#I honestly have no idea why I'm putting the most development into her

[foxblaze]

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted any art, the heat has been killing my art drive, and I got busy with a convention. But here's what I have so far for Sandstorm! Out of all my characters I've drawn, she's definitely gone through the most significant design changes. I think the funniest part is before I got the idea of having cross breed pokemon show the father's traits, she was just a normal eevee. Then she ended up being a giant eevee. Then I decided to give a reason for that since she's literally double the size of a normal eevee and it's hard to chalk it up to 'normal size variations' and have it believable 🤣

For now her father is a secret, as it is a HUGE part of her backstory. And since Eevee are genetically unstable, i decided that would have an effect on how traits are passed down. I can't wait to see what people try to guess 👀

[luvly-writer]

His Solace

Dick Grayson x reader

Author's note: I wrote this for the sole purpose of wanting to read it later. Literally for my own guilty pleasure. LMAO

Warning: It's cute?

---

Dick had a headache. He had just gotten to his apartment. He had spent a few days at Jump City helping Kory with a few things for the Titans. Normally, he wouldn't have minded but seeing as she took the opportunity to call him out on whether he was ever choosing Barbara or her; he was exhausted. Then, he was called to Gotham to aid Bruce in the development of a case with Scarecrow. It would have been fine, again, if it weren't for Jason and Tim trying to rip each other to shreds because of a petty argument; Damian antagonizing Stephanie; and to put a cherry on the top, Barbara wouldn't stop leaving very pointed comments on the same thing Kory had asked him. He had tried to contact Wally, see if they could go out and have some fun, ease his mind a little, but nop, on a mission with Barry. Finally, he had gotten home, when Bruce called that Damian, Steph, and Jason had decided to team up in their latest recon and it had been a disaster because no one followed orders. He could feel the agitation bubbling and rising with his stress levels. The cases had begun piling up, the villains would just not stay in Arkham, the alarm of the remainder of his Young Justice meeting kept beeping, could feel the panic attack rising.

"Fuck it. I'm taking a vacation."

---

You took a deep breath with your eyes closed and exhaled. Yeah, this is what you deserved. You had been dying to go to Bali and after many months of hard work, you had piled enough days to get a one-month vacation. The life of a Public Relationist was a hassle. You were damn good at your job but it was starting to strain your mental health. Burnout was approaching faster and faster. As you walked towards the pool, you looked for a few seats available and noticed one in the perfect spot. As you approached it, you noticed that the most gorgeous man had been sitting in the one next to it. Beautiful tanned skin, soft dark hair, and dazzling blue eyes.

"Is this seat taken?" You asked with a bright and warm smile. Dick felt his heart drop at the sight of you. You were honestly one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and he had been around aliens and demigods. Your hair was tied in a loose ponytail, your bathing suit hugged you in all the right places, and you were standing there giving a smile that left him breathless.

"Not at all, go ahead" he responded with his own smile. You placed your things down and pulled out a book and some sunglasses.

"Any good?" You heard him ask pointing toward your book

"So far so good, I just began reading it last night" she answered with a sheepish smile, "If I see you again, I'll keep you updated"

He chuckled and extended his hand, " Di-Richard" He hesitated in giving his name. He was in Bali for a whole month, next to a beautiful woman who had no idea who he was. No expectation to be the charming eldest of the Wayne household and no need to put on a mask as Nightwing. Yeah, he was gonna enjoy this small freedom.

"Y/n," she said as she shook his hand, "You don't look like a Richard" She continued making him scoff out a laugh.

"No? Why's that?"

"Richard sounds like an old serious guy in his 40's"

"You don't think I could be serious" he leaned forward with a slight smirk on his face

"Maybe, but, unless you keep a very good skincare routine, you don't look past thirty"

He laughed out loud and shook his head, " So, what's your hypothesis?"

"You have a nickname that suits you better"

"Dick"

"Excuse me" She looked at him with a hint of teasing in her eyes and a small smile.

"My nickname is Dick"

"I don't know which one is worst" she giggled and he looked at her incredulously. He laughed at that, it had been some time since he was able to feel light with some mindless teasing.

"Oh come on, as if you could come up with something better"

"Hmmm" She took a moment to think and he took it as an opportunity to really look at her. She had such a unique beauty, like those faces that stay in your mind for months, unforgettable. "What about Ric?" He scrunched his nose in distaste, "Richie" He shook his head with a laugh, "Ricky" He stopped to think for a moment and inevitably said no again. "Well, Dickie, I have absolutely no clue" She laughed.

"Dickie's nice," he said softly, and she hummed in victory.

They had spent the rest of that day talking when huger started to strike, he invited her for dinner and she accepted surprisingly. They had spent the rest of their vacation together. Hanging out, taking tours, swimming together, dining together, and even sleeping together. Dick hadn't felt so light in a long time. They clicked so well. They weren't taking this seriously because it was just a vacation. Soon they would have to go back to their lives, hers in New York and his in Gotham. Finally, the vacation was coming to an end. The morning before her trip back, they had decided to stay in her room and have a lazy morning, just enjoying the last moments together. They were lying in the bed, him on his back and her with her torso on top of him. She was softly caressing his hair as he caressed her back.

"I think I'm gonna miss you," she said softly.

"You think?" he teased and she looked at him exasperated. He chuckled and pulled her closer. "Oh honey, I know I'm gonna miss you" he pulled her closer and he felt her relax in his arms.

They had exchanged phone numbers a while back. Even though Gotham, Bludhaven and New York weren't that far away, they still had their own lives to attend to. They had agreed to remain friendly, without a title and a definition. Just each other's Bali vacation sweetheart.

A few months later…

Dick refused to cut contact with you. Given your demanding lives, you couldn't talk every single day, but he made the effort to. Daily messages and flowers sent to your apartment were a constant. When you did talk, it could go on for hours. Dick hadn't told anyone about you. It was his sweet secret, his solace. After one rough week, in particular, he had called you desperately, wanting to hear your voice and laughter. There was a small voice in the back of his mind that called him pathetic, but it was gone the second you answered the phone. He had been hurt, bad. His family and all of his leadership roles were getting to him and your sweet soothing voice cracked him. He started crying and blabbering, asking if he could see you. You agreed almost instantly and that weekend he took a train to New York.

When he got to your door, you saw the state he was in, deep eye bags, and an arm brace. You pulled him into a big hug and he just crumbled in your arms. That night, he confessed he was Nightwing. He just let everything out as he laid in your bed, in your arms once again, and you let him. He found peace in you, your touch, your voice, your friendship. You never asked him for more and it soothed him. For once, someone was on his side and didn't expect something from him aside from himself. He had told everyone he was following the lead of a case in New York, a few had offered to go with him and he refused. The only lead that he was following was the case of how much he missed you.

You were his solace. He came to you for counsel, for comfort, for laughter, for fun, for love. In return, he made sure you never felt anything other than loved, appreciated, and satisfied. Even with the distance, he still went the extra mile. Dick Grayson wasn't a bad lover, but for you, he gave himself fully. You guys still hadn't placed a label. You were just friends. You understood that you had responsibilities that needed your full attention so a relationship would complicate everything. You loved New York, he loved Bludhaven and Gotham. It was final. Until it wasn't.

Dick had barely gotten any sleep last night. Patrol ran even longer last night and he only got one hour of sleep before his alarm rang. He had gotten a headache halfway through his shift and decided to go to Brandy's and get some coffee. You hadn't answered his text yet, which was odd. Sure, you both didn't talk on the phone every day but you always texted. Maybe you were caught up with a few clients. He knew there was one that was making your job three times more difficult than it should be. As he was waiting for his order, he heard the beautiful and unmistakable sound of your voice.

"Dick?"

He turned around and there you were, standing with a suitcase and a shy smile. He swore his headache left the moment he laid eyes on you.

"Sweetheart? What? How?" he asked laughing and pulling you into a big hug. They called his order and he picked up, telling you to order something and he'd pay. Once you got your order, he pulled you into one of the booths.

"I wanted to surprise you" You answered with the sweetest smile, he swore his heart melted.

"You should have given me a heads up, gorgeous, I would have made time for you and cleaned my apartment. I could have given you a proper welcome to Bludhaven" He laughed and took one of her hands in his. He sensed she had something else to tell him.

"It's alright. I have some exciting news though," she bit her lip nervously, "I was offered an amazing position here in Bludhaven. It pays double what I earn now and I would have a higher position. I'm here to have a meeting with the executives, check out the offices, and go through my contract. Isn't that great?" she told him and he swore he heard angels sing. Y/n. His Y/n! She was going to be in Bludhaven! He wanted to cry, scream, anything to liberate the joy he felt. If she was here, then they could be together.

"That is amazing news, gorgeous! This..this..this is wow..I think whoever is up there finally started to listen to me" he joked making her laugh. He squeezed her hand adoringly. Y/n was going to be in Bludhaven and he felt utterly giddy.

Three months later…

BANG BANG BANG To be honest, Kory was tired and at this point, it was getting humiliating. Last night, she had been passing through the living room in the tower and overheard some of the members talking about a supposed bet. When she asked them what it was about they all quieted down and looked at each other nervously. Putting a stern face, she asked the team about the bet once again fearing that they had gotten into trouble. Finally, Gar spoke up and explained. Together with the Young Justice and the Outlaws, the youngest members had decided to start a bet on who would Dick choose for this year's Christmas Annual Wayne Ball. Would he go with Barbara or Kory? Hearing this was a breaking point for Kory. She meta-tubed straight to Batcave in search of Dick. Having not found him, she looked for Barbara and questioned if he was with her. Kory informed the present members of the family of the bet and heard a sheepish confirmation from Tim and Damian. Agitated, Barbara decided to accompany Kory to Bludhaven and obligate Dick to answer finally.

That led us to our current predicament, where both women stood knocking on his apartment door harshly. As they went to knock again, someone finally answered…and it was not Dick.

"Um, hi? May I help you?" a young beautiful woman in an elegant short black dress greeted them. Barbara and Kory looked stunned, not knowing what to say.

"Oh! Sorry, I think we got the wrong apart-"

"Babe, who was it at the door?" Lo and behold, Dick Grayson appeared exiting one of the rooms all dressed in black. Once, Y/n stepped back, he stopped walking and froze.

"Barbara? Kory? What are you both doing here?" He asked slowly. Something clicked in Y/n's face and the two girls realized that she finally knew who they were. Sensing the awkwardness, Y/n excused herself.

"I'm gonna go finish getting ready, okay? You're good here?" She asked touching his arm and squeezing it reassuringly. He kissed her temple and soon she disappeared through one of the doors.

"You can come in…" he said letting Kory and Barbara step through the door. His apartment looked different, they noted. It was renovated and more stylish. It didn't take a genius to know who was responsible for the sudden refinement in his "bachelor" pad.

"Who is she?" asked Kory, straight to the point. Dick sighed. Sooner or later, he would have had to reveal and introduce Y/n to his family and friends. He just wished it would have been later and by his terms.

"She is my girlfriend"

"For how long?" Barbara asked this time

"Three months"

"So it is still fresh and new?" Barbara observed. Dick had had girlfriends between the moments he had been with Kory or her, but they were never serious. They usually lasted up to five months or so and would usually grow incredibly jealous of one of the two.

"Not really" He answered tightly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"We have been kind of something for almost a year now. We just made it official three months ago." He answered resigned. They were not going to let this go.

"A year? How- Whe- What?" Kory and Barbara exchanged puzzled looks. "And you were able to just hide it from the entirety of your social circle? How?" Kory asked

"Does Bruce know?" Asked Barbara

"No…I...was hoping to introduce her to everyone sometime before the Ball" He said, scratching his head. "She is going to be my date after all."

Barbara took a deep breath, analyzing the situation. Kory just looked at him perplexed, expecting more to come out of his mouth. Barbara narrowed her eyes at him. "Explain."

And so he did. He was as brief as he could be. Not wanting to get into too much detail. By the time he was done, Y/n excited the room. Makeup, hair, and heels done. Kory stared at you as Barbara interrogated Dick. You gave her a bright smile and extended your hand.

"Y/n L/n. A pleasure to meet you" Kory shook your hand and gave you her full name. Then you turned towards Barbara. You extend your hand and greet her as well.

"As lovely as this is, Dick we have to get going. If we get there late, I am never hearing the end of it from Charlotte." She laughed. Dick stood up quickly and went to look for his keys and wallet. She turned towards them, "Maybe you could come by tomorrow? We have to get to the engagement dinner of a friend of mine and I would love it if we weren't late." She said with a soft smile.

Neither Kory nor Barbara could sense any sort of malice behind her words. Barbara assessed her. She seemed relaxed, posture straight, and at ease. Unlike many of his ex-girlfriends, she didn't look intimidated by them at all. Dick excited their room as Barbara and Kory were about to exit. Y/n turned to look at him and he came closer. He wrapped his hands around her waist and she wrapped hers around his neck.

"You have a lot of explaining to do with your family tomorrow" she warned him with a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, can't wait" He responded sarcastically and rolled his eyes. Kissing her on her shoulder he turned towards Barbara and Kory who were still observing him.

"Babs, we'll talk about this tomorrow. I'll go to the manor and we can meet at the cave. Kory, I'll call you later, okay?" He promised. Both women nodded and left.

"I guess my sweet secret won't be such a secret anymore" he groaned and the girl pecked his cheek gently.

"It was gonna happen sooner or later, gorgeous. Plus, I'm kinda excited. I want to meet your family." She said softly. He looked at her and smiled. As long as she was here, He would be fine. He just hoped they wouldn't scare her away.

"Come on baby, we don't want Charlotte to tease you about how ever since you got a boyfriend, you never get early to things" Hearing her groan made him laugh.

---

Author's Note: This took longer that I though but idgaf, this is literally so self indulgent that I love it. I kinda wanna write a part two of the family meeting reader but idk. If its requested then I probably might. What do you guys think?

[seventeenytiny]

♡ Stray Kids as Dads ♡

Word Count: 637 Author's Note: As always this is just for funsies, feel free to add on your own ideas ♡

Bang Chan

He's such a girl dad and I don't think anyone will disagree with this. His daughter is the apple of his eye, the most precious thing he has ever seen. Everything he does in life is for his daughter and family. He will always do his best to take time off work to not miss big milestones and events. I can imagine him smiling ear to ear watching his child's first choir concert, even if it sounds bad he is still so proud of his baby girl.

Lee Know

I can't quite explain why I view him as a father of twins but I just do, it'll be one boy and one girl. When the two of you found out you were having twins his immediate excitement for it took away all your anxiety. If you choose to breast feed he will do everything he can to help you such as cleaning your pumps and changing diapers so you can rest. When the kids get older he will take great pride in making them healthy and yummy homecooked meals.

Changbin

Girl dad 100%, you can't convince me otherwise. He became very protective of his baby girl the second he saw the ultrasound. He does as much as he can while the baby is a newborn to help develop a bond. This includes things like skin-to-skin cuddles, diaper changes, and baths. When his daughter gets older he will always be picking out the cutest outfits for her.

Hyunjin

Honestly, I could see him as both a girl and boy dad but I think his first might be a girl. I can see him as the dad who plays dress-up with his daughter. He'd let his girl paint his nails, do his hair, and put makeup on him and he'd do the same to her. They'd also do crafts together, once his daughter develops better motor skills he will definitely teach her how to paint.

Han

Baby girl is the father of a baby girl. He loves spending one-on-one time with his daughter. He will take her to the park to play while also allowing his partner to have some quiet time to themselves. When his daughter is a little bit older he will take her on "dates" so she can learn how a man should treat her. By dates, I mean things like daddy-daughter dances where he will bring her flowers, open car doors for her, and treat her to dinner.

Felix

I have a feeling if he decides to have kids he would like to settle back down in Australia. He would love to take his son to all of the places he has fond memories of in his hometown. I'm sure he would be thrilled if his child showed interest in doing taekwondo as well. Everyone will be wondering if his son will have that same signature deep voice he has.

Seungmin

I think he would really like having a child he can play sports with and roughhouse with. Obviously, he can do that with either a girl or a boy but I think he ultimately would like a mini him to play with. He'd love playing catch with his boy and taking him out to sports games. They'd probably play outside all day, rain or sunshine, and always come back in covered in mud and ravenously hungry.

I.N

Like Seungmin, he also can't wait to have a mini him. He and his child will be so mischievous together, they will always be doing stuff like playing pranks on each other. Jeongin also has two brothers so I could see him and his bros taking his son on a classic boy's trip. He will also teach his son how to be the perfect gentleman, the two of them will always come back with flowers for mom.

[imnotasuperhero]

To follow the compass (that beats in our chests)

Wanda Maximoff x Reader.

A/N: Hello buddies. I honestly don't know how to define this, so let's say it's just an idea I developed in different chunks of free time I had and I decided to just put it out in the open and see if it was good enough considering the astronomical hiatus I've took. This was not proofread.

Let me know your thoughts!

Sipping on the hot, bitter coffee, you relaxed on the park bench enjoying the calmness of the Saturday morning, forcing your mind to stop thinking about the stressful streak you’ve been having for the last few weeks.

And the smile on your lips grew at the realization the cutest puppy came barking and wagging its tail, sitting at your feet as if it was your own.

“Hi, buddy!” You giggled as you scratched on its fur. “Yeah, you’re a good puppy, aren’t you?” 

“Sparky!” A nervous voice called and you couldn’t help the chilling wave running down your spine.

Looking up, you saw the most beautiful woman ever, walking rapidly to you, “Come here, boy,” she kept calling unsuccessfully.

“It’s okay,” you kept on your smile when she was in hearing range while you kept on petting her dog, as if trying to calm her.

“I’m so sorry, he never sprints at strangers. I don’t know what-”

“Hey,” you stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, really.” You guided her to sit on the bench, worried about her state.

Inhaling deeply, her green eyes stared at you with some spark you couldn’t decipher. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be,” you smiled kindly, sitting by her side. “I’m Y/N,”

“Wanda,” she nodded curtly, her attention on the dog sitting between you two, looking back with curiosity. But before you could comment on some random thing to say, her grunt called your attention.

“Are you okay?” Your attention focused on the woman beside you.

“I'm fine… it's just a small kick,” she rubbed her protruding belly.

“Oh,” you realized just now she was pregnant. “How far are you?” 

“It's pretty early. About to enter the sixth month,” she smiled softly and you could feel her beautiful smile being tattooed on your soul.

“Do you have a name, yet?” You asked curiously.

“I just found out it's a boy on Wednesday, so I still have to decide on a few,”

“There you two are!” a familiar voice made your words die on your lips.

“Pietro?” You stood up with your smile growing its size.

“Hey, Y/N!” The blonde man smiled equally excited as he hugged you tightly.

“Now I know why he seemed so familiar,” you looked at the dog at Pietro’s feet requesting to be petted.

“Now I know why he ran to you out of nowhere,” Wanda chimed in, taking one of the two cups Pietro had. “Thank you,”

Winking at the brunette, Pietro turned his attention to you. “Glad to see you’re feeling better,” his smile never left his face. “I miss you at work,”

“Oh, I bet it’s torture,” you giggled, rolling your eyes.

“It’s true! George is just… too much.”

“Poor Pietro, he can’t manage a teenager,” you mocked him. “I’ll be back on Monday.” You assured.

“But what he can manage is finding a new place for his sister to move into.” The blonde stated with a cheeky smile.

“Wait, what?” Wanda frowned at her brother as if had grown two heads.

“Well, it’s simple math! You’re still looking for a roommate, right?” Pietro looked at you expectantly, waiting for your confirmation. “And you can’t handle living with me anymore. Ouch, by the way,” he turned to his sister. “That means you can move in with-”

“Does she even want me to move in?” Wanda interrupted her brother’s rant, and you felt the pressure as two pairs of eyes set on you.

“As long as you don’t smoke and keep at least the common areas tidy-”

“YES! She accepts the deal.” Pietro grabbed your hand and shook it as if it was a deal.

“There’s a problem, though.” Wanda looked down to where her hand was placed on her belly bump.

“I’m not new to babies. It’s okay by me,” you shrugged and couldn’t help the heat on your face as those green eyes shone with something warm.

That’s how the very next night, you’ve found yourself sliding in bed after a well deserved hot shower, for all the hard work you’ve done helping Wanda move into the empty spare room in your apartment.

But just as you were about to drift into sleep, a chocked scream washed away every bit of sleep you’ve collected through the day.

“Wands?” You entered her dark room, setting your eyes on the sitting form on the bed. Her soft features illuminated by the moonlight.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she sighed.

“No need to,” you sat beside her on the bed. “Can I help you with something?”

At the tension levitating in the air, you insisted.

“I know I’m a grown up mother-to-be. But can you stay?” 

Getting under the covers, you opened your arms waiting.

“What happens in this room stays in this room,” the brunette joked as she settled half on top of you, and you couldn’t help the soft smile as you felt the extra weight on your side.

“Deal,” you refrained from kissing her head, wrapping your arm around her shoulders instead, allowing sleep to take over you once and for all.

Days and weeks passed, you’ve found yourself enjoying Wanda’s presence around you when neither of you were at work. Even more so when she took over dinner claiming she needed to destress from whatever case she had that day.

But for the last 4 days, Wanda had been assigned the night shift as she had to cover for a colleague and you sank deeper on the couch at the realization that hit you like a train.

So after a few minutes of wallowing in the newfound feeling, you stood up and walked to the kitchen, checking  on the food cooking on the stove.

Inhaling the warm smell you felt your chest inflate with joy. “Yummy,” you smiled as you grabbed the wooden spoon and stirred before tasting the stew. “Double yum.”

Moving to the cupboard you took a plate and stared at it for a second too long, deciding to grab two small containers instead.

As the floor-to-ceiling doors closed behind you, you granted yourself a few seconds to calm down, unbelieving the impulse that brought you here.

“Hi,” you greeted the first nurse you’ve found after the receptionist indicated where the pediatric floor was.

“Hello darling,” the nice old lady smiled at you. “How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for Dr. Maximoff, please.”

After checking on the screen, the big brown eyes looked back at you with a compassionate look. “She’s in surgery right now, but should be done in any minute.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll wait for her,” you faked your best smile, not being a fan of hospitals.

But before you could end up walking away from the stress the place provided you, a tap on your shoulder called your attention.

“Hi,” you smiled brightly as you took off your earphones.

“Hello yourself,” the brunette matched your smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought us dinner.”

“Oh, my. You’re the best,” Wanda’s arms wrapped around you and you felt the familiar warmth you’ve got used to. “I definitely need something after that O.R.”

“Was it an emergency?” You asked, following her to what you assumed was the common room.

“Sadly, yes.” Wanda took two water bottles before sitting down at the table. “Remember the girl I told you about yesterday?”

“The one with heart failure?” You took the containers and opened them, filling the room with the warm tasty smell.

“Oh, lord. Looks so good,” Wanda took a bite and smiled. “It is good,” she nodded to herself and you couldn’t help the giggles. “But yes, that one. Turns out she had a clog on her aorta so we had to operate.”

“Poor thing,” you pouted, it was sad to hear some of Wanda’s patients’ medical records. “So now her heart surgery has to wait.”

“At least another day, yes.” She took a mouthful. “What brought you here? And with food?”

“The apartment felt empty and I was bored,” you shrugged nonchalantly.

“You sure it's not the fact you miss me?” Wanda raised her eyebrow.

“Ehh, that’s just details.” You waved it off.

“And here I thought I was special,” the brunette pouted, making you purse your lips to avoid you from smiling.

The next few minutes were spent in a comfortable silence, which wasn’t strange to you both since you easily found quite the comfort in the other’s company. But that bubble popped when Wanda’s pager rang with a nine-eleven call.

“I’m so sorry, Detka.”

“No, don’t worry, duty calls.” You eased her as you took her hands from the picked up forks. “I’ve got it. You go save lives and I’ll see you at home,”

“I’ll make it up to you,” she pecked your lips and stormed off the room, leaving you frozen.

Caressing your lips, you tried to process the day’s unfolding. Where did that come from? Was it just a reflex or was it something she’s wanted to do willingly?

All these questions ran through your mind, slowly indulging the feeling that was hidden in a box, burning madly like a flame that could consume the restraints in any minute. And to be honest, it didn’t scare you, because if anything, all the pent up tension meant there was more in store for you and Wanda than just be friends.

[riddles-n-games]

Hey guys, I've been seeing another rift going on in the fandom regarding TGG and TIG characters, so I've decided to make a statement that can hopefully make things more cohesive.

I understand that not everyone likes the new spin-off and honestly, I'm considering just stopping after GU. Personally, I don't have anything against the characters of TGG but my problem is that they sound too much like our old mains. However, that's not their fault. It's the author's. There's nothing wrong with JLB wanting to expand the TIG universe but it is problematic when you are repeating the same character arcs of the old characters that are also present and interacting with these new mains. The problem that we face is the fact while even in The Naturals there are similar characters, they are divided by different series. However, that is not going on here with TIG and TGG. TGG is a continuation of TIG and our TIG characters are still present. Heck, one of our old mains is a player and a love interest here to one of the new mains. And therein lies the issue. When you have a connected series, it's important to have distinguished characters with different voices, not carbon copies.

What I expected for TGG characters was that she would move from the character tropes we've seen already in the series and come up with new ones. I mean, come on, she's a psychology major, we bring that up so often but what's the point when she keeps going in circles and never brings up anything new? I pointed a lot of this out pre-read because I already correctly guessed where this was going within just a few pages of reveal. Don't get me wrong, if she wanted to, she could do it but it doesn't feel like she has new plans or plots. Be honest with yourselves and don't just praise because she's your favorite author. You can be a reader, a fan, and a respectful critic all at the same time. Don't lower your expectations just because they can't deliver every time.

The trouble is that when you go back to TFG, in the acknowledgments, she herself wrote she wasn't sure there was going to be a third book. And now look, suddenly two books were announced a month or two after she released the last book of the trilogy which introduced our mains and not the most fashionably. I do believe she had ideas but I don't think they were the best fleshed out. You have to realize that just reading TGG, how many of you recognized the obvious plots, the romantic subplots, the character arcs, and even the semi-hidden plots just getting to the halfway point? And how many of you said, hey, wait a minute, we've had this plotline before? You did, didn't you? I want to give Jennifer the benefit of the doubt but I truly think she is in over her head because I don't believe she quite thought that this is how long the series would go.

In fact, I think that she is making more trouble for herself in trying multi POV for this new series when really I think it should have just been Gray taking over. It would have allowed us to see how he's grown especially after the heartache and mental health issues he's had to go through to get here. It felt like the obvious next step, even the summary for TGG made it sound like that. However, the only thing that seems new to me is the hypersexual atmosphere which also makes no sense to me because teens may go through attraction but that doesn't mean they're horny all the time and anyone who's gone through puberty can attest to that. So I ask again, like one reviewer on Goodreads put, were the romantic moments in the room with us? 12 hours is not love or romance, it's lust, that's it. Couldn't summarize it clearer. If she wanted to make it better, it could have been that she made the book stretch over a series of weeks which is why I wonder what the heck will happen to any character development if this book series is done in like 3 days?

As I said, a lot of things feel very repetitive, the plot, word choice, thought processes, quotes and sayings, etc. We are in a loop. She's in a loop. I think that the best thing JLB could have done is leave TIG alone for a few years after TFG, make a new series or whatever works outside this series she wanted to, give herself time to truly see if she has new stories to tell for TIG by writing a spin-off and then come back to give us that content. Because it's really telling how forced things have been in the last two books, even here with GU and I really think this empire is toppling. As they say, quality over quantity and thoughtful than full of thoughts that are just a variation of one another. That's what makes me think more and more she should have left it at TFG.

Thank you for reading and I hope this gives a new perspective that can help you see some things more clearly.

[eww-y-tho]

Colin VS Toxic Masculinity and Why Penelope Had to Reveal Herself as LW

I made a previous post with my two cents on why the idea of them both figuring out a solution to LW was an inferior concept to just Penelope figuring it out on her own, but it was small and I want to go more in-depth.

So, in order to grasp ✨my perspective✨ of the story, we first need to talk about Colin's struggles with toxic masculinity and his inferiority complex.

Naturally, Colin is a hopeless romantic with demisexual tendencies and a more prominent softness compared to other male leads. He's a bit dense (I say with love) until he figures out what he wants and how he's going to get it, and then he is a man of frankly ridiculous action. He's a sensitive boi who has a difficult time fitting in with the other men in his life and being taken seriously by his family, as he puts it himself. An empath, lol.

Honestly, Colin being a "rake" was an integral point of his character arc, and if you haven't picked up on that text by now, I would ask where your media literacy is. Violet put it best, he's putting on armour to protect himself from the way that society treats his character, and naturally, he develops a small, albeit persistent inferiority complex because of this. He doesn't feel like he's providing enough to the people around him because of toxic masculine standards.

I honestly think it's been with him since s1, and Pen is the only person who could bring these thoughts to the surface, which is why it comes to a head in s3 p2.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In his efforts to fit in, he does some questionable things, such as the 2x8 comment, which he regrets as soon as he realizes how much damage it has done to his relationship with Pen. He hangs around with douchebags that he can't stand because he feels a need to conform and "be the kind of man society expects him to be."

But he also absorbs toxic masculine tendencies in the process. His gut instinct of general envy that a woman, Pen, is more successful than him (I hate to put it that bluntly, but that's how I took it), asking for her to quit LW because of these reasons, completely disregarding Pen's autonomy and her perspective by blindly charging forward to stop Cressida's blackmail, among other smaller things.

It's kind of ✨subtle✨, but I know it's there.

Pair that with his inferiority complex and you have a man who is trying to put down Penelope to his level, if that makes sense. By this point, he's already conquered the idea that he needs to conform by the way he cuts off his toxic friend group, but he isn't completely free from the systemic perspective.

Therefore, the idea that Pen would need him in order to find a solution to her problem confirms that toxic masculine trait. Let's be real, Penelope didn't and doesn't need Colin in order to help with LW's problems. She's managed without him before and will continue to manage it by herself. This is not to say that Penelope doesn't have an issue with accepting help from others and feeling the need to handle her problems alone because of her old situation, but she takes the emotionally intelligent move by LITERALLY voicing what she needs from Colin and their relationship.

She needs his companionship, she needs his love, she needs a rock she can come to at the end of the day and be able to depend on. She does not need him to do anything for LW, as it is a part of her identity and an accomplishment that she is proud of and will not let go of. Colin cannot make the demand that she drop everything she's worked for for him.

And that's how relationships work in the real world. You have things you are willing to let go of, and some things you are not. Your partner has to accept those boundaries you have set or leave the relationship, and you shouldn't have to abandon those things in order to get the person of your dreams, because that would make it a toxic relationship from the start and will most likely end in you losing parts of yourself in your partner.

Anyway, all this is to say that Penelope had to get out of her situation by her own means and with full autonomy on what she wanted to do to finish off her character arc.

And Colin needed to realize that his envy is a baseless emotion that simply has no value compared to the woman he knows her as. A strong, independent woman who doesn't need him to do things for her. He also needed to humble himself and see the way that LW is not competing with him, but a part of her. They both demonstrate that what they need from the relationship is not transactional in nature, but rather a shared bond powered by love.

I understand the idea of wanting them to both find a way out of the blackmail as a team, but again, that's explicitly not what they need from each other, and why I think this perspective is again a misunderstanding of their character arcs.

I think I've articulated this the best way I can, but I do know I wanted to say some other things. I'm tired tho, so yeah, ending it here.

Hopefully, this made sense.

Bai!

[aalinaaaaaa]

2024 In a Gift Box

Hey, everyone, greetings after another year that has flown by all too quickly! Featuring new friends, a few awards and 400% more holidays (rip my wallet lol), this has been a wild year for me. And that's only half of it.

For some strange reason, my desire to write increases with the hecticness of my life. Much of Obsidian Sapphires' revival/troubleshooting phase occured during the latter part of the year, from October onwards (though I had been tinkering with its plot for some time now). All because I woke up one morning with the solution to a plot hole appearing in my head.

Anyway, preambles aside, here's a few major highlights from my year (in writing terms):

First up, thanks to @druidx for the Year in Review Tag! The premise of the tag is to post one's favourite five or so pieces that they've written throughout the year.

To be truthful, some of Obsidian Sapphires' scenes would make this list only the respective chapters for them aren't completed yet 😅

A Pawn for a Greater Cause — I had a ball writing the starting dialogue, and the prompt gave me a few revelations regarding Petrius' character.

Regrets — This made me cry at 1am, the catharsis was unreal.

To Perpetuate Life — Amazing how almost falling asleep gives me ideas. This piece helped me answer a few questions about Orlaith's backstory, and also gave me extra questions surrounding the lore.

Blue Moon — This feels like a nice deviation from my usual style, it's more dreamy and whimsical. Also, this reminds me to go and work on its second part, lol (because the scope was too big for one piece)

That angsty pining scene — This is not posted as one scene, but rather in splinters because parts of it are dripping in spoilers for Obsidian Sapphires. However, I enjoyed writing this scene too much not to post some snippets.

WIP Roundup

First things first, an ode to the WIPs that I've put on ice to focus on Obsidian Sapphires.

The Lady's Lament, a brief idea born out of a plot bunny inspired by a plot on Wattpad. The idea sprouted in April 2023, but it lives on in the form of worldbuilding ideas for South Arobyre.

And then also, Flamebearer, one of my oldest wips but also arguably my most complex one. It's a story of grief, religious dilemmas and romantic/familial drama, all under the backdrop of sociopolitical turmoil. It's going to take a lot of research and planning, that much I know. Hence why I want it to be as perfect as I can make it, when I have the knowledge and writing practice to do it justice.

In April this year, one of my Flash Friday pieces (Duel to the Debt) sowed the seeds for another piece (An Endless Round) in May, and later on Soulswapped derived from it. I intended it to be a short enough story, a novella of sorts that would be woven into a larger compilation, but it's become its own thing. Already, I think it may get a sequel. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Obsidian Sapphires

So its progress this year has been skewed. Like, 'a lot of its progress spawned in October or thereafter' sort of skewed. I woke up one morning and the cogs for the rigmarole surrounding what is currently Chapter 2 all clicked, to the point I yanked out my laptop and starting writing notes until I had to run for class.

Since then, I've had a bunch of ideas, but currently I'm deliberating on the story I wish to tell. It seems more cohesive and easier to plan for when I cut Eshani's perspective out, but at the same time, cutting her perspective would cut or at least hide much of her character development. That and I love her to bits, and she may/may not be a readers' favourite also.

In terms of actual tangible content, bits of the angsty pining scene got posted, as did sections of the first and second chapters. It even came with a few memes, lolololol. (And there's more memes sitting in my gallery/Scrivener notes, this story's quite memeable honestly).

The antagonists got their time of day, however brief so far. And not just the lead meshai, but also the septet of folks angry at the meshai and his fellows.

And this gets onto something that has existed as tags and headings and brief little mentions. A collection of pieces, leading up to answers surrounding some major events in the history of the country Obsidian Sapphires is set in.

That would be This Blood-Stained Charcuterie. It is going to be the anthology of short stories and one-off pieces surrounding Morilast's High Councillors (and indeed, the Court's other denizens and its namesake himself!). A lot of juicy details surrounding certain characters' backstories are going to feature here, I can't wait to get into it. (It's also my excuse to figure out all the bits of lore and convoluted ancestries [who murdered who], lol).

When I finish with Obsidian Sapphires, that is about when I'll start releasing this one. The title could change upon me getting to the end, but we'll see.

Flash Fiction Friday

I started doing these pieces in late 2023, so it's been about a year since my first one (Contemplations). In all, I've completed a total of 28 pieces so far :D

The masterlist came about in early January, because I was inspired by other people who had masterlists for their pieces. It's very satisfying to see it develop from a few pieces to what it is today, a decent few pieces.

Whatsmore, it reflects the trends in my writing, such as the wips that the prompts inspired me for, and what periods I was consistently doing it week-by-week and when the major gaps were.

For whatever reason, I have a tendency of getting inspiration for these at about midnight or so. Even if I get a handful of basic notes written down, it may not still be until late in the night that I can get a piece together, lol.

To commemorate the end of the year, I've started a series known as Flash Friday Flashbacks to celebrate what I've made and show off behind-the-scenes when it comes to notes, context, deleted scenes, etc.

There are a few pieces left in this year's version, which will be reblogged close to the end of the month (to celebrate the New Year).

Next year's edition is going to feature the December 2024 pieces in addition to all the 2025 stuff (which hopefully is a lot). There will also be a 2025-specific masterlist too.

Writeblr Community Events

What is writeblr without its community? It's beyond a pleasure to be part of a group so lovely and talented, everyone has something amazing going for them.

As part of this, there are some people here who create events, discords and/or other initiatives that bring people together. Shoutout to everyone who has done/is doing something along these lines ❤️

Special mentions in my case go to:

@flashfictionfridayofficial for taking the prompt submissions, making the posts, and reblogging everyone's stories (with fantastic comments) every week

@writeblrsummerfest for making a lovely event spanning the entirety of August, encompassed by a well-organised theme and all

@bardic-tales for establishing the @creators-club and doing all the various types of ask/tag games to foster interaction and support

@agirlandherquill for her first ever Writemas! These prompts are impeccable and it was really fun looking forward to the next day's prompts! I wish I could've participated more, but alas, that's how the cookie crumbles. (Also, high five, we're in the same timezone, woo!)

Plans for 2025

Continue with Obsidian Sapphires — I'd love to get the draft finished

Doing as many of the Flash Friday prompts as well

Reblogging people's posts more and hopefully improving at reaching out to people

Learning to draw is something that I've always wanted to do, but I want to get focused with it this year. It would be cool to put my characters in visual form

Getting a handle on the lore and background information needed to compile This Blood-Stained Charcuterie

The Tags

That brings this post to its natural course, the end. Merry Christmas everyone ❤️🎄

Giving a Year in Review Tag to everyone who is on at least one of my taglists (ask, comment, etc to be added/subtracted): @mr-orion @the-ellia-west @guessillcallitart @thereadingfoz @glassstardust22124 @original-writing @honeybewrites @ashirisu @drowsy-quill @oliolioxenfreewrites @theglitchywriterboi @seastarblue @gioiaalbanoart @rae-butter @corinneglass @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @outpost51 @mundanemoongirl @scarletteflamerald @ceph-the-ghost-writer @flock-from-the-void @mattresses-and-macaroni @limitlesswritingvoid

...As well as all these people I'm tagging here: @winterandwords @finickyfelix @wintherlywords @anyablackwood @cherrybombfangirlwrites @kaylinalexanderbooks @angelfevr @thatndginger @thepeculiarbird @ominous-feychild @oh-no-another-idea @space-writes @veneritia @the-golden-comet @jev-urisk @cljordan-imperium @an-indecisive-nerd @mauannacreates @laureleavess @theeccentricraven @paintedbutton (@/bardic-tales, @/agirlandherquill, both of you are tagged for this too)

...And most importantly, here's a tag for everyone in the audience!

Here's to a hopeful 2025! 🎉

[knickynoo]

Well, I was sufficiently enabled for the idea, so here it is: ✨Alex P. Keaton's Top Neurodivergent Moments✨

The funny thing is that the amount of time I put into scrolling through my encyclopedic mental inventory of Family Ties scenes, compiling these moments in a list, making gifs, and finding past gifsets/analysis to link back to makes creating this post one of my most neurodivergent moments. Good for me.

These will be organized by season (easier for me than trying to rank on a scale) and are in no way ALL of the moments. I'd need like...15 posts for that. Also, tumblr only allows 30 images/gifs per post, so I'm going to include links to past posts when possible.

ENJOY!

• Alex gets his first-ever failing grade and immediately decides to quit school

Exactly what it says. Alex strolls into college all bright-eyed and confident and ends up a broken shell of a guy just a week or so later. The prototypical Gifted Kid from the moment he learned to speak, Alex cannot handle anything less than perfection. Getting the first F of his life shatters his entire self-image, and he wants to drop out of college entirely.

• Alex's friend Doug announces he's getting married, and Alex spirals into despair. As one does.

The entirety of the "Best Man" episode is one big Alex displaying neurodivergent behaviors moment, honestly. There are a whole lot of Alex-centered plots that are set into motion because A Change happens, and he just cannot deal with it, and this is one of the best examples. Alex is so distraught at the suddenly altered dynamic that he wanders the house like a lost soul—sad and confused and needy. He walks in on Steven's shower just to give him a hug, offers to go shopping with Mal and play dolls with Jen, and also draws up a seven-year contract for his other friends to sign to ensure they stick to their regularly scheduled card games, lest they also run off to get married and destroy his life.

• Alex P. Keaton: child development expert

When faced with the news of another sibling on the way, Alex has some very nurturing advice at the ready for when the baby is crying.

• The Keatons all laugh at a funny story. Alex is not amused.

This is one of my favorite Alex scenes of the series. Uncle Rob shares a memory of the time Steven was young and got in trouble because he started rebelling against the system and refused to write his name in the designated spot on his school test papers. The family shares a hearty laugh. Alex, king of black-and-white thinking and lover of rules, is deeply upset.

I love him so much. He genuinely cannot see how they're enjoying such a story. The Name Spot is for names. And his father dared to write in the Not For Names Spot?? Jail for Steven.

He's so ridiculously autistic.

• Alex's favorite childhood toy

It was a cardboard box. I can't quite put into words why this sets off my ND radar, but it does. Maybe it's the being attached to unusual items thing that's common with autism? The intense fixations that make other people go ????

The Alex and Ba-ba plotline provides some wonderful Alex Lore.

• Mr. Mustache

Yeah, those intense fixations? In the "Fool for Love" episode, Alex grows a mustache and legitimately cannot speak about anything else for the several days that follow. He's asked to present a speech at Mallory's homecoming dance and centers his entire speech around his mustache. He's unable to have a conversation that doesn't involve mustaches. It's incredible.

• Everything in "Matchmaker"

Alex is so sweet in this one. After Mallory comes home crying after a bad date, Alex promises to help her find a great guy. Unfortunately, putting someone who struggles socially and with processing emotions in charge of your love life isn't exactly a great fit. Alex uses the power of science to craft a formula to find Mallory's perfect match (he isn't), then tags along on their date and helps foster a very natural environment (it isn't) for the relationship to flourish (it doesn't).

The episode ends with a great scene between Alex and Mallory that shows just how well Mal understands the inner-workings of her big brother's head.

• Divorce is tough. Alex has some advice.

The Keaton kids are shocked to learn that their Uncle Rob is divorcing their Aunt Maureen. As Jen and Mallory reel from the information, Alex helps to reframe things.

He then pulls out the Special Interest Card and compares the divorce of their aunt and uncle to a "failed merger, not unlike the breakup of the phone company—although obviously less emotional. Nothing more than a natural fluctuation in the marketplace of love and marriage."

And the thing is, he IS impacted by the news. He just hasn't the slightest clue how to actually process it. So, a simple failed merger it is!

• You had one job

Mallory needs some croissants for a fancy get-together she's having with her poetry class. Alex helpfully offers to go pick them up.

Now, I debated about this one because there's part of me that's like, "Hmm, did Alex purposely do this to annoy Mallory?" Is this just a jerk move? But you know what? It stays on the list because the whole "I personally don't like this thing and struggle to see how anyone else could. Therefore, I will get the thing I like" is (for me) a relatable aspect of being ND.

• Every single second of "A, My Name is Alex"

For real, though. This episode is a deep dive into how Alex became the person he is, and it is FILLED with "flashbacks" of an intensely neurodivergent child whose issues were made worse by the people around him. (Mostly teachers and peers. Steven and Elyse did their best with him, but I do also have some critiques of the way they parented him). Anyway, he represses his emotions to the point of a meltdown

And then there's this

Full coin gifset here. Also, I made posts on the full episode, which can be found here and here.

• "Alex has a weird body"

That's Mallory's explanation to Andy as to why Alex can't help her when she needs someone to model one of her latest clothing creations. She says Alex's head is too big for his body, and those words, unfortunately, find their way back to him. In a mini plot reminiscent of the mustache one, Alex proceeds to obsess over the comment.

And I mean, I think being told your head is too big for your body would make anyone insecure, but it's the way Alex handles it. He's unable to have regular conversations for a while because he can't stop fixating on the size of his noggin'.

Both of the "Read it and Weep" episodes fit in this list, to be honest

• An accurate statement by Lauren

I've got to include this because it really does neatly condense a lot of who Alex is

So true, bestie.

And then, to wrap this whole thing up, there's all of this

And this is just what I can fit in this here post without going over the limit lol. Obsessed with the way MJF played Alex.

Thanks for reading ✌️

This is me with Alex, btw

[proud-memer]

Bored, so here's my list of ideas/theories on what the Trial 3 songs will focus on/reveal about the characters. I'm gonna go ahead and assume the characters who didn't show up in the video that came out a few weeks ago are not gonna be getting songs at all.

Yuno: I think her Third trial stuff will place emphasis on her clients. Specifically, whichever one it is that got her pregnant in the first place. Her Trial 2 voice drama was super explicit about what it is she did that got her In Milgram, so I don't think they'd really focus on it more. So we'll probably get to see some of her clients and maybe her personal feelings about them.

Fuuta: For him I think they'll put some focus on his actual victim, maybe even the specific process of how his cyberbullying eventually led to the suicide. If I remember correctly, fans have already deducted that it was a middle school aged girl that did something based on the visuals of the music videos. So i'm thinking we'll end up seeing Fuuta's campaign against her.

Muu: This one's gonna be really interesting, since I feel like the guilty verdict she got this time around is really gonna mess her up. Which I'm pretty sure will really affect the song. But as to what is gonna be shown, I think it's gonna be what exactly caused her to go from bully to bullied. After Pain showed her as the person being bullied. It's Not My Fault showed us that beforehand, she was on top the social ladder and the person that bullied others. All that's left is to see what actually happened in between.

Kazui: Kazui gay theory gets confirmed. Next question.

Ok but in all seriousness, I feel like we are actually gonna get a definitive answer on that. In the Audio Drama if not the song itself. Either way, I can actually see the song going one of two directions. Either 1) We're gonna get to see what exactly led to Kazui telling the truth to his wife, with the mv culminating in her throwing herself off the balcony. Which we do see a bit of in Cat (There's a few moments in the mv that I'm pretty sure are the actual moment that he told her the truth near the end of the song) we're just gonna focus on it. Or 2) It's gonna actually focus on Kazui living his whole life dealing with societal pressures telling him he has to live and feel a certain way that just doesn't actually resonate with him.

Amane: For her, I think the most likely direction is gonna be us seeing what it is exactly that led her to kill her mom. We know from the lyrics of Purge March that it was because her mom broke the cult's rules in some way. I think the third trial will reveal what that was exactly.

Mikoto/John: I think we're gonna see why and how Mikoto developed DID. Because in real life, that only develops due to severe, long-term childhood trauma. And we don't know what could've caused Mikoto to develop DID in the first place. Sure, the third trial could also straight up tell us why John killed a guy (Which I honestly believe might be what we learn in the Audio Drama instead) but weirdly enough, it feels less important to me than learning why Mikoto has DID. Although it could easily be the other way around, with the Audio Drama revealing what caused Mikoto to develop the disorder, while the song shows why John killed someone (although it presumably involved protecting Mikoto somehow)

Kotoko: Yeah, I'll be honest here, I'm stumped. I can't think what the song would be about. The most I can think of is that after being voted guilty, she just dives straight off the deep end out of sheer anger and her song ends up revolving around that through her desperately trying to justify her worldview/actions being correct. But that feels... off to me for some reason. Can't think of anything else though

[gb-patch]

Hi! I saw your ask about skin tones and honestly, that is very much a barebones excuse to not include skintones in your game. You act as though adding skintones to a sprite would be a complete hand-drawn new asset when it would quite literally be filling in a pre drawn base for both Opal and the mc. Not only that but you potentially have thousands of mc outfits you promised for specific tier havers on the kickstarter. And then for 250,000 dollars, you're telling me we'll get more colors but not even 2 or 4 skintones when there are games with Less funding who have more skintones? Especially considering OL:B&A had the exact same amount of skintones and I could count all the afro centric hairstyles in that game on my two hands. I rather have more skintones than just pale, peach, olive, tan, brown and dark brown (most of which screams a 2000s foundation line of tones) than have more hair or clothing colors. I'm sorry, I love your games, I really do but that's an extremely lazy and abhorrent response from you and I am extremely disappointed.

"Hi. I just saw the post about you not adding in more skintones. I really hope this doesn't come across as rude or demanding but I find your reasoning for not being able to add them...lackluster at best. With all due respect, you set this goal for 250k, over three times the original goal you set for the kickstarter, the idea that somehow you can promise an additional set of darker colours for the clothes, accesories hair and eyes alongside the additional MC pieces people are going to request but not an additional skintone because of Opal seems a little ridiculous. I'm not an experienced artist but I do know how art files tend to work and I imagine adding additional colours to Opal's base design wouldn't be an extreme undertaking. In fact, by contrast, the work to add more colours to the clothes and hairs seems much more labourous considering the amount of them and the fact that some of the clothes have subcolours.

Again, I do hope I don't come accross as rude but I just feel like this announcement was highly dissapointing, especially considering the fact that the additional colours are currently the biggest goal for the kickstarter at the moment" There were two replies, so I put them together. I hope that's alright.

I understand. It would be bad and make no sense if that didn’t happen. I can say that this has nothing to do with funding. I'm not gonna attach more skin tones to a stretch goal, that’s not fair. It’ll be done whenever it can be regardless of what happens with the Kickstarter.

The other colors for hair and such is something I confirmed can be done by our programmer ahead of time using a color picker system in coding.

The situation as it stands today for Opal is that I personally don't have the skills to recolor her myself, the artist we have is in a situation where it would be unkind to increase how much work they have to do (it'd be easier if even less work could be on them), and while another artist could be hired- that hasn't happened at this point. So, saying it "could happen but maybe not" is cautious development process. It’s how it went with both the Cove Patreon Bonus Moments, where I pretended for months that it may or may not happen while working on it behind the scenes because I wasn’t sure how long I’d need to finish it and was worried it could be delayed for long stretches of time.

Being realistic, it is virtually a 100% certainly that before the game comes out, the skin tones will be expanded. There is no good reason why it wouldn’t. I was waiting until things got to a better point in production before coming out to officially say that it’s happening.

And I could’ve said it’s extremely likely but we’re not able to do it quite yet and avoided making anyone feel hurt. I wish my way of handling it hadn’t made the people who believed in our games sad. The reason why I didn’t is that I just can’t help but be averse to making promises I can’t do/the team can’t do and so have to rely on something else working out at some point in the future, even if it is entirely likely that it will.

That’s because I know that these things will make a lot of people happy. I want the excitement and any praise that might come to not happen until the goal has been achieved or is on the way to being achieved for sure. To a degree it’s helpful for players to have confidence in what the company is promoting, but it’s mainly to help with my own habit of catastrophizing. I tend to believe bad things could happen and I’ll let people down even when it’s so unlikely it’s not worth considering. I consider it anyway. And so, you get this kind of long-term hedging before the feature people hoped for suddenly appears. Even now my compulsion is to add a caveat that “there’s still a chance something (I don’t even know what) could happen and it won’t be added so don’t thank me yet” despite me already coming out with the truth that there’s every intention to have it added. I’m sorry to have disappointed you and made you feel disregarded by doing this. Hopefully when the skin options are expanded people will be able to enjoy the game a lot more than how it is with the current demo. And thanks for taking the time to let me know what you thought rather than giving up on the project entirely.

[supercorpkid]

Yours Truly, Pink Kryptonite

Supergirl. Kara Danvers x Reader!, Alex Danvers, Lena Luthor

Word Count: 3003.

"As you can see here, we'll start this presentation with an overview of the current business –" You look out the window to see Supergirl staring at you and waving excitedly. "landscape, and, um, the importance of embracing innovation." 

You look around, making sure no one is paying attention to the Kryptonian calling out for you from the other side of the window. What the hell could she possibly want right in the middle of your most important work presentation ever?

You obviously know Kara does a lot of things, but working 9 to 5 isn't one of them. She runs off from CatCo whenever she wants or has an emergency.

Emergency! God, there must be an emergency!

Your mouth dries, and your eyes widen. "Or, you know, everyone knows this." You look at your boss, furrowing his brows at you. "We know our company and where we stand. So instead of wasting our time with the introduction, why don't we just skip to –" You press the control skipping through basically half of your presentation. "the expansion to new markets. And who better to talk about that than my team! I'll leave it to you guys, and will answer to this very important call from our program developer. We know he hates to wait. I'm sorry. I have to –" 

You slip out of the conference room, heart on your throat, completely unaware of what you just said in there.

Supergirl meets you at the balcony of your office with a wide smile. "Kara!" You close the door behind you, looking around you to make sure no one is paying attention or seeing the both of you through glassy walls. "What's the emergency?"

Kara tilts her head to the sides, like a confused puppy. "Emergency?"

You touch her arms, looking for something that could explain why she is here in the middle of the day. "Yes! I mean, isn't there an emergency?"

"Not that I'm aware of." She smiles widely.

It's your turn to master your most confused face. "Then why are you here?"

"Oh!" Kara lets go of your arm, and puts a lock of your hair behind your ear. "I came to ask you out."

"What?"

"On a date! Tonight!" You're still looking at her like you haven't got the faintest idea of what's going on. "Maybe lunch?" She tries to get a different reaction. "Now?"

You look around. This must be a prank. Is someone filming this? Is today April Fools? Surely not. 

"You're not saying no." Her smile brightens up, like this is the most amazing thing that's ever happened. "So that means I can fly the hottest woman out of here right now?"

"What?" You repeat, yet again, baffled by everything that is happening. "You can't. I — I'm working."

"And you sounded so smart in that board meeting, baby." 

"Baby?" You whisper to yourself, more confused now than before. If that's even possible.

"But work is boring," Kara strokes your cheek lightly. "and you're honestly so pretty that I'm sure you'd never have to work if you wanted. Oh! You know what, we should do that!"

"Never work again?" You ask and she agrees enthusiastically. "It's not like you do anyways." You try a little joke and Kara laughs like you just said the funniest thing in the universe.

She composes herself, after a loud snort. "Ok. So you're smart, and pretty, and hot and funny. Golly, how did I get so lucky to get you to go on a date with little old me?"

You open your mouth a couple of times, but keep your comments to yourself. She is literally Supergirl; You never said yes to any date; and WHAT THE HELL! Are some of the things you refrain from saying.

"Kara, I have to go back to work. This presentation is really important." You point to the door and she agrees, once again, vividly with her head. 

"Ok, ok. But lunch?"

"I can't. I have a meeting with the developer." She pouts like a child, and you can't say no to her. Not when she looks so adorable. You breathe deep. "Dinner."

Kara bites her lower lip, holding back a huge smile. "Dinner is perfect. I'll organize everything, and you just have to go and be pretty, which is basically what you do all day anyways."

You furrow your brows one more time and agree with a nod. You make your way to the door, and make a mental note to call Alex and ask her what the hell! 

"Hey baby," You look over your shoulders and back at her one more time. "Your butt looks awesome in this outfit." 

"Thanks?" While your face burns red in embarrassment. 

You spend the rest of the day trying to concentrate on your work, but you can't really because you need to understand what happened between you and Kara this morning.

Sure, you two are used to a little bit of flirting. Subtle and awfully vague. Just little jokes that usually makes Kara completely uncomfortable, and makes her blush in no time. And now, just out of fucking nowhere, she is calling you baby and asking you out on dates?

You: hey! Kara's a bit off today. Something happened? Alex 🌈: oh, yeah. Pink Kryptonite. Why? You: great! One more! What does this one do? Alex 🌈: not sure. Just discovered it. Send me a list of symptoms.

A list of symptoms. Ok. You can do this. 1. She looked extremely happy. But that's not a symptom. 2. She had the courage to ask you out. Could that be a symptom? No. Surely not. Asking people out is not a symptom of being exposed to kryptonite. 3. She called you baby. Yeah, you don't have a list.

You: IDK, just weird. We'll meet up later and I'll try to investigate further. Alex 🌈: great! Will do the same from here.

Not good enough. You look down on your phone one more time. Change conversations.

You: hey! did you happen to see Kara today? Lena the witch: Yeah… You: everything alright? Lena the witch: If by alright you mean weird, then sure.  You: weird how? Lena the witch: She spent the entire duration of our lunch saying you butt looked great today. You: got it ✨super weird✨. Lena the witch: What's up with that? You: unsure. will let you know as soon as I figure it out.

You get ready for your date. It feels weird thinking about it. You've been kinda flirting kinda joking with Kara for a long while. You never thought this was going anywhere. It's not like you didn't want it to happen, but Kara Danvers is not gay. Which is unfortunate for you.

Except today she was the gayest of the gays. Queen of the lesbians. So you can't help but look in the mirror one more time, before saying out loud this time, "What the hell!"

Of course you like the idea of you and Kara going on a date, but it feels hard to enjoy this when it is so sudden and out of the blue. Just yesterday when you were leaving the Tower late at night and said goodbye with a simple, 'see you later handsome', Kara blushed so hard, she lost all her words and stumbled on her own two feet on the way out the elevator. How was she so smooth this morning?

You open the door, after the doorbell rings once. Kara is on the other side, the brightest smile on her face and flowers on her hands. "Hey baby."

You blush furiously. Can't keep your body in check, no matter how much you want to not enjoy this moment before you find out exactly what's going on with Kara.

"You look incredible. You always look incredible." She makes sure, a thumb sliding on your cheek delicately. And it's only the second time she's done this, and you're already addicted to it. "Oh, I brought your favorite flowers."

You look at it, bite your lower lip and hold your breath. She looks beautiful. Like an angel in front of you. Blonde waves cascading down her shoulders, blue eyes as bright as the day sky, smile as wide and white as possible, and she is here holding your favorite flowers. How the hell are you going to resist her?

"Thanks, baby.” God, no! What are you doing? No flirting! 

You turn around, putting the flowers on a vase, and trying to keep your hands and yourself busy so you don't jump on her and kiss her senseless. "Hey, what does Pink Kryptonite do?"

"Um, Pink Kryptonite?" Kara plays coy and you don't even have to look behind yourself to know she is smoothing her hand over her vest, right after touching her glasses. "Where did you see that?"

"Well, baby," You turn around to face her. "it seems that you've been exposed to it." Kara's mouth drops, not knowing what to say. You close the distance. "And believe me, I'm loving what's happening here, but I need to know if this is you or the kryptonite talking. So, what does it do?"

"It turns Kryptonians alittlegay." She mumbles under her breath, and it is only with much effort from your part that you understand it.

Your face drops. "Right." 

It's not like you're shocked about her revelation, she was acting like the lesbian jesus right after being exposed to a hot new type of kryptonite (why so many?). You breathe out, looking at the flowers and trying to ignore your selfish heart and desire to just go along with it.

"You should go."

"What?" Kara's eyes get full of tears. "But, the dinner."

"You're not in love with a woman, Kara. The effects of the kryptonite will fade and you'll regret this whole thing. So before we do something that can ruin our friendship, you should go." 

A tear falls from her eye, and she bites her lower lip to keep herself from crying out loud. Your heart is squeezing in your chest and you're having to summon all of your strength to keep going with this and not just simply kiss her better. 

"But that's not it." She tries, sounding small and in pain.

"Kara, it's ok." It's your turn to stroke her cheek lovingly and carefully, wiping the single tear away. "It was fun, but it isn't you. And for this to happen, I need to be you. Ok?" You're explaining yourself with caution, almost as if you're talking to a child. She agrees with her head, slowly, looking small in her tall body. "Don't worry. It will wear off soon, and you'll be yourself again. And you’ll be glad this didn’t happen." You kiss her cheek and give her a wistful smile.

Kara makes her way out of your apartment, crestfallen and so disheartened you almost feel bad. You take a deep breath. She'll be fine. She'll thank you for this when she wakes up free of the Pink Kryptonite.

Gee, a kryptonite that turns them gay. What the hell was going on in Krypton? But also, you wish you were there. The parties must have been wild.

You turn around in your bed, the flowers that Kara brought keep haunting you, because you decided to put them right next to your bed. You sit up, rubbing your face awake. Why the hell did you kick Kara out the door? It could've happened! It could finally have happened! Why didn't you take advantage of it?

Oh yeah. Yours truly, Pink Kryptonite. Ugh. She didn't really want you, she was just gay for a day. You roll your eyes to yourself. Now you'll just have to live with the awkwardness and the desire while you're around her. Great.

You hear a light tap on the glass and you let out a shit-scare scream, only to see Supergirl flying on the other side of your window. You hear a soft, "sorry." when she realizes how shaken you got.

You open the window to find a glowing Supergirl, and it doesn't take much deducing to understand she's been under the yellow sun bed for a while.

"I flew as close as I could to the sun." She explains, still on the other side, but it's quick to make her way inside. "The yellow sun emulators are alright, but there's nothing better than the real thing."

"Yeah." It's all you can say.

"I wanted to get rid of the Pink Kryptonite as fast as possible." Kara explains it further, and finally puts her glass back so she can change back into her normal clothes. "I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I heard you were still up. I wanted to apologize."

"Whoa, I knew you'd regret it, but God that was fast. Must be some kind of new record for me." You sit back on your bed with a loud sigh.

"No, no." Kara is quick to follow you, kneeling in front of you and holding your hand. "I wanted to apologize for waiting for the kryptonite to finally show me what my life could've been like if I had a little bit of courage."

"Kara, you are the epitome of courage."

"No, I'm not. I've been wanting to ask you out for months and haven't got the courage." She confesses. "Do you know how many times I almost called you baby these past few weeks?"

"You said Pink Kryptonite turns Kryptonian gays." She shakes her head agreeing. "For you to be turned into something, you can't already be that something."

"It turned me extra gay." 

You bite your lip to hold back a laugh, but she's not scared of showing you her wide smile. "Let me show you."

"Show me what?" 

Kara perches up, thumb sliding across your cheek until her hand cups your face. "Let me show you that it wasn't the Pink Kryptonite that turned me gay." She brings your face closer. "Let me show you how you were the one that did it."

"Are you sure this isn't the Pink Kryptonite talking?"

"I'll tell you what," Her breath is hot in your mouth, and you're holding your own breath in anticipation. "why don't we go to sleep and when we wake up you can ask me again?"

"Ok." But your resolution is weakening by the minute, especially after she spoons you in bed and places a little goodnight kiss on your neck.

You wake up with more flowers and breakfast in bed. Kara has a warm smile, and she looks so damn beautiful just fresh out of bed it's annoying.

"Good morning, baby." She holds your face between her hands, thumb caressing your cheek in the way that makes your heart flutter. She’s obviously able to hear it.

You swallow deep. "Is this you or the Pink Kryptonite?"

"Why don't you ask me again after work?" Kara says feeding you a strawberry, and you agree weakly with your head.

She shows up at lunch time, and holds your smelly tuna sandwich out of your reach, convincing you that you deserve better food. She has it all set out on your balcony, a whole picnic that makes all of your colleagues so jealous of your lunch date. Little do they know she actually flew to Italy for that pasta.

And it's another thumb stroke and another, "Is this the Pink Kryptonite?" question that makes her head tilt a little bit farther and she reaches the corner of your mouth, instead of your lips.

"Ask me again at our dinner tonight."”

After work pick-ups and holding hands and perhaps it's Pink Kryptonite. Flowers and dinner dates and maybe it's just the exposure. Movie nights and cuddles and what if it is still turning you gay. Slow dancing to the TV light and thumbs slowly stroking your cheeks and why don't you ask again tomorrow. And that goes on for weeks.

Alex texts you that Kara was exposed to real Kryptonite this time. You know, not the one that turns her into the queen of gays, but the one that turns her bones into flaming hot goo. You run to the Tower and watch her unawake under the yellow sunlight. 

"Hey, it's ok." Alex holds your shoulder while you cry. "She'll be fine. A few hours under the sun and she's good as new."

"What?"

"Yeah, the effects of the kryptonite aren't lasting. It wears off if we deal with it fast."

"With all of the different types?" You furrow your brows at her and Alex agrees with her head.

Well, haven't you been wasting precious time?

You run into the medbay, and sit beside her bed. Like clockwork, a couple hours later, Kara's eyes open and she looks at you on the other side. "Hey baby."

"Oh my God, baby!" You run to her, not caring about anyone on the other side of the glass that might be able to see you both. You throw yourself at her, kissing her entire face. "You scared me."

She smiles widely. "And would do it again to have you kissing my face like that."

You hold her face between your hands, and slide your thumb across her cheek. "Don't you dare." She smiles, but soon her eyes widen when she realizes what's coming next. You meet her lips with yours softly. But soon she deepens the kiss, and next thing you know she's pulling you up the bed while sitting herself up. You’re full on sitting on her lap, while your lips crash and tongues slide and hands explore visible skin. And honestly, the yellow sunlight doesn’t help when you’re body already feels like it is on fire. 

Kara parts the kiss for some air, and looks at you with full-blown pupils. "Is this you or Pink Kryptonite?"

You roll your eyes and give her a chuckle. "Shut up and kiss me again before I think the Green Kryptonite is also turning you gay."

Kara’s tongue is almost inside your mouth again when you hear a yell from the other side of the glass.

"NO! Absolutely not! We can see everything!” Kara is quick to move her hands out of your butt. “That was more than enough!" 

Alex's face is red from yelling, Lena's face is red from embarrassment, and Nia's cellphone case is red from all the pictures she's been taking.

"Keep going! I'm gonna turn these into GIFs!"

You and Kara look at each other, "We should go." "Yeah."

So Kara was right, it wasn't the exposure that turned her gay. Still you do appreciate yours truly, Pink Kryptonite, because at least it gave her courage to be her true gay self.

[morkitten]

I'm sorry Dimps

(art by virtanderson)

I just replayed Sonic Rush Adventure…. it's fun!! The last time I played it was back when it first released... Why didn't I ever revisit this game before? I remembered being a bit disappointed with Rush on a revisit (still a good game but there's just a lot of deathpits and the bosses get mean) and I remembered Rush Adventure being similar but with a lot of grinding that tired me out back then. But now replaying it, it's got really cool bosses (some of the best and most interesting of the whole series!), the stages are a bit easy but fun, the (several!) seafaring vehicles are cool, and it really doesn't have as much grinding or mindless sea charting as I thought it had. Plus it has this relentless blue skies sea adventure energy to it that's just so much fun. I love going back to my little island after every level, I love seeing it upgrade and become more populated and more full of fun stuff.

It's clear Sonic Rush Adventure was Dimps' biggest Sonic project and it's a shame they never got to make another original Sonic title after this, bc they were seriously getting better at every iteration… I'm sorry I was on the Dimps hate bandwagon because I was so hurt by Sonic 4. I didn't have the context that the game was supposed to be a phone game by a smaller team that then got hastily re-branded and given more budget. I was just so sick of everyone eating up the aggressive SoA advertising and I got nothing when I was proven right.

But I also wasn't comfortable with the narrative that emerged a bit after Sonic 4's release that Dimps was the source of all evil, despite agreeing with the level design criticisms, it's obvious even back in the Advance games they love the games & characters, and the shortcomings of their games come from an impulse to try to make them harder and longer. But honestly, it's a problem I sympathize with! It's difficult to figure out how to add difficulty to a Sonic game because these games aren't really supposed to be hard, and it's difficult to add longevity in some other way because designing Sonic levels and creating all the assets for them is relatively a lot of effort compared to other 2D platformers. Sonic levels need to look flashy and elaborate but also they go by really fast AND they have a bunch of alternate paths, so they also need to be really big. And it's not like Dimps were given amazing budgets anyway. So Dimps would often come to this conclusion of "let's add more and more stuff that will kill you outright as the game goes further in" to add that needed friction, and it gets especially bad and mean on the Advance games with stuff that you can't see coming up. This ramp-up of one-hit kill hazards as the game goes on is still there on the Rush games, but Rush Adventure especially gets more and more comfortable with the idea that Sonic levels should be on the breezier side, possibly because all of the extra content put them at ease that it wasn't going to be a game that would be easily beaten in a couple of hours.

Despite being Dimps' best and most full-featured Sonic game to date, Sonic Rush Adventure really didn't sell well. It came out in 2007 so maybe it was a victim of Sonic 2006's infamy. Maybe the title made people confused as to what it was (Sonic Rush? I already have that game!), who knows. It really does feel like they were gearing up for a third original Rush game, I feel like they wanted Marine to be a character that would develop. this is part of why people find her annoying - she's a kid who isn't yet a hero, her character is that she fucks up and is ahead of herself. she learns a bit but isn't there yet. there's an obvious follow-up to this that didn't happen. It's retroactively cruel how the ending to Rush Adventure makes you feel for Marine saying goodbye to Sonic and Tails and wanting to see them again, and then it never came to be! I'm just left with a sniffling Marine and the knowledge that it never happened!!

And I know that "Sonic Colors DS is a third Rush game made by Dimps!". It is but it isn't. Maybe if Rush Adventure did well, SEGA would have given Dimps a bigger budget (or at least similar budget to Rush Adventure) and let them do an original game rather than a tie-in. But Rush Adventure's low sales apparently meant Dimps was relegated to Tie-In Hell, instead of being given more reigns to do what they want. I'm sorry Dimps! I'm sorry I didn't defend you, I'm sorry I was part of the hate bandwagon against you because I had my feelings hurt! I really, truly appreciate what you've done for Sonic, even if some of your decisions on these games were very frustrating (have you tried getting all the Chaos Emeralds in the Advance games? have you tried unlocking Amy in Advance 2?), there was a ton of labor of love in your games regardless. Thank you ;__;7

[bibliophilicstranger]

There is one thing in common with the PeterMJ (Spider-Man/Marvel) and Romione (Harry Potter) shippers; both of their pairings are 'canon' and have everything going for them thanks to favoritism by the author (J.K. Rowling)/ comic writers (Marvel). Despite all that, these

'canon' shippers aren't satisfied with having an already huge following and seek/continue to tear down on other ships (Harmione & PeterGwen) just to push their pairings to front and center. People like these are why we hate fandoms.

I can't comment on the Marvel portion of this ask as my knowledge of that universe is limited in scope and I'm not an active member of its fandom.

As for the Harry Potter part...

I think Romione fans have the issue that while their pairing is canon, it's not well developed in the text (very few pairings in Harry Potter are). We're told that they get together, marry, and have children, yet we don't actually see a lot of development of the relationship blocks that would support the longevity of their marriage. Yes, they went through the war together (although Ron abandoned them for a good portion of that) and yes they were friends, but their friendship was highly contentious and they spent significant portions of each year not speaking to one another or not hanging out (first year before they were friends, second year when she was petrified, most of third year, part of fourth where Hermione was more with Harry, part of sixth year, and part of seventh). Now, technically, first and second year don't count, but honestly, the only year they spend the entirety of together where they don't have a major fight is their fifth year. We know they like each other from Hermione's actions in book six and Ron's in seven, but we don't really see why they do, why that would turn into love rather than a teenage crush, or why they'd make it as adults.

Supposedly Hermione likes Ron because he's funny. Supposedly Hermione's maturity makes up for Ron's lack and he gets her to open up. While there's something to her liking someone who can lighten things up, if that's all then she could just as easily have liked one of the Weasley Twins instead. As a Hermione-type myself, I've often liked guys who were funny, but them being funny isn't enough. The guy I dated when I was 17 was funny, but he also lacked drive and dedication and in the end that made us incompatible in the long-run. Yeah, it's nice to have friends that can make you laugh, but in a partner for life you want someone you don't have to nag all the time when you need them to do something.

We also know that JKR admitted that Romione was her personal wish-fulfilment, clinging to her original idea of the plot, whatever that was, rather than a natural outcome of what she actually wrote. She also said they'd have needed counseling and their relationship was further questioned in the Cursed Child.

This puts Romione shippers on a weaker footing than most canon-pair shippers in other fandoms, making them defensive. Yes, they have the benefit of canon, but not the textual support, other than 'well, our people got married.' They can be threatened by Harmony supporters, who have fairly well crafted arguments grounded in the text for why Harry and Hermione make sense as a pairing. This makes Harmony a greater threat than pairings which are more loosely grounded in the books: Dramione, for instance, is never going to happen in a close-to-canon universe, but it takes very few tweaks to make Harmony work. Additionally, many of the arguments used in favor of Romione are equally as powerful for Harmony, such as the length of their friendship. Indeed, many of the arguments regarding Hermione's feelings for Harry specifically are a lot stronger, because we do see instances where she chooses Harry over Ron, such as in the seventh book.

It is unfortunate that these tend to become rather nasty fights that devolve into personal attacks on the sanity, demeanor, or reading comprehension of the Harmony shipper. I've seen many people go after another Harmony shipper on here pretty nastily, and I've heard tiktok and instagram are worse. Some screenshots I've seen are basically Romione shippers vowing to spread negativity about Harmony just because they don't like some of the fanfic people have written. As if it weren't possible to just, you know, not read the fanfic you don't like.

It would be nice not to get people randomly calling me a bitch in my inbox, but you know, such is life. I don't know if they dislike me more for shipping Harmony or Jily at this point but I really don't care.

[classicanalyzer]

Skeleton Crew - Very Interesting, As An Astrogation Problem

"The truth! The truth is, I'm just like you! Okay? I'm lost. I'm alone." Jod Na Nawood

Episode 3 continues to keep the momentum and peak quality of the premiere up!

We finally got to see KB's parents (I love that they're her moms), and it will be interesting to see why her moms put cybernetics (one of the functions is a life monitor, and apparently, she needs medical needs) in KB. I wonder if the cybernetics might be due to an accident or a birth defect. I love how KB stands in for people with disabilities. I hope we get to see more of Wendle's story and maybe even some backstory for him.

I love that KB got the most focus after the first two episodes didn't really go into her. I love the subtle insult about the chances Job isn't a Jedi given her knowledge of the Jedi is from the OR Era when the Jedi were much more numerous.

Similar to the Acolyte, I really appreciate the show for not trying to delay the obvious mysteries like making it clear Jod is Captain Silvo and how he's intending right now in the story at least to try to find the treasure on At Attin. Also that Battle Droid asking if they won totally gave me Jedi Survivor vibes with another Droid asking that same question haha.

I really love the visual effects, especially the owl alien Kh'ymm later on. The budget for Kh'kymm visual effects is on-par with the movies, and honestly this show has a lot more movie quality than Ahsoka.

Jod needs to respect droids and soon. SM-33 is always a gem and he has a good keen on Jod's untrusty nature. I'm glad we got to see how Jod is a genuine Force-user (Jude Law has already confirmed he is genuine about his Force-sensitive status). However, Jod might be old enough to have been around during the Clone Wars, which would make his prejudice against droids make sense.

I really love that Kh'ymm is an actual good being, and she thinks Jod kidnaps the kids when we know it's the opposite case. However, she is right that Jod does have ulterior motives. It's nice to see some genuinely nice beings in this galaxy. Also, her Observatory looks so amazing.

At Attin, one of the Jewels of the Old Republic is definitely from the actual Old Republic which makes me pretty excited. I thought we would need to wait until the MMO dies to see Old Republic content but I'm glad we're also starting to dip into the Era. I like the concept of hiding away certain worlds akin to time capsules unaffected by the outside galaxy. I'm going to guess those Jewels were destroyed by the Sith, the Nihil, the Clone Wars, and definitely the Empire. The more I think about it, At Attin and the Jewel world are the equivalent of a Fallout Vault. It makes me wonder if there's smth more malevolent to the world: What is At Attin's experiment lmao.

It's so weird in a good way to see the kids not know about what's going on since their isolation such as not knowing about how rough Coruscant got it post-war and Alderaan's destruction...God that's going to be awkward when the kids know what happened to Alderaan and the wars since their isolation. Can't wait for Wim to learn about Order 66.

My theory is whoever the Supervisor and the govt is that they have some access to the outside galaxy and they might've taken some things from what's going on to spin it into their own ideas (like Soh's Great Works to describe part of the Great Work of keeping the Barrier up).

I love and find it hilarious how KB and Fern end up turning Jod's idea of being partners and whether he works for them. Such a power move by those kids and I love to see it haha. While Jod didn't tell the kids the complete truth, I think he is telling the truth about him feeling lost and I hope we get to see his character development over the series (I'm a sucker for the heart of gold character growth, especially during this time where we need those feel good stories). I wonder if he really is a Jedi dropout or a former Padawan. I can't wait for Episode 7 to give us more on his character like Jude Law promised.

I hope Neel gets to be more independent over time, and this is hopefully the first step. God, I love how the Onyx Cinder looks after looking at the brick abomination of a "ship" that is the Trailblazer, haha. It also feels weird to see the kids firing on NR ships, but I like how the X-Wings pilots were worried about the kids. I also like how they were using ion shots since they weren't trying to destroy the ship but disable it. I hope we see more of Kh'ymm haha. I also think the ruined world in the trailers could be one of those destroyed Jewels of the Old Republic.

"He got us this far. But I don't trust him. Not really." KB

"What did he tell you? 'Trust your gut'? Use your head. Get the truth. And if you ever need help, you can call me anytime." Kh'ymm

[coffeegnomee]

lifesteal spoilers

about Kab's manipulative villain/wet cat 2 sides, I 100% agree with you, it currently just feels like a bit loose with which direction she wants to go with and honestly it could go either way.

Since at the end of the day, the streams will be edited into videos, and from the knowledge of Kab's first lifesteal video (and her other videos), some of the behind the scenes knowledge(like discord messages) or deeper inner thoughts are mentioned and or revealed even though it hasn't been shown on stream (wont go into detail here, just stating the point). So there is a chance that she IS playing the manipulative villain that you imagined and internally thought to not show it at all to stream audience, just to reveal that's what she had been doing the entire time in the video. And that's why I think the narration of her video is the ultimate deciding factor of her character, whether she is the secret big villain or a wet cat that tries to be one.

Also, on the topic of wet cat, since the season started, she always have and developed even more insecurities on her skills(both pvp and non-pvp) and trusting other people. Through multiple people, she already experienced lifesteal more than some of the other new members(also bacause of play time but), and it makes sense that she would become more vulnerable and a wet cat since she felt a lot of things go out of control and often felt lost and loss. Even with that, she is in a place where she still needs to find herself a comfortable position on the server, and I just think she still needs to learn to have a proper relationship and understanding with people without having the anxiety from her already established lifesteal trauma getting in the way. From what ive seen, she tends to get more desperate when things start to turn and not everyone is fine with that(some might even see that suspicious when it's just unintentional). Seeing recent events I think she's getting closer and closer so I hope she reaches a comfortable position to do whatever direction she wants to go with this, I'm still watching anyways

Last thing, I think her reputation plays quite a bit on how others treat her. Throughout the season, there are multiple occasions where when other lifestealers discuss anything about Kab, they would bring up "Kab's thing is manipulation". Multiple people from seperate teams even, said something similar and it just strikes me as most people that are aware of this reputation would already have a tendency to avoid her and those who interact with her will be wary and be on guard to not fall for her tactics(example: Mapicc does not trust her at all, even in the entirety of their alliance against Mane and this is the first reason he gave). With this reputation, she already has a hard time getting people to even try to trust her, so it renders her manipulation skill even harder to put into practice, especially in this long term server.

(lowkey don't know if my thoughts are consistent here, just sprinkling some ideas, crossing my fingers, and hope it won't be too much of a mess)

I mean, yea, the video will solidify what she was intending for her character. But it is 100% a manipulative villain, it'll just be how she spins the tale. The sopping wet cat is a classic of her videos and is used to get the one up on the other person. (which is also why i find it irksome for her to keep doing it to chat)

but as a stream-first, usually-stream-only, consumer of the story of lifesteal the fact remains that she's mashing it up all over the place without any clear lines. And that creates, imo, a very difficult character to sympathize with, and that's without the triggering argument style. With the ableism and triggering I just flat out hate her character and that hate would feel better if she balanced it with to-chat on-camera villainy.

But it is the fate of a first season new member to not know if they can trust chat, not know how to make an unscripted live character, to be faced with their literal skill tree of abilities being put to the actual test (and for kab, in an environment where everyone is a liar and manipulator) and to generally be all over the place. I am very interested to how she will be s7 because one full season usually helps a ton. But unfortunately until then she still exists in the story, she still exists in relation to Zam's story who has a lot of practice at making an unscripted live stream character, in relation to mapicc who has his own thoughts about how the server works and what merits death that she just doesn't understand, in relation to ash and clown and everyone else that has shocked her and scared her with their choices.

Realistically- no ok realistically if i'm being honest with myself and think for half a second about the shit she says on camera i only hate her character. and I hate especially how trapped she's made, specifically zam but also everyone, for like, tormented if i kill you, tormented if i don't.

But realistically she simply exists in this story exactly as she is. Which is all everyone else is on this server. No matter what they do they affect the story; being there, not being there, saying this, keeping that secret.

And honestly, her story is creating a really really fascinating, if incredibly difficult and painful, story for Zam. Which sucks and makes me feel emotions that I didn't want to be feeling. Is that good? Is that bad? idk but it is lifesteal.

[xinnamonbun]

Xinnimon's Theory Times

Our finalists: Knife and Suitcase; we love them dearly. Both of them definitely deserve the win, between how they interact, and how they've developed, it's a great final 2.

However...

What would they do with the money if they actually won? I've talked about this briefly previously but for this post I want to focus on Suitcase. Besides the fact that I'm rooting for her personally, she also has something interesting that she could do with the money that simply would have less impact with Knife.

Travel.

Seems odd at first but I have multiple reasons to think that Adamation is going to pull a "Steven Universe Future" on us.

(this is pretty long so I'm putting a cut and TLDR at the bottom)

1: She's a Suitcase

My first point is that she's literally a suitcase. Why would this matter? Because of what object shows are known for. Symbolism! Fan being a fan of the show. Test Tube being smart. Knife being aggressive. Cabby being organized. I could find a reason why every single other contestant symbolizes something but we'd be here forever.

Suitcase arguably already has symbolism like: baggage, keeping things to herself (until recently), ect. But that doesn't mean that she can't have more. It would make TOTAL sense for a suitcase to go see the world and travel considering the fact she's made for it, literally.

2: The Big Reveal

I think her traveling could help a LOT with this realization. Why? Because she can see what is real! I've seen some people thinking that Mephone4 made the entire world mainly because of Cobs saying "he basically made a world" but I think that was just his wording trying to trick us. He said "basically" for a reason. I think that there is a reality that the contestants have interacted with.

The first objects that come to mind; the unvitationals! (minus Walkie Talkie and Springy) MePhone4 seemed surprised by Groscar saying she liked the show and she seems to have an audience outside of II. The camera people just aren't there that much (probably cuz they have their own lives) and anytime they are on screen they're just a mild annoyance for Mephone4. Dr. Fizz doesn't have many reasons to be real besides saying that Box needs to go to a hospital but there's nothing pointing to him being fake either. And of course there's the entirety of Meeple! If Meeple isn't real that wouldn't make a lot of sense considering the fact that that would mean that Mephone4 would have had to generate his own trauma. That doesn't add up. So that means that most likely Steve Cobs and all the Meeple products are real in the sense that they were either biologically or artificially built with no generation involved.

We've seen season 3 contestants interacting with unvitationals, and season 2 contestants interacting with Meeple. Which means that there is a probably a real world for them, and they can access, interact, and be a part of it.

3: The Talk

(If you don't feel like watching the whole clip rn, here's what I want you to take away from it for this post)

She quite literally mentions the idea of leaving to move on. Do I think she'd leave forever? No. Do I think that her staying with the contestants to try and fix her issues with them would be the healthiest option? Honestly also no.

I think she had a point in which she needs to be by herself for a while to figure out her issues, how to tackle them, and how to move on from the show in a healthy way; without dragging her friends down with her. (which she doesn't seem interested in anyways)

I don't know about you but after having my entire reality shattered, I would want to see what is real out there, enjoy what is there. In fact I think it'd make me feel more alive, more real if I was in a real environment!

Granted this wouldn't solve all of her issues. Like Knife had a point when he says later in the conversation, "careful there, you're starting to sound like MePhone" if this is the only thing she does she just running away from her problems and trying to forget everything. But instead of doing that she could genuinely take some time to figure out who she is and even if she was made a bit unconventionally she is still real.

She's important.

TLDR:

She's a suitcase, it would make the most sense out of all the contestants for her to travel.

After the big reveal in the newest episode, seeing the world outside of the show (which I'm sure exists) would be good.

It would probably be healthy for her to be by herself for a while and figure out who she is outside of the show.

...

I think it's also worth mentioning that there's a good chance they might not even get the money, it could be a tie/draw, everyone could freaking DIE, we simply don't know. But this is assuming two things that are really unpredictable (suitcase winning and using the prize money, if it even exists, to travel which would be slightly odd considering the past prizes have been for everyone)

If you have any bonus thoughts, please, don't be afraid to reblog! Or if you don't want this on your blog you could always just shoot down a reply. This is a theory post! I want to hear what people think and contradictions! No idea is a dumb one! (...or don't, honestly the fact that you bothered to read all this is enough :)