#I can't find stuff for any of the challenges I wanted to follow even though I know stuff is being made for them...

[begrudging-fudanshi]

I'm not sure where I saw it but there are a few references to classes and teachers (like in the character book where they have subjects they're best and worst at, in a few chapters where they reference "class/es", and in an interview with satoru nii, I think, though I can't find it) – the Reddit pinned post for the manga is ood for the interview where they talked about it. In the interview, it sounded like they said it was just a pragmatic thing; the story follows the action, so there's not really any need to flesh out the school side of Furin, but that could have just been a deliberate obfuscation. I hadn't really thought about it (generally, I don't care to, because that side of fandom can get really condescending and form echo chambers of "no one else is thinking about this right or as much as us") but I found your thoughts interesting to read and thought you might have wanted to know about the teacher thing, because even if teachers are there, they haven't been included in the main story at all, and don't seem to be trying to teach them anything beyond the academic curriculum.

Thanks! I had seen that, but I try to mainly base my analysis on what's in the text itself ("the author is dead" and all that). However, I appreciate the input and I actually do have some related thoughts on this.

By the way, if you or anyone else seeing this post can tell me any specific chapters where the Furin kids talk about school stuff, please share! I totally missed any mentions of that, so my views below are all based on the assumption that the kids never mention anything school related.

A few messy thoughts:

I accept that the Furin kids do go to class, but to your point, their teachers seem ineffectual at best (and, as I'll get to later, extremely trusting). I figure that anyone who'd teach at a delinquent school notorious for year-round fighting is probably not great at their job. Before Bofurin, I imagine the teachers had all given up any hope of teaching anything and just tried to survive. Ever since Umemiya took over, they've probably been so happy to finally have some peace that they just let him and the other kids do whatever they want.

While I try not to speculate too much about authorial intent, it often feels to me like Nii has challenged himself to take as many stock tropes as he can and to use them as effectively as possible (or maybe he's just a really good writer using a lot of stock tropes lol). For example, Sakura is a classic tsundere, but it's actually rationalized in a really compelling way by his characterization. Likewise, WBK also takes the trope of invisible teachers and actually fits it into the broader themes of the story (as previously discussed in the post you're referencing).

I kinda wonder if Nii was forced to show the protagonists going to high school in order to be published, and thus chose to do it in the most cursory way possible. It kinda feels like the story was meant to be told with a cast of young adults, but maybe Nii or the publisher felt like it'd sell better with teenage protagonists in a school setting. I also suspect it would be controversial (and understandably so) to publish a series aimed at teenagers where the teenage protagonists choose not to attend high school, so I've thought the whole invisible teachers approach could be a workaround for that.

That said, the absence of teachers (and any other responsible adults) just feels so conspicuous that it's hard to write it off as purely pragmatic. Plenty of series have seemingly nonexistent teachers, but they usually avoid showing kids in settings where teachers would appear. WBK could have easily done that (e.g. by giving Bofurin an HQ near the school where they spend all their time), but instead it practically goes out of its way to rub the school setting in your face. For that matter, Nii also could have chosen a different setting where kids wouldn't have to attend school at all, but he explicitly chose to set WBK in what is very clearly present-day Japan. I don't think it's worthwhile to speculate about what Nii "really meant" by this (or if he really meant anything at all), but from an analysis point of view, this is just too conspicuous for me to ignore.

A theme in WBK that I'd like to explore in-depth at some point is trust—namely, how WBK challenges us to imagine trusting these so-called delinquents who are rejected everywhere else and to imagine that they might make their world a better place of their own accord. The absence of visible teachers really highlights this trust. The kids have been given free reign of the school to do whatever they please but, despite adult authority figures being functionally nonexistent, they've still managed to turn it into a better place.

Lastly, while I have to admit I probably fall closer to that "no one else is thinking about this right or as much as us" side of fandom than not, let me just say: fuck anyone who's condescending about it. I personally enjoy deeper media analysis and am trying to cultivate more of it around WBK in my own way, but everyone is allowed to engage with media how they want. The angle I'm trying to take is more "Hey, here's this neat thing I noticed!" as opposed to "You're enjoying this wrong." and I hope that others will do the same.

[hangingslothcentral]

Today is the fourth anniversary of the day I launched Spirit Box Radio, and it's also the last day of trans awareness week.

I have a lot of big feelings about SBR. If you've listened to the show, you'll know that I was medically transitioning through its release. I went on T at the show's midpoint, in the middle of S2, and my voice was changing throughout the rest of the show's run. I got top surgery two months after the show ended, almost exactly to the day.

Now. We're all big enough and daft enough to be able to have a grown up conversation about this, I think. So here's some stuff about that experience I haven't really talked about before.

1. I wish there had been media which had trans creators transitioning alongside a character who is transitioning when I was younger. The main reason for this is that it would have been representation of trans people, but honestly? The main thing I wanted was to see someone transitioning over a long period of time. So often, transition seems to happen behind closed doors. Unless you are lucky enough to have lots of trans people around you (I grew up in semi-rural Wales so no luck for me there) you just do not see it happening. People, understandably, want to hide the length of the process, the messy in between stages.

2. Transitioning and playing Sam transitioning simultaneous to me was one of the most mentally challenging and emotionally vulnerable things I've ever done. I do not say this lightly; I'm a survivor of abuse and I've seen a lot of shit in my life. I've come out as nonbinary at a corporate job and argued with a university about changing my name on my graduation certificate. As much as I loved it, and still love it, and I'm intensely proud of it and SO glad it exists, making SBR was fucking brutal. Hours of editing my own voice through a period where it sounded different on a near-weekly basis. Having no idea how I sounded anymore and posting episodes anyway. Dealing with the emotional fallout of people responding weirdly to me in my real, actual life whilst portraying a character who is outcast, isolated, and terrified of himself? Challenging as fuck.

3. Many people need to examine the way they're talking about trans men. The conversations around Sam shifted very violently as my voice dropped. This is in part due to the arc this character follows, but it's hard not to notice a shift in language as dramatic as this. It started as soon as the show came back from its S2 midseason break and my voice had shifted down a bit. People talked less about Sam being cute, and for the first time, I started to see people talking about him like he was sexy. These things aren't mutually exclusive, but it was very noticeable to me, especially in contrast to conversations about Oliver, Sam's hot, cis gender, florist boyfriend, who was categorised as sexy from the off. Before my voice dropped, even though they were using the right pronouns for them, people talked about Sam with very feminine, infantilising language, and this almost entirely stopped when my voice dropped.

4. I am so fucking glad I did this. Yes, it was brutal, emotional, and I really struggled through a lot of this process, and I am so glad I did this. I will have the immense privilege of medically transitioning in the way I have over the last few years exactly once in my life. I am glad I took that vulnerable moment and made art with it. I'm glad that my transition is captured and mirrored by this thing I was making at the time it was happening. I'm glad that thousands of other trans people have listened to the show and have heard me doing this as they are doing it, or before they do it, or after, or as they're deciding not to, or finding out they can't, or realising they'll never have the chance, or any one of the myriad experiences of transness that exist. I am, frankly, honoured to have been a part of such a vulnerable aspect in the lives of so many people.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for listening to the show, if indeed you already have. If you enjoy my work, I would love to be able to pay my bills and be able to keep making it. I have never made even minimum wage for the work I do on my shows. Please consider becoming a member.

[shiny-kaibernyte]

Ooo is it ok if u write a drayton x reader where reader is really reckless and always takes on challenges such as doing 7 star terra raids and goes off on different adventures, and he gets worried and protective and the rest of the bb elite 4 find it cute and funny

Hope this is what you asked for. I'm kinda bad at writing this stuff 😅

Tag along | Drayton x Reader

Pokémon Scarlett and Violet Indigo Disk DLC Spoilers ahead!

After one to many raids where you get hurt. Drayton decided to finally ask you to let him come with you. Though things didn't go exactly as he had hopped.

Warnings: Small argument, Fluff, protective Drayton

SPOILER WARNING: No spoiler warning. Unless you don't know character names

“Drayton, I'm not so sure about this…” Your voice cut through the silence of the BB League room. Drayton had asked you completely out of the blue to let him tag along on your next raid. Which happened to be a black crystal 7star. “You’ve never even done a raid before.”

Leaning against the table, he simply turns his head and smiles, his pearly fangs flashing at you for a moment before pleading his case. “So? I’m a fast learner, I have good Pokémon too, gave you a challenge, didn’t I? Plus, you make one hell of a teacher.”

“True I do.” A snarky smile crosses your face for a moment, the sound of Crispin snickering in the corner at the self-confidence. “But even if I could show you about raid battling. I'm going to a 7 star… these aren't exactly teaching material. Especially given what's inside the crystal.”

“What’s inside? A larger than average Scorbunny? If so Drayton really should go.” Lacey teased, prodigy Drayton’s face with a gleeful smile. His own face scowled slightly at the remark.

“Maybe it’s an angry Trapinch coming back to taunt him! That would make for a spicy dish!” Crispin added, spinning his pan around.

Drayton’s head snapped up, and he stared at his fiery friend. “We do not talk about the Trapinch man! My ass still has NOT recovered from it… neither had my ego.”

“Think more… giant psychic mouse thing with serious anger issues.” You admit holding back the laugh that just wanted to leave your lungs.

“Well, that wasn’t what I expected… But hey! That's never stopped me before. Don’t forget which one of us helped you with the legendary hunt.” Drayton pestered, still clutching onto any string he can, to convince you to let him come. Anything to give him that edge up on you, if the dragon egg eyes won’t work. Then good old fashion pleading will have to do - and he’s about 5 seconds from doing that.

“Drayton, I love you, but I can't bring myself to let you come with me on this one! If it was a 4 star then yeah totally. But this is huge! These sorts of raids, I can't bring someone so inexperienced into the palace. I wouldn’t even bring Kieran!” You argued, it was no surprise that your pleas fell upon stubborn ears.

“That’s exactly why I want to go with you! It pains me whenever you come back from one of your raid trips hurt… or bruised. And I can't help but think to myself that I could have done something to help you. Take the load off of you!” His voice cracked slightly, not out of sadness or hurt, but more out of the fact he couldn’t do something to protect you. Drayton knows you can handle yourself, you’ve proven that to him on many occasions. But at the end of the day, you are still his treasure, and he wants to protect you, needs to. “Just let me come along this once! If I cause you problems, I’ll never ask again, just please humour me.”

Before you could even give him a response, Lacey’s voice cut through the tension, it was soft-spoken but clear. “Come on, let him… let him.”

“SHHH. It’s getting good…” Crispin's equally soft voice cut after hers, somehow eating popcorn. Where did he get that, why are you asking? He’s the chef, not me.

“Can you four stop bickering. You are ruining my concentration.” Amary’s scolded, the sound of her pocket watch snapping closed followed her voice. “In case you 3 have forgotten, we have a meeting to get to with the director. You have 5 minutes, don’t be tardy.” 

Amary’s left the room not long after. The 4 of you left dumbfounded in the room, it wasn't until Drayton’s voice chimed up again. “Okay, I was not the only one who had no idea she was in the room, right?”

“I think she spawned in?” Crispin answered with a question of his own.

“How long has she been here? I've been here all morning? Did she drink an invisibility potion… What does she know that we don’t?” Lacey’s brain scratched as well.

“I think it's like a Spinarak thing. If you stand still, they can’t see you.” Your fellow companions laugh at your remark, it's a dumb reason, but what isn’t. During the laughter, you take your chance to leave. Grabbing your bag and heading for the door, only for the sound of it shutting in your face to follow. Peering up, you notice Drayton’s somehow moved from the other side of the room to close the door. His face was one of worry. He couldn't keep eye contact with you, anytime he tried, he just looked back at the door then at you again; as if silently asking you to let him come with you. His face reminded you of the first time he admitted he loved you. That silent protective plea of his. Never spoken through words. With a deep sigh of defeat, you take a step back from the door and stretch your hand out towards it. “After you, dragon boy.”

“YES! I WIN!” Drayton proclaimed jumping up for a moment fist in the air victorious. Lacey elbowed him directly in the ribs moments later, Crispin crying of laughter on the floor trying desperately not to whack himself in the face with his frying pan. “Ow right, right. Thank you, love! NOW LET'S GO KICK SOME MOUSE BUTT!”

[lurkofyourlife]

Maybe I'll decide on an alter ego some day, but for now just call me what you like, but do try to be civil (unless we're flirting. you can be mean if we're flirting.) (Re:nicknames, you can't go wrong with puppy or brat, or... other things, in the right context.)

Born in the 90s, female, with a fascination with kink and smut— entirely in theory. [Not inexperienced offline, simply not interested in offline experiences.] I am queer and non-monogamous, and a total nerd, and the way to my heart or loins is through tags/comments on my posts, and asks.

No terfs, swerfs, or ace exclusionists allowed, and keep all misogyny to the fantasy kind, mhm? Irl feminist and I do tend to block bigots on sight.

DMs are open for now, until someone makes me change my mind (not a challenge, but a warning). No age in bio means you will get blocked. Bots will get blocked. Happy to chat and flirt, but don't go sending pics unless I'm asking (I'm not currently asking). I do have a wishlist if you want to buy gifts 👉👈

MINORS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. 18+ only, please and thanks.

Anons are open and if you want help starting, try my ask game tag!

This is a secondary blog for me. My primary is a mess of fandom and silly things, writing, plenty of memes. I promise I'm actually shockingly well-balanced and well-adjusted (and witty, and lighthearted and/or insightful— and, of course, modest); this is just my place to be as fucked up and kinked as my little heart desires. 🩷 But hey: I'm using a separate browser for this one, folks. So I can like and follow and lurk to my heart's content, here. Or maybe I'm watching you from a random tab on my main browser. I do like to peruse...

I will always tag my content; I'm paranoid that way.

Kinks include: various varietals of bdsm at different degrees (generally a bottom, a brat, a bit of a masochist, and I just love exploring power play), knife play (so very unfortunately attracted to knives), intox, cnc, somno, mind games, object insertion, breeding kink (w/o the pregnancy bit lmao), a bit of blood play or light petplay, praise and degradation each in their own way, shame play, and plenty of other things I've been curious about or find hot in the right scenario. I may dabble in pseudoincest if the mood strikes me; it'll be tagged inc3$t and fauxc3st so you can block as needed. My yes fluids are tears, spit/drool, cum, and blood. I may occasionally talk torture (especially psychological). I'm generally pro-monsterfucking, though prefer humanoid monsters (or outright monstrous humans).

Hard nos: You may call yourself daddy/mommy, but I do not like that word. I don't mind a sir, ma'am, miss, etc, but daddy/mommy is a hard no for me. I don't mind ddlg vibes, I simply don't like the name. Never gonna judge you for it, though, so do what makes you happy. Hypnotism is a no from me. Same with bimbofication. If you want me stupid, just fuck me dumb or exhaust me in a basement with no sleep. Large age gaps (over 10-15 years or so) are a hard no. Even my pseudoincest leans 'what are you doing step bro' opposed to 'icky uncle'. It's a squick I won't be getting over any time soon. Not big on filth fetishes (sorry, no scat, piss, emeto stuff, etc). As much as I love knives, and don't mind a bit of torture, I avoid all-the-way-through, woundfucking, and vore. Also I just don't like bugs. 🥺

{no images are me. forever faceless on the internet 🩷}

Internet gf: @sexistentialprincess 🩷🩷🩷

Other reserved tags: 💀, ⛓️, 🫀

If you're looking for specific content, use the color coding in the kink section! Links below for pink tags, red tags, green tags, etc. ^^ All my original posts are tagged #|urkofyour|ife

[backjustforberena]

When the season opens, [Rhaenys] is the queen's most trusted advisor, though not officially her Hand - two women in power would simply be too much for the men on the Council, Hess notes. "Obviously, Rhaenyra can't have a lady Hand, because that would be crazy," she says with a sarcastic laugh.

Okay, okay, good stuff. The idea of a lady Hand not being tolerated is a logical conclusion except... except... the show does absolutely bugger all with it. Whilst we have Rhaenys functioning as Hand pretty plainly, and, indeed, it's only after her loss that Rhaenyra actually officially appoints a Hand, the actual politics of the position and, specifically, this idea that it is not done because Rhaenyra recognises the gender issues associated isn't there.

The subject of making Rhaenys Hand, even to dismiss or explain, is never brought up within the show. The idea of the men being unable to stomach Rhaenys as a Hand isn't ever illustrated beyond generalised feelings of sexism within those council scenes. Rhaenys never has to explain, defend or prove her position on the council. She is very rarely interacted with, during those scenes because she is not particularly vocal. There is displeasure shown at her, but nothing loud or targeted - not like we see with Rhaenyra.

The one concrete moment we have, actually, of Rhaenys having to defend her power comes in Episode 04 and, ironically, it is because she has NOT been named Hand that Alfred Broome can call her out and attempt to dismiss her in front of everyone:

"Why should your voice be any louder than ours, Princess? The queen did not name you Hand."

Rhaenys is trying to lead, but it's not her sex that he finds fault with (though no doubt that comes into it - given she is able to maintain control due to Corlys's intervention) but her lack of official authority. Something that being Hand would have given her. So, he can challenge her. She is no higher than he is. And she has no rebuttal because Rhaenyra has not empowered her.

If they had wanted to pull this off, they needed to consolidate Rhaenys's role on the council and the limitations of it and why there were limitations on it. Have patronising language levelled at her, not just Rhaenyra or Baela. Have her offer advice only to be spoken over. Have Rhaenyra even speak to her on the matter. Let them talk about the position of Hand. Or have Rhaenys raise the matter with Corlys. Something. As it is, the role is never floated or mentioned until after Rhaenys's death. A lady Hand is not an idea presented in that narrative.

That's largely why I always attributed the lack of Hand not to a recognition of politics, but as a symptom of an ad-hoc war council and the infancy of Rhaenyra's rule - an unorganised collection due to the war, without the formal roles of a Small Council. And then the appointment of a Hand indicates Rhaenyra's commitment to the war as it is now and her engagement going forward (even if, again, the role in all it's uses isn't fully illustrated as we pretty much lose the council scenes following the initial Dragonseed idea and Corlys has little to do in any of them).

(quote from the new HOTD BTS book, with many thanks to @noheteroexplanation)

[lakemojave]

Mojave reads X-Men: X-Men #1, X-Men #2, and Tales of Suspense #49

That's right gang, I'm finally sitting down and reading some comics. Now I've attempted to read a manga or two in my life, I've read some tintin comics in the library as a little kid, I've read an Alan Moore graphic novel in my day, but never have I actually read a serialized, long running comic series like this. I have very limited vocabulary for talking about comic books, and my experience with superhero media is pretty much limited to movies and shows. I have never read or critiqued a comic book of any kind.

Now I should say that even though I don't really give a shit or fuck about superheros, I do have a favorite superhero, and it's none of the X-Men. I do have a place in my heart for the caped crusader, so why am I not reading every single batman comic ever written? Well you see, the reason is simple. If I read a batman comic, even if it's a bad one, I will be distracted by how much i already like batman. I will probably learn a thing or two about batman, but I won't really be properly immersed in the comic-reading experience if i start with somebody I already enjoy.

So I'm excited for this! I'm basically going in blind, except for some passing knowledge about the over-arching themes of these characters and season one of X-Men '97 (a fantastic show that you all gotta watch). Now I know some reading guides online will recommend that you skip some stuff, but I wanna challenge myself to do a completionist review of this whole series. For an artistic medium that I don't know shit or fuck about, this may be a long commitment, but this is gonna be a fun way to do it.

If you wanna follow along with me, I'll be basing my order based on the reading guide from this website here:

Now for the review!

X-Men #1

This one is really fucking stupid.

In this first issue, we meet our X-Men and learn their powers through a goofy ass training scene, Jean Grey arrives, then they defend a military base from Magneto, and that's about it. It doesn't do enough to establish what exactly a mutant is, but it does establish the X academy as a safe haven for mutants where they can learn to be superheros, and how Magneto wants mutants to rule the world. There isn't much nuance here yet, but these motivations will echo down throughout the entire X-Men saga.

The designs here are particularly undercooked compared to the more modern iterations, but I do like that Professor X has always been a bald dude stuck in a chair. Magneto's imperious personality is established here as well, but the X-Men themselves are mostly just rough sketches of the idea of people. We're not gonna get into the family drama soap opera nonsense for a little while I think.

(Also my favorite part of this panel is how you can't tell cyclops has a visor and it looks like it's just a guy. With two eyes. Which is, by definition, not a cyclops.)

I also adore how whimsical this first issue is. The fighting is very cartoonish and everyone says what they're thinking out loud. I dunno if that's just how comics tend to be or if this is a product of the age, but I actually find it really endearing! I have a fondness for this era of comics where you could pick up a batman off the shelves and see a panel of him shooting and killing his enemies with a mosin nagant, or that infamous panel of superman melting a dagger with his heat vision and slurping up the molten metal.

Also, poor Jack Kirby. You can tell by the homogenous designs and Magneto's crooked ass eyeballs that he was very overworked in this period. The superhero team composition here is definitely less creative than the Fantastic Four for instance, which was running at the same time and will crossover with our reading list a few times.

Though my favorite panels from this issue are right here:

I'm sorry if the difference in time between your two panels is "Exactly fifteen seconds" then you don't need a text box explaining it.

Either way, while this first one isn't very good, I was really entertained. I'm really looking forward to immersing myself in this period of the art form and learning a thing or two about this franchise!

X-Men #2

That's right baby. We're gonna be in stupid town for a few weeks.

In this issue, a new evil mutant attempts to take on the X-Men and realize his loosely sketched evil plan for world domination and such. This guy, The Vanisher, has teleportation powers so fast that none of them can lay a finger on him. With his X-Men's reputation on the line, Professor X himself has to step in and use his psychic powers to vanquish The Vanisher and his army of goons on the White House lawn.

We learn a lot of new things about the X-Men in this issue; one, that Charles is a snitch for the FBI; two, sometimes the X-Men will just randomly start fighting each other almost completely unprompted.

Oh yeah also they call Jean Grey "Marvel Girl" in this run. I don't know why, ya just gotta deal with it.

The Vanisher basically has Goku instant transmission, allowing him to teleport literally anywhere he wants in an instant. In his master plan to steal US Army secrets and rule over humanity, a bunch of random low level goons just start worshiping him cause he's just that awesome. Like they're not even getting anything out of serving him, they just love this freak.

God could you imagine the alternate timeline where The Vanisher is the X-Men's arch enemy instead of Magneto? I think I would've canceled this series early if that happened.

Needless to say, this one is also insane. Like whenever the X-Men need to go anywhere, they rely on the goofiest modes of flying transportation that I've ever seen.

This one is also pretty dumb, but I can't say I had a bad time reading this one too! I think the first one was more interesting, seeing the prototype for such an all time comic villain, but this fight against the Vanisher is just a straight forward good time.

Tales of Suspense #49

Here we have our first ever crossover! In this comic, Angel accidentally gets nuked by Iron Man during a weapons test. The radiation makes him turn evil. Iron Man has to stop him.

This is the goofy bullshit I crave. There is no explanation for why any of this happens. Angel suddenly swears his life against all crime fighters and tries to make friends with the evil mutants. Iron Man talks completely different than I'm used to in this modern MCU era (plus his identity actually is secret!) Although the other X-Men do show up in this one, It is so strange to me that the first X-Man to make it into another series is one of the most forgotten characters of them all.

Oh man they just. They just don't make em like this anymore.

I do like that the X-Men as characters are starting to settle into their personalities. Angel's the boyscout, (normally,) Iceman is a little shit, Beast is a funnyguy, and Jean is a woman. Cyclops is still a little undercooked, but in terms of actual art I think I like how he looks in this style better than anybody. It helps that the art is getting ever so slightly better issue by issue.

But I also love that there's like. No backgrounds. It's crazy that in these early comics they just frame characters in a blank, colored void. I have no idea where these guys are right now.

The writing is still hilarious. Like everyone in these comics just says whatever they're thinking out loud. If these comics weren't written for little kids I'd make a big stink about it, but I just find this so endearing.

Eventually Iron Man does the thing where his power runs out and he falls to the earth in the middle of the fight, then Angel comes back to his senses, possessed by the instinct to save him. As he flies away, good ol' Anthony Edward Stark gets a call from Professor X saying that some day he hopes that the Avengers and the X-Men will one day fight alongside each other...as allies! And from this day forward, they'll never fight again!

Um. Ignore that.

See y'all with more soon!

[callsign-rogueone]

hey cutie! i hope you're doing well! i saw your liam post a while back and bc i seemed to love him and so does literally everybody else, i was wondering (bc im writing a book) what makes him so likeable to people? like why did we all fall in love with him immediately and then die of devastation when he was killed?

hihi!! Liam deserves multiple essays on how amazing he is, but here's some thoughts that I can def expand on later if you'd like, not edited at all (also if I missed anything, feel free to add in comments / reblogs!!)

he has a tragic backstory and he's from a group that you're "not supposed to like". Xaden drags Vi into the marked group, but Liam's the one who truly brings her around on the issue and builds sympathy? empathy? whichever one. for Vi and the reader -- we find out his parents were killed, he was separated from his little sister, both of them are forced to be riders and serve a country that has done terrible things to them and their family...

he has a sweet old man hobby. he WHITTLES. that is senior citizen behavior. I know the hobbies a person can have in this world are a bit limited since their tech isn't like ours but still. he's 20 years old and he whittles for fun. what a dweeb. (I say this affectionately. you all know I will defend this man with my life. and he's very good at it and it makes him happy 🥺)

his whole relationship with Xaden. Liam is this perfect (literally) little puppy soldier that does absolutely everything Xaden asks of him because he quite literally owes Xaden his life (and Sloane's.) that level of dedication is rare. and that he clearly looks up to Xaden (and I HC that he wants to make him proud...)

adding on to that... him protecting Violet without (visible) pushback. he's agreeable to protecting the daughter of the woman who killed his parents and aunts/uncles/family friends etc., most obviously because Xaden asked him to, but I also think he was able to separate the mother and daughter like Garrick did too. he knows Vi isn't at fault for his problems.

he's smiley / laughing / a good time. he's the foil to Xaden in many ways (brothers who look nothing alike, most obviously) but he shows us that not all the marked ones are angry and gloomy all the time. he gets in on second squad's banter, makes jokes of his own...

he's very observant and emotionally intelligent. he knows what's going on b/n Vi and Xaden, and I highly doubt that's because him and Xaden are having slumber parties with Bodhi and Garrick to talk about their crushes (I have to write that now, don't I... the girlfriends having a "girls night" and the boys not knowing what to do with themselves. so they have their own girls night...) he just picks up on all the little things and he knows when Vi is and isn't okay, despite having known her for like... a max of 6 months?

literally mister perfect. he's the quadrant's golden boy. he was forced to be here, but he's top of the class, jogged across the parapet, best time on the gauntlet, dusted everyone. never lost a challenge. I know Deigh is so dang proud of his boy. probably brags to the other dragons about his perfect son <3

Sloane. he's worried about her for next year, he's writing her letters weekly even though he can't send them, and by the time he CAN send them, she'll be in the quadrant herself... yeah, good thing he wrote them in advance... [crickets] anyway, he's a cutie big brother like Brennan, wanting to protect lil sis, and it's clear he loves her so so much <3 (another headcanon of mine that she absolutely adored him and he was forced into all the tea parties and dolls stuff but he did it with a smile. need girl dad Liam so bad.)

and then the circumstances of his death. he died following Xaden's orders (prime directive: keep Violet safe) and while it's been eight months since I last read that scene and I refuse to read it again any time soon, I think he definitely knew that he was putting himself in immediate danger to save her, and he still did it anyway.

that's all I got for now but I am absolutely positive that there's more. good luck with the book!! I did some work on my own today on the flight, inspiration struck after leaving it to sit there for months lol

[thesupernaturalhouse]

Yeah so what is the hwak feather au

Explain it to me entirely pls

Oh dear God okay- @sunsetcougar YOU you're helping me, incase I missed anything

So, I made a post about dove emily, sunset got inspired and made the hawk feathers au

Which is basically, Adam/lilith was made from dirt, eve form a rid, so Sera made the exocists out of Hawk feathers, cause of their hunting ability and stuff; there were about 27 batches in total, the first being jsut lute and then consisting of about 5-10 on avrage afterwards to make 200

That's the summary of it, but into the lore-

despite Sera literally making these people out of bird feathers she, and Adam and the elder angels, don't like them because their so animalistic so they mostly stay in their nest area aka the barracks

Some have more internalized hatred then others, Lull doesn't talk due to internalizing Adam's words meanwhile Gloria doubles down for example. Lute has the most, because of course she does-

Stuff in canon happens, not much to really say there? Most of this au is pre canon and post canon stuff, so like after the Season 1 finale heaven and Hell are chill cause the xterminations have ended

Lute is the main exrocist to visit hell, to I guess keep heaven up to date and stuff, her and Vaggie end up making up because they realize they aren't in the same flock and vaggie knows that, back then, if she'd seen soemone do it she mightve dine the same to get rid of any disadvantages for the flock, and also competition because her and Lute would spar and 'fight' for 2nd rank all the time

So their cool. Lute ends up falling due to going stir crazy out of grief, there's only so much those cisisys and spars with Vaggie cam do after all. So she falls and her and Vaggie end uo fighting for real where she breaks down and Charlie decides she doesn't exactly liek heaven anymore and the others don't think exemption is worth it if they'll end up in a semi-corrupt place like that

Meanwhile up in heaven the flock is destroying shit because "wtf do you MEAN you made their leader fall!?!?" Emily is the one to tell them beacsue she feels absolutely sick at how and what happened during the trial

Side note, Emily moved out and can't even look Sera in the eye anymore

They end up falling of their own free will and eventually get a nest in the wrath ring due to how closely the sin matches them; wrath being very family oriented and farm work being abundant so they won't go stir crazy or get bored, they do often visit the hotel though

This ends with them following vaggie one day and getting training lessons from Carmilla, who they call 'mother carmine' due to thinking it's a title. Lute is VERY jelouse of it and challenge Carmilla, who does NOT take it seriously and instead asks why they keep calling her moth carmine because someone bursting into your house and yelling that they challenge you "mother carmine to a fight" is anyones breaking point-

They end up having tea and Carmilla explaining family dynamics to Lute, amd ends up learning of the forced parentification she'd been out through via Sera. Her and Lucifer share custody of the strange bird children and start a 'hate sera' club

After this, Emily actually ends up falling because the elders rekauze she's going to end up causing a wave of change they don't like. They blame sir pentious for corrupting her and they both fall, lucifer sensing the presence of an angle goes and finds them and promptly brings them back to the hotel for a teary renuin with pentious and a awkward one with Emily

Sera meanwhile is questioning her life choices and getting a bit more aggressive from the grief and working 24/7, the elders force her to take weeks off at a time due to how bad at gets

Lute and Emily end up bonding, Emily goes downstairs and sees Lute at the hotel and wanting to make a good impression and use her brid nosies she's been forcing down tries to chirp a greeting......she chirps a mating call by accident instead, her and Lute have a class about that and she gets to ehsr a hawk mating call

They are both very much denying their feelings for one another, and also due to Lute being a hawk and Emily being a dove, they don't fully realize their trying to court one another subconsciously until they both do a bunch of research-

They get together after a game at wrath where Emily was watching Lute, who asks to kiss her afterwards

Meanwhile for Carmilla, she's adopted Bish, who turns into Bishop after finding out what nombinary means

Side note, the exorcists have a LOT of fun when they learn about genders and sexualities, soem don't care like lute whose demiromantic, and some do like Gloria whose happy she has a label now, Lulls jsut happy her gf is happy

They also have fun with air dye and stuff like that.....a LOT of paint and hair dye is eaten by them- which prompts stick to bring out a list of what they've eaten. If they were human they'd be dead.

Ahem, back to the main story......actually I think that's it?? I mean right now me and @sunsetcougar are talking about the trials nd how Emily and Lute get together so- that's the timeline for now I guess??

Which, side note about the trial, Lute was chained and muzzled so- angst horrayyyyy

And all the exrocists get therapy, especially Lute who dehuminazes herself a lot, most of the other stuff is like, Emily helping Kute calm down with singing and chirps, trapping Lute to get her on a healthy sleep schedule, etc

So yeha I think thats all for now lol

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: Afewproblems! @afewproblems has 17 fics in the Stranger Things fandom and 16 of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @afewproblems:

The World is Upside Down (The King has Lost his Crown)

You Can Only Remember What You Want To Forget

A Quiet Confession

Essential Songs to Woo a Metal Head

A Clear and Present Threat of Tongue

"I love Linz and her writing. Even though she's not as active as she once was, I think she should still be celebrated. As a fandom, we tend stop interacting with authors when they aren't actively making fic, and that's disheartening." -- Anonymous

Below the cut, @afewproblems answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I love the ship! I think it’s mostly to do with the characters and the romantic archetypes they represent. You have two people from different worlds, different social stratas, and completely different personalities that still find common ground in one another. It’s Grease, Wuthering Heights, Titanic -these characters not only balance one another out, but they challenge one another to rethink their preconceived notions about the other. Plus, for that one forrest scene in the Upsidedown to have inspired an entire ship and fanon about these two - chefs kiss, 10/10.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Oh there are so many! For Steddie specifically though, I really like reading stories that explore the fanon around Steve’s not so great childhood. I process a lot of my own stuff through fan works so reading about Steve going through the same thing and managing to create his own found family and finding love hits hard in the best way.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Hmm I don't know if it's so much a trope as it would be considered a genre for fan fiction but I love to write hurt/comfort and angst -angst is my bread and butter! Nothing better than putting your blorbo in an emotionally fraught state and then having someone hold them for a little while.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I could be honest, I could be human by GerryStAmour. The angst, top notch, the descriptions are so well done! The writing is so great, please check Gerry out as a writer, his works are incredible! I also really love the Cousin!AU by @strangersteddierthings her work is absolutely incredible, please check her stuff out!!

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Hmm Possibly soulmates I think or soulmarks would be very cool!

What is your writing process like?

So i’ll normally get an idea and kind of turn it around in my head over and over until I can't stop thinking about it and have to get it on the page. Then the snippet or scene will begin to grow and take on more of a life of its own, it's like ‘okay this scene is great, but how did we get here’ kind of thing, that makes me want to flesh out the idea which in turn makes the story and characters expand and grow. I never plot out the whole story before starting, I let it grow from a starting point and let the story kind of take the direction that it needs to go in.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I typically write with Steve as the main character going through as much pain as possible!

Do you prefer posting when you���ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I try to get a few chapters written out before I post my fic, I find it a bit easier to keep myself motivated that way. I don't think I'd be able to keep up with a schedule.

Which fic are you most proud of?

I'm definitely proud of all of them but I think the first Steddie fic that I spent several months on, Warm My Cold and Tired Heart, is still one that I am incredibly proud of and really happy with how it turned out. It was my big jumping off point for the rest of my fics and love for the pairing - which is another point in it's favour!

How did you get the idea for You Can Only Remember What You Want To Forget?

It was inspired by a blend of two prompts in an ask from the awesome @zerokrox-blog “Things you forgot to say and things you were forced to say”. The prompt was a challenge to mix but I wanted to have one prompt reflect Eddie and the other reflect Steve. Eddie forgot to tell Steve the truth and Steve was forced to simply react. The story completely took on a life of its own after that though and quickly snowballed!

When writing You Can Only Remember What You Want To Forget, what was something you didn’t expect?

The table! It was a bit of a throwaway line about the Hellfire club noticing the crack and worrying that they damaged the table, only for it to culminate in Eddie’s apology and confession to Steve when he fixed it. Probably one of the best little ‘Setup’ and ‘Payoff’ moments I’ve ever attempted.

What inspired A Quiet Confession?

This was also inspired by a ask prompt that came in from an anonymous user, ‘You weren't supposed to hear that’. i loved the angst potential of someone saying just how much you love someone, while worrying they don't feel the same for you. Juxtaposing that with the intimacy that normally comes with napping with you partner and you have A Quiet Confession.

What was your favorite part to write from A Clear and Present Threat of Tongue?

Definitely the confession scene. The whole fic was based on the episode from New Girl where Jess and Nick kiss for the very first time and I loved writing down the garbled speech that Nick says when he stumbles over his words. I just had to give that to Eddie - it fit way too well!

How do/did you feel writing Essential Songs to Woo a Metal Head?

I was excited to explore the idea of Eddie completely distrusting Steve and his intentions, which would be fair for the 80s ya know? Why would Eddie believe that a jock and former prom king was being sincere with him, but having Eddie make this mistake and having to turn to the classic 80s rom-com trope of the grand gesture -I loved it! Having Eddie use music the same way that Steve did to confess his feelings originally? I was super happy that it came back around, full circle. (I also worked pretty hard on the music choices for Steve's mixtape so I am so happy people liked this one!)

What was the most difficult part of writing The World is Upside Down (The King has Lost his Crown)?

There were several difficult parts with writing this story, one was figuring out which scenes from the show should be included or left out for the story to make sense and still flow nicely. I didn’t want to spend too much time rewriting scenes to fit the canon divergence but at the same time there were several important scenes that needed to remain in the story for Eddie to specifically react to. Handling Nancy’s character was also difficult but very rewarding. I don’t hate Nancy as a character but I do find her challenging to write. I didn’t want to paint her as a villain either, she cares for Steve greatly but they couldn’t be what the other needed. It was hard to do her character justice but it was really rewarding to get her right - in my opinion.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I think the scene where Steve smashes the plate in You Can Only Remember What You Want To Forget is up there for me in terms of one of my favourite scenes. Having Steve just completely breakdown, feeling like he's not in control of himself and how frightening that is. It was cool to explore these incredibly intense emotions and having both Robin and Eddie be there to help him process these feelings without looking at him any differently was so so important. It showcased how Robin and Eddie are the two people that Steve could trust with his darkest moments and still love him. Ugh! Still love it so much!

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Oh! I do have a new project that I am working on, I shared a small snippet a few weeks ago but I will be very excited to share the first part soon. It is a Season Three AU exploring what might have happened if Steve and Eddie met in Starcourt mall that fateful summer of 1985. I’ve also been doing some writing for the Psych fandom to get back into writing after a long dry spell, it’s been pretty fun to explore those characters as well!

Thank you to our author, @afewproblems, and our anonymous nominator! See more of Afewproblems's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #16: Answers and Questions

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

LET’S GET TO IT. This month is Q&A: Cohost edition!

“A Q&A again?” Heheh well I don’t have anything to talk about this month ✨ We’re working hard on finalizing the localization! And on porting to consoles! And on secret stuff! You know, the usual!!! Get excited!!! So, Q&A again 💖 And see, I asked questions for Q&As on Twitter. On Tumblr. On Discord. But some new social media platforms have entered the fray. SO.

Welcome to Q&A: Cohost edition. (Follow me on cohost and/or read this post I wrote about why I think cohost is neat teehee) (and follow me on bluesky if you want. I like it way less though. Sorry bluesky)

@ItsMeLilyV asks:

One of the bits of advice that gets tossed around by indie devs is to avoid making RPGs, especially for your first few games, because they tend to be large in scope, difficult to prototype, and easy to underestimate.

Was this ever a fear for you in making START AGAIN, or In Stars and Time? Did you take any special precaution to keep these games within a scope you could handle, and did you learn tricks from START AGAIN that carried over to ISAT when in came to keeping things manageable? Thank you!! ✨

I had no idea that was a piece of advice given, but yep, that makes a lot of sense! Since I didn’t know, I went in blissfully aware, teehee.

I will say that I am familiar with working on big projects from working on comics, and with seeing big webcomic artists always mention to never start with your magnum opus… And I could tell ISAT had the potential to be way bigger than I imagined, which is why I decided to start with creating the prologue to get used to RPGMaker as well as making games. Kind of a pilot of sorts!

Again, thanks to comics, I know to keep my scope pretty small, because even if you keep it small it WILL balloon into something way bigger than you thought. Just for the prologue, I imagined it’d be a 20mn game, and it’s easily a 2-3h one! Keep your scope small!!!

As for tricks, when I catch myself thinking “wow what if I added this cool thing”, I try to always keep in mind those two things: 1. How long will it take to implement (including bug testing), and 2. Does it add something important to the game. I know we always want to add a fishing game, or a fun minigame, but do you Need It. Does it add something substantial to the story, to the Themes. Or are you just adding it because you like fishing games. Which is a valid reason, but also, maybe just make a fishing game instead. You are not the Yakuza series!!!! You are a small indie gamedev!!!! Think about you in 4 months who has to fix all the fishing game bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@stem asks:

how is it to have a piece of art that's basically done (as far as i understand) that you can't share yet? like how do you personally bide the time until it's finally ready to release, or is it not really a challenge to wait? :0c

It’s so weird!!! The game has been done for so long!!! I’m very glad I asked some friends to playtest the game, so I could at least get some feedback before the game is out… In some ways it feels like the game will be done twice: once back when I finished making the game, and once when the game actually comes out. It’s just a very strange experience. Sometimes people tell me they’re excited to find out more about this story beat, or about this character, and a part of me is like… Wait, haven't you played the game? Oh, yeah, it’s not actually out. Guess you’ll find out later.

EDIT: My god. I just checked on my private devlog for when I completed the Alpha of ISAT. It was in August of last year (I lay down on the floor and look at the ceiling) (I still had to finish all the illustrations so really the game was Done Donezo in October but still…)

anon asked:

What role did Armor Games play in creating the final product?

SO MANY THINGS. Here are some of them: support when it comes to porting/marketing/social media/localization, feedback on the game and how to make it better, community guidance, testing support, QA/internal testing… The game couldn’t be the way it is without them.

For more small details, I have a weekly meeting with my producer, Dora! We talk about the game and how everything is going. A couple months back, I also was checking in with the internal QA team fairly often to fix any remaining bugs. They also helped me find ISAT’s additional programmer, Isabella, and she is a godsend because coding is hard. They also take care of communicating with press, finding more opportunities to showcase the game in conventions, talking with the localization/porting teams… I am probably forgetting a thousand little things they did to help out!!! THEY’RE SO GOOD OK

Anon asked:

So obviously the skills/spells/what have you are based off of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Did you design each "type" to be like a certain style? Rock being heavy damage and defense buffs, scissors being speed and quick attacks, like that?

Absolutely! I just went with the obvious. Rock is physical damage, defense focused, Scissors is swords, attack focused, and Paper is magic, mind focused. It was fun to develop a spell system around those! I’m excited for people to find out more about Craft…

@nickshutter asks:

I really loved START AGAIN (streamed it for a small handful of friends) and was super happy to hear about a follow-up! The cast is so much fun and their personalities are really well-balanced—did any of the characters change pretty drastically from their initial conception during development of the game?

I’m so glad you streamed it with friends… I hope you had a good fun time…

And for sure! Isabeau and Mirabelle were pretty set from the get go (himbo and shy wallflower), but Odile started as more of a gentle teacher type, even if I very quickly went the snarky old lady route. Siffrin and Bonnie were harder to pin down– I wasn’t sure how to portray Siffrin’s despair in the prologue, and started showing them more overtly depressed, but I thought it’d be Very Yummy to have them show a happy facade to their friends. And then, for ISAT, I had to figure out what a non-depressed Siffrin would be like, for the first couple acts of the game before the despair sets in. As for Bonnie, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what they’d be like, what kind of kid they were, what their relationship with everyone else would be like, and then I thought about what their past would be like and then their characterization was set in stone. Sometimes you need to figure out One Thing to unlock a character’s brain. I’m very excited for everyone to find out more about each character in ISAT!

@SuperBiasedGary asks:

What games (or other media) lit a fire under you to create your own?

It could be stuff you liked so much it inspired, something you found frustrating because you felt an itch to do it differently, or something that made you realise humans make things and you could be one of them.

I found a lot of indie games inspiring, but I think Umineko might’ve been the one that made me go… Oh, anyone can just make a massive video game narrative. And you can make it very simple, with kinda goofy sprites, and still manage to make an incredibly touching story!

As for frustrating games that lit a fire under me, I think I’d say in general, I found issue with the classic trope of the “main character helps people and doesn’t get anything back”. What often happens in some games is that you help NPCs with their problems, sometimes helping them with very intense, complicated problems! For a very long time! And, in exchange, you get… A cool item? A nice new skill? And that’s it?

I know this might be complicated to implement on a narrative perspective, but I remember playing Persona 5, and your character just went through a very harrowing experience (like, oh, being INTERROGATED AND TORTURED BY THE POLICE) and you help your friends during social links, and they go “thanks for your help! Bye~” like WHAT ABOUT ME. WHAT ABOUT MY PROBLEMS. CAN YOU GIVE ME A HUG

So on a certain level, I wanted a game where instead of the characters around you having problems, the main character also has problems. And is subconsciously screaming “CAN YOU PLEASE NOTICE I HAVE PROBLEMS AND GIVE ME A HUG.” And hopefully, the characters notice. Winks

Hm. I do want to say I wrote most of the prologue/ISAT during the pandemic, and I felt very lonely and not supported. But then guess what. I told my friends about how I felt. And most of them told me they had no idea, and vowed to support me more. And now I’m closer to them. So the moral of this answer is, yeah, it’d be nice if people noticed, but also, you need to tell people when you’re feeling bad. LOOKS AT SIFFRIN

Anon asked:

Is there a song you listen to in order to put yourself in the sasasa/ISAT mindset?

I have a whole playlist baybee. Before you ask: there aren’t any hidden meanings behind those song choices. It’s about the Mood, and also my personal tastes in music I listen to when I need to concentrate. I like songs that go WUB WUB

 In no particular order, here are five random songs I played on repeat when making the prologue:

Future Club (Arcade Version) by Perturbator (in bold because this was THE song I listened to on repeat. I believe I gave it to Lindar for inspiration lol)

Arcades by C2C

Wake Me Up by Para One

The First Wish by DROELOE

Les Enfants du Paradis by World’s End Girlfriend

And here are five random songs I played on repeat for In Stars and Time:

Down by Chloe x Halle

Nonsense Bungaku by Eve

Non-Breathe Oblige by PinocchioP

Gentle Heart by Jamie Paige

Ready For The Floor by Hot Chip

It’s interesting, the songs I listened to for the prologue are generally more heavy and frenetic, while the ones for ISAT are more hopeful… I made sure to listen to more lively songs for ISAT, since that’s the feeling I wanted to give off…

That’s all the questions I have! In other, non related ISAT news, I have started a new project and having a lot of fun. It’s a visual novel this time. I’m hoping to get some screenshots ready in the next few months, but also I’m taking it easy on this one. If it takes years with many breaks in between to get it done, it’s fine. What matters to me right now is the process!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[bunbunsheart]

hii max can i hear more abt ur thoughts on belle.. i looked up wh bc i was interested in learning a bit more and saw theres a lot of other characters in the neighborhood, how do u think belle would get along w them? :o

haaai claraa of course :3 i love the cast very much so i took my time with this eheh im still thinking about belle's relationships in depth so most of this is kinda surface level... this got long so more under the cut!

gonna go by order with the whole cast!

so first of course we got Wally, whenever Belle is around him it gives him butterflies in his stomach, at first (like the oblivious fella he is) Belle didn't realize he had become very fond of him in a romantic way and it was all because of how sweet Wally is with him, after all he's always the first one in the neighborhood to compliment his paintings and since they're both artists they like to paint together! it is very fun and that is one of Belle's favorite activities to do to pass the time in the neighborhood.

Belle is terribly perfectionist and he tends to dislike his finished paintings a lot "it didn't turn out like i expected.." <- would probably be one of his catchphrases, but of course Wally is always there to cheer him up... and again! Belle naturally grew attached to him because of this (he really likes all the praise he gets from the fellow artist). Likewise with Wally, he seems to be very fixated with Belle, even when he first arrived at the neighborhood it was an instant attachment... almost like he knew him from somewhere before, quite odd huh? Belle doesn't think too much of it though, he relishes in the sweet attention, one thing he noticed too is that everytime they're in a room together or just simply around each other in general, Wally's gaze also follows him everywhere, that must mean he likes him too right? <- Belle's silly train of thought, after all he's not sure how others court...

Then we got the very high spirited Julie, Belle has a hard time keeping up with her energy... whenever she invites him to play any games with her he does try to keep up but he ends up becoming fatigued or overstimulated very quickly, Julie understands this so she does gives Belle some time to catch his breath! Belle is also a big fan of Julie's horns, always saying stuff like "They're so candy corn..." which Julie thinks it's cute! after all they're not edible... silly Belle, she thinks Belle's fixation of wanting to take a bite out of things that are not really edible just because they look so colorful or smell nice it's an interesting quirk to have!

Whenever Belle spends time with Barnaby he's always saying stuff like "you remind me of someone..." but he never finishes his sentence nor elaborates so Barnaby always brushes this off as another one of Belle's funny quirks. Belle thinks Barnaby's jokes and puns are somewhat corny but he does still end up snorting and giggling slightly at them, which is a miracle by Belle standards since it's a bit of a challenge to make him laugh, Barnaby likes to take this as a challenge somewhat, always trying to find something Belle can laugh about, since he does need to ligthen up and stop being so hard on himself from time to time.

He also has noticed how fond of one another Belle and Wally have grown to be, so of course he supports his best friend in his attempts at courting, which are very entertaining to watch to say the least, he even gives advice to the two of them whenever they're not attached at the hip with each other, they're like two little peas? in a jar? yeah something along those lines...

Belle really admires Frank's intelligence, whenever they share a conversation Belle can't help but listen in awe at all the cool bug facts the other has to share! even if he's painfully afraid of bugs... he thinks they're cool in concept. Frank on the other hand enjoys Belle's company, he's a guy very easy to bewilder and he loves to listen intently to all the bug facts or any cool facts in general about the world that he shares with him, even if Belle is not the most responsive guy in the world he can just tell he loves to learn new things.

Eddie values Belle's meekness, he's also a guy of few words like Wally but unlike the latter he does ask a lot of questions from time to time, he is quite slow at understanding some things but Eddie is always patient and loves to explain things to him in great detail which Belle appreciates. Overall Belle likes how reliable and kind the other is, he also admires how skilled Eddie is at making crafts, always asking him to teach him some stuff related to handcrafts which the mailman happily complies.

Of course since Howdy's shop is the only one in the neighborhood, this is where Belle gets most of his art supplies. Howdy thinks Belle is a funny little guy, even though he's awful at telling jokes and Belle's type of humor is very particular he always found enjoyment in the way Belle would ask for the funniest products, "edible paint" or " edible rocks" were most of his common suggestions...

Belle really admires how passionate Sally is, she's always asking him to take part in her plays which Belle has reluctantly accepted on some occassions, whenever he practices his lines Sally can't help but think Belle is a really good actor! which is surprising considering the fact that he's not very expressive on his day to day life, although it always ends up being all for naught since he always freezes when there is a big audience which is a big shame...

Belle really likes visiting Poppy, he even helps her bake from time to time (albeit a little clumsily and Belle always forget where he places the baking supplies cause he gets distracted too easily but that's ok! he still tries his best), he's a big fan of Poppy's baked goods and for some reason the smell of freshly baked cakes/pies makes Belle very nostalgic but he can't never tell why, after all he doesn't remember how or when he arrived at the neighborhood. He's always joking that it must be because he had a bakery in his previous life which Poppy finds very silly.

Belle doesn't have much of a strong opinion about Home, of course he does get along with them... but he can't help but feel home knows something he is not aware of although he always brushes this silly thought to the side... oh silly Belle always asking one too many questions.

[coastober]

Hi! Welcome to the Coastober Tumblr Blog!

You might be wondering what Coastober even is, having stumbled upon this by either some fluke or by someone you know taking part. Either way, Coastober is a design challenge created by @rose-grimm-spirit-does-dumb-shit that runs throughout October where you make a design a day based on a ride or attraction designated for that day. So for an example from last year, the 7th of October was designated for The Dragon at Legoland Windsor.

Anyone can take part, however I thought it'd be good to answer any potential questions you may have as well as a general rundown for those who haven't really taken part in stuff like this before!

FAQ

Are you affiliated with/copying CoasterMaynia?

First things first, nope to both. If we ever end up teaming up for whatever reason then this may change but for now they don't know Coastober exists, I also made Coastober before I had any idea that CoasterMaynia existed as I started this back before I was properly in the Tumblr Thoosie circles!

Does Coastober ONLY focus on coasters?

Nope! We actually focus on a healthy mix of coasters, flat rides, and scare attractions! This is another thing that sets us apart from CoasterMaynia.

When does the official lineup for the year come out?

It'll likely come out in September, this is because the "Official" Coastober prompt list is based off my own lineup and since I'm an avid Fright Nights fan I always wait till we have our official event lineup released so I can throw in our newest addition.

Do I have to follow the official prompt lineup to take part?

Nah, if you want you can create your own list for that year and it'll still count! Besides, I can't guarantee that you'll always like the look of my picks and since I like to throw in scare-attractions too there's some that might make you a lil' uncomfy to look into.

The official list I'd say should be taken more as like a guideline or "Hey here's something you can follow if you wanna challenge yourself or can't think of one", it's not absolute sacriledge if you don't use it y'know.

What should I do with my designs during/after Coastober?

Whatever you want! I personally put 'em up for ota and watch people snap 'em up but what you do with them is entirely your call, you could even end up trading coastobers with other participants if you find you've both got designs the other really likes!

What if I'm busy or life happens so I can't finish on time?

Easy, just don't sweat it and take your time. The aim of Coastober isn't to whack out designs one after the other but to learn more about the themed-ents world, push your art and designing skills and have fun. If you have to take a break, miss a day, or even fail to finish within the month then that's okay, feel free to finish everything at a time when you're more capable and available.

After all, october is quite the busy month for thoosies after all and looking after yourself is priotity!

How To Coastober

Pick your lineup. You can either go the official lineup or make your own, both work. Though if you're a little stuck, here's a nifty comparison of the two.

2. Get prepped! While this step isn't exactly nesecary, it certainly does not hurt to do a bit of pre-Coastober research and idea rotating in the run-up. It helps the process flow easier when you're actually doing it!

3. Get going! The time has come, October is here! So grab your pens and snatch your pencils and get designing, remember to both credit myself {Spirit} for the concept of Coastober and tag your designs with #coastober on tumblr so this account can find and reblog them!

Other Useful Info

Account Mods This account is currently ran by: - @rose-grimm-spirit-does-dumb-shit {The Creator of Coastober} - @cherrykitkat

Prompts Lists, both past and present - 2024 OFFICIAL LIST

Fun Facts Coastober's been going on since 2021, this year however {2024} is the first year I'm actually making a proper effort to make it more accessible to others! That's why the prompts list will only go up to 2024!

[skellebonez]

A Trip For Two?

The final fic for @lunar-wandering's Monkie Destiny Challenge! I WAS doing 8 prompts per "week", sometimes using both prompts per day and sometimes just one. This one includes:

... a lot fdkjgfdkslj. I was only able to implement a few random ones.

Happy Halloween!

AO3 Link!

“I can't believe you convinced me to do this,” Pigsy said with a grunt, hand held against the wall as he followed it toward their destination through the pitch black darkness.

“I can't believe you agreed to it only the second time I asked,” Tang countered, a soft excited but nervous laugh echoing softly.

To be fair, Pigsy had always wanted to try one of these escape rooms. He just never got around to finding the time or the right one close enough to give it a shot. Why Tang wanted to go to a murder mystery themed one specifically was easy enough, he wanted to give all his recent extra study focus a new target.

He’d been extra focused ever since the incident with Azure, no more cramming at the last second for anything. Granted, he DID change up his method of study from the one that Shifu Subodhi had him work with, but this new one seemed to work better for him in the long run when balancing the rest of his life duties. Heck, he’d even applied himself to helping Pigsy research different methods of cooking ingredients to elevate his noodles even further.

But he’d also been getting antsy. Not just because of any reason related to his studies, though he was getting more and more frustrated with not “having a better fitting challenge” every so often, antsy with all the stuff going on around them. The constant endangerment, new enemies at every corner, new powers he seemed to continue to need to master and experiment. He thought they needed something that Pigsy hadn’t had in decades.

A vacation.

So, of course, Tang figured he could kill two birds with one stone. An escape room meant a challenge he could meet head on. And this one was offering a prize to anyone who could beat it within a certain time limit. One romantic getaway for two in Guilin, where Tang promised to take him to the Yulong river when they win this.

Tang was overwhelmingly positive they would.

Pigsy had… reservations.

“Tang, you know I’ve never been good with riddles,” Pigsy protested with a snorting laugh.

“No, but you ARE good at problem solving in other ways!” Tang boasted as he looked their pamphlet over. “I’ve seen you somehow manage to Tetris in all those ingredients in your supply cabinet for the shop.”

“That’s just work brain.”

“Well your work brain and my school brain may be brilliant enough to solve this challenge and get us that romantic getaway prize.”

Pigsy couldn’t help the soft smile that crept on his face at Tang’s boasting. It was sweet, how much confidence he had in the two of them.

But Pigsy also knew that as brilliant as he knew Tang to be… he also got stuck on the crossword puzzle on the city’s homepage last week. Three letter word for mirthful.

The answer way “gay”.

They were, probably, doomed. But at least this would be fun!

Pigsy chose to believe that as they finally reached the doorway at the end of the hall, Tang eagerly opening the door to allow them inside the main escape room.

The room wasn't terribly big, all things considered. Roughly the size of the entire dining area and kitchen of Pigsy’s, it was styled like a typical western study one might see in a mansion in an American movie. If it was horribly ransacked and clearly burgled, and also meant to look possibly Haunted. If the old stains and spider webs and the creepy doll on a shelf by the exit were any indication.

So Pigsy had to give the Escape Room crew points for detail! Just crowded enough to look realistic, but not so crowded it would make the game too hard to complete at all. But it did make it clear why this room took over the prize time limit to complete for most participants. Even he was a little overwhelmed and wondering where they should start looking in all of the clutter around them.

It didn't take long for them to find the first clue, or to solve it. Ironically, it seemed like this particular one was timed and they just had to wait a moment for the TV to come on to find the next clue. In fact... most of the clues in the room seemed to come easy to them.

Right until the 6th clue, a note in a vase lead them to a riddle on the wall and, quite frankly, it made no sense.

“I made quick work of the mountain chicken to hide my motive.”

Pigsy didn’t know what the hell this clue could have meant. If a mountain chicken wasn’t a chicken… what the fuck was it? Some other kind of bird? A lizard? A salamander?

“It’s a frog,” Tang said confidently.

“How in the world did you know a mountain chicken is a frog?”

“I didn’t,” Tang said with a shrug. “But this reference book fell off the shelf and the bookmarked page was for that frog. It’s probably meant to be a clue for people who don’t know that already, it falling saved us a LOT of time!”

Yeah… just like how the TV coming on via a supposed timer gave them the clue earlier…

Was this game rigged?

... couldn't be.

But, somehow, it was right there. A broken statue of a frog that looked exactly like the Mountain Chicken in Tang's reference book. And hidden inside one of the cracks was a torn slip of newspaper, revealing who Pigsy assumed must have been the culprit and their motive for this little murder mystery.

“Hey Tang?”

“Yes, Pigsy?”

“Hasn't this seemed a little... too easy?” The chef asked, eyebrow raised in confusion.

“I think we've just gotten really lucky,” Tang said with a smile. “And we HAVE had to puzzle out all but two of the clues ourselves anyway. We're also still really close to the end time and we have one clue left...” Pigsy hummed, nodding as he realized Tang was right. They may have gotten everything pu t together, but they only had 5 minutes to put the clues together in the correct order in the little computer next to the exit door. They were still going to have to work fast to win this challenge.

As they rushed over to the computer he couldn't help but see Tang's wide smile. He was so EXCITED at the idea of winning this. Was he just happy that he could win something that he had to solve? Or was he happy that he was possibly going to win a romantic getaway with his husband? Pigsy didn't know...

But as long as Tang smiled like that? He found he didn't really care either way. He just wanted him to smile more.

“OK, so we have to put this together like... oh gosh, it's Cludo,” Tang said with a laugh. “We have to put all this stuff in like a Cludo answer but with more steps.”

“Well that's easy!” Pigsy said with a laugh. “Mr…uh… what was his name?”

“Chandler.”

“Yeah, Chandler!”

“AH, right, Mr. Chandler stole the study key and killed Mr. Doe -aka Mr. Bennet-, in the kitchen with poison and moved him to the study to make it look like the owner of the mansion did it since only he had the key!” Tang said triumphantly. “Great job, Pigsy!”

He smiled wide, turning around to grab Pigsy and plant a passionate kiss on his lips and-

Wait…

Pigsy pulled back from the kiss as the exit door opened, looking at Tang in confusion.

“I… I didn't remember his name,” he said softly.

“… I didn't either,” Tang admitted, looking around in confusion.

“Then who-”

“You're going to miss your deadline,” the mystery voice said again. From high up. And when they looked up they noticed the creepy doll on the shelf had moved, turning to stare down at them with blank glassy eyes. “… run.”

Pigsy and Tang ran faster out of that room than they ever had before. So fast they didn't notice the giggle and the soft whisper of “I hope they like their vacation” they emanated from the room before the door closed behind them.

They did, by the way.

Even if they were very cautious of escape rooms after that.

[amysubmits]

Hi Amy! I just found your blog and really wanted to talk to you if you've got time but I got nervous so here's an anon. So I'm in my very early twenties and in the last few years have been really interested and taken by the idea of d/s dynamics. I don't have a boyfriend and am not really comfortable signing up to any sites so that's not really the issue. But as I'm going on dates and stuff I do find myself looking for that character that would resemble a dominant guy. I didn't realize it but I am attracted to that energy. What I'm concerned about though is the reason...for that attraction. So I'm in drama school but we can't really afford it so I have 2 part time jobs rn. One is this modeling agency that sometimes gets me by. It doest do much in my country but once a month a few hundred if im lucky, do come in handy. The issue is that the people I'm around and the environment is very toxic. Not just in a photoshoot but mainly. I've had to shut my mouth and smile and "submit" to guys just to remain part of the project. I don't feel comfortable doing more provocative stuff so that's been an issue and my manager keeps pressuring me about it at every opportunity. The relationship w him is weird he's a nice guy in general but sometimes he's too pushy. I also had a bf in the past (the only one) we were together briefly but he ordered me around a lot, and we never talked ab any of this but he was very strict with what I wore ect. What I'm trying to say is, I've had very traumatic experiences w all these people and am really worried whether the dynamic between us pushed me to want it? Like if my desires are somehow influenced by my trauma? Have you had similar concerns? How did you realize this is what you wanted and that it is not a response to something? I hope you're comfortable answering, but if not thank you for what you're doing your page has been really informative and I've learnt a lot xxxxx

Hi there!

I would be happy for you to message me if you decide you feel comfortable at any point, but anons are okay too! It's a big part of why I leave them on, for people who feel comfortable sending asks but not asking questions or whatever on DM. :)

This worry you're sharing about wondering if your desire to be a sub or be submissive comes from your trauma is something that I think a ton of subs have considered or worried about at some point. You'll definitely get a different answer to these questions if you ask other people. In my view, this is one of those areas where the 'right' answer can vary from person to person. So, this is just my take of course.

I am trying to avoid writing an extremely long post, so if you want or need me to elaborate feel free to follow up. But in a nutshell...I think most people have "little t trauma" from childhood that caused them to adapt to try to find connection and feel safe (physically or emotionally) and loved from a SUPER young age, to the point where it's challenging to know what it even would mean for a lot of us to say X is me, but Y is my trauma. Like 50% of the population has an insecure attachment style, and that primarily develops in the first year of our lives. So then we're still babies but we're already trying to change our own behavior to feel connected to our mother or our primary care giver. When that's the case...I think it's really, really tough to know who or what you would have been without the trauma as it's baked into your personality and coping methods SO early that we can't remember anything else. And so...I guess my goal has been to try to do a combination of accepting myself while also looking as honestly as I can at who/how I am now and look to change anything that I want to change or think needs improved. And with that in mind...I couldn't begin to tell you if I'd be a sub sexually or personality wise if I didn't have trauma. I just think that's an impossible question to try to figure out. Instead, I try to look at whether what I crave is healthy. If what I want to do is healthy for me, then it's okay if it IS based in trauma. I mean, plenty of things can be caused by trauma but still be really good things. For example, I feel pretty confident that the reason I seek healthy, safe feeling communication with my partner is because I grew up with lots of yelling and conflict and meanness. But I think that desire to have healthy, loving, safe communication is a good thing so I don't feel the need to reject that desire I have, as it's good, regardless of the cause being 'negative' or sad. I've come to the conclusion that D/s and BDSM can be healthy things for me. That isn't to say that I think I could do anything I wanted and call it D/s or BDSM and have it be healthy. But I think that a lot of what I desire sexually and within my relationship is healthy, and I embrace those things. And when I find myself craving something that is less healthy, I try to avoid embracing those ideas, or avoid acting out those fantasies, or resist those behaviors. For me, one thing I have to fight against is the instinct to be extremely passive. Passive feels safe to me because of my trauma, and I can sometimes incorrectly convince myself that I am being a good sub by being passive. That isn't always true, so I have to really keep an eye on any passivity and make sure that I am truly submitting from a place of desire and choice, and not from a place of it 'feeling good' because my brain is telling me that inactivity to appease others is safe and familiar. We try to regularly re-look at the things we do and ask ourselves again if all the details of how we're managing our D/s and BDSM are healthy for both of us. We try to ask if we're reinforcing healthy ideas or unhealthy ideas. Sometimes it changes over time and we have to adjust.

With you being new and young, I'd also suggest that you try to be extremely careful with what you learn about D/s and BDSM, and triple check that it's healthy. Some people will claim that literally anything done in the name of kink is healthy as long as it's consensual. I think that is a really wild viewpoint, personally. I think consent is really the absolute bare minimum, but a lot of people will consent to things that are harmful to them emotionally, and I think that is unhealthy. Of course, what is unhealthy is extremely opinion based, and I think it also can vary a lot from person to person...something could be unhealthy for me to consent to but perfectly healthy for you to consent to if we have different life experiences, different traumas, etc. At a really basic level I'd suggest looking really closely at whether D/s and BDSM make you feel good in terms of things like...confident, loved, empowered, authentic, loved, safe, secure, etc - or if it feels outright bad, or 'good' but only in the sense that feeling bad feels somewhat good to you (this is true for some with trauma), or if it makes you feel small, inferior, used, scared, insecure, etc. And then also if/when you get into a D/s relationship look at whether the things you try seem to be inspiring positive changes and growth, or negative patterns. Maybe at first you happily agree to let your dom decide whether or when to cut your hair, but over time you realize that you feel less 'yourself' when you can't control your own hairstyle fully. If that becomes the case, then in my opinion, it would be healthier to go back to deciding your own hair.

Sorry this is so long. I hope it's helpful in some way. Good luck to you, please continue to look out for yourself! It can be a scary world out there for young subs. It sounds like you're doing a good job of trying to look out for yourself though...even in wanting to figure out what your answer to the questions you sent in this ask are. So, good work. :)

[sufficiently-advanced]

hi! I got a bunch of asks, and I figured I should (after 5 years) finally give an update.

unfortunately, though I enjoyed this for a long time, the hobby of writing faux-academic analyses of wands has long been soured for me bc I am, yknow, trans in the uk. I don't want to help sustain positive and neutral attention on jk rowling and contribute to the money she is using to fund and spearhead uk and us movements against trans people. It is truly wild to have reason to have beef with a famous children's author but here we are. Years later, these movements are still using that harry potter money and social cred to try to make questioning trans people's existence seem like a liberal free-speech common sense position that's unfairly targeted by radical, hysterical trans activists.

(Here is a tracker of the rise in current legislation restricting trans peoples' participation in public life in the us; the current uk prime minister made a jab against trans people this week in parliament, unknowingly in front of the mother of a trans teenager recently murdered in a hate-motivated attack, part of his customary appeal to right-wing culture war rhetoric. This is, as that first link points out, not his first public joke lampooning trans people, and as the stonewall link below mentions hate-motivated crimes against trans people have increased over 150% in the last few years, but only in the aftermath of a girl's murder has labour pushed back against our identities being part of a national debate.)

Interacting with people still into harry potter feels like a real toss-up. It feels depressingly likely, given what I see online and the beliefs of some of my coworkers, relatives and acquaintances, that I'm writing for someone who thinks nonbinary people are fine as long as they aren't too scarily masculine-looking, and trans women are fine as long as they're really nice and never say anything challenging and make themselves as small and cis-acceptable as possible and only react to people's cruelty with self-sacrificing grace, and trans men are fine as long as they are cute and don't look like neckbeards and are suitably disdainful of masculinity but also not too trender-y, and this whole thing about harry potter is kind of overblown but you can't say that because trans people looove to cancel people. I don't want to write stuff for people who hold these beliefs if I can avoid it! Writing non-harry potter related stuff is the best way to avoid it right now.

If some of these statements feel challenging to you - I was there once too, as a confused angry teenager who felt like gay people were trying to make me feel bad about myself. The social media landscape genuinely makes change more painful than it has to be. Personally, working to humanise and listen to people I was unthinkingly taught to disregard, ignore, disdain or pity has been one of the most rewarding projects of my life, even though by definition it will probably never be complete, and also it can be difficult and vulnerable. I hope you can find it rewarding too. If you're mostly like 'wow, I for real didn't hear about any of this', happy for you, there are links below so you know what's up and can identify some messages you might have absorbed without knowing it.

I won't be updating this blog with any more analyses. Thanks for reading, especially if you had to push through discomfort or fear to do so, and for liking my analyses enough to follow! If you have questions, here are some good resources to look at:

the basics of 'what does trans mean, like, practically?';

a great primer on what we actually know about trans people in britain (useful for outside-of-britain questions too);

a video introducing jk rowling's contribution to anti-trans movements and the discussion of whether to separate the art from the artist, and, if you're interested, a dry but short video about some of her direct links to conservative anti-trans and anti-gay groups in the us and uk

if you have more questions after looking at these, the facebook group 'You Might Wanna Learn More About Trans People' is an active group where you can ask them, anonymously if you want to.

[sirenjose]

Your thoughts on the Identity Switch

Thanks to you…. I now really like Norton. I used to hate him because I have a vendetta against people taller than my 4’11 self but now I love him.

on another note, what are your thoughts on the Identity switch system? Looking more into Norton’s background specifically makes me wonder why Norton gets a hunter form. What does this represent? I know that there’s a lot of drugs involved but I always interpreted it as them unlocking a new personality or smth, one more attune to following the manor’s games and supervising it (hunter) and like the other just trying to leave (survivor). I’ve been so interested in Norton’s lore lately that now I’m in an existential rabbit hole in how survivors get hunter forms, why that is, and if it’s like some sort of curse or punishment. Why are these survivors getting hunter forms?

soooo many questions, IK. But like reading your theories and analysis at 3Am is my serotonin. As a new player purely interested in the game for its lore I am just excited to know more but can’t wrap my head around all these weird concepts cause, again, I’m new. Also if I spend the next hour reading more of your analysis I will not sleep so therefore I need to preface my curiosity with a timed endeavor. My question probably do3snt make sense but like uhhh yeaaaaa. You should totally make something on your thoughts on identity switch (especially for the survivors gone hunters) cause I am too far in deep into the Norton-Campbell-Fool’s-Gold-Alternate-personality rabbit hole.

I’ve never done the questioning thingy before so sorry if this is not how it works. G’day!

Ah, it makes me happy to think a nobody like me can turn your thinking around on someone. Especially Norton since he was 1 of the main reasons I got started with the lore at all. I'm someone who usually plays a game based on how interesting the story or characters are, so I was interested in learning about idv's lore soon after I joined (had to take quite awhile to figure out the basics of the game and what all the various buttons were, then take some more time to get used to it before I could even get started with the lore). Was the main reason why I went looking to join places like Discord or Reddit, just so I could find people talking about the story.

Started by just understanding what I could about what people said, but then I eventually moved on to trying to understand at least the basics of everyone's backstories (once again, took me awhile to do that ^_^; Especially as I joined before we were getting all that much story at all). While I was doin this, I heard a lot of people saying bad stuff about some character named Norton. Have to admit I didn't know who he was for quite awhile. Wasn't in my radar. Can't even say I cared much for him. But I eventually got to the point where I basically decided I wanted to see if I could determine if Norton really was that bad or not (maybe as a challenge to myself, maybe because I wanted to find out myself rather than just hearing other's opinions, or maybe because I failed to find anything really in-depth about him).

That analysis took a ridiculous amount of time. In part because I ask too many questions, because I'm a perfectionist and wanted to look at every bit of info on him and detail on him, but also somewhat because I ended up writing this like a persuasion piece, and felt the only way to do that was by going through everything to back up my conclusion (whatever my research turned up). Which was also why I analyzed every single essence he had a skin in, as well as any skins not in an essence, his accessories, emotes, etc... It was during that process I actually got attached to Norton. Probably because of how long I spent going through him (no one needs to know how long it took... only the immense joy and desire to collapse I had when I finally finished).

Since then, I've rewritten his analysis... 3 times now I think? Counting after hunter norton's release? Though I've taken down that 1st version due to issues, and haven't reposted my essence analyses as they're old (they were pretty much the 1st analyses I wrote, and I'd like to think I've improved since then) as well as because they're based on the 1st version of my norton analysis... and because they're probably a bit needlessly long and thus embarrassing... Maybe I'll repost them once I get around to rewriting them. I definitely will eventually at least for Soul Catcher's and Magic Item Keeper's essence because I have to say they took longer than almost any other part of that original (complete) norton analysis (i can never forget the trouble they caused me over how long it took to understand them).

ANYWAYS! Ignoring my stupid rambling because who cares about any of that.

I was going to include my answer to your question about Identity Switches but it’s starting to become a little silly in length ^_^; (seriously, for those who know me well enough, I have a bad habit of writing more than I initially intended to once I get started) so I’ll make that a separate post for you, and you can let me know if it answers your questions (once I post it). If not, feel free to ask any more of your questions.

Honestly, the lore is confusing even to those who aren’t new players, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t wrap your head around a lot of this ^_^;

It’s hard for me to imagine my stuff is so good people are willing to read it, much less re-read it. Especially as I know people tend to prefer… shorter things, but I have tendency to be lengthy. I can’t help it though ;’) But thank you so much for the compliment.

And please, I’m still pretty new to Tumblr, so I’m still figuring all this out myself.

Anyways, don’t feel nervous talking to me or asking me any questions you have. I enjoy being helpful! So please, ask whatever you like. Or even if you don’t have a question, that’s ok too. I enjoy rambling about a subject I get started on, as long as the other person can bear with me ;’)

 It’s always nice to know people besides me, myself, and I are reading this stuff.

(Apologies for any errors or nonsense in this post, as I decided to write it without double checking it for errors cuz I felt like being lazy, and I'm still busy writing out my thoughts about Identity Switches for you)