#GATHERING AFFINITY ISNT THE SAME

[theboredhooman]

stop im actually addicted to afk journey the characters are ughhhlike I NEED a romancing option SO BADLY

[sneepsnoopboopideeboop]

hello :)))

fairy + sweetheart for the ask game !!

(also same. hadestown au is taking over my mind and i need someone to write me a oneshot or i might have 2 to do it myself )

hi!

fairy - what’s your favorite type of museum to go to?

okay. i love those tiny cluttered museums with a ridiculously specific subject gathered by some rich dude a century ago. beyond that, art/history museums are my favorite! if theres anything interactive in the museum i can stay there for hours and hours and hours. my mom and i had a year-long pass to a local museum that was full of little games and fidgedty bits but then. covid hit. in the march of that year. so we never got to use the pass more then like two times. also my favorite people to go to a museum with are the ones that are really interested in the subject because i can listen to my friends talk for ages (or the ones that let me talk for ages)

sweetheart - have you ever been in love?

romantically? nope. platonically? yeah probably.

also!!! hadestown au!!! you dont understand how much i love this play. i saw it on tour last june and every single day i want to go see it again. apparently i also have an affinity for writing au’s based on greek myths? (i mean. if i had a nickel for every time it happened, i’d have two nickels. which isnt a lot but its weird that its happened twice in a row)

but anyways!! i have this all planned out. orpheus = james. hopeful, a singer, sees the world in a golden light and shows it to everyone he meets. regulus = eurydice. a survivor, tired, the world has beaten him down too many times for him to see it gilded except if its james who shows him. hades = pandora. i think pandora should be dark and fucked up and allowed to maybe kill people. this fits her great. lily = persephone. PANDALILY AS HADES AND PERSEPHONE COME ONNNN.

would probably write two differnt fics, one for jegulus’ arc and one for pandalily’s story OR write them both in the same fic, switching back and forth as we go, focusing on jegulus but showing how pandalily’s relationship has changed and such. also planning on writing the fic in the sort of circular manner hadestown is written, starting and ending and starting again.

maybe maybe maybe i’ll actually write it???

[fan-clan-fun]

Clans of the Wood Ranks

On second thought, I just want the rank system looked over. Also because I’m frustrated at having to write the same thing over and over again (this is attempt four).

Yay! Good news is I figured out a workaround to finally access submissions and comment on them appropriately! Im so excited to read all about this!

Just know a lot of realistic cat behavior is taken into account, such as toms killing foreign kits and cats relying on their ears and nose for perception over their eyes.

When a cat of the Woodland Clans is born, they’re called kits or kittens. For the first month of life, they have minimal interaction outside of the nursery. The second and third months of life are generally spent playing and learning about clan culture through stories. Kittens four months old begin assisting other ranks that largely stay within camp. Upon five or six months old (depends on the maturity and size of the kittens), they can begin to help ranks that may be considered more dangerous. Cats are considered kittens until they are fully accepted within a rank, which usually happens between a year and a year and six months.

Interesting, I see you have done away with the apprentice rank. I feel like there are pros and cons with this. For one there isnt any illusions that kits are minors in every sense of the word, and it would be entirely inappropriate for them to hold certain responsibilities or expectations with relationships. But I can also see older kits being extra hurried to become warriors or the equivalent since being so much older than the younger kits but still being considered kits would be frustrating. I can certainly remember as a teenager  being annoyed when I was considered a child (even if I was still a minor and therefore technically a child).

A handful of cats take up the role of healers. They are to look after the health of cats within the clan and maintain a good supply of medicine in storage. While every cat in the clan gets basic medical training, these cats specialize in it and memorize remedies to every known injury and illness. Mollies also tend to double as midwives.

I like how this is worded, because it is important for the entire clan to have at least basic first aid, but also of course to have cats to specialize in it. I had always seen medicine cats to share like the medical side of birth, while older more experienced queens provided the emotional support, but I suppose these healers could do both. 

A handful of cats stay within camp as guardians. They are to protect camp, fight off predators and aggressors, and escort weaker members to other camps. Every cat does receive battle training, these cats also study strategy and the weak points of predators like wolverines, birds of prey, foxes, dogs, and coyotes. Tom guardians sleep with the rest of the clan and molly guardians sleep in the nursery.

I find it interesting you split up warriors into two groups. I have an image of some gorgeous big buff cats. And also female guardians protecting the nursery! Super cute.

Two or three cats within each clan are messengers. They stay within camp and are sent to camps of other clans when urgent matters need to be relayed. Only swift cats become messengers and must be disciplined in the art of remembering messages.

As nice as this is, I feel like the messengers wouldnt be able to be only messengers, as there isnt a constant need for messages to be carried (unless there is, Im just going off what I have been given). Maybe they are just some of the fastest hunters?

Seers are the one or two cats who are highly attuned to the earth, listening to her whispers and echoes. They can assist with daily life and have mates and bear kits, but must remain open to the earth’s voice. Many cats are born with an innate attunement to the voice and it’s partially hereditary. Commonly, a current seer’s kit, grandkit, or nibling will have this affinity.

I do like me some spiritual cats, I would love to hear more what they see about the earth!

Hunters is everyone else in the clan. They hunt for most of the food and patrol the borders, bringing friendly tidings from other clans. They take up the bulk of the population and have a wide array of personalities and skills.

Ah I see, so the Hunters are basically the warriors of the clan, with the guardians being like the equivalent of -claw cats being extra skilled in fighting

When a cat decides to bear kits, she can decide to move to the nursery at any time and become a mother. Because of the often stressful situations cats can get into, it’s imperative a pregnant mother remain calm lest complications will arise endangering her and her kits. Once they’re born, she will be with them at almost all times during their first month of life. After that, she can leave them for longer periods of time until they’re fully weaned. Once weaned, she can decide to stay with them until they’re all around six months old (when they’re kicked out of the nursery), or can return to her duties, checking up on them periodically.

Elders are the clan’s history and are just as protected as its future. They’re cats normally over a hundred months (eight or nine years) old, spending their days sleeping, bestowing wisdoms to all who ask of them, and gossiping on inter-clan politics and relationships.

The matriarch is the overseer of mothers and kittens. She will usually try to get restless pregnant mothers to calm down for a safer labor and look after the young kittens of nursing mothers when she needs me time. If any orphaned kittens are taken in, she will be their mother. In a way, all kittens born under her care are her kittens, and many young cats call her “Mother” alongside their own mother. She doesn’t even have to be fertile or have her own kits to be the matriarch; if she has a strong maternal instinct and knows a lot on mothers and kits and has the skill to back it up, she can be the matriarch.

I have had a similar role in one of my clans before, and I do really like it. Its something of the idea of a permanent queen, but only one and with a serious amount of authority in the clan.

The keeper is the diplomatic leader, not only in charge of maintaining friendly relations with other clans, but also other feline societies outside of the clans. Their job also includes relaying their diplomatic information to the leader and let members of the clan know when they should probably stop fraternizing with that sexy otherclan cat because tensions are high, so it’d be better if one of them moves to the other’s clan instead. A keeper is likely to have formerly been a hunter.

This is quite clever and makes me wonder about the existence of informants and primitive spy networks. 

The captain is the military leader, in charge of organizing a quick response when the lives of their cats are endangered. They are almost always a former guardian and normally a brilliant strategist. They are also in charge of overseeing the kittens’ battle training.

I appreciate that you have sort of deputies for the two major  ranks in the clan, which is nice because Im getting the vibe that these are fairly large clans, so the extra organization is helpful.

Lastly is the leader, the head of the clan. They are to make decisions for their clan as a whole based on the information gathered from their council of elders, senior clan members, seers, matriarch, keeper, and captain. Should the keeper or captain die, retire, or be exiled, the leader is to choose their replacement, knowing which cats are skilled for the role and who the clan would find a good decision. A leader is the final authority on all decisions, but the seers can authorize their overthrow if the clan is overall displeased with their rule and the seers receive an omen confirming this. A new leader is chosen upon their death, retirement, or exile through a vote of all adult cats between the matriarch, captain, and keeper. Everyone votes for who they are okay with being leader, not for who they prefer, so you can vote for everyone if you like everyone. The one with the highest votes wins. Ties should be non-violently resolved between the tied parties.

I like this because  it doesnt necessarily require votes for every decision, but there is a vote for a leader, which would then lead based on those votes and the advice of their council and others who are most familiar with different aspects of the clan. That said I can just imagine the shenanigans involved when it comes to an election, like do they campaign? What does a campaign look like? Are there any restrictions as to who can be voted for or is it just anyone? Has there been a time where a young and maybe inexperienced  leader was voted for? Its an intriguing possibility.

So yeah, I’d like to know what you think of this unusual setup for my clans. Thanks for taking the time to look it over!

This was lovely to look over! Sorry it took so long! Thanks for sending it in.

[spiritwinding]

for the duration of the classic games, sonic was Incredibly reserved. talked to no one and only used sign language when necessary, had no social life outside of talking to flickies and other woodland creatures, just was Completely isolated from people. he was SUPER close to his parents, and having them die made him essentially swear off of. talking to people. to steal lyrics from wicked: 

too long i've been afraid of losing love, i guess I've lost well if that's love it comes at much too high a cost

meeting tails and his relationship with him is what made him talk and start to accept friendship back into his life, that he Needs companionship and can’t get by on his own and that a life alone is a miserable one, but it was a gradual process that spaned the adventure games and sonic heroes, so here’s a rambly post about some of how sonic went from a hermit to the VERY anime friendship guy he is in sonic forces!

sonic is pretty prickly and easily irritated in adventure 1 and is still stuck in his Cool Lone Wolf kinda ways? avoids amy very obviously, openly says shes weird, frustrated with knuckles, very dismissive of tails etc. at the same time when he gets separated from tails when they crash in sa1 he’s genuinely sad and concerned for him, and prioritiizes how chaos would feel if locked in the master emerald while still rampaging. he very clearly cares about people, he’s just. distant and has kinda bad people skills. during sa1 sonic starts to realize he needs to listen to his friends and be more tolerant with them, though (amy stopping him from destroying gamma, how theyw oulda probably noticed birdie had an emerald if sonic hadn’t blown off amy so quickly, everyone bringing the chaos emeralds at the end), and he starts to? get along better with them? calls knuckles buddy in sa2, definitely gets along better with amy, puts a lot of his faith in tails when he gets shot out of the ark, AND fights with shadow at the end, is much less prickly in sa2 and just in general starts to embrace this group theyve kinda scrapped together

speaking of sa2, though: shadow! sonic has always had a short temper depending on the situation, but particularly in sa2 he didnt take kindly to a) being accussed of shit he didnt do and b) excUUse me how dare you copy me? like me?? still, he was definitely intrigued by shadow, and sonic is Painfully curious by nature, not to mention the whole affinity for chaos energy thing. kinda lilke a pull to the stuff. i also think sonic GETS aloof grumpy characters, because even if he wasnt ever grumpy, just short-tempered and kinda irritable, he was definitely aloof, and gets what it’s like to struggle to connect with others when you’re afraid of losing them. throughout the game they both come to respect eachother, and ultimately the fight they have at the end is. the first team fight sonic has? he has to put his trust in someone in the battlefield, really learn how to keep an eye on himself AND whoever hes fighting with, which is different than not hurting civilians for example. they both constantly ask eachother how theyre doing and sonic suggests to shadow that he needs to rest and that he can tag in. like regardless of everything that happenned during the game sonic cares about shadow, and whether by necessity or otherwise, trusts him to fight alongside

so when shadow, someone sonic probably considers somewhat of a friend, who was fighting with him and who sonic wanted to keep a close eye on, dies when he’s right next to him AND super sonic it doesn’t Feel Great. sonic felt responsible for shadow falling, for one, and for two, that’s someone he cares about dying. again. when thats what he wanted to avoid by essentially dissappearing from society: he didn’t want to lose people. of course losing shadow si very different and less painful than losing his parents, but it’s a reminded of what he’d been running away from all this time, and what he’s potentially going to go through again if tails, knuckles or amy die, too.

so he goes on another ‘vacation’ between sa2 and heroes-- distances himself from everyone else again, both to Repress and also to start to start to go back to the lonely nomadic lifestyle. the thing is, after going through what he did with everyone, tails in particular, he misses them. he misses company, now that he got it again, and realizes he doesn’t want to be alone again. being alone sucks, no matter how much you double down on it.

and tails and knuckles Show Up-- like they find HIM rather than the other way around. they come back, like a boomerang, and all three of them go to defeat eggman again, in an Entirely trio-based game, where sonic learns hwo to be a better teammate, and how to depend on others in a fight again. shadow turns out to be okay*, and at the end everyone refuses to let him fight neo on his own, and he’s? kinda overwhelmed? that he’s gathered people who are willing to support him, and that return like boomerangs, too

he wont be alone, because his friends will always be there to have his back, and he can always count on their help!! superpower of teamwork babyyyy. annd at the end, instead of going off on his own, he TAKES tails and knuckles with him!

sonic at the end of the day needs companionship. he leans towards ambivert and needs a Lot of alone time, and loves his personal space, but he needs to know someone is there to have his back ykno? he loves people, and needs people, and hates being alone like... in life. not like running alone or travelling alone, but just. having no one in his life is almost kinda terrifying. he knows what thats like and is aware he doesnt want to go back to having no one know his name except for the local flickies he saved from eggman.

*note: sonic definitely has unresolved shit from Everything That Has Ever Happened, aside from his parents deaths, because he’s so desensitized to all of it and just.. always Has to function, it isnt a question, and shadow ‘dying’ isnt an  exception. definitely not as bad as other stuff, like the guilt for everyone who DID die, but he never worked through? much of it? because unless it specifically worms its way to the surface, sonic doesn’t know it’s There, and even if he picks up on somethig he won’t adress it unless it’s Baaaaad, and that’s only a recent thing. repress and move on, thaaaaaaat’s life pal. it doesnt help that sonic is honestly seen as Emotionally Invincible by everyone around him, so who would think he has baggage abt somethign that happenned when he was 13? (btw he was 13 in sa2 which is a Yikes!) he feels he failed shadow, particularly because it was. the ‘death’ that happenned right after he also blamed himself when his mom died in his care. he works through the occasisonal thought about it by just! trying his best! not letting it happen again! but again, never worked thru it, never told anyone. someone write this w/ me somehow blease

[nuka-colacherry]

Hi. I'd really appreciate a matchup for Fo4. Demisexual demi girl who's lonely 24/7 as of now and most herlife. Brunette, curly hair currently to my shoulders, hazel eyes, bit of a bleeding heart.Always play Minutemen general because I enjoy the settlement building, shocker. Will punch a bigot. Am a bit gullible, during my first playthrough I trusted Deacon more than was wise in affinity talks. Love love love the Detective case in Far Harbor and am a major bookworm, particularly for mysteries.

I match you with Piper Wright!

• Piper relates to your feelings of loneliness. It's been extremely difficult for her to run Publick Occurrences, take care of Nat and have a healthy social life. While she knows a lot of "contacts", her actual friends are far and few.

- This changes when she meets you. She still isn't the most popular person now, but your company is enough to make her happy. She hopes that her company keeps you happy too.

• She really loves traveling with you when you do your work with the minutemen. Piper cares a lot about people, and being able to meet and help people with you is amazing.

- If you ask nicely she will help you build things. If you don't need her help, then she usually ends up interviewing settlers and gathering information on what is happening outside of diamond city. If you create supply lines she will often try to get people to subscribe to Publick Occurrences.

• Piper absolutely loves that you are willing to punch a bigot. She hates to see injustices, and will happily write an article exposing said bigot later. Extra points if the bigot is a politician.

- She also finds the fact that you're a bleeding heart extremely endearing. It's actually one of her favorite things about you. In her opinion, not enough people care about what happens to other people.

• Piper doesn't mind that you're gullible. She is naturally a skeptical person. If someone tries to trick you while she is there, she won't hesitate to call them out. She also will inform you of any shady people that you might be around. She believes that keeping you informed of who you are dealing with will help keep you safe, and normally it does.

• She also enjoys doing detective work with you, even if you don't do it that often. She isn't a detective, but she does a lot investigative journalism. She isn't scared of putting herself into possibly dangerous situations with you to discover the truth.

• Piper also enjoys a nice mystery novel. She likes to read the same books as you so you guys can discuss them. It's like a mini book club. She likes trying to guess the answer to the mystery before the book reveals it. If you guys disagree on what the answer could be, she will playfully debate you. Expect a lot of inside jokes around the books who guys have read.

• Piper is a busy woman, but when has freetime she loves having casual date nights with you. She cares more about having fun than being extravagant and romantic.

- She likes to go eat at Power Noodles and then go get a drink at the Dugout in. It's simple, cheap and fun.

- This isnt exactly a date, but if you cleared the library of super mutants, she enjoys searching for new books and just hanging out there with you too.

• Basically, you and Piper are literally the coolest couple in the commonwealth.