#I think it’s because it’s easier/more fun for me write

[croatoancassiel]

huge rant from my privtwt, it was in reply to supernatural "hot takes" and im petty as hell

sam and cas in the show were best friends, they loved each other, cas said MULTIPLE times he loved and cared for BOTH sam and dean!! BOTH!!! BOTH WINCHESTERS!!!!!! he threw away everything for the TWO OF THEM!!! and as lovers sastiel is a harmless ship,,, especially where destiel fell off a bit in middle seasons and sam and cas got to spend more time... they could have very well been in love PLUS i would have loved to have seen them fall in love with the way their characters are and how much they can relate to each other, they fit together so perfectly it would have been sweet!!

and sabriel to my knowledge is a silly fun ship??? like its not that serious but also how the fuck can you take gabriel seriously he think everything a fuckin joke, the weirdo... but seriously, i feel like they can also relate to each other, plus i heard they bond a lot more in s13. AS FOR MYSTERY SPOT. it was a lesson, sense gabriel is an archangel he doesnt fully understand how much this hurts sam. cas said in one episode that hes been on earth for years and he STILL struggles to grasp human emotions. i believe gabriel genuinely thought this would nudge sam in the right direction so that deans death wouldnt hurt him as much. clearly it backfired and holy fuck it was a shitty thing to do but SAM FORGAVE GABRIEL!! DEAN WAS THE ONE THAT HELD THE MYSTERY SPOT OVER GABRIELS HEAD NOT SAM!!!!!! sam moved on and dean stayed mad dude!!!!

holy shit i hate ruby, you guys have GOT to understand that sam was manipulated. ruby manipulated him, ruby drugged him and ruby was there for him when dean died, SO YES hes going to rely heavily on ruby. BECAUSE HE WAS MANIPULATED. OHMY GOD thefucking victim blaming in this fandom ESPECIALLY towards sam pisses me offffff god...

im sick of people blaming sam when he was legit just?? high?? all the time he did NOT understand anything that was happening. yes he trusted ruby, ruby was really good at manipulation and the reason he trusted ruby over dean is because he could relate to ruby in a sense?? sam always said how unclean and unpure and gross he felt because of his demon blood and ruby was a demon so they could relate to each other in that way, dean could not relate. dean never lived with demon blood like sam has, sam thought by drinking demon blood and getting high or whatever he was doing the right thing because RUBY the DEMON said it was working so he was like okay! it was just manipulation after manipulation and yes sam fell for it. for one manipulation is hard to spot, even when dean said to sam thats what was happening its hard to believe youre being manipulated and used and two sam was hopped up on the demon blood CONSTANTLY, it clearly clouded his judgement because it messed with his head and body and that made it easier for ruby to trap him. i feel so icky when people blame s4 sam for things he COULDNT CONTROL... he had an addiction, he was being manipulated and he didnt have his brother's support through any of it.

everything after s5 is canon dude im sorry its in the fucking show bad writing or not and you cannot change that. the characters did bad things after s5!! i personally enjoyed everything after s5 idk☹️

we crazy on my priv

[celerifleuri]

i often worry about some aspects being too implicit/obscure so seeing things being picked up on makes me incredibly happy!!

i think you can never truly achieve a perfect balance of implicit vs explicit because it depends heavily on the individual and how willing they are to engage with the text

as a reader who loves specificity, word choice and generally reading into things, i try to write so that one line can be read in multiple ways

this kind of writing may not be for everyone but it's a kind that's very fun to me and knowing that im not alone in this is always quite reassuring !

to your comment on the title and tongues, im going to add a silly expression

silence is a key part of maelyn's character (the game as a whole even) and she quite literally holds her own tongue at times!

depending on how you read hold and which tongues you associate it with, the title can also refer to the tongues maelyn physically held in her hands, the tongues held together as feathers for the wing, anything you see fit!

(was going to put a screenshot there but it'd be quite long so just go ahead and google 'hold meaning' and have fun 😭)

eric is one hell of a character and i have plans to really highlight the facade he used to have back when everything seemed fine

that will probably be easier to see in bonus episodes but at its core, his character is all about the duality of abusers. how no matter how good someone may seem, you can't know how they think and what they can do, especially when things don't go how they want them to

you mention the dress (rightfully so) and there's also another thing he gives/leaves her with! the braid and ribbons!

he used to tie her hair (//trap her into a sort of feminine ideal) and you'll notice that no matter how loose, she still keeps her hair tied. until a specific ending!

but even there, she didn't untie them herself, she simply became the doll of another. so no matter how free she can appear then, she is very much dead (you could totally argue that death freed her of everything but if she/her mind was freed, her body was not!)

more things can be said about the hair and the doll but ill stop there, you can think of them yourself !

thank you for the 'grounding yourself again' because yes!! it might be in the details but here and there, feelings will take her out of her thoughts and bring her back to reality

for the 'to be kept' part too, thank you

not commenting on everything but i am very much chewing on your words, i love reading interpretations!!

the 'so she could breathe' is also quite ironic because if you're not deluding yourself like he is, maelyn is dead, so what is the point of giving her room to breathe now? like many out there, she needed that way before. it's pointless now, it only serves the one that does the act, it only makes them feel better, considerate

feel free to share your thoughts anytime, i love reading them and rambling in response!

MERU😭😭😭 i finally had a free moment to relax and the first thing i wanted to do was play hold your tongues and i've spent the last few hours pouring over how absolutely beautiful of a piece it is in storytelling and visuals. i genuinely have so much to gush over and idk where i should be doing it so into your inbox it goes. i apologise in advance, you also don't have to respond to this bc 1) i am aware it's gonna get vv long and 2) spoilers will definitely be mentioned

i hope sel knows what an absolute gem of a writer she is for executing all of this bc i am fucking gobsmacked by how well certain ideas and concepts were interwoven throughout the entire piece. maybe a lot of the things following are just my interpretations, but that's another thing i really really love — there's enough ambiguity in the prose to be able to infer it in so many different ways

first to the namesake of the game, ‘hold your tongues’ and the many connotations of tongues that are explored throughout; as symbols of liberation and entrapment that intermingle so so well. i feel like the game really delves into the struggles that women face in society, in relationships, just in general and i like how since it's done so through maelyn's own perspective, we're privy to a more complex and raw display of how deeply emotionally scarring it can be.

eric is a little bitch imo (i won't retract that statement ever) but the ever judgmental, taunting and superior tone he has as the ‘voice’ in maelyn's head speaks volumes of the character he possessed and the lasting impact it had on her. giving her dress to another man makes her ‘unfaithful’, the fact that it's emphasised that these are only ‘remains’ of a dress too — bc eric left her with shreds, physically, mentally. 

if we take the dress to act as a metaphor for maelyn herself, he left her in shreds.

in response to this, maelyn bites her tongue, so hard that it bleeds. it's restraint, quite literally biting back your anger and the feeling of being wronged. grounding yourself again to the harsh reality of it all, and it brings her back to the present moment when starling points it out.

we see a similar occurrence later on when maelyn relays her tongue ‘longing for a taste, was to be kept down.' so again, she stops herself (and i think the wording here is particularly interesting, that it was to be kept, so intrinsically this too may also link to how women are commonly taught to be submissive and forced to fit to certain standards). 

in both contexts, the act of biting the tongue can be taken as a suppression of some sort of desire — the first is the desire to be mad, and the second is the desire of lust. both which women have been criticised for through the ages.

i also like to think that the tongue is a representation of freedom. starling is very much making wings to fly out of them, and taking them away from ppl has ‘forever deprived of their ability to lie’ (in which case lying = freedom, i won't expand on this too much bc it'll be another whole essay😭) so going back to maelyn, her biting hers can also be seen as her freedom being hurt, prevented.

another thing is, the line just before ‘he never ran out of tongues’, we can take this as starling never having his freedom threatened. and it poses further questions. is this because of his strength? is it because he has the ocean ‘wholly’? is it because he's a ‘man’?

on my first run through, one of the most prominent questions i came away w/ was what was it that attracted maelyn to starling? to the concept of these monsters of the sea that had surpassed human constraints that had her waiting out all those hours to catch a glimpse of one to begin with. what was it that kept her coming back? time and time again, day after day when she could've not gone back to that shore after leaving.

the text narrates a couple of things that i think contributed, there's a sense of warring humanity and animosity in the repetitive motifs of dirt and uncleanliness, in her noting that starling looked ‘half a man’ and that one half could've ‘consumed’ the other. maelyn has an envy that's touched upon frequently. does maelyn want to be closer to a monster so that no one can hurt her? or does she feel like a monster is all she can be now?

then there's a dynamic with power that was honestly done so well. again, my praise to sel for how well thought out it all was. that part where she put her hand into his guts and he made sounds he was ‘unable to control’, another when she tells him ‘cut’ and he does so without question — she recognises she holds the reins in that moment, acknowledges, ‘in control, I breathed.’ 

starling listens to her for the most part, it's a reoccuring theme. even when making his wings, he's following her instructions although it's made clear that he learns quick and is capable. perhaps this gives her comfortability.

but we see this turn on its head when things start to go left, starling begins to do as he pleases and maelyn is taken back into her trauma, back to feeling ‘disgusting’ and ‘unclean’, she even apologises and promises to do better.

leashes are mentioned a few times, maelyn first describes them as a sort of ‘necklace’ — perhaps this is tribute to the way a woman's submission is often beautified and normalised. the ‘leash’ starling puts on her in one of the ends is made of pearls, he keeps it in his mouth before this. could this be a reference to eric's sweet words that bound maelyn before he revealed himself? starling ties it somewhat loosely ‘so she could breathe’ yet that doesn't take away the fact that it's still there. it has a sort of your cage is not small, but that doesn't mean you're not locked in it kinda feel.

there's so much more i could say but i think ive alr said too much😭 i didnt even get to touch on the cuddle ending which was my favourite, or the symbolism of losing fingers, the significance of the numbers two, three and four to the story. I DIDN'T EVEN TALK MUCH ABT THE ART😭😭 MERU SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED BUT THE ART WAS PHENOMENAL❗️❗️❗️❗️

maelyn is super pretty and i love how her and starling contrast each other in design so nicely. starling's expressions were stellar ++ the bgs and cgs were beautiful (you're right, if you didn't clarify it i would think you were behind the chest one haha). also the body horror aspect was really brought to life with the visuals and ik it definitely mustn't have been easy drawing all those organs, thank you for your service meruuuu

i'll shut up here before i write another 3k, but both you and sel did such a great job w/ this. the two of you deserve a nice break to rest so pls make sure to take things easy and take care of yourselves!! drink water and sleep when you can, and know that you've made a masterpiece♥️

OH MY GOD THIS ASK IS MAKING ME GO FERAL

It's so well written??? You did such a good job picking up the details hidden behind their lines??? I fish you continued writing because I for sure did not want to finish it and please do send the other thoughts you had if you can, I love this so much

I'm sure @celerifleuri will too so I'll tag her

You already mentioned the spoilers at the start but I'll also note it down here for people who haven't played the game yet. I'm sure sel will do a much better job answering your story analyses but I'll also say you're completely right with most things you've said.

The story takes place in 1800s with dated gender roles we unfortunately can still relate to. Maelyn is a curious woman who wants to study and experiment, but is being held back by society and even people who she thought she could trust, but again Sel will do a better job explaining those.

I'll talk about the art a bit. One thing I really enjoyed that was kinda unintentional on my part was the use of night and day.

The story starts at night time, the first ever cg we get of Maelyn is her jumping down the cliff, with the moon's reflection on her left and the waves giving an illusion of wings as she looks up, in that very moment she is free.

On the other hand the first ever cg of Starling is day time. The sun is shining brightly from his left, almost blindingly, as he looks down. His hair covering the screen like spider webs.

To contrast these, it's night time in the wood ending. Just like the first cg of Maelyn, we can see the soft moonight shining upon them but not quite reaching Starling's face. Maelyn is alive.

Meanwhile in the bone ending, even though they are underwater we can tell it's day time, just like the first Starling cg. We get to see a glimpse of them through the seaweeds covering our view, the sunlight showering them gently. Starling is alive.

For the character designs too, a bit of a reverse but I'd say Maelyn resembles the sun, meanwhile Starling is like the moon.

They both share green eyes, although quite different shades. Maelyn has bright red hair that contrasts Starling's red tongue tail.

I also like that Maelyn's hair, albeit a bit loosely, is braided and kept tidy. Meanwhile Starling's hair is usually all over the place and quite messy.

[antiquepearlss]

The majority of the TTS fandom seems to be a bit Varian-centric, at least that’s what mostly shows up on my feed. And I’m fine with that, he’s one of my favorite characters, I love to see it. But, can you guys recommend me some Eugene and/or Rapunzel or New Dream centric blogs? Preferably still active. I love Eugene, he’s also my favorite character and I love Punzie, and I feel like I don’t get to see them as much.

[camellia-thea]

okay. just rambling here, but, i think armand took more than just the end of the interview away from daniel.

we got that little moment about that night, saying 'you asked me to' to louis. 'you asked me to take this from you, you could not live with it,' leading into, 'i look after you when you cannot look after yourself, i make those choices for you.'

we know that during the chase and devil's minion era, daniel was an addict, who was, by his own admission, slowly killing himself. he was also addicted to blood.

it's really not too far to make the jump, if devil's minion occurred, that armand made the choice to step in, in his own mind, for daniel's best interests. i know this isn't a unique jump to make, but; again with armand's "i look after him when he cannot look after himself" continual reiteration, i think it's a fair assumption.

he can also replace and blur memories, which makes the discussion of alice and paris -- why the dessert from that night? -- and how immediate and sincere his answer of "she wanted to say yes, but she didn't trust you. you hadn't given her a reason to." this could be the night he took them away, replaced himself with alice, planted something similar for her to start the relationship, then step back and watch it fall. and i think the thing that stands out there is just how tender he is while saying it. there's an undercurrent of something else entirely underneath, it isn't a dig at daniel in the moment, despite the pushing earlier in the scene.

and then in s1, when louis say to daniel, "i'd give it to you now." and the cut to armand, still in disguise, and his micro-expression of horror, the way he stiffens and looks away... and the little moment of what i read as conflict when daniel says no. his jump to "may i be excused?" i can't tell in the moment, if he's horrified about the offer itself, the fact that it is louis offering to turn daniel rather than himself, or the fact that daniel denies it. because i don't think armand could actually let daniel die if this was the case.

the disguise itself-- why pretend to be rashid? i think part of it is to try and hide behind a human persona to keep those memories at bay; especially given the little moments of flashback that got triggered by little mannerisms. i can't decide whether they're intentional pushes or not, whether armand wanted/wants daniel to remember on his own, or wants to keep it under wraps. i think, even if he believes he doesn't want it to come forward, he truly does deep down.

and once he's revealed himself as armand, the way he gazes at daniel, his beautiful boy. the continued "our boy", from both he and louis, the "he's still in there, somewhere..."

and i think "our boy" is also really interesting, because why would daniel be armand's boy, based solely on the moments that louis initially remembered? armand didn't really have any emotional connection to daniel that night, sure, he saved him, but that doesn't really mean anything; he saved daniel for louis, not for daniel's sake.

and, jumping back "our boy,[...] he's still in there somewhere"... there's implication that louis might know about it? again, i don't think this is related to the original interview, or at least, limited to it? i don't have anything concrete here, just vibes, but again, why is armand's boy still in there somewhere?

and sure, some of these are reaches and i don't think i'm necessarily right, but god it would be deliciously awful if i was.

[son-of-starlight]

"Hello?" Rusty calls out, slamming his breaks to a stop, causing his train to jostle a bit behind him. Rusty turns around and apologizes quietly before standing up as tall as he can and calling out to the fellow piece of rolling stock who seemed to be by themself on the rail. Rusty was uncertain of how to proceed. This wasn't just some debris he could pick up and move...this machine could be hurt. He didn't want to travel any further until he was certain they were okay. "Are you alright?" Rusty calls out again, and for good measure, he whistles loudly. The kind of whistle used as an attention getter by little switching engines...he hadn't quite grown out of that habit.

[knifekris]

every day i struggle to make choices

[aquilamage]

[Image Description: a set of five edited bug fables screenshots from the pre-battle zommoth encounter. The first is the same as in-game, Kabbu saying "W-What is that!? Something's coming!" The second is of zommoth appearing on screen with its sprite edited to be various shades of pink and yellow, wings the same pattern as Leif's (but still with the purple blight magic stuff in the chest area.) The next three images have the sprite edited in the same way.. The third image is of Leif's saying "...Wh, Rkejrm-m-Muse!? Kjdrira, mebsrgr...!!!" The next is Kabbu saying "Muse!? Leif, that's..." The final is Vi saying "T-That doesn't make any sense!" End ID]

I thought about one of my fucked up and evil au ideas for five minutes again, so I decided to spend like fifty hours making a thing about it. Basically what if Muse went back into Snakemouth later to try to rescue Leif or at least bring back his body and got caught by the roaches.

Putting just the edited sprites under the cut if you wanna see those without the lab mood lighting:

[iridescentis]

question for fic writers: how many docs do you have for one multichap fic? im curious because currently I have four: the fic itself, the planning doc, the notes doc, and the drabbles doc for whenever i feel like writing random later scenes

i find it really helpful and a lot less confusing having each thing separated into its own doc so i can focus and its way easier to find what im looking for

[mortellanarts]

2023 go bye bye

[humanmorph]

every few months I go "maybe I DO want to play ttrpgs" and then usually nothing happens because I get too nervous and also realize that I don't care for roleplaying (you know. ttRPg)

[vegley]

hi guys i am pretty bored

[godsfavoritescientist]

Tbh? I still feel so out of my depth whenever I try to write Bill. For whatever reason it doesn't come naturally to me like writing Ford does. Every time one of y'all has thoughts on Bill's characterization or writes something Bill-centric I'm mentally taking so many notes

[friendlysailor]

Ahoy!

I'm currently sailing the oh so rough seas that is exam time, so I'm going to be away for a bit longer. I just once again have to express how happy I am every time i see interactions with this blog, even though I've been very inactive recently. It really has helped strengthen and keep up my resolve in wanting to help make digital privacy, piracy and computer knowledge more accessible for as many as I can. So again, a big THANK YOU to you all for being here!

I've been considering if there would be any interest in me trying to create a more in-depth resource for finding ways to improve your quality of live when using computers and the like?

While my first thought was a simple list, I know that those can get overwhelming really quick. So I've been playing around with the idea of a "clippy"-like addon to the blog that can offer you directions to common issues (such as, "How do i remove the 'search on the web' results on Windows 10?", "What browser-addons should I have?" and "How to speed up YouTube on FireFox?"). I think I would also want to have it be accessible through a GitHub-page, so that mobile-users also could easily access it, and so you all have other options than to only have it accessed through a Tumblr blog.

[bullforgery]

2am rant cause idgaf.

[trueloveandy]

i like the difference in my writing styles for bedussey and pancho i think it’s fun

i made bedussey’s writing style be more like… recapping kinda? to me he’s busy he doesn’t really have time to sit down and write and also he’s only really doing it to get things that r bothering him or lingering in his mind down somewhere kinda almost like confessional (wild ass comparison no this means nothing) while pancho’s is a lot more like… detailed ? almost ? he spends more time on stuff he’s writing for fun/enjoyment and he in my mind has a lot more time 2 be writing ? like neither of them r super detailed but in the difference between the two chapters i imagined bedussey was writing months afterwards while pancho was writing maybe a week after ? he wrote down more specific conversations they had/more of what he was feeling while bedussey got the basics down i think that makes sense

[arolesbianism]

If I ever do get properly into dst character modding I like have to make an oni character mod at some point, but the issue is Id want it to be an Olivia mod so bad but also Nails is as far as I'm aware the only legal character name wise and as such it feels like it has to be them, y'know for the bit. But also I have already written too much Olivia dst dialogue and I need an excuse to use it damnit