ch" as in the english "chat" or "batch." "g" is always hard, like "goat." "h" by itself tends to be a bit throatier than in english, but there are some other uses for "h" i'll get to in a bit. there's a separate letter for "kh," which is like the "ch" in scottish "loch" or german "ach". there's also a separate letter (in the script tenvo use) for the "ng" sound, which usually comes at the end of syllables but can also come at the beginning. "q" never makes a "kw" sound, instead being a kind of "hard k," coming from the back of your throat, very much like the sound "q" makes in arabic. "r" is usually tapped, not like the english "r" but more like the spanish "r." "sh" has its own letter in the tenuvo script, pronounced like english "shy". "th" has its own letter, pronounced usually as the hard "bath," but dialectical variation sometimes allows for "this" (try saying both words; you'll find there is a difference!). "y" is always a consonant, pronounced as in english; most consonants have a special form for when "y" follows it. also, consonants can geminate (double), and technically this produces a unique sound compared to a single consonant, but it's rarely phonemic (as in, matters for telling between similar words) anymore.

aspirated consonants:

there are also "aspirated" consonants. ("kh" is technically one, but it's the only one that gets its own character. the rest are a combination of the normal consonant and the letter "h".) aspirated consonants are kind of breathier versions of the regular consonant, kind of the same as aspirated consonants in indian (as in the subcontinent) languages. just pronounce the consonant like it has an "h" right behind it (which it kind of does lol). aspirated consonants include: bh, dh, fh, gh, jh, kh (which has its own character), lh, mh, nh, ph (never pronounced like "f"!), qh (often very similar to kh tbh), rh, sh (as in s + h, not the "shy" sound), shh (this is sh + h, the "shy" sound), th (as in t + h, not the "bath" sound), thh (this is th + h, the "bath" sound), vh, wh, xh, yh (last two are very rare), and zh.

vowels:

so vowel length, while not always like.....actually length related, does matter in tenuvo! it's just a thing of the actual vowel sound being used mostly now. short "a" as in "cat," long "a" as in "father," short "e" as in "bed," long "e" as in "hey," short "i" as in "hit," long "i" as in "seat," "o" always as in "oh" (no length differences here), short "u" as in "cut," long "u" as in "boot." some diphthongs (all are technically "long" vowels): "au" as in "ow," "ai" as in "eye," "oi" as in "boy." (all diphthongs are rather archaic, but "aurena" uses one so yeah. there's also "oe" which is a long "cut" sound, but it's extremely archaic lol. never used anymore.) vowels preceded by a "u" develop a "w" sound, as in "Uodh" and "Uorh." if a vowel would be preceded by a long "i," the "i" is replaced by a "y."

small note on how vowel length is written: there's a few rules. typically a vowel followed by a single consonant (or none at all) is considered "long," but a vowel followed by a cluster of consonants (unless the first consonant is an "r"!) or a geminated consonant is considered "short." in some cases, though, you want to force a "long" sound even when the following consonant is geminated. to do this, you write in an "h" right between the vowel and the geminated consonant/consonant cluster.

however, as you may have noticed by how i've been writing most names, there's an alternate way of denoting vowel length: doubling the vowel for a long vowel. so for "shiaaj," for example, the "i" is short, making the "hit" sound, whereas the "aa" denotes a long "a," making the "father" sound. if it was written "shiaj," the "a" would make a "cat" sound. and, of course, the "i," being short, does not turn into a "y."

consonants as vowels:

"l," "m," "n," "ng," "r," "s," "sh," and "z," as well as their aspirated counterparts, can also be used as vowels! take, for example, the "r" at the end of "olsekr," "otr," and "utstr." that "r" at the end is a vowel! it's basically like putting a short "u" in front of the "r," but it's said so quickly that the "r" sounds like it's on its own, just floating there. the "s" in the middle of "utstr" is also serving as a vowel between those "t"s! that ends up sounding kind of like a "psst!" but with a "t" at the beginning instead of a "p." i've written some words with vowels that technically don't need them, mostly for ease of reading. for example, the southern peninsula of "gurduu" would be spelled in the tenuvo script as "grduu," with the short "u" implied and wrapped up in the "r." "olsekr" could also be spelled "olskr!"

i might be forgetting some other things, but i'll leave it here for now! i'll append this if i remember

[phagodyke]

sorry if this is odd to ask but what is your workout routine? I’m trying to motivate myself into exercise again and seeing how other people do it helps. Have a good one!

meant to reply to this sooner but I forgor… getting round 2 it now tho! disclaimer I dunno as much abt exercise science as I’d like to + don’t rly have any 'training' so my approach just comes from personal experience - take this w a pinch of salt lol. I’ll split it in 2 parts: my routine first + then a list of things that personally motivate me in a reblog in case u find any of that useful >:-) (under the readmore cuz this ended up being kind of long 👇)

ok so: I try to ‘actively’ work out 5 days a week. this tends to be broken into 1-2 longer full-body sessions (around 60-120 mins long, at the mo usually bouldering/parkour or a full-body home workout) with a rest day before/after + then 3-4 shorter home workouts (30-60 mins long, usually some form of weight/resistance training, targeting specific muscle groups). e.g. a fortnightly workout timetable might look smth like this for me:

I don’t tend to plan specific workouts more than a few days in advance so I don’t actually follow an explicit timetable like this. instead I set aside an ‘exercise timeslot’ every day (usually 4-6pm) and I’ll intuitively decide how to work out on the day – i.e., what part of my body feels ready to go? what part feels tired + needs a break? do I have the energy/focus to do 45 mins or do I need to shorten it to 30? do i need a rest day? working out regularly means I have a good sense of how long I need for certain muscles to recover so if there’s an activity I want to do on a specific day (like a sports club I wanna attend) I’ll keep it in mind and plan accordingly so I’m fresh for that. as a rule of thumb, I avoid working the same muscle group on consecutive days + give myself a full rest day before & after any intensive full-body workout. I also try to never take more than 3 back-to-back rest days unless I’m sick/on my period/life gets in the way – otherwise its very easy for me to fall out of routine even if I’ve maintained it for months beforehand (<- adhd ass)

(also worth noting – my ‘rest days’ aren’t completely ‘inactive’ – I’ll go for a walk or do some stretches/yoga or another gentle activity instead. I need a lot of physical movement in my life or I go stir crazy <- adhd ass strikes again)

my ‘home workouts’ are the sort of movements u can do at a gym with the equipment there, but I replicate them with a yoga mat + my own weights + a sturdy chair. I have 6kg & 10kg pairs of dumbbells, plus yoga blocks + resistance bands for extra challenge. most of my workouts are based on resistance/interval training, which is focused on increasing strength by repeating sets of movements/holds at a consistent intensity/pace for specific lengths of time, with short timed rest periods in-between (e.g., a typical workout might look like 45 mins of 45 movements targeting 1-2 muscle groups, each done for 40 seconds followed by a 20 second break before immediately moving onto the next).  I like it bc I can rly feel the progress I make + find it satisfyingly challenging (<-masochist) but also bc its easy to tailor to my own ability/how much energy I have that day etc by changing weights/pace. it also works with my adhd brain bc I only have to do each movement for 40-50 seconds at a time before moving on to smth else so I don’t get as easily distracted (as opposed to doing like xyz number of reps for xyz sets). if you’re interested, I swear by caroline girvan – I’ve done her EPIC programmes a few times now + often cherrypick from her videos when I want to work certain muscle groups without sitting down + compiling a list of individual exercises + setting a timer myself. the ‘EPIC beginner’ series is a great intro to her longer ones, I sometimes use that to ease myself back into working out if I haven’t for a while, but be warned it isn’t aimed at ppl who are completely new to that style of exercise. I think she has an app now that comes with an ‘absolute beginner’ version + a 14 day free trial(?) so might be worth checking that out. I will admit some of her stuff is TOUGH - I still can't do all of them w the same weights/pace she does... I particularly struggled with wrist strength when I started out too and had to do some separate conditioning/strengthening exercises before I could even work up to doing like. a single push up on my knees... so if u do check her out try not to get put off by how crazy strong she is bc thats literally her career skfjkj the important thing is just doing it to the best of ur own ability/to ur point of hypertension + keeping good form throughout!!

full body home workouts are pretty much more of the same just longer since I'm hitting more muscles (i.e. 60-90 mins) + sometimes with cardio elements (altho I can’t do HIIT workouts involving jumping at home bc I’m a respectful upstairs neighbour 😔). If I go to the bouldering gym (I try to go fortnightly atm) I’ll usually spend ~2 hours, focusing on trying to send one route at a time until my arms give out. im currently getting confident with V2 grades and tentatively working on V3s. its probs my fave sport, there's a level of problem solving to it that I find rly mentally stimulating... even tho I boulder solo, trips to the gym are social for me bc I often end up chatting to ppl working on nearby problems + picking up technique/advice from them, its a v welcoming space (I'm also planning on joining my new city's queer climbing group!). the parkour sessions I go to are also social, they're run locally for free around the city + structured by more experienced members in the community. they usually involve a warmup, conditioning, drills focusing on certain movements/jumps etc, and then free 'play' trying to put those moves into context. again ~2 hours long. im def not a pro at climbing or parkour but theyre super fun + would 100% rec if ur interested + can find a friendly local group for either, u can teach urself using online resources too :-)

goes without saying but I also warm up for at least 5 mins before doing ANYTHING!!! I try to cater it to the muscle group im planning on working with but still cover the whole body cuz its important to get ur heart rate up + even when u focus on one muscle group there will be others that get dragged in. I don't rly have a 'set' warmup but again caroline girvan has some good ones on her channel 👍 likewise always good to cool down after with stretches cuz future me will be grateful for it.. altho sometimes I'm a bit lazy abt it 🤭

okkkk i think that’s pretty much the bulk of it, I’ll stick my motivation tips in the reblog 😁