#Gaming has been an important part of my life; games have told me stories that have helped me heal and grow and learn

[a-story-teller]

Frankly I don't care if tlou show is good. If people are too above gaming to absorb the story through a game, they don't deserve the story

[creatingblackcharacters]

No, That’s Not ‘How Color Works’. - Whitewashing

Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"

In fandom context, we know it to include:

Making someone’s skin lighter

Making someone’s hair a thinner texture

Changing someone’s nose to be thinner

Shrinking their lips

Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else

The Normalization of Whitewashing

Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But that’s the key word here- overt! It has to be “bad enough” to make enough people speak up, but as we’ve seen many a time, “bad enough” seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesn’t exist!)

Some visual examples

This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.

I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uh… I didn’t know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that 🤣. Jokes aside, as I’ve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if they’d chosen to do ye same olde… there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.

Colorism as a Tool

Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think “oh well at least they’re Black!” as if that is the only important part. It is not.

While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not “enough” to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.

It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. It’s been happening for years, and I don’t think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesn’t look anything like Kida- it doesn’t matter if she’s Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! I’ve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to which… I don’t have the words. I can’t fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.

The Common Excuses

I must be honest. I don’t really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because I’ve already discussed these things in massive detail. So I’m just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.

“Their hair/eyes are like that because they’re biracial so-”

Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10

There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!

But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blackness… I don’t know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.

You don’t get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people don’t always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do don’t deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But don’t change a character’s entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black character’s mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.

“It’s my style/It’s the color-”

Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10

I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but I’ve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as I’ve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the “style” and “color” excuse.

Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. I’m not saying they aren’t. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:

1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoples’ features. That’s you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!

2. “Everyone who is brown will look ashy so I just-” if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then it’s time to try something else! I don’t understand this sudden need for “realism” when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldn’t have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is “how it works”. That’s not fair.

The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone else… and not the Black characters.

If you use the color picker and the color picked is… disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!

“It’s the lighting-”

Relevant Lessons: 4, 5

If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.

If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DON’T change your character’s skin color!

I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.

Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.

Now look at this image in comparison:

In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.

To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.

‼️DISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLE‼️

Okay. I am about to show y’all a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artist’s name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and it’s over- they’ve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason I’m including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what I’m telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and y’all sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.

I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:

“Well it’s just MY design of them-”

Relevant Lessons: ALL

The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is different… is the man himself.

Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say “oh well this is my design of them” …and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blackness… Racism. If you’re going to “make up your own design”, then do that!

“Blackwashing”

Speaking of: I’m sure someone edgy out there thinks they’re so smart as they retort to the screen: “but if that’s not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?” To which I say- shut up. 😐

The “definition” by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.

Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is “to defame”, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say you’re blackwashing their characters, when they mean you’re making them “less likable because they’re Black now”. 🤔

Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.

Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I ‘headcanon a character as Black with 4C hair’ is not going to make the studio go “oh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!” Me saying “oh I think I’d like this character better if they were Black” as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because I’m not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewer’s dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game media… and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful “Blackwashing” with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.

How it could be "solved"

Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didn’t want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!

I wouldn’t have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. We’re not allowed to even be present! I’ve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think there’d be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.

Something I’ve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans “allow” it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, who’s ever done it what their comments are like. I’ve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how it’s somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of “hey maybe you shouldn’t do this” prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.

Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!

1) Using References!!

Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. We’re humans. It’s 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when it’s time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when it’s time to love and depict us. If you’re on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if you’re in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.

Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.

Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldn’t need a reference? Unfollow them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. I’d far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!

Part of the issue is people draw what they’re used to, what they’re comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what you’re used to is not what someone will look like… That’s not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If you’re not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!

If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. I’d far rather deal with someone saying they’re unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because “well at least I’m trying!”

2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!

Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in “regular looking white dude” on google). There’s hardly ever any white characters, you’re so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because you’ve seen just how amazing this artist creates! They’re so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image of… Assad Zaman.

That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chef’s kiss. Stunning! But… He’s not white. That’s not what you asked or paid for. You can’t even fathom how they mixed this up, they don’t even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you can’t tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, you’re the racist! But you’re not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! And… It’s not you.

It’s dehumanizing. It’s being told that there’s a “better way” to look like you, and that’s by… Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are what’s incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. It’s better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, it’s better to have lighter skin, it’s better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.

And what makes it worse is knowing that people who don’t look like you? Probably won’t care. They won’t be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that they’re propagating harm by not acknowledging it. They’re letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that ‘attempt at inclusion’. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.

I’m going to say this, and it’s awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, but… Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated as… alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately don’t know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know we’re there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!

By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you don’t need to be drawing us.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said “gee, not another white guy!” It simply doesn’t happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. There’s no danger to any of you of “being erased”.

(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)

People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, but… To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned characters… Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldn’t have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.

But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because it’s the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that you’ll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have just… Drawn more white people.

I’ll say it again: antiracism is hard. It’s hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. It’s really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, I’d far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less ‘hopeful’ than I normally am in these lessons, but… People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. It’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- let’s choose better actions.

[bonus-links]

Ahem, if I may impose.... Directors commentary?? 😁😁

YEAHHH lots to say abt this one

i know rule number one is don't point out the flaws in ur own work but i have to confess. i forgot to add hair highlights to this entire update. i didn't realize until i had already queued up the posts and i could not bear re-exporting and color correcting every page again. so i just let it be. it only kills me a little bit. they rlly add something y'know

i haven't seen a whole lot of comments about this to the point i worry i didn't do a good job of conveying it so: Loft's dream at the beginning is about ganondorf.

Loft has, in fact, chewed his nails to bits.

i'm gonna be so real, part of the delay for this update was bc my brain got so stuck on the logistics of where that damn bookshelf would go

korok bookends :D

i like to think the story of the hero of time is actually mostly an oral tradition on Outset, or at least that's how Gran Gran first told Link and Aryll the stories when they were children.

i worry a little bit about these 'lore recap" updates, bc like. I'm assuming you've played the games, or at least know the gist. but I feel like there's a few stories it's important for us to see Loft's direct reactions to, and the conclusions he draws from them, because it'll be important to his actions later. I try to make up for it by at least making these sections visually interesting HAHA i think this is the last major one though

on that note: I hope this comes across on its own, but Loft finishes Gran Gran's story himself because he's just realized the flood was sent by the gods, and not some external force of evil. he's also realizing that this is not the first time the gods have been willing to wipe the slate clean in the absence of a hero, and that it's actually something of a pattern. it runs up against his idea of how Demise's curse is meant to work. this is one such mystery mouseketool we'll use later.

also on that note: regardless of ganondorf's actions, i find it significant that the gods chose to destroy a man whose people suffered in a droughted desert with,,,,a flood. that thought was the conceit for this update

Loft has seen this play out in his dreams, but obviously doesn't fully know the context. also I'm gonna refer to this version of zelda as Sheik. he uses he/him pronouns thank you :-)

just wanted to show some closeups of the stained glass bc. i worked hard on them HAHA + the grayscale wip

i was really hoping this chapter would be done. last year. it was meant to be a chance to slow down for a second before the plot speeds up 😅 but we're nearing the last few updates!! thank you all for bearing with me <3 life has been kind of insane and extremely discouraging irl, so getting to post these updates and seeing you all enjoy them has been a real bright spot <333 special thank you to my patreon supporters bc. seriously it has helped more than you know.

i think that's all ive got for now! see you next time, hopefully sooner than 4-5 business months

[shorthaltsjester]

endlessly thinking thoughts about cr characters, morality, and selfishness (likely place for me to be, given that my day job includes endlessly researching ethics and meaning of life) but in light of bell’s hells most recent illustration of their insularity and individualism, I’ve been really like. Trying to unpack why I find it particularly egregious in this party when obviously mighty nein were notoriously self-interested, especially at the beginning, and when vox machina had quite a few moments where their horses were far higher than they had any reason to be. And again, I really want to make it clear her that I don’t hold self-interest or selfishness to be some abhorrent and unforgivable thing, in fact I think its incredibly normal especially given the context of main characters in a story told through game mechanics that flourish on the interest of the individuals making the choices. I’ve written before about how one of the throughlines that I’ve seen in laura’s pcs (since I’m someone who particularly enjoys looking at the moral outlooks characters develop) is a common thread of morality that’s highly dependent on their own interests. And like, this is a positive throughline to me! Without getting into my own views on morality, it is particularly compelling to me for characters with isolated upbringing (which applies to vex, jester, and imogen, each in different ways) to develop a moral code informed by that isolation, and in vex we see her moral code is ‘anything goes if it protects those I hold dear’, in jester we see a moral code that doesn’t care about morality as much as it cares about the chance to care and be cared for, and in imogen we see a moral code developed in response to her very unique experience of hearing the darkest parts of people and judging them on those (which to be clear, i am not judging her for that fact, I think it makes extreme sense for someone who hears the thoughts the people have to be horrified by those things, but it does mean her moral system is almost completely backwards, where intention holds more weight than action, which perhaps makes sense of the popularity of defending all of her ideas and choices and the Right Ones by certain parts of the fandom that insist leftism is hidden in the dnd real play). And that’s all to say that, out of the cr parties we’ve seen, I don’t think any single member of bell’s hells is uniquely more or less selfish or more or less of an asshole than previous characters. And in fact, I tend to be quite fond of selfish characters, I have a well documented history of cherishing them well beyond the cr fandom. But the point is that my calling something or someone self-interested is not a value judgement in this context, it's a descriptive claim about the traits a character exhibited.

Imogen, who has insisted time and time again re: the values of the accord that she would not be swayed by the temptation of predathos because she recognizes the importance of this fight, only to turn around and pretty immediately open herself up to predathos to fulfil the most threatening part of ludinus’ plan is self-interested. I cannot conceive of any other way to describe her choices. And her being self-interested doesn’t mean she can’t also be altruistic at times, but I will be clear that I don’t think her risking killing herself as she attempts to bring down the god-eater that she released is particularly selfless. In my best faith interpretation I’d say she’s pretty middle of the road in that choice. But I bring all this up because a comparison I’ve been seeing is that bell’s hells aren’t as mean as the mighty nein or even vox machina in certain moments and that it doesn’t make sense for the fandom to view bell’s hells as likely to be villains when the same wasn’t true of the previous two campaigns, and I think I have to pretty emphatically disagree, and not because I don’t think there aren’t moments in both campaigns that feature extremely high levels of assholery and villainry from pcs – I mean, some of my favourite cr characters are percy and jester, both of whom i’d say are ‘good guys’ due to the pure luck of the found familys they fell in with and both of whom often suggested plans that were. Not okay. To say the least. But ignoring the difference between suggesting fucked up plans and walking your god-eater infused bestie back towards the troops sent to support you in keeping that entity contained, the other big difference I’ve noticed in my own introspection on how I react to bh vs mn and vm, as well as which things i cherish about previous campaigns that were really missing from c3 to what I think is the story and the character’s detriment (staying away from the shape of the narrative, just because others have made posts that put words together better about that than I can) is that while members of vm and mn remained self-interest to the end of their campaigns and have reasserted those habits in appearances since, the parties as entities working in exandria had both, to echo ashton’s apt suggestion to ludinus, grown up.

Like one moment I think of is beau and fjord’s convo in the nein hells episode, because beau is being her asshole self and fjord is being his ‘I care about My People and I’ll think about the rest later’ self (i say affectionately but certain parts of the fandom I recognize would view derogatorily) – clearly they’re not the kindest people as they discuss bell’s hells, but two notable things are (a) they still treat the hells with the respect and use their means to help them prepare for the battle coming, even when they hear the horrifying thought that the hells aren’t certain they’ll choose to save the gods, all the nein request is that they choose the kind option (b) they say none of their doubts to the hells themselves – likely because they have the empathy to realizes that its a high stress situation that won’t be made better by a reminding the hells how small and likely ineffectual in the universe they are – and their comments about cannon fodder are ones made in jest to each other. Even taking that in the worst faith interpretation, the jokes that beau and fjord make in a private conversation has absolutely zero influence on bh. This is quite different than bells hells, after like. as clearly betraying the accord they promised to assist (even if their intentions are ‘good’) as is possible, belittling the religious armies sent to support their endeavor to keep predathos sealed as they all feel the weight of an irrevocable change occurring in exandria, one bells hells has first account knowledge now that it IS incredibly willing to eat mortals, and laudna and ashton, the members of bells hells most often cited by certain fandom spaces as characters who have gone through so much and it only made them kind and strong, look into the faces of people facing literally existential threat and laugh and mock them. That is, mighty nein as individuals is comprised of some of the, perhaps, most asshole pcs, but The Mighty Nein as a party is committed to treating others the best they can, to leaving things better than they found them (a quote that I think is particularly exemplary of the dynamics of self-interest at play in the mighty nein, since it originated as a blatant illustration of molly’s notion of self-importance but developed to become a kind of commandment that the nein became committed to fulfilling). The opposite is true of bell’s hells, where orym and dorian at least both seem to have motivation beyond themselves, imogen’s changes but has shown she is capable of letting go of her ‘intention reigns’ requisitely individualistic perspective, and chetney plays up his selfishness but has shown himself to care quite a bit for people beyond their party but bell’s hells as an entity is uh, pretty self-interested.

To clarify some of my thoughts here in the spirit of the wicked renaissance happening rn, I’ve always felt that for good was an incredibly apt song for the mighty nein, because it really nails that feeling that perhaps they didn’t change each other as individuals to become better people on the grand scale, maybe they’ve just changed each other permanently, but they (and I would agree with this) view each other as having changed each other for the better (e.g., I don’t know if I could say whether jester is a morally better Individual at the end of the campaign, but I can say with certainty that she fulfils and makes moral choices in her work as a member of the mighty nein). And I don’t know if this can be said about bell’s hells – I think they have certainly influenced each other and changed how alone many of those characters felt, and that is not a slight on the story, it can be a great centre for a story to focus on how a relinquishment of the feeling that one is alone in the world can change them. But for the most part, that hasn’t been bh’s story, their story instead has been about validating their refusal to become anything beyond what they insist was out of their control. And not to get to annoying philosophy student about it but bell’s hells are maybe some of the most explicit examples of sartrian bad faith I’ve seen in fiction in a hot minute, because their insistence that they treat their wounds as incurable and entirely out of their hands has led to them limiting their own potential because many of them ignore their responsibility as people to make choices in their own lives. In contrast, at the end of the campaign, mighty nein are still assholes as we all like to refer to them as, but in the context of an apocalypse, I think I’d prefer the assholes like fjord – who is certainly being truthful when he says he doesn’t care about what harm comes to 200 people when jester is at risk but who also, as they traverse into aeor, is insistent that their group won’t be running away from whatever apocalyptic threat awaits them, even if that means dying in the fight – than I would an asshole like ashton – who promises to fight for the little guys but who then turns around and acts upon a philosophy that says the strongest will survive. When you look at the mighty nein, it is incredibly easy to see the fingerprints of change they’ve left upon one another, and even to see the boundaries they place on one another’s asocial behaviours through their presence in one another’s lives (more recently the group chastising jester’s fond words about ludinus is a good example, but others are yasha’s pressuring caleb and essek to move on from their wizard talks as they collect paper in aeor instead of venturing further toward the battle they have to fight, or fjord and jester’s frustrated conversation in the ukotoa reunion about how fjord made a stupid decision and he doesn’t regret but he feels dejected and jester checking him on the fact that they still need to figure out a solution). It takes some extrapolation to see how bells hells have changed each other in more than aesthetic ways, if they have at all. Because the catalyst for change is pressure to do so, and aside from moments where it was truly change or be left behind, bh doesn’t challenge each other unless forced to by morri’s trials or delilah’s interruption and on the very odd occasion an interesting game of rollies-spin-the-bottle. 

And it’s interesting because the asshole behaviour of the mighty nein, like bell’s hells, stems from being left on the outskirts of society and the mistreatment that comes with that, so seemingly the change from being alone to being with others is one that actually insists upon being challenged to grow and change. I mean, just looking at the starting points of the characters, there’s an intriguing amount of stark similarities between their pasts; jester and fearne were both people loved dearly by the family they grew up with but who were loved within the confines of a gilded cage, ashton and beau both have an glaring self awareness that their anger at the world has a very particular source (their parents) but use that as justification rather than a means of self reflection, yasha and orym are trying to navigate a world in the wake of an incomprehensible loss and a sense of duty, fjord and imogen are both seeking out knowledge of their own powers and unknowingly retreading the paths of their missing and presumed dead parental figures. The idea that bell’s hells are uniquely mistreated by society in the history of cr player characters is, politely, laughable. Absolutely they’re mistreated, and I think it could be fair to say these characters are more defined by their isolation than others but I think that has more to do with the lack of downtime rp than it has to do with the context of their suffering.

What I have loved about the mighty nein is that in their realization that the bonds they forge with each other are undermining the truths most of them had taken to be true – that they were alone and without a place in the world – they are also forced to realize that no longer being alone and isolated comes with the weight of social responsibility. And this was born out of a willingness the mighty nein had to call each other out and that the players had to allow their characters to be wrong and get called on it. Because that’s the friction of living with other people on the small party scale and the large world scale – in the mighty nein’s ability to survive as a people who cared for each other even when they didn’t agree or when they made decisions that they couldn’t understand, they were constantly developing their ability to care for the very same world that left them alone. Because in campaign two, the world as a whole had the role that the gods have in campaign 3 – why should a party of nobodies, treated like shit by the world and the people in it go through the effort of saving it?

And the mighty nein answered, in their own imperfection and assholery, that nothing is ever just one thing – one of the things I cherish most about campaign 2 is its commitment to ambiguity, allowing the complexity of the world to go unsolved because there is no solution to the fact that life is immense and sometimes incoherent. I don’t think its a coincidence that I’ve seen some of the people lamenting the idiocy of fandom members like me who think that it actually isnt a leftist win to destroy the world in the hopes of spontaneous justice arising in c3 are the same people who criticised c2’s conclusion with the cerberus assembly for not being leftist (a word which for them means . the aesthetic image of a rebellion sparked and not the unending commitment to doing what you practically can to make life more just for those around you – whether they’re particularly kind to you or not) enough. The conclusion of c2 emphasizes that the choice to make the world a better place isn’t something that can be achieved in one single sweeping action that will wipe the boards clean – there is no murder of all the members of the cerberus assembly that would’ve solved the problems that caused the assembly’s power. There is no forcing of the god’s out of exandria that will deal with the actual issue undergirding both bh and their blorbo-moralized fans' criticism of the gods, which is that mortals are cursed with the burden of free will, and being mistreated by other mortals means constantly having to try and make sense of the fact that someone chose to do something cruel to you (and, sometimes, that you made a choice that allowed that cruelty to occur) – a burden made much heavier when the person who hurt you is your cult-indoctrinated mother, or your cult leader father, or the person in the mirror. The mighty nein take up this fight, and the complexities of their individual identities begin to heal in the light of a commitment in their relationship as friends and as a team to improve the world, even on the small scale. Bell’s hells remain gridlocked and stagnant and unwilling to change in an unspoken turf war of self-interest because they’ve insisted (influenced in part by the context of the campaign 3 narrative but, as others have aptly pointed out, that narrative was much more influenced by bh’s lack of curiosity regarding anything except their own minds) upon finding a solution to a problem they’ve decided is earth-shatteringly (quite literally, to the people of ruidus) unjust based on, aside from encounters where fellow mortals were the primary oppressors, their own testimony of the god’s not listening to them and the obvious villain’s parallel testimony. Something I’ve really been chewing on lately is caduceus words to fjord about his role as a paladin of the wildmother – that maybe it just means that someday, someone will pray for a miracle, and there fjord’ll be and the weight that has given that fjord’s bond to ukotoa came from his desperation not to die and his willingness to accept whatever help would be offered, that fjord could now be the person that reaches out to someone in need, and that the hand he offers won’t come with a curse.  And I think that’s really the poignant difference between bh and mn for me, that for bh, their experiences of injustice, though did make them personally bitter, did not make them morally misanthropic.

Comparatively, Bell’s Hells chose to ensure that, because the gods never answered their prayers, they shouldn’t be permitted to answer anyone else’s. Is this an understandable position? Sure, for the walls of a preschool, not really for a group of characters that I will ever be in any way inclined to view as something close to heroes. While it’s true that there are parts of life that are beyond our control – somethings happen to us that we have no say in, and they cause injuries both physical and mental that we are left to heal without any rhyme or reason, it is still our responsibility to heal them. And if you choose not to, well, then you’ve chosen not to, and are responsible for the consequences and judgements that choice might amount to.

Anyway, sorry this is all over the place but TLDR: calling bell’s hells as a party self-interested is actually just descriptively correct – they can save members of the party made up of their close friends and still be self-interested – and while the individual members of bell’s hells actually aren’t all that uniquely self-interested in the history of cr pcs, the party is uniquely self-interested in how they’ve chosen to navigate the world an their responsibility to the people in it.

[letherightonein]

Men don't care about the facts

I once met a die hard misogynist who also hated men

He refused to date women and made a lot of efforst to not have any kind of relationship with them. To talk to him I had to wait two weeks since he was doing a vow of silence to not talk to any women.

He told me he left an english academia, because a woman started to talk to him and trying to hang out with him. Of course, I don't talk to him anymore.

He was and as far as I know still is, a genuine MGTOW. He just left women alone and minded his business. But he wasn't a high IQ successful six figures as MGTOW swear all men can become if they stop dating women. He usually drove while drunk, didn't had a career or a real job, lived with mom and dad and had a family completely progressive and contrary to his values. He also used to bet.

His misogyny was rampant, inflammatory and sophisticated. But he also seemed to hate men. He had a huge prejudice against men, he said that they are predatory, inherently selfish and violent.

But there was a major difference, he also believed that men are superior, that men are smarter, more beautiful, with mind and soul. So every bad characteristic had to be forgiven, while women had to be tightly controlled and punished.

And he acted accordingly, when I showed him a clip of a woman being harassed, it was her fault. If the woman rejected the man and the man exploded violently, it was her fault for not rejecting him nicely. If the woman tried to be polite and still molested, it was her fault for not being more clear.

He was aware of the constant damned if you do, damned if you don't rethoric and didn't have a problem with it. It was part of the principles, because women had to be punished and put on their place. Logic and fairness were not a problem for him, in fact, I believe that for him women had to endure the mistreatment since they were inferior.

Nowadays, everytime I see men talking about women online I see that man talking. It's always the same, doesn't matter who say it, with what words, the nuances of it. It all comes from the same place and it's the same game. Logic doesn't matter, facts don't matter, fairness doesn't matter.

I feel frustated everytime I see women online trying to educate men and respond to them. I understand the importance of counteract male bullshit stories, but everything seems to operate from men's frame. It's us responding to them, instead of them trying to convince us.

For example, the idea that men are entitled to fuck around a lot of women and demand a virgin bride. Everyone ask, well if all women have to remain virgin till marriage, with whom those men will have sex? And I can't help but feel that this is a loser move.

Men don't care about the maths, they care about what benefits them. If when young they feel like fucking around and then later they feel like settling and don't find the promised virgin wife, then it's not "my behavior was wrong" or "I have contributed to the problem", is a "women are the problem and society has to fix it for me". They are not thinking long term, they think it what they want now.

It is not a lack of math what makes them think this way, for them the pieces of the puzzle are fitting perfectly. Women have to gatekeep, be submissive, not think in their own desires and try to please them. They have a whole fantasy around being a kind of predator or a seductor who has conquered the virgin innocent women and has corrupted her, making her impure and damaged. They want to spend their lifes doing that and then settle with women who could not be conquered before.

Their whole self steem and validation relies on that. If a woman wants it and seek it, then they are not worth as much, since they don't have to put any effort or force. It's cheap and easy. If a woman has been with others before, then he is below those men.

It's perfectly logical for them, actually. When they become fathers, they still see themselves as part of the puzzle. Men who want to conquer his daughter have to conquer him too.

Of course, this take doesn't apply to all men perfectly, but all of them have a version of this idea. It seems inherent to men. Men who are succesful with women are sexist but benevolent and men who are not are hostile and misogynistic. Men who are good with women are good because they are getting validation from them, not because they are moral deconstructed people with strong feminist values.

They can't think of women as people by default, their view on them is conditioned on how they see themselves and what they have obtained from women. Their narratives and ideas stem from this, they don't respond to any external logic, their internal clock is right everytime of the year and your facts and math can't and won't change that.

It is said that if women would start act differently, men will act accordingly. I see more truth on it, but it won't solve everything. Not only because of the male allies, but because men will still act whitin their frame. If all women start to reject men, an unknown number of men will act from their entitlement and could literally kill us before seeking inside or listening to women about what they actually want. If women start to set the standard high and only reproduce with decent men, a lot of men will be excluded and will protest and sabotage.

Their firmware remains the same, they are superior, they worth more, they are entitled to you, you owe them something. It's not possible to reason a man out of that, so stop trying wasting your time and mental health on it. If they wanted to reach out, they would and they don't.

[yuurei20]

how muscle is the boy and who the most buff because i think silver gym clothes is lying

Hello hello! Thank you so much for this question! I have been hoping to talk about this for so long ⚔️

There is something special about the school uniform and gym clothes cards 👀

Summary 1) Sprites do not always visually represent what is actually happening in the game 2) Yana does not have full control over what can appear as sprites 3) Yana illustrated the gym clothes and school uniform cards from start to finish by herself!

Details/Sources 1) There is sometimes a disconnect between what the sprites are doing and what is actually happening in the stories, as the limits of the medium mean that they can only portray so much.

We will be told via dialogue that what is actually happening is different from what we're seeing on screen, which is where the "novel" part of "visual novel" has to do some heavy lifting.

(above: We are told that Idia is riding Ortho, Jack has tanned and Kalim is wearing glasses, without anything represented visually.)

This is also true of Silver being unusually well-muscled, with characters referencing such repeatedly! (especially in Book 7, for spoiler-reasons that cannot be shared on this blog)

(Ortho: "Silver is also incredibly built!")

In a vignette Silver explains he was able to beat a man in an arm-wrestling contest who had successfully beaten several "burly" members of Savanaclaw:

"All of Ruggie's burly friends had tried, but each lost within seconds. At first the owner went easy on me. Worried he would hurt me, he said. But once he realized I was no pushover, he stopped holding back...It was no easy feat, but all their encouragement helped me eke out a victory."

As for how Silver can possibly be so well-muscled, he explains it is from life with Lilia:

"I've never really struggled with anything involving physical fitness...my daily life back home was training enough. Drawing river water, chopping firewood...Chasing around the animals who lived nearby must have helped strengthen my legs as well...once I stalled while climbing a sheer cliff, and (Lilia) climbed right up beside me to show me how it should be done."

2) In a tweet posted on 2020/5/12 Yana talks about submitting her idea for Crowley to be wearing a vacation outfit in Book 4, despite expecting it to be rejected.

So it seems that she does not have complete control over how the sprites look: she designs the characters but is maybe not doing the game development work of physically implementing them, and there are others who can approve of or reject her ideas based on in-game limitations.

Was a canon-accurate Silver sprite maybe one of those rejections?

Effort was even made to give Silver muscle in the 2nd anniversary PV, so it does seem to be an important point.

3) We do not know too many details about the team that is helping Yana with card illustrations but we know they have been there from the beginning, with the recently released English-version of the first visual book (called "The official art book" in English) providing translations of Yana's notes to the colorists for the ceremonial robes and labwear art.

(Above: hand-written notes seen on Kalim's labwear and ceremonial robes base art)

She also references a graphic artist in her 2020 interview for the Magical Archives:

"As for the illustrations, this was my first time having my original drawings cleaned up by a graphic artist. I am a very rough draftsman by nature, and I make overall corrections before a piece is complete. No matter how careful I am in my original drawings, sometimes details get confused, so whenever I receive a draft back from the graphic artist, I become a useless original artist who is constantly going back to say, ‘I am so sorry, but can you please make these corrections?’" - Toboso Yana (Magical Archives game guide)

But the gym clothes and school uniforms (the original batch of R cards) were different: Yana says she did them all by herself from start to finish, as they were going to be most people's first introductions to the characters.

Disney Twisted-Wonderland has been released today.  ・Character design ・Main scenario creation ・Card illustration (all rarities / including finishing for the R cards) ・Supervision of personal scenarios (writing several as well) I handled everything above. I hope you enjoy it! - Toboso Yana (Twitter, 2020/5/8)

I felt that the initial R school uniforms and sportswear cards are special, as they are likely to be the first introductions to these characters, so I was in charge of them all. I am grateful to have been trusted with them. - Toboso Yana (Twitter, 2020/4/13)

So there we are! 🥳

If anything we can maybe consider the base card art for the gym clothes and school uniforms as more "canon" than the sprite designs of those same characters, even though the sprites are what we're used to seeing, as card art is not being forced to change the characters' appearances in order to fit the limitations of Live 2D sprites ⚔️ Maybe!

(The sprites have this same issue with height! In the game Epel is made taller while Malleus is made shorter, in order to fit his horns in the screen.)

[inbarfink]

Okay, so I already wrote a bunch of stuff about how that scene, although it is really sweet, is also kind of a Bad Sign for Simon - how he refuses to learn the Obvious Lesson from the Winterworld adventure (that being the Ice King again is probably a really really bad idea). But I want to talk about it also a little more about what it means for Fionna’s character as well. 

Because while sitting around and wallowing in self-loathing is probably bad for Fionna, especially after being told that she shouldn't be allowed to exist, and Simon is right to try and get her out of her funk. It's also still worthwhile for Fionna to have some introspection about the Consequences of Her Actions. Because she and Cake really did not consider them at all at first. They have a sense of morality and an instinct towards heroism, but they also tend to kinda forget the fantastical worlds they visit don’t exist entirely for their fantasy and have kind of a Protagonist-Centered-Morality fallacy. 

Most obviously you can see it in the market in Ooo. How Cake, in her excitement, damaged and hurt and even killed

A bunch of innocent marketgoers without even noticing. And then Fionna immediately jumped to Cake’s defense against these ‘weirdos’, who were actually just normal kinda-righteously-angry Oooian citizens.

It’s actually very similar to the whole Winterworld situation. Fionna’s assumption that she’s automatically the hero and protagonist of the story and black-and-white view of the situation and her tendency to kick ass first and ask questions later meant that she just recklessly injured a lot of innocent people.

(It might’ve been worse actually cause at least in Winterworld she was at least manipulated by an evil Wizard)

Fionna and Cake clearly have a great potential for heroism, but they do need to be a bit more considerate of the situation and people around them. And it does make sense considering that from their perspective - they’ve been living a very ordinary life up until now (and Cake was literally an animal. A very clever animal, but still not bound by the same standards of morality as the talking animals in Ooo). Action and adventure and fantasy stuff has been purely the realm of daydream and video games for them - and Fionna literally speaks about it in these terms.

(also, Fionna's Main Character Syndrome was undoubtedly validated when God literally told her that she was created to be the main character of her universe)

So yeah, it takes them some time to really process how to be heroes - they need to grapple with questions that Finn and Jake already kinda dealt with seventeen years ago. And actually a lot of those; how to resolve a situation without necessarily using violence, when does a 'villain' actually deserve sympathy and kindness, the importance of the larger context of any given conflict... their confrontations with Ice King all played a big part in that. It was never just him, but he was still a very major part.

And for Fionna and Cake right now, learning these lessons require some amount of personal introspection. So while it was a sweet attempt at comforting, I dunno if Simon’s little ‘the only problem with that universe is that this Alternative Me was terrible because he didn’t even acknowledge or remember Betty as the love of our life and the light of my entire universe’ thing is actually Good. 

I’m not quite sure Simon is the best person to teach Fionna and Cake heroism 101, because he is so focused on the Crown Quest as the thing that brings back Meaning to his life, and because his fatherly instincts just kinda go “Sad Young Person???? MUST GIVE COMFORT!” and also on account of the kidnapping.

I’m sure Fionna is going to become the heroine she dreams about eventually, it’s just going to be a bumpy ride. The best we can hope for is that they accept Simon’s comfort, that she doesn't start believing that she is nothing but an Error for the entire universe like the Scarab claims, but don’t necessarily listen to all of Simon's his words either.

[someonegoood]

MY WHOLE LIFE pt. 2 ✫ mason mount

part 1, part 2, final part.

in which life does not go on after Mason breaks your heart over and over again. (brother’s best friends troop).

CONTAINS: brother’s best friend troop, angst, some smut (not really explicit) & fluff ! age gap, arguments...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: here's part 2 ! Mason made his first goal for United and I'm emotional 💞 I'll do part 3 later

taglist: @dreamingofautopia @xjval @sunflower-tia @sad-fridge2323 @girlidekanymore @borbolwra3

Chelsea added to their story.

Your phone notified you, immediately dampening your mood. Everything was related to him.

It’s been two months since Mason shattered your heart after that nightmare of a night. The funny thing is that a part of you didn’t hate him, a part of you that still loved him existed. 

You had waited for him to text you to ask how you were and if you were free to hang out. And by the time you realized that he wasn’t going to, it was too late… too awkward for you to ask as well. So, both of you had resorted to ignorance and hostility. 

Life eventually went on, even though you had cut one of the most important people out of your life. And you’d see yourself by night, in your dreams. All these faces in the crowded city of London, and for some reason, you’d still try to find his. Mason was no longer yours.

Although he never was.

The first time Mason saw you after that night was a couple of months later, at a family lunch. The two families —Mounts and yours—had united in your family's garden for a little lunch to catch up on life. You had turned twenty and Lyon was old news. 

But Mason’s eyes were stuck on your body as he watched you sit between his sister and your brother just before him. Sipping from a glass of wine that you most likely didn’t like, he glanced at you.

Your brother had brought his new girlfriend with him and even though you were still as close as ever, his attention was on the pretty blonde talking to your nanny.

Mason had spent so much of his life avoiding you, but after the night of the party, he just wanted to make sure you were okay. Although he just couldn’t. 

—Dear, will you serve me a little piece of that cake? —Your mother had her plate in her hand, waiting for Mason to react. It took him about five seconds to come out of his trance and then he served her what she had ordered.

He was too busy thinking about you.

—So, Mason… when is your next match? Your dad told me you were playing for England. —Your mom tried to lighten up the mood since you were not bickering with Mason as you were on other occasions. 

Mason smiled up while you looked at him and caught a glimpse of his beautiful Cheshire cat smile.

—I’m playing next week, on Sunday… —He looked around at everyone and proceeded. —You are all invited, of course. 

After an hour or two, everyone stood up, scattering around the decorated garden. Mason grabbed his phone from the table and headed to the kitchen in search of a beer.

In the background, the voices of the two families blurred together as you finished washing your plate. Both Mount sisters were busy playing card games with their mother and your brother was having a talk about politics, which you were not at all interested in. You had no one to talk to.

Suddenly, you feel someone behind you trying to open the refrigerator. That bloody refrigerator, which, being so old, could not be opened correctly. You turned around, not expecting to see Mason looking at you.

You headed to the refrigerator to open it, so Mason moved from where he was previously standing, leaning on the kitchen counter. You gave the refrigerator a little kick and it opened.

—Thanks… —He said grabbing the beer, the tension being palpable in the air. After a long pause, you continued:

—How are you? —you asked, he could feel your eyes staring into his side profile, but he stared at the sun setting over the British landscape.

—I’m alright.

Scoring some scarce points with Chelsea has become almost impossible under a year ago now, and you really felt sorry for him, knowing everything he and his team put in.

—How are you holding up? —you stood next to him, nudging his shoulder with yours, before looking down at the floor. You felt the look of pity that Mason was giving you, but you tried to ignore it.

—Thank you, really. 

—Mase...

He looked in your eyes this time, he looked so sad, so broken. So desperate for a hug. You didn’t pressure him to answer your question, instead, you gently placed your head on his shoulder looking along the garden in silence.

—It will be alright, you know. —He hummed, knowing you were still hurt because of what he had said.

—I know. —You whispered back. —And don't worry much about scoring, in the least expected moments your shot is the one that serves the most.

He hated how much you believed him because at that moment he felt like the six-year-old boy with dreams bigger than the world itself, who thought everything was possible. 

Mason looked down at you, the smile on his lips was enough to melt your heart, and threw his head back in a laugh. 

—I don't think I’m ever getting rid of you.

Now it was your turn to laugh. After all the laughing he noticed how your eyes shifted from his own to his lips, and then he remembered why he was avoiding you in the first place. He did a face.

—I know, I know. —You said with a sad look on your face.

—You know I’m too old for you, right? —Mason whispered as he leaned his forehead on yours.

—I’m in it for the long game, Mount.

It felt like your heart was twisting and stuttering, sometimes beating too quickly that you were afraid it was going to push you over the edge. You wanted him to notice, to do something to fix it. 

Time went on flying, the last few days being hectic. It was already Sunday and today Mason was playing with England and obviously, you were more than proud. He had invited your brother —his best friend—, you and your family to watch him from the special box for family and friends.

The cold air hits your face as soon as you enter the box with your family. Excited, you see Debbie and Tony, and their children already seated. You were so nervous that your hands were even sweating.

You sit next to Stacey, Mason's older sister. She gives you a smile.

—Nervous about the game? —she asks.

—A bit, yes... —you say as you settle down, your eyes scanning the pitch, looking for him. For Mason. 

—This should be an easy game, England has a better team.

—You never know. —you reply. You were almost freezing, you only had the basic England t-shirt on.

Stacey noticed that you were shivering from the cold and decided to take off the sweatshirt she had tied around her shoulders. She put it on your lap and smiled.

—Put it on, otherwise, you'll freeze to death here. —she said, laughing.

—I'm... —You said about to deny it. For a second, you thought about the cold that you would catch without the sweatshirt, so you decided to take it. —Oh, never mind.

The sweatshirt was white and had his number and surname printed on the front, in a blue font. This made you remember the uncountable times when you stole Mason's sweatshirts just to have his number on you.

Stacey, without you seeing, grabbed her phone and texted his brother: "Just wanted to say that she's here and she's got your name on her sweatshirt. Good luck! We're all rooting for you. And don't worry, she'll wait for you."

All of a sudden, Summer, Mason's niece, came up to you asking if she could sit in your lap to have a better look at the pitch. It was no secret that Summer enjoyed seeing you, as she had grown up seeing your brother and you in the Mount household.

—Look over there, Summer! There is your uncle. —said Stacey, and both Summer and you looked over to where the players were entering the enormous pitch. There he was, beautiful as always.

The whistle was blown and the match started. Everyone was immersed in the excitement of the box, watching the match carefully. The atmosphere was electric, and each second increased the tension.

—Yes! —You screamed when Mason's friend, Declan, scored the opening goal, feeling your heart beat against your chest rapidly. Summer looked up at you with wide eyes, before she started giggling. You smiled and leaned down to where she was and kissed her on the forehead.

The second half started and your eyes only followed Mason running up and down the pitch. Only one goal was scored in the whole 45 minutes of the first half, that being Declan's goal.

Abruptly, Stones stole the ball from a player on the opposing team. He ran alone, jumped over some defenders and, feinting, the ball passed to Henderson on the right side. He analyzed the position of the players spread around the pitch before passing it to Foden, who was almost close to the goal.

He passed it to Mason and he, avoiding the players, aimed and kicked with all his strength.

The world went silent for a moment. He had scored.

After realizing that he had scored a goal, Mason ran to the end of the field, right where you were. The atmosphere was pure shouting, people jumping and celebrating but you only had eyes for Mason.

He looked towards the box looking for those who truly love him and just at that precise moment, you connected glances. With a shaky breath, you stood up from your seat and waved to him, also trying to hold Summer up with your other arm.

Mason's heart melted when he saw that scene and many things went through his head: he couldn't believe he had scored a goal after so long and he also couldn't believe how beautiful you looked with his niece in your arms.

In celebration, he pointed to both of you and you could only sigh in love. The game ended with a great performance from Mason and a win for England.

As soon as he stepped into the box, he scanned the room for you, but Summer caught him off guard.

—Uncle Mase! —she ran toward him and he picked her up, planting a kiss on her cheek while she wrapped her small arms around his neck.

—My favourite person! —His eyes fell on you and he didn't know if it was his imagination or the fact that he hadn't seen you in days, but you looked prettier than usual.

You were standing at the back, watching Mason greet his family. You felt shy and awkward, which made you hate the feeling even more. All you wanted was love from him and for that, you haven't slept well in the days after the family lunch with the Mount's.

—I played well, all thanks to you. —He kissed her head and his niece giggled. The little girl ran toward her mother and then closed the door, leaving you and Mason all alone. Your family had congratulated Mason before and told you they were waiting outside.

—How have you been? —His voice was gentle like he was afraid to say something.

—Mason! —you laughed. —You just scored a tremendous goal for England and you ask me how am I? Sometimes I don't understand you.

—Alright, alright. You have a point! —he laughed, definitely not missing those nervous butterflies in his stomach. He felt like a little boy.

His gaze searched yours with an intensity that sent shivers down your spine. He scratched the back of his neck and then looked at your sweatshirt with his surname and number.

His number looked very good on you, he thought.

He gazed at your lips and he came dangerously close to you. You stepped back, hitting the table. Mason was looking straight into your eyes when he suddenly grabbed you by the waist and sat you on the table. You let out a little squeal. The air was thick with tension, and all you craved was to pull him close and kiss him passionately.

—We-we should go. —you said, clearing your throat. —Your family is waiting.

Quickly, Mason grabbed your wrist.

—Mase... You don’t have feelings. You don’t have a heart.

Now he’s frowning as he tries to unravel your words. His breath hitches.

—I feel things… —your heart twirls with the way his voice sounds. You had always loved his voice. How croaky it was. But you never imagined that it would turn your entire world upside down to hear him say that.

Pushing his hand down, you look back, weak and concerned. He worries you might have suddenly regretted all of this. That you would walk away and never want to talk to him ever again.

What he didn't know is that he's everything you were imagining those long nights… he had never kissed you, not even touched you.

—It’s okay if you want to stop- —he said, while you slid your hands under his t-shirt. Running up and down your hands through his lower torso, you felt his abs contract.

—Mount, I'm certain that I'm okay. —you said, giggling. He smirked. Your core grows tighter with his expressions, now holding onto his broad shoulders.

Unexpectedly, you both heard from behind the closed door someone shout: —Mate, are you there? The party starts at ten, hurry!

Fuck. That was your brother.

Mason had completely forgotten about the party in honour of their win. How the fuck was he getting out of that room with a hard-on? He had to calm himself.

You, on the other side, felt your heart falls into pieces. You thought about how long you had waited for this exact moment, every time you gave your endless hope all you ended up doing was bleeding. And this time, not only he was about to leave you alone but he was going to leave you turned on.

—I'm-I'm sorry... —he said, exiting quickly from the room.

After that match, you only heard from Mason through your brother. He had told you that after the match, at the party, Mason had rejected every girl who appeared to flirt with him.

Apparently, you've had an effect on him.

Mason hated how his heartbeat boomed in his ear when he saw you standing in his parents' house, with a blue shirt that had printed out the number 19 on the back, hugging your figure. 

You had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, you had for sure gone through puberty. He didn’t like to stare but he found it hard not to sometimes. Especially on family boat trips when you would wear a bikini in front of him.

—So, we're leaving after lunch. Do you want to meet at the stadium or at home?

You took a minute to understand. —What?

—The game, remember? We're having lunch here and then driving up to watch the game. —Said your brother, while getting on the boat. About three weeks had passed since you almost kissed Mason and now you were about to hop on the Mount's boat in Portsmouth.

You had completely forgotten about the game. During your conversations with your brother, you could sense that Mason hadn't mentioned anything about that night which was, in a way, kind of relieving.

Just like you, Mason had also forgotten that your family was coming over. But when his sister sent him a text saying that your family would join him before his game, he was flabbergasted.

You both hadn't spoken since the night of the win, but you both were thinking about that interaction since then. To forget that incident, he had spoken to one of his best friends, Ben, in search of a solution.

—Mate, what you need is a good fling. Maybe you should invite someone next time you're going on a family boat day —said Ben, laughing because of what Mason was asking him.

You got on Mason's boat, feeling heavy-hearted once again. After an hour, you were seated on the floor, helping Stacey with a puzzle, after your mom expelled you from the kitchen when trying to help her. Meanwhile, Mason and his mother sat down on the couch.

—She has grown into a beautiful woman, don't you think? —His mom said teasingly, already knowing that you were not the only one fallen for someone.

—Yes, she has. —He looked at you, seeing you laugh at something his sister had said. —Mom... I think I fucked up.

—If you had fucked up, she wouldn't be here.

—No mom, I really- —Mason got interrupted by the entrance of a tall, dark-eye, skinny blond, almost gotten out from a runway. She turned toward Mason and presented herself as Daphne, a friend. Debbie now understood why her son said he had fucked up really bad.

Your brother, seeing Daphne —the supposed fling of Mason— talking with him, turned to you.

—Forget your stuff, let’s just get off this boat. Don’t turn around okay? —his hands gripping strongly your shoulders. He knew how much you liked his best friend.

You laughed and followed your brother down the steps of the boat before stopping in your tracks.

—Since when have I ever listened to you? Dear God, I- — Your mouth fell open as you turned around to be met with Mason and his mother, and the presence of a girl that looked like an actual model.

She was leaning on him and he was laughing at whatever she had to say, while Debbie looked at you with pity. You felt like he had personally ripped your heart out, for a hundred times.

—You knew?

Your brother sighed before running his hands through his hair: —She's only a side thing, a one-time fling. I mean she’s not you, but he decided to find someone before Christmas. —He shrugged his shoulders and you felt the rage creeping up your body.

—What about me? When will I be happy? —you said, crying.

That sentence broke your brother's heart.

19 years to be exact, that's the time you've been waiting for him.

[threepandas]

Bad End: The Nunnery

The Queen's portrait was a magnificent thing. A masterpiece of light and color, detail and delicate symbolism. She was immortalized. Forever in the prime in her life. The height of her beauty. Regal and magnificent as the day the King first saw her.

She was gazing to the left, face cool, and too those who might not know her? She might even seem cold. But, according to her? She had been a WRECK. Terribly nervous that she would trip or embarrass herself. She had been, after all, new to this country. Still uncertain. Standing before a VERY important figure in both the social and political circles of her new home.

So she defaulted to her "princess mask" as she called it.

Focused on her maid.

It? Was one of many such stories the Queen has told me. Over tea. On walks in her garden. Practicing etiquette or dancing. At meals. The King often joining in fondly. Reminiscing about those earnest and awkward early days in their marriage. Assuring me that my own will be just as warm and lovely.

But...

I know it will not.

Otome games. Oh, otome games. Why did I ever love you? What could I have done to anger you so? That you would cast me in to a role such as this? The woman to be scorned. Who must dedicate her life, work and work and WORK... only to have it all ripped away. Have everything she's ever known stolen by some upstart. One with no training, no support, no IDEA of what she's doing.

Who will lead everyone and everything to disaster, RUIN, with her careless tounge and unthinking ways.

Too Rule is not a GAME.

It is a SACRIFICE.

The crown not some trinket you wear just to match your DRESS! The crown prince some man you marry for mere LOVE! If love comes, you are blessed. Lucky. But the reality is? You sit on a chair that bleeds you dry. Beneath a crown of suffering. Asked to make impossible choices. Blamed for things beyond your control. Expected to live, bleed, then die there.

With some gods damned DIGNITY.

Can she do that? CAN SHE? Your pretty, flower brained, indecisive child of a lover? The one who is so "different" and so "carefree"? Who's lives has she held in her hands? What futures? Does she even KNOW who our current trade partners are? What the tax on sheep's wool is?

For that matter...

Where were YOU?

No. My husband to be? Will never marry me. I know there will be no happy ending here. And... and it hurts. Because dispite KNOWING my "role"? My destiny? Time moves slowly. Day by day. And I have a schedule to keep. A part I must play.

Unlike my Cannon counterpart, I am not haughty. Nor am I cruel. I behave as best I can, for a young lady of my station. Dignity, compassion, but with leadership. I am being trained, after all, to be the future Queen.

I play with my young brother-in-laws. Rolling balls in the flower garden. Clapping games. Listening to them practicing their reading. And as they grow, practicing their swords. I attend my lessons. Attend the rare party. Barely see my birth parents, who were only too happy to all but sell me off for power.

And my fiance?

Can barely tolerate me.

Cruel "jokes" and mud. Only getting angrier when I do not shriek and howl like the upset child he expected I would be. The more he gets punished for trying to torment me, the worse a witch I apparently am. Clearly, having planned it all. His poor mother is distraught. His father furious with his tutors. Who is allowing this behavior, they wonder? It is certainly not them.

But they can not be everywhere. So instead, I am brought where they can supervise. I do not mind. Find quite joy in how the Queen plays with my hair instead of her fan. How the King will pick me up, when I was small enough, to place me on his lap and show me his work. Then sets aside a chair, so we may "work together" as though my lesson's work could ever rival his own in importance.

They had wanted a daughter.

Love their sons.

But...and here they always trail off. The weight of something heavy and unsaid passing between them. The King hand usually warm, cradling, on my head. They do not want to say it. Worry me so young. Or worse, traumatize me.

After all... the King's family has a nasty paternal lineage trait, in which boys tend to try and kill the competition. Be it their siblings, parent's, or sons. They don't... share well. It had been flavor text in the game. For the "only kind to me" type prince.

Daughters however? Generally normal. Tend to take after their mothers.

The King had widely been known to want twenty and maybe a prince... if he HAD too.

They got several prince's instead. Worse, it had nearly killed her Grace to give birth to them. After that? The King refused to try again. Turned his hopes to his future daughters-in-law instead. It... it was beyond what I could have ever dreamed.

It was WARM. Dream like.

Gentle.

They radiated the sort of strength and dignity that made you WANT to listen. To lean into them and be protected. Sitting with the Queen in her parlor, side by side, as I leaned against her? Cradled against soft fabric and rich dyes. Her unique perfume delicately filling the air like tendrils of mist in a dream, the scent of tea and the melodic hum of her voice as she talked. It was like a beautiful trance sometimes.

Or when the King took me riding on his massive beast of a warhorse, just because he knew I loved the scared up old menace. I had to sit practically in his lap, side saddle, because the old grouch was a gremlin who wouldn't behave otherwise. But WOULD let me pet them with enough bribes.

I... I tried to be a good child.

A daughter they could think fondly off.

And... and I knew it would HURT. It would HURT so, so fucking bad. Not to lose my ASS of a fiance. No, he was a fool. But... but to lose the closest thing I had to parents in this world. I... I didn't want to go...

But.

BUT!

If I must? Then I would be well trained. Have a spotless reputation and dignity befit a royal. His Majesty could no doubt help me find a new engagement befitting my station. And I doubted her Grace would just toss me aside. I... I hoped.

When the Protagonist came? It was every nightmare I'd ever had. Endless scandal and horrifying indignity. Even my political rivals, my social foes, were grimacing. Were taking me aside to "freshen my make up" so I wouldn't have to see my intended behaving so... unforgivably.

Just fornicate in public, why don't you?

Can't be any LESS subtle.

I held the fiancee of the heir to Minister of Defense, a lovely girl I had known but not well, as she wept. The son of the prime minister's fiancee stared, grim faced, into the distance. She had come from several nations away as part of an alliance. I offered her my guest rooms. Whatever she should need.

Things spiraled.

They played out their happly little love story. Acting as fluttering children as their actions caused chaos and destruction all around them. She refused to choose. Somehow her father allowed this. I kept myself in the public eye, knowing better then to hide, for all that I desperately wished too. It payed off.

Someone tried to frame me. Spread terrible rumors about henious acts. To bad that everyone had SEEN me suffering with dignity and grace, in public where they could watch me.

It seems I was not the only one to reincarnate.

Why could not just be happy? Fall "in love" and steal one live from one soul? Was your greed so great? Did it really anger you that much? That I would not play along?

It certainly angered His Majesty, the rumors. They were unforgivable, according to Her Grace. But... BUT, sadly, the girl was pregnant. And the idiot was their son. The other idiots their allies foolish, foolish offspring. What could be done?

Simple.

Send them to His Majesty's brother.

It was, after all, tradition to spread out after coming of age. What with the whole "I want you dead" tendency that ran in their family. All the better so as to not step on metaphorical toes, as it were. And the King? Had one surviving (for now) brother. The high priest of the High Northern Temple. Good and remote.

Perfect for banishment and a life of reflection.

That, however, left me I reminded them. I was met with matching smiles. Adopted or marry the next youngest prince! Obviously. Ah. I see. But wouldn't that be-?

The queen takes me arm, tucking it in hers, and tells me not to worry about it. Leads me towards the gardens. Have I seen the new flowers they've just ordered? They are quite lovely. I had not. I let myself be distracted. Lean my head against the Queens shoulder as we walk. And finally... relax.

I'm safe.

The Queen smiles. We are joined by the King, his expression warm. I feel at peace. Protected. Treasured. I love them so much. A warm and perfect family. I'm glad I don't have to leave. I say as much and they laugh, hugging me.

"Oh, of COURSE Darling! We would NEVER let you go!"

"That's right, my dearest. You're here forever."

[katiascraft]

BLOG MASTERLIST

works by cate :) hope you like it 💌 feedback is always welcome.

FORMULA 1

Charles Leclerc

“You knew all too well I was right where you left me” [on the making] -> It’s the story of a woman frozen in the moment her world fell apart. A perfect dinner ended with, “I met someone else,” and while everyone moved on, she remained stuck in that instant, unable to let go of the past. A poignant tale of heartbreak, grief, and the weight of being trapped in a “forever” that never was.

“Am i too much for you? Maybe I’m too much for everyone” -> Reader feels insecure but Charles makes sure she knows how important she is to the world (specially his world).

“Tender is the night for a broken heart” -> You been feeling very sad lately. Your emotional stress is taking you places you didn’t want to back in ever again. And Charles knows it - just wanna make sure you know you are loved despite it all.

“You think you won ‘cause you got the man. But honey, you’ll always be a fan” -> Charles has a new girl and she’s obsessed with you.

“If I define her I limit her” -> You go together to the Gladiator || premier because your best friend Paul Mescal invited you. You didn’t expect Charles being so sweet talking about you on interviews.

“26” -> the world didn’t know you and Charles broke up a few months ago. it was until you haven’t been to any gp people started speculating. he finds some one new. Makes his dream com true. And you write an album about him reveling how you broke up and why.

Lando Norris

part 1: “opposite”, part 2: “sue me” -> Reader and Lando broke up a few months ago. You both assist a mutual friend’s birthday party and Lando has a new girl. Then reader has a girlfriend and thinks she’s all right. But did she really move on?

part 1: “so long, London”, part 2: “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE” -> You and Lando have been engaged for a while. You thought you were end game but he didn’t love you anymore. Then, you moved on. But Lando didn’t.

“If you were my boyfriend. And I was your girlfriend. Probably wouldn’t see nobody else” -> you are just ‘friends’.

“If nothing else get you through. Then darling, I’ll cry with you” -> Lando was fighting the championship until the Brazil GP happens. Max wins and Lando pretends it’s not a big deal. But you know, it is.

“Him” -> oblivious idiots to lovers. That’s what Max said.

“I would set the world on fire for you” -> after the Brazil GP, lando comes home to the worst week of his year. Also, it was his birthday. So even though the world hates him, you wanna make sure he is loved and he did nothing wrong. And that if you could you would set the world on fire for him.

Oscar Piastri

“I’ll pay the price I guess” -> the world hates you’re dating Oscar.

“This is how you fall in love” -> Oscar is truly, madly, deeply in love with you.

"Maybe i should've told you i miss you. But i don't know if you feel the same" -> your insecurities lead to lose the love of your life, but destiny always play its worst (or best) cards for you. in the aftermath of it all, two souls become one (again). or that's what you'd like.

Franco Colapinto

“But we were something, don’t you think so? And if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” -> You and franco broke out a year ago. You are now Williams Racing social media manager and he’s an F1 driver. Your job just got a bit harder because of him. Is possible a second chance?

"Modales" -> You had a brief yet beautifully intense romance with F1 driver Franco Colapinto a few years ago when he was driving for F3. When he decided to end your relationship, you didn’t expect he would move on that quickly.

“Pueden más que el amor y son más fuertes que el Olimpo” -> how is like to date Franco since your teenage years. And how is for you as a student to balance your world and his world to make the relationship work.

Lewis Hamilton

“Can’t believe you’ve noticed me” -> Reader and Leiws are on vacation. One day under the golden hour he decides to sing you a song he wrote for you.

Made in Argentina : The series

Reader is argentine and Franco Colapinto's bestie.

Lando’s Version -> part 1

Oscar’s version -> part 1

Franco Colapinto

coming soon.

Like , reblog & comment if you like! Support your fave writers!

[msnihilist]

Your idea of playing with your dollies is a father sexually abusing his son. And you romanticize it. And before you argue “Yeah but there’s dark content in media that romanticizes it!” Yes, they exist but it does not mean it’s depicted in a positive light. It’s portrayed as scary and traumatizing to the character in question. And while they’re not an actual person, it hits home to victims. There is nothing okay with going “tee hee rape!”

Yep, it sure is! And I sure do :)

"that does not mean it's depicted in a positive light" I'm sorry, did you think that the cannibalism in Hannibal was just ketchup, too, or something? Dark media constantly romanticizes this sort of stuff. The primary relationship in Hannibal is scary and traumatizing, yes, but also romantic. The good ending is that the two toxic lovers eat people together.

Black Butler has two cousins in a romantic relationship, and their engagement is taken very seriously by them both and is in fact a core component of their characters. It's an incestuous relationship played completely straight and taken seriously by the writer and is definitely not scary or traumatizing.

Invincible has a relationship between an immortal man and a girl who is 20 at the most (literally a part of "Teen Team," I doubt she's older than that), and not only is it shown to be healthy, but her death devastates this man, even having lost so many others in his long, long life.

In Futurama, one of the main characters time traveled and fucked (and impregnated) his grandmother. Not only is this not shown to be scary or traumatizing, it's a reoccuring joke, referenced multiple times, and it is plot-important so you can't even explain the underlying plot of the show without mentioning it.

The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey is a horror game, and the good ending is the brother and sister characters fucking each other. Incest is literally good for them.

So, yes, media depicts these topics in a positive light frequently. Do you know why? Because no one cares.

This is all adult content made for adult consumers, and if you need everything you read or watch to tell you that rape and incest are bad, then you are the problem.

Do you know what does hit home to victims? My writing. My best friend is someone I met through my writing. She told me that as someone who had been abused and groomed, my stories where the underage character and the adult get a happy ending make her cry. Why? Because in fiction, I have the power to make this story have a happy ending.

In my fantasy world, the kind adult isn't secretly a predator. There is no power imbalance. The kid can be emotionally mature enough to handle this relationship. The adult can actually be safe and not just a creep. The relationship can last a long time and be safe and happy for the both — because it's not real.

It gives my friend (and victims like her) great comfort to indulge a bit, and imagine that their story could have ended happily, too. Obviously, it couldn't have in reality — that's why my friend is reading about it instead of running back to her abuser.

Stop trying to police fantasy. You are hurting people — harmless thoughts are not.

[jazeswhbhaven]

Theory Time!!! (please don't criticize me too hard on this I'm only throwing caution to the wind)

⚠There are spoilers below the cut from Chapter 7 and other parts of the game new players may have missed or not read yet, proceed at your own risk⚠

Let's begin with the last part of the sub-story. There was not much happening, a friendly day of Ppyong hanging out with the bestie and then....

This stood out to me. He was already acting out of character earlier in the sub story for this chapter after he ended up in the hospital. Before then he was perfectly fine and behaving "as normal". What is it that he wants to forget? Hasn't his life been pretty standard for a average man growing up in SK? He also doesn't do anything too bad, so one starts to question...

Also, beforehand, Minhyeok truthfully never did want to know much about what happens in Hell other than the random question he asked back in Chapter 4 about death when he was visiting Ra-On's parents' graves. *keep this in mind I'm going to mention it later*

Now, when he mentions this here it's a big fucking clue that something is not right. Usually asking hypotheticals like this is prepping the other for the real question/confession just in case they might have a bad reaction to being told the truth. It seems though that Ppyong affirmed his worries that he would be friends with someone who isn't a devil as long as they were on Hell's side. Like Samael (Leamas). But then...it happens....

Minhyeok is fucking gone right before he was about to say something incredibly important and could change the dynamic of his and Ppyong's friendship. What's more is that I'm guessing that right around the time that Ra-On and the others found the Minhyeok child version from what was said here.

And then....this.

This is a big cliffhanger and a huge clue that something is going to happen to Minhyeok to where there will no longer be moments like we saw before between him and Ppyong. Now, I am quite sure this doesn't mean "death" in the way that's typical. This could mean that this version of Minhyeok will no longer exist and this is where my theories come in---->

Theory A: Minhyeok is Ra-On's Guardian Angel

So if go all the way back to beginning, Minhyeok jumped in front of Gabriel's attack to protect Ra-On

"I don't have hard feelings for you"

He says the same thing to Minhyeok before slashing him across the chest in an instant. To me, since the beginning I thought the phrase as a bit odd considering when would Gabriel had seen Minhyeok before?

Unless he absolutely has

Gabriel is not against killing his own people. Neither are his brothers. This is shown plenty times in other instances. Minhyeok originally being a guardian angel for Ra-On since their parents death would be possible because angels, like Leamas have decided to go rouge and no longer do the bidding of "God's plan" if it meant murdering those you loved.

Minhyeok as a Guardian Angel for Ra-On could simply be...over time and each generation he's manifested as a human so he could keep a close eye on the descendants of Solomon. Perhaps before he was Minhyeok, he was someone else, and in the very beginning he was originally an angel who fell in love with Solomon and vowed to protect his descendants in any shape or form.

Now, that's really throwing some stuff out there based on this interaction but don't worry I've got other stuff too to help my thought process based on what happened after he was slashed.

Classic.

But Satan confirmed it. Minhyeok is out of the building. Using human logic...and the amount of time it probably took for Satan and Gabriel to do their thing, he'd been sitting there for possibly over five minutes or more pretty much "dead". Any human gone for that long is guaranteed to be gone. And in the rules of death for any movie I've seen...when you do ask for a loved one to come back, they aren't themselves. Think "Pet Semetary" rules.

But even after the contract was sealed between Satan and Ra-On, he was there to take them anyway regardless of what contract they may or may not have wanted to form.

And there's Minhyeok acting pretty much like himself. Nothing out of the ordinary except this huge scar on his chest.

Now I'm going to take you back to the Halloween event. I don't have specific screenshots for this because I was a dummy and didn't record it 💀 But follow me the best possible.

During Minhyeok's visit to Hell with Ppyong by his side, it was very strange that with every single angel attack, he only suffered scratches and bruises. There's explosions, weapons, and he's defenseless and yet...he didn't immediately die.

THEN, Minhyeok runs into each Seraphim. Michael avoided him, Raphael attacked him and threw him into a wall but then decided...nah I won't. Then Gabriel yet again tried to kill him but this time it didn't work due to the contract Ra-On made and it overriding the damage Gabriel's scythe brings...to where Minhyeok can not be killed by it ever again. Gabriel decides to pack it up though frustrated because he ofc was unaware of said contract ever being made on Minhyeok in the first place.

Here's where my Guardian Angel theory also gets somewhat supported in a strange way...

Minhyeok must have been under Gabriel's rule, hence why he just keeps trying to kill him because he went against God in the first place. Also it appears that Gabriel only focuses on things he deems important so anything else might get ignored or tucked away so he doesn't remember all the details correctly. I think his speech pattern is not only a part of his personality, but him truly trying to remember if he already said something or did something before.

The reason the other two Seraphim didn't bother touching him, is that they are aware of his purpose and his status after seeing the slash mark glow on his chest. (yes it was glowing apparently)

Ya'll are in luck I found this screenshot in one of my old as fuck posts lol

You see how he's perfectly fine??? I even questioned back then how could he possibly be okay after being fucking thrown through a brick building by Raphael who could clearly kill him in a second flat.

yeahhhhh yeahhh something's up

But the thing about it, is remember Satan said Minhyeok wouldn't remember too much of anything after being revived and the thing is Minhyeok does end up talking with Gabriel and he does remember him and Gabriel remembers him too.

But before anything else gets discussed Satan shows up anyway and that's done and done.

Now if you're wondering how could no one detect that Minhyeok is an angel the entire time, it's very easy.

Remember no one could clock Leamas as an angel? Everyone pretty much accepted him as a devil and went along with it. The only one who was even skeptical was Sitri but I chalked that up to him being like that in the first place.

I believe that because it was Gabriel that disguised him, that power is great enough to even trick the Kings, so imagine an angel's soul that travels through every human destined to be near Solomon's descendants? With that much time to cloak yourself, surely no one would be able to notice anything.

Minhyeok's memories, everything he went through ofc is valid. But he's had to do it often and so well, that each life he lives as a human gets eaiser, that is until...something different happens.

The reason all of this is coming to a head, is because this Guardian Angel never expected to fall in love with one of Solomon's descendants, that being Ra-On and now it's complicated.

How does this tie in with child Minheyok?

He mentions once after his fainting spell "I should have grown up sooner" and then later..."Growing up isn't always a good thing" It could be that now since Ra-On is in Hell, and he can't do much to protect them while on Earth he feels perhaps he has failed them somehow and in order to truly save them...he has to start over. The only way he can is to manifest himself in Hell as said child in order to look over them and then later he would then reveal his angel form once all is said and done.

Theory B: Minhyeok became an angel after dying

Let's start with some lore from Chapter 4's sub-story. Ppyong made it very simple that humans just die, they are not meant to go to Heaven nor Hell, their soul is just sort of floating around aimlessly.

However, the options as he states, if you have special talents or are a good being you are called to God and given a chance to either live as a devil in Hell, an angel or Heaven or forever in the human world.

Given the circumstances, that Minhyeok sacrificed himself for Ra-On, this is very much an option that happened, however there was a contract made at the same time to bring him back and this could affect things. Also, God is MIA so these terms could very much be different in Minhyeok's case.

Gabriel pretty much made the choice for him with his scythe. The contract brought him back and because of the injury now he's no longer the Minhyeok everyone knew and grew up with. The angel part of him is dormant during this time and low key to where he doesn't even realize it himself. Thus why everything went back to "normal" for him.

But in Chapter 7, once Ra-On got closer to the Ark Covenant....things were changing up. And the part of the trailer of Gabriel mentioning "did he have something to do with that" and a obscured silhouette of a mystery angel....

It's very possible that Gabriel indirectly turned Minhyeok into an angel and now he has someone to help bring Ra-On to Heaven which was part of the plan in the beginning.

This would be why we see Minhyeok suddenly acting out of character after his fainting spell, suddenly being reminiscent and also tell Minseok (the older brother) to be careful.

This would also explain Minseok not recognizing his own brother and being uneasy the entire time about his behavior being out of the ordinary. This theory is uh a little harder for me to validate but it's there!

Theory C: Minhyeok isn't Minhyeok at all, but rather a clone of an existing angel in Heaven meant to keep an eye on if any of Solomon's descendants pop up

This could easily tie in my previous theories in bits and pieces. Gabriel having no issue killing said "clone" because he knows he can just make another one and it's purpose has been fulfilled. Since Ra-On is still alive though, this causes problems for him so he has to go back and rethink.

Issue though, is that Ra-On cares for Minhyeok and asked for him to be brought back. So now this clone is running around, Gabriel is pissed about that but not too concerned which is why he's left him alone, again he's stuck on Earth, unable to get in Gabriel's way so why should he care?

When Ra-On is in the Reverse Babel Tower, Gabriel has to set everything into motion, but at the same time Minhyeok's clone is reacting to said change as well. This is when we get child Minhyeok who could very well, just a different form of Minhyeok's true angel form which isn't ready to be revealed to Ra-On just yet. This could also tie into why Minhyeok on Earth vanished. His existence is no longer necessary which is why that was the last time Ppyong would ever see him again.

Things to think about:

So...what about him giving Ra-On his cum for energy?

It's funny that none of the devils ever stated that Solomon needed both exclusively. It could be that he was just that powerful of a human and adapted so well that he didn't need both sources.

At the same time, since Minhyeok wouldn't be human in either case, perhaps it was never human essence needed in the first place, but angel essence and devil essence to keep humans thriving in Hell.

Where did Solomon get his dose of angel essence? Well...that I'm unsure of without throwing a wild ass accusation that he didn't need it because he had formed a relationship with God, and thus one night with him meant he'd have essence for eternity.

wild huh...

So what about the Kim family? It could be possible that Minhyeok didn't even exist until Ra-On's parents died. This would be why Minseok had a lapse in not recognizing him in the hospital because he never existed in the first place and it was just a false memory planted in his head.

Because think about it, after Minheyok's disappearance, and one day Ppyong tries to find Minseok as Juno only to be told "Huh? I don't have a younger brother, you must have me mistaken for someone else." and this crushes Ppyong's world. (i know sad stuff I APOLOGIZE)

I'm pretty sure that's all I had in terms of what I think is going on with Minhyeok, which tbh this ruins my idea that he and Ra-On are the OTP...because I mean what are they gonna go back to? He ain't there anymore and it's very much leaning toward the fact that Minhyeok is really an angel T^T

Like??? I wouldn't even know what to do in that instance as Ra-On I think I'd just be irritated and go to Niflheim and sleep in Belphie's room for like a week or something or have Buer do that pressure thing so I can be knocked out for a while. ANYWAYS, as I said at the very beginning these are just my theories and I don't expect any of them to make sense to everyone nor do I think it's gonna happen exactly as I stated. BUT yes, please feel free to pop in my inbox or reply with your thoughts. I'm sure we are all thinking similar in some ways.

[sidekick-hero]

(steddie | teen | 1.2k | tags: first date, first kiss, very slight angst | written for the stwg daily prompt kiss in the rain)

Today has to be perfect, Eddie vows as he parks his van in the Harrington's driveway.

Because today Eddie is taking Steve out on their first date.

Frankly, he has no idea how he managed to get a date with the Steve Harrington. Even more, he has no idea how someone as beautiful and kind and sweet and funny as Steve would want to go out with someone like him.

It certainly helps that they saved the world together and share many, many traumas, as well as some horrible scars that tell the story of everything they've been through.

Eddie wants to believe that's not all that binds them, that the months they've spent growing closer over shared custody of Steve's six nuggets, movie nights, and long hours spent smoking and talking on top of the Munsons' new trailer have a lot to do with it, too.

But Eddie also knows that the Eddie of a year ago would have scoffed at the idea of going out with King Steve. Just like that Steve wouldn't have gone out with the town freak.

Which is why Eddie needs today to be a success.

Today has to be perfect.

As he rings the bell, his heart beats wildly in his chest and sweat forms on his palms.

Steve answers the door with a smile that makes Eddie's knees weak. "Hey," he says, and Eddie's mind blanks for a moment. Steve's wearing those jeans, the ones that look like they're painted on, showing off his legs and...other parts. And he has them paired with a striped polo shirt that is not supposed to look as good as it does.

"Hey," Eddie replies, finally finding his voice. "You ready for a day full of adventure?"

Steve grins and nods, stepping out and closing the door behind him. "Lead the way. As long as there are no monsters to fight, I'm game."

Eddie's plan is simple: a picnic in an empty field he found a few weeks ago, but first some good old-fashioned ball throwing to indulge Steve's love of sports. It's no secret that Eddie hates sports, but he's willing to make an exception for Steve. He often feels that Steve is the one indulging the kids, Robin, or even himself, because except for Lucas, none of their friends enjoy sports, either playing or watching.

So Eddie wants to show Steve that his hobbies and interests are important too, and that Eddie can try to be as involved in them as Steve is in his.

They drive to the field with music blasting, a mix tape that Eddie has made especially for this occasion, a perfect blend of his and Steve's taste in music, and he feels a little more at ease as Steve sings along, off-key and carefree. When "Somebody To Love" comes on, Steve playfully nudges him with his elbow and Eddie joins him as they both sing along, grinning broadly.

"Did you bring me here to murder me and get rid of the body, Munson?" Steve jokes at the sight of the empty field and Eddie lets out a theatrical cackle.

"Afraid I'm going to have my way with you, Harrington?"

Heat pools in his stomach at the smile Steve gives him in response.

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

Deciding on a hasty retreat before he does something embarrassing like whimper, Eddie climbs out of the van and goes to the back, pulling out an old baseball and a pair of gloves.

"Thought we could start with this," Eddie says, holding up the ball to Steve, who has followed him to the back of the van.

Steve's eyes light up at the sight. "You remembered."

As if Eddie could ever forget all the secrets and stories Steve had shared with him, while the stars above them were the only witnesses to some of the best moments of Eddie's life.

Steve had told him how he had always loved baseball as a little boy, and how his father had sometimes taken him to games. Looking back, Steve said he probably loved his father's attention and time more than the sport itself, but for whatever reason, it had been his first great love. He collected all the cards and knew everything there was to know about stats and players and rules. All he wanted was to be a player.

When he tried out at school, he didn't make the team. It was only years later that Steve found out why he had trouble hitting the ball with his bat: he had impaired vision, something his parents never bothered with, so he was never examined. At the time, he believed it was because he wasn't good enough, a failure. His dad seemed to think the same thing, because after he didn't make the team, he never took Steve to games again.

Steve hadn't played since, so Eddie figured it was time to help Steve have some good memories of baseball again.

Eddie shrugs, trying to play it cool. "Yeah, figured you'd like it."

They toss the ball back and forth, Steve coaching Eddie on his form, laughing when Eddie fumbles a catch. They're both having fun, and Eddie starts to relax, thinking maybe this date won't be a disaster after all.

But then Eddie misjudges a throw, and the ball smacks him right on the forehead. He stumbles back, more surprised than hurt, but his confidence takes a hit.

"Shit, Eddie, you okay?" Steve rushes over, concern etched on his face.

Eddie laughs it off, though his heart sinks. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just my luck, huh?"

Steve looks relieved but still worried. "Maybe we should take a break."

Eddie nods, feeling like he's already ruined things. He wonders why he thought it was a good idea to throw a ball with an ex-jock when he failed gym class more than once. So much for giving Steve a good baseball memory.

Still, he trudges over to the van to get everything they need for the picnic he has planned. The delighted smile on Steve's face at the sight of the basket and the blanket under Eddie's arm makes him think that maybe all is not lost. But just as he spreads out the blanket and unloads the food he's prepared, he glances up at the sky and sees dark clouds gathering. Still, he clings to the hope that they can finish before the rain comes.

Eddie should have known better. Luck and he have only been acquaintances at the best of times.

Just as they're settling in, the first raindrop falls, then another, and within seconds, it's pouring.

Eddie's heart sinks. This day was supposed to be perfect, and now it's a mess. "I'm so sorry, Steve. This was supposed to be perfect and now —"

Steve cuts him off with a bright laugh, his hair plastered to his forehead, rain running down his face. "Eddie, it's fine. Really."

Eddie looks at him, confused. "But the rain, and the ball, and—"

Steve steps closer, cupping Eddie's face in his hands. "I don't care about any of that. I care about you. You did so much for me today, Eddie." And before Eddie can respond, Steve kisses him.

It's a soft, lingering kiss that makes Eddie forget about the rain, the ball, and everything else. When they pull apart, Steve's smiling. "This is perfect, Eddie."

Eddie laughs, feeling lighter than he has all day. "Yeah, it kinda is."

As they pack up the picnic in the pouring rain, Eddie realizes that maybe perfection isn't about everything going right. Maybe it's about finding the right moments, even in the midst of chaos, with the right person.

[sombredancer]

The best cdrama of 2024

is The Spirealm. I love it, love it, LOVE IT! Beware of being heavily spoiled ahead! What I was fond of: 🔑It's a nice story about finding love a true friend and a reason to live even if you are very lonely and abandoned by everyone, and it's full of tenderness and jokes. (Sometimes these jokes were so BL that I thought this drama should have been shot in Taiwan).

LQS: *whispers* I'm a dedicated materialist, I'm a dedicated materialist... RLZ: Yeah, yeah, I got it... RLZ: 👀... RLZ: If you are a materialist, why don't you say it to her? LQS: ... LQS: I'm not a that dedicated materialist! RLZ: ... RLZ: RUN! The main heroes are going the whole way from this:

RLZ: If you are not capable of passing even your first trial, you are worthless. to this:

Calmly accompanying each other on their way to the doom. 🔑 I love its lore and the detective part. As far as I watch cdramas, I try to avoid Chinese detectives because they are very fairytail-ish and don't allow you to participate mentally in the investigation. But it's not that case! (Who knew we would find real detective cases in a horror drama!). You can participate in investigation and even find out the truth before the main heroes will, and it's... pleasant. Btw, the mystical detective cases are so different in their levels of horror and mystics that you def will find something to please you even if you are a horror movies hater like me.

🔑 The horror stories were re-made for the adaptation in a very interesting way. Every monster is related to the inner pain of the main hero: they are betrayed, traumatized, abandoned by people they loved, just like him. So he feels pity and sorry for them and redeems them instead of killing. And, moreover, it makes impact throughout the whole story, on the main hero's 11th door as well on his relationship with his lover.

🔑Speaking of traumatized monsters. The first time I ugly cried over this drama was a story of the 4th monster. The monster! Made me cry!

But of course it wasn't the last time I cried my eyes out. The secondary characters of this drama are lovable, too. And the lore mechanics makes the awaiting of death so unbearable painful... You physically can feel the huge weight of characters' despair when they know that they or their dearest will die in a few minutes and there is ABSOLUTELY nothing they can do about it. This level of pain is something else, indeed.

But the most painful scene, where I cried the hardest, was not a scene of someone's death, but a scene of interaction between the main hero and his mother. She told him not to show up again, because she has a new family now, and was about to throw his school dreams and memories into the dump. What kind of mother she is!!😡

🔑And the most important thing about this drama: all detective cases allow you to restore the main story, piece by piece. And this story is about bone-piercing loneliness. The main hero was bullied in school, abandoned by his family and betrayed (kind of) by his best friend. His life was meaningless before he met his partner, the only person who returned to him the reason to live. But he happened to be a monster made specifically for the main hero to accompany him to the 12th door, a virus that needed to get to the 12th level with the help of the main hero to destroy the game. But the main hero's kindness to other un-humans, his ability to understand their pain despite of who they are, melted even monster's heart and made him genuinely love the main hero. It's truly sad that the main hero refused the real world and spent all his years left to make the world of his dreams and to get his lover back, but it's a story about loneliness, so I can't blame him. In his place, I would do the same.

The first meet

and the last. And the last but not least: I adore the technical part of this drama! I love RLZ's costumes! They are classical yet not really standard, make him conspicuous and give a feeling to a viewer that he is someone special. That he is somehow ethereal.

But he is not the only one whose clothes are saying. The White Deer people have their own style as well, so you can understand almost immediately that the characters in strange and pretentious clothes are related. And the main villain's costumes tell a lot about his personality.

And the set designs! They were marvelous! They gave me a feeling of vastness, as if the characters really were in other, spacious worlds.

And the soundtrack! I love it! It's such a shame that iQIYI didn't publish BGM and OST officially. But I found some of the tracks on YouTube. My favorites are the soundtrack to the 4th case: 森川-佐子 here and the variations of the door theme: 门 (变��) here and 门 (门中门) here. Love it and highly recommend! 💙

[rookinthecrownest]

🖊️ + the oc closest to your heart via dragon age (the one you always go back to)

Oh! This was a bit of a tough one anon, but I have to say, Madeleina takes it <3 Let me explain why under the cut, and under this little doodle of Mads and Lucanis I whipped up in like 15 min (excuse the ... everything)

Ok so why is Madeleina so special to me - well, I consider all my DA OC's special to me bc this game has been a huge part of my life - literally for over a decade now - but I digress, she's special to me for a few reasons.

Not gonna lie chat, this year has been one of the hardest year's of my life. The release of DATV, which I'd been waiting for since Inquisition finished up with tresspasser (like many of you), was something I was really looking forward to. And I NEEDED. In many ways, this game saved me.

She was the first Rook. The first one I took with me on this crazy journey. And as I played the game and romanced Lucanis for the first time - I dunno, I can't explain how much of a chokehold Madeleina and Rookanis had on me.

I initially made this blog just to keep up to date with DATV release news, but they made me want to post my art and my writing. And I'd never really tried to write fanfic before, but I started writing the Bedtime Stories for a Demon fic, where Madeleina and Lucanis fall in love over stories from all over Thedas (fairy tales that I adapted for the DA setting). And I had so much fun with it! As I wrote it I fell more and more in love with the character and the pairing.

I can only speak for myself but I think a lot of ppl would agree that Rookanis is a great ship because of like...how soft and tender and loving it is, and how it's the little things they do for each other that's the focus. The understanding, the comfort. Not that we haven't had that in other DA romances but Lucanis' romance hits different? It's just like, so sweet, I want to cry. They're SOOO important to me it's almost silly.

They fall in love over fairy tales but their love story is the greatest fairy tale that will ever be told.

The Charming Rogue and the Hapless Hero!

To focus more on Madeleina herself for a bit, she's also important to me because she's kind of an amalgamation of a few different disney/fairy tale princesses. She has Cinderella's optimism, Rapunzel's quick wits and humour (and long hair!!), Ariel's curiosity and thirst for knowledge. With my other DA OC's, I've made them more... gritty. More suited to a dark fantasy setting. So Madeleina is important to me because she's so relentlessly positive and loving and kind and genuine, like the princesses I grew up watching. They were a source of comfort for me when I was young and going through tough times, like Mads has been a source of comfort for me as a grown up.

I've always been a lover of stories, and I think hers and Lucanis' is my favourite story in all of fiction.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling (even though the point of these asks was to gush/ramble haha).

Thank you for the ask anon!

[ladytabletop]

Lady Tabletop's Primer for Getting into Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design Philosophy

Sam Dunnewold over at the Dice Exploder podcast has posed a fun question to his discord server: where would you tell people to start if they wanted to know more about TTRPGs and design?

First and foremost, I'd tell people to start with @jdragsky's article about Systems of Relation.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now understand that the games we played on the playground were identical in nature to the tabletop RPGs I would grow up to play and help design.

Next, check out Thomas Manuel's analysis of the Axes of Game Design over on the Indie RPG Newsletter.

So the basic exercise is trying to figure out the standard axes or spectrums on which every game can fit. The idea is for these axes to be as descriptive and objective as possible.

Thirdly (and lastly for the purposes of this blog - it's entry-level, not comprehensive), check out this reddit thread about lonely fun.

The Lonely Fun is all of the stuff you do as a part of your hobby away from the table, in any way you might engage. For D&D 5e players, this is usually building complicated and elaborate characters on the page, pouring over the books for new races and subclasses, figuring out fun new combinations, and carefully crafting characters.

Read those? Now check out BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home by @temporalhiccup

Will we be able to outrun our Masters and those who hunt us down? Can we use our magic to bring about the rebirth of the city and all Elementals? ill this be our RECKONING or our HOMECOMING? That’s what we play to find out.

Why I make these particular recommendations below the cut.

All of these recommendations are hopefully all entry-level. I tried to stay away from any essays, blogs, or articles that reference game movements you may not have heard of or that require tons of reading before you can even read my recommendations. Some do have links to other stuff, and if you're enjoying the writing, definitely go down those rabbit holes! These are a tiny, tiny portion of my "TTRPG Homework" folder where I save essays, podcasts, etc that have helped me in my own game design journey. I'm always happy to share more, just ask!

The essay on Systems of Relation put into words something I had been thinking about the more I got into indie games/design: I've been playing my whole life, and ttrpgs are just another piece of that. I think it's crucial to break out of the framework of people trying to define play and games into neat little categories. Will I ever write a game as good as the ones I played in the backyard with my siblings? Probably not, but I'd like to find out.

Now that I've told you to stop trying to categorize games, we have an article about trying to categorize games. But I do like Thomas's assessment and examples of using game design axes. I think as designers it's important to figure out the things the game is trying to do and communicate, so that we can make sure it does those things well.

Lastly, I know 5e gets a bad rap (and it's gotten it from me, too!). But the concept of lonely fun has stuck in my craw since I first saw this thread. It's why some people prefer to GM (and therefore why GM-less games might not work for some people). Not all games are going to have lonely fun, but the ones that do are still going to appeal to people! This thread was key for me in terms of considering that no game is for everyone, and it shouldn't try to be, and also helped contextualize the enjoyment I get from the occasional high-prep game.

Balikbayan as a recommendation was a no-brainer for me. I'm not going to say it's the most elegant or tight of Rae's work, but it's the one with the most heart for me. The story this game wants you to tell is so clear, and as an introduction to "Belonging Outside Belonging" as a system/concept/design philosophy. This game really sings in its character concepts and emotional play.

If you've read this far, congratulations! I've been enjoying the DE podcast (even when I don't agree with some of the takes) and the discord has been a cool (if at times intimidating) place to hang out. I've had a hell of a game design journey this year and I'm so excited to keep learning, and to see what media other folks participating in this blog carnival recommend!

To sign off: my best advice to designers, especially those starting out can be boiled down to three things:

When in doubt, simplify or make it silly

The two cakes theory is your best friend - game design is not a competition

Not everything has to be finished. Not every part of the creative process is fun. Find the balance between these two truths (you're going to have to do that every day).

Best,

LT