#Another one vaguely about that concept I had talked about in another post that I'm now considering making an actual fic of.

[xolbor-art-creator-again]

I'm tempting myself into writing a fic by drawing art for it now

[curio-queries]

Are You Sure?!

Episodes 5 & 6 Notes

It was very fortuitous that I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks as I really needed both of these episodes together to make sense of my thoughts. This post is definitely far more conceptual than my last ones so if you're up for it, click on though the cut!

AYS's Main Character?

I would like to propose that AYS has a main character OTHER than the individual humans we're following along on screen. (I warned you, this post was going to be conceptual.) And the main character is the relationship itself, how each of the members relate to one another.

Here's Google's AI overview on what this concept means:

A story can center on the relationship between characters as the primary protagonist, with the dynamic and evolution of that connection acting as the main driving force of the narrative, rather than the individual characters themselves.

Key points to consider:

Relationship-centric stories: Many genres, particularly romance, often focus heavily on the relationship between the main characters, exploring its complexities, challenges, and growth throughout the story.

No single protagonist: In such cases, the "character" is the bond between the individuals, not just one person's perspective or journey.

Exploring the dynamic: The narrative would then focus on how the relationship changes, adapts, and reacts to external situations or internal conflicts.

Examples:

"Before Sunrise": The entire plot revolves around the single night encounter between two strangers, with the developing connection being the central focus.

"Brokeback Mountain": The story primarily explores the forbidden love between two cowboys, highlighting the complexities of their relationship in a restrictive environment.

"Steel Magnolias ": A group of girls in a small town in Louisiana experience grief together, including weddings, fatal illnesses, and the loss of loved ones.

Now before anyone comes for me saying I'm just pitching an argument for xyz fanwar, please note that I included the above just to illustrate the concept of a non-person main character rather than stating any of the above are comparisons to the individual member's relationships. We're talking about a show that was produced and distributed for entertainment, nothing further.

Episode 5

My main feeling after finally being able to watch episode 5 was overall unsettled. There was something sticking with me about that episode and I could NOT figure out what it was.

I knew I was feeling like the entire episode was stretched well beyond what the footage wanted for a complete episode. I'm all for getting to spend more time with our fellas but the Jeju trip would have benefited from being cut down to 2 episodes rather than 3, in my opinion.

There was just a whole lotta nothing happening. The guys eat, travel around a little bit, and eat some more. I had some vague thoughts about how I could quantify some data for y'all to explain this point but then it was time for the next episode...

vs. Episode 6

And what an absolutely lovely breath of fresh air this episode was. I know there have been some Run eps that I review with a smile on my face throughout the whole episode but AYS6?? That was 73 minutes of pure bliss.

So I started thinking about what must be different between the two eps. The guys eat, travel around a little bit, and eat some more...wait, that's exactly what I said about ep 5! Lol

But I think the main difference between the two is episode 6's plot points continually focus on the relationships between the members, while 5 falls a little stagnant.

Some examples:

JM/cat & JK/dog. I'm ALWAYS down for more footage of BTS with pets but this is frankly too much time spent on these scenes. It's honestly footage I would have expected in the bonus content instead of the main product. It's not just an establishing beat or a setup for a callback, this is supposed to be a scene but since it doesn't contribute to the journey of the main character aka the relationships. It could maaaybe work if they'd cut it to highlight the juxtaposition of how JM is calm with the cat vs JKs energy with the dog but that would have shortened the time it occupied and they were clearly trying to keep absolutely everything in that would lengthen the episode.

JKs stew. The ONLY thing that ties this plot point into the narrative of this show (other than it happening while he's in Jeju and Jimin is nearby) is the offhand comment he made that Jimin would like it while he was in NY. I'm going to talk more about this footage below but this was absolutely crucial for this whole beat making it into the episode. This is also why the footage of JM eating it and randomly taking off his shirt was kept in. The cut they chose is actually pretty bad story-wise but they used it anyway. We hear JM saying how much he loves it and how glad he is that JK is a good cook. It ties all of this time we spent watching JK do something alone back into the real main character of the show (the members' relationships between eachother in different circumstances).

Anyway, I won't belabour the point any further. With Tae constantly disappearing from scenes and the slightly diminished lack of focus on the member's relationships, episode 5 left me on an odd note.

A Little Production Note

I was completely thrown by the footage of JK in NY that we got this episode. But not for the reasons you may be thinking. (I do wonder if the anon that was sending in asks about the financing behind the documentaries is still around because we're getting into some of tidbits finally.)

So, all along we've been trying to sus out as much as we can, just a few details about how AYS came to be. We've had some hints but the inclusion of this footage may be another indicator.

The facts as we know them:

AYS is distributed by Disney.

Jungkook's documentary is being distributed by Trafalgar Releasing NOT Disney (at least not now, maybe it'll make it onto streaming after cinematic release but who knows?)

Questions due to the footage of JK in NY:

Was this footage captured as part of JKs documentary?

If so, when was it pulled to be utilized for AYS? Did the editors find it or were the writers involved?

We know that HYBE gathers behind-the-scene content without always having a full plan of how it will be used. But there are times where it did seem intentional for a specific purpose. Where did JKs Golden footage fall in?

Once upon a time, production houses would make deals with distributors about quantities of projects that would be delivered. Was that the case with the Disney deal or has every single project been negotiated separately and we only heard about it once there was a confirmed quantity. Somewhere in the middle perhaps?

And that's all I've got to say for now. I do have some more thoughts about things I've gleaned during these last couple of episodes but it'll likely keep until the end.

Anyway, this footage bumped me because it broke the rules of cross-project production. They got away with it for JKs SEVEN footage in ep 1 because they likely were using the same production crew since it was literally the same day so it doesnt feel like they're'breaking the wall'. But the NY-Jeju crews could have been completely different.

Editing to add further clarification to this point in this ask.

On a sidenote, do y'all remember the last time we got footage of jikook in a hotspring?? I'll jog your memory if not, it was in BV:4 and they 'washed each other's faces'. I can't even imagine what we're about to see in episode 7.

Link to my AYS MasterList

[elfwreck]

Hello!

I'm not sure if this is a bit odd to ask, but I saw your post about living in rural arkansas as a teen- and the note at the end about gun rights, and how rifles are different than handguns in that legislation and all-

do you have any sources you could link so I can look into that more? I live in rural Kentucky so hunting is very ingrained into just how me and my family and our neighbors live. (also a poor county- I didn't actually know other cities had kids pay for their lunch because I was so used to everyone in my county getting a free lunch- it seems like such a basic thing).

I've never heard anyone mention not banning hunting rifles when they talk about banning guns-

The gun bans being asked for are assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols. Rapid-fire guns intended for military use against multiple human targets - not hunting rifles at all, and not the kinds of pistols that are good for self-defense. (...Not that pistols are good for self-defense in general. Shotguns are good for self-defense. Nobody's trying to ban shotguns.)

The NRA is invested in convincing hunting-rifle owners and pistol owners that the various proposed weapons bans are aimed at them, and not at the tiny number of people who want the ability to shoot up a whole bar or classroom in under a minute.

The NRA has also fought hard against any kind of gun safety requirements.

Bill from last year to ban/restrict assault rifles:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/25/text

The gun safety bill Biden recently signed:

Doesn't ban any weapons. Puts restrictions on who can get weapons - people convicted of most types of domestic partner violence will not be allowed to buy guns. It makes it harder for people under 21 to buy guns. It closes some loopholes about selling guns, so sellers will need to be registered and licensed. Sets up new funding for gun crisis intervention.

Doesn't do anything to restrict hunting, other than possibly adding to the bureaucracy for people under 21 getting new guns.

Most people in urban areas are oblivious to hunting as a Real Thing that People Actually Do For Good Reasons, rather than a kind of cruel sporting event. They are vaguely aware that hunting rifles are not assault rifles, are not semi-automatics, but only as an abstract concept. Might or might not be able to tell a hunting rifle apart from a semi-automatic if they saw them. (I am not sure I could; I am very much not a gun person.) (I have shot one gun, once in my life. It was loud and hurt my hand and I had no interest in doing it again.)

I don't know how much I think we need to ban or restrict certain weapons. I am absolutely certain we need to keep certain weapons out of the hands of certain people, because the current system of "I guess 10-year-olds should all get training on what to do if some teacher's ex-boyfriend decides to shoot up the school" is ridiculous.

Given how hard it is to identify the "certain people" who should damn well NOT have access to automatic weapons, I'm okay with "it gets harder for anyone to get them," because I don't see how heavy assault rifles are a "but I neeeeed it this weekend!" kind of thing. (Not sure I see that hunting rifles are a "need it now" kind of thing, either; seems like those are a hefty enough purchase that the buyer should be doing some planning in advance. So filing for it like you would for car registration - another expensive piece of tech that kills people if you use it wrong - shouldn't be too big a burden.)

The idiots who include hunting rifles in their talk about banning guns - I won't say there aren't any; all sorts of politics gets plenty of idiots - have no idea how those guns actually get used. And the people writing actual policies and trying to get the laws changed are not those idiots.

The "ban guns" movement has two main parts:

Remove general access to guns that can kill a dozen people in under a minute, and

Remove gun access from specific people who have a history of getting angry and violent, especially those who have a history of shooting other people when they're angry and violent.

Side note: Some of us want that second point to include cops. That faction is getting nowhere.

None of it is trying to remove access to hunting rifles or reduce the amount of hunting in places that need it. (Basically, all of the South; I am near San Francisco and nobody anywhere near me "needs" to hunt; I don't care what they do with hunting rights in the greater SF Bay Area).

The focus is on preventing gun violence, not preventing gun use. And that means restricting access to guns that have no purpose other than anti-human violence, and restricting access to all guns from people who are likely to use them as weapons instead of tools.

[stormblessed95]

So I just had some thoughts about the minimoni exchange that I really needed to share - their relationship is so cute. There was one thing that I'm confused about and I wanted to know if it was just me lol, and that's the narrative Jimin was telling about how Muse came about. That Pdogg asked him what his thoughts are, and Jimin said he's been feeling a lot of apathy lately (I'm paraphrasing here cause I can't remember the words!).

Then he went straight into talking about how the album is about having a crush, but he said he can't remember the last time he had a crush. And he had to have help from a younger producer to talk about what a crush was like. He didn't really go into why he wrote an album about having a crush when he said he can't remember the last time, just that he's been feeling not much excitement lately. He even explained this albums emotions as "vague." If I could go into depth about it, my interpretation (could be completely wrong) is that it's an explanation of coming to terms with his sexuality, that the expectation that he fall in love with women but no matter how many relationships with women he's had he just can't find the one. Until JK comes along....

Sorry my thoughts are all over the place 😂😂. I just wanted to know if someone also found it confusing or it's just my ADHD brain!

Hello my love! I'm probably going to use your ask to talk about Muse as a whole I think. Hope that's okay ❤️ I'll make other posts for the songs individually if I have more I want to say in depth about specific songs.... Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and theories too! I love them!

My thoughts and feelings about Muse as a whole below the photo 💜 disclaimer that these are just my thoughts and opinions. I am in no way claiming this as fact or truth and unless I'm quoting something, these are all my own words. Everyone is entitled to agree or disagree as they see fit.

This will be a longer post.... So strap in I guess!

SO! To start, Pdogg shared with us that Jimins album/SMGB was in part inspired by the Beatles conceptual album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." He said, and I quote:

"It was inspired by a conceptual album like the Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' And I tried to incorporate the excitement I felt when thinking of Muse into the songs. The flow of emotions is directly reflected in the track order, so it will be more fun if you focus on that."

Intro: Rebirth and Interlude: Showtime is what gives that connection and crossover from FACE, with its sound and chorus use, into the new concept and album I believe. Which Jimin has explicitly stated that Muse is not connected with FACE really at all. But that does give its connection and crossover from those first 2 songs. So you could EASILY listen to them back to back and find it flows smoothly from one sound into another!

Face is clearly about introspection, facing oneself, that vulnerability and overcoming that pain. It's about freeing yourself. Muse seems to be conceptually about finally feeling free enough to pursue that prospect of love and being open to those feelings. It was brought up by Minseong Kim, his performance director, in VMagazine that (I'm paraphrasing) they basically were focusing more on his masculine side and expressions for Who and in Muse. While in Face, Jimin showcased more of his vulnerabilities and his more feminine side and expressions. Specifically seeking out that contrast. Full interview here:

Now I don't know about you ... But it's giving gender. And I love that. It's not something new for Jimin, he leans into that contrast within himself alot. It's really giving gender fluidity. And I think that's on purpose. Jimin doesn't do things by accident. He thinks through everything and Jimin is in charge at the end for his projects. And considering how OFTEN this concept of *both*, of feminine and masculine, comes up in Jimins personal projects/stages, it's clearly something important to him that he wants to be highlighted.

Jimin absolutely had full control over the stories he wanted to tell in each song, even Who, where he didn't have full writing credits. He explained the thoughts, feelings and ideas he was wanting to express. We saw him in the behind scenes of things having direct input on his songs, the MV, and creating his own choreo. The Talent 😍 we were specifically told that Jimin "directly explained to them what he wanted to convey and the direction he wanted to take for this album and each song. This allowed us to put together tracks that are more musically diverse, but still feel right for him." Quote comes from an interview article from the Clash here

Similarly shared in another article, Pdogg said "We made it with Jon Bellion in New York. I remember Jimin personally explaining to him what story he wanted to tell, and he was really embarrassed/shy. I met Jimmy Fallon by chance in the studio next door. We played the song for him for the first time after we finished working on it. In fact After finishing work on the 'FACE' album, we went straight into the production of 'MUSE' and I thought, 'He's working this hard before his military enlistment?' Thanks to Jimin's hard work, you'll be able to see his musical journey, which has grown even more." From here

Okay, now that we got all those interview snippets out of the way from Jimins team.... We can get into more of Jimins words and my own thoughts/theories here too.... 😏🥰 But we like to work theories off facts, so we gotta get our base line!

Jimin finished recording his album in June of 2023.

Jimin stated in MMM that the first 5 songs in his album were basically the emotions related to having a crush and confessing your feelings. That would be:

Intro: Rebirth

Interlude: Showtime

SGMB

Slow Dance

Be Mine

And then the 6th track, Who, he takes it all back and is like no, that's not really true. Where he also lets us know that there really isn't a connection to FACE in the grand scheme of things.

To start with the title too.... Who are the Muses? The Greek Goddesses of artistic inspiration. Jimin has been drawing from Greek Mythology a lot recently, with Apollo and Artemis featuring in his photofolio too. Now while the basics premise of a Muse is and can be very romantic in nature, it isn't always. Jimins album Muse is inherently full of romantic songs, but I also think it's clear from his talk on MMM that this album is not JUST about looking for your run of the mill, romantic relationship and love.... But being in search of your passion, your heart and your desires. It's the expression of yearning. Yearning for love, for life, for his music, his work, his Identity as a person and an artist, to feel excited over something and look forward to something. He specially says to RM during MMM that he isn't sure if he will ever be satisfied with himself as an artist or find a version of himself that he is fully satisfied with (I'm paraphrasing). It's the idea that this search for his Muse (that satisfaction in himself and as an artist) is ongoing and probably will FOREVER be ongoing. Hence why in the end of the Who MV, after all that back and forth with so many people.... He is still alone. That search is still happening. Hence also why this desperate search of who his heart is waiting for is at the end of the album, not opening it up. He still hasn't found her, the Muses. His satisfaction. The yearning that is driving him forward to grow and learn and adapt and dig deeper into his art, is still there.

Jimin has a lot of control over his projects. His albums, songs, and performances. As he should. But it's important for everyone to remember that this album starts and finishes with JIMIN. And what he wants to say and express, this is his art, his emotions and his ideas, regardless of if he has help writing lyrics or not. To bring this back to my last paragraph above.... Passion as an artist is something plenty of people can relate to, but not everyone. Romance on the other hand is something *almost* everyone CAN relate to. And bringing those feelings of yearning and desire for passion and excitement and translating that into feelings of crushes, first love, romantic connect. Brings that full circle and is the outward Expression he chose to help represent the emotions and feelings he was trying to express through this album. I think it's also important to note that while Jimin expressed his desire for excitement and passion and how he is still looking for that.... He made sure to make it clear that he is happy and content with where he is at and who he is currently. These things can coexist!

Who in general could have some takes and theories about sexuality and what not, like anon said, I've definitely seen a variety of theories out there. I do think Jimin has long since come to terms with his sexuality though, but that doesn't mean that the inspiration from that couldn't still be drawn on. I can talk about that more in a post I make specifically only for Who. Soooo many things could be said for Who! Lol and if you've read this far, look forward to my post for Who and thank you for making it through my ramblings!!

[shihalyfie]

It's a loaded topic that I generally try not to bring up much because of the various controversies surrounding it, and a few years ago, I was hesitant to mention this in public because there was no way to frame it in a way that didn't sound like a hate post. (That, and admittedly, I probably was not in the right mental frame to handle it well back then; a lot of things have changed in the last few years.) But now this has been on record and even alluded to via official sources, and I don't see a point in being touchy about it anymore, so here's something I really wish more people would understand when they talk about tri., Kizuna, and 02TB:

Between tri. and Kizuna/02TB, almost the entire production system was overhauled, and there are almost no key staff members in common.

I know it's tempting to treat "Toei" like it's some kind of monolith, but it's very important to remember that any stylistic differences in approach or concept between tri. and Kizuna/02TB aren't just because of answering critical reception, but also because almost the entire production system was scooped out and redone from scratch. The one key member they have in common is Kizuna/02TB producer Kinoshita, who was brought onto tri. as late as part 5 and has explicitly stated that he wasn't involved on its story.

The reason this overhaul happened also wasn't just because of something like "people didn't like tri. (in terms of story content)". For one, tri. was subject to a lot of troubled production behind the scenes -- and I'm not making this up, it's on record that they ran out of budget halfway through and had to rewrite the rest of the plot. But another important thing that may not be as clear to people who only learned about it after the fact is that tri. was a downright PR disaster at the time it was going on, such as:

The infamous "nade-nade" incident (ask anyone who was present during the tri. announcement and they'll probably be able to tell you the details)

The director openly saying things like the fact he deliberately does not look at the source material when making adaptations because he sees it as too limiting, accompanied by a number of other inflammatory statements in magazines, etc. suggesting that he probably had never seen the original Adventure to begin with and saw it as a series he needed to make as more "mature", even to the point of rejecting character-accurate scripts for it (that said, it is very important to remember that a series is far more than just one staff member, and there are other staff members who did say they watched it and clearly did their research, so the point I'm making is that the director's attitude naturally made a lot of people in the audience very angry and is a big reason he started currying a bad industry reputation during and even after tri.'s run)

Magazine interviews with staff members and other Q&As generally being so vague and unwilling to answer questions clearly that it got people upset (for example, when a social media campaign soliciting questions for a Q&A session was held for a screening of part 6, it was said to be "suspiciously" too dark to actually answer the questions)

So when you see discussion about tri. being controversial because of "contradictions in the setting" or whatnot, it's not people getting petty about characterization, it's because the production system for tri. managed to make a ton of public relations decisions that unilaterally pissed a ton of people off, so having contradictions in the lore and characterization came off as being due to carelessness and negligence more than anything.

Right now, the series has been over for more than five years, so I'm not bringing all of this up because I want to start an angry mob against the series or anything (I myself have a lot of favorite things that had clearly troubled production issues and controversial statements from staff members, so I'm not saying this alone should be grounds to evaluate a series). The point I'm making is that I see way too many people talking like tri. and Kizuna/02TB were made under the same mentality by a vaguely-defined concept of "Toei" and that any differences in approach are from some bizarre hypocrisy where they keep contradicting themselves. What happened here was that they saw the public relations fallout, realized it wasn't a good idea to continue getting people mad, and completely overhauled everything with entirely different people and an entirely different approach -- and the fact they did not do a similar complete overhaul between Kizuna and 02TB is conversely why they share more in common.

[kaelidascope]

In light of some dirty laundry found, I'd like to set the record straight about a threat that was made against me and my work

Since I'm being accused of stealing or copying a roleplay that was done between 2021-2022, here's the facts. The roleplay started with a concept that I had made about a magic college school for another roleplay that never went anywhere and was then repurposed for this one with a new partner. The question was popped on 2/23/21 and we began on 2/25/21.

It lasted the span of a little over a year and went through several rounds of development, a few attempted rewrites, and a spin off sequel revolving their kids. It was a good split between actually roleplaying the characters and also just hours upon hours of talking/plotting as one does. Usual exchanges between creators. We never posted the roleplay publicly anywhere, so it was never officially 'published', nor were any legal steps taken to get rights reserved. I'm fairly certain a discussion happened once about turning it into a book but both parties were not on the same page so it never went anywhere. We did ofc share it with close friends and just talked about it in general.

I also drew quite a bit of art for it, and we both collectively commissioned better artists for art for the characters as well. I did not put in nearly as much money as my roleplay partner did, but I did most of the concept art to provide as reference.

After the friendship ended and the roleplay was put to rest, I pulled the OCs that I had exclusively made to start working on a new concept. I had no intention of using anything that wasn't mine. The new concept was entirely removed from it's original source, meaning different setting, different characters, different everything. It was just repurposed OCs that had new backstories and purposes and new ones that I had made to replace characters I didn't own. However, despite the change, I was threatened with a Cease and Desist form pulled off Google by my previous roleplay partner because I made a vague tweet showing progress of the reworked characters (Rowen, who was in the original roleplay, and her love interest, Lyra, that was meant to be a replacement design for a character I did not own). Lyra shared a physical likeness to the original character, Emi, that was owned and played by my roleplay partner that they designed using an AI generator and then I later drew concepts for [white complexion, black hair, blue eyes]. I took it down as requested, sent it back to the workshop, consulted several professionals to make sure any likeness was scrubbed away, and put it on the back burner for further development so I could be left in peace.

I made this disclaimer post back in December 2023 about any likeness my own OCs would share in future projects and their affiliated partners on twitter. At the time, the names and designs were still being changed so Rowen Santiago was a placeholder while I was waiting to hear back from legal advice. I never said I was taking what was originally written and publishing it 'as is'. I'm allowed to use my original character designs for different purposes.

Ultimately, I came to the decision after a lengthy back and forth to scrap my own OCs original personality and design and start from scratch. Only a few things survived that can have lines drawn between the original roleplay design and the new story concept [the magic collar, werewolfism, Hispanic descent, wolf eyes] but that's nothing new. I have a lot of werewolf OCs. I've got an entire series dedicated to werewolf OCs. The new story concept is more military and racism based set in a fantasy dystopian universe than a magical school romance trope set in English Europe. The new story isn't even set on Earth, it's so far removed from where the original design came from it's not even remotely close to this roleplay. The kind of prose and worldbuilding featured in this new work is similar to the fanfiction I already write and am known for [The new world building will be somewhat similar to a setting I already made as far as fantasy science themes go. See Midnight Menagerie]. I also have several designs that look similar to each other (see MM Blake and Tessa for example. Same hairstyle. And MM Yang's entire physique was scraped from Rowen's whole vibe) though I can say my art style is improving enough to where I don't suffer from same face syndrome anymore (at least I hope!). All my bases were covered, everything was a brand new start over and nothing from the original roleplay was touched.

Well, even after a whole year and a half later post cut-off and small meltdown, it's apparently still living in their head rent-free that I am stealing their work and threats are still being made both anonymously and by name!

So I'll tell y'all what, for anybody who's curious, go ahead and have full access of all the notes and docs that I supposedly 'stole' and you tell me if my future works are stealing lol since you wanna wave it around like it's a big scary threat to get me any time I draw sapphic content that isn't fanart. The only things I will not include on this post is the commissioned work because I don't know who originally did them and therefor I'm not sure what their reposting terms are

Anything listed as [NOT ME] was not written by me. Otherwise everything else is either by me or was collaborated on (like the roleplay exchanges)

Misc Docs

Rowemi timeline 2.0

Figure Skating Practice

Emi/Lauren Relationship Notes

Pregnancy Arc Notes

Project Blackbird Notes

Worldbuilding Notes

Rowen Build Sheet

Rowen Notes

Emi Build Sheet (NOT ME)

Emi/Mom Relationship Notes (NOT ME)

Rewrite Docs

Prologue

Episode I

Shorts

William's Lament

Another Secret in the Pile

Rowen's Invitation

The Meeting (NOT ME)

The Hospital Visit (NOT ME)

Simon's Suggestion (NOT ME)

The Date (NOT ME)

Original Roleplay Docs

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 4.5

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Artwork Done By Me

Genuinely I'm not sure what y'all hope to accomplish by obsessively sending me hate mail and empty threats like I'm supposed to care and be effected by it. I haven't even looked at it since I quit Deviantart lol it has nothing to do with my current projects and it died when I cut you off. You never even knew what the new novel project was about, so you really had no grounds to threaten me with that email or the anonymous inbox submissions. You also slipped up and sent one with your actual user after I turned that off, that's how I figured out you were still obsessed with me after all this time. I encourage you to do something with your ideas someday. While you weren't the healthiest friendship I've ever had, the roleplay was fun to engage in. Maybe working on something new will bring you the peace of mind you're looking for and help you move on.

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Origin Theory

Asking someone's origin feels like asking someone what's their assigned gender at birth. That's like, undermining who they are as a person, correct gender and all. Maybe there's value in knowing where one came from, but that's pretty personal.

At the least, the alterhuman community at large don't really hound on people for their origin from what I'd seen. It's a lot of people offering up their origin story. Is this a need to be validated due to all the past discourse surrounding spiritual vs psychological origin?

On the same vein, voluntariness. It's another form of origin theory that gets a little, I'm not sure redundant is the right word, but it takes away a lot of personal agency when dealing with something that's your own, one's identity.

With how vastly diverse and just generally limitlessness of alterhuman identities, having something so finite and restrained is so strange. Maybe for presentation towards the newcomer and orthohuman outside the community it's important to keep things simple--box labeled and everything organized like a file cabinet. But within the community? Conversation flows easier, as I observed, when people put not as much stock with the origin theory. Although it is still fun to talk about, speculating one's own "how I came about", it really shouldn't be the "oh no, I'm psychological/spiritual" then proceeds to panic. I donno, I fortunately haven't seen this. Though, I can't remember how it was when I first found the community roughly 5 or 6 years ago, I vaguely recall the emphasis on spirituality with implicitness of how much more important it is than psychological. I guess there is still that lingering around. Although I'd heard how in some circle, it's the reverse. This whole thing is just so dumb and really not cool. I don't have the right word here, but please hear my frustration.

A lot of things with alterhumanity by itself is fascinating. I like hearing about people contemplating whether they are spiritual, psychological, I love hearing the one alien that has a philosophical relationship with their alterhumanity, I know of a couple dragons who start their draconity as artistic expression of the self. These are really cool! And knowing for some the cause of their alterhumanity is from their neurodivergence made me think about myself. Knowing about people that have other lives, whether it's living in parallel with other universes, inside time loops, or having a identity because they will become that one day? That's all really neat.

We don't need to proof who we are within the community. Isn't that one of the point of having a community? We shouldn't need to validate ourselves to the folks who are suppose to be just like us, or at least understand what we are going through in some way.

I mentioned just now how some have identity that they become due to artistic expression, there is a implictness of the voluntariness in there. They are still who they are in the end. (do the end justified the mean? That's when on making decision to do something. not dealing with identity stuff) Personal journey such as alterhuman self discovery are, the whole thing would matter differently to people, some would care for the path they'd took, some only look at where they are, some care for every single moment, some just goes with the flow, and it is all perfectly okay! Because we are all unique individual experiencing our own thing.

I mean, if we are talking about explicitly intensionally created bond towards something, aka linking, that's something explicitly voluntary. Yet quoiluntary exists as a term for people's use, and there is a need for it! There's this focus on a linktype as something you can drop, but there's the concept Anteatype--a identify-as (kin/theriotype) that has been dropped, which makes the whole "something that can be pick up voluntarily and then drop as easily" as the definition people point to kind of null. It's the one post Poppy on tumblr had said

'Paratype' only tells you about the origin of the connection/identity, not its substance.

To me, “otherlinking” only tells me that it was from without, external, applied with a will, to actively create or strengthen a connection, preexisting or not. And then later on if someone feel the need to shift their terminology to better fit their experience, it's a option. Though it can be scary, the community is there to support.

I know at one point I myself also put emphasis on how much my origin is. I mean I did mention me finding that my hearttype is far more spiritual inclined than my kintype. I ascribe to the metaphoric in origin for my kintype these days though. It's not important a conversation, though I do like to ruminate on it myself for my own curiosity.

Course I wish we can completely move away from the need to define these boxes, but I suppose we can treat them like alterhuman identity training wheel. You can use them when you first found the whole concept, it might help to keep things simple and more concrete. Later on, when you are ready to fly, you can gently let them go, or pin them up on your pin board hoard, say "okay, I'd done that, now let's see what else there are". Be a little explorer, except the vast beyond is the little universe within your very self.

[ecto-hazard]

I just rewatched ii s1 (fucked up right?)

im just gonna make a post compiling some barebones concepts that im curious about. cause with the latest reveal, im wondering how much previous stuff might become relevant.

Obviously this was made years ago by a bunch of kids so its possible that most of the details can be disregarded as random bullshit. It does seem like they put a lot of work in creating retcons though so I have reason to believe theyre building off their previous work on purpose but i could be wrong and thats fair. im gonna post about it anyway tho

ii16 spoilers discussed under the cut

Who Mephone created (or rather, didn't create)

Mephone supposedly made every contestant for the show, but there's a couple vague characters.

Fan: weirdly enough he's in a gray area cause he appears as a background character before s2, but he also glitched out in that one episode, so its unlikely he wasnt created by Mephone. But yknow.

Apple: Apple is a fan character who was submitted to the show, and this is addressed in canon. It's possible that mephone made her and the other fan contestants based on whatever the submitters asked?

Bow: she randomly shows up after an ad read. Mephone doesnt seem to even want her to join, but he receives a call from Adam to insist she join. Mephone seems quite resistant to the idea (which would be weird if he made her?) Most interestingly, she's the only one in this list that Mephone couldn't recover.

Dough MIGHT be one mephone didnt create, but it seems pretty likely that Mephone would create him as he was specifically requested by adam to get bow back. Dough does seem like something he'd throw together really quickly to cover his ass

The reason any of this could be relevant is that if they arent created by Mephone, they probably cant be deleted by Cobs.

Adam

Stuff about Adam (the character not the guy) has been kinda quiet lately? He was supposedly the producer of ii, and pays mephone apparently? He clearly has a role to play since he showed up in one of Mephone's memories and seems to be a creation by cobs. So observing his actions in s1 might be valuable, especially since cobs would be able to manipulate the show through him.

Some notable actions of his:

Insisting on Bow being in the show. This is doubly interesting if Bow isn't one of Mephone's creations. She could be an industry plant of some kind?

Telling Mephone to keep 4S out of the season finale. This is supposedly to keep the finale from going crazy. If Mephone had been successful, he wouldve been killed by Mephone 5. Its possible this was on purpose so 4 could be destroyed and replaced

Investing in another season. at the end of s2, despite things going wrong, he tells Mephone they're going to do another season. He sweetens the deal by offering a raise and agreeing to get Mephone an assistant (Toilet). Cobs clearly got invested in this show, so it makes sense he'd encourage more of it from the shadows.

Mephone 4S

Yeah talking about 4S isn't anything new, the fandom's obsessed with him. I am too.

The implications of Mephone4 being in 4S's body never really got explored in s2. I guess they were similar enough that it didn't really matter. But he clearly still has some relevance in the modern series. One of Mephone's memories shows him getting developed as a replacement for 4, and he actually appears in Invitational, Sorta? Clearly Mephone's bothered by the sacrifice he made.

At the very least, the show's reminding us that he existed, so maybe he still does exist? I don't think he's going to necessarily make a comeback or anything but I dunno. It seems like he might be able to talk to Mephone in his head so maybe there's something to that.

Evil Paper

Im just gonna be upfront that I don't have a dissociative disorder and its not my place to talk about how it works or what is good or bad representation so I'm not gonna get super deep into talking about this. I'm just curious if the team has any plans for addressing Evil Paper. They seemed to make an effort into writing Yin Yang more thoughtfully (whether or not they actually succeeded, again, not my say). I could see them giving Paper similar treatment. If they did I doubt it'd be very plot relevant though.

Is the Taco we got the Taco we were supposed to have?

I've actually seen this conversation circulate a little bit already. This sort of debate could apply to any character really, but Taco is perhaps the most interesting example because she's so involved in the latest episodes AND because Brian actually addressed a tweet about this.

Taco behaves like a goofy idiot for the majority of s1, only revealing at the end that she was faking it so she would make it to the end. She specifically says she was "built to win" (the quote Brian addresses), and shows a much more competent side when she actually competes. In fact if it weren't for Bow's interference, Taco would have won the challenge (another case of Bow being weird).

This all seems to imply that Taco may have been intended to win the series by Mephone. Cobs points out to Suitcase and Knife that Mephone had "high hopes" for them, so it's not unreasonable to say that maybe certain characters were liked over others. Mephone never seems to give special treatment openly, but that doesn't mean that when he made certain contestants he didn't at the very least expect them to do well.

What is highly unlikely though is that Taco was created to be a twist villain. This results in Mephone's death after all (though the activity of Bow and Mephone 5 also could be to blame). Especially since he had pressure from Adam to keep things running smoothly, it just wouldn't make sense that Mephone would specifically create someone to toss a wrench in things. Most likely Taco developed like this on her own accord.

But that also raises the question, if she wasn't meant to be a villain, what was she supposed to be? How much of the taco we have now is the Taco that Mephone created? We don't actually see how he reacts to her "reveal" because he's in the middle of running away from 5. But everyone else clearly never saw it coming. OJ specifically comments that this doesn't seem like "the Taco he's been competing with all this time," and while that's written in reference to her reveal, it also could mean she WASNT the Taco he'd been competing with. We do get a hint or two of her true self in previous episodes, but its possible she wasn't ever supposed to be like that.

I think its possible Mephone4 created her as a goofy goober joke character initially, and over time, she changed. She developed into a more tactful and villainous character with her exposure to the contest.

A few things in the most recent episodes might allude to this. One thing being how in ii15 she discusses how she became aware of how much the contest is changing everyone, herself included. Secondly, in ii16 she tells Pickle that at the time she didn't consider how her actions were going to hurt him. This is a really shitty apology and no excuse for it, but it ALSO could mean that at the time, Taco really didn't think about it. In S1, she claims that she was just using him, but we don't know how aware of herself she was back then. Its possible that there was a past version of Taco who wasn't deadset on winning no matter the cost, and being in the game changed her.

Anyway these have been my slopthoughts. It's like 9 pm and ive been writing this for like an hour. Maybe most of this wont get addressed at all in the series, but I figured i might as well compile it down since I just finished s1

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Wobbly Hearts AU

Summary: Kai doesn’t like soulmates. He doesn’t want them and he certainly doesn’t need them. High school is hard enough without all the extra stress of soulmarks and finding your soulmates. He decided at a young age he didn’t have time for soulmates and he plans to stick to that decision. Unfortunately, as always, the universe seems to take a lot of joy in messing with him. or Kai struggles with reading and it’s everybody’s problem.

Hi there! Yes it's the very fic I've been yelling about in vague posts and tags the last 6+ months! It's been so long since I've posted anything to ao3 I've forgotten how it works but I'm doing my best! This fic is an AU set in an alternate universe of the LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) combined with a lot of the characterization and aspects from the original LEGO Ninjago show. It's over 100k so buckle up and prepare for some shenanigans!

the first chapter is UP

sample under cut

Kai got his first soulmarks when he tried to eat a marker.

Tiny, with fumbling fingers, freckles and barely two years old he didn’t remember that day in the slightest. But his parents told the story to him and Nya all the time when they were little. 

It was the little red marker they said that he went for. His mom didn’t notice until he’d pried off the cap and stuck it into his mouth after several unsuccessful attempts that ended in red marker all over his face. She’d gotten it out of his mouth before he could really try to eat it like he’d been meaning to. He'd started crying at the abruptness of his marker being taken away, but those tears dried up fairly quickly after his mom scooped him up. 

His mom laughed that maybe his soulmates wanted him to feel less alone because a blue marker appeared not long after they started to wash off the red.

His first soulmark.

Kai grew up with their scribbled colorful lines on his skin. At first it was the hazardous meaningless lines of a toddler and then, as time progressed, they became more purposeful doodles. They were just another part of life he didn’t fully understand but accepted as fact because his parents simply smiled and spoke over his head of soulmates. He didn’t think he really grasped much of the concept of exactly what a soulmate was until he turned five.

They were someone (or several someones) that could be his favorite person (or people) in the whole wide world if he let them. After Nya was born he argued she was his soulmate because she was his most favorite person in the whole wide world. His dad said it was a different kind of favorite. But Nya was family and that was just as important. 

It wasn’t until he was seven and struggling to learn the alphabet that he realized there was more than one soulmate out there for him.

Words started appearing as they learned how to write, the letters slanted and wobbly and hazardous. He watched their writing change and improve and watched them start to talk to each other. There were two of them. Two soulmates all for him. They talked in the simple words that they could manage. One excitedly scribbled I <3 U when they learned how. Kai had to ask his mom what the lines meant and she explained it with a patient smile. It means I love you.

He was ten and still just drawing doodles while his soulmates spoke of their favorite cartoons and what they had eaten that day. Letters seemed to float around his head and laugh at him as he tried to read what they were saying, frustrated tears biting his eyes and blurring the letters. Seeing him struggle, his mom would let him sit on her lap and read him the words out loud while he rested his head on her shoulder.

Pens and markers felt awkward in his hands. The little doodles he managed never looked as good as the doodles one of his soulmates was always making. Their doodles were of cool stuff, like ninja and dragons and mechs. The doodles were so cool and Kai doodled little hearts and flames around them as best he could to show how much he liked them. But half the time he couldn’t tell the hearts from the fire and explosions, everything so wobbly and awful. He tried to write his name once and it was almost worse than the hearts.

Keep Reading

[mecachrome]

Hi I would love to hear about the elaborate secret wag au you hinted at in the pastries post if youre up to talking about it. I think I need it injected directly into my veins I love it so much

ok note to self i have to stop calling things elaborate when in reality i mean that i think about them really hard before i fall asleep and then promptly forget anything interesting afterward. but of course i'd love to discuss this very vague universe some more!! :')

honestly this is all an extremely self-indulgent exercise because i'm just a huge sucker for the combined secret relationship + famous/non-famous trope, and i will always read/write it for any ship iteration that presents itself! like there is nothing i love more than understated displays of devotion, especially when it plays into the 4th wall socmed fuckery space of one half being famous and having an otherwise large social profile and the other being very lowkey and resisting any publicity about themselves... in that vein i can't tell whether the concept is super cringe & embarrassing (well i can & i know it is, but the question is whether that is enough to Stop Me!!!) because obviously lando dating some Boring Dude requires a er... certain suspension of disbelief (also sorry for any unintentional disrespect to maxf), but what is fandom for if not making stupid shit up <3

anyway the secretwag concept also developed from two things, 1) how much i enjoy & endorse oscar's private-not-secret relationship philosophy + 2) lando's extreme loyalty to & dependence on all of his childhood relationships, so the idea kind of took root as "what if oscar→lando what lily→oscar (and also kind of what maxf→lando)" but just with more of lando's friendgroup dynamix & his streamer identity folded into the mix. the origins of their rship are what remain the most ambiguous & handwavey 2 me but in short they'd somehow meet when they were younger (maybe oscar is the same age as lando, maybe lando stayed in school longer, maybe oscar moved to the uk earlier and they met during their karting days... idk!!!) except then because of finances oscar decides to go into engineering and gives up on motorsport pretty early on.

(tbh i always struggle with justifying non-driverness in canon divergence fic because i'm like WELL REALISTICALLY oscar would just go into another professional racing category if f1 weren't feasible, BUT ignoring that) i think oscar would objectively be a super adjusted engineering student and would thrive academically / not stew in self-pity about giving up racing, so i really like this idea of like... sure, oscar is One Of The Lads, but unlike most people in lando's life who revolve around his work somehow or otherwise reflect his level of celebrity—drivers, the quadrant team, d-grade influencers & djs & social media personalities—oscar is just... Oscar. he's the smartest person lando knows and his love language is quality time and lando is the one usually doing acts of service for all his friends but oscar always wordlessly & unquestionably reciprocates that for him (lando annoying oscar into giving him a massage every night and oscar conceding immediately like ok... jon who❤️) and while lando has to go out of his way to navigate/manage the emotions of those around him and feels indebted to all his friendships he's never had to do that for oscar because oscar is the steadiest part of his life. and then obviously at some point when they're young dumb & drunk they get fucked up about it and start dating on the dl

(waves hands) anyway IDK but i'm just stuck on the image of like lando at 19 starting his first season of f1 and being raw and uncertain of himself and constantly catastrophizing about the future and trying to build out his brand and prove himself, and even like maxf is racing full-time that year, but at least he has oscar who's away at uni (in slightly aged up verse) and shows up at his place every weekend to ground him... like oscar never sugarcoats anything OR doubts himself OR needs lando to be any less open about his irrational fears so lando is like damnnn your cringefail earnestness and clear-eyed perspective of reality has kind of bewitched me *momentarily healed* etc. ft. domestic bants & the birth of master baker oscarpastry when covid hits and everything goes virtual & they quarantine together... lando starts streaming regularly and there's just this random dude in the background of half his streams and chat is like "???" every time like. Who is that + Why is he australian + Why is he cooking you dinner at 1am. his only social media profile is a private ig page with 50 followers.

+ after grad they keep living together and oscar becomes a wfh developer and i imagine him being very financially steady and self-sufficient but also like... deeply LAZY, so he has 0 ambition or intention to chase anything more demanding and is happy to just do his boring software job + be lando's househusband after hours LOL. like bringing lando pastries at quadrant shoots (ty chel 4 this image) between dull code reviews & expertly ducking away from the landolog camera & letting lando drive them around in his stupid gimmick cars and just generally toeing the line perfectly of being invested in lando's success and caring as deeply about motorsport as he does and even kicking his ass in iracing sometimes because he's kept up with sim racing but also keeping his ego in check and not making him engage in the world/politics/circus of f1 more than he has the capacity for on their off-weekends *__* finally lando is like babe i need to go commit tax fraud in monaco and oscar is just like ❤️ ok ❤️ we can move out tomorrow ❤️ and they find a tiny flat that's deeply overpriced but it's Them and it works. oscar plans his days off so he can go to half the races but nobody ever even notices him because the photographers don't know he exists.... except for maxv who lives in their building and met oscar once and was immediately like I Respect You #fellowsimracer so now whenever he sees oscar they get caught up in a conversation for like 30 minutes about random nerd shit and lando is very discombobulated about it every time. on the other hand maxf has been trying to be chill about lando of all people having been in a healthy committed relationship for the past 6-ish years so he frequently gets into trouble for making bad jokes about their sex life on stream that everyone thinks is them being homophobic etc. etc. ANYWAY YOU GET THE GIST OF IT!!!

[devouringbodies]

Hi there! Love your blog, love your tag system, and was wondering if you could share a bit about #mylimacore and your version of Mischa? I'm so intrigued! (Sorry, of course, if this has already been asked and I simply missed the post. Oops) 🦌

I was so excited to get an ask like this you have no idea. Please if anyone has questions about my tags or actually bothers to look through them ever please tell me cause I could talk about them all day haha. So thank you! I'm sorry in advance for the incoming essay 😂.

cw: cannibalism(obvs), familial abuse and incest

So the vague concept of my AU Mischa has all practically been built off this post originally, some aesthetics and ideas I've brewed on since then, as well as an Amazing conversation I had with @mortuaryboyfriend

A few key things to keep in mind to justify my thought process:

i. How would Mischa, if she lived, go on to process her trauma that she shares with Hannibal?

ii. "No one who survives Hannibal remains morally pure" - thank you to Peter for this statement it has lived in my head rent free since 🖤

Mischa has no characterization, in the novel, nor the film Hannibal rising, she is a faceless, blonde little plot devise that drives Hannibal's motives, but she also, in every sense of the word, haunts Hannibal's entire narrative. So she is basically a blank slate as far as characterization goes, but that's where the fun can happen, as we only have Hannibal to compare to, and the theories on how the experience they share would impact them if they had each other to lean on.

Hannibal has said that he "forgave" Mischa her influence on him. What "influence"? Well, in the novel, Mischa is the only thing Hannibal ever loves, he knew he was different since he was young and she was the first thing to make him feel literally anything. Bedelia in the show references the association Hannibal has with love, comparing both Will and Mischa, how it's an influence and its connotation is it makes him feel betrayed by himself, as if these feelings are a burden. So I imagine Mischa and Hannibal growing up together, with Hannibal having this ever growing resentment, but simultaneous unconditional love for Mischa. On the flip side, I imagine Mischa, a child praised and adored and perceived perfect in every way, who would grow and eventually sense her brother's torment. I see them forming an extremely codependent relationship in the wake of their trauma, and Mischa, so desperate to keep her brother, would quite possibly forgive him all his trespasses, actions, and love him for his inner monster all the more, cause he's hers, he protected her.

It's in this vein that we grow her character from here. I see her ultimately as morally grey/teetering towards evil. I'm unsure if she would ever have Hannibal's appetite, but she would love and support him regardless, I see her as being bemused by his games, but viciously protective and vengeful over him. Hannibal loves to play his games with everyone, and she would go along of course, but I think she would have difficulty with restraint if anyone got too close, and would lash out and murder without hesitation if Hannibal was threatened. Hannibal often says she's "ruining his fun". But there's a degree of spoiledness she can't help, she's his doting little sister after all.

It's also in this vein of fierce protectiveness of each other combined with their trauma-born codependency that I truly think they would spiral into something incestuous eventually. They would never, ever let another person get close to the other, and they would fulfill all of each other's needs I think. They both would be capable of living without romance or sex for their entire lives I'm sure, specifically and especially Hannibal, but I can't see them having that moral boundary personally, so for them I imagine it would just be an inevitable step.

Now diving into some of my own personal headcanon's for Mischa.

I think she would share Hannibal's love for the arts, though she would grow bored of the historic gab about it Hannibal favors quickly. I think she'd be more physical. I see her as a dancer, particularly Ballet, or into high theater arts, Shakespeare and classical tragedies.

I see her as this almost dual pointed sword of a character. She is so perfectly revered as a child forever in canon-Hannibal's mind, so I love the idea of this juxtaposition of her as this pure, innocent beauty, who often in reality is sensuous, cruel and violent. Hence my swan/black swan motifs. She lives in this spectrum of perceived innocence, but has brambles and thorns bubbling up inside her.

I made this post and decided that swans was my own personal visual motif for her, as black swans are mentioned on the Lecter estate and brought up a couple times throughout the book Hannibal Rising. The way that white swans represent innocence and purity vs the temptation and depravity of the black swan. It seemed fitting.

Also.

When thinking about Mischa in-canon narratively, as I mentioned, she seemed to haunt Hannibal's story. So when I stumbled across the concept of "black swan theory" - a metaphor that means "something that isn't supposed to exist, an impossibility," when applying that to my AU, where Mischa, who's character is a ghost in every sense, but made real against the odds, changing both everything and nothing, it felt extraordinarily apt.

Speaking of, as far as "how she survives" to quote Hannibal, I'm vague on those details lmao. BUT I know it involves cannibalism because it has to. It always has to. Whether some miracle sickness or woe befalls the brutal men who hold them captive and the children must eat them, or they get dispatched some other way and Hannibal has to start cutting his fingers off for Mischa and him to gnaw on (he starts with that extra one of course 😂) I know that it still involves cannibalism in some way.

So that's basically it! Again she's still mostly kinda just this vague blob idea in my head that has very specific Vibes. But hopefully this explains it a bit better. So sorry that this is way more than you asked for, but I get carried away lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for the wonderful ask though! Have a great day 🖤

Also here are a few mood pieces from my Mischa Pinterest board too, just for funsies. Cause this post isn't long enough already, obviously.

Also linking my other previous posts that mention her cause tumblr has apparently ate my Mischa lecter tag </3

[utilitycaster]

You nailed why I'm having trouble with Laudna. Another moment for me is her shortness with Orym when pleading to FCG, some of it potentially explained by Marisha in 4SD: how fucked up the lack of intervention + nod were, Laudna's feelings on it all, potential conflict down the road, etc. But when you see the episode itself, Marisha is pretty clear Laudna isn't really aware of her friends at all, that nothing was going to stop her from killing Bor'Dor. 1/2

I usually don't mind inconsistencies at all, because as people we are never realistically consistent 100% of the time, we aren't always in character, so to speak. But some of this feels inconsistent with what has actually happened and is happening, with the text itself, so it feels so jarring. Anyway, I understand if you don't want to post this, just happy you can put to words what I have trouble articulating myself. 2/2

----

Hi anon, thanks! Yeah...I don't actually mind Laudna having conflicting feelings about Bor'Dor, but she doesn't know Orym's underlying motivations (I don't actually find the lack of intervention to be remotely fucked up. Nod kind of is, but I think that's the other thing. We're just guessing at who she's lashing out at, if anyone in particular.)

I think. if I may, the reason all this discussion of Laudna's weaknesses as a character is coming up now is because it was always an issue, but between how much stronger her concept seemed during the Team Issylra arc, the return of Delilah (always a weak point) and the fact that the story itself has hit its stride and a number of other characters have sharpened their focus while she's in many ways taken a step back, conceptually.

I think as others have pointed out, it's 65 episodes in and Marisha's answer in 4SD to any questions about the character concept is still "nightmare about creepy girl." Like, that's fine as a starting point, but what is Laudna trying to achieve? What are you exploring with this? What is she going to do about Delilah now? Will we get any sustained payoff of her grappling with the fact that not everything is fine, or will proximity to Imogen continue to act like a rapid dose of sedative?

What did she do in 30 years, because all we have is "made Pate", "got kicked out of a bunch of villages but also this hasn't been consistently backed up by people's responses to her during the campaign so it feels off", "and got to Marquet" (NO understanding of how she got here, which is pretty egregious). Again, the comparisons that keep being drawn in a matter intended to bolster her relationship with Imogen constantly keep detracting from it - Fjord and Jester had known each other for a few weeks or so prior to the campaign and it felt like it, as did Caleb and Veth's several-month friendship, as does even FCG and Ashton's vague cohabitation of convenience. There is simply no sense of knowing each other for two years. I talked about players who are masterful with negative space recently, and this is the opposite - the missing pieces do not suggest a shape we cannot fully discern. They just fall unused onto the floor.

Even the mechanical build feels mostly designed around a directionless aesthetic. Like, genuinely, why is her base level warlock if she showed signs of magical talent prior to Delilah possessing her? It's not even particularly mechanically superior for her to have done this! Warlock/Sorcerer isn't a strong multiclass anyway, and leaning into sorcerer in a party with a different sorcerer whose engaging with that thematically far more, and not really doing any other work into her opposition of Delilah makes it worse. When you add in that Pate is both one of the more recognizable aspects of the character but Marisha at one point said she had no original intentions of taking that third level in warlock (the one that granted him existence), it all becomes more baffling. And to be clear, characters can take unexpected turns; but there wasn't work done within the story that indicated a level of warlock would make sense (and in fact it would have made more sense to have fought it harder!) There's such a passivity to her warlock side - it's not even an open embrace of darker power, despite what she's said, it's just losing control, which to be honest destroys everything interesting about it, while simultaneously making the stakes of her breaking that pact low. Like, oh, you lose 3 levels and you still have 7 levels of sorcerer? Why haven't you done it then. You were level 7 like a month ago. You'll get better.

I know this all sounds harsh but I think the most recent episode just showed that, pun unintended, there is a hollowness to the characterization and when significant changes to the status quo or thorny philosophical conversations occur, there isn't a solid enough foundation to support the improvisation. There's no sign of intentionality beyond the initial "be spooky." Like, why bring in Whitestone and never consistently explore what it was like living under the Briarwood occupation as a commoner, or what it means to have Delilah in your head? Every piece of the arc feels like it's dropped and picked up when convenient and stops existing when it's not. Like...I don't dislike Laudna, and she has good scenes with characters other than Imogen, and there have been characters I have disliked either for a stretch of episodes early on, or for their entire run, but it just feels like an unprecedented lack of thought into how this character will actually exist and do things for a full campaign. I can't dislike her for her personality or ideology because there's not enough of it to dislike.

[tranquilpetrichor]

the friendship problem

synopsis: in which you have company during morning break, and it is strangely tolerable.

cast: jiung (p1harmony) x gn!reader

genre: strangers to friends, high school!au

wc: 1.1k (1,117)

warnings: discussions of loneliness, reader is implied to show some symptoms of social anxiety, barely proofread

notes: looking back at my high school experience (and reflecting on my growth throughout school in general) thus far makes me oddly nostalgic. this one's definitely self-indulgent. here's to the people who didn't ask me why i was so quiet, who accepted my idiosyncrasies and admittedly, brought out a friendlier side in me.

(also peep that word count i wasn't gonna post this originally but i must, i count 1117 as a small ateez reference.)

erasing the inappropriate drawings from the side whiteboard, you began to write a problem from your calculus textbook.

“integral of w squared times sin of 10 w…” you said out loud to yourself.

you could have gone outside, as it was time for break, but you found your math teacher’s classroom to be more comforting. natural light gently shone through the windows, the air freshener emitted a scent of pine, and best of all, there were no crowds to be found.

you had tried to get over your discomfort around large crowds and navigate to the cafeteria to buy a snack, but found that it was quite the pain in the ass to squeeze between couples who walked as slow as tortoises and boys who elbowed people everywhere they went.

through those wonderful experiences, you learned that the epicenter of your high school’s social life overwhelmed you the hard way.

shaking intrusive thoughts from your mind, you began to visualize solutions to this calculus problem. after a minute or two of writing, you had the answer.

“let’s go!” you cheered, knowing no one else would hear it, but finding it funny nonetheless.

suddenly, you heard a voice and turned around to see a classmate you vaguely recognized from classes you shared. jiung, that was his name.

“don’t mind me,” he said, “just looking for a place to read.”

your shoulders tensed up a little, but you nodded, resuming your work on another problem.

normally, you would expect an noticeable and uncomfortable silence, but jiung seemed to be just as at peace with the quiet as you were. that was more than you could say for a lot of people, who felt as if they had to fill silence with words that seemed rather meaningless.

curiously, you glanced at him reading. the book was an alternate history fiction novel by haruki murakami, titled 1Q84. you've read it before, of course.

"uh, enjoying your book so far?" you asked him, cursing under your breath afterwards when you got the low battery notification on your laptop.

"well," he paused briefly, "murakami's descriptions tend to be long-winded and i find some of the scenes a bit odd, but it's interesting for me. have you read it before?"

"yeah, i have. i had fun trying to make sense of all the symbolism, but i admit that 1Q84 can be a tough read for some."

you tried not to show it, but your eyes sparkled with excitement.

"since you've read it, it'd be nice to talk to someone about the book once i'm done." he smiled. "wait, your name is y/n, right? i've seen you in some of my classes."

you set the whiteboard marker down. “yep. and i know your name is jiung.”

he stared at the board in front of him, now filled from the not-quite-top to the bottom with math problems. "you wrote a lot in such a short amount of time. do you find math easy?"

you shrugged. "let's just say it's relaxing for me."

he did ask an interesting question. to be fair, you hadn't always liked math as much as you did now, being a highly stubborn child who was averse to doing their homework back then.

however, a natural curiosity to learn new concepts coupled with a preference for being alone gave you the time to sit down and ponder random topics, developing a special love for math due to its basis in objectivity.

in general, your teachers loved the fact that you asked questions and stayed during morning breaks and after class sometimes—their classrooms felt like a second home.

so yeah, you discovered that you liked doing math, and it was better than being around people who deliberately excluded you, or trying to participate in conversations where you knew you wouldn't get a word in.

better to be alone than to feel lonely, right?

(yeah, just keep telling yourself that.)

he stood up to stretch. "that's cool, i definitely admire that. you don't hear people call math relaxing often."

"to each their own. i just think it's important for someone to have something they enjoy, and who gives a shit what it is if it doesn't hurt anyone?"

you probably shouldn't have added the last part, as it came out more defensive than you anticipated. however, jiung didn't seem surprised. his eyes were kind and welcoming.

"i think it's a good rule to go by. there'd be way less conflict in the world if people minded their own business. oh, speaking of that, i hope i didn't bother you by coming in."

to your surprise, you didn't mind. "of course not, it is a teacher's classroom anyways, not mine, so obviously people have the right to come in, although most don't. and i mean, i do prefer it to be quiet while working. but your presence isn't bad or anything."

you twirled the whiteboard marker around in your hands. “quite the opposite, really. i actually liked talking to you.”

“do you not like talking to others?” he joked, probably noticing the emphasis you put on “liked.”

“i figure i either scare people away or they’re not the kind of person i want to be friends with anyways. also, not gonna lie, socializing is hard.”

for better or for worse, you knew what people thought about you—this was a fairly small school, after all. it was easier to just isolate than to worry about who was judging you.

"nothing wrong with incompatibility," he said with a small smile and a shrug. "it just means there's people out there who are better suited for you anyways."

you hadn't thought about your situation like that, but that was probably a wise way to put it.

"that... actually makes sense."

where was this dude lurking? it would have been nice to get to know him earlier, you thought. although it might be too early to tell, you had put him tentatively under a category of "people that were better suited for you."

jiung glanced at his phone for a quick second. "break's ending soon, so i have to head to my history class, but i enjoyed talking to you!”

he headed toward the door, but as he was about to leave, he turned back, as if he was forgetting something. "hey, mind if i get your kakaotalk information? let's chat again sometime."

you entered in your number, voice a little shaky. "i'd love to chat. and if you ever need to find me, i'll be here, like i always am."

"well then, i'll see you around!"

he walked to his next class, leaving you to ponder if it really was so difficult to make friends after all.

[miraphoenix]

Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

[communistkenobi]

this is maybe silly to tell you about but i'm very envious of how smart you seem and the level of grasp you have on theory that feels incredibly scary to me. i was in uni for sociology, and save for one text that i understood from start to finish, the rest of it always felt like it was deleting my brain cells slowly and made me feel stupid, even as smn who had grown up being a "literature" person. i think it's just a matter of getting started, but it all feels embarrassing >>

what I’m about to say is going to sound very masturbatory and self-aggrandising, but that can’t really helped on account of the fact that the topic is what a smart little boy I am

one, thank you! I’m always very flattered when people give me this compliment. I don’t think it’s silly at all. two, I’m pursuing a PhD in the social sciences with the intent to stay in the academy after I get my doctorate, and my particular field of study skews towards critical theory. on average only 1% of people in canada have a PhD, and a fraction of that percentile have my particular academic trajectory - all of which to say, I am an outlier amongst a peer group of outliers, so I’m an extremely bad measuring stick to use when judging your own critical capabilities. I’ve been in post-secondary school for roughly 7 years now and will be in it for at least four more, and for the past 4ish of those years my main source of employment has been teaching and research, so I am both paying for and being paid to read theory and teach it to undergraduate students in small classroom settings. By the standards of academia I’m very junior, but I have a lot of specialised training in talking and reading, which is to say, it’s taken me a very long time to be where I am now. My academic career depends on my ability to produce original thoughts and write them down in a way that both speaks to existing scholarship while contributing new things to said scholarship, so I’m in an environment that enforces a very particular kind of discipline that is not remotely common or normal. Being a graduate student isn’t a rich profession by any means, but you are paid to learn information and write it down - something I would not be able to do if I was working a full time job.

I also frequently don’t understand the shit I’m reading! It’s extremely difficult to read academic texts because they’re meant to be read in classroom settings where you’re forced to voice your confusion, speak with other people about what you’re reading, defend your positions, connect it to other work, synthesise it in essay format, and so on. My live-blogging of books I’m reading is an attempt to simulate that, because I tend to learn best when writing out why I have the opinions I hold. Being confused isn’t a sign of stupidity but rather a simple fact that you’re brushing up against concepts and theories that take people their whole careers to develop and publish.

My own background in academia is also very eclectic, so I know a little bit about many topics, but there are very little topics can I speak authoritatively on - I can’t speak about the state of knowledge on, say, international relations, or critical race legal scholarship, or employment disability policy, but I know vaguely of those things. I’m not even a well-read marxist lol

All of which is to say - I am a horrible metric to compare yourself to. I am one of the few sickos who genuinely wants to remain in the academy for the rest of my life because I sincerely believe in the pursuit and production of knowledge, and my chance to do so is largely dependant on my ability to explain myself to other people. Put another way, I have spent my entire adult life training to be a marginally popular communist tumblrina on a website primarily known for producing supernatural actor porn. So either way don’t feel bad about it

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: A Chance To Fly (Wicked Medley)

You'd be hard pressed to find a Voiceplay arrangement that took more time to create/finish than this one. This was Geoff's creation (he arranged it, came up with the video concept, co-directed it, and collaborated on lighting design), and he apparently worked on this for years. I don't know how long exactly, but I'm fairly certain he vaguely alluded to it in a live Q&A he did on his channel in 2020, when someone asked if Voiceplay was planning to do any Broadway stuff. And based on comments I've read on reaction videos, I believe he's worked on it since sometime in 2019 or so?

But anyway, as spectacular an arrangement as it is, I'm not here to talk about it! I'm here to talk about the video which accompanies it, which was released on the 26th of November, 2021, and features the awesome Emoni Wilkins (in the role of Galinda), and the wonderful Rachel Potter (in the role of Elphaba) (and yes, this is another rare six-vocalist video for Voiceplay, though this time it's 4 members + 2 guests, rather than 5 members + 1 guest). One of the comments says that this is apparently Rachel's 10th collaboration with Voiceplay, though I can only count 7 previous ones (or 8 if you count Just Sing (she was in that too right?)). But regardless, what a veteran!

Anyway, the medley itself clocks in at about 7 and a half minutes, so enough backstory - there's a lot to get through!

Group shot! Love the giant clock backdrop, very cool (and very accurate/appropriate of course)

(Note that I've never seen Wicked, not even a bootleg, but I've listened to the soundtrack a few times on the odd occasion, and I know how the story goes)

(Also this video really highlights the height difference between Layne and Eli, the tallest and shortest of the group, respectively. Apparently Eli isn't actually even that short - he's like 5"5/165cm (which is about how tall I am) - it's just that everyone else in the group is taller than him, whether by a little (like Cesar), or a lot (like Layne, who's 6"1/~183cm)

I adore Emoni and Rachel's makeup looks in this one. Shoutout to Rick Underwood for doing amazing things yet again!

(Also that's a super gorgeous necklace that Rachel is wearing and I want it)

Super massive shoutout and kudos to Geoff and Eli for the lighting on this one! This is top-tier stuff! And so much variety throughout the video in terms of colours and light levels!

Cute earrings, and also face jewels! (Those things can be an absolute pain in the backside, both in terms of applying and then getting them to stay there! I'm assuming Rick used some special skin-safe "glue" product to make them stay in place, and/or some setting spray afterwards?)

Get it, Rachel! 🙌👌

Geoff is handsome as ever, of course

Firstly, go off, Eli! And second of all, Rachel looks so freaking enamoured by Eli during this part, which obviously would be because he's filling the role of Fiyero, the love interest of Elphaba (whom she's acting/singing as here), but also it's just a little bit amusing too 😁

"Think of it as personality dialysis!"

Cesar being adorable 💜

Layne popped a bubble! (With matching "sound effect" of course) (Also I only just realised earlier while watching this that Layne is wearing a tie, just that it's mostly hidden/tucked in)

"And with an assist from me, to be who you'll be, instead of dreary who you were- well, are"

Nothing but respect for my Wonderful Wizard! (He did nothing wrong 😁😝)

I love him your honour

(Gonna do a Geoff Hair Study for this one too, but won't include it in this post, because frankly this post is long enough ^^;)

(Also just realised that Geoff is also wearing a tie that is mostly hidden, and wait hang on a minute, that means that his shirt is actually fully-buttoned-up? Gasp!)

I know I'm going quite heavy on screencaps (and we're only halfway through the video, heck), but I had to share these blink-and-you-miss-it shots of Cesar and Rachel 😄

Cesar: "KILL THE WITCH!"

Geoff (noted bass singer and sometimes sea witch): Uh oh 😬

(Joke stolen from a YouTube comment, but it was too good not to include)

"Because I knew you," (🥺🥺🥺)

The urge to take a million screencaps of the Defying Gravity section at the end is strong. It's so good on all levels!

The quality as an individual screencap is not the best, but still, I'm calling it another "Voiceplay money shot", and such a cool way to end the video!

As I am typing this, the trailer for the Wicked movie (or part 1 at least) has been out for a few days, but I'm yet to even watch it, and I probably won't see the movie, because honestly I don't see how they could make any of the musical numbers better than this. And this was just a medley! And acapella! Re the movie, I'm a little uncertain on how to feel about Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, and I'm definitely skeptical about Ariana Grande as Galinda. Rachel and Emoni killed it though, as did all of the guys of course! Well done Geoff, this was definitely worth the hard work and the long wait!