#I expect the their- variants to be much less common than the them- variants but thought I should include them in case I'm surprised!

[upslapmeal]

I've noticed that when it comes to reflexive pronouns (himself, myself, yourself etc.), there seem to be some variation in what people use as the singular they form. The main ones I've seen are

theirself

theirselves

themself

themselves

and I'm curious to see which is most common, and whether it varies depending on whether or not you personally use they/them pronouns. So with that in mind:

I would have liked to have added options for whether you are a native English speaker and for dialect but that would be way too many options so let me know in the tags!

[cry-stars]

Komaeda and Dementia: Part 1 of 5: Introduction and Overview of FTD

Hi everyone!

I’m an aspiring Komaedologist with an interest in dementia. I often see people doubting Komaeda’s stated diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, since it presents differently in him than in the common portrayal of dementia in the media. While his portrayal may not be completely accurate, there is a lot of truth to it, and there are many symptoms visible in-game. I wanted to share a few posts about dementia symptoms that we do see canonically in Komaeda’s portrayals in SDR2 and DR:AE, and share some information regarding his specific diagnosis as opposed to Alzheimers, for example.

I work with people living with dementia as a recreation worker. This means that I see them living their daily lives, and know about difficulties they might have with recreational or day to day activities. There are a lot of observations that I might make that can’t be backed up scientifically yet, but do make sense in a practical way. Everyone with dementia is different, and since I work with seniors for the most part, some observations won’t transfer onto Komaeda. However, I’ll do my best to back up whatever I can with sources.

This post is just for fun and to give people ideas. It means a lot to me to see a fascinating and endearing character like Komaeda portrayed with dementia, since it is a sad and terminal disease, and I usually see it end badly in my job, so I hope to give people ideas on how to portray it, or just to notice things in a different way they might not have before!

My main sources for this post and the following ones include “Dementia Diaries,” which is a really cool project where people with dementia talk about their experiences, National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Society, and my own work experience. I plan on doing more posts about specific symptoms that we see in Komaeda later, but I would be happy to hear from other people who have dementia knowledge, or to answer any questions that I can.

For the most part, I'm only going to be talking about SDR2 and a little bit of DR:AE. I haven't finished watching the anime yet and have not read any of the manga. If anyone has ideas from any of those sources, I would love to hear about them!

Overview of FTD: Which Variant does Komaeda Have?

There are two major forms of frontotemporal dementia. The first, which Komaeda likely has, is the behavioural variant (BvFTD), which is also the most likely for young people to develop. This variant of FTD mainly affects behaviour, empathy, judgement, and planning.

Komaeda is less likely to have the other variant of FTD, primary progressive aphasia. This form of FTD mainly affects language skills, including speech and comprehension.

Komaeda doesn’t seem to have very much trouble with understanding the concrete content of what people say to him, but he does occasionally seem to have trouble fully comprehending hidden meanings behind statements (for example, taking statements literally rather than as sarcastic). To me though, this is less connected to him not being able to understand the words or content of statements, and more not picking up on the emotions hidden in the statements (which I’ll address more in the behavior post). He does seem to have some trouble with word-finding in the Japanese version of the game, but again, it doesn't inhibit his ability to express himself given enough time to speak.

Another thing to note about FTD is that, in its early stages, it mainly affects behaviour and language processing, as stated above, rather than memory. In later stages, memory does start to be affected as well, but it’s different from Alzheimers (probably the most well-known form of dementia) in that memory loss isn’t the main symptom.

FTD’s prognosis is about 6-8 years. Komaeda states in his fifth free time event that his life expectancy is between half a year and one year. However, he is also referring to his lymphoma diagnosis, meaning he expected to die from a combination of both illnesses within that time frame. In SDR2, Komaeda is probably in the early to middle stages of FTD, since he was diagnosed right before entering Hope’s Peak, and was a Remnant of Despair for some time without treatment, so while we can see evidence of memory issues (which I will address in another post), it’s something he’s able to cope with and isn’t a debilitating symptom yet.

One more observation: while dementia as a whole is usually seen in elderly people, Komaeda’s specific frontotemporal dementia diagnosis has an earlier age of onset, usually between ages 40-65, and is rarely seen in elderly people. Even though being diagnosed in high school seems unlikely, it is not impossible. According to Alzheimer Society Canada, early-onset or young-onset dementia (between ages 18 and 65) accounts for 2-8% of all dementia cases.

Thank you for reading! I plan on making five posts total. The other post topics will be Outward Behaviour, Judgement/Thought Processes, Other Symptoms, and Writing Ideas.

[serpentface]

How do the people of the lower classes live in wardin? Is It different in each region? How dynamic is the social ladder? Does slavery exist?

Gonna just go through the whole social structure to answer this thoroughly

(little note for this post- when I say 'urban' and 'rural' it doesn't have the same meaning as the contemporary- urban Wardi spaces are the major cities and towns INCLUDING the massive areas of farmland that surround and them. Rural spaces are lands distant from major cities, wherein most people live in small and isolated villages sustained by herding or small-scale farming and are surrounded by grassland or scrub)

SOCIAL HIERARCHY:

The majority of cheap labor is maintained by high levels of class stratification in a fairly strict and well defined social structure. This hierarchy can be roughly divided into 3 main classes- royalty, nobility, and commoners.

---

Royalty consists of the Usoma and immediate kin, functionally the Usoma, the Usoma-Hittibe, the Usoma's wife, and his male heir. The rest of the royal family will be married into nobility and be functionally a part of that class (though tend to be appointed to high ranking roles in provincial government or the imperial court).

---

The noble class is broader and describes all landowners, who occupy a variety of roles. They staff the imperial court, form the majority of provincial officials, and many of the most Major priesthoods take their members (or at least high priests) from noble families. They own most of the land and livestock that urban agricultural laborers work, and are expected to distribute much of their take of agricultural goods to their provincial government. This status is hereditary and only lost in cases of individual disowning or Extremely profound familial disgrace (usually severe criminal behavior) that leads them to be stripped of their title and their lands seized.

There's three main variants of the nobility class

Old nobility: families with very longstanding status and land holdings, long predating Imperial Wardin as an entity and often derived from older chiefdoms and/or descended from the royalty or politicians of its previous kingdoms + city-states). These typically own the most land and have the most political power, but this is not universal. New nobility/'new money': an emergent class that rose in tandem with a wealthy mercantile class, largely in the past two centuries. These primarily derive from very wealthy mercantile families that secured political/trade power during the chaotic formation of Imperial Wardin. Most 'new money' families are actually at least a century old and TRULY New 'new money' status is rare. They are likely to have less landholdings but may have the same or greater political power (and sometimes material wealth) than old nobility. 'landed commoners' or 'lesser nobility': This isn't Really a subclass of nobility in practice, but have similar status and privileges in theory. These are people/families who have been bestowed minor titles and granted land ownership, while generally lacking the hard power of others in this class group. Most lesser nobility is comprised of priests or members of elite warrior orders, some other lay/civilian commoners may occasionally receive this grant as a reward or recognition. Very minimal hard power comes with this title, though it can enable a person to maneuver their family into a true position of 'nobility' with luck.

There are mild cultural distinctions between old nobility and new money nobility (as is typical when 'new money' status is differentiated). The most socially conservative old nobility families have avoided intermarriage with their new money counterparts and tend to conceptualize their status as an Innate quality rather than the circumstances of their birth, one that would be sullied by intermarriage with upjumped commoners (often accompanied by appeals to traditionalism and fond memories of a morally superior time that never actually existed). This is a minority however, and the two groups are largely intermingled and united by a sense that, regardless of ancestral origin, they're notably better than most other people.

---

The commoner class includes the VAST majority of the population. This class is very broad and includes a significant spectrum of wealth (some commoners are outright rich), but can be defined by lack of legal land ownership. 

The majority of commoners (and majority of people in general) are agricultural laborers, and form a distinct subclass.

-Urban agriculturalists mostly work on land owned by nobility and used to sustain their city's population- the majority of their harvest is required to be given to their landowners, and a (smaller) majority of that is required to be distributed to the provincial government. They are allowed to live on their granted land and grow food for their own subsistence, but will have to buy or obtain their own animals for completely free use of livestock. -Rural agriculturalists are primarily living in villages away from any urban centers. Their land is not owned by nobility but not considered their own, being legally designated 'owned' by their province, and (in most cases) a percentage of their harvest is required to be paid to their province as tribute.

The other members of the lower commoner class are mainly fishers, sailors, trade caravaneers, and a variety of 'unskilled' laborers (contracted to build roads and buildings and general public works, etc).

---

The upper commoner class is varied and more difficult to place, and consists largely of people living Within the urban centers. These are mostly artisans and merchants, as well as a variety of lower status public officials, teachers/tutors/scholars, specialized agriculturalists, poets, bards, athletes, actors, etc.

Within many of the major cities, skilled artisans exist in selective mercantile guilds and can be economically secure or potentially even wealthy. These are potters, painters, sculptors, silver and goldsmiths, blacksmiths, weavers, saddlers, leatherworkers, shipbuilders, tailors, etc etc. The merchant owners of these guilds are typically fairly wealthy, and the most powerful guilds tend to be owned by established new money nobility. These guilds are most common and diversified in the major coastal provincial capitals and some of their towns (Ephennos, Wardin, and Erubinnos, some will say that Godsmouth is Run by its guilds) and a lesser/less diversified phenomena in interior or small coastal capitals (Jatsait, Erub, Lobera). Artisans may be commissioned by temples, nobility, or even royalty to produce their goods, and very successful artists can make a name and very good living for themselves.

Animal sacrifice is very important to religious practice- captive sacrificial stocks are owned by each priesthood and reserved for their internal or public rites, but the general public often desires to bring their own high value offerings and sacrificial stock vendors have emerged as a concept to meet this demand in urban contexts. These are a subset of merchants who purchase surplus livestock from nobility or agricultural laborers (or hunt or poach wild game) and resell it to the general public, priced by value and rarity. The vast majority deal in birds (cheap to acquire and good enough for common offerings), but some wealthier/craftier merchants trade in larger livestock or other highly valuable animals. A subset of sacrificial stock vendors are more opportunistic and deal in non-animal offerings, usually vending desirable flowers, grains, spices and oils utilized in common offerings and strategically setting themselves up near temples or en-route to festivals. This is practice is legal and not considered outright heretical in of itself, but is kind of the used car salesman of Wardi culture (ie: "this cow is DEFINITELY older than a year, clearly diseased, and has ABSOLUTELY been bred and yoked, I'm not paying you ten gulls ((coinage)) for this shit come on man") and they do not tend to be regarded all that positively.

--

There are a few other subclasses who do not neatly fit into the core class hierarchy:

Priesthood: This group consists of all official priests of the Faith. Their hard material social status can vary- a significant proportion are selected from nobility and retain other aspects of that status, but some are commoners. All enjoy a degree of social protection, esteemed status, and security.

Warrior class: This is not the same thing as being a soldier (all male citizens can be conscripted as footsoldiers), and is rather a high status warrior placed into an elite military order. Much of the warrior class is members of nobility, but this isn't Always pure nepotism and this status will often be given in recognition of prowess regardless of class origin. If a commoner, they are very often bestowed land titles and become lesser nobility.

Non-Imperial Wardi: These are groups within the claimed territories who are not a part of the cultural core, mostly ethnic minority groups (Hill Tribes, North Wardi, Cholemdinae, Wogan, and unassimilated remnants of other pre-Wardi tribes). These groups live within their own social structures (though many could be considered to fall under the 'rural agriculturalist' class group). Many are in a tributary relationship with their surrounding province, in which case they retain full self governance in return for giving a percentage of their yield to provincial officials. Some people living on claimed Imperial Wardi territory exist fully outside of the tributary structure (mainly areas that are difficult to access, very distant from city centers, and/or hostile to the production of mass-desirable crops or agriculture in general) and are entirely just doing their own damn thing.

SOCIAL MOBILITY:

As implied in all that, social mobility is very limited. The vast majority of people will occupy the same class position (same OCCUPATION at that) as their parents and grandparents and great grandparents and so on.

Intra-class mobility (ie from a field laborer to an artisan) is possible, but practical and cultural limitations discourage this. Your children inheriting the same labor as you is generally the most guaranteed method of security for yourself and your family. In the artisan and mercantile classes, passing your knowledge and trade from father to son is culturally typical, and taking up your father's position is somewhat a matter of familial piety (though outright IMPROVING your position to your family's benefit is better).

Servant positions actually offer some of the best intra-class mobility (and sometimes Full movements up the social ladder). A person from a very poor family can potentially find very well paid and secure labor in working for a noble family or priesthood. Servant positions to major priesthoods in general can have very good outcomes, potentially landing one a job as a high ranking attendant. The child servant-squires of Odonii may be initiated into the warrior class if they remain in the order as adults, which can be a VERY desirable outcome (if it occurs).

Initiation into a priesthood or the warrior class through any means is the other main method. The major priesthoods tend to select their members from nobility, but this is not ubiquitous (the Galenii are the biggest priesthood that will readily initiate across class lines). Initiation into the warrior class in recognition for prowess gives one high social status and will land one in the lesser nobility, in which you are bestowed land and a title. (This may not have all the hard power of true nobility, but it will generally set yourself and your family up for life).

The 'new money' nobility primarily stems from wealthy members of the mercantile class involved in the trade system, but most established themselves and secured their position a century ago and there's not a lot of remaining 'openings' for other merchants to achieve this. Most of the upper mercantile subclass will be economically secure but not landed or having the other status of noblemen.

Marriage into a noble family can occasionally be an avenue for mobility. The vast, VAST majority of marriages in noble families are arranged, and arranged with other noble families. Intra-class marriages will be functionally rare, but not non-existent- this will mostly be the daughters of the upper mercantile subclass being married to noblemen, but it will VERY occasionally be a "yeah fuck it, I'll let my dumbass sixth son marry that hot fisherman's daughter, who gives a shit" type situation.

SLAVERY:

Slavery is not a major part of the framework (as most cheap labor is provided via class stratification to maintain a massive, dependent lower agricultural class), but exists in the form of forced labor of enslaved prisoners (war captives and some condemned criminals) and indentured servitude.

Chattel slavery is not practiced here (beyond forms of illegal human trafficking, which is an Extant but not substantial phenomena), and enslaved prisoners are considered ‘owned’ by their province for the duration of their ‘sentence’. This force is mostly exploited for dangerous hard labor, especially mining and building products. Their enslavement is conceptualized as a form of punishment with a sentence of an explicit duration (ranging from months to years to life), so this status is not hereditary and Ostensibly not necessarily lifelong, but enslaved prisoners often endure grueling conditions and abuse with high mortality rates, and may experience tremendous barriers to the protections of citizenship or other forms of social security even if freed.

Indentured servitude is a form of slavery in which a person enters a legally enforced servant/labor position and is denied freedom of movement or ending their servitude for the duration of their contracts. Most indentured servants are forced into (or occasionally voluntarily enter) this position to pay off debts. Legally, indentured servitude can only be enforced during the duration of their contract (either the length to pay off a debt or an allotted time span) and the contract owner is required to provide for their basic needs, but abuses obviously occur. 

This is separate from what I just refer to as servants, who are free commoners in paid positions with enforceable legal rights to end their servitude at any time (with pay cuts or similar consequences if this breaks a contract). These people occupy a broad spectrum of positions from cheaply paid labor to very well paid, even high status positions serving nobility, priesthoods, and royalty. As mentioned, these positions very occasionally offer class mobility, more commonly offer a good chance of ensuring lasting security for oneself and one's family (without class mobility), and in most cases it's just work that puts food on the table.

The exception to the freedom of servants is in the case of child servitude, which exists under the same rules and structure as free adult servitude but is functionally slavery due to the child's complete lack of legal autonomy. Their contracts CAN be ended at any time, but a child is under the legal control of their father - basically if their father denies to break the contract, they have no means of ending their servitude.

Boys are legally adults at 16 and can end their own contracts. It’s messier with girls, considered legally women upon menarche but still under ownership of their father until/unless a husband is found. Female child servants have a Degree of legal protection in which their father is required to either end their servitude upon menarche or has a year to arrange a marriage (also thereby ending it)- if these conditions are not met, the father is legally expected to end the contract, and the young woman has a right to contest his wishes if he does not. This is legally enforceable but very fraught in practice, given that women cannot self-represent in court and require a male representative, and a child servant can very easily be Prevented from acquiring or contacting one. (This difficulty does not apply in the same way to adult women servants, as they enter the contract under their own name and do not need a father/husband's permission to break it (though they are similarly more vulnerable to abuse than men due to their lack of legal autonomy))

Forms of child labor is culturally normalized and not everyone who participates in this system is personally malicious or cruel (note that this does not say "HAVING CHILD SERVANTS IS OKAY IF EVERYONE'S REAL NICEYS ABOUT IT"), and a young woman in this position Might be recognized by the person/institution they serve and given representation against their father in this fashion (especially given they likely socially outrank the girl's father). Forced servitude of adults (separate from the wholly accepted practices of indentured/prisoner slavery) is a punishable crime and widely considered reprehensible, which certainly doesn't mean it doesn't Happen, but does mean that the average person will not want to enable it (or at the very least will fear consequences) enough to prevent it if it's in their power to do so.

AVERAGE LIFE:

The average lower class person in Imperial Wardin is a urban agricultural laborer whose crops sustain their associated town or city. Their parents and grandparents most likely lived this way as well, and so will their children and grandchildren. They live on a tract of land and grow crops and/or herd and care for livestock owned by a nobleman they might never meet, and most of their output will go to these landowners and to the city/town/province they serve. A provincial official will come to their village at designated times during the harvest to oversee the collection and its division of their crop.

They are allotted a small amount of their output (crops, wool, etc) that, under normal conditions, should be sufficient to sustain themselves. If they produce a surplus, they can take it to the town or city to sell. It's ideal if they manage to purchase their own livestock (fowl are easily acquired, horses are fairly affordable, cattle are costly, owning a khait is a dream situation) to provide dairy, potentially grow their own herds, and maybe even produce enough to afford to slaughter their livestock for meat. They will also need to attempt to accumulate valuable goods and livestock for any of their daughters' dowries.

Their diet is very high in grain and very low in meat. In most parts of the region, maize will be the basis of the diet (and their likeliest crop), which will be consumed in nixtamalized form for better nutrition. Most of their protein will come from legumes and eggs. Any hunting or fishing on the land they live without express permission will be considered poaching, though some may dare to risk it. Foraging for wild plants is permissible, and this will supplement their diet.

In lean times, they bear a high risk of starvation, as their required output to give to their landowners/province remains the same. The nobles who own their land are expected to help keep them alive and give some of their own surplus back to their laborers if necessary, but this is less a legal obligation than one of honorable behavior, and may be partly or completely neglected. Most agricultural laborers experience at least mild starvation on a seasonal basis, and their year round diets are nutritionally poor.

If in proximity to their province's capital city, they likely face little dangers of raiding or predators, as the nearby roads are periodically patrolled by soldiers and most large predators have been extirpated from their land. The biggest animal-based danger will stem from crocodiles in the rivers in which they fetch water, and from snake bites. Agricultural pests are a much bigger threat to their livelihood, ranging from rodents and birds to (in some parts of the region) very aggressive and dangerous wild buffalo. Those adjacent to smaller towns may sometimes be troubled by raids, or find their livestock or themselves threatened by large predators (most commonly hyenas).

They most likely live in a village with other families, many of whom will serve the same nobility and all of whom serve the same province. Their village is likely run by a semi-official leader who retains the word 'chieftain', who is an agricultural laborer such as themself and functions as the primary go-between for the village and the provincial official collectors who come for their harvest (as well as a general leader and mediator). How this chieftain is decided and whether the position is (semi)hereditary or elected will vary by subculture.

Their style of home will vary regionally, but this is most commonly going to be a small mudbrick house with a straw roof. If they're an adult man, they likely live with their older mother and father (and any living grandparents) along with their wife and children, and any unmarried relatives. If they're a woman, they likely live with their husband's family in a similar setup (their own family may be in the same village, or may live further away).

The culturally idealized gendered division of labor is not fully attainable to them. The women in their family will do the majority of the endless task of textile labor, but the men will participate as well when they are not actively at other work. All members of the family will work in the fields, and mothers will carry their infants on their back as they do so.

Their clothing is typically limited, and consists mostly of what their family and community has produced itself. In hot seasonal temperatures, they will probably be wearing only a cloak, loincloth and sunveil (standard for women, optional for men), and walking barefoot or in basic sandals. They are diminishingly unlikely to own any weapons, and instead will carry a staff or use farming/herding equipment if self defense is needed.

They most likely live a short distance from a town, and a few days' journey at most from their province's capital city. As such, they have close access to religious centers and most likely practice a largely doctrinal version of the Faith of the Seven Faced God (with some folk-religious elements). Most will make the commute to their towns or cities for major festivals and holidays. Their lives and survival depend significantly on the fertility of the land, crops, and their livestock, and much of their religious practice will revolve around the agriculture-fertility oriented Faces Ganmache, Mitlamache, and Anaemache.

They are very unlikely to be literate, probably knowing key common logogram characters without being able to construct or read grammatical sentences. An education may be ostensibly attainable, as there will be free public schools for citizen commoner children in their province's capital city, but they likely have little motivation to send their child away for years to gain skills that will ultimately matter little in their line of work (and lose valuable help in the process). Most knowledge and life skills will be passed directly from parent to child.

The average Wardi agriculturalist has a difficult life, but has significantly more leisure time than the average wage laborer in a capitalist industrialized country. Their working day lasts only as long as it needs to (with the longest days being in the planting and harvesting season), and free time can be spent at rest (or at least the comparatively restful tasks of weaving and knitting). They are expressly exempt from labor on the majority of religious holidays (some lasting multiple days), as well as the third day in each solar calendar week (considered a day of rest to attend to the domestic sphere).

[princescribbler]

5 Common Misconceptions of ABDLs!

To be clear, these are common misconceptions ABDLs have, not common misconceptions ABOUT us ABDLs!

1. "My kink is so rare!"

Really? Because candidly, abdl, ageplay, and diaper fetishism intersect in a fascinating way. There are diaper fetishists who despise any form of ageplay or regression, there are ageplayers who get off on the Ageplay, or the diapers, or the humiliation, teasing, or any other aspect of the kink. And candidly, you can tell ABDL really isn't that uncommon when the communities that show up are this large and varied. Heck, there's entire communities on reddit with tens of thousands of abdls, and that's just one site (and not the most kink friendly space to begin with.) Add in the fact that many people are very embarrassed or worried about this kink and you've got an even better explanation for why it can FEEL very rare or isolating... but it often comes down to just being hard to find, at first!

2. "Nobody vanilla will accept me! They must all think I'm a freak" (or similar negative expectation setting)

Except.. they do, all the time, every day. I've personally avoided most vanilla relationships, but I know MARRIED abdl couples who started with one partner totally vanilla, and some of the biggest and most successful content creators in this space are well known for having partners not into ABDL.

Simply put, if you assume it'll go wrong and you'll be judged, your body language, words, and tone can be much more nervous and defensive and make your partner feel ill at ease. Try to not go in with negative assumptions!

3. "I have to find a caregiver to feel little!"

Uh... no you don't. Your kink might involve a partner, your desires might include one or more people around to care for you or dominate you or join you in diapered submission... but none of that means you can't enjoy still, and have a GREAT time. You can try to foster your own regressive or littlespace mindset, happily. And you don't need ANYONE else to enable that. If you're expecting that just having sometime else around will fix things, you're sadly incorrect! You need, at some level, to be comfortable enough to not just rely on EXTERNAL enforcement of your abdl side!

4. "I should get rid of [x] because I feel embarrassed/bad/upset!" (Or any similar variant of the binge/ purge mentality)

Binge and purge cycles happen, and can be very emotionally destructive. Try to instead put the object in storage instead of throwing it out, because often your emotional negative response will only get worse when you later regret it or judge your own reaction.

Try to give yourself the space to struggle, but don't just throw things away or destroy them if they're kink items... instead, realize you might feel differently later and give yourself the grace to be allowed to change your mind without any further fear or judgment!

5. "Everybody can tell if I'm padded/ little/ going out discretely!"

No they can't. I could stop there but truly let's consider this: you realize that incontinence is common... shockingly common. You've passed people in adult diapers, pull ups, discrete pads, you've likely even been in a room with another heavily diapered adult and NEVER realized. Because unless you're being obvious, have leaks, or make a point to wear very form fitting clothing, nobody will notice or likely even look! You're much less exposed than your brain makes you think!!

My point is this: be nice to yourself, and work hard to challenge those negative self talk moments that come up for so many abdls. Your interests and desires aren't as rare as you think, more people are ok with it than you realize, nobody can usually tell even if you are padded (and would be more likely to assume it medical than kinky even if they noticed), and struggling with this is normal too!

BE NICER TO YOURSELF: THAT'S THIS PAPI'S ORDERS! You don't deserve to feel bad about something that helps you feel good!

And as always; stay happy, stay healthy, and stay kinky!

- Scribbler

[where-did-the-groove-go]

Okay, so I've been lucky enough to encounter a Volkswagen Thing irl on more than one occasion since constantly keeping an eye out for them in the past couple years, after first becoming aware of their existence as what Ron still stubbornly drives to this day. Actually, the first one I saw was a VERY lucky sighting, but I didn't even realize it was a Thing until afterwards. Because I'd been looking for something that looked like Ron's car. Not THIS:

That's the Acapulco Thing, which was briefly sold in 1974--only about 400 of them--after being designed to shuttle guests around at a couple of high-end beach resorts in Mexico. In retrospect I probably should've realized a lot sooner, because my reaction upon seeing it had been "What the heck is that THING?!" It dawned on me a couple days later, just because you'd be hard-pressed to find any other car that boxy, though a quick Google image search hadn't pulled up any with the surrey top.

(My second Thing sighting was much more as expected and obvious; it even had a decal plastered on its side which read "The Thing".)

Several months later, thanks to the Boss Accountant showdown being posted here, I found out that the Thing is a relatively rare car. Which prompted me to spend a few days fixated on reading about them. Then I was finally able to put a name to the Acapulco variant.

Something else I learned... Turns out that if you're anywhere near LA and you see a Thing that looks like Ron's, it almost definitely is.

(I say "near LA" only because I doubt Ron is doing any serious roadtripping in it these days.)

A bit of backstory: the Thing was advertised as a fun car. A beach cruiser, a safari car. Aimed at surfers and hippies and other adventurous types. It's a convertible. The windshield folds down. The doors can be taken off.

That's not the impression I initially had of the Thing, and perhaps with good reason: Ron's is a bit unique even among Things. For one, it has the less common factory hardtop on it, instead of the convertible one. Additionally, in 1974, black was not a stock color for Things. They only came in colors suitable for 1974: orange, yellow, white, and avocado green. Which means that more than likely, Ron specifically wanted his black (because of course he did), and would've had to go out of his way to get it repainted or find one that had already been repainted. A full repainting job is no small feat for a Thing because a lot of the metal is exposed inside the car, meaning that everything has to come out of it to have the interior repainted--and we can see that Ron's has.

Anyway, I just think that makes it all the more poetic. Not only does Ron's car reflect his personality in being "a little bit out of the ordinary", but his black utilitarian ride is a brightly colored beach-mobile in disguise. Nothing more fitting for a guy whose crisp shirts and ties and slicked-back hair and quiet demeanor would never belie it now but one of his formative experiences was spending the 1960s surfing.

So if you're ever feeling sad, just remember that Ron is driving the same car as the Acapulco Thing.

[kata4a]

@jadagul @necarion @arsinyk @quantumofawesome

Over Thanksgiving @jadagul was explaining Maiden handtalk (from the Wheel of Time novels) to me, which as I understand it is a signed language used by the female warrior class of the setting, letting them communicate in secret (and in particular without being understood by men).

Obviously this immediately made me think of Irish Sign Language.

ISL is a language unique for having highly distinct gendered variants (due to the segregation of schools for deaf children). Naturally the children, after graduating, would eventually want to interact with each other, and naturally, it was the women who were expected to learn the men's language.

This of course, meant that female ISL speakers knew a private language which they could use to communicate in secret from men.

That's at least what I remembered, but I wanted to confirm that I had my facts straight, so I did a little bit of research when I got back to Boston. Pretty much every source I could find agrees that Irish Sign Language has two distinct gendered variants (e.g.: https://www.irishdeafsociety.ie/irish-sign-language/). But it was somewhat more difficult to find more information characterizing those differences.

At least it was until I found the faculty page for Barbara LeMaster, whose research specialty is apparently exactly this. A lot of the most useful information was from her 2006 paper, Language Contraction, Revitalization, and Irish Women

Apparently, the gendered differences in ISL are not just from segregated schooling in general, but in fact can be traced to two specific schools during a specific period of time: St. Mary's School for Girls from 1846 to 1946 and St. Joseph's School for Boys from 1855 to 1957.

(Why do the gendered differences seem to disappear in the middle of the twentieth century? Because the schools, and especially the girl's school, stopped teaching sign language and started emphasizing oralism; and as the language was used less and less the variations within it started to collapse. Apparently ISL as it is taught now is largely a standardization of the language that was spoken at St. Joseph's, although the details are of course a bit more complex than that.)

And LeMaster does confirm that the "women learned male signs for public sign use, reserving female signs for private use among women." (p. 214) She goes on to say:

Men of this generation typically use the male form with everyone. And as might be expected, the men often claim that the differences between their and the women’s signs are not great and did not impair communication between them (Foran 1996[1979]; Foran, cited in Leeson and Grehan 2004). However, the women, having done the accommodation work, recognize the differences between their signs and the men’s signs, noting that in the beginning they had to use their common finger-spelling system to communicate with the men through spelling words in English (Coogan, 2003; Ceci Walsh, interview by the author, 2004; LeMaster 1990). Most women use the male signs more often but have retained their female forms for use with other women in certain contexts.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, rather than being a cool secret gossip language, the social position of the women's sign language is a lot more "girls feel bad for being girly":

For example, in a videotaped interview, one woman talks about being ridiculed by men for her female signs. She says that she has forgotten a lot of female signs and actually “prefers” male signs over female signs. She says of male signs (translated from ISL), “They’re nicer.” Curiously, however, this same woman, who claims to have abandoned her female signs, interacts with other women who are monodialectal in female ISL. And during the sign interview on videotape, at the very time she says that she no longer uses female signs, she employs the female sign for use. In a section of the videotaped interview immediately following this segment, she uses the male sign for use, so it is clear that she knows both forms, and her use of the female sign in this instance was an unconscious code switch.

[mythserene]

DRUGS COST MONEY (MARK LEWISOHN, DRUG BUDDY)

I'm late, but I'm here, and this is something I've thought about since I read Tune In the first time.

First of all, Lewisohn's definition and description of what Preludin was is wildly underplayed and misleading, so I have to just get out a few quick Preludin facts. They're helpful.

Lewisohn:

Preludin was an appetite suppressant, an anorectic drug introduced into West German society in 1954, when commercial pressures were making women become more image-conscious. Users maintained an appetite but quickly felt full when eating, and the reduced intake brought about weight loss. Preludin’s primary ingredient, phenmetrazine, was not an amphetamine but an upper, giving the user a euphoric buzz. It was soon sold internationally and used recreationally, and though available in Germany only with a doctor’s prescription...

- “Tune In” - Chapter 19; Piedels on Prellies

(Oh, those women and their obsession with weight.)

I know Lewisohn's not a chemist and I don't expect him to have done extensive study before writing “not an amphetamine but an upper”—which, first of all is just a weird, grade school sounding statement about any stimulant in general that no scientist would ever say or write—but also he makes it sound like it's a fizzy little pill that gives you the sillies.

But definitely not an amphetamine or anything bad like that.

Look, even Wikipedia says right at the top, “[i]ts structure incorporates the backbone of amphetamine,” and although I didn't spend more than a few seconds there, I saw it because it came up first in the search like Wikipedia always does. Just saying it's basically impossible to miss.

And whether he was trying to hide the ball or not, since he wrote so much about them I am going to quickly set the "not amphetamine" record straight before I go on.

“Methamphetamine hydrochloride (Desoxyn) and phenmetrazine hydrochloride (Preludin) are two variants of the amphetamine structure.”

- “Amphetamine Abuse”, Sidney Cohen, MD, JAMA

“The experience in Sweden seems to indicate that phenmetrazine (e.g. Preludin) has the highest potency, and the greatest risk of psycho-toxic, acute and chronic effects (Rylander 1966). Amphetamines and methylphenidate seem to show less dependence-producing and psycho-toxic effects than phenmetrazine.”

- (United Nations Bulletin; Vol XX, No. 2)

Basically, Preludin was synthesized by taking an amphetamine skeleton and boosting tf out of it by adding a very common sort of chemical scaffolding to it called a morpholine ring, allowing them to tweak it by sticking on a nitrogen group. But morpholine rings by themselves also increase potency and usually bioavailability.

So in the narrowest technical sense, Phenmetrazine (Preludin) is classified as a morpholine instead of an amphetamine, but in every way it is an amphetamine on speed. (And every description of it anywhere says so right up front.) It was Amphetamine Plus. The little added synthetic kicker the pharmaceutical company figured out how to attach to the amphetamine made it stronger—gave it the Preludin "kick"—made the high feel better in general (according to all this crap I spent way too much time reading) and also made it way more addictive. It increased dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake, and the compound itself displayed “some entactogen properties more similar to MDMA." It made Preludin far more psychoactive than straight amphetamines. Made smells stronger, sensations more intense, and made you horny and "increased performance." It was taken off the market in 1980 because it was so hyper-addictive and the ��psycho-toxicity” was so extreme. People reported doing things they barely remembered, including to a kind of freakish degree, like a lot of users committing crimes for the very first time in their lives. And so the company tried to replace it with a similar drug called Prelu-2, which is apparently still available but also almost never prescribed because even that was excessively addictive compared to non-boosted amphetamines.

And also, it made you feel body odors?

"...perfumes and flowers get a stronger smell, and body odours are felt more strongly than under normal conditions."

- (United Nations Bulletin; Vol XX, No. 2)

What are normal conditions? Maybe my normal conditions are different from everyone else's because I don't normally feel body odors?? But tbh I would literally try this drug just to see if I could.

Okay.

So... John was feeling some serious body odors because my man took a lot of them. Usually with lots of booze.

And apparently they made him more awesome.

George spoke graphically of how they would be “frothing at the mouth … we used to be up there foaming, stomping away.” John, as always, dived straight in, wholeheartedly grabbing another new experience with an open mouth and no thought of tomorrow. The Beatles called them “pep pills”—the commonly used British term of the period—and also “Prellies.”

...Two pills a night were more than enough for most but John frequently took four or five, and in conjunction with hour after hour of booze he became wired, a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity.

- “Tune In” - Chapter 19; Piedels on Prellies

Yeah, he sounds like a blast. Good thing you got a quote there, my guy. I'm sure the first description that would’ve come to his roommates’ minds would be “hilarity.” Or second, after “hero.” (Sorry, I don't want to be hard on John. I have a lot of bandwidth and patience for drug indulgences, especially in a situation like this, but Lewisohn is unbelievable.)

Ruth Lallemannd, a St. Pauli barmaid who knew the Beatles from 1960, recalls an occasion when “They crushed ten Prellies to powder, put them in a bottle of Cola and shared it between them. They were always wound up.”

Drugs cost money

Amazingly enough though, these prescription-only pills didn't just magically get from people with nice doctors to John’s hands. Someone sold them to someone else and they ended up with “the toilet lady,” Tante Rosa, who sold them.

They looked like little white sweets … but these were no mint drops.

- Chapter 19

So cute!

Preludin small-print advised against its being taken less than six hours before bedtime, in case of sleep disorders.

- Chapter 19

So if Lewisohn is reading the small print of a drug that was discontinued 44 years ago he did not miss the Wikipedia page and must know that “not an amphetamine but an upper” is wildly misleading. Technically true in the chemical classification sense, but not in the medical or pharmacological sense. And true in the same way that “fentanyl isn't morphine” is true.

But that's not my point.

My point is that these “little white sweets” were strong, had wild “psycho-toxic” effects, John took a lot of them, and they weren't free.

Because drugs cost money.

Paul slept fine on just the one pill, John and George didn’t. George would recall “lying in bed, sweating from Preludin, thinking, ‘Why aren’t I sleeping?’ ” John simply took more: “You could work almost endlessly until the pill wore off, then you’d have to have another … You’d have two hours’ sleep and wake up to take a pill and get on stage, and it would go on and on and on. When you didn’t even get a day off you’d begin to go out of your mind with tiredness.”

Or, put another way, John was “a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity.” And Paul did uncool stuff like sleeping.

Also, what in the...

Tony, George, Paul, John and Pete, along with Rosi and perhaps some stray females, would stagger wearily and noisily up three long flights of wooden stairs...

“Stray females”??? Is he talking about cats? Don't call human beings “strays,” you self-important oddity.

THE GROWNUP

John was never much into paying for stuff. Like rent, for instance. But that's what friends are for.

John was blessed with a particular talent for frittering away his funds (the council grant designed to provide his working materials) and was rarely in a position to pay [rent]. As Rod remembers, “During the week I’d go and have a pint with him and he’d always have money for a beer, but when it came to the day to pay the rent he was always hard up. ‘Could I owe it to you?’ ‘Would you like this jacket?’ One time he paid me with a Mounties-type Canadian jacket he’d probably nicked from someone else.”

- “Tune In” - Chapter 13; “Hi-Yo, Hi-Yo, Silver–Away!”

He paid rent with a jacket? Landlords take those?

I'm not gonna lie, the only real issue I've ever had with Paul—the things I have the most confusion and hesitancy about—are when he seems inexplicably cheap. Like paying the Wings band so little for so long. There's only a few cases that come to mind, but they're my weak point with him.

Still, having done my share of experimenting—as well as dating a guy who became a high-functioning addict before becoming a non-functioning addict before becoming an ex who died of an overdose—I know very well how it feels to see money flow through your hands like water and into someone else's bloodstream. And what happens then is you either both starve or you are the only one eating. In the end, someone has to have money to live, and the more drugs my ex took the more I was forced into being a walking, talking, pissed off safety net.

Stu supposedly got in a fight with Paul because Stu owed Paul money. (Although that doesn't explain attacking Paul out of nowhere on stage half as well as a three-days-awake-Prellie-binge psycho-toxicity does.)

It does, however, mean that at least one guy in the band who was taking Preludin was running out of money between paychecks.

And there's no way that if Stu was running out of funds that John wasn't too. And faster. And according to Lewisohn, George was eating a lot of Preludin, too. Because he was also cool.

That leaves Paul.

John was notoriously bad with money even when he had a lot, and when everyone is living and working together it's almost impossible to be the only guy eating or the only guy smoking. But at the same time if you know you can't do anything to stop your friends from going hard and never thinking at all, it tends to make you more careful. Because you're all you've got and all they've got. You didn't ask for the job, but you drew the short straw. So you hide some cigarettes and share too many, and get increasingly sick of it and resentful, but there's no good answer.

John heaped a ton of spice into the mix by suddenly moving back into Mendips. He’s unlikely to have told Mimi of the Gambier Terrace eviction, but Rod Murray knew little of this hasty departure: John left most of his possessions in the flat and several weeks’ rent unpaid—to the tune of about £15. He just scarpered.

- “Tune In” - Chapter 15; Drive and Bash

“Spice.” Dude really said “spice.” That John, so spicy. And fwiw, that's £300 today.

Maybe John had another jacket to pitch in.

Paul says he's more cautious by nature and I'm sure that's true, but also you know they all relied on him because they knew he wouldn't be as stupid as they were. Who knows what he would've done—whether he would have lived a more libertine life in Hamburg—if he'd felt like that was an option and he didn't have to be the grownup. Who knows what he would have done if anyone else gave a shit whether they ate or smoked.

I'll end by repeating the freakishly weird way Lewisohn told a John psycho-toxicity story that the AKOM ladies pointed out in Ep 8: No Greater Buddy, since it's almost impossible not to talk about John and Prellies without it.

“PAUL AND GEORGE’S HERO-WORSHIP STAYED FULLY INTACT”

George was second only to John in the swallowing of Prellies and knew better than most the sum effect of taking too many for too long, how the combination of pills plus booze plus several sleepless days caused hallucinations and extreme conduct. He’d describe one occasion when he, Paul and Pete were lying in their bunk beds, trying to sleep, only for John to barge into the room in a wild state. “One night John came in and some chick was in bed with Paul and he cut all her clothes up with a pair of scissors, and was stabbing the wardrobe. Everybody was lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh fuck, I hope he doesn’t kill me.’ [He was] a frothing mad person—he knew how to have ‘fun.’ ”

Handling John was something his friends were well used to doing. If he didn’t murder them in their beds there was no greater buddy. They might fear for their lives but they loved him still. No way would they walk out and join another group. John was just John, and Paul and George’s hero-worship stayed fully intact.

- “Tune in” - Chapter 28; You Better Move On

Mark Lewisohn knows nothing about drugs or drug culture. Which is fine. Good. Great, even. But the thing is, it doesn't stop him from knowing everything about it. He has confidently and emphatically stated that John and Yoko weren't doing heroin in the daytime during the Get Back sessions. He even claims that they weren't on heroin during the Two Junkies interview. Even repeating this paraphrase makes me feel ridiculous, but he says that was a hangover from the night before, and that they were too lucid to be high. Which, first of all, is not how heroin fucking works. They were blasted. The aftereffects would be them being antsy and jumpy, not going in extra-slow motion and puking. Blows my mind, the hubris this guy has. To confidently state something he unquestionably pulled out of his ass without even a moment's hesitation. Not only is that not how heroin works, but it is the drug that people wake up to do. Not wake up and do. Wake up to do.

And you can tell from the way he talks about John on Prellies—“a high-speed gabbling blur of talent, torment and hilarity”—that he has never experienced anyone who's been up a few days. And I still have a more daring nature than most of my friends, and am in no way shocked by the drug use. Me and my friends in Houston used to take Fastin and go midnight bowling every Saturday. The memories are good and I regret nothing. But the naive way Lewisohn romanticizes John and low key mocks Paul—as if Lewisohn was the ultimate drug buddy and Paul a total prude—is so weird. It's freakishly, embarrassingly, weird. Like he wants to be the cool guy. Like he thinks he can be the cool guy, and is being the cool guy, but to me it's painfully embarrassing and nothing else makes him look more desperate and delusional.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Since my previous posts on fish Digimon and mermaid (and mermaid-adjacent) Digimon got lived, fuck it, all aquatic Digimon. This will be a series of posts because there are too many for one.

I'm going to start with Digimon with codified evolution lines. For non-fans, know that while Digimon evolve through different stages, its much less linear than in Pokemon. While Pokemon evolution usually goes a to b to c, Digimon evolution can go more like a to y to r back to g then merge with e to become q. That being said, there are some lines that are clearly intended to be the default, often because they featured in the animes where evolution is usually a lot more linear than in the games and virtual pets.

Literally the OG aquatic Digimon is Betamon. It debuted on the first virtual pet alongside series mascot Agumon and yet its never been in the spotlight. I say Betamon deserves to be a major partner Digimon in some anime or game by now. I love this little frog/lizard/ wamp monster/whatever it is. Betamon also has a recolored variant called ModokiBetamon. Using a recolor as a new Digimon was fairly common in the early franchise. I generally prefer variants to have more changed about them than just the color. I also generally don't like x-antibody Digimon. To make a long story short, x-antibody Digimon are variants of existing Digimon that I generally consider to be overdesigned and ugly. Betamon has an x-antibody variant that isn't too bad as far as x-antibodies go, but it's still adding unnecessary elements to a perfectly good design.

Betamon

Betamon X

Betamon's main evolution is Seadramon and it's a classic for a reason. This sea serpent is a beast and played a significant role in the first anime as a monster of the week. It can also breathe out a stream of supercold air that freezes its targets. When I think of aquatic Digimon, Seadramon is usually the first to come to mind. It's also notable for having an x-antibody variant that actually looks good.

Seadramon

Seadramon X

Seadramon evoles to MegaSeadramon, which is a great follow-up to Seadramon's design. The red body is nice and striking and that big metal horn can shoot electricity. Come to think of it, both Seadramon and MegaSeadramon were monsters of the week in episodes of Adventure where a partner Digimon unlocked an evolution. Maybe that's the line's specialty, they never take the spotlight but they play support to the heroes. MegaSeadramon has a recolor called WaruSeadramon which is just darker and evil. MegaSeadramon has an x-antibody variant that is so overdesigned I can't help but grudgingly respect it.

MegaSeadramon

MegaSeadramon X

The final evolution in the family is MetalSeadramon which is where the line stepped into the spotlight with MetalSeadramon being a major villain in Digimon Adventure. It was upgraded by the Crack Team (a hacker group that upgrades Digimon into cyborgs for their own nefarious goals) to become incredibly powerful and the fastest of all underwater Digimon. And according to the anime, it can fly. Unlike the others, MetalSeadramon doesn't have an x-antibody variant. Sort of. There is GigaSeadramon, which has the x-antibody and looks exactly like what you'd expect from MetalSeadramon X, but isn't. I dunno why.

MetalSeadramon

GigaSeadramon

The aquatic line most people will be familiar with is the Gomamon line doe to its role in Digimon Adventure. Gomamon is a cute little seal. Specifically, it is a spotted seal, or a gomafu-azarashi. I really like this guy doe to its role in the anime as a laid-back and goofy partner to a compulsive worrywart of a human. Gomamon has an x-antibody variant that's fine, but I still prefer the original.

Gomamon

Gomamon X

Gomamon evolves to Ikkakumon, a big, fluffy walrus with a unicorn horn. It looks like someone that would be great to hug if you can get past the fish breath. Also that horn can open up and shoot out\t a torpedo. Because Digimon.

The next stage is Zudomon, who is now a humanoid walrus who appers to be suffering from hair loss. It's now adept at moving on land and in water. It also uses tools, wearing a giant turtle shell as armor and wielding Thor's hammer (despite what the English dub will tell you)

The final stage is Vikemon, a badass viking walrus complete with the helmet. It leads an army of Zudomon and Ikkakumon and (in another viking reference) will go into a berserk rage in combat. It does lose a lot of the aquatic design elements, but I'd say it works out.

While Vikemon is now the default end of the Gomamon line, for a while in the early days it was Plesiomon instead. I can see why they changed it, as the viking walrus has a much better connection to the rest of the line than a plesiosaur. I honestly thin it works better as an ultimate/perfect or champion/adult level than a mega, but I'm not saying no to a Plesiosaur Digimon. Plesiomon has an x-antibody variant.

Plesiomon

Plesiomon X

What do you get when you combine a cyborg sea serpent and a plesiosaur? Turns out a mechanical submarine dragon. This is Aegisdramon, who was created by the afore-mentioned Crack Team using data from MealSeadramon and Plesiomon. While it was created by malicious hackers, it mostly handles data analysis and will allegedly purify evil. When it does fight, it's an absolute badass who is probably one of the Digital World's ocean's top dogs.

Syakomon was a fairly obscure Digimon until the game Digimon Survive made it a partner and gave it a defined evolution line. Syakomon answers the question of "how do you make a bivalve cute" by giving it a little puppy face. Weirdly enough, Syakomon originally debuted as a ultimate/perfect level before being retconned to be a rookie/child level, which makes more sense. It also has an x-antibody variant that is just atrocious. That's not fanart or concept art down there, that's the quality of the actual official art for it. Bandai paid for that quality.

Syakomon

Syakomon X

Syakomon evolves to Shellmon, which is definitely one of the weirder-looking Digimon; a weird, amorphous pink monster in a turban snail shell. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's pretty similar to Pokemon's Slowbro and Slowking. That's because they're based on the same thing: the sazae-oni, a legendary Japanese sea demon that wears a turban snail shell. Shellmon also has a green recolor called MoriShellmon.

Shellmon evolves to Mermaimon, which I covered in an earlier post. The mega/ultimate level is then MarineAngemon, one of the cutest and friendliest Digimon out there. While most mega/ultimate level Digimon are gigantic combat monsters, MarineAngemon is tiny and very peaceful. It spits heart-shaped bubbles that cause targets to calm down and lose their fighting spirit, meaning it disarms its foes with the power of love. It's based on a sea angel, a type of sea slug popular in Japan.

Another anime-canon line that leads to MarineAngemon comes in the supplemental material for Digimon Tamers. It starts win Penguinmon or Penmon. It's a Digimon penguin, nothing really standout about it, but a solid design. It also has a tropical themed red recolor called Muchomon.

The next stage is Dolphmon or Rukamon. Being a dolphin, it is very intelligent, but its thought processes are completely alien and nobody else really understands it. I think thats an interesting take on dolphin intelligence.

The next evolution is Whamon, a very cool whale digimon. This thing is one of the biggest Digimon out there and so large that only a few computers can fully render it. Absolute unit. and in most appearances, it's been a friendly ally to the heroes. Just an all-around excellent cetacean. In the Tamers universe, Whamon evolves to MarineAngemon, meaning one of the biggest Digimon evolves to one of the smallest. I dig it.

The final default line I'm going to talk about today is the Otamamon line. Otamamon is a half-metamorphosed tadpole that is also a singer. It crawls out onto rocks and practices its singing. While Otamamon prefers col water, it has a warm-water red recolor. It also has an x-antibody variant that is pretty ugly.

Otamamon

Otamamon X

Otamamon evolves to Gekomon, which has an amazing singing voice and a face only a mother could love. They're born from musical data and are some of the greatest musicians in the Digital World but man are they ugly. That tongue gives me the creeps.

Gekomon evolves to ShogunGekomon or TonosamaGekomon, which is where the line ends as they don't have a dedicated mega/ultimate level. It's still really gross to look at and still a great musician that leads choruses of Gekomon. I don't really have much else to say about it.

Now that the dedicated lines are done with (the Jellymon line is in the mermaid post), I'll do more freeform entries in a post coming soon to dashboards near you.

[pumpkinstrawbrew]

❣️.ĐØ₥Ɇ₴₮ł₵₳₮Ɇ V₴ ₵₳₱₮ɄⱤɆ. ☠️

...

(i love playing with various branches of scarebat inside my head. even if it's one-note idea. but in this current bit, i was thinking about a core view on certain things, that most of their versions have in common. mainly the difference between jon's n' bruce's outlooks on how they picture 'ideal' encounter between one another. or more so, what the best outcome of it might be. what their 'great end game might look like.

bruce *for the most part* wants to believe in reabilitation. in a change for the better. it's possible to tame n' domesticate a wild crow. it might not change its habbits fully, but it's possible to make the bird less harmful *to smaller animals as they do feed on them* by keeping it happy and fed. by nurturing it into state, where it'll be mostly comfy with getting food by less extreme means. n' where it might trust you to not to harm it or stop giving it food. while, i view this set-up from a perspective of a shipper, i also can see gen approach here as well. mostly, bc i don't think that bruce would have ever left any of his *potentially ex* rogues fully unsurpivised. esp someone with history like crane's. batman is too much of a control freak to not peak into his villain's personal affairs, even if just to make sure, that they haven't went back to crime. him befriending / having a chance to impose influence on a troubled, malevolent 'crow via smth other, than use of force would have been a nice change of pace. batman is pragmatic, but i love how he doesn't ever fully dismiss the idea of 'what if', n' desire to see his rogues improving themselves. but at the same time, usually, he's the one who puts said crow back into cage *arkham*, so there is that too. he wants to do the right thing, but the bird keeps glaring at him through the narrow bars, bc it doesn't get why must it be caged for hurting n' killing other animals, when they *totally* picked on it first.

now, jon would have almost an oposite view of this, i imagine. where bruce can picture a second variant, another *brighter* path, crane kinda just cannot do the same. from his pov, there is no way for batman to ever become a villain. somebody who would team up with him. so they can't be 'together' this way. there is also no way for crane to ever get onto batman's level. esp bc he doesn't want *can't* change this drastically. therefore, the only way to keep the bat in his possession is to lock it up, trap it n' hold it in a little metalic box. hide it inside his basement, bc so many other people would love to have the bat too. he doesn't want to clip its wings, but part of him is paranoid enough to consider it. he has no idea how else to make a wild bat stay. it doesn't listen to him, like his birds do. but crane will take good care of it, anyway. make it dependent on him. caged by him, n' no one else can steal it away this time.

maybe, this reads as gibberish to some, but i really love how both bruce n' jonathan have animal analog / name in their aliases. bruce's is more apperent, bc well, batman lol. he even dress up as this. crane's case is more subtitle, but still, the scarecrow. even if he supposed to scare said birds away, he keeps them as pets as offten as we see bats hanging inside bruce's herocave lol. those animals also suit their personalities to a degree. the only other animal, that i can see crane as be a possum lol. sharp teeth, always hissing, long rat tail, but despite the ragged apperance, they are the only mamal that cannot get rabies bc of their body temperature, even tho by looking at it, you'd think that it surely would have that disease, haha. that's kinda very crane. he tends to subvert expectations, but in a strange ways.

an' well, where bruce can step down to extremes, n' i don't mean putting crane's scawny ass back into asylum, i mean also consider other methods of keeping him declawed. including trapping him inside his cave / basement. still, i feel like for jon's those said extremes are default line of thinking. socially inept, distrustful n' lonely, it would make sense for him to assume, that he can only co-exist with batman, if he will lock him up n' be the only one, who has a key to his prison. generally, it always seems that while jon's views on things n' his way of persiving / feeling affection are twisted, it's also pretty sad too. technically, he doesn't have any frame of referance here. of affection, that is returned n' not played as a joke at his expense. an' being humilated by the bat in such manner would sting way harder, than his high school crush rejecting him. he'd also would have that yandere u-turn. but not in like 'if i can't have you none one has'. more like 'i really want to have you, so i'd do every terrible thing in the book to make it possible'. well, almost 'every'. i feel like there be things, that jonathan *most versions of him, anyways* just kinda won't do. he does have some class, after all.

overall tho, i do love jon as that needy 'creep' archetype *which is pretty much a canon in old comics too*, who would kidnap / do awful things to a guy he likes, simply bc he has no idea what else he can do with him. at most times, he's that meme of 'idk how to hit on him, so he has to die'. meanwhile, bruce thinks that if you feed a stray bird enough, it might consider staying or well, not being as troublesome as it usually is.

in some timelines, this even might work out, who knows.

less so jonathan's side of things, since i feel like he would end up screwing his own plan over. i even have a lil drafty thing for a fic with similar premise, but it's for some other time. atm. just lil art, while i'm working on bigger things, haha. gotta store all these bits / concepts somewhere, so that i don't forget that they exist.)

[grimalkinmessor]

I finally sat down to take a look at the flowers in the season 3 intro, and I found some,,,,INTERESTING things.

So first off, here's Reigen's card for reference:

(And let me just reiterate that I'm not a botanist or anything so there might be some misidentification on some of these, but correct me if I'm wrong on the flower types!)

The biggest ones on Reigen's eyes seem to be cranesbills, or wild geraniums. Specifically the ground cover variant as it has more stamens and blooms more in pinks than blues or purples. (Yes I did also consider cherry blossoms here, but the petals seem to be too small and too far apart for cherry blossoms. It could also be peach blossoms but the petals shape isn't right. Still, just in case; the most common meanings for cherry blossoms are love and "life is fleeting"). Cranesbills tend to symbolize loyalty and fidelity, as well as reliability and the ability to endure and adapt. In Victorian flower language though they sometimes represent folly and foolishness. RIP Reigen lmao. But pink geraniums themselves symbolize gentle affection and a growing love that has yet to be announced :)

With that in mind, I'm pretty sure the small cluster of pink flowers behind his ear are also geraniums instead of hydrangeas likes I originally thought—just of the more popular garden variety. Like he puts up a pretty front on the outside but inside is more gentle and less flashy :3

Now I THOUGHT I recognized the blue flowers as anemones, but their petal structure is different to the ones shown here so I'm much more unsure on this one. I'll add it in anyway though because I think it fits :)

"...blue anemone flowers are often associated with expectations and anticipation. They symbolize the promise of a brighter tomorrow and the hope for a better future. The blue anemone flower is believed to hold a special energy that can help lift your spirits and bring about feelings of joy and contentment.

...blue anemone flowers are thought to bring a sense of calm to those who are feeling anxious or overwhelmed. They are believed to offer protection and guidance during times of change and uncertainty.

...[they] are often used in meditation practices to enhance spiritual awareness and intuition. They are believed to help individuals connect with their inner selves and tap into their subconscious mind. The blue anemone flower is also associated with the throat chakra, which is believed to govern communication and self-expression." (source)

Now who does that sound like? 👀 There are a few other meanings there as well that fit, but another popular one is longing for your beloved and mourning. Another fun meaning in Reigen's picture specifically is that anemones close their petals when rainstorms approach; meaning that while the petals don't match exactly, it might very well be because they're closing. Like in anticipation for a storm :)

The little purple flowers ALSO seem to be half closed, which makes them that much harder to identify (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠) I think they might be matsumoto asters given the color of them and the number of petals, but the size on the card is throwing me off a little. Still, in hanakotoba asters usually mean "I will not forget you", as well as being used frequently in memorials for the dead. In more European flower language asters represent the attraction of love, patience and wisdom, fidelity, charm, hope, valor, and farewell.

Then of course, the last two—the daisy and the rose. White roses symbolize innocence, silence, and devotion in hanakotoba. Sometimes they also symbolize death as they're also used in funerals and for mourning. The daisy however is also used in Mob's card, so I'll plonk that in here too and do that one first in between them :D

White daisies symbolize innocence, rebirth, and new beginnings. They've also been known to symbolize true love and loyalty. They're also part of the sunflower family!

As you can see above, Mob's card has quite a few more daisies than Reigen's, but I think that's because in season 3 the whole idea is centered around Mob's "rebirth", as it were. That, and in Victorian times it was popular for lovers to use daisies to send messages back and forth, and while an intact daisy means innocence, a daisy with a certain number of petals plucked is used to say either "love me" or "love me not". They're the origin of that ritual, apparently :3 Which is appropriate here because Mob's confession is essentially wondering whether or not Tsubomi will like him back—and the last flower in his bouquet that makes it out is a sunflower :) Which daisies are apart of :)

The flowers on Mob's eyes look like red chrysanthemums, but again considering the placement of the shadows in the middle I can't be completely sure. But while hanakotoba doesn't have a specific meaning for red chrysanthemums, white chrysanthemums and chrysanthemums in general mean honesty, royalty, and truth. In other flower languages, red chrysanthemums represent love at first sight, fidelity, and deep passion and emotions. It was also apparently a symbol for the Japanese emperor and imperial family, so do with that what you will.

On the left are a couple of hot pink roses, which symbolize gratitude and appreciation, as well as a sense of strength and conviction. And, something our boy Mob desperately needs: "Some believe that pink roses can facilitate emotional healing, encouraging forgiveness, self-love, and gratitude." 🙏

The ones on the bottom right are harder to see but I'm pretty sure they're daffodils, which have a lot of similar symbolism to daisies in that they're spring flowers that represent cheer, rebirth, and new beginnings. Daffodils also represent self-love/self-care in some cases though, because of the story of Narcissus. Something else our dear Mob desperately needs :') Though in hanakotoba, daffodils mainly represent deep respect, particularly for those older than you. Their japanese name also literally means "hermit by the water", which is,,,,,interesting.

Reigen seems to have more kinds of flowers than Mob, but Mob's flowers match his color scheme moreso than Reigen's do. I've said it before but it bears repeating; Reigen's flowers actually seem to follow Tsubomi's color scheme more than his own. The pink, the blue, the purple, the white... I don't know, I think it's interesting :3

If you've got any additions or corrections let me know!

[blackwoodjournalhisui]

Day 50: Autumn, cloudy

I set out today with only the vaguest idea of a subject of study. Someone in town had been talking about something they swore was a ghost, grayish blue fire, bobbing through the air at night around one of the ponds. Now, I must preface with the fact that I do not believe in any sort of ghosts, aside from those that are clearly Pokémon. But I was intrigued, if only because when the storyteller had mentioned the ghostly fire, he had the sighting corroborated by no less than three other men, solid and sensible fellows usually, ones that give me no reason to suspect that they would be lying.

In light (ha!) of this story, I slept quite late and went out into the plains well after dark. I set up near where the ponds were and waited, half-expecting to find nothing at all. But some hours later my patience was rewarded.

It was just as they had described. Disembodied fire, bright blue, floating near the lake. It was a moonless night, so I was a little uneasy as I crept closer. I nearly fell over when the fire made what was a probably quiet splash. In the silence it had seemed almost cacophonous, and was further startling because fire is not supposed to make a splash at all. Squinting, I was finally near enough to make out the vague shape of a Pokémon. A Ponyta! Only this one was pale as a ghost, if you will forgive my turn of phrase, with a fiery mane in a striking blue.

THIS was quite a specimen, and I was determined not to let him get away. I had never seen anything like him as long as I had been interested in Pokémon. I threw a ball in a nice, easy arc, as he still had not seen me (see, ghost hunting does tend to make a person more cautious no matter what their position on ghosts as a rule). He did not struggle, and I have an incredible new companion.

Upon further examination, I have found that he not only is much paler in color than his typical counterparts, but that his coat tends to shine, even without direct light hitting it. I would guess that there is a genetic component to my fabulous new friend’s oddity of color. Rarely, humans are very very pale, lacking any of the pigment melanin, making them what is called albino. Though I do not have enough information as of yet, my hypothesis is that this is a similar phenomenon, that this Ponyta is lacking some pigment common in Pokémon. In this vein, perhaps every Pokémon species has an alternately colored, lighter variant.

Footnote: I shall call him Forge.

[microwave-core]

We All Love O'Nare of the Glitterati <3

Listen, I know that she’s married to Boy Toy McGee, but she’s too perfect for an April Fool’s post for me to pass up, so let’s just assume that she’s not. Or maybe you’re just a side piece. Or he's the side piece. I never really decided.

______________________________________________________

Obviously, when you first see O’Nare, you fall head over heels for her, because who wouldn’t? She’s so wonderfully beautiful and charitable, it’s hard to resist her pull. And she, in tow, fell in love with you thanks to the positive energy radiating from your being.

Originally, she believed you to just be another commoner, a rare commodity for the likes of her, sparking intrigue. It wasn’t often that she got to interact with the common folk, leading to her seeking you out for your opinions about certain matters. She makes sure to pay you for your time, of course. She loves to spread charity to the commoners.

Once you both fall, it’s only a matter of time before she spills her true feelings for you. She never thought a commoner would be the one to catch her heart, but she wasn’t about to let such a catch slip through her fingers. Besides, getting with you would allow her to cherish you in lavish luxury, give you a life you deserved.

Being the President of Paldea Realty, she is often very busy, but loves to take trips with her dearest Billy in search of true beauty in the region, visiting both major landmarks for inspiration and remote areas to clear her mind. Bringing you along brings her great joy. She loves eating up your time, enjoying the positivity of Paldea’s landscape alongside your positive aura.

Alongside throwing you some cash when you join her, you will also receive incredible pearls of wisdom. She seeks to guide you through life, ensuring you walk down the path of beauty and positive energy rather than one that is dingy and dull. 

Battles are the true path to her heart. Despite all of her… eccentric tendencies, O’Nare strive to understand more about the world and people around her. Even if they may seem dull and small in comparison to her wonderfully lavish life, she understands that beauty and positivity can be found in all things if you look deep enough. And what better way to learn more about the people around you than to battle them?

Although, while she loves to battle and to spread riches among the less fortunate, she does hate to see her darling Arbolivia and Persian get hurt. Alas, it is a small sacrifice that she must put up with, making sure to use the best medicine and plenty of PDA to make it up to them after the fact.

Along with those two, I assume she has at least three or four Meowths in her egregiously sized mansion, with personal attendants to ensure maximum happiness. She prefers the Kantonian variant, but also appreciates the Alolan form. The Galarian form, on the other hand… she believes they deserve just as much love as the others, but she is also aware of the destruction they can bring to the objects around them, along with how much they shed. Although, if you wanted one, she would be willing to make an exception. Love is a powerful thing, after all.

Speaking of her home, it’s, as expected as of a billionaire, fucking massive and also terribly furnished. I hate to say it, but O’Nare has rich person taste, meaning her home is full of weird ass furniture. Inconvenient chairs and uncanny statues and rooms dedicated to niche hobbies that no normal person would ever think would need a full room to complete are littered all over her home.

Originally, I was going to peg her down as a sugar mommy, but I don’t think that’s quite the case (I also kinda gave that roll to Geeta so that spot was taken). You aren’t a sugar baby in this relationship, you’re a trophy wife. She dresses you in the finest luxury brands and styles and brings you to all kinds of fancy smancy rich people events to show you off.

No price is too high for someone such as herself. Simply name anything you want and she will get it for you, no questions. O’Nare enjoys the feeling of spending money on someone she cares for, so don’t be shy to ask for anything that may cross your mind, big or small. 

Of course, she will also shower you with gifts whenever she finds something you might like. She doesn’t care how expensive her gifts may be, so don’t even try to deny them because they seem too nice to just take without anything in return. Your love and devotion is a far greater gift to her than anything money could buy. 

Also it took me reading through the Bulbepedia page to realize that their names (Billy and O’Nare) was a play on billionaire woops.

[fioras-resolve]

I wanna talk about how developers have gone about making new games out of Minesweeper.

You know, I love Minesweeper, been playing it for over a decade, but it's the kind of game where you've probably had some problem with its design. Its core interactions are that of a puzzle game, but it's also very common to get into situations where you just have to guess. And if you guess wrong, you die instantly and have to start over. It sucks!

It's very strange design, coming out of the game's random board generation. But that randomness is how the game keeps its variety. Minesweeper is a roguelike, I'd say. It's a turn-based, grid-based, exploratory game with permadeath and random environmental generation. It fits the Berlin Interpretation better than a lot of modern games bearing the moniker. But it's also a logic game, where you spot patterns in abstract numbers and use deduction to solve logical puzzles, even if they're generated. There's a contradiction there, and the games I wanna talk about resolve it in very different ways.

DemonCrawl by Therefore Games is a fun little game that leans into the roguelike aspect of Minesweeper. It's an RPG, kind of, where you play several small Minesweeper maps while gaining items and equipment over time. One item might let you take a hit unscathed, and another might reveal the location of a mine or three. It is a more "fair" version of Minesweeper in many ways, in that it gives you a healthbar so you don't die instantly to mistakes, and that the items let you clear the board in more interesting ways. But at the same time, this RPG layer is unfair in its own right. It's very common to enter a board with negative effects, and to get items that are either unhelpful or detrimental. It improves on a lot of the roughest edges of Minesweeper, but like... Adding this whole extra layer of management and decision-making can make it feel like the mine-sweeping gameplay isn't really the point anymore. It's just the hook to another indie roguelite. An enjoyable one for sure, but not what I really want from Minesweeper. Also, DemonCrawl's method of achieving longevity is to have an account leveling system and like, materials collection. It feels like the game isn't confident in its gameplay.

On the other hand, 14 Minesweeper Variants by Artless Games is very confident in the game it's trying to be, and that game is often terrifying. It is exactly as the title says. (Well, it's more than 14 now but those are secret variants.) Tens of thousands of puzzles with different rules, most of them hard, but all of them solvable. So you might get, for example, "Every clue is either one more or one less than the actual number," or "There cannot be a straight line of three consecutive mines." These are often very intimidating, and make me groan out loud, "Oh, god." But it's a unique sense of accomplishment, figuring out these variants, and learning their intricacies. It's a kind of puzzle that I've never seen anywhere else. It leans hard into the logic game aspect of Minesweeper, by completely ditching the roguelike element. As with most Artless games, it cuts to the bone if you're not deep into puzzle games. But as someone who is, it's a lovely time. Also, Artless Games has a Discord server, where you can actually suggest new variants! Honestly, this dev is really underappreciated, give them their flowers.

The last thing I wanna talk about is actually much more straightforward than either of these. It's a Minesweeper Probability Calculator, by Merrick Huang. It's Minesweeper, but at any time you can press a button, and see the odds of any given cell being a mine. It's still Minesweeper, no modifications to the rules, but it feels more honest than Minesweeper usually is. It actually reveals how much depth there is even to guessing, as true 50/50s aren't as common as you'd expect. It also belies the truth to guessing, that there is always a chance you're just wrong. You can make an educated guess, but sometimes the cards don't fall in your favor.

Now, I could talk about plenty more. There are the various attempts to repackage Minesweeper aesthetically, including through porn. (I have two separate hentai minesweeper games and I will forever bear that curse.) There's the kind of garbage Microsoft Minesweeper you can get through the Windows Store, like they tried their best to sand off the rough edges but that just kind of makes it weak. And there are plenty of small devs making their own variants, to varying degrees of success. But I think I've done what I want to here. This is Angie Nyx, and I have a play to go to. Peace.

[madamscream]

The Reproductive Systems and Habits of Angels and Demons

Some world building information, primarily for my Culture Shock! Obey Me AU that I'm working on. Feel free to do what you will with any of my ideas. If you make any works based off something I post, or inspired by it, I'd love to see it!

Not exactly safe for work.

Warning for noncon, specifically in the angel's section. Less serious warning that it's probably glaringly obvious I used to be in the Homestuck fandom lol

Both angels and demons are true hermaphrodites. Gender expression is based purely on preference, and heavily influenced by humanity, though in both native tongues, pronouns more denounce species than gender. Angels have one for each rank of angel and one for non-angels, while demons have one each for demons, angels, and humans, and then another for other beings, though there are also more specific ones for them that just may not be known by your average speaker and require explanation.

The reproductive systems of demons and angels are remarkably similar in form. Unaroused, the pubic area looks somewhat like a vagina, though some of the shapes are odd, the labia minora are missing, and the colours are often less-than expected if you thought your partner was human somehow, though more natural to human colors are also perfectly within possibility. The clitoris is also odd, particularly in the fact that it isn’t one. The penis remains internal when not in use, though the tip is always visible. Both arousal and the need to urinate will cause the penis to start to exit the vent, though to different degrees. The urethra is located on the tip of the penis, and both sperm and urine exit through it. The penis is tapered, and is often multicolored, though those are the only traits common enough to bother listing here, as there’s a great deal of variation in shape between individuals, with demons often showing more extreme variants than angels.

The vaginal opening is located in roughly the same location as it is on humans, and the testicles are internal in both angels and demons. The internal walls of the vagina can have some interesting textures, though this is by far more noticeable in lust demons. Ovulation in both species is rare, and triggered by different things depending. Placenta begins to form only after a fertilized egg is implanted, so periods aren’t a thing that ever happen to either, though birth is often even less pleasant to deal with than it is with humans, since the hip shape is the same, yet the babies can be much bigger and have god-knows-what sort of appendages sticking off of them. Since forms further from humans are most often larger, it’s common practice for an expecting demon or angel to shift up when labor starts to ease the process. This can, for some, also change the shape of the hips, which can either make things easier, or just impossible, so it’s always on a case by case basis if this is advisable or not.

Arousal will always instigate the penis to exit the body, though there are some notable differences based on whether the being wishes to submit or dominate. If experiencing submissive arousal, the penis remains fairly soft and is mobile, though control over the movements of it is generally extremely limited (Asmodeus could probably hold a pen and write though.) More blood goes to the labia majora, causing a swelling, as well as some internal structures that enhance the pleasure of being penetrated.

If experiencing dominant arousal, the penis loses its mobility, becomes hard and rigid in preparation to penetrate. Blood actually redirects from the vagina, the labia closing up a bit. It's wildly unpleasant to be penetrated in this state, though some masochists enjoy it.

Both states feel notably different, both physically and emotionally. Switching between states without a pause in between is something that some demons enjoy immensely. Mammon in particular loves starting out dominant and having his partner get him to switch before he gets to do anything.

While nearly unheard of for angels, who almost always produce a single, live infant, there are rare subsets of demons that produce either litters or eggs, and even rarer, some who can end up with two or all three options in different circumstances, though not at the same time. 

Angels

Angels are capable of arousal and copulation at any time, and can reproduce with angels, humans, and demons. However, this is forbidden outside of a singular circumstance. Overcoming lust is expected, and giving into it is WILDLY taboo and will be met with visceral disgust if not outright ostrisization from most every other angel. Denying yourself lustful pleasures is considered a show of your devotion, not only to god, but to other angels, and a thing that you should do for the good of everyone.

The singular instance in which angels are allowed to sexually reproduce are in the case of a ‘Blessed Coupling.’ This has always been between two angels, and tends to come out of fucking nowhere, but it’s very literally god wanting two angels to bone down and make a baby for whatever reason. It happens very rarely, and without the will of the angel being taken into account. Very suddenly, two angels will enter each other's proximity, shift up a form or two, and become unbearably aroused. Reports from couples who had this happen don’t exactly paint a pleasant picture, as they very suddenly feel like thoughtless animals and cannot resist going at it. They often both leave the situation feeling violated. Blessed Couples are both venerated and used as a cautionary tale against giving into lust. It’s a common belief that should you give into lust, you can become like that permanently, though that’s entirely untrue and born mostly out of fear. It’s worth noting that this happens to angels who have never even met sometimes, so the interest between the pair is irrelevant.

While most of the punishment for things like masturbation would be social, carried out by other angels if found out, IF an angel impregnates someone or gets impregnated outside of a Blessed Coupling, they fall and their offspring is killed. If an angel wants to have a child, they frankly should fall first.

For the most part, angels are created directly by god, and while Blessed Couplings are considered a very good thing, as it's a direct result of gods will, no one really knows why it happens. The offspring are always special in some way, so it's assumed that god wants that specific angel to exist, but that's just kind of the most accepted guess.

Demons

Demons are more likely to suffer from NOT having sex, or at least masturbating, than they ever will be from abstaining. While most often seen in the form of gluttony and wrath rampages, all of the sins can produce a sort of ‘shut down’ state if the temptation to give into them is ignored for long enough, or the desire is strong enough. Lust will end up with a sort of heat or rut, depending on the nature of the desire being ignored. That said, if there is no desire, there’s no danger of the shut down state. So, if a demon is asexual, they're just plain not in danger of that. 

Dominance and submission are both culturally and biologically a thing with demons. Culturally, being dominant is seen as the ideal, while being submissive is shameful, since it’s a culture in which being strong is heavily emphasized. Biologically, every demon wants both sometimes, though some demons have definite preferences for one or the other.

Being openly brazen with enjoying to submit is viewed as extraordinarily slutty. More conservative demons look down on it, but it’s pretty universally considered very hot. Asmo’s fixation on keeping himself small and cute and flirty is largely because, even if he’s modestly dressed and using none of his powers, demons around him tend to react with arousal, which he likes a lot. He's cultivated the image of the perfect submissive.

Pacts with human sorcerers have a lot of strangeness about them. A pact taken by force is most likely to just produce resentment in the demon half of it, but a pact willingly given is kind of the ultimate act of submission, literally subjecting your free will to another. Often, such things are only offered to exceedingly powerful sorcerers, because the demon gains a lot of power out of it as well in that case and it’s worth the occasional loss of free will to them. However, if attraction develops on the demons end, they find that their body only really wants to act submissively in sexual situations with that person. Given how little any of this ever took place in the Devildom prior to the exchange program and MC earning their pacts, this wasn’t a documented thing, because no demon in their right mind would eagerly admit that they let their pactmate plow them (save for Asmodeus, but that’s not weird for him, and no one would really question it being at all related to the pact.) Whether there’s a magical influence on their preference, or it’s simply a latent desire all demons have not allowing itself to be ignored after literally turning over your free will to someone, who knows.

Heats are more common with demons, due to the sort of shame associated with submitting. It’s less to do with breeding, and much more to do with sating a desire that’s been repressed. They can often be kept at bay with the use of toys and indulgent fantasies, but it’s still more common that a demon will be too proud to ‘sink to that level.’ It’s genuinely a bit weird for a demon to, on their own, go into rut. There’s no taboo against going at someone, or even taking turns, and even if that’s not an option, masturbation will usually keep it from happening. If a demon’s doing a LOT of pining, it can happen, but such obsessive focus on one person to trigger something like that is very rare, and usually will clue people into something being wrong well before this is an issue. Most commonly, a rut is triggered while actively having sex. There is a certain limit to how long you can edge a demon without them flipping the fuck out and literally losing their mind for a while. This is DEFINITELY a fetish for some demons, both having it happen to them and being the one to trigger it in others. Levi’s into the idea of having it done to him. Lucifer loves doing it to others.

While lesser demons that die easier reproduce pretty frequently, the only higher demons that commonly reproduce is the royal family, due to how often kings are rebelled against and deliberately killed. For the most part, a high demon has to actively choose to have a child, and most will just probably not. They live for many millions of years, if not killed, and killing them is an ORDEAL, so the idea of passing down what they have isn’t honestly an issue most think about often, if ever. 

A high demon that has chosen to be impregnated will behave very differently from normal, though if they’re acting as the father, nothing actually changes at all. Brooding behaviors can vary pretty heavily from demon to demon, but they all start craving meat (among other things) in large quantities and do some sort of nesting behavior, though it’s heavily influenced by what the individual believes to be important. Beel would probably try to hoard food, but with an exacerbated appetite, might become distressed with how difficult that is. Leviathan would likely end up in some sort of blanket fort made of manga and whatever he thought was comfy, but he’d also probably like it to be underwater. A pregnant high demon expects their partner to be at their beck and call and take care of them. They do not expect to have to leave their nest more than absolutely necessary. Gestation periods vary, but both of the pair are expected to basically be unreachable until the birth.

Most of the time, high demons having children is kind of the ultimate declaration of devotion to each other, both because of the expected behavior while the baby is forming, as well as what the baby themselves represent. It’s borderline sacred. Baby trapping does happen, but it’s socially considered so revolting that oftentimes if it’s found out the friends of the victim will straight up kill the demon that did it to them, and sometimes the child depending. It involves a LOT more manipulation than it would for humans who can conceive accidentally.

Noble families who produce heirs will sometimes choose to do so with the sole purpose of showing off their wealth. This is most common with greed demon couples. They made a grand show of the time, often hiring extensive staff and going wildly hedonistic while the baby or babies are gestating. It's also common when a family is expanding to increase their own power and not because they're showing that devotion. Often, the lavish gestation and entry into the noble family is the compensation for the demon that becomes pregnant.

Also worth noting: most cambion (human/demon hybrids) happen entirely by accident. While a high demon has to choose to initiate the ability to be pregnant, they can technically always get someone else pregnant. Should a demon go have some fun with humans and raw dog one, it may just genuinely not occur to them that, if that human has the right equipment, they might get pregnant about it. It’s not uncommon knowledge that humans just kinda get pregnant all willy-nilly, but for the most part, you’d have to look it up. It would be less of an issue were a human to couple with a lesser demon with a more relatable reproductive cycle, but their smaller, less-human forms and rare reasons to ever interact with humans make such couples non-existent. While there are humans that would see a knee-high bipedal pig made of shadow and think “I need to fuck that,” the chances of the two ever meeting are improbably slim.

While fetishes in the Devildom are plentiful and often strange, because of how such things work, high demons pretty universally consider breeding kinks cute and wholesome. Demons with that inclinations will sometimes stage role play sessions where making a nest together, or at least doing it in one that one of them made beforehand, is expected, as is lots of cuddling and pampering. This could lead to some interesting misunderstandings if a demon wasn’t particularly specific with the details of a request for such things when inviting MC. A demon asking someone to 'pretend to breed them' is hoping to be lavished with love and affection, so if you show up with nothing but a lot of dirty talk planned, there will be a great deal of confusion on both ends.

[earthbovndmisfit]

Would Speedwagon have met an asexual person? Or known about them?

Just a curious asexual bro here.

In general, I'd say that due to Speedwagon being a homosexual man who'd occasionally hang around with other queer people (usually other homosexual men, but not limited to them only), there's a possibility that he's crossed paths with a few "questioning" people in those queer circles, with some of them being ace.

A little warning here because this is gonna be a bit long, and will involve a bit of queer history (thus there will be slight discussion of some of the dated views at the time).

Based on real life info, there's a lot to this whole topic that I could dive into but, in veeery general terms, yeah, it's possible that he did meet a few ace people in his lifetime, but I don't think he would have realized in most cases as most ace people at the time thought of themselves as straight and lived their lives as straight as well (and in the cases where they also lacked all kinds of attraction to their same gender to consider homosexuality as a possibility for themselves), adhering and conforming to the strict heteronormative roles of their society as people were supposed to, meaning that they would find an opposite gender partner, get married, start a family, and live their lives as every straight person did, as the norm dictated.

It also didn't help that people (mainly women, but men were required to as well) were supposed to be non sexual, especially in public (as in not having attraction towards anyone and/or showing it and being open about it publicly, i.e, which probably made a lot of ace people "fit the norm", so to speak). There's also the fact that a lot of marriages back then were also more of a "business thing" and not based on love, so it was common to see people, including straight people, getting married out of some kind of convenience instead of love or attraction to their spouses (some developed either only until after marriage, some others were never in love nor were attracted to their spouses). People were also taught since childhood to see marriage and forming a family as a life goal much more than more recent societies do, so basically only gay men (as in homosexual men, not as an umbrella term) would completely deviate and opt out of that "straight lifestyle" (lesbians usually followed the "straight life", too, but it was mostly due to the high sexism there was at the time among other factors, but that's a different story that would require its own separate explanation). This is also why "bachelor" and other variants (including the “never married” ones) were Victorian euphemisms for "gay men".

Essentially, and similar to other non-straight people who decided to live as stealth as they could for whatever reason, ace people more than often lived their lives as straight, too, knowingly or unknowingly. And the stigma around being open about desire (or lack thereof), didn't help either. Not many would openly declare their attraction and desire for a person/gender, and even less would open up about not having any attraction or desire for anyone, as the latter was, again, the norm and what was expected of everyone, so there was "no reason" to say it out loud.

Additionally, I think Speedwagon probably knew about ace people, even with the limited knowledge at the time on asexuality, but those he knew were also probably those who were close friends of his. Personally, I headcanon the Kenpo Master (the martial artist guy from his gang) as asexual, so, at least in my hcs, he did know at least one ace person!

[pomrania]

Okay, so the easiest way to do this is "humanity vanished a long time ago; one can only see what they might have been by comparing the robots they made in their image, the vampires which preyed on humans, the merms which were considered beautiful by humans, and the meerkats which they uplifted". Which has potential, but we can do better.

So, robots. Nothing says they have to be "humanoid", and I think it'd be better if part of character creation for a robot includes figuring out what your overall chassis is like, and "bipedal" isn't one of the default options. Let's say that a "robot" could have been made by ANY of the four main races (yes, including other robots), and what connects them isn't "ancestry" but "having been made for a purpose" (and there's artistic trends among groups, but that's no guarantee of where one was made).

Vampires... the main defining feature of "vampire" is "sucks blood", and close behind it is "undead, possibly". This doesn't have to be a vampiric HUMAN. We can go with "vampires here are a completely different type of creature from meerkats and merms", which would be fun; OR we can go with "vampires are transformed meerkats and/or merms", which would ALSO be fun but in a different way. Or we can go with "'vampire' encompasses both of the above options, and they share a common culture because of their dietary needs and nocturnal lifestyle, even if they have completely different origins". I like that one the best.

...I think I'm seeing a trend here. So how can I interpret "merms" to include "things that would originally fall under the other categories".... All they really need to share is "primarily aquatic, and can't really walk on land". Nothing says the "top half" needs to be a human, it could look like a meerkat, giving us something that looks vaguely like a seal but with hands. And there can easily be an aquatic strain of born-vampires, with physiological similarities but sufficiently different habits and diet that they're no longer considered "vampires".

As for sapient meerkats, I think they should have a long-standing culture, but ALSO sometimes a regular-ass meerkat becomes a person, it's just something that happens from time to time and nobody knows why. (It can also happen with other vaguely similar animals, but that's significantly less common.) Plus, sometimes a robot constructed (or altered to be) in the image of a meerkat, will transform into a living meerkat. Additionally, some of the meerkat-type merms are born "throwbacks" in that they're better suited for life on land than for swimming; they need regular access to water in order to stay healthy, and their fur looks a bit different, but otherwise they're more meerkat than merm.

So. There's two main "base" creatures here, the born-vampires and the sapient meerkats, both of which have aquatic variants; then there's "having contracted vampirism" (and I hadn't thought of it then, but I'd say it can also happen to a born-vampire, it's just less of a change) which aligns one with the born-vampire society if only because that's where one can get their new physiological needs met; and then there's sapient constructs which can be made by any sapient being who has the proper knowledge and technology.

Let's say that making a sapient construct is considered like having a child, albeit one who's physically mature from the start. Different cultures have different expectations of what a robot inherently owes their creator, ranging from "service for the rest of the creator's natural life" to "only as much as you owe any random person" to "exactly the same as a born child owes to their parent" (which ITSELF varies drastically between cultures), but they all agree that a robot is a person. A robot made for a given purpose, enjoys DOING that purpose, because what would be the point in creating a sapient robot who DISLIKED that task; but that's on the same level as a born person who enjoys doing the work of their job, it's not "the work is its own reward". (Well okay there are SOME like that, but they're weird, and that type of thing happens with born people too.)

Okay! I have ended up figuring out WAY more about how this could work, than I was expecting to. Hope you found this an interesting read. If you ever make something with this, tell me, I'd love to see it; this is all free to use, credit appreciated but not required.

Rather than men, elves, dwarves and halflings, the four main races of the campaign are robots, vampires, merfolk and sapient meerkats.

10/10 would play