#I don't know why I wrote so much

[kioraismyplaneswalker]

Sorry in advance for the essay. I didn't expect to write an essay either.

Anecdotally (as someone who has worked in a game store for over 8 years but just the one store), yes and no. Magic sales are… hard to describe without pulling up actual sales data, but here's a vibe check I guess

In ye olden times (we'll go with 2015 because that's when I started), each standard set release was bonkers. The shop would open 100 booster boxes for singles and offered 100 booster boxes for pre-order most sets and they tended to sell - barring Battle for Zendikar which was so popular the shop had to open fewer boxes to keep with demand, most sets sold about 60% of the pre-ordered boxes prior to launch.

Special sets (Battlebond, Masters, annual commander decks, etc) were also really popular, in part because it was 1 set a year that really spiced things up and there wasn't any other way to get super spicy reprints.

Then we got the first iteration of the early sales promotion. Prerelease wasn't just for playing prerelease (at midnight of course) anymore, stores got an allocation of booster boxes to sell that weekend and after 3pm local time you could straight up buy a box!! It blew people's minds. Add in that that also heralded the ability to run prerelease before midnight, and it was a huge cultural shift that I loved because it meant no more 11pm to 7 tournament shifts for me

This resulted in increase magic sales, at least in my store. And that was before we became Premium (a program which came after this shift I think but before my next paragraph. all you need to know is some stores are special and get extra things/pilot programs that specifically might boost their sales over another)

The real shift came in 2020. Between The Year of Commander and the pandemic, Hasbro went wild. Suddenly special sets and masters sets weren't occasional things, alternating years. We were getting at least one of each in the same year - within a month of each other even due to shipping delays pushing Jumpstart out to late July with the first Double Masters right after it.

That's also when things got confusing for customers, because not only were there more sets releasing that year, and more commander decks (we'll come back to that) but the Set Booster came out with Zendikar Rising, just a year after Collector Boosters had come out. And a lot of people weren't playing paper magic at that stage of the pandemic, so when they did start going to shops again they had no idea what each pack was

(it is something I still have to explain on the regular. I'm honestly excited for Play boosters coming out next year just so I don't have to walk people through the "set or draft" conversation ten times a day anymore)

Releases have only accelerated since then, but what about sales? That was your original question (more or less) - does the scattershot approach to magic make wizards more money? (Not taking into account secret lairs but I can only imagine that's a money printing machine for them)

The short answer is yes. As a premium store, we send our sales data to wizards monthly. Every premium store (and premium applicant) sends wizards sales data for all wotc-made products (sealed magic products, d&d books, etc, but not sleeves or deckboxes since those are made by other companies) and they send surveys to all wpn stores after every release on top of that so they know what the movement of each set is actually like on the ground level.

And yeah, more magic is selling than ever, although box sales are less popular after the price hike last year and bundles are very popular but under produced (they're a single print run product and for popular sets distributors sell out at release, which means there's no restock potential), booster packs sell constantly and overall tend to make shops more money.

But stores also have to buy more - while set boosters are by and large more popular than draft boosters (due to higher chance at extra rares) and collector's packs (because of the price point), we need draft packs to run drafts still and don't know how many customers are going to want to draft their box. Add in the expensive masters sets (do we go deep because it's hot? But the week before launch - a month after our preorders are locked in - spoilers are done and the fanbase rallies against it because actually the value is terrible and oops now the shop has $20k in dead inventory) and it's a lot. It's risky.

Plus not every product is for every player. The collectors love Masters sets and collector boosters, the guy who can't afford any booster box at all thinks they're awful and overpriced but loves set booster packs because they still get some of the fanciness and extra rares without the mark up.

It's a double edged sword, because a lot of players think they should be (and they always have, to be clear. I had a lot of experienced players complaining about how bad planeswalker decks were and, yes, for them they were, but they were intended for new players who just wanted to try out a deck and they were perfect for that purpose)

So it's very easy for stores to overstock the wrong product (I'm looking at you, Midnight Hunt)

So yes, for wotc it's more profitable. And for shops, if we get lucky and don't back the wrong product, it can be vastly more profitable for shops. The shop I work at makes more money on magic than ever, but we also have more inventory on hand than ever, which isn't sustainable on its own since we have finite storage space (but that's what black friday is for I suppose)

Oh right, and I said I'd circle back to Commander decks. They're great, everyone loves them etc etc. Having more than one release per year has been awesome - Commander is only getting more popular and that annual release schedule they kept up through 2019 wasn't cutting it. But also having 2-5 decks come out with every set plus the special releases (universes beyond) is a lot to fit on the shelf and a lot for deck collectors to buy. There's definitely some fatigue there, but that's mostly turned into folks who used to preorder the full set of 5 for a given year buying 1-2 per set (aka still more decks than they used to buy but spaced out over the year giving them less wallet fatigue and not being sad that of the set of 5 one was bad because they don't buy that one now), leaving us with plenty to sell without going overboard. Overall we sell more than we used to but if they cut it down I'd appreciate it.

Tl;dr - anecdotally from the shop I work at, yes more product = more money and most of the people complaining about too many releases spend the same amount throughout the year they used to (or more).

I wonder if Magic The Gathering would paradoxically make more money if they had fewer set releases.

I wonder this because of the "this is too much too frequently, nuts to this" factor.

(Along with a lot more specific considerations, but I tried listing them individually, and stopped when I realized I could keep going for what felt like indefinitely.)

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[nostalgia-tblr]

One thing New Who doesn't really have that Old Who did was the thing where everyone (audience included) thinks the Doctor is this amazing genius from space with the best spaceship of all time, and then someone else from Gallilfrey shows up and goes "Oh, it's you. Did you get expelled from our university or did you just fail your degree? Is THAT what you're driving around the universe in? How does that thing even still work? And why are you dressed like that?"

[dreadark]

that ivan loves till is the most obvious thing about them

but. does ivan know that…?

the ivan that regards his own feelings as shallow, the ivan that learned how emotions are expressed only from copying others… does he even know that the love he’s felt for so long is love? probably not. and part of the reason is the one he loves himself

because the easiest example he has of love is till's feelings to mizi. till outright calls it love, and ivan watches him so much he has to be aware of this and till’s love to mizi is totally unselfish, right. he doesn’t seem to actually want much from her—just that she's still there and still "mizi"

but ivan can't be satisfied with just watching he… wants. ivan wants till’s attention, till’s affection—

surely this selfish wanting can’t be love

...no wonder he was never able to express his feelings straightforwardly when he belittles them so much but he can’t stand not having anything either, so he does… whatever he does instead to get any scraps of attention he can, from someone he's convinced doesn't care about him at all only showing affection when till can't see it, right until he knows he's going to die

but ivan's feelings for till are all he still has of himself... to think of them as shallow...

I've seen this translated as "I should've been kinder" to him (till) or to her (sua)

but really, the one he should've been kinder to was himself

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[loustyles]

Some photos of Liam at the 2013 1D concert in Perth I went to, taken by my best friend at the time. I'm so fortunate I was able to see 1D the handful of times they came to my country while together. I have been a fan since xfactor and they mean more to me than I think I could ever express. I have travelled the world and met so many amazing people and persevered through horrible life events thanks to this band. When I was 15 I was in a really dark period and One Direction were quite literally my only light. If it weren't for Liam there would be no One Direction and if it weren't for One Direction, I would not be here. I truly do not know how to comprehend that part of my light is gone but I do know that I am so grateful to have had him and this community for half of my life. I hope you rest easy, Liam, and I hope you somehow feel the importance of your life even in death. I'm so sorry. I will miss you deeply.

[add1ctedt0you]

What a plot twist you were. [x]

[bayetea]

I don't like the judo flip in moa as much as the next guy but in my eyes it's largely the result of rick not taking female violence half as seriously as male violence (a result of viewing women as weaker and inferior to men such that their acts of violence don't need to be taken as seriously) and not so much anything about annabeth herself. like I do genuinely feel that annabeth is a complex heroine and definitely one of the better ones in the realm of ya action-adventure fiction produced in the past 25 years but she is still a girl being written by a man and all I'm saying is that her writing clearly reflects that sometimes (more in tags)

[mysteriousbeetle]

going from chuck dixon's run of bop (1999) to gail simone's run of bop (1999) things just get a little less sexist and a little more racist. and while the writing itself feels pretty different, it doesn't feel better or worse necessarily, it just has different focuses.

[ivorysoda]

Hi me and @professor-rizomata spent 7 hours on this thing and it's very chaotic please tell me your favorites and I might draw them

Notes:

In general, keep in mind that obviously as we kept assigning characters, the options for the remaining plays got more limited, so some of them are kinda odd.

We did not go in chronological. It was pretty random. Every character gets a 1st lead and 2nd lead.

There were a couple I remember immediately assigning. Rei in Nocturnality (haha), Keito and Shinobu in Literary Impasse, Sora in Love Out of Left Field, Mika in the Clockwork Heart (lmao...)

For the most part we thought of the 1st and 2nd leads individually, which is why some of the pairs are bizarre. In general we were thinking of "who (probably) has the physical capability" and then "who could (maybe) fill the personality"

After the initial ones, we decided to go through every Autumn slot first, since the requirements for the genre are a little harder to fill with most of the enstars characters

Then we did the rest of the 1st leads. After a while the thought process just kinda got down to "big guy or little guy" bc of limited options sbdbfjfnf

I DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE 4 FROM 2023. No thought was put into Moon Traveler bc I couldn't find ANY INFORMATION ON THE ACTUAL PLAY. I'm sorry. Good luck to Subaru who has to fill whatever role Chikage plays.

Giving Hokuto a weapon. Also Romeo AGAIN

Bc Nomadic Bartender was one of the last ones and I was kinda left with just little guys of the main idols, it ended up being the one filled by the teachers (the leftover play was either gonna be the teachers or 4piece. I'm not gonna make a 12 year old play a bartender although the idea is VERY FUNNY)

Other Interesting Things:

Characters who play the same person's roles twice: Tori(Yuki), Yuuta(Muku), Mika(Citron), Kuro(Juza)

Characters other than the above who are in the same troupe twice: Natsume(Spring), Hinata(Summer), Mitsuru(Summer), Ibara(Autumn), Madara(Autumn), Adonis(Winter), Eichi(Winter), Nagisa(Winter)

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.

I don't have external meltdowns.

I could. I don't let it happen.

I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.

So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.

She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.

Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].

It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.

They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.

I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.

I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.

I couldn't understand what made her like this.

But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.

If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.

And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*

And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?

My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.

Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???

And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.

I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*

She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.

I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.

So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.

But I told her hundreds of times.

I probably should have just screamed at her.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[isbergillustration]

Nekrowmancer (a very funny joke if you head over to my writing blog @outgridwrites and read the right thing)

[metaldevilll]

viv and palp both being down bad as hell. that’s the post.

and like…. the stupidity that comes with it….. they say or do things in the heat of the moment and then they’re like wait no. like palp catches himself staring and he’s just like “you’re so fuckin ugly” and viv is like what the hell

or like….. one of them watching the other, just completely fuckin enamored, and then something happens that snaps them back out of it- like. palp watching viv fight and viv catches his eye and is like “yo this sucks let’s gtfo” and palpers has to shake his head and like… etch a sketch his brain back into thinking mode instead of Gay mode

viv zoning out and just watching palp do whatever mundane task, palp is talking about whatever and is like “are you even listening” and viv has to be like uhhhh nah. palp is annoyed and viv is flustered cuz he knows why he wasn’t listening, palp doesn’t notice, and then the moment is just gone again….. locked in back to normal

i just really fuckin love the idea of them being so infatuated while also fighting for their lives to pretend they aren’t.. and them just being stupid ass little simps in general. like the drawing of palpers in the dress you made…… viv thinking lgbt thoughts…… genius

i’ll eat any art you make of them like i’m starving so keep it up man they are my lifeblood

no because i get you anon. grabs you by the shoulders and SHAKES YOU!!!!!!!!!!! i think vivilly finds a sad comfort in believing palpers doesn't love him the way he does. like,, it's fine if he thinks gay thoughts cuz it's not like they'll come true anyway. he can dream, right...? so he indulges in those feelings in his own time, while pretending like he only likes palpers as a friend it never strikes him that palpers might feel the same way. he’s thought over different scenarios a million times and while he doesn’t have a response for every silly thing palpers may say, he’s seemingly never caught off guard despite humoring him, kind of playing into the chill sarcastic stoic dude trope. but he’s not. he’s soft and he feels and he loves and the persona is a result of that with palpers i feel like he also does believe that vivilly could never reciprocate. when he looks at vivilly, he never knows what's going on in his brain. they do have their moments that sort of prove they have similar minds, but he never actually knows what vivilly’s thinking imo his brain is empty more often than viv’s is when it comes to thinking of his crush. a sus moment happens and he’s like “holy fuck….” but it’s glossed over almost immediately afterward. things happen in-the-moment for him, and he reacts with his true emotions and has less of a filter than vivilly, he gets louder and more aggressive (not with malicious intent, just in general as a silly guy) essentially they both are going "nah he can't like me... he CANT... THERES NO WAY" and theyre both dead fucking wrong im writing this using how i personally view the characters (my version of the characters? idk), i have a limited perspective and small perception of things (if you played mc with me you’d know…), i misinterpret stuff a lot, so like… idk. maybe it’s totally out of character for how you view them. it’s kind of cool to think about though, that they can be read so many different ways when none of them are inherently incorrect I TOTALLY CAN SEE THEM MINDLESSLY WATCHING THE OTHER ALSO. not caring about what the other might be thinking while looking at them, not noticing the other watching them equally as much… they’re so clueless it’s INFURIATING i like to imagine that when they flirt with each other, it’s always by accident. i can’t imagine them flirting with each other on purpose… like, they’ll be arguing absentmindedly, bickering or maybe laughing about something, one of them says one thing (most likely palpers) that catches the other off guard. they just continue to build off of that and i think the only thing that stops them from going too far is them getting too flustered to continue… they could be like two centimeters away from kissing (and they both want to) but they both back out because they’re about to fuckign explode from emotion “FINE. I’M GONNA- I’M GONNA KISS YOU, BRO.” “OH YEAH??? BE MY FUCKING GUEST, DUDE.” “BET.” “DOUBLE BET.” “T-... TRIPLE BET.” “bro. you gotta get closer than that…” "i know i know, just- give me a second-"

in my opinion the only situation where i can see them ACKSHUALLYYYY confessing is like… the other’s health is in grave danger and it’s a last minute thing where they mihgt fucking lose them so they just tell them everything. viv comes back from a mine or smth on the verge of fucking splurging bleeding out and palpers holds him in his arms and begins sobbing and says i love you please don’t die over and over or something. viv survives but he was half unconscious throughout it so he doesn’t even remember. the pining continues

[xcziel]

has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?

[dootznbootz]

Odypen definitely and equivalently adore each other BUT I weirdly can't see them as the type to actually say "I Love you".

They still definitely vocalize their love for each other but it's more so in "My Joy", and "Extraordinary Woman", "Strange Woman/Man", etc. And very cheesy lines (both say some cheesy shit in the Odyssey, and he definitely does in the Iliad as well. "Joy like a drowning sailor seeing land" bit???)

I could see "I adore you" but even then, that's probably during very specific moments but the actual "I love you"??? I just typed it just now for fic shit and... It weirdly just didn't feel right and I don't know why. 😅

Idk maybe it's kind of because I see them as over the top in ways, they love wordplay and riddles and I think they'd almost think "...That's not good enough >:( " about it??? I don't know???😂