#As you can tell I am not very normal about them at all

[mamawasatesttube]

someone sent me an ask about timkon love square au stuff and i, dingus that i am, accidentally deleted it instead of answering 😭 i forgot who sent it BUT hopefully they will see this post. because yes! i think it's very fun if they manage to get into a true ridiculous love square situation between themselves and their hero identities. i have created a chart to illustrate:

the thing that fascinates me about kon and secret identities is that while tim is great at compartmentalizing and separating "tim drake" from "robin" or "red robin" (to a frankly kind of concerning degree? tim are you fucking good?), kon is... not. conner kent comes later, after kon-el. he's a hero first, and only starts to learn how to be a regular person after that. this is in direct contrast to tim, who is by all counts a mostly normal kid before he becomes robin, and has to learn to be a hero.

for kon, secret identities are therefore tied directly to trust. he doesn't have a secret to protect for a long time! and when he finds out that superman does have a secret identity, it kinda blows him away. he's shocked that superman isn't just superman all the time. before he even learns that, he expresses that it's nice in smallville, that it must be nice to have a place to "fall off the map" (superman '87 #155). when he does learn superman's identity, he's upset that superman never told him, not because he feels like he's entitled to that information but because he feels like he's failed to be someone superman would trust with it (superboy '84 #70). to me, that feeling is the crux of why he's so upset about tim not sharing his identity in yj98: everyone else in the group has deemed him worthy, like cissie and cassie and bart. so what has he done to tim, that tim won't tell him or any of them? (and like, he's 15-16, he's not grasping the whole picture, sure. but it's not just coming from a place of entitlement, is my point. it's about trust and feeling unvalued.)

BUT in an au where the supers are more closed off from the rest of the world or something, where literally anyone but karl kesel got to control kon's narrative, kon would have a secret identity earlier on, because he'd end up at the kents' way sooner, etc. so suddenly he has to grapple with a whole new set of feelings: that superman has trusted him with his biggest secret, and brought him into the family as part of it, and he can't let superman down. so he has to learn to make those distinctions, to accept that people can trust him and he can trust them and that's why they don't share their identities with each other until circumstances dictate it's actually a good time.

so. let's say tim somehow ends up in smallville for a bit, has absolutely NO idea that the superfam even have secret identities, and kon's going aaaa!!! aaaaaa!!! why is red robin here!!!! ma whatever you do DON'T look at him!!!! and meanwhile tim's going oh god i think i'm bisexual but i didn't know that that means i might like TWO boys?!?!? oh god. oh fuck. (he may be stupid.)

[novankenn]

Cinder: (Swings door open quickly ignoring the note.) My Queen! Those brats have broke into the castle we must stop!

(Pauses while looking at the scene)

Jaune: (His head on Weiss's lap as she runs her fingers though his hair) Alyx was a brat but she still was like family she didn't deserve what that cat did.

Salem: I understand life is usually cruel. Now tell me more about this Curious Cat.

Cinder: WTF?!?

Cinder stalked through the halls and corridors of EverNight Castle. Her twin obsidian blades ready to strike down the intruders... if she could find them. Normally she would have zeroed in on the sounds of conflict and combat, but there was none. The grimm she passed, when she did come across them were just wandering about aimlessly, that was if they weren't sitting or laying down.

So without the sounds of a fierce pitched battle to guide her, Cinder was forced to actually search for the interlopers... who she knew was team RWBY and their friends.

Cinder: This is RIDICULOUS! I must ask my queen for help, to locate these brats.

Cinder made a turn at the next corner and stomped her way toward the throne room. She emerged from one of the side halls into the main corridor and turned towards her destination. Five minutes later she stood there before the large double doors... in total shock.

Cinder: I...

A Beowulf, dressed in a tasteful skirt and blouse ensemble, matched with a set of sensible heels, and topped off with a pearl necklace, and a pair of wire rim glasses... stood before the doors baring her entry.

Cinder: I...

The Beowulf pointed to a sign near the door, well a set of signs in fact. It took ever ounce of her will power to draw her eyes off the figure before her, and look at the signs.

(1) If the doors are closed there is either a meeting or session in progress. Unless it is an EMERGENCY no admittance.

(2) Sessions are by appointment ONLY.

(3) This is a ZERO TOLERANCE work place. Anyone causing a disturbance, or harassing staff will be asked to leave. Failure to do so will cause the authorities to be summoned.

(4) I am the boss, but my secretary is in charge. If she says NO then it's NO. There are no exceptions.

Cinder: Secretary?

The Beowulf nodded its head and using a metal ruler tapped the desk name plate.

Cinder: Grendelsa Grimmsald, Executive Assistant to Doctor Salem Salem?

The Beowulf who Cinder now knew was named Grendelsa nodded.

Cinder: But, I...

Grendelsa: *Grunt like growl*

Cinder: I know I don't have an appointment, but this is an emergency! The castle is under attack! I must speak to Queen...

Grendelsa: *Growl like grunt*

Cinder: I mean Doctor Salem.

Grendelsa pointed to a set of rather comfy looking waiting room chairs, and Cinder knew instantly she had no choice. So she sat down, and after a few seconds wiggled her butt into the plush cushioning getting more comfortable.

Cinder dozed off, and awoke with a start at the sound of the door opening.

Salem: I understand it is quiet the commute so I will have Grendelsa arrange for some accommodations for you, as in my opinion there is a need to have a few more sessions over the next week before I feel confident that we can space them out further. Is that acceptable Ms Schnee? Mr Arc?

Weiss: More than. Thank you for your hospitality, and all your help.

Cinder shot to her feet, her eyes wide in shock. Salem, her queen. Malevolent Evil Incarnate was in a black pant suit, wearing glasses and SHAKING HANDS with the SCHNEE who was holding the hand of the blond wanna-be knight from Beacon!

Jaune: I still don't...

Salem: It's alright Mr Arc. These things take time, and we progress at the pace that you set. There is no rushing this. Your mental health is very important, and with Ms Schnee's support and my assistance we will help you find resolutions.

Weiss: Can we give it a couple more sessions Jaune? I really do think this is good for you, me and us.

Jaune: Okay. I'll try a few more times.

Salem: Excellent. Grendelsa will make all the...

Cinder: WHAT THE FUCK IT THIS!!!!

Salem: Ms Fall. Those types of outbursts are not acceptable!

Cinder: WHAT THE FUCK, SALEM? THEY'RE FROM BEACON! THEY'RE YOUR ENEMIES!

Salem: Lower your voice or you will be escorted out.

Cinder: WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!? ARE YOU GIVING THEM THERAPY???

Salem: You were warned Ms Fall. Ms Grimmslad if you please...

/==/

Twenty minutes later Cinder found herself sitting outside of the main gate of EverNight Castle, right next to Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna.

Ruby: You get kicked out too?

Cinder: ...

[magpies-gold]

I have both eyes and they're both technically functional but I still relate to a lot of this because I also have monocular vision. In my case, the problem is with my brain, actually. It can only process images from one eye at a time because of a defect when I was born that required surgical intervention. Even after the fix, my brain just never learned that I still had two eyes, so it has no capacity to combine the image data like normal people do. As a result, I have no depth perception and I have a dominant eye that I use 90% of the time.

I also have visual snow that's especially noticeable when I close my eyes and at night in the dark, but as there isn't a lot of research on visual snow, I'm not sure if that's related or coincidental. In case people want to know a bit more about life as a person with monocular vision in a two-eyeballs kind of situation: I have a weird trick that I can do that seems to astound folks with binocular vision: I can consciously switch eyes. It's like flexing a muscle and I can decide to use the left one or the right in the same way that I can choose to wave my left or right hand. Trying to use both at the same time just doesn't work, though. If I really try, there's just this pressure feeling in my head, like I'm trying to imagine a colour that doesn't exist, but I can't make the two work together at all. This is likely just a me thing but my non-dominant eye is much worse than my dominant eye, and its been getting worse over the course of my life. It's still useful, but extremely near-sighted, so much so that it alone is legally blind and makes my optometrist and all their staff wince. But I can read very, very tiny close-up writing with it, so it comes in handy when I'm doing things like reading. My dominant eye is a little near sighted but not much. It's pretty stable. Also probably just a me thing: I have one lazy eye, but it relates to the monocular vision. It's my dominant one. If I use the non-dominant eye, you can actually tell when I've switched to it because my dominant eye "switches off" and rolls a little bit up and out. It was worse when I was a kid (my mom saying "Meghan, are you looking at me?" was a common thing) but it still happens nowadays. My non-dominant eye isn't lazy, so when I'm looking around normally with my dominant eye you can't tell that there's anything different about me than your average Joe. It's a mostly invisible disability for me (and I still feel strange calling it a disability because it's just how I've always seen, and yet here I am making a list of complexities regarding my vision, so....) A final possibly-just-me thing is that I hold my pencil like a space alien and always have. The reasoning I've given since I was a kid was because of which eye I use, I wouldn't be able to see what the end of my pencil was doing if I were holding it "correctly", so I draw and write like this:

(Video here, if you want to see the rest of that: https://www.tumblr.com/magpies-gold/699322866172346368?source=share) Can confirm from the above that head-tilt is a thing when one has monocular vision, even with two eyes. Because of the head tilt, I also get people startling me on my non-dominant side a lot, possibly because with my "blind" side tilted back and away from what I'm looking at, they think I'll see them sooner since that eye is closer to looking behind me. Therefore they don't think they're sneaking up on me. That is, right up until they appear, as if by magic, in my field of vision and I go AAAA!

Depth perception problems that I personally encounter: I don't drive so I don't have a lot to add there except that trying to learn scared me too much to proceed. I was not comfortable with how much slower my reaction time was on my left side or how I couldn't accurately judge where exactly objects in front of me were, so I gave it up in my teenage years in favour of a good pair of sneakers and a transit pass. But I will loudly say that going down stairs sucks. I am very opinionated on how much I love and appreciate when stairs have the bright yellow stripe at the edge, or some other marker to aim for. If stairs are all one uniform colour I am hesitant as hell putting my feet down because I can't tell how far a drop it is. I'm slow on descents on unfamiliar stairs and I desperately need the railing to hold on to. Going up stairs isn't bad because I have other visual cues to help me, and I'm much faster there. I also don't do well on really uneven terrain, like the rocky shores we have on beaches here. Watching my fiancé go hopping and skipping over rocks like a mountain goat gives me light wistful despair because I know if I tried that I would miscalculate almost immediately and break all my bones. My tactic is to get low and go slow if I have to cross anything where distances get tricky to guesstimate. I become a crab. I also have friends who know to slow down and will also let me hold their hand (bless). I do have peripheral vision ghosts on the non-dominant side even with two eyes. The most common thing I see is ghost cats. I'll see my cat jump up on a counter in my peripheral vision only to turn and find nothing there. Sometimes my brain will also suggest there might be a person walking in my peripheral vision. It's just overcompensating for what it has to fill in the blanks on. I can't catch things that are thrown at me except by sheer luck. Sports like baseball and badminton were brutal in high school and I got into many a verbal confrontation with my teacher while trying to explain that I had a very good reason to be afraid of the projectile coming for my face. I told him more than once to go close one eye and try it for himself and see what it's like. No peeking! I can't peek. Similarly, I can't fly a drone. I learned that very quickly when I accidentally flew Tim's full tilt into a wall. Oops. >> Drone was okay. I, on the other hand, was absolutely boggled by how I just could not tell where it was in space until boom, I'd crashed it. And that's because another thing is that I was personally born the way that I am, so I'm fully acclimated to it. I know nothing else, and I don't notice all the micro calculations that I do to translate my 2D view into 3D space so that I can move around in it. At least, I don't until I have a situation where the object I'm working with suddenly has no context, like a drone in mid-air, and then I suddenly notice my limitations. 3D movies largely don't work for me. They're basically just regular 2D movies involving stupid glasses. -shrug- Finally, video games with a lot of icons around the edges of the screen are a nightmare for me because I can't see all of my monitor at once. Again: slow as balls reaction time because I have to re-calibrate and turn my head a lot. The concept of a wide-screen monitors makes me go "Jesus, why?"

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[ygio]

atem, in my mind, is demi. doesnt care for romance or feel attraction to anyone initially, no one makes him turn on the street, he has more important things to do. the realization that this can change comes with the realization that hes in love with yuugi and everything about his partner is attractive, like holy shit what is this feeling. atem is all kinds of overwhelmed but having a time

yuugi is the kinda bi that doesnt think about gender much. people of all shapes and sizes can be and have been hot to him. all his friends are hot. figuring this out didnt hit hard at all, it was a slow solidifying of that "oh. hm. makes sense" feeling over time. hes poly, too - his first crush ever was on a girl, second crush ever was on a boy, and he tried to set the two of them up. (respect tbh)

jou though? has a Moment. an identity crisis, or five. jounouchi is the kind of bi who spends his life thinking that all straight people want to have sех with their homies, its just normal. the realization that this is not in fact normal for straight people hits him at some point and is something he needs to digest

anzu prefers boys but her boy of choice wears chokers puts eyeliner and is shorter than her even in heels, and she absolutely made out with girls in new york. perhaps she wouldve had a mini crisis over it if she were back in japan, but hey, dancers are chill about it and when in rome..

bakura is gay and somewhere on the aro/ace spectrum. he doesnt do or understand romance and relationships the way an average person would and that is fine by him. girls are not interesting to him, and boys are interesting in very peculiar ways. "i want to put you under a microscope" is a declaration more intimate than "i am in love with you"

i dont know if it would be funnier if honda was the sole heterosexual in his entire friend group, or if everyone just assumed that he was, until he casually mentions being attracted to men, and everyone loses their shit. "wym why didnt i tell you? i thought you guys knew"

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let’s talk about the beginning of the end and what the last few episodes might mean for the next chapter of Stolitz

Well hello, my lovely peoples! I feel like I haven’t written a Fizziepop Take in a good minute, and I know I'm putting my two cents in a lil late, but I am back and so ready to talk about everything that we’ve seen in the last few episodes because it has been wild…. So, you know the drill, let’s get into it.

So, if we wanna talk about the beginning of the end, we need to be honest with ourselves; the real beginning of the end of one of the fandom’s most beloved ships started back with the incident at Ozzie’s. If you've followed my takes for a while, you know I talk about this night a lot, but that is because this was a real turning point for the couple; the relationship has been strained ever since Blitz felt what he felt that night when Stolas pulled away from him in public when all eyes were on them. Ever since that exact moment, Blitz felt like he was being used and taken advantage of, and despite things going back to a kind of normal for them, those feelings just ended up festering and since our loveable little horse-loving imp doesn’t have a lot of healthy ways to process things and has already had it imbedded in his brain that he ain’t shit, I don’t think he ever fully processed what that night meant from any other angle than “he’s embarrassed to be seen with me”. What does this have to do with how things ended? I’m so glad you’ve asked! Since Blitz never fully processed the events of that night and therefore was only ever able to see it as a royal being embarrassed to be seen on a date with a lowly imp, Blitz didn’t get to see the sweeter side of being gifted an Asmodean Crystal by Stolas in “The Full Moon”. To Blitz, the crystal was more of a “you’re being let go” type of thing because Stolas essentially terminated their contract and since they had never talked about their relationship being anything but contractual, Blitz had no reason to believe that this was really anything but Stolas telling him that he was no longer needed by him.

Now, we as the audience know what the real intention behind the crystal was, and I think Stolas put it beautifully when he tried to explain it to Blitz when he gifted him the crystal….. but I don’t think that words really do much for Blitz in most instances, let alone in the long term. Blitz is more of an “actions speak louder than words” type of imp, but here’s the thing about that: for this saying to be true, actions must be consistent. Because, yes, actions do speak louder than words, but if that action is only done here and there, it doesn’t always show what it should. In terms of the end of Stolitz as we know it, Stolas isn’t the only one who’s actions matter, and unfortunately, I’m not talking about just Blitz’s actions. Being that Blitz has been abused (probably way more than we’ve even seen), those actions matter. Abuse of any sort does a lot more damage to the victim than we sometimes realize, and because of that, it can do a lot of damage in how a person looks at things like relationships and love…. And given the transactional nature of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas hadn’t consistently been a genuine partner to Blitz outside of the bedroom, his reaction to the crystal honestly makes a lot of sense. First, he treats it like an elaborate role play, because sex is the only love language he’s consistently known in their relationship, then when he realizes that it’s a serious conversation, he’s pissed rather than grateful…. Is his anger perhaps a little misplaced? Probably, but the feelings are all real. Blitz does feel used and discarded by Stolas, something he’s obviously felt before since we see in his bad trip in "Truth Seekers" that he feels very much chained to the prince by the design of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas doesn't give him much time to really sit with what’s just happened between them after handing him an out of their relationship doesn’t help…. And then we see the panic when Blitz realizes that unlike what he’s used to, Stolas isn’t going to match his anger, he’s just going to remove himself from the situation and let that be the end of it….

This brings us to the events of “Apology Tour”. I actually really loved this episode despite the fact that my favorite couple literally just called it quits the episode before. We see the aftermath of what happened the night of the full moon, and we see the way both men start to grieve the relationship they had in their own ways, which I would argue is the true end of the relationship since this is where we see both men really accepting that they are no longer a thing the way they were before. We see Stolas taking all his eggs out of the Blitz basket and actually letting himself be happy with someone else, even if that happy is only gonna be for the night… And we see Blitz realizing that he not only truly loved Stolas more than he had wanted to admit, but we see him start trying to let go of what he had with the man despite the point of the episode being that he hadn’t really been ready to in the beginning…. Unfortunately, Blitz letting go leads to his spiral which we see in “Ghostfuckers”, and we see him get himself into a rough spot with his little found family; working Loona into exhaustion burning owl figurines as a form of therapy, not paying M&M while also fucking away all of I.M.P’s money, and using the job they get in this episode as a chance to just roleplay as someone who wasn’t him and therefore wasn’t going through what he was…Really, Blitz did go into a deep, rather dark place, and I suspect that he might be there for a while when it comes to love, which leads us to the big question….

What does this all mean for the fan favorite ship? Will Stolitz really be endgame if we just watched them break up the way they did? 

If you ask me, a humble Tumbr blogger who probably cares way too much about fictional demons, I honestly don’t think this hiatus will really affect the ship too negatively. The time apart may be just what Stolas and Blitz need. Both of these men have trauma they need to start working through individually, and while having a support system can be a helluva help when you’re reopening old wounds to try to get them to heal properly (hehe, see what i did there?), I don’t think either of them is really in a place emotionally to be the best support they can be for the other while they both individually try to do that. Stolas also needs time to learn who he is as a person considering he went from being a baby prince to being engaged, then straight from being engaged to being married, then married with a kid, and directly after that, he jumped into bed with Blitz and just proceeded to place everything he had in that "relationship"… He never really considered anything outside of loveless marriage with an abusive cunt or amazing sex and *hopefully* love with an old childhood “friend”. I think he needs some time to be alone and live just for himself as much as he can as a Goetia, and I don’t think he could have done that with Blitz right now, at least not fully. Vivzie is a smart woman, and she does a lot of things in her shows very intentionally, so I do think that she is setting the pair up for a happier, healthier relationship down the line and I think once they come together again and have more experiences apart from each other, we’re probably gonna get a sort of happy ending for the pair, or at least the start of a new beginning for them.

I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks, because as you all know, this is just a simple Fizziepop Take and anything can happen in the Helluverse, but my take definitely makes me excited for the next episode because I for one cannot wait to see what Vivzie has in store for us next.

[kedreeva]

I was looking through Spring Creek's fowl collection and am in love with the Peaches. Is there anything you can share about them? Are they like the white ones where the ladies arent impressed, or do they have the more usual luck

The peach don't seem to have a problem breeding!

Peach is actually (genetically speaking) one of the coolest color mutations out there. It's a sex-linked recessive, but it's NOT a single-factor mutation like any of the others. It's a combination of Cameo and Purple.

So the thing you have to understand is that the sex-linked mutations are all on the Z chromosome. Males have 2 Zs and females have 1 Z. To show a sex-linked recessive color in the phenotype, "All" Zs must have the mutation. A peach bird has 2 copies of the purple mutation, and 2 copies of the cameo mutation.

In autosomal mutations, this isn't a huge deal. If something has 2 different mutations, then they're just on different chromosomes. But.... cameo and purple are both on the Z. You can't move them from one Z to the other normally.

So if you have a male that's purple (Z^pl/Z^pl) and you breed him to a cameo hen (Z^c/w), the daughters get a Z from dad (Z^pl) and their w has to come from mom. So they're purple. The sons get a Z from dad (Z^pl) and a Z from mom (Z^c), making them wild type heterozygous for purple and heterozygous for cameo. The same is true if the parents are switched. You can only ever make single-color hens and wild type het males.

So what gives?

Chromosomal crossover!

During meiosis back about 20 years, a cameo or a purple moved to the opposite Z while the chromosomes were swapping tails, and a pair of purple/cameo birds produced a few birds that didn't look cameo or purple, and blue birds that carried the double-gened chromosome.

A few years after that, a group of pure cameos also produced peach- it's likely in this case that purple spontaneously mutated in this group. Purple has already mutated at least twice that we know of (purple and European violet are both "purple" by genes, but with very different phenotypes), and probably mutates more often than we think, given that it's most likely a simple dilute, like chocolate in mice.

Now, we have Z chromosomes that have both cameo and purple on them (Z^plc), which makes for a Peach bird. The two genes cannot be separated on purpose, but through the same process that put them together, may be undone back to separate chromosomes, or removed entirely. At Bill's, he has a blue bird who came from purple parents (at least according to records), which suggests that the more likely candidate for the gene that translocates easiest is purple.

It does make me wonder if EV is the result of something similar; of a chromosome that perhaps got More Purple added through crossover. I don't have the records to be able to tell for sure, and haven't been able to trace origins enough to find out how it started.

[girl4music]

That’s it. Anyone with the “me and my own” ideology will get clapped back.

People that actually care to help people without asking for anything in return will also get their due.

That’s just the way of the Universe.

When you’re already well off, why do you need to be accounted for? Harris specifically was talking about who wasn’t. She was addressing the poor because she knew that’s where things needed to change the most.

The people she didn’t address are not going to be impacted in any negative way. Their lives will stay relatively the same. She didn’t speak to you because she didn’t need to because you’re fine as you are.

On the other hand, Trump is also addressing the poor and minorities. Speaking directly to them. But not with love and care. With hatred and revenge. The opposite.’

He wants to make things worse for them and now he can. So if you voted for him or you didn’t even vote at all - it’s on you why things are going to be much worse from now on. And if you think you won’t be negatively impacted by it because Trump is on your side…

Think again. Because incompetency impacts everyone.

No Harris wasn’t promising the rich and the majorities something. But that didn’t mean she was out to get you. That didn’t mean that she wanted to hurt you.

She simply saw it as you already had what you needed.

There were many others that did not.

She chose to address them.

Look for EVERYONE to live comfortable lives, then everyone has also got to learn to share and to be a community. Giving and getting is a transaction between each other. This is normal. This is natural. This is the way it should be. Greed and hoarding wealth doesn’t really help anyone in the long run and that’s not well understood in America because they’ve lived an entire history through a culture of taking from others. From theft. They never question it not because they’re dumb but because they don’t realize it this is how it’s always been and how it’s always been has always being wrong.

Being afraid of community and socialism. Taught that it’s inherently bad for them and to always look out for themselves and their own first. It’s just not The Way.

Having a black woman as President for the first time would have been revolutionary for them. it would have been a start to setting things right because they’ve never been right. Keeping to tradition doesn’t always mean better because that tradition could be awful. All of this I’m writing right now only sounds so bad because it’s coming from someone that doesn’t live in America but still has lived through a Western culture that’s majorly the same and has never understood it.

See I’m a Westerner but I don’t understand Western culture and I never really have. It’s like I was born with the soul or someone Eastern. Someone whose worldview of philosophy is inherently non-dual because when I look at a person - regardless of what kind of person they are or might be - I don’t see a difference.

We all want to live and thrive and prosper but so many of us have an understanding that goes against that goal just by virtue of “well, what do I get out of it?”

You get what you’ve always had. The means to survive. If you believe that’s not enough then I don’t know what to tell you. It’s more than enough for those that don’t currently have it and are fucking desperate for it.

Bottom line is you’ve got to give a little - to sacrifice or compromise on something - to set the balance right.

Harris was the right person to lead to be able to do this. Or at least make the attempt to. What you have now - with Trump - is a lesson. And I hope you learn it well.

Hatred will never make anything better for anyone. All it does it makes it much much much worse for everyone.

You can call this “virtue-signalling” or being “morally superior” if you want. I don’t care. No, America is not my home. No, I couldn’t vote. It doesn’t matter to me.

But I still very much care about the situation because I am a human being. And I honestly think that’s all that’s needed to do the right thing at the end of the day. If you care about something or somebody other than yourself.

You know politics is whatever but people have forgotten how to be a fucking person and that’s very concerning.

You can play heroes vs villains to your dying day and see how much you’ve “gained” out of doing it then.

Rant over.

White conservative America will vote for whiteness and patriarchy.

White conservative America would rather have Putin in the White House before Kamala Harris.

[ladyaster]

Hi! Long time no discussing the greenbeans here and I am trying to provide this ship with more regular food but the current art I'm doing of them is taking a while (haven't been doing it as regularly due to college taking priority) so here's some Lyn x Rath headcanons in the meantime:

One of their favorite shared pastimes is just gazing at the sky together. No matter the time of day, whether it's watching the clouds or the stars, they love to sit down and stare at the sky, sometimes making small talk, reveling in each others' presence and marveling at how vast and prismatic the sky can be. Neither really draw (at most Lyn's had some painting lessons in Caelin but she never got enough practice), but they wish they could to just capture all the skies they've seen, blue, silver, orange and red streaked in rose and gold, dark violet flecked with jewels, but the best skies they'll always have etched in their memories forever.

They also spend a lot of time together taking care of the horse, and after being shown enough kindness by her between being pet or her helping brush it or sneaking it an apple, the horse really likes Lyn a lot and perks up whenever she walks by. Once it was clear Lyn got along that well with his horse, Rath realized she was the one.

Lyn helped Rath learn to like rain and snow again after he spent so long dreading it due to living out in the wilderness for so long. Snow especially: when they were getting closer to the Black Fang's hideout and were camping out on in the snowy mountainside, she taught him how to have a snowball fight and while she had the early lead on him, he learned fast. There was no definite winner by the end but they both just had so much fun, and upon mutually collapsing side by side in the snow, for the first time she saw him actually truly smile (he's had light attempts at smiles that lasted about a second that were mostly for reassurance in the past, but emphasis on "attempts"). That was her own moment of going all "Oh shoot, I love this man."

Snow might be more special for them but they do like getting caught in the rain and running as fast as they can through the puddles and the downpour to get to shelter, or especially the feeling of cuddling up for warmth under the blankets while it's absolutely pouring outside and listening to the rain bounce off the roof and the walls.

Rath can listen to Lyn talk about her life in the Lorca tribe all day. At first it's because he can't remember what it's like to live with your tribe and he wants to culturally reconnect in any way he can, but he also knows how important her tribe was to her. He knows better than most what can happen if you're never able to talk with someone about your pain, and besides that, it's genuinely fascinating what she's able to teach him between customs and stories and everything in between. He also loves seeing how enthusiastic she can get about her culture, and her lengthy talks are equal parts bittersweet and heartwarming.

Post-game when they get married Lyn does feel sad that she's considered legally of the Kutolah in spite of being Lorca at heart, but Rath insists that he's legally a part of the Lorca, too, and with their union, as long as there's a Kutolah, there will always be a Lorca.

Sue basically acts as the solidifying factor of this idea as she's raised to understand both of her parents' cultures. They celebrate holidays of both Lorca and Kutolah cultures in the household and if they have the same holiday that's on a different date depending on the tribe, they celebrate it twice.

Speaking of Sue they absolutely dote on her like crazy. They never want any of the hardship that happened to either of them to ever happen to her so they constantly let her know how much they love her, either by telling her multiple times every day, teaching her to fight so she can survive the "rising of the dark star" Athos foretold, or wanting to learn more about her own interests. They're super proud of her deep connection with the spirits of nature and how, yeah, they're raising her well but she's also just genuinely a sweet, gentle person. This house is never short on hugs.

When he and Lyn found out they were going to be parents, Rath made a little plush fawn for their future child (even if it took him a few attempts to make something that, a. resembled a deer, and b. didn't fall apart after a week since prior he only really sewed for clothing maintenance), and Sue used to carry it everywhere with her when she was little. It's now really beat up but even during FE6's canon she still keeps it with her after Dayan's able to give it back to her in the Sacae Route. Similarly, Lyn started getting into whittling around the time the plush was made to stay preoccupied until Sue was born and she could go back to swordplay again, but she genuinely ended up enjoying the hobby so she kept at it after the fact and got pretty good at it over the years, so Sue has some of her mother's salvaged wooden figurines in her bag with the old fawn, too.

Even if Lyn starts out very iffy about Dayan, Dayan really respects Lyn and very much approves of her and his son being together. He's heard a bit about the whole Lundgren business in passing and after being told about the fight against Nergal admires her as a war hero. Not to mention she's normally a very warm person and can see how happy she makes Rath while he's still more withdrawn. (also headcanoning that Rath's mom is still alive until Zephiel's attack happens and she is sassy and as such likes that Lyn has a lot of fire in her and won't take sass lying down and will dish it right back if she needs to)

I CAN KEEP GOING

[queenerdloser]

i just finished dark heir

[skitskatdacat63]

Oh to be kissed the way Fernando Alonso kisses his trophies

+

[britcision]

I do also agree with OP, although I am gonna throw in a little reframing

TTRPGs and RPGs in general are games; they work based on chance and mechanics which tend not to change based on what would be narratively convenient, because the game doesn’t know what would be narratively convenient

(Notable exception: Abnimals, Travis McElroy’s game which explicitly includes a pool of My Time To Shine dice, which players can add to rolls they think are narratively important.

The dice still don’t care and will still dish you up all failures, but you do get to juice to improve your odds)

And what this means from a narrative perspective is that all the players and the GM need to be ready for big moments to go wrong. For the vital roll to fail, for the wrong character to get the last hit on a BBEG, for a dramatic and impassioned speech to fall flat

And that’s especially a challenge in a short campaign or series of oneshots, where you can’t necessarily just extend and expand the story until the Grand Finale is actually just a Big Character Moment

But it is still a big character moment

As the McElroy’s say… a failure is more interesting than a success

A failure adds free depth, free angst if you’re lucky!

Because… is anyone actually upset and unsatisfied if the story goes too well? If you succeed in a place where a failure might have been more exciting and dramatic?

The key is the kind of story the players (especially western players) are expecting to tell, and will find satisfying… because again, these are games

We go into them expecting or at least intending to win

This means various things for different games, you don’t play Call of Cthulhu for a happy feel good ending where everyone rolls off into the sunset, but you still want to win

It’s a lot more likely for people to feel it was a narratively satisfying story once they’ve gotten the end they wanted, even if some areas fell flat

And trust me, it’s something my players very much also struggle with; it feels bad when we fail something we wanted to succeed on. It feels worse if we built it up to be a big narrative moment… and it doesn’t work

But that is still a big narrative moment

If you’re going to play a game, where chance and mechanics decide the fate of all your dramatic moments, you need to be prepared to tell at least two stories:

- One where it all goes well

- One where it fails

(Maybe one more for a natural 20 equivalent and the stars quake at your passing)

It is hard to lean into failure, but when we do it… what would have been an unsatisfying ending is now just another twist. Free depth and character development, something to wallow in

And we know that those types of stories, even ones where everything goes wrong and the heroes lose, can be so very satisfying

Just look at the prevalence of whump and hurt-no-comfort on AO3

It’s normal and expected to feel bad and dissatisfied when the story doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, but it is your choice to leave that story as something unsatisfying and feeling bad about it

Every unexpected failure is another microwave to toss your blorbo in

Every moment that falls even a little flat is an opportunity for a genre-savvy quip, for a “well that just happened”, for someone to fall to their knees and scream and re-amp the tension

The key is in the player’s flexibility, not the game’s

Even if you are doing a short campaign… you can imply the rest. Let the story not be over, even if your time playing it is.

Let the beaten heroes be ground underfoot, crawl away from the dungeon, have to work and suffer but grit their teeth and know… so long as they’re alive, they can try again

They can have their revenge

(And then you can run the campaign again later, maybe with the same characters a level or two higher than you started last time, and thrive on the new dark and bitter story)

Or let your past characters be an inspiration, either for friends and loved ones who come to avenge them, or to the new heroes who heard their story and heard they failed, but that’s no reason not to try

Prev is also so right about a lot of modern dnd basically expecting the DM to tell a mildly interactive story live to passive players; it’s definitely one a lot of my players came in with, and it’s part of the problem

To tell a narratively satisfying story, you cannot just passively go along and expect the dice rolls to conform to your narrative

You need to actively engage, embrace the rolls as crossroads in the path of destiny, and be prepared to build the narrative no matter which path you take

You don’t go in expecting the right results at the right time to make a satisfying story; you go in knowing where the key moments will be, and what will happen if you succeed or fail

I have told my players several times, and I’ll tell y’all until I die:

I as the DM am not telling the story

I the DM have made the world, the NPCs, the background and setting of events

You the players are telling the stories of your characters, in that setting

There is an overarching plot that the party as a whole will also be telling the story of together… but not only are the players the ones who pick the theme music, you’re the ones who chose the main characters

There’s a reason a prefab campaign will be different for every group that plays it, even with the same GM

Even if you have no idea what’s coming next in the main storyline, you need to know what is coming next for your character

How you want them to grow, what you want them to learn - and then any unfortunate rolls aren’t a let down or a problem, it’s an opportunity.

Sakura has to learn something important about herself and others before she can ever collect a card - which means something usually goes wrong

She tries and fails, and then looks at that failure and learns from it and grows as a person, and that’s what makes the narrative satisfying

Sticking your feet in and sulking if the game mechanics don’t follow the narrative you want will make an unsatisfying story no matter what game you play

Gleefully and enthusiastically stuffing your blorbo into the blender of fate, hitting Purée, and turning every stumble off the narrative path into its own adventure will give you a much deeper, more compelling, more complete story than you might have expected…

But that’s the fun part

The truest mechanism of an RPG or TTRPG has nothing to do what is written into the rules of the game

It’s your own skill at improv, and if you’ve ever been even remotely stage shy, avoided drama class, or thought improv was hard, let me reassure you:

Improv comedy is not the only improv. You don’t have to be funny

And it’s a lot easier than you might think

So long as you know your character, actually really know them beyond the backstory you created… so long as you take the time to think “well what do they do when things go wrong? What would they give to get what they want? What would it take to force them to do the things they’d never do?”

You can bullshit through basically any situation

Because there’s no rule against playing ahead in your mind

Daydream your character into any situation you think might come up, write the fanfiction version of the perfect narrative in your head, and then do the tragic version. Do the slapstick version. The gritty noire version

Because the greatest secret of improv and playing your own character is that you will never be wrong

Only you define success or failure

So long as you know and understand your characters and can be flexible with the mechanics and the story, you can always build a satisfying narrative

This is a lot more work than just being reactive and expecting the GM to tell a story for you, and just rolling dice and “hit big monster” when prompted

That’s what makes the story actually satisfying though; taking ownership of it yourself

The game belongs to the designers

The story belongs to the players, GM and PC alike

There's this idea floating around the general TTRPG space that's kind of hard to put one's finger on which I think is best articulated as "the purpose of an RPG is to produce a conventionally shaped satisfying narrative," and in this context I mean RPG as not just the game as it exists in the book but the act of play itself.

And this isn't exactly a new thing: since time immemorial people have tried to force TTRPGs to produce traditional narratives for them, often to be disappointed. I also feel this was behind a lot of the discussion that emerged from the Forge and that informed the first "narrativist" RPGs (I'm only using the word here as a shorthand: I don't think the GNS taxonomy is very useful as more than a shibboleth): that at least for some TTRPGs the creation of a story was the primary goal (heck, some of them even called themselves Storytelling games), but since those games when played as written actually ended up resisting narrative convention they were on some level dysfunctional for that purpose.

There's some truth to this but also a lot of nuance: when you get down to the roots of the hobby, the purpose of a game of D&D wasn't the production of a narrative. It was to imagine a guy and put that guy in situations, as primarily a game that challenged the player. The production of a narrative was secondary and entirely emergent.

But in the eighties you basically get the first generation of players without the background from wargames, whose impressions of RPGs aren't colored by the assumption that "it's kind of like a wargame but you only control one guy." And you start getting lots of RPGs, some of which specifically try to model specific types of stories. But because the medium is still new the tools used to achieve those stories are sometimes inelegant (even though people see the potential for telling lots of stories using the medium, they are still largely letting their designs be informed by the "wargame where you only control one guy" types of game) and players and designers alike start to realize that these systems need a bit of help to nudge the games in the direction of a satisfying narrative. Games start having lots of advice not only from the point of view of the administrative point of view of refereeing a game, but also from the point of view of treating the GM as a storyteller whose purpose is to sometimes give the rules a bit of a nudge to make the story go a certain way. What you ultimately get is Vampire: the Masquerade, which while a paradigm shift for its time is still ultimately a D&D ass game that wants to be used for the sake of telling a conventional narrative, so you get a lot of explicit advice to ignore the systems when they don't produce a satisfying story.

Anyway, the point is that in some games the production of a satisfying narrative isn't a primary design goal even when the game itself tries to portray itself as such.

But what you also get is this idea that since the production of a satisfying narrative is seen as the goal of these games (even though it isn't necessarily so), if a game (as in the act of play) doesn't produce a satisfying narrative, then the game itself must be somehow dysfunctional.

A lot of people are willing to blame this on players: the GM isn't doing enough work, a good GM can tell a good story with any system, your players aren't engaging with the game properly, your players are bad if they don't see the point in telling a greater story. When the real culprit might actually be the game system itself, or rather a misalignment between the group's desired fiction and the type of fiction that the game produces. And when players end up misidentifying what is actually an issue their group has with the system as a player issue, you end up with unhappy players fighting against the type of narrative the game itself wants to tell.

I don't think an RPG is dysfunctional even if it doesn't produce a conventionally shaped, satisfying narrative, because while I do think the act of play inevitably ends up creating an emergent narrative, that emergent narrative conforming to conventions of storytelling isn't always the primary goal of play. Conversely, a game whose systems have been built to facilitate the production of a narrative that conforms to conventions of storytelling or emulates some genre well is also hella good. But regardless, there's a lot to be said for playing games the way the games themselves present themselves as.

Your traditional challenge-based dungeon game might not produce a conventionally satisfying narrative and that's okay and it's not your or any of your players' fault. The production of a conventionally satisfying narrative as an emergent function of play was never a design goal when that challenge-based dungeon game was being made.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[moiraimyths]

Before we call anon rude because let’s see it from their perspective, imagine getting an entire feast to eat. That can be pretty hard to start with so much that’s going on, but if they start with one thing they know they’ll like (aka one character they like) that can be the start for them leaping to other characters to finish the story and the bigger story. I struggle the same way to start book series if I don’t have at least one character that drives me to read it, it’s all about what can be the hook to push them through. Sounds like the anon is neurodivergent (just a guess) so they might genuinely not see it as rude and see it as a solution to even play the game to start with.

Btw absolutely adore the game, the complex and rich characters making them all so unique is amazing. The art is so pleasing to the eyes I love it!! I’m waiting for it all to get out at once so I don’t get too impatient. Shae however interests me the most, which routes will have the most lore for them? Will there be routes that give more lore in general based on decisions you make or do they all share the same amount? (I mean general lore not just Shae lore)

Apologies; we are not trying to accuse any asker of being rude! We are simply explaining our perspective as the developers / are trying to broadly encourage folks to dip their toes into other areas of the story outside of the main route(s) they're interested in, especially considering some routes will be made available sooner than others, and these other routes will likely contain additional scenes/lore of everyone's fave(s) regardless! We want to give each main cast member an equal amount of love (and lore) regardless of their overall popularity, so our goal is not to tut-tut anyone for having strong preferences for one character over the others, but rather to explain that you may be surprised by how much *more* you learn about your preferred characters in the other routes. That's all!

For Shae... Well, they were a foot soldier for one of the worst periods of the War. Lore wise, any other story that touches on the War will likely have content relevant to them and their experiences. ^^

[crossbackpoke-check]

yOu'Re gOiNg fOr a LiTeR? | "Habs react to Quebec Maple facts", 10.22.24

[sirsl1ttl3secretary]

I was thinking more like training me to dress sluttier wear more make up getting lip fillers etc and then start making me think about cock all the time so any time I’m alone in a room I can’t help but start rubbing my clit or playing with my nipples then as it progresses any time I’m in the house no matter if others are around I’ll be playing with myself then but you never acknowledge it making it as normal as sitting on my phone. Then as it goes further any time I’m awake all I can think about it playing with myself so I come to you and ask for help. That’s when you teach me the secret to help that feeling… the only way to stop it is to fill up my hole first with small toys like a bullet or a tiny little dildo making me get off on them for a month normalising me fucking myself in the house and car and anywhere else you want me too until I tell you that it’s stopped working or you catch me playing with myself in inappropriate public places then you buy me a new one a little longer and a little wider never admitting you got it me but leaving it on my bed to get home too this process lasts months just going up by half an inch in length and a quarter in width until I’m at your width then each month they just get longer till finally you give me a very special toy it’s s perfect copy of your cock from one of those make a dildo kits you make me use it for longer than the others so you know the effects of the silicone dildo have definitely long past and I’m so needy I’d do anything for release. That’s when you catch me wearing the dildo to school stuffed in my pussy held in place by my panties. We’re in the car almost at school when you find notice your cock becoming erect quickly. Finally… it’s time you think to yourself as you confront me my crop top shows so much underboob and cleavage it might as well not be there and my tiny mini skirt doesn’t do much to help hide what I’ve done. You pull into a nearby empty lay-by that’s just off the main road and leads down to a little parking area once we get there you tell me to open my legs which I do my puffy lips looking radiant in the early morning light. You move my panties to the side and rip out the dildo asking me what the hell I am doing. I pout and look confused before saying “filling my hole daddy” you throw it on the floor and firmly say “get out the car right now!” Without even putting my panties back in place I do as I’m told standing outside the car waiting for what will happen next when you walk round the car open the back door pulling me to the open door you say “this was a very naughty thing to do so now you will be punished. Stand with your legs straight and bend over so your body is lying flat on the seats and your ass is right up in the air. I do as I’m told the cold morning air swirling around my wet needy hole sending shivers through my body. You start to spread my legs a little wider opening my hole even further exposing me the the breeze before saying “your punishment is 5 slaps” you pull your hand back and get ready to spank me hard the tears of teasing taking over and come down hard on my left ass cheek “one” then again “two” now you swap to my right cheek “three” then you get an idea you go again on the right cheek “four” then pull my legs open lining your hand up with my clit before spanking it the hardest of all the hits “five” as soon as you make contact with my clit a moan erupts from my body it was an erotic deep begging moan “daddy I’ve been so naughty punish me again please daddy, I don’t think 5 was a big enough punishment I haven’t learnt my lesson please daddy… punish me harder” the words escape my body before my brain has even processed what’s happening making you chuckle and say “okay then baby if you insist” you spank my clit five more times each time making me wetter and wetter until you know it’s time. You undo your trousers and pull them down a little before bending over me to whisper in my ear “this is what it really means to fill your hole” as you pull on the elastic of your boxers your cock leaps out desperate to finally take what is yours

[mellotronmkll]

I need to stop having one weird reaction with someone and then letting the anxiety decide in my head that the friendship is doomed because I ruined it like it's my absolute worst trait and I just have to move past it but it's hard