#I'm always panicking

[boatem-probler]

been chewing on this conversation between pearl and gem this week:

Gem: I know you didn't kill me!

Pearl: So what are you cranky about?

...

Gem: I'm just- you know, I wanted some drama! So, this is the drama, you're welcome.

Pearl: "This is the drama". You're telling me we could've been friends this whole time but you're just like "yoohoohoohoohoohoohoo... I hate you!"

Gem: Yeah, I mean, why not!

and i'm connecting it to gem in empires season 2, where like. in the context of the fiction everyone else had been living in that world their whole lives and that's their reality, like, it's real to them.

and meanwhile gem is just roleplaying. like, she was a being from another world who just came there because she wanted to play at being a human princess for a while. and then when she's called away she's just like. anyway i was never actually a princess or a mortal being from this dimension and we're never gonna see each other again, sorry for the existential crisis, bye!

and anyway i think she has a similar deal in the life series. like, everyone else is there because they're trapped in the Torment Nexus, gem is there because she wants to be.

[kyouka-supremacy]

List of canon / Beast parallels that make my cry:

These are not the only mirroring panels in those scenes; but something about this specifically, about the way they turn their backs in the same way, the alike way of holding their phones, how their thoughts form the same words, hits me so hard. Being so close in everything, in the little, in the mundane, despite literally belonging to differnet universes. Something something whatever souls are made of theirs are the same.

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[thedreadvampy]

lmao it is undeniably true that I am Depressi Spaghetti but you know. fuck it we continue.

[fountainpenguin]

So I was rereading your lore on witches in your riddledeep au and um.

Would this technically make Dev a witch??? lol. He also freebies a pizza across a digital title card that episode too.

😂 Y'know, it's funny you say that because for the past month, I've been wondering if anyone was going to ask me if Dale or Dev are witches. I don't know why I was wondering that, but it's been clinging to me. I couldn't think of a way to bring up "btw, they're not witches in my work" without it feeling weird.

My witch lore for context

Dale and Dev can specifically not be witches under my lore even if I wanted them to be, even if I were following a headcanon where the Dimmadomes get around the XYZ chromosome sterility through clones, because of something extremely specific that also exists in my lore that I cannot go back on.

Magic Colors

So, I have a whole magic system set up around the colors of magic. There are 6 possible colors in the OG series- 5 of which are represented on the Rainbow Bridge, 4 of which are represented on the Fairy Council, and 2 of which are extremely rare.

I gave the Fairy Elder (namedropped in "Timmy's Secret Wish") yellow robes, thus tying the Fairy Council together.

Each magic color has a meaning associated with the mood or thought pattern behind magic use. I drew my original inspiration from the colors Timmy's brain turns when Poof's controlling his body in "He Poofs, He Scores."

For those interested, my Colors of Magic post (From May 2016, but has screenshots) & my worldbuilding sideblog's post on magic colors (Cleaned-up lore with no pictures). Short version below:

Red is an extremely uncommon magic color, though we see it when Foop is fighting Cosmo and Wanda in "Playdate of Doom" and when Wanda jumpstarts Timmy's heart in "Yoo-Doo." It's the color I associate with life and death magic. So, y'know... Foop is very okay.

There's also indigo (used by Juandissimo in "Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary"), which I consider a subset of blue.

Green is also extremely rare. Notably, it's the color Foop's magic slowly starts to turn throughout "Scary Godcouple"- He started off with blue, but sours to green in one of the only appearances we see of green in the entire series.

But you know what commonplace color we don't see?

Orange.

In my lore, orange-haired magic users (both Fae and genies) are the equivalent of shiny Pokémon. Even two orange magic-users don't normally have orange offspring- They produce yellows and reds.

And the thing is... I've already set up Happy Peppy Gary to be the only orange witch in my lore. In fact, I have a WIP multi-chapter 'fic about Gary getting discovered by H.P. and Anti-Cosmo, who lose their minds when they realize what he is (Pink and Gray).

Shout-out to one of my favorite dialogue exchanges I've ever written, from H.P. trying to sus Gary out as genie-descended:

H.P. brought his hand up to fiddle with his glasses. "Okay. Completely random get-to-know-you question. By any chance, are you afraid of small spaces?" "Deathly. Why?"

And Dale is Gary's age - in the same city where the Pixies dropped Gary and Betty after taking them in - which means if he WAS an orange witch, he would've been clocked so hard, so fast. Also, since I'm going the route of H.P. being Dale's godfather, there's no way he wouldn't have noticed even though Dale was MIA for years.

Fun Fact! Gary and Juandissimo are "related!" Juandissimo was finger-snapped into existence by Gary's ancestor, Crimsona. He's arguably a great-great-great-great uncle (5 generations up from Gary). In Cloudlands AU, Gary's middle name is actually Juandissimo! That's because Juandissimo's been assigned to godparent to this family several times (We met Gary's dad and grandmother, Quincy and Eunice, in Baby, You're a Rich Man; Sanderson matches Eunice's name to Juandissimo's in Chapter 10 while looking through godkid files).

Anyway, I COULD have witch genes passed down through Dev's mom's side of the family (Leadlys in my headcanon), but that comes with its own issues: if Leadly had XYZ chromosomes, he can't have Hadley, and I'm not going back on that. I could make his wife a witch, but that STILL has issues.

In my 'fics I play Ed Leadly as a guy who's looking for magical creatures (hence him being willing to drop 17 million dollars on someone else's dog in "Dog Gone"). I have literally shown him onscreen holding a witch-detecting compass that points to Gary (in "Opportunity"). There is no way he would not have clocked his ex as a witch, sldkfj...

Closing Comments

Dale and Dev are some of the only characters in my universe who are absolutely confirmed to not be witches, despite how much I have actually wondered if it would be fun to portray them as such.

I don't have a lore reason for the visual gags in that episode- I sadly have to clock it up to random cartoon silliness akin to Jenkins exploding into pieces when Jasmine sings in "Fly" (or Hazel also falling apart or exploding when people expressed crushes on her in "Multiverse of Jenkins").

In my lore, I actually do have Gary set up to be able to pass his witch powers to people he kisses (Because I thought it would be funny if that's why Betty is taller in some scenes than others; yes, I am that pedantic and it makes Betty's "But I don't like you like that" line exponentially funnier), but I've established that only genie-descended witches can pass powers... That doesn't make sense for Dev in this episode either.

Technically all the fluids can pass magic, so a blood transfusion would make Dev "a permanent false witch" if I wanted to do that, but I'm not gonna bother when again, we have people exploding in this show as a gag. Cursed gags I cannot touch with lore 😔

If anyone else makes the Dimmadomes witches, I'd be totally down to read that. I think it would be extremely funny if Dale Dimm was also a witch despite sentencing Alden Bitterroot to 350+ years of clawing his way out of Dimmsdale's well for witch crimes, but my AUs have pretty firmly locked Dale and Dev out of that option.

Riddleverse Design Facts

Here's another fun fact for any new followers who don't know I do this: I draw witches with spirals in their hair! Pics under the cut due to length:

Crocker has his in the back and Kevin has his on top!

You could TOTALLY make an argument that Leadly's spiral is in his mustache

Also, it's a very good thing I do this- I joked in the past that Gary and Dev look eerily similar (even sharing lots of body language), so it's nice to have things like freckles and a hair spiral I can fall back on.

I'm VERY happy with my adult Dev design, but I definitely kept freckles and hair spirals away from him, haha. Sneak peek of him next to his mom:

Note- Spiral headcanon excludes H.P., who has a unique family cowlick I gave him before doing this for witches. Poof doesn't count either since he's under Fae Get Alphabet Hair rules:

Whistle and Anti-Whistle [Soren] (at the bottom) are some of my favorite designs... I can't get over his upside-down W hair sldkfj.

But Wanda and Anti-Wanda having completely different Ws is another favorite thing. I'm especially proud of Dusty's little D tuft.

I'm not sure why Smoky ended up with what looks like an F (unless it's a T since he was Talon before Talon was Talon), but I remember doing a lot of designs for him. Sometimes I don't commit to alphabet hair if letters are hard (Soren's top zigzag is meant to be an S, which is a very hard letter to incorporate, and I think I didn't want Smoky and Soren to have the same one). I've been wanting to redesign Smoky a bit, so I'll probably fix it then.

Goldie's is subtle and you can see it better in some drawings than others, but she has M hair because her full name is Marigold :)

I should probably re-add her middle tuft to her official sideblog art, whoops.

Also, if this is how someone is finding out Poof and Foop literally were designed with alphabet hair, I have wonderful news for you. Fun fact, the "Anti-Poof" storyboard portrays Foop with a square spiral instead! It was the final detail of his design.

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[tethered-heartstrings]

they're really gonna let me graduate in double-digit days, aren't they

[alexjcrowley]

Was just given a bit of attitude about being aromantic by the only people I've told I am aromantic really trying not to hyperventilate here

[xinganhao]

what r your tips for writing? when you write it seems like you have this charm that makes it feel like home. Its like your smiling with every word you type and enjoying it. I lost my sense of enjoyment in writing these days so what advice can you give me?🤧💗

anon, this has been in my inbox for way too long (since christmas, specifically 😅) because i wanted to give you a good answer. first and foremost: the passion/motivation for writing comes and goes, and that's okay :'-) no need to beat yourself up over it! some quick bullet point -ish tips under the cut because i don't know how else to communicate this hehe <3

write things bad! this might have you like '?! what the hell, kae', but the general idea is that you can always go back and edit. don't get hung up on nailing the perfect sentence. sometimes, perspective is earned the further you go into your story (: so don't be afraid to word it bad or 'wrong' in your first draft, because the only real enemy is an empty google doc lol

a lot of my writing is heavily influenced by music and poetry 💙 i have friends who draw from art, real life experiences, other interests (i.e. video games, tv series, sports, etc.), which is to say— inspiration is everywhere! you'd be surprised to find out what works based on what's already in your orbit

write a little bit every day (: a thousand words in one sitting? great! a single quote you might want to give a character someday? hell yeah! writing is many things, but it's ultimately a skill that's worth keeping sharp. that entails practice. show up to write, even if it means writing a single sentence/jotting down an idea in your notes/etc.

similar to the above ⬆️ tip: i think the best writers are also readers. how else can one learn? read your favorites, yes, but don't be scared to branch out— fandoms you don't belong to, tropes you might not typically explore, authors you haven't heard of, the like! read frequently and read fully

i don't really have much more to give outside this since i still feel awkward about calling myself a writer; i'm just someone who writes 🥹 don't wanna be too preachy, and so i hope this gives at least a little bit of help 🤍 best of luck, love!

[bittersweetresilience]

asking MYSELF a question because i want to talk about my friends. 24 and 25.

great questions sunny thanks for dropping in. i miss spouses.

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

yes... i love writing gifts... the first fic i posted of the year was a gift for autumn... the second was also for autumn. the fourth was also for autumn and isa. autumn i'm obsessed with you

anyway, then i got into honkai so i didn't gift anyone anything for a long time because awkward and no friends. but then i accrued a renjing crew. gifts for hartwig... gifts for nina... a billion gifts for ishi... gifts for teafig and the rest of the renjing connection...

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

ALSO YES... i have the sweetest friends and i bite them lovingly. i was blessed with so many gifts for my birthday, it was crazy 🥺 selkie made me flairmidable art and isa made me jing yuan and felinette art and hartwig made me ipc renjing art and nina made me a félix webweave and gray made me aromantic félix art and autumn wrote me a nice letter... AND SOAP AND TRISHA WROTE ME FICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! only soap's is published but they're both so good i bite them. in addition autumn and isa both wrote me felinette back, nina always blesses me with fics, and nicole wrote me a poem for christmas... and i got a bunch of other non fic non birthday gifts too. i cry. spouses are the bestest...

[scoriarose]

An update on Sakura, who when I first got her would panic and blindly flail (sometimes throwing herself into her water dish or other unpleasant things) now coming to me of her own choice when I talk kindly to her.

This is months of work from both of us. She has worked very hard to be brave, and I've been trying very hard to show her that humans can be kind, safe, and good. This moment means so much to me, at one time I wasn't sure we might ever get here.

I won't deny her sister Scoria helped greatly. I've seen her comfort Sakura when she was scared, and Sakura be infinitely more confident with her sister near. Sakura would watch Scoria and me cuddle, and learn by watching her trusted sister.

I hope that with more patience, and love, and consent based interactions we can form a bond too.

No matter what happens though, I will love her and her sister and do anything to be sure they are happy.

[42bakery]

I assure you that I'm not confident at all and I just go with the flow

I'm an alpha? Because I always considered myself an omega.

you have alpha energy to ME

[sleepinglionhearts]

They always tell you to look out for Friday the 13th, but they never warn you about Monday the 13th

[gremzon]

I might have OCD actually

[thedreadvampy]

one thing I learnt recently is maybe my dad framing all his anger when I was a kid not as "you did a thing wrong" but "you did a thing wrong which PROVES you're incapable of being a Proper Adult and will never thrive in the Real World"

may

have had some effect on my self esteem

[arttsuka]

I watched 'It' (2017) yesterday for the first time. It was a good movie, the kids acting was pretty good. It was well shot, the story was interesting. I understand why it used to have such a big 'franchise' back when it came out.

My problem was that it had a lot of moments where it could have been genuinely scary but they ruined them by trying to scare us more with 'monsters with teeth, jumpscares' etc. Also lots of screaming.

Still a good movie tho