#Actually I might just have to go on about this in a separate text post bc the more I think about it the more insane I can feel myself going

[crybabydraws]

They are so silly I adore them

Have some goofy Chara and Frisk sketches I colored! These are the Chara and Frisk from my dreamtale based au, but ut canon Frisk and Chara, if they can interact, also 100% have these interactions that make you say, "Aww! Look at these silly billies! These goofy goobers have so much wacky whimsy!" They really do mean so much to me

[changeling-droneco]

Hi I'm that person who made the original post about "no doesn mean no" when a small bit of the mr beast company document was leaked, well, now we have the full document (thanks rosanna) so I'm going to go over it. Please note I am not a lawyer or a business man, I'm in college for psychology, so I might misunderstand some things or make the wrong conclusion. However, if this is a document made for the average mr. beast employee, if I cannot understand it properly, then im sure some employees also struggled

First of all, the opening paragraph. Like I get it's supposed to be like, to put people at ease, but

This is so strange? Like, first of all, this is your EMPLOYEE MANUAL, you should have run it through like, a spell check? Or had someone edit it? This is already incredibly unprofessional. Also the promising of a thousand dollars if you pass a quiz on it? It's bizarre and I'd love to see if it's an actual quiz.

Jimmy, hun, please god get an editor for this you're already trying my patience.

YOU SHOULD, you genuinely should, while interconnected these are all COMPLETELY different jobs, if you think you could write a separate manual for each branch you SHOULD

I'm sure I'm about to get an answer but what the fuck is the best YOUTUBE video then? If it's not comedy, its not production, its not quality, its not look, then what the hell is left? (monetization, it's monetization)

First of all, Jimmy, why are you using internet lingo in this, it's not a text message, this is not a place for, idc, and lol, and not capitalizing your headers correctly??? Also like I said, he's chasing trends for monetization, and also he's just wrong, there are plenty of hollywood level shows and the like on youtube. You fully admit you do not care about trends and actively rush things?

This is just fucked??? Like of COURSE IT MATTERS??? Results based company is bullshit, your employees that worked for five weeks and failed aren't "lesser" then James, it's a structural failure! They still worked for HOURS to try and succeed?? That shows merit and loyalty??? What the fuck???

Rosanna covers this one in her video but it's worth restating that this is FUCKED??? It's clear overwork "your job is your family" culture. Especially the use of the word obsessive? If you do not OBSESS over your work, you are considered poisonous. NO WONDER we have so many reports of employees doing things they feel is dangerous or unsafe, if they don't they're considered POISON to the company.

The formatting in this doc continues to fucking kill me, what are you DOING man GET AN EDITOR

This feels like such an easy fix of just...make the thumbnail after the fact? Or only make a rough draft of one first? Like if production makes a red bouncy castle instead of a yellow one, that feels like an easy fix to the thumbnail OR a communication error, and again, that's on management

A lot of the next stuff is like analytics stuff that for the most part I can't really speak on as someone who does not do any of this stuff. There are a few things though

Which like???? what??? a lull??? what do you mean "watching a video without even realizing they are watching a video??" That doesn't scream good or even mediocre content to me. If I'm actively tuning out as I watch a video, that's bad. Especially because there have been plenty of times I've been like half way through a video i go "hey this sucks actually" and click off. They actively want their audience to not be paying attention to the video so it runs all the way through, that's kinda pathetic.

I don't actually know if this is common or not in this industry, but as an outsider this seems INCREDIBLY micromanaging to me, to an immense degree.

Jimmy why are you putting swears in your employee manual?? sir??? and also something about this whole thing icks me out, I don't quite have the words but the whole emphasis on "im different im special no one else can be me" just reeks of something kind of manipulative

Why is production changing so much Jimmy??? Infinite growth is the mindset of a cancer cell Jimmy! This is incredibly unstable working conditions! Also again with the word obsession, if you take time out of your own day on your own time to watch hulu, that's seen as not being obsessed enough for the company. This is nonsensical!

Again, this is INSANELY micromanaging, and also so fucking unhinged??? "God himself couldn't stop you from making this video on time" is NOT a healthy work mindset, things HAPPEN!!!

In this segment he's actually talking normal things but I did just want to highlight his use of "freaken" who the hell puts that in an EMPLOYEE MANUEL

Again with the micromanaging, and the immense pressure on employees for problems OTHER people do. While he's not fully wrong that you should be in more contact with the contractor then the example, this is too much in the other direction. How much time in the day does he think people have?!

My kingdom for a fucking paragraph break dude, my fucking eyes. Also this is a lot of "im so great and do everything and you should do more for me and if i dont know something that's your fault" for something titled "I am not always right"

I'm getting lazy with my highlighting, but again, the micromanaging? If you're SOOO busy, the first question should be the ideal? it's quick and makes a quick decision, while the second one meanders and meanders

Again, Jimmy is pushing blame for HIS mistakes on OTHER PEOPLE. For again, a section called "i am not always right" hes taking NO accountability for that and just making the SAME excuses he's berating in other places.

I can't even tell what he means here AN EDITOR JIMMY

Autism Hell tm, PLEASE email me so I can DOUBLE CHECK IT, things in writing are SO useful

Again the language towards "C-Players" which as mr beast has said, are the people who y'know, are NORMAL employees who DON'T live and breathe this company

Okay first of all, a Lamborghini is like 300k so that's already A REALLY hard task, and i sure hope don't usually put typos in the tasks. SECOND of all the fact he thinks its okay to go "hey if the studio is literally on fire around you and you stop working to get the Lamborghini, you're not doing good enough" even if he claims it as a joke is NOT OKAY what the FUCK

We've covered this before, but to reiterate this segment is named after a sexual assault reference when it could have been named ANYTHING ELSE and harasses employees and pressures them to break rules, don't do that.

I'm not an editor, so maybe this is normal, but as someone from the outside it seems strange to put this much emphasis on dividing focus between so many videos at once.

Jimmy, hun, are you paying extra for this? Because if I'm an editor and you want me FILMING stuff then i want to be paid more for doing TWO jobs and I probably still wont be as skilled a TRAINED CAMERA MAN

First of all now THAT'S a type, consteatants. Also the fact they are aware that leaving contestants out in the sun is bad, why are you not doing MORE TO STOP IT BEYOND "hey maybe giving them three hours of heatstroke is bad, try only two next time"

Don't we love favoritism, more shitty unprofessional writings, and a completely unstable work environment?

If your people have to pull all nighters period something is wrong, and if something happens to an employees car that could have seriously hurt someone, i sure hope you care more then just "LOL FUNNY" Who's picking up the broken glass? Who's reimbursing the car owner? That one meme of "your first care should be commitment to the bit" is a MEME jimmy, it's not ACTUAL ADVICE

Ah shit I hit image limit, well, you've seen enough screenshots to know these are screenshots, we're almost done I'll put them in as quotes

"Let’s say you are tasked with finding us a castle to live in for 50 hours and while doing research you find a castle and a number to call for the owner. So you do call, and he answers. Only problem is he says he quit the castle renting business to pursue his dream of building a 100 foot tall lego catapult. You can obviously tell where i’m going with this. Ideally you’d recognize that’s badass as fuck and try to convince him to let us use it when we do find a castle. This is a bad example because it’s so obvious but if you’re doing your job right you will be doing an absurd amounts of calls and data collecting. While trying to complete your prios and prepare for the video you should always be on the lookout for new things you can bring to your creative team to inspire them. Because just like me, they don’t know what they don’t know and you can’t just say “i’m in production and i’m not very creative” because that’s literally the equivalent of saying I suck at what I do. You also need to apply this same mindset when problem solving because many people lose sight of this stuff when in the weeds. If a problem appears, always always always ask yourself if your new plan is whats best for creative, not just the easiest bandaid."

First of all it's really funny seeing all the red lines pop up, second of all this insistent blurring of everyone's job seems so strange? Again maybe this is normal, but it really feels like Jimmy wants everyone working every job, instead on focusing on what they are actually hired to do.

"What is the goal of our content?

To excite me. The goal of our content is to excite me. That may sound weird to some of you, especially if you’re new but to me it’s what’s most important. If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen."

That's fucking weirddddd, like I get that he's trying to be like "im authentic" but it always feels like a bad sign when the goal of a company is literally just "What amuses the boss" like...bad sign

"this is youtube and there are constraints. You know the video can’t be a minute so you’re obviously going to need a story to hold the viewers and there are rules to storytelling. Our audience is massive and because of that you have to be simple, for 50 million people to understand something it must be simple. Content can be anything but there is structure and rules that we must mold it into that I want to teach you about, because virality doesn’t just happen. Every frame of our videos will be seen by 10s of millions of people"

Gross

"I'd say the average MrBeast viewer is a teenage memer that likes video games."

Mr Beast is completely aware of his demographic and puts screen shots of it, he is very aware his stuff is aimed at kids, even when its about gambling or hiring people not around near minors

"I feel silly for having to write this but all the time I talk to 32 new people that have at most seen like 5 or 6 of our videos and it’s mind blowing that they don’t see a problem with that lol."

It's almost like your audience is teenage memer and that people who working here are not in fact, teenage memers.

"What you consume on social media, when you watch youtube, tv, the games you play, etc. are what I like to call your information diet.

How do you stay up to date on the latest memes? How do you know what’s going on with celebrities? What’s trending on youtube? What other creators are doing? What’s popping on tik tok? Your information diet. Consume things on a daily basis that help you write better content."

If my job as a creative writer had my boss tell me to have to see whats "popping on tik tok" as part of my job i'd quit also again, the micromanaging of someone's life as well pops up again, it's weirddd

"It’s okay for the boys to be childish

If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them. (assuming they know all the risks and arn’t missing context on why it’s not safe) People like when we are in our natural element of stupidity. Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots"

More favoritism

"If you’ve made it this far you are probably at least semi interested in this being your career. So I wanted to chat about it. Because if you're ambitious and want to dedicate your life to work, you picked the best company in America to do it at. I really don’t care to hoard a bunch of money and I deeply believe in rewarding the people that help this business get where it needs to be. But before I get into that, let’s talk about the future. As I write this we have 2 teams, that will grow to 4 in the next year. (and possibly 8 in the next 2 years but I can’t talk about that cause james will kill me haha). We need more leaders in the company. Weneed hard working, obsessive, coachable, intelligent, grinders that can step up and take some of these leadership spots over the next 2 years. Every single department has an opportunity for you to grow in and you’re in luck because we don’t do yearly reviews. We do whenever the fuck you want reviewes"

Lack of communication from management, and more emphasis on grinding and crunch culture, goodie, all while riddled with typos! God.

"I see a world where this company is worth billions and one day 10s of billions. And those of you that help build this will be rewarded. I want nothing more then for you to go all in, obsessive all day everyday, and become so god dam valuable this company can’t operate without you. And in return for becoming so valuable I hope to give you incredible experiences, a fun place to work, and of course, more money then you could ever dream of making at any other company."

I feel like I'm reading a fucking pyramid scheme document here, "youre so so valuable spend literally every minute of every day on this company haha" good GOD man

[wonderjanga]

History

Marvel talking about the past lives as if he’s lived them in almost every era besides the five thousand year gap from Adam. That’s it.

Marvel and Aquaman: *got separated from the other JL members and ended up in an underwater cave filled with ruins*

Aquaman: *looking around the cave* “Amazing. I never knew this was here.”

Marvel: “This place is familiar.”

Aquaman: “Familiar? This place looks like it’s been here for at least a thousand years.”

Marvel: “Over seven thousand actually.”

Aquaman: “How do you know?”

Marvel: “I used to live here!”

Aquaman: “Huh?”

Marvel: *proceeds to launch into a detailed explanation of his life there, the people, etc*

Aquaman: “Interesting. Did all your people have lightning powers too?” *starts walking through the ruins*

Marvel: *follows after him* “No? I was the only one with powers because I was the Champion of Magic.”

Aquaman: “So what? Everyone here was just a normal human?”

Marvel: “No? They had could breath underwater like Atlanteans.”

Aquaman: “Ooh maybe they’re my people’s ancestors-”

*zombie groan*

They then proceeded to go on a super wacky adventure of being chased by underwater zombie Atlanteans until they eventually got back to the JL. (I might make a post on this adventure cause this seems like something interesting to write)

Then there’s was that time on live television, he said straight to a historian’s face:

Marvel: “That’s wrong.” *pointing to an artifact*

Historian: *looking between him and the camera* “What- What do you mean it’s wrong.” *sounds baffled*

Marvel: “I mean it’s wrong-” *starts yapping about the artifact and its actual uses and just said something completely different from what the historian said*

Historian: “Wha- How could you possibly know??”

Marvel: “Because I’ve used these before.”

Then there was the time neither Conner(Kent) nor Marvel had anything to do and no one was at Mount Justice so they just decided to watch a documentary on a lost civilization because they got bored.

Narrator: “And right here is an ancient text written on a slab by the *insert lost civilization*

Conner: *still bored, letting himself lay upside down on the couch* “This is boring.”

Marvel: *also bored and letting himself lay upside down on the couch* “Yeah, totally.” *not really paying attention and squinting to read the text* “All that is just a list of how many crops someone had. You’re right, this is boring,”

Conner: *groans*

Marvel: “Wanna make a dish from that lost civilization?”

Conner: “Dish? Like food? Sure, but how do you know a recipe from a lost civilization?”

Marvel: *lets himself float off to couch so he could stand* “Easy, I used to live there.”

Later…

Marvel and Connor: *looking at the food they both made in a solemn silence*

Conner: “That looks disgusting.”

Marvel: “What did you expect? Back then, we were trying to survive more than thrive.”

Conner: “Still looks disgusting.”

Marvel: “Yeah, yeah, let’s just see if it’s as good as I remember.” *tries some*

Conner: *grimace, look of disgust*

Marvel: “Dang, it’s still delicious.” *holds up a spoon for Conner* “Try some.”

Conner: *backs away like the dish is some type of horror* “No.”

Marvel: “Come on, Kon. We made it together. You might as well try our creation.” *waves the spoon in his face*

Conner: *looks like he’s about to vomit but begrudgingly forces himself to try it* “It’s…” *chewing* “actually…” *more chewing* “pretty good…?”

When the other YJ members came back, they were horrified to see Marvel and Conner eating… something…? Why’s it moving slightly? It looks alive.

[vorestarr]

i love when Astarion is mean, and i mean like genuinely mean, saying shitty things and lashing out specifically to hurt someone or push them away. i think it really says so much about him and about the specific situations when he feels the need to lash out. i love seeing it with Durge/Tav, but i'm playing a Karlach origin to romance him right now and he's so mean during his first romance scene when he can't even kiss Karlach.

after playing it, i went to look at the parsed dialogue for that scene because i wanted to see if there were any dev notes, and oh boy are there dev notes. walk with me here while i go through them all. (i didn't add alt text to the images below, but i did transcribe the lines i'm referencing in the images below, so all the important information is in the text of the post itself.)

it's the typical Astarion scene, but after his "i've been waiting to taste you" line, he diverges with: "Although your condition means tasting you could be a risky proposition. You're quite the forbidden fruit, aren't you?"

the player (as Karlach) has a few choices in reply at that point, but as long as they pick one that progresses the scene (i.e., not the one where you reject him last minute), he goes down the same dialogue tree. this tree starts with:

Astarion: All denied to us because of what Zariel did to you. [devnote: subtext, thinking about Cazador]

so right off the bat he's upset because Karlach's situation is reminding him of his own with Cazador.

but then his next line is:

Astarion: I - you know, I have no idea what to do with you now. [devnote: Astarion's mask as the flippant libertine is cracking a bit here. He's frustrated but vulnerable here. Because he can't physically seduce or touch Karlach, his usual means of interacting with a person is punctured. He's faced with the reality that he might not know how to handle a situation where he can't bite or seduce his way to the finish line.]

wow. that's a lot in that dev note.

at this point, the player has the option of a few responses, but two options to continue the encounter. the choices to continue it are: "You don't have to 'do' anything. We can just be." or "After the life you've led, I'm not surprised."

if you choose the first option, Astarion is frustrated but less mean. he says:

Astarion: 'Just be' what, exactly? Frustrated? Bored? What do we do, if not... that?

if you choose the second option, he's a little meaner. understandably so, since the player just poked at his painful past:

Astarion: You think you know the life I've led? The experiences I've had? You've no idea the stories I could tell, sweet Karlach. But you - you're just -

then, both the paths converge to the same final statement, which is mean no matter what Karlach has said to this point:

Astarion: Urgh! Why is this so difficult? I'd have already bedded you twice if you were normal.

importantly, there are dev notes for all of his lines here, but the notes are all the same:

devnote: Masking defensiveness with offensiveness. In truth he really does want what Karlach is offering (to just hang out without having sex) but now that it's within grasp he's floundering.

again, at this point the player has two choices to continue the encounter, and one to end it. i'll go down each continue path separately, since they can diverge quite a bit.

path 1

the first choice is to say: "Twice in this short space of time? Doesn't sound very satisfying."

he gets mad. and mean.

Astarion: Karlach! You know what I mean. [devnote: Frustrated] Astarion: Or maybe you don't. Astarion: There may be an inferno in you, Karlach, but at the end of the day you've been frigid for a decade, isn't that right? [devnote: Being mean-spirited in an attempt to drive Karlach away, even though he doesn't actually want to do that.]

the player again has two response options to continue the encounter, and one to end it.

the first choice to continue the encounter is: "You want to try that again? Without being a jackass, maybe?"

in response he says:

Astarion: This is impossible - you're impossible! [devnote: Masking defensiveness with offensiveness. In truth he really does want what Karlach is offering (to just hang out without having sex) but now that it's within grasp he's floundering.]

(at this point, the path diverts to merge with the dialogue tree from the previous branch where Astarion complains about Karlach not being normal. so we'll pause here, and continue down that dialogue tree with the path 2 header below.)

the second choice to continue the encounter after Astarion says that Karlach has been frigid for a decade is to say: "What's really going on here, Astarion? Suddenly you're so vicious."

he replies:

Astarion: Suddenly? Darling, you haven't been paying attention. [devnote: Seething and mean.] Astarion: Listen, it's just - ... I'm sorry, all right? Is that what you want?

again, at this point, he diverts to the same shared dialogue tree as the other response option. that merges with path 2, so we'll continue there:

path 2

to go BACK to the previous branch we went down, where Astarion said he would have bedded Karlach twice already if she was just normal, the other response option for the player is: "I am normal. 'Fucked up' is the height of normalcy."

instead of being mean, Astarion immediately apologizes:

Astarion: Oh no - don't you tar me with your 'normal' brush. My demons keep me extraordinary. [devnote: Karlach has punctured Astarion's bad mood with a joke.]

and then he apologizes, like he does in the other paths, saying he doesn't know what to do without being able to touch her.

Astarion: I - ...I'm sorry, Karlach. It's just, not being able to touch you - having to slow down, it's... I'm just not used to it. [devnote: subtext here is on the slowing down. That IS what he wants. But it's hard for him to see that clearly.]

Astarion: So, can you -... I don't know. Help? Show me what to do? [devnote: First breakthrough. He's asking for help knowing what to do when you can't jump into bed with someone.]

again, at this point, the player has two options to continue the encounter or one to end it.

for the first response to continue, the player can say: "We can just talk. As long as we want. Then we can sleep. Near, but not too near."

Astarion responds to this one pretty positively. he's still a little mean, but it's in his fond teasing way, and not his biting, cruel way:

Astarion: Karlach, champion of the Hells, wants to talk and then fall asleep? [devnote: Incredulous] My dear, you're much more boring than I gave you credit for. [devnote: Teasing] All right, Karlach. Let's try it your way. [devnote: Gently. He's feeling vulnerable, but sees that this might be a chance to feel safe.]

the second response option from the player is: "I don't know either. This is all just as new for me as it is for you."

he doesn't respond quite as well to this one, and goes back to being mean:

Astarion: Well. To quote you: 'Fuck.' Astarion: Why don't we put ourselves out of this misery and just sleep? If I can at least look at you, I won't have wasted my whole evening. [devnote: Peak of Astarion sexy toxicity.]

then, the scene fades to black and it transitions to the morning-after scene with Astarion, where the player first sees his scars.

i also think as a whole, this scene is just so representative of Astarion's early-game state of mind. he's following a comfortable script with all his interactions, but when he's confronted with something new, he flounders.

especially when it comes to sex, which is a touchy subject for him, his first reaction to any vulnerability is to lash out and hurt people. in this scene:

if Karlach brings up his past experiences, he lashes out. ("You think you know the life I've led?")

he blames Karlach for the situation because that's easier than addressing that he doesn't know what to do without his script. ("if you were normal")

if Karlach jokes about him ("Doesn't sound very satisfying") he lashes out even further, calling her frigid and impossible and then even doubling down if she calls him out ("you haven't been paying attention").

but if Karlach jokes about HERSELF ("'Fucked up' is the height of normalcy"), it snaps him out of his toxic bullshit and he's able to take a step back and apologize to her.

then regardless, he's also able to recognize that this is an opportunity to get what he wants without having sex, and recognize that he wants that too.

and then to me, Astarion being mean in that last response choice ("I don't know either") makes perfect sense, given the context of his other lashing out earlier in the conversation. even if the player didn't make those previous choices where he lashed out at them, he can still get mean and toxic on this choice.

crucially, with this choice, he's taken that step of hopeful vulnerability where he recognizes that maybe he does want to just spend time with Karlach without having sex, but he doesn't know how to do it. he asks for help.

if the player says they don't know how to do that either, he immediately puts those defensive walls back up. he doesn't want to flounder around, he wants an answer. he wants to know that it's actually possible to have a positive experience with someone without the script he's always used. the player saying they don't have that answer just pisses him off.

wow okay this post got really long, but i really vibed with the dev notes for this scene, and i think you can see exactly these toxic behaviors from Astarion in other scenes and in romances with other characters as well, but it's just so so clear with the Karlach scene and the dev notes just really highlight that.

[getyourdirtyhandsoffme]

D-RIDING?! PART TWO (18+)

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

GENDER: FTM READER (M!READER FRIENDLY)

SUMMARY: You, a famous YouTuber, got noticed by idol crush, Bang Chan, from an "accidental" drunk tweet you made when he was in BuzzFeed. Now you are waiting in your house to make that tweet into a reality.

GENRE(S): Smut (mercy on me yall), Explicit, Fluff, comedy (cringe because I need one mentally)

SEPARATE WARNING(S):

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ READER:

Role(s): Submissive Bottom. You are a versatile bottom because I said so.

Genitals: I made it separate since there are people out there who do have a bottom surgery.

T-dick section: So one will have you having a t-dick (mentions of squirting).

Dick Section: While a separate one in the same post will have you having a Penis.

(I don't want y'all feeling uncomfortable/Gender Dysphoria as a TransMan myself)

Names: Pretty boy, Baby boy, Handsome, Cutie, Sweetheart

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ CHAN:

Role(s): Dominate Top. Made him Versatile too.

Genitals: He has a big dick because of the big nose theory.

Names: Chan, Chris, love, pretty boy

OTHER WARNING(S): You both are virgins, Oral (Reader receiving), Mentions of Vagina/T-Dick(Mentions of squirting) for the reader along with a separate one of you having a Dick. Nipple play (Reader receiving), Reader getting Manhandled kinda, Choking? Not breathplay. Cum licking, Mentions of your chest scars (or just chest) Fingering. Anal sex. Beggingish?. Praising. Different words for Dick and Vagina. Crying (reader)

OTHER(S): y'all, please have mercy on me! I never wrote smut before so this might make me leap over a bridge!

Please like, reblog and/or comment for my dignity.

Tags: @braveangel777 @1s3v3n1 @kodasstar @webwanderer @coralblook @ironhyacinth @bitchyzombienacho

IM BEING SO FR, I CANT WRITE SMUT- I CANT WRITE SMUT! HAVE MERCY ON ME AHHHH!

(I DIDNT PROOF READ OR HAD GRAMMAR CHECK, YALL GOT IT!)

It was refreshing.

You lay yourself down on your bed wearing your pajamas, silk pajamas, covering your naked body. The silk only stops at your thighs.

You waited for Chan to message you as you scroll through your fans' comments; requesting collabs, games, or other content to record.

You keep on scrolling, almost forgetting about the whole sexual situation going on until you hear a knock from your front door.

You walk out from your bedroom, holding your phone out and texting him if he was the one behind the door of your front entrance.

CB97: Why don't you find out, Cutie?

You sighed, as you slowly unlocked the door then slowly opened the door to check it was actually him.

A white hand pushes the door fully, revealing the man himself, smirking at you. He was wearing a black shirt, compressing his muscles with baggy sweatpants.

He was checking you out, blushing a bit from the silk pajamas going nice with your figure and skin color.

"Don't you look lovely, pretty boy?" Chris comments, his eyes still lingering in your body.

You felt yourself getting flustered, shy even just from him staring at you. He steps closer to you while closing the door behind him.

"Can I touch you?"

You nodded and just by that Chris leans into you, kissing your soft lips while his hands roam around your waist, while one hand grips your butt.

You moaned softly around his mouth.

Your arms around his neck as your hands slowly reach to his shirt, gripping it as you push your face away from Chris.

He looks at you confused, giving you almost puppy eyes.

You thought it was cute. Yousmirked as you took him to your room.

He looks around, admiring your room until you smash your face into his lips again, catching him off guard but quickly kissed you back.

You both feel impatient, as you take off Chan's black shirt as he pushes you down on the bed, prying off the silk pajamas.

"You are already naked underneath, you were really expecting me, huh?" His accent, his voice raspy, making you want him more and more.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎WARNING: T-DICK SECTION

For the people with no bottom surgery/testosterone:

He had you trapped, both of his hands holding your waist as he leans into your chest, giving a few kisses on your chest scar (or chest)

"So handsome..." He mutters as he continues on kissing you as you feel his hands reaching up to your chest, caressing your nipples as the other hand reaches between your thighs.

You moaned, feeling his fingers playing around your folds.

"You are so wet for me, baby boy. Do I really get you this wet? I'm so flattered..." He whispers into your ear.

All you can do is moan, nodding your head as you feel your thighs parting from each other.

You look down to see Chan giving a few kisses on your left thigh then giving a few more kisses, almost getting closer to your wet folds.

"I want to taste you so bad, would you let me taste you, sweetheart?" He looks up at you, waiting for your response.

"Please, Chris! I need you.."

He smiles, leaning his head towards your t-dick, immediately licking and sucking your folds. Even getting closer to your small dick, giving a few licks.

You moaned, as you moved your bottom area getting more pleasure, almost riding his face. You even felt his nose touching your dick, sending more pleasure into your body.

Chan lets you as he continues on licking and sucking, moaning a bit, sending vibrations through your body.

You continue on moving your body, feeling yourself getting close. Your body is twitching, as Chris raises his fingers closer to your t-dick, rubbing quickly as you moan even louder.

"Chris—a~ah, I'm cumming! F-fuck!"

He sucks harder and even rubs even faster until you finally cum, squirting.

Chan licks one more time as he moves his face away slowly as he stands up, admiring your sweaty figure.

You sit up as your legs twitch a bit.

"Damn, I squirted. This kinda embarrassing..."

Chan just laughed as he leans closer to your face giving a few kisses to your forehead and cheek.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎WARNING: DICK SECTION

For the people with bottom surgery/has a dick:

He had you trapped, both of his hands holding your waist as he leans into your chest, giving a few kisses on your chest scar. (Or chest)

"So handsome..." He mutters as he continues on kissing you as you feel his hands reaching up to your chest, caressing your nipples as the other hand reaches between your thighs.

You moaned, feeling his fingers playing the tip of your dick.

"You are so hard for me, baby boy. Do I really get you this hard? I'm so flattered..." He whispers into your ear.

All you can do is moan, nodding your head as you feel your thighs parting from each other.

You look down to see Chan giving a few kisses on your left thigh then giving a few more kisses, almost getting closer to your hard cock.

"I want to taste you so bad, would you let me taste you, sweetheart?" He looks up at you, waiting for your response.

"Please, Chris! I need you.."

He smiles, leaning his head towards your dick, immediately licking and sucking the tip. Pushing his head down, giving you a good suck.

You moaned, as you moved your bottom area getting more pleasure, almost riding his face. Chan lets you as he continues on licking and sucking, moaning a bit, sending vibrations through your body.

You continue on moving your body, feeling yourself getting close. Your body is twitching, as Chris raises his hands closer to your balls, fumbling around as you moan even louder.

"Chris—a~ah, I'm cumming! F-fuck!"

He sucked harder and faster until you finally cum, some hitting his face.

Chan licks one more time as he moves his face away slowly as he stands up, admiring your sweaty figure.

You sit up as your legs twitch a bit.

"Damn, that felt weird...."

Chan just laughed as he leans closer to your face giving a few kisses to your forehead and cheek.

"But, you enjoyed it didn't you?" He questions, as he continues on kissing your face.

"I did, but let's get into the main event, shall we?" Chris chuckles as you stand back up, holding between his baggy pants, pushing it down and throwing it to the side.

He looks down at you while chuckling again, smirking from how impatient you were.

His dick flings up, standing a bit straight and even dripping with pre-cum.

You licked your lips, your mouth just watering from the sight of his dick, however, you felt yourself getting kinda scared since it looks big.

"Chan, how big is your dick? I mean I knew it was big because of the nose theory..."

"Huh, what nose theory?"

"Focus on the question and not the nose theory—I'll tell you that later."

You look up at him as he thinks, then shrug.

"I don't know, I never measured my dick before..."

"Fuck you mean you never measured your dick? You know what, wait right here. You grab the lube and the condom from the cabinet next to my bed."

Chan did exactly what you said while still looking perplexed that his dick size really bothered you that much.

You came back, holding a measuring tape.

You sat back down on the bed as you told Chris to come clover to your face. You felt his dick touching your cheek.

You licked your lips as you raised the measuring tape. Chan just chuckled on how focused you were.

"Is it really that serious...?"

You just nodded until you reached the top of the tip.

"Damn, 8 inches? I guess OT8 is for life, huh?"

Chan groans, as he smacks on top of your head softly. "Don't ever say that again..." He jokingly said, shaking his head, smiling.

"Anyways, let's continue."

"Gladly." He says as he pushes you down, putting you into a mating press.

You hear a bottle cap opened making you shivered in anticipation.

He squirts a generous amount into his fingers.

You felt his fingers circling around your rim as his other hand gripped your neck, holding you down.

You whimpered, shaking your butt for him to just insert in already.

"P-please Chris~ Fuck, hurry up!" You whined.

"Sorry baby boy, let me give you what you want~" He teases you as you feel one of his fingers inserting in.

You hiss in pain, not used to the feeling at all. Chan shushes you as he tries to calm you down, giving you a few kisses in your back.

"It will feel good, I promise..."

You calm yourself down, moving your waist side to side.

He gently plays with your rim as he slowly inserts another one. You hissed a bit but you could slowly feel the pleasure going through your body.

He continues on fucking you until he hits a certain area making you moaned along with your toes curling.

"Found it..." He whispers, hitting your prostate while inserting the third finger in.

You moaned, sending Chris's dick even harder; throbbing and aching in pain. He was getting hot and bothered—impatient—but he didn't want you to feel uncomfortable so he continued on. He adds a fourth one just in case after finding out his dick was 8 inches.

"Chan, love, just put it in already!" You whined.

You didn't need to tell him twice.

He quickly rips the plastic out with his teeth then taking the condom out and putting it on his dick.

He quickly takes his fingers off as he lines his dick up your hole, tapping it a few times until he slowly inserts the tip in.

You hissed again. Even though his fingers were thick, nothing could beat his thick cock (corny).

He apologized softly, while he hissed too from the clench.

"Fuck, so tight. I'm going to push in more, okay sweetheart?"

All you can do was whine while he slowly pushes in more. You both hissed again as you felt tears coming out of your eyes.

Chris hands both made it to your waist, going in circles.

He inserts more until finally he fills you whole.

He waits as he groans, your hole tightening around him as he tries not to cum just from it. He bites his lip as he caresses you again.

You felt warmth in your chest, loving the care from Chris and the fact he even was waiting for you to get used to his size.

You smiled softly as you shook your butt, making him grip your waist.

"You can move, love~"

Just like that, he pulls his dick out and slams back into you making you moan. He was already going rough, almost like a crazy animal.

He keeps on going, angeling himself a bit as he slams again and again, hitting your prostate.

You moaned even louder, gripping the sheets.

"F-FUCK~♡ CHRIS A~AH!" You cried out in pleasure as he continued on abusing your prostate. You felt overwhelmed by the amount of pleasure he was giving you.

You both moaned out of pleasure feeling yourself getting closer. He was getting closer as well, you feel his dick twitch inside of you.

He leans in, his chest on top of your back, whispering sweet words to your ears making you shiver.

"P-pretty boy~ I'm about to cum...Are you about to cum as well? Hmm?" He whispers.

You repeated the word 'Yes' as he continued slamming until finally you both released. Chan's cum filling the condom whole.

He steps out, taking the condom out and tying it then throwing it away into the garbage bin.

You turn your body around, laying flat, your back facing the bedsheets as you calm yourself down.

Chan walks up to you then lies down next to you. "I never did this before so I wanna know (Knaur) if I did good?"

You smiled, feeling horny all of sudden from his sweet voice. His duality from being all dominant to almost submissive—You kinda wanna ride him until he breaks.

"it's my first time as well, Chan and you did so well for me, love..." You said to him, kissing him all over his face.

He chuckles, smiling widely from your praises until he yawns, clearly drained.

"I'm tired, my body is tired. Maybe we should've had sexs not around the performance. Haha!" He laughs, not noticing your eyes staring into him like you were going to devour him.

"Yeah, but, I'm quite disappointed..." You sadly said—well pretending to be sad—using your fingers to trace around his neck.

"h-huh? Why? You said I did good?" He sits up, looking at you like a sad puppy. (There is no pet play)

"of course! You did so well, but my tweet. You remember it don't you?" You said calmly as you continued on looking at him.

He thinks for a second until his face turns red.

"O-oh."

Oh indeed.

"B-but, aren't you tired, I'm quite tired myself..." He rambles until you shut him up by placing your hands around his mouth.

"But you promise you want to make that tweet into reality, right? I want to ride your dick until you cry. Calling my name. Plus, I'm doing all the work. You can just lay down and look pretty, my pretty boy~"

His face turns even more red, all of sudden turning shy and weak. His cock going hard again, throbbing in anticipation.

"Even your dick seems to agree with me~"

You can't wait to actually make that tweet into reality.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Ending (myself) in part three.

YALL IMMA KMS, I CANT WRITE SMUT WTF AHHHH

[the---hermit]

how I take notes on non fiction books

I recently made a post on my study method, and decided to make a whole separate post on my note taking method. The structure of the notes I write doesn't vary too much from my lecture notes to things I might have to read. A couple of useful informations you might want to know before I start actually talking about note writing is that I am mainly focused on studying history (tho I have had other humanities exams in my degrees), and that I study for oral exams in which the material is mainly composed of non fiction books, but sometimes include articles as well as lecture notes. Somehow I have also failed to mention that I am speaking about HANDWRITTEN NOTES. I only do handwritten notes, I don't work well digitally, so keep that in mind. And with this being said brace yourselves for a very long post. The bullet points I will be making are not really in a specific order and I will be including a few pictures too.

The first step when I am working on the materials for an exam is to figure out in which order I will be reading (and writing notes) the books. This hasn't really much to do with the notes themselves, but it's important to know which of your materials is more general and what other things go more in depth, so that you don't struggle too much while studying. Another plan related thing I always do is to write down each chapter of the book I have to study on my bullet journal and how many pages it is so I can plan my studying more comfortably. If the chapters are very long, and divided in subchapters I sometimes also write those down.

The goal of the notes I write is to fully take the place of the book, so they tend to be very detailed and long. I do this because the very act of writing is part of my study method, and working on things I have written down in my own words is just much better for the type of learner I am. So basically I read the book only once, then it goes back on the shelf and I work exclusively on the notes. This means my notes need to be detailed and well organized.

My method is to read a chapter, underlining important stuff as I am reading, and then right after I am done reading I work on the notes for that chapter before moving onto the next. I do this because it makes the note writing more effortless, I am fresh with informations I just read and I basically just need to skim over what I have underlined.

On underlining, since it is so important. I underline everything I will be including in my notes, it might seem much as sometimes it consists of full paragraphs, instead of key words. But this is okay because my notes I don't just copy and paste.

To create useful notes you need to be re-elaborating the informations. You need to read, understand what you read, and be able to write it down using your own words. That way the notes will be easier to review, they will often be composed of shorter sentences, and by doing so you are also actively making writing part of your studying and not just a mindless activity.

Personally I don't work well with full pages summaries, I need the text to be visually broken into sentences/small paragraphs, and I use a lot of symbols as well as abbreviations.

Symbols and abbreviations are in a way part of your very own language when you are writing notes, you tend to develop these with time, but they are so useful. I personally use different types of arrows, all caps words, position of the text in the page, different methods of highlighting and abbreviations (usually for words that come up often like country names, for example Italy becomes ita, France becomes fr, etc.).

Your notes need to be useful for you, they don't have to necessarily be comprehensible for another person (which means you can and will fuck up sentence structure because sometimes skipping a couple of words makes the notes shorter and still understandable), and they do not have to be pretty. They should be as tidy as possible, but again that might change from person to person, I have some very messy looking notes that make total sense to me. With time you'll learn what works best for you.

I have a visual memory so as I mentioned titles, highlighters, all caps, the placement on the page and other similar things are very important in my notes. I cannot fully exapain some of these things because some definitely only make sense to me in the moment (like the words I choose to write in all caps, or the way I highlight things).

I like to have a clear chapter and subchapter break (so that in case I need to refer back to the book it's super effortless). I like to write those with a red pen, usually the chapter title is in all caps and the subchapter in coursive, but it really depends.

I use only two highlighters in each set of notes yellow for dates, and the colour I associate with the book/the subject of the book (I have synesthesia I don't make the rules when it comes to colours). This of course might change depending your preferences and on the element of your notes you want to focus on. I like to have spacific colour for dates and time periods, because of course while studying history that is a fundamental element. If you are focusing on other subjects you might want to have a specific colour for names, or other elements.

I like to leave a big side margin to add either key words (especially in lecture notes since they might be messier and jump around informations more often), or additional information in a second time (sometimes it happens, after you read another book, or attended a particular lecture you have to add a couple of sentences and I rather have a blank space that never gets used rather than no space at all for emergencies).

I honestly mentioned everything that came to mind right away, but since note writing is now basically a mindless skill I have been practicing for years I surely forgot about something. I might end up adding to this post in the future or write another one. My note-writing method has also changed a lot thought the years from high school to university, it's a skill I have been perfecting for the past decade. This to say that depending on what you are working on things might change, and by experimenting with different things you might find out things that work very well for you. If you have any questions on specific things I didn't mention or that wen't clear my inbox is always open and I am more than happy to help.

Since this post is already very very long I am adding the pictures below the cut

Example of a page of notes before and after highlighting

Example of symbols and structure of the notes and the way I highlight things (in which you'll hopefully be able to understand my handwriting, and in which there might be some spelling errors but alas that often happens in my real notes as well so if there are any it's for the sake of accuracy lmao). If I end up adding informations on the margins I always use a pen of a different color so I can tell which informations I got from what source (ex. main notes from lecture, colorful notes from additional article).

Example of messier notes in which the main text in black are the notes I took during lectures and the additional colorful text was added while writing the materials (I rarely do this, it usually happens when the lectures follow a book precisely, which happens when we have to study books or summaries written by the professor). As you can see I often use post it notes to add more writing space, and sometime I even use them to create visually separated sections. If I end up adding some drawings I also usually like to have them on post it notes so they stand out more (and if you are wondering why the hell would an history student need drawings it's usually either because I need a map or a region/state to mark things out, or when studying for archaeology exams I often needed visual references, for example to identify different types of vases or decorations).

[clownakai]

Hi! Let's talk about: Conan's terribly kept secret, and how come he doesn't seem to mind that Akai has pretty much figured it out (and teases him about it)

I'm not going to lie, I think about this a lot and I've wanted to make a post dissecting the whole thing for a while. It's one of those details within two characters' relationship that says a lot about their overall dynamic, in my opinion.

So, to start off, let's address the secret in question and what it means to Conan. Basic stuff, but it's a useful starting point.

The first and greatest motivation behind Shinichi's efforts to keep his situation a secret from Ran is that he doesn't want to endanger her (good idea in theory, not so easy in practice, but this post isn't about that).

In time, this also becomes valid for everyone who associates with Kudou Shinichi and/or Edogawa Conan, given all the stunts he pulls as the latter. Just to be on the safer side, those two identities should remain separate.

Now, here's the first real "outsider" who figures out Conan is Shinichi.

I'm kind of reading this as Conan attempting to call Hattori's bluff, but as soon as he realizes that the guy is serious about telling Ran everything, he drops all pretenses and comes clean about the APTX.

Now, since this is still pretty early on in the manga, we can argue that Conan's identity hasn't been solidified just yet and Shinichi doesn't know how dangerous the Organization actually is, and combining that with the fact that Hattori is pretty much a stranger, the pros of conceding defeat on the matter and explaining himself to a fellow detective definitely outweigh the cons.

(This also gifts us with the funniest swaggest most whimsical duo ever, but I digress /silly)

And after Heiji, we have the man, the myth, the legend. Hondou Eisuke. His case is kind of particular, in that he doesn't really try to get the secret out of Conan. The truth is presented to him due to something unrelated (asking Ran out), which is apparently reason enough for Shinichi to out himself.

I do believe that Shinichi felt secure enough in doing this for a couple reasons: first and foremost, Eisuke is at least marginally aware of the Organization and the danger it represents, and he knows the importance of keeping secrets given both his sister's situation and his career choice. Secondly, Eisuke is leaving Japan: sure, there's a chance he might stay in contact with his friends via text, but he has no reason to tell Ran about Conan's real identity in the first place.

The real "danger" here was the possibility (very, very small. Basically non-existent, to be honest) that Ran would say yes to Eisuke's proposal to go to the States together (where, in Shinichi's mind, he wouldn't be able to follow, where he wouldn't be able to watch over her, where he felt he would lose her in every way that matters), and that chance, no matter how small, warranted an intervention. Not exactly pure logic, but that's teenagers for you (affectionate).

Alright, so what about people like Masumi? She even has an advantage in that she already knows about the existence of a drug that makes people shrink: her own mom looks like a middle schooler because of that. She's in danger no matter how you look at it, and she's clearly been keeping that secret the same way Agasa, Hattori, and the Kudous have for a good while. So how come she doesn't get to join the club?

The answer is, of course, the risk factor.

Masumi, as we all know, wouldn't know the meaning of subtlety if it hit her in the face with a baseball bat. We love and cherish her regardless, but admittedly, that's not a trait that would inspire trust in a pair of teenagers hiding their continued existence from an evil syndicate.

That's right! We have her timing to keep in mind as well. Masumi is added to the scene well into the main timeline's events, which means multiple things:

Conan's identity is finally well-established and separate from Shinichi's. Ran has had her suspicions in multiple instances, but they've been assuaged every time. Still, that balance is hard to maintain.

Shinichi is now fully aware of just how dangerous the Organization is: he's now much more reluctant to just share his secret willy-nilly with random strangers, even though they might prove to be useful allies in the long run.

Conan isn't the only shrunk teenager running around anymore: Haibara has just as much reason as him, if not more, to want to keep the number of people in the know as low as possible. By revealing his own secret, there would be virtually no way for Shinichi to keep Haibara out of the metaphorical line of fire.

Therefore, a variable that behaves like this...

Or this...

Isn't very likely to garner much favor from either of these two.

Something to take note of, though, is the fact that Conan pretty much only ever panics when Masumi brings up his identity if she's making an active effort to also bring the matter up with people who are firmly on the "Absolutely Cannot Find Out" list (Ran especially).

In multiple other instances, when Masumi alludes to being aware of Conan's ruse but talks to him one-on-one and makes it clear that the comment is a one-off occasion (and that she's not going to push it this time), Shinichi doesn't really lose his cool.

He may stumble over his words a bit, but the moment isn't played as dramatic or high-risk, per se. It's more as if he were being privately teased about his situation— sort of like as inside joke. It's not exactly welcome, but it also doesn't raise any alarm bells since it stays between him and Masumi.

Now, would Conan's problems with Masumi's nosiness be solved if he gave up and admitted the truth she already knows? Of course, but that's not really the point.

The issue is that this wouldn't be happening on his terms. He would be giving in to someone's else's demands, and in addition to that, Masumi has been asking non-stop about the antidote that Shinichi intermittently uses to get back to normal.

That, above all else, is what makes the endless dance of denial necessary, I think: admitting the truth also means outright admitting that prototypes of an antidote exist, and that means exposing Haibara (both her past work and therefore criminal background, and what she's been working on these past few months: letting Masumi have even a single pill would mean the MI6 getting their hands on it in turn, and that's pretty much not something anyone wants), which in turn would probably set off a very unpleasant chain reaction for everyone involved.

When Shinichi conceded defeat with Hattori, it wasn't on his terms either, but at least he knew the guy didn't really have any ulterior motive apart from his one-sided beef with the Detective of the East.

With Masumi there is no such certainty— quite the opposite, in fact, which is why I think this is the reason he's been so insistent on denying the truth even when he now knows full well that Masumi's can be no mere suspicions.

With all that said, let's get to the point of this bad boy! (I did not think this analysis would get so long. Holy shit)

Let's start with the fact that Akai operates on a pretty simple need-to-know basis. If something isn't relevant to what he's trying to do, he tends not to mention it. Still, he's not exactly strict about this: when Conan mentions Akai and Masumi's familial relation, he takes it in stride and gives his own confirmation because he sees no reason not to.

Now, this of course doesn't mean that he can't get curious about things himself, or that he won't conduct his own investigations on said things. His M.O., however, is very different from that of, say, Hattori or Masumi. It can probably be chalked up to maturity and years of experience, along with the simple matter of his personality, but Akai doesn't exactly make a spectacle of things.

He knows when to push and when to let go in a manner that still gives him the answers he seeks. He easily manipulates Conan into giving himself away as Shinichi while still making sure to be the only one witnessing that moment.

And then he decides to be a bastard and give Conan a heart attack... for about a tenth of a second, since as he does that he also carefully words things in order to give the kid an easy out.

All Akai wanted was to figure out the mystery in front of him (he's by admission a curious guy. He likes solving puzzles): now that he has his answers, he's not really going to do anything with them because he has no reason to— Conan is already willing to cooperate with him and the FBI (and has already done so before), after all. They already share intel more or less freely. He's literally living in the kid's house. For free. Why would he jeopardize any of that by falling out of favor with him?

This, I think, is a pretty solid basis upon which I can build my beautiful sandcastle.

Of the couple times in which Akai respectively asks Conan about his identity outright and mildly teases him about his circumstances, the context always plays a huge role.

In the first scenario, the two are speaking in public, yes, but at the same time the conversation is:

Pretty much kept private

Initiated by Conan (he asked for information first!)

Framed as a proposal of a mutual exchange by Akai, who also backs off immediately as soon as Conan turns him down

Of course, Shinichi is already reasonably sure Akai has him figured out anyway, so the point is moot, but it's still nice to get plausible deniability and still be somewhat in control of when he's going to come clean to the guy of his own volition.

In the second scenario, the situation is even more "secure" so to speak, as:

They're sitting in Okiya Subaru's car

They're completely alone

They're in a hurry to do something else (God fucking dammit, Shuukichi)

In this case, Conan doesn't outright react to the jab. Maybe it's because he doesn't really know what to say, or maybe it's just that he doesn't have enough time to come up with a reply before Shuukichi picks up the call. Either way, he does perhaps look a little put on the spot, but there's no real panicked reaction, no telltale change in what Conan's pupils look like in true DetCo fashion, which I'd say confirms he doesn't feel threatened at the moment.

(If we really must give it a critical interpretation, maybe the bit feels a little like a joke falling flat because it was made during an otherwise tense moment and it has nothing to do with the bigger issue.)

It's also worth noting how Akai's dig directly ties into his own circumstances, which possibly helps with lowering the "offensive" charge of the words. It's not a direct accusation, but rather a mildly humorous, harmless observation about their shared status (presumed dead by the enemy).

The biggest thing about both scenes is still, however, the fact that Akai unfailingly frames the subject in a way that leaves the choice of whether to actually talk about it completely up to Conan. He definitely recognizes his position as privileged/advantaged, but actively chooses not to make use of that, and he hasn't treated Conan any differently ever since verifying his suspicions either.

(Sidenote: I do believe that keeping the kid's identity from his own colleagues is also a strategic choice. Like I mentioned before, outing Conan would mean outing Haibara, and I do believe Akai's promise to protect Shiho also includes keeping her far away from any government agency who may be interested in what she knows— and what she's done.)

In conclusion: I am extremely normal about random interactions between these two and also I think that Conan's unshakeable trust in Akai stems from how the guy has been treating him ever since they started collaborating— with genuine respect (and even admiration) and never actually making him feel cornered the way so many others do, whether intentionally or not. This results in occasional sillygoofy privileges because Akai can recognize the time and the place in which it's acceptable to tease the Cone.

[redr0sewrites]

Hi! I'd like to make a request if you're still open for then. It's more like two, actually. I got my nails done the other day, and I've been excited to show everyone since it's the first time I've ever done this! I was wondering if I could get one for the hazbin Hotel men and how they would react to them. For the second one I was hoping for the same characters being with a chubby reader?

Specifically, I'm curious about husk, vox and angel dust but I also wouldn't mind the rest like Adam and alastor. Just no Valentino obvi

(Romantic pls! Preferably sfw for both requests)

Thank you so much!!!

YESSSSS OFC OFC!!!! i made the pt2 w chubby!reader hcs in a separate post and linked it ♥️

🥀Cw: none, mostly fluff

🥀Pairing(s): Husk, Vox, Angel Dust, Lucifer

Husk

husk is 100% a supportive boyfriend and he admires you whenever you get your nails done

while he may not be super up to date on modern technology, he will TOTALLY take super aesthetic nail pics for you and do his best to make sure you and your nails look fabulous

if its your first time getting your nails done and your a bit nervous, husk has no qualms about accompanying you. toxic masculinity be damned, he'll sit beside you the whole time and chat with you and your nail technician about whatever

he gives great advice when it comes to colors and styles, and if you ever came to him for advice on what nails you should wear, be prepared for an entire formal slideshow on what colors he thinks would look best on you

husk loves when your nails tap against hard surfaces, the soft clicking is very soothing to him. his ears always twitch towards the sound of your fingers drumming against the bartop counter when your sitting with him while he works

he loves how your nails feel combing through his fur, and will absolutely PURR when you scratch his ears with them but will deny it to no end if you tease him about it

Vox

vox is pretty perceptive, and notices almost immediately that you changed your nails. he'll ask to see them, and will definitely praise you because of how stylish they look. vox knows you have good taste, your dating him after all!!

vox would probably show off your nails to others, and would offer for velvette to post about them on her sinstagram. or, he'll just post about you on his own account. maybe he'll take a photo of you and him with your nails in view, "casually" mentioning how lovely they look and drawing viewers attention to your lovely nails. he loves it when you both receive attention, and he wants people to know he sees you as a masterpiece

vox knows getting your nails done can take some time, and while he can't always be there in person, he'll make sure to call you or text you to make the wait more bearable. expect a lot of questions about when you'll be home, or how much longer the appointment will take

vox would probably start buffering and short circuit if he saw that your nails matched his color scheme. he LOVES the idea of you both matching through your nails, and might subtly suggest that you get blue and pink nails next time

Angel Dust

angel dust is practically your hype man! the second you tell him you're going to get your nails done he offers to accompany you, and will get a set that matches with yours!!! he loves holding your hand and admiring the way your nails match, and will randomly ask to hold your hand for the entire time you have your new nails

i'd say that angel has definitely gotten his nails done before and is probably pretty used to it, so he'll definitely calm any nerves you have. he looovessss showing off your guys' matching nails and will take a bunch of cute aesthetic nail pics with you!!!!

considering he's a celebrity, he would LOVE it if you got nails inspired by him!!!!

you two would totally have spa dates where you would go out and have full selfcare days, and get your nails done together. imagine just chilling with angel in a nail salon, relaxing as your nail technician works on your hands while your lover rambles aimlessly beside you. its a very affectionate and soft date that the two of you enjoy, and you end up going out with angel to get your nails done quite frequently

Lucifer

lucifer would 100% offer to accompany you if you were getting your nails done!!! he would love just getting to sit with you and chat while he watched you get your nails done, and would probably ask a lot of questions

once your nails are officially done, he showers you in compliments!!! he adores everything from the colors to the design, simply because you chose it

if you got super long nails or acrylics, lucifer would absolutely offer to do simple tasks for you. fumbling with a necklace clasp because your nails are too long? here, let him do it for you! can't pick up a tiny item? he practically teleports to your side! struggling to type?? here, just tell him what to say and he'll type every word for you!!!!

lucifer loves kissing your hands, and he loves doing it even more once you start getting your nails done. he'll press a kiss to each nail, traveling up to kiss your knuckles and then all the way up your arm to kiss your face

IVE NEVER GOTTEN MY NAILS DONE SO I TRIED TO BE AS ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE!!!!! APOLOGIES FOR ANY MISTAKES 😭 this was also my first time writing for husk + angel dust, which is actually shockers considering they're literally two of my favs

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Okay so in the same vein as this post, I want to reality check the people who keep asking (yes I've been this person too, don't @ me) why oh why are Jews the only group leftists are willing to categorically deny self-determination to, and the reason is that most of them are tits deep in Christian supercessionism and don't even know it and have absolutely no desire to change that.

The reason they deny self-determination to Jews is the same reason that they would deny any claim to self-determination of, say, Mormons. If the Mormon church tried to claim Utah because it's the epicenter and birthplace of Mormonism [Edit: apparently the birthplace of Mormonism is western New York and not Utah whoops, but the point stands] and therefore they may as well have an indigenous claim to it, people with brains would rightfully lose their shit.

"But it's a culture too, not just a religion!"

So? Have you met any Mormons and spent time with them? They have their own culture.

"Okay but Jews are an ancient people!"

Please look at the batshit Mormon theological view of the Twelve Tribes and their attitudes towards Native Americans.

"Okay but our history is real!" Yep! These people don't know the first thing about Judaism and Jewish history and don't care.

The reality is that most westerners are hellbent on ignoring Jewish history and ethnoreligious identity because literally all of western civilization is built on Christian supercessionism. Even the people who leave Christianity and hate it (and "all religions") with a violent passion still refuse to engage in learning about Jewish cultural and ethnic history because you cannot do it without engaging the history and texts that they blame as the roots of Christianity and therefore they discredit all of it out of hand.

Obviously they're super fucking wrong about this. You, my fellow yid, and I, both know that. But unraveling the supercessionism means understanding their culpability in Jewish suffering and how they benefit from institutionalized antisemitism.

They are extremely unlikely to do that.

Why? Because if they unlearn Judaism as "just a religion" &/or "Christianity without Jesus" and begin to understand it as an indigenous Levantine group, they then have to reckon with the reality of how much Christianity has stolen from Jews and how much of their hatred for Jews is baked into their western goyische psyche by intentional Christian misunderstandings of Judaism.

Am Yisrael cannot to them be a real people with deep tribal roots and a strong culture, because then they would have to separate Judaism from Christianity and question their assumptions about us and our history.

"But Judaism accepts converts!"

Okay, as someone who "converted," I'm going to say no, not really, actually. Conversion is a convenient shorthand, but it's not accurate. Converting to Judaism means a mutually consensual adoption into the Tribe, after thorough vetting, at least a year of study and perseverance but probably more, and the main, primary promise that you make is about choosing to share the collective fate of the Jewish people. Yes, this adoption and naturalization is through the medium of the spiritual/religious aspect of Jewish identity, but it's way more than that. To be a Jew is to know that I might get stabbed on my walk to shul for being visibly Jewish, and to accept that possibility because the idea of not living as a Jew is worse. Gerim have to be ride or die because a serious chunk of Jewish history is on the "die" side of that equation. You have to be just a little bit nuts voluntarily take on that risk (reminder that I say this as a ger who is happily Jewish) and it must come from a place of profound love for and identification with the Jewish people. And once you join the family, that's it. You don't get to ever stop being a member of the family, even if you become estranged from it.

It's a people, with a deep history and culture, and anyone who joins it takes on both. Obviously your genetic makeup and ancestry don't change, but everything else does.

Understanding that major difference in Judaism in a serious way means that they would have to let go of their world view that their religion and culture are separate, that Christianity intentionally divorced faith from culture in order to acquire as many converts as possible, and then begin to understand how Christianity has shaped their understanding of culture, tradition, what religion is, ethics, and values. And they would have to then make an effort to separate their understanding of Judaism and what they think they know about us from Christianity, however they do or don't relate to it.

[loudclan-clangen]

Alright, now I'm curious, what are the rules of StarClan's Oneway Dunktank? Are there cats who can't touch it (mediators for sure but anyone else?) Do healers meet there every half moon? They can sacrifice a life to speak directly to StarClan but what about other times?

(Also you're not gonna believe this, I looked up effects of crude oil exposure and studies indicate it may cause Anemia and low white blood cell count, so maybe she got a bleeding disorder because she can't stay out of the Forbidden Jacuzzi).

VERY LONG, LOTS OF TEXT, SORRY I GOT EXCITED TO LORE DUMP

The rules/powers of the Black Water Pool and Starclan are intentionally very nebulous. 1. Because I think starclan is more effective as a mysterious force than a clearly designated entity, and 2. Because I would like to have some flexibility going forward in the comic regarding the powers/rules of starclan. Here's what's clearly defined:

Any cat can touch the oil, like physically speaking. They will not just drop dead unless something else is going on that is worsened by the experience. But something may be worsened by the oil, especially if they are deeply exposed to it, like swimming in it or ingesting it the way one might if they weren't specifically trained in how to interact with it safely (like a healer or a leader). This leads to rumors of cats being cursed with terrible visions (hallucinations), disease (coughs caused by respitory damage), or wounds (chemical burns from prolonged exposure) because they touch the Black Water without permission. These could be actual curses from starclan, or they could be biological reactions to the oil, but that doesn't really matter because the cats believe that they are curses. (If that makes sense). For this combination of reasons, (religious belief and biological evidence), cats with open wounds, bad coughs, or who are actively pregnant are absolutely not allowed to touch the oil and are encouraged not to be near it. (Excluding dried oil worn by healers, we've covered in an earlier post that that is a stable form that isn't going to pollute others). This is justified by the healers as being times when one does not want to tempt death, and that being near the pool brings one's spirit closer to the dead, which is good for communing with them or asking them for favors, but bad when you are fighting for/actively creating life.

All of the leaders and their leadership teams have meetings staggered throughout the moon. Leaders and deputies meet on a full-moon, healers meet on a half-moon, and mediators meet on a new moon. (Gatherings also happen on full moons, just later in the day/night. The clans meet the leaders at the gathering place.) Healers might meet at the Black Water Pool but they do not always. Specifically, the Freezingclan healers refuse to meet at the Black Water, so if they want all of the clans' healers to meet they have to pick another place, usually the gathering place for simplicity. Since the healers can only commune with Starclan by sacrificing a life, they don't do it on a monthly basis and not meeting at the Black Water isn't inconvenient for them.

The healers (and leaders) can only speak directly to Starclan by sacrificing a life period. One of my biggest issues with the actual books is that speaking to Starclan is so casual that they constantly have to justify the cats not being able to in order to maintain any form of mystery or miscommunication, or risk making beloved characters look like jerks for not telling the living cats something important/make the entirety of Starclan look less powerful by claiming that they just "didn't know". My very simple solution to this is to put a layer of separation between them. In order to talk to the dead you have to die. This means that characters will only do so if they feel it is VERY important and they are certain that Starclan will give them a helpful answer, which they will not always do. (Why doesn't Wildfirecry ask Starclan how to cure Rosehippaw? Because he knows that there is a very high likely hood that the answer is "you can't" and then he'll lose both his daughter and a life that he could have used to help his clan in a more effective way).

Circling back to how normal cats are meant to contact starclan if they aren't allowed to touch the Black Water Pool by themselves, we finally get to talk about Loudclan burials! (This idea has been rattling around in my brain since the bonus art for Moon 18!) Okay, so: When a cat dies, the ground on the mountain is too hard and shallow for them to really be effectively buried. Due to this, the body is placed into a shallow dip dug into the ground and then covered by a pile of heavy stones in a make-shift cairn. The cairn discourages larger scavengers, like foxes or ravens, who might carry pieces of the deceased away, but allows smaller scavengers like mice and insects to eat away the fleshy bits. After a few moons, (during which family and friends are encouraged to keep their distance and learn to live without the deceased) when the scavengers are finished and all that is left are clean bones, the body is exhumed and repositioned so that the skull is left exposed outside of the cairn that covers the rest of the body. This is meant to allow cats to speak directly to the spirit of specific dead clan mates, though there is, of course, no expectation that the spirit speak back. (This is what we see Fiercestripe do in the Moon 18 Bonus Art). All burials happen in a field of forget-me-nots (small, blue. five petal flowers) as they cover the scent of decay, and therefore the cairns/graves are often decorated with them, along with other flowers or plants that may have been special to the deceased. Less commonly, a family member may ask to take a piece of the deceased from the cairn, such as a small tail bone or claw that they will wear to "carry the deceased with them". This is only allowed if the cats are known to have a close relationship, and is very frowned upon if the requestor is not a close family member or lifelong mate.

The major exception to all of this "Starclan is nebulous and distant" stuff is when I draw ghosts (like Bluepaw talking to Owlstar, which, admittedly, I drew before I had a good grasp of what I wanted to do with spirits and starclan). I know that it sort of negates that distance but... I just think it's fun. I think it's more fun to see what the spirits have to say (on occassion) than strictly sticking to never seeing Starclan outside of the Black Water Pool. So for those instances just remember that you, as the audience are getting sort of a third person omniscient view. You can see the ghosts but the characters in the story cannot (unless it is stated that they can due to like ghost sight or something).

Of course, as I said at the beginning, I'm trying to remain flexible, and I'm sure I'm going to break all of these rules at some point, but if I do my job correctly, then moments when these rules break should be important, and not just because I'm disregarding or forgetting them.

On a completely different note: You're not gonna believe this but I actually did know that! I did a decent amount of research into the effects of oil exposure when i was thinking up the Black Water Pool and yeah! It absolutely has played a part in Eklutna's condition. She's had hemophilia since birth, (which very simply means that her blood doesn't clot very well (for all of you biology nerds out there yes i know that it is rare for a cis female to have full hemophilia but it is possible if both of her parents had it)), but that has 100% been worsened by her love of swimming in "the forbidden jacuzzi". As long as we are sharing fun facts: exposure to crude oil while pregnant, while not always, can occasionally cause birth defects like weak lungs!

[juliasgoodusername]

Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.

Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT

Exterior

Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.

Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.

Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.

I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘

First floor

"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30

Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.

“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.

I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-

Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.

... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.

... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue

Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.

The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13

There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)

The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.

- The Raven King, Chapter 9

Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.

I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.

The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).

Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.

Second Floor

When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11

Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.

Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.

- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49

We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.

Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).

Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.

As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.

Attic

Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.

... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34

Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!

Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!

Mud Room/Cellar/Basement

This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.

My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.

This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.

Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.

[highlandwhackamole]

A Grand(ish) Theory of What the Heck

I love the utterly unhinged, super detailed theories about what's going on in Good Omens, especially in season 2. I hope one or more of them turn out to be true, as some kind of glorious puzzle-box-hidden-code monstrosity. And also I think that there has to be a simpler explanation for things, for the people who are at least Somewhat Normal (tm) about this show. (... I assume such people do exist somewhere...) This is what I have been pondering recently.

The thing that started me thinking about this was this post, containing some promotional materials for season 2 that feature main characters with scenes in their heads. Like this:

Seeing this created a very similar situation in my own head, but with a nice shiny lightbulb.

All the weirdness: the car, the sideburns, the clock, the behavior of the folks of Soho, the vanishing storefront signs. The absence of God. I think this is all because everything we see is in their heads.

I don't mean it's made up. At least not entirely. Memory is already a plot point. Why not explore it on a deeper level? I've read theories emphasizing the minisodes' stories being retold by Aziraphale and Crowley. I think the whole season is like that.

You know that sort of conventional-wisdom-fact-concept that you can only dream faces of people you've seen before (or variations therein), because your brain can't make new faces up? So it just fills in what it thinks is close enough? I think that idea, applied to remembering or recollecting things, could explain so many things that are wonky in this show.

Wonky Things

Crowley parking in an impossible London location? He definitely remembers it was in London, so his brain just stuck some obvious London landmarks in there.

Awkward clattering happening when Crowley throws the stacks of books he's inexplicably carrying around the bookshop? He wouldn't actually throw Aziraphale's books! But he'd like to think he's cool and nonchalant enough to do that, and if he did it would definitely make Some Kind of Noise.

Jim walking toward the bookshop from somewhere mysterious? Maggie and Nina saw him first, and he came from that direction, so he must've walked all that way. They don't know about the elevator in the Donkey.

Aziraphale remembers tartan hills and the Loch Ness monster because he was having a jolly time driving through Scotland, so obviously the scenery must've been whimsical Scottish things.

Nina put the Honolulu roast sign up, so she remembers its presence, but perhaps the occult/ethereal visitors to her shop do not.

Maggie really did text Aziraphale about the rent, but a note through the mail slot is a much more dignified way for a scholarly angel to imagine he received a message.

On the Fallibility of Recall

This season is loaded with unrealistic inclusions. The colors are turned up to 11. Some of the scenes are more caricature than believable interaction. Remembering things never copies or reproduces them with what one might call high fidelity.

Scenes recalled by separate memories will inherently vary. One person's hefty jigger might be another person's dash. Who knows for sure where the sun was that day? You and I might recall an event having different lighting or a different color palette, sort of like viewing something with different lens filters.

According to Neil, Crowley is an unreliable narrator of the story of his Fall. He labels the variations in clock times as a continuity error in a show where Everything Is Meant, but he doesn't say whose continuity error it is. He insists that the Bentley is the same through the whole season; maybe it was the same, but remembered differently. Maybe this is part of why there's more CGI but it's harder to spot.

So What?

Is this all there is to it? I sure hope not. I like my Good Omens with enough layers to put to shame an onion wrapped in a cake and covered in a parfait.

Is this possibly the fancy footwork that's distracting from the real magic trick? I wouldn't put it past Our Gaiman. There are a lot of things one could hide in the narrative of unreliable memory.

Is this going to stop me from rewatching and repondering and remaking theories for the next couple years? Not even at gunpoint.

[cal-kestis]

HOW TO: Do a Motion Blur Transition Using Timeline or Frame Animation

Hi! Someone asked me for a tutorial on the transition effect in the second gif of this set (also featured in this set and the text on this set). So, here it is! This is one of the easiest and least tedious of the gif transition effects in my opinion — and I’m going to go over how to do it both in Timeline and Frame Animation (using the screencap method). Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of gif-making in Photoshop.

PHASE 1: PREP

This phase applies to both the Timeline and Frames method!

1.1 – Prepare your caps. (New to gif-making? Check out my basic tutorial here!) 

The key to this kind of gif is making sure your final gif, with all the transitions, won’t be too long or too big of a file to post (Tumblr’s limit is 10 MB). 

If your gif is going to be big like mine (540x500px), you might want to keep your total frames between 50-60. I decided to try getting away with a whopping 70 frames total... because I like to test fate (spoiler: my final gif ended up being 9.6 MB 🙈). Since my gif is transitioning between two scenes, that means each scene was 35 frames. 

If you aren’t doing screencaps like me, just make sure your clips are equal in length. And if you’re transitioning between more than 2 scenes (like the Mando example I linked at the beginning), you’ll have to use shorter clips/fewer frames per scene. In my Mando gif, each scene was 16 frames and my final gif was 64 frames. 

1.2 – Crop, sharpen, color, etc. as you would. For this, since you’ll probably have 2 more more sets of coloring, just make sure your coloring is only being applied to the appropriate gifs. The way I do that is by aligning my adjustment layers with my gif as you can see in the screenshot in 1.3 below.

1.3 – Arrange your frames or clips. If you’re working in Timeline, drag the clips/layers of your second gif so they’re immediately after the ones of your first gif. I like to keep things separated in Groups: 

Note: I’m keeping my text layers separate because I don’t want the motion blur to affect them. But if you wanted to make your text transition from one word to another, you can either follow the same steps I’m about to show you and apply them to your text layers, or simply merge your text layers with your gif and adjustment layers, so they can all get the motion blur filter applied to them!

If you’re working in Frames, simply paste the frames of your second gif after the frames of your first gif. Again, you can either keep your text separated or part of the motion blur.

METHOD: TIMELINE

T.1 – Divide the Timeline. Using the Scissors Tool, you’ll want to divide each gif so there are 3 small segments at the beginning and end. (3 is my go-to, however, for my Mando gif, I actually only did 2 segments because each section was already so short.)

Now there are two options for this:

OPTION 1: Simplest, 00:01 Seconds Each, Makes Duplicate Frames

You might be wondering, why on earth would I want duplicate frames? You wouldn’t, usually. But this method only causes the duplicates to happen on the blurred frames, so it’s not noticeable at all! However, if you’re like me (read: Type A) — just knowing there are duplicate frames may bother you. If that’s you, go to Option 2.

Each of these segments are the absolute smallest Photoshop will allow, a duration of 00:01. 

Sometimes Timeline won’t let you cut things that short (for me, this typically only happens at the end of a clip). So my work around is to cut the segment so it’s 00:02 seconds long, then drag the clip until it’s as small as it can be. Here’s a gif showing that process:

You can see that after I dragged the clip so it would be 00:01, I also dragged the big clip over so it would still continue as normal. Timeline is neat because, even if you divide a clip, each segment can be dragged back to its full length. 

OPTION 2: 00:02 / 00:01 / 00:02, No Duplicate Frames

Timeline works in a weird way... when you move forward one frame by clicking the right arrow, you don’t always see movement in your gif. And if you don’t line up the clips properly with the movement, it can create duplicate frames. The easy way to fix this is by making the 3 segments 00:02, 00:01, and 00:02 seconds respectively. This goes for the segments at the beginning and end. 

You can see the duration of each segment and an example of how the gif doesn’t move on certain frames in this gif of my workspace:

T.2 – Apply the Motion Blur filter in varying distances or strengths. Now that we have all of our segments, it’s time to apply the blur. Motion Blur is under Filter > Blur > Motion Blur! 

This is the window you’ll see when you click it:

Note the fields where you can change the angle and distance. 

The angle is basically the direction in which you want the blurred effect to stretch. I always do 0 because I want my gifs to blur together horizontally — I just think it looks smooth. You can play around with it if you want to get a different effect!

The distance is what I like to refer to as the strength of the blur. But really, it’s distance because it’s how long the blurred effect is being stretched.

The rule of thumb here is to apply the filter in a gradation. The part at the beginning of one gif should go from strongest (greatest distance) to weakest (least distance). The part at the end of one gif should go from weakest to strongest. 

I keep things easy to remember and do 20, 15, 10 for the beginning and 5, 10, 15 for the end. The reason the numbers aren’t the same is because I don’t want the end of Gif 1 (which is blurred 15px distance) to be the same as the beginning of Gif 2 (which is blurred 20px distance). If they’re the same amount of blur, I don’t think the transition looks as smooth.

Here’s my entire timeline and the strength of blur I used for each of the transitional clips:

T.3 – Export That’s it! Convert from Timeline to Frames, export your gif, and there you go! 

Reminder, if you decided to do Option 1, you’ll have duplicate frames, and therefore more frames than you started out with when you initially imported caps.

METHOD: FRAMES

F.1 – Apply the Motion Blur filter in varying distances or strengths. In Timeline, we created segments. But in Frames, each frame acts as one of those segments — so we don’t need to divide anything. We can just get straight to the filter!

Now, disclaimer: the way I’m working with Frames right now is with the adjustment layers merged with the frames. I typically work in Timeline, so I colored in Timeline and then converted into Frames for this. However you work, just make sure the coloring from one part of your gif doesn’t affect the other part.

Anyway, here’s where to find Motion Blur again:

And here’s what the window will look like:

Now just apply the filter in increasing and decreasing degrees. In case you didn’t read the Timeline section, I’ll paste exactly what I said there:

Note the fields where you can change the angle and distance.

The angle is basically the direction in which you want the blurred effect to stretch. I always do 0 because I want my gifs to blur together horizontally — I just think it looks smooth. You can play around with it if you want to get a different effect!

The distance is what I like to refer to as the strength of the blur. But really, it’s distance because it’s how long the blurred effect is being stretched.

The rule of thumb here is to apply the filter in a gradation. The part at the beginning of one gif should go from strongest (greatest distance) to weakest (least distance). The part at the end of one gif should go from weakest to strongest.

I keep things easy to remember and do 20, 15, 10 for the beginning and 5, 10, 15 for the end. The reason the numbers aren’t the same is because I don’t want the end of Gif 1 (which is blurred 15px distance) to be the same as the beginning of Gif 2 (which is blurred 20px distance). If they’re the same amount of blur, I don’t think the transition looks as smooth.

Here are all my frames and the strength of the blur I used for each of the transitional frames:

Note: I wanted to mention again that I kept my text layers in a separate group and didn’t apply the transition to them:

F.2 – Export Finished! Easy peasy! 

EXPORTING TIP

If you’ve read my other tutorials, you already know this tip — but since I’m part of Discord servers where members are encouraged to share embed links to their creations, I often rearrange the order of my frames before saving them. (This tip is also handy for making sure the best frame of your gif is visible for Tumblr users who turn off auto-playing gifs.) In this case, I made frame 27 my new frame 1 because I didn’t want my embed preview to look like a blurry gif. Everything will still be in the same order, but anywhere your gif is paused, the best frame will be displayed!

Anyway, that’s it! If you have specific questions about this tutorial, my ask box is open. Hope this helps! <3

[mafagafo-amancebado]

My dummy silly nevermore theory now that the first part ended

How Annabel Lee and Lenore died

Or how I think they did

First of all I'd like to apologise for any grammar errors (English it is not my first language, sorry)

Long story short i think that Lenore was exposed to be a woman in her wedding with Annabel and noticing that they would be separated and would probably never see each other again Annabel told Lenore to kill both of them because she wouldn't be able to live without Lenore again. And here are my reasons to think that:

1. Annabel hates the life of a house wife

In one of Lenore flashbacks Annabel says how much she hates the idea of becoming a wife and looks devastated by this fact. Marrying with Lenore was probably the only way of her escaping from this future.

2. Who would have exposed Lenore?

Well I have two possibilities for this

#1 Lenore's Father. He was the one hosting Annabel and her father and he would very likely go to her wedding even saying he wants to meet her fiancé. Even though he has not seen Lenore for years I think he still would be able to recognise his daughter. So I think it was something like he arrived late to their wedding or took him some time to realise that it was his daughter in the altar and not his nephew (if he has one).

2# Annabel's previous suitor. Annabel mentions that her father found a suitor for her if she doesn't marry any of the ones she's been meeting. This doesn't mean anything but if this suitor was chosen by her father he is somebody important and would be invited to the wedding. I don't think he would be happy to know that the girl he wasn't able to defeat in chess in years and that defeated all of the possible suitors in England was going to marry someone that no one knows who is and where it came.

3. The place where they died

Okay this one might be just me going nuts but the backgrounds on this panels look kinda like a forest and Annabel dead body have a shadow that looks like a tree leafs shadow also her blood is splattered like if it's in the snow and not in a puddle like it would be if she bleeds in a regular floor (I do not know what is a regular floor).

(I actually never seen snow in real life so I'm probably wrong about this but I have seen trees so i still believe in the trees thing)

And okay, they could just have a wedding in a forest, but who has a wedding in the forest during winter?? I think they married in a church that was close to a forest and ran there when Lenore's dad/Annabel Lee previous suitor exposed they and in the forest they talk about how they didn't have a way out of that situation.

That's it! thanks for reading my nonsense.

There are other things in the history that make me think this but if I write in a single post it will be too much text and images so maybe I will post another part of this theory, I don't know.

[thewebcomicsreview]

So, Gunwild, the writer of Cassiopeia Quinn, made a comment on that post about webcomics turning into illustrated prose

gunwildversuseverything said: I was hoping this would prompt a discussion about formats and expression, but no, it’s about artist versus writer workloads and “amount of story” being reduced to equations and word counts and update schedules. Figures.

And you know what, it's a good point. So instead of getting into the Artist vs Writers debate for the millionth time, let's take a look at how you, and artist and/or writer, can get a story told on the internet. For the sake of this discussion, lets assume you don't have any actual preference for a given medium that might influence you, you just want to know what's right for your story and will learn whatever skills you need.

TRADITIONAL WEBCOMIC

Comics are the most visual-heavy medium that a solo project can realistically do. This has several business advantages (pictures do better on social media), but it's also a good fit for stories with a bunch of things that are interesting to look at. Cassiopeia Quinn is a story heavily featuring weird alien races, cool spaceships, and attractive young women with extraordinarily casual dress codes. These are visual things! And visual things can be conveyed super quickly and subtly using visuals. Imagine just the "Cassiopeia doesn't wear pants" gimmick, if this was written out. If Cassiopeia gets a description of her appearance the first time she shows up in chapter one and then it's kind of glossed over, the reader would forget. If every time Cassiopeia entered a scene Gunwild had to go

Cassiopeia sauntered up to the motorcycle rack. Her own rack was barely contained by a dangling strip of black fabric, visible through an open orange jacket. Black elbow-high sleeves, covering her hands, matched her thigh-high stockings, separated from her black panties by her thigh pouch.

Somehow it's a lot less cute when it's written out like this, huh? And it also takes way longer to read that then it does to just look at her on the page, which increases the chance your readers might get bored. Comics are the medium that takes the most time to make and also the least time to read, which makes readers a lot more likely to put up with exposition or a plot tangent that doesn't really connect with them. Even if your comic has bits that don't grip your readers, they can grip themselves if you show them interesting bits.

The main downside of comics is the "equations and update schedules" part. They take a looooooong time to make, even compared to everything else. It's also got issues with how people read it. A comic that looks good on a desktop often looks too small on a phone.

TEXT UNDER A PANEL

This style is so strongly associated with Homestuck that a lot of people who weren't making explicitly Homestuck-themed comics seem to have been scared off it. But it's a perfectly cromulent format. It reads well on both desktop and mobile, and lets you use art for all your visuals while using text for dialogue and character thoughts. It's not, however, the best fit for every story. Because each panel is separate, it can be hard to make an exciting action scene this way, which is part of why this format is also associated with special animated pages (I mean, besides "Homestuck did it"). The panels don't really flow into each other, and there's a constant switching between looking and reading.

ILLUSTRATED PROSE

Distinguished from the Text Under a Panel Style mostly by the ratio of text to art, without a hard line demarcating the distinction between them. This style also reads well in desktop and mobile. Well, it should, but a lot of webcomics who switch to this style tend to stay in their webcomic format, meaning it's a picture of text that doesn't resize legibly, grumble grumble. I don't....I don't know if I need to explain the concept of "text" to people. You know what words are, and if you don't there's nothing I can say to explain it.

VISUAL NOVEL

I'm not going to claim to be a visual novel expert, but the main advantages are that it's the most art-efficient medium of any of these (because you can flat-out reuse art), the main disadvantages are that you'll usually need music, it's maybe not as well suited to long monologues, and most importantly that it's not a good method for drip-feed three-day-a-week updates. You kind of have to release the entire thing all at once, or at least in large episodes.

ALL OF THE ABOVE

A comic like Out-of-Placers is mostly traditional, but uses illustrated prose for lore updates. Prequel is text-under-a-panel but not always, and of course Homestuck is the absolute king of format switching, even ignoring the animations. The upside is that you can use the best format for any given scene, and that you're constantly keeping your readers on their toes. The downside (besides having to learn to do all this shit) is that you kind of have to commit to the bit and get your readers on board early with the idea that you're going to just be doing whatever this week. It's also harder to take full advantage of any one medium if you're constantly switching them up

I'm sure I'm forgetting about two hundred formats, but what are the biggest ones I'm missing?

[one-flower-one-sword]

"Feng Xin, however, cut straight to the point. "You don't need to pretend anymore! We know this is your old lair. We've already seen what those divine statues are, and the murals too - we've seen everything!" Hua Cheng wasn't directly facing them; he stood at an angle. The hands tugged behind his back seemed to jerk at Feng Xin's words, and two of the fingers curled stiffly inward.

"His Highness... saw it too?" he asked softly, inclining his head. His voice was very, very quiet. While he still sounded unfazed, his voice was slightly cracked and obviously strange."

TGCF Volume 6, page 62

This, to me, is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire series, because of how violating it is what both Hua Cheng and Xie Lian go through. But there have already been many posts about how Mu Qing and Feng Xin take away Xie Lian's agency and autonomy and belittle his intelligence by kidnapping him away from Hua Cheng, trying to take the red string from him, and slapping the command talisman on him that rendered him mute and paralyzed. So what I want to focus on is Hua Cheng's side of it because what he goes through is also violating, just in different ways.

Given that this is Mount Tonglu, it makes absolute sense that Hua Cheng assumed that Xie Lian would never see any of the statues or murals, nor would anyone else connected to him, since gods and heavenly officials usually never go there. It also needs to be kept in mind that the statues were covered by veils and the murals covered by butterfly silk - whether this was done to hide them or to protect them from decay is beside the point, which is that they were covered and that Feng Xin and Mu Qing tear all of those covers down and then get offended by what they find under them - which are Hua Cheng's most private and intimate thoughts and feelings and memories. They might as well have torn open Hua Cheng's heart and soul and dissected the contents only to spit on them in disgust.

So now, not only have two of the people Hua Cheng hates the most uncovered Hua Cheng's most private feelings regarding Xie Lian, they also revealed them to Xie Lian without Hua Cheng's consent. And judging by the above description, Hua Cheng is terrified of Xie Lian's reaction. Usually, he has to be pushed pretty far to ever lose his composure - he evidently has very strong emotions, but most of the time he's suppressing them beneath his laid-back, unshakable attitude. Xie Lian himself remarks at some point on how Hua Cheng smiling doesn't necessarily relate to what he's actually feeling at all since it's just this condescending fake smile he aims at others (well, anyone other than Xie Lian). But here, now, Hua Cheng's hands jerk in shock. His usually confident voice is quiet and actually cracks with how afraid and distressed he is.

Also, though this is more in the realm of speculation because the text isn't clear on it - it's mentioned that he's not facing them directly but standing at an angle, and the look in his eye is actually not described at all - this could be taken to mean that he's deliberately standing in a way that has his blind side facing them more than his seeing side, since very often it's the look in his eye that's giving his emotions away the most. It would make sense that he's deliberately standing like this to try and conceal how hard he's struggling to keep it together.

Aside from losing Xie Lian again or not being able to protect him from harm, this has to be one of Hua Cheng's worst fears - for Xie Lian to be scared of and disgusted by him, to reject Hua Cheng's devotion. Back when Guoshi divined his fate and called him toxic and dangerous and demanded Xie Lian to send him away and not even touch him at all, when everyone was treating him like "poisonous vermin" (volume 2, page 380) and trying to separate him from Xie Lian by force, Xie Lian was the only one to not be scared of and disgusted by him, the one who instead held him and soothed him, who kept insisting that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't misfortune and disaster. But now with the command talisman making it look like Xie Lian "was afraid to face Hua Cheng and refused to speak to him", this one of Hua Cheng's worst fears seems to have become reality, and it's breaking him apart to a point where he seems to actually be close to tears.