#I'm so used to it just being a basic square building

[notwordsspoken]

They finally decided to do the right thing and hired other workers instead of making their underpaid 10 year old son work himself to death

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[wickedwitchkiller]

GHOST AGATHA

I wrote this as a starter for a Discord, but I'm tickled by the idea of ghost Agatha playing right into haunting movie tropes and being her campy bitchy self, and it works as mini fic as well. Of course, Rios are welcome to use it as a starter if you're so inclined.

The Woods Outside Salem, August, 2028

There was a lot to learn about being a ghost.

Really, Agatha didn't mind that part. She'd always been hungry for knowledge and reveled in the development of new skills, but there was something frustrating about being set all the way back to square one. It was like being a child again, hands devoid of that radiant power that had become more natural to her than her own limbs. She really didn't appreciate how much she'd relied on her purple for basically everything until it was gone.

Not that ghosts were completely powerless. She could fly, of course. Become invisible. Pass through whatever she wished. She could possess people, which took effort but was deeply amusing. She had a surprisingly adept amount of control over electricity, fire, wind and temperature, all of which was unexpected. And deep, deep down in the soul of her, sometimes she thought she could still feel flickers of her power. It shouldn't be so. After death a witch should no longer command their powers. But still...she was convinced if she just tried hard enough it would be there. Perhaps her mother was right and the wicked power she possessed did corrupt her down to her very immortal soul. She hoped so. It gave her hope that one day she'd get her purple back.

She'd been taking some time away from mortals, time to study and train and reach deep inside of her for that whisper of power and try to tease it back to the surface. The place shed chosen to do so couldn't have been more fitting. It was a crumbling 16th century cabin, abandoned miles deep in the woods outside of Salem.

It had been her home once.

An old trappers cabin that she'd lived in after she killed her coven. First alone, then with Rio, then with their son. She occasionally went back, using the place as a sort of refuge from society throughout the years. The building was nearly crumbling, barely held together by Agatha's magical repairs over the years, but it served well enough for her purposes. After all a ghost didn't need warmth or light or comfort. She needed solitude.

Not that it seemed she was going to get it today.

There was a young couple out hiking. A waifish little thing and her brutish braggart of a boyfriend, and they strayed much further from the path than they should. They'd come across her little cabin, and, thinking it an abandoned old building, they'd let themselves inside, with flashlights and giggles, ogling her antiques and keepsakes and putting their dirty hands all over her things. And, just to piss her off, pausing every few minutes to kiss against every surface. There was a lot of things Agatha was willing to tolerate, but heterosexual behavior in her home? That wasn't one of them. She was just swooping down from the loft to scare the couple away when she paused.

The man was doing something.

He was pouring something into the girl's water bottle while her back was turned. And Agatha hadn't been born yesterday. She knew rohypnol when she saw it. Hell, she'd been on the receiving end of that particular concoction back when it was invented.

She chuckled fondly at the memory of the terrible things she'd done to the man who thought it was a good idea to roofie Agatha Fucking Harkness.

Well now she couldn't, in good consciousness, scare the two of them off together. Yes, the little girl was an annoying thing with a twittery voice and terrible taste in hot pink hiking gear, but she didn't deserve what Agatha knew damn well followed a dose of rohypnol. No one did. Plans had changed. It was time to test a pet theory she'd been working on. Time to see if, when she was borrowing a body, she could still summon her power.

Without revealing herself to the couple, she slipped up behind the young girl, and forced her way into her body.

It took a moment for her to adjust to the grounded sensation of being in a body again. It always did when she possessed people. One forgot just how heavy blood and bones and organs were until you were wearing them, but fortunately the girl was an easy thing to possess, weak willed and didn't put up much of a fight. Agatha had her overwhelmed and back to looking normal by the time her boyfriend turned back to her and offered her the water bottle.

"Thanks sweetie!" Agatha tried to chirp in her best impression of a straight girl on a date. The boyfriend raised an eyebrow at her. Well it must not have been a good impression. She'd never been good at summoning artificial enthusiasm for men. So sue her. Anyway the man didn't seem too interested in anything other than the water bottle in her hand so she raised it to the girls lips, watching him watching her as she moved to take a sip. Then stopped.

And put the bottle down on the table.

His frustration was palpable.

She flounced to the other side of the room in the girls body, letting him pick up the drugged water and follow, putting it back into her hand as she spoke.

"You know what I bet this place is?" She twittered in the girl's voice, bouncing off down the hallway. This girl's body had really bouncy tits, she noted, and the pink sports bra wasn't doing anything to keep them in check. The man followed her deeper into the dark of the house, still watching the water bottle with visible tension.

"I bet this is a witches cabin, from one of those Salem witches? I wonder if it's haunted?"

Agatha in the girl's body made as if to sip from the water bottle again, but stopped. The man nearly groaned in frustration. She led him further into the house, to the room at the very back.

"You know what those witches used to do? They used to kill men and take their souls. They used to lure men out in the woods all by themselves. Promising them sex or money or something. Bad men. Men who'd hurt them or their friends...."

The story was not true. The Salem witches had never done anything like that. She and Rio had a few times, for a laugh, but still. The story fit her aims. Now she led the man into the room that used to be her workshop, her potions room, her dark altar where she'd practiced the analog bit of her craft. Even after all these years, it was still strewn with arcane texts, half rotted potions, bones, the withered dried remains of Rio's plants. It was, in a word, creepy, and he looked uncomfortable as he entered. Still, she led him right to the center of the room where she stopped, and finally drank from the water bottle.

He moved towards her, eager to catch her as the drug took effect. But Agatha wasn't an idiot. She hadn't swallowed. And when the man got too close to the girl's body she was piloting, she grinned a manic, too wide grin and spat the water back out in his face.

"Men Just LIKE YOU!" She roared, forcing a demonic cackle out of the body's lips. The man screamed. She flexed her haunting powers and slammed the door shut, trapping them in the room together. Now she spoke with her natural voice, which sounded strange from the tiny woman's body.

"I know what you were going to do. And I will have no mercy on you." She hissed.

He staggered backwards away from her, tripped on an uneven floor board and fell to the ground, whimpering and cowering.

Pathetic.

God this was fun.

"Please." He begged. "Don't hurt me!"

Agatha threw back her head and laughed. This woman's thin blonde hair was much less FUN to toss than her own wild mane had been, but damn she'd forgotten how GOOD a body could feel. She leaned down over him at an unnatural angle and spat a simple word in his face.

"No."

Now it was time for the experiment. Could she use this stolen human body to give her access to her lost human powers? She closed her eyes, and felt deep down into the flesh for where her purple used to hide. It was buried deep, under rushing blood and solid bones, somewhere between the heartbeats, she felt it. Her purple. Entangled in her very soul. Her precious power. Carefully, she teased it out, running it's lines along veins and arteries, weaving it into the flesh it needed to operate.

She held out one of the girl's tiny manicured hands.

At first, it was only a spark, but then it flared to life. Her power.

Her purple.

With a noise of pure joy, she blasted the man, letting the power flow through the stolen flesh and illuminate her very being. Oh by the triple goddess it was the sweetest feeling in the world.

And then he was dead.

And, as if the power was somehow too much for the woman's body to handle, Agatha found her spirit abruptly ejected from the flesh. Her incorporeal ghostly form was flung to the far side of the room, and the girl was once again in charge of her own body. She blinked at Agatha in confusion, finally able to see the ghost that had been possessing her body until a moment ago. Then she looked down at the corpse and screamed.

God that was an annoying sound.

"He's dead!" She cried out. Agatha rolled her ghostly eyes.

"Duh."

Tears welled up in the girls eyes.

"You're dead!" She whimpered, pointing at Agatha.

"Observant one, you are." Agatha shot back, crossing her arms impatiently.

"Why?" The girl was near to tears now.

"Uhm....because he roofied you and meant to use my house to rape you and there's only enough room in this haunt for one vengeful bitch?" She snapped back.

The girl screamed again and ran, out of the room, down the hall, and straight out the front door, leaving it swinging open on his hinges as she sprinted into the evening, never to return.

"You're welcome!" Agatha called after the ungrateful brat, and slammed her own front door shut before going back to examine her kill.

She'd done it. She'd used her old power by possessing a human body! That meant there was a chance she'd be able to touch the one thing she missed more than her own life one more time! She couldn't help a laugh and a twirl of utter glee.

Then she felt something in the air shift. Something tingly and familiar that would have made her heartbeat quicken in her chest and her skin prickle up if she still had a heart to beat or skin to prick. Something approached. Something magic. Big, deep old magic.

Familiar magic.

She heard the front door open.

Agatha made herself invisible and hid in the shadows of the corner of the room, behind a bay of Rio's long dead plants... at least they used to be dead. Before her very eyes, the vines began to swell, to writhe, to turn green again after centuries of abandonment. Agatha's nonexistent heart dropped into her non-existent stomach as she realized what she'd done. When she'd killed that man, she'd summoned death to this very place.

Death. Her ex. Rio.

It was her footsteps now walking slowly down the hall, through the abandoned remains of a place that had once been their home in happier times. Agatha slunk even deeper into the shadows, staying out of Deaths sight as the door creaked open in the fading twilight and she saw death, her beautiful lady Death, stalk the wreckage of their home once more.

[jewishvitya]

Saw an interview with the Israeli ambassador in the UK where she openly rejects the idea of a Palestinian state at all. Including in a two-states scenario. Which, I knew this is the position of our government, Netanyahu was recently trying to push the "I'm the only one who can prevent a Palestinian state," but she was unusually open and explicit about it for an international interview.

And I didn't realize it at first (because I'm awful with faces... and names) but that's Tzipi Hotoveli. She's so right-wing that she was a popular name in the settlements when I lived there. And this is something I can say about many politicians currently running the government, they are the names that aligned politically with the most extremist community. And this is why she's so bad at being diplomatic about it - the people with that mentality rarely care about watering down their goals.

A mutual of mine on a different platform, an American anti-zionist Jew, talked about a trip they took to the West Bank. It was organized to show the occupation, the checkpoints, etc. Someone asked in response if they visited settlements too, and said that he was glad they enjoyed the trip, but it seems to be all one color.

This was a weird comment. What can you see in the settlements to change your mind, if you care about human rights. What can you see that would erase the suffering of Palestinians there, or give context to justify it. Even if settlers knew to say all the right words, this shouldn't be enough to make you forget what Palestinians are living through.

But they don't say the right words. Especially there, the people openly dehumanize Palestinians. And if you talk to them for a while, they will do it to your face. And they will be open about wanting no Palestinians living on any part of the land. Israeli Arabs are often seen as a different story, as long as they accept Israeli sovereignty. Still not fully trusted, though.

I saw someone confusing the electric fence I mentioned in a few posts, with the separation fence, which is the wall around the West Bank. Not the same thing.

The separation fence is built within the territory of the West Bank, but it's a large wall all around that cuts them off from other areas of the land.

The electric fence is smaller, and it's specific. The one I'm referring to is in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron. That's the settlement I grew up in. It's one of the more established settlements, and it's basically a small town. Right behind the apartment building I lived in, there was the electric fence. And in a distance of maybe a couple of traffic lanes past the fence, were Palestinian homes. They could see us, we could see them.

The fence was there for our sake, not for the Palestinians. But sometimes the settlers would tear it down, forcing the border police and the military to guard that spot and rebuild it. I wondered why, because a hole in the fence near my home scared me. And then I learned they were protesting against the feeling that they're being contained. The settlers, with how they're constantly expanding, felt that they're not given enough. Settlers treat "we can't expand as fast as we'd like" as if that's oppression.

They would regularly get into conflicts with border police and with the military over this. They'd go out to claim another hill, and their temporary homes would get torn down. Individuals from the West Bank settlements would have the Shin Bet keeping track of them in case they'll do something that could provoke an escalation of violence. And this isn't to claim that Israel was being fair to Palestinians or protecting their interests. It just means that Israel tried to be strategic to an extent, and the settlers are inflammatory. Their stated goal, openly talked about, is to establish a presence on the ground, so that any agreement that gives land to Palestinians won't be possible. I kept hearing sentences like "not even a square centimeter." Meaning that they want to leave nothing for Palestinians. They aren't trying to think about what Israel can get away with, they feel entitled to everything.

And these are the people that the current Israeli government aligns with. Which puts a lot of things out in the open, and pushes a lot of other things into further extremes.

[thealexchen]

I am unsure how to feel about Lost Records after I finished it. I love the characters so much but the supernatural elements were really lost on me.

I wish the supernatural stuff wasn't real, or was left vague as to whether it was real or not. I know this idea would change a lot about the game but I love the idea of this story we're being told is the way Kat copes with her illness and trauma, Inventing this magical force that allows her and her friends to feel more empowered

I totally get what you mean. It's disappointing and frustrating yet again to see Dontnod fumble the last half of their game, but I'm sure was infinitely more frustrating for them to work with a limited budget. People comparing this game to LiS have to remember that LiS1 was published and essentially sponsored by Square back in 2015, while Lost Records is basically an indie game with an indie budget because it's entirely self-made and self-published by Dontnod Montreal. I could tell that a lot of content in Tape 2 was cut and the remaining scenes were bizarrely and awkwardly condensed. For example, Autumn is shoehorned back into the main story for the raid on the ranch, going from mad at Kat for hiding her illness to agreeing to her plan in the span of five minutes. The most egregious example for me is after an entire game building up to the why of Bloom & Rage promising to never see each other again, it all comes down to... because Kat said so. Apparently she can read the Abyss's "mind"(?). Or, if Kat is dragged into the Abyss, because SWANN said so?? I have no idea where she could've pulled the "Kat would've wanted us to forget and split up even though we were literally her only real friends and we wished to stay together!" line of reasoning from.

That being said, I've learned from LiS that Dontnod (more specifically Michel Koch and Jean-Luc Cano) were never interested in creating lore for their games, because they're all about characters and story first and foremost. LiS1 worked so well narratively because you could interpret Max's rewind as an extended metaphor for her indecision and the catalyst for her character arc. An extremely unconfident, self-doubting, indecisive teenager seemingly gets the perfect superpower, but it backfires horrendously over the course of the story, and she slowly gains the agency and strength to make the ultimate choice at the end of the game that she can't take back. The writers don't consider LiS to be sci-fi, but rather a coming-of-age contemporary drama with "a twist of the strange."

I think people's enjoyment of Lost Records comes down to whether they’re more invested in the characters or the narrative. Tape 1 doubled down even more on the character and relationship building, nostalgia, and coming-of-age themes from LiS1, and there were no major freeze-frame big choices. You have to suspend disbelief for certain things to really get in the moment, like the entire dance scene in the cabin, where DN amps up the magical, surreal, indie-film imagery even more. I have mixed feelings about the sequel hook at the end too, because it's still possible Dontnod is still cooking and plans to flesh out the lore in a future game, but there's no guarantee they'll have the budget to craft a satisfying follow-up.

I agree that it's disappointing that the writers dropped the ball and seemed uninterested in explaining the supernatural elements in this game, but I do believe that they were very consistent with their characterization from beginning to end. If you look at this game as a story about a group of closeted queer girls who find belonging, acceptance, and community in their love for each other (platonic and romantic), where the supernatural elements just enhance the magic and terror of that unforgettable summer, as well as compel them to reunite as adults and prove that it's never too late to reconnect or start over, then I think they nailed it. If you want to read the Abyss as a narrative tool for Kat to cope with her illness, I think Michel and Jean-Luc (and Nina and Desiree) would gladly welcome that interpretation. In any case, this is Dontnod finally getting to make a game exactly how they want to, without any contracts or meddling from higher-ups, so at least we got to see that.

Thanks for sending this ask!

[tenebrius-excellium]

Reverse Httyd AU

Chapter 1

Setting: Hiccup slips out the back door after the latest of Berk's dragon raids to hunt for the one dragon he shot down.

Notes: This is my first written thing on Tumblr ever. I'm very shy about it haha. Please excuse language errors since English isn't my native language. This is also not beta read, and I don't know if I'll continue writing here. I see this single chapter more as one part of the big creative collage of art pieces, writings, headcanons, and other artistic concepts that have been happing for this AU (see pinned post). Have fun with it though! You are welcome to leave feedback!

Hiccup watched, mouth agape but eyes tired, as one last fireball trailed in a perfect canopy across the sky and hit the Larsson’s house, setting ablaze what a whole group of vikings had been trying to protect since about midnight. And…nothing ever changes, he thought to himself, watching the tiles catch sparks faster than anyone could scream for water. The Larsson’s house was a frequent burner during raids, since it sat along the main square of the village, directly in the flight path of the usual first wave of dragon attacks, because access from the sky was well granted there. Unfortunately, the house also sat directly adjacent to the smithy, and Berk’s Chief could and would not risk having the most important depot of their weaponry catch on fire every other raid as well because of Larsson’s. So each dragon raid, a battalion made of the teens of Berk stood at the ready to specifically defend the Larsson’s home from being torched. They usually succeeded in leaving the building a smoking, dripping wet wooden ribcage coated in ashy sludge and new black marks, but standing proud at morning’s light, ready to receive a brand new roof covering when the sun rose high. Yeah…not this time.

The dragon that had fired the blast left with a satisfied squawk and set out over the vast horizon, Angus Ingerman’s largest pickled fish between its claws, which the fisherman had hung from a hook in front of his shop, ready to sell it that same morning. The dragons retreated. Soon they vanished over the sea, towards the Northwest as always, and a thin plate of sunshine peeled itself out of the water’s mist in the East. Once again, daylight found Berk in destruction’s wake, and already the jingling of nails in someone’s toolbox could be heard, as the supplies for the rebuild were brought out. It was quick, as sure as it was routine, and…

“Hiccup!” A massive fist caught Hiccup at the collar of his tunic. It was dragging him more towards the center of the town square than his own two feet were carrying him, and Hiccup tried to roll his eyes scrambling for ground, while he really felt the punch of panic and humiliation well up from his gut all the way to his cheeks, which became a spotty red in anticipation of having to justify his whereabouts.

“Dad”, he sputtered, coughing for air more out of nervousness than from the giant viking’s burly grip. “I told you I hit a dragon! It’s not like the last few times, Dad, I mean, I really actually hit one… You guys were busy, and I had a very clear shot, it went down just off Raven Point…” His mind rushed to get the words out while the Chief was still listening. “Let’s get a search party out there, before...”

“Stop it!”, bellowed his father, letting go of him and turning towards him. The Chief flung his hands up in the air in frustration. “Just…stop! Every time you step outside, son, disaster follows! Can you not see that I have bigger problems!? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!”

Hiccup’s tongue offered a snarky remark before his own brain could remind him that this wasn’t a good place or a good time. “Well, between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don’t you think?” Silence. It was neither the time nor the place for this, and Hiccup bit his lip. But he was so used to just basically saying whatever with nobody caring for his mutterings, that moments like these tended to happen when he forgot himself.

The villagers, some of whom had inadvertedly surrounded the conversation, frowned. Stoick the Chief puffed, red in the face: “This isn’t a joke, Hiccup! Oh, why can’t you follow the simplest orders?”

“I can’t stop myself”, Hiccup exclaimed in an almost desperate manner. “I see a dragon, and I have to just…kill it, you know? It’s… who I am, Dad.”

More silence. The lie he told himself burned in Hiccup’s head, but, again. He was used to saying anything without it having value. It didn’t matter. The Chief sighed. Then he said: “You are many things, Hiccup, but a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house.”

Turning to Gobber the blacksmith, his right-hand man and Hiccup’s supervisor at work, he shouted: “Make sure he gets there! I have this mess to clean up.”

Hiccup started walking without waiting for the older man.

Overt snickering followed the boy as he made his way onto the familiar path leading home. The fire brigade teens were laughing and making faces. Hiccup angrily trudged along. Gobber came up behind him, trying to talk it out. Hiccup just snapped at him. Whatever consoling words his mentor attempted to offer, they were no help to the reality that once again he, Hiccup, had been made solely responsible for a failed defense against a dragon raid. Words didn’t change the fact that his father was still so disappointed in him that he could not even see the progress to Hiccup’s efforts to contribute. How proud he had been to extend the bola launcher’s firing range! Three failed live attempts it had cost him to get it right, but even now that he had triumphed and actually shot down a dragon, it hadn’t been enough to immediately make all the difficulty go away. The upset looks were still going into his direction, the sneering and jeering of his peers was still aimed at his ears. What had he expected? His father wasn’t listening. Nobody was listening.

They don’t know yet. They’re gonna know. Just have a little more patience, he tried to calm himself as Gobber kept jabbering about pointless things that Hiccup guessed were supposed to be awkward, placating encouragements. “Look, the point is: Stop trying so hard to be something you’re not…”

“Thank you for summing that up. Gobber, I’m sorry, it’s not helping. I just wanna be one of you guys, and it’s not…it didn’t happen today. Goodbye.” He slammed the door in the older man’s face. Shaking with anger, he stayed there for a moment in the dark, before he heard Gobber sigh and move to return to the square. Hiccup waited until the hollow sound of the blacksmith’s wooden leg was no longer audible. Then he darted across the single lower room of his home, hastily grabbing supplies left and right, fitting them into a small leather bag. A knife, his sketchbook, a coal pen, a pair of pliers. Fresh rope, and an empty water skin. He’d need to stop for water on the way if he was going to spend all afternoon in the woods, getting his hands dirty, hunting for that dragon. A quiet sense of satisfaction returned when Hiccup took a last look at his equipment. Only a few precious hours more, and he would have the power to change his entire fate. Hiccup smiled. Ducking beneath the low part of the ceiling where the stairs ascended, he spotted his helmet and grabbed that, too. Might as well do it properly. Soundlessly, he slipped out the back door.

[hybbart]

HELLO i am a HUGE fan of your beautiful fawn designs!! If you don't mind me asking, how do come up with such unique designs?? They're seriously so cool omg

Thank you! When you draw a specific creature a lot you tend to wind up finding ways to make separate designs unique. (As a pokemon, digimon, warriors, gundam, and animal fan, and former league fan, it probably isn't all that surprising that I like having a large quantity of all different types of little guys)

Well a lot of it is just things I've learned while focusing on character design, but there's a couple of things that are easy to mix and match. The easiest thing to do when working with a lot of the same creature is find the things that are easiest to mix and match, like a paper doll. I'm not going to talk about sillhouettes because I don't know how to spell it, and everyone talks about that. What I'm gonna talk about is information density. The best, most unique designs are information dense. This is how an artist can make a character whose entire shtick is being generic and not standing out still come off as unique and identifiable.

Basic things most characters have is: Shape language, colour palette, facial features, posture, texture, height, weight, fat, and muscle.

Easy enough. Texture's the one I'd want to talk about the most. When I make a character I think about it a lot. Specifically for fauns I think about their fur and hair, because they have both. Hair can have a lot of different textures on its own based on thickness and curliness, but in art you can add even more varieties. If I have to characters with thin slightly curly hair but I want one to look more regal or elegant while the other is more of a gremlin then I'm going to texture those differently, to give the impression one is wilder or more coarse to make the gremlin look more gremlin-y, or I can use symbolism like imitating the aesthetic of the curls you see in old lettering and heraldry to make the elegant one seem more so by association. Making something gravity defining or weighing it down, like curtains. Something airy can make a character more ethereal and energetic, while something heavily draped can feel melancholic and worn. Both create a very pretty aesthetic. I use shape language here too, like as mention above with heraldry. squared even hairs, bouncy round hair, spiky hair- these all use shape language to convey texture, and texture can convey information.

Also for body types and builds... a lot goes into the build a character has. This isn't a video game with simple sliders, you can give a character strong legs and noodly arms, and fat takes different forms and distributes unevenly based on many factors. A thing I think not a lot of people think about is that muscles and fat can be "cut", using pressure. The belly of someone who wears low rise pants and someone who wears high rise pants is going to be different. Even if two characters are both body builders, they could be hyperfocused on different things and looks. Natural wrinkles like that found in some cat breeds for elasticity of skin and those found on some dog breeds that are the result of breeding specific features and other animals who use wrinkles as nutrients storage, look different from not only each other but also wrinkles from age, weight loss, and exhaustion. Thinking about these things and how to convey those differences is an easy was to make two characters with wrinkles look different and convey more information.

For fauns one of the things I think about first is what species are they based off? My personal rule is Fauns are even-toed ungulates and satyrs are odd-toed ungulates, so when I draw a faun I often think about a particular species or mythical creature. Sometimes I mix and match certain things, or only utilize specific features. Sometimes I don't use a reference at all, but this is a good place to start usually. Different species can give you ideas for different types of hooves, horns/antlers, eyes, build, fur, tails, ears, and even teeth. Every species usually has some unique qualities that can be adapted onto a faun to draw inspiration from.

I work backwards on this one, but personality can help you design a character. Usually I design a character and build a personality based off what I've drawn, but doing it the other way around is very effective if you're having troubles. This includes subverting the expected for a character of such a personality. A good example of that is Cure Nyammy and Cure Lillian, who have droopy and sharp eyes respectively, but but Nyammy is the one with the cool, sharp, elegant air and Lillian is the shy, awkward, cute one.

Another things is alterations. The most common alterations to a character is a physical quirk, like a floppy ear, a mutation, like and extra set of horns, a special ability, like flight, or a disability, like a missing arm. For Jimmy I gave him a cowlick because i thought it fit with his ditzier qualities, bird theme, and ranch theme. In raau I also gave him lung damage as a reference to coal mines and canaries and how he and Tango met ind double life, a breathing tube to show he has access to medical technology and support despite the setting, and I changed his eye design to something similar to a sonar's rings to express the fact he sees sound, all of which allows him to be distinct from my regular Jimmy.

And last but not least, you can make two identical characters look completely different with fashion. This includes clothing, accessories, hairstyles, makeup, paint, tattoos, inventory... Any external modifications.

The important thing about design is to not make it hollow features, basically. I mean, you can't do whatever you want of course, sparkle dog is an aesthetic for a reason, but when you draw you have to deliberately draw every line so you might as well take the time to think about why you're drawing it there or that way. My fauns tend to have very similar body types a lot of the time, but I can still use everything else to make them stand out from each other anyways.

Also, it's art, there's no limit to what you can do to give your character unique designs! And I mean this in a very Studio Shaft/Gumball/Spiderverse type way. I've have character I've made distinct by straight up giving them different styles of shading or line work or brushes or layering. I've written character povs where the character never uses pronouns and only uses names, or a character who specifies exact numbers with numbers regardless, or even entirely different fonts, to convey qualities about them. Utilize your medium to its full potential (when appropriate, of course. and if its ocs/personal art, its always appropriate.)

[baenyth]

Bethany's Bizarre Miraculous Fic Prompt: Hawkmoth Gets Owned By Various Fictional Detectives

Basically I want to see Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Poopmoth/Monarch fail more since he kinda sorta won last season. And it's also crossovers where different fictional detectives (or just people on the Kira case square,) out Hawkmoth as Gabriel Agreste once and for all and hopefully do similar stuff such as outing Lila as a liar, dragging down other corrupt adults like Tomoe and Audrey, etc. and also just various funny moments with these characters interacting with the Miracucast. Here's some ideas I have from characters I know or are just interested in:

Lieutenant Columbo. I already made a post detailing it.

L from Death Note. I haven't watched Death Note, but if the memeposts are to be believed, he would outthink Gabriel Agreste at every turn. Probably ask him to show what's behind his ascot.

Shuichi Saihara from Danganronpa V3. Aside from him deducing Gabriel as Hawkmoth with the help from his friends, imagine the shenanigans. Gonta being ecstatic for the bug-themed heroes and how nicely they treat the purified butterflies. Kokichi takes down Lila by being Kokichi. Tenko is aware of the plot and tries to get Marigami together and make them kiss, alongside getting an Julerose kiss. Kiibo and Markov bond. So do Kaito and Rose. Kirumi somehow becomes mayor of Paris.

The Scooby Gang. In general I like the concept of silly guys managing to defeat Hawkmoth. They would accidentally find the secret elevator to Emile's pod and manage to use Ladybug and Chat Noir as bait for a trap and at the end, (since I like to imagine they're meddling adults at this point,) Gabriel Agreste grumbles that "at least it wasn't those meddling kids Ladybug and Chat Noir." They also take down the rest of Paris's elite because that's who the villains of Scooby Doo are.

The Duwang Gang. I think Kwamis and Miraculous heroes can see stands, but I'm unsure about akumatized people. Maybe. It turns out Crazy Diamond can heal people wounded by the Peacock but they pull the plug on Emile for the health of everyone. Rohan Kishibe uses Heaven's Door on the Miracukids and gets into accidental meta commentary upon discovering the full love square. He also uses Heaven's Door on Luka and it's sheet music. Maybe let Yukako join in too because of how much of a romancefest this show is and also because I like her and she had such a big presence in Great Days. Gabriel Agreste ends up with a similar fate to Yoshikage Kira, being surrounded by our heroes and helpless to do anything.

Sam and Max. I don't know much about them other that they're 1. funny guys, and 2. might just end up hitting Gabriel Agreste with their car.

Steve from Blue's Clues. Aside from the inherent humor of an educational kids show host taking down a terrorist supervillain, it also implies Blue knows who Hawkmoth is. Steve sits on the thinking chair to deduce Hawkmoth's identity and where he's hiding.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Maybe Muriel and Eustace are dead and he was sent to live with Mylene and her dad. I feel like they'd get along well. Or maybe they're still alive and just visiting Paris and Muriel and Eustace are staying with Mylene and her dad. Either way I think this should take place around season 5 because the alliance ring works well with Courage's themes of paranoia over something supernatural putting your family at risk.

Agent P. Maybe Hawkmoth gets so desperate he gets Doctor Doofenshmirtz to build a wife-revive inator only for Emile to end up in another coma after accidentally pressing the self-destruct button on said inator. No one recognizes Agent P without his hat because this is Miraculous and people are dumb. Perry gets to beat the stuffing and tar out of Hawkmoth. Doof betrays him when he learns about how shitty of a dad he is. The miraculous heroes are allowed into OWCA on account of the animal theming.

The Smiling Friends. It starts off with a mission involving all of the main four helping Marinette smile and spirals down from there.

Not Batman. I've had enough Miraculous-Batman crossovers for one eternity.

[statementlou]

so after seeing your anon and for shits and giggles i went to lthq's page and saw that they tagged pinkpop in the photo dump post and tagged the location of main square festival in louis' stories and correct me if i'm wrong but any social media posts and interactions would have been agreed upon in writing before he signed the contract for the festival, so i really don't see what the problem is. not even counting in the fact that louis is not a social media influencer that would lose fans for his lack of tagging etiquette 😂 new fans or old fans are not gonna go on his socials and say "oh my, he didn't tag the festival, what a dbag. i'm unfollowing" 😂

he's doing a lot of festival and so far with really big crowds! the festivals are featuring him on their socials (which is really what matters cause new fans will check the festival's ig for more info) and i'm sure he'll gain more and more fans as the summer continues. all things considered i think this festival run is already going really well.

mHMM. And honestly ALL this nitpicking is SO STUPID because the actual FACT is: he is gaining fans. Continually. His fanbase has basically doubled every year for the last 4 at least (going off ticket sales), so saying they aren't doing a good job of promoting him is just fucking stupid: clearly they ARE. The problem is solos literally think all that is happening because THEY make social media posts and that Louis and his team are just bystanders which like... oh babes. We the fans are important sure and yes Louis appreciates us but get some perspective, a couple twitter trends didn't build this and do you truly not understand that Louis is more than just a pretty face, that hailing him as the boss and a king of the business side of things and smart isn't just being cute that he actually IS good at the industry and at these things and extremely fucking smart and savvy? Maybe even- gasp- BETTER AT IT than a bunch of randos on the internet creating an echo chamber?? I seriously don't understand these fans that say they're the only ones who really appreciate him and then spend every minute tearing down everything he does- his clothes his choices his music his team his words his lifestyle... EVRYTHING. I genuinely want to know- what do you like about him besides his physical appearance and maybe a version of him you made up that he is failing to live up to? Because it doesn't seem to be his actual self that's actually right here in front of us doing awesome things and THRIVING and having a great time

[ultrakill-confessions]

I read another post about dreams so I think I finally have something to send here

anyways I just had a dream about the end of the world and it felt very Ultrakill inspired (?), and I recorded an 18 minute audio version of this but I think I'm gonna summarise it here.

basically, humans were living in underground townships due to the outside air being too degraded, and the visual design of these townships felt a lot like the Prelude levels.

at some point, the PA announced that something was wrong, and then later there was like splotches of glowing neon green liquid ("rain") seeping through the ceiling. I saw that everything was overflowing and all the machinery was being loud and breaking. all the people in the facility started panicking and searching for an exit, and eventually found one.

it was like a big square shaft that went straight up, and we all got onto some metal pipes(?) that were going upwards. at some point though there were airplanes following us vertically that looked like they were from WW2, and also the walls were light blue like the sky and there were a lot of other things from human history scattered around on the walls and following us. kinda like the motifs in Ultrakill lol

and then we hit the ceiling and the world officially ended. and then I was back in my kitchen and everything was normal.

idk how relevant or annoying this is but I think it might be partially because of me being into Ultrakill, and because Ultrakill lore involves the end of the world a lot.

but also from being stuck in a Qatar airport while. literal missiles were flying over the building x.x

-

[storiesofsvu]

For the character ask game: 1-6, 33, and 36-40 for our girl rita 💜

sending you the strength to survive work! 🫶

omg bestie thank you!

1- canon i outright reject.

omg. fuck. it used to be the whole Tucker x Rita thing (though it was a deleted scene so i dunno if it counts) but honestly I can lowkey see it lol.

uhmmm....i honestly can't currently think of anything but guaranteed half way through my shift i'll remember something.

2. a canon or hc hill i will die on.

the easiest one. homegirl is not straight. she has too much chemistry with basically everyone, theres between the lines flirting and eye fucking going on all the time

3. obscure headcanon

her hands are ALWAYS cold. like, even in summer, freezing. she likes to torture rafael by shoving them into the back of his shirt when he's least expecting it. (though he welcomes it on the days his migraines are acting up cause it actually helps)

4. favourite line

i have to agree with you on the "oh look, a baby." cause its just SO fucking perfect and i also feel the same lol. i think the "well if it was all hunky dory" line has to be in there too. cause its just fucking hilarious in the worst way. i like to believe barba bet her she couldn't fit the phrase into her cross and she was all "fucking watch me."

5. best personality trait

how ferociously protective she is of the people she loves and the people who need it most. we see it come out with Avery Jackson and with Abbey from dowland, and those are just the canon examples lol. She'll do whatever she has to and is fiercely loyal to the people she loves most/love her the most

6. worst personality trait

the way she can get relatively snippy pretty quick. esp if she's tired or stuck on something, the frustration builds up fast and she snaps. a lot of the time it's frustration towards herself but it ends up getting projected onto someone else by accident.

33. something guaranteed to make them cry

ooooo.... on the deeper side: being told she's not good enough. no matter whether that's professionally, personally, tied to a romantic aspect. she's a bit of a perfectionist/still learning how to let go of being a perfectionist and it can deeply affect her

on the more fun side: i think she's a fucking sap and cries at the sappy parts of movies.

36. their favourite season

autumn. easily. it's cooled down a little bit, the slew of tourists have returned to their homes, the leaves are start to turn, it always makes her think of the school year and how september was a fresh start, a new year, new class/teacher, new friends, the back to school shopping (you cannot tell me rita calhoun does not go stationary supply shopping every year for a little happy boost. and she's extremely organized and colour coded). in another life she would've been a teacher and now i'm sensing an AU forming in my mind.. fuck... okay, some SVU as teachers headcanons coming later. someone remind me! (she's obviously the queer english teacher who everyone's in love with and is making all the girls question their sexuality)

37. what they really think about themselves

oh man this shit is deep.

she knows she's good at her job, she knows she's attractive. she's content in her life, and doesn't believe a person needs a partner to like "succeed" in life, (and this is about to get heavy oop). but there are days that she truly thinks she's unlovable. likely stems back to her childhood, and continues through her life as she never manages to lock down a solid relationship. so she's just come to terms with it over the years.

38. favourite holiday

my instinct was New Year's Eve. fancy parties, champagne, getting dressed up, fireworks. it seems the most up her alley. she frequented bigger parties when she first started working, but now she likes to host more intimate ones at her apartment (cause she obvi has a prime view of fireworks and like hell she's going to times square)

a close follow up is memorial day weekend or july 4th cause those are prime times to go out to the hampton's or on the yacht.

39. favourite game

.....i feel like SO many people would say chess for her but i think she fucking hates chess. OH GOD i can see her absolutely crushing it at poker and taking everyone's money...this is awakening things in me. yeah, poker definitely works.

40. favourite book

oh god...i have NO idea. i don't know enough books that aren't contemporary romance/modern shit or like, Freida thrillers lol. i do canon her as a lover for reading, a lover for romance, she has a HUGE book collection and while at least half of those ARE nonfiction, she prefers fiction to escape into at the end of the days. probably not a lot of fantasy, but definitely love stories.

oh my god that was truly the best. thank you so much! i hope you're having the best day ever! <3

50 random character asks.

[rowanmutt-afterdark]

For the requests could we have some nsfw with the Bumblebee movie?

Since i have a thought that cybertronians have sex organs (can't remember the science term) but don't use them since it's not how they reproduce they don't really know what to do with them.

Basically I'm asking for a bottom bee cumming for the first time with a top reader?

If you get around to it thx for writing & ttyl ❤️:]

Sub/Bottom Bumblebee X Top GN Reader

🔞NSFW Warning: Blowjobs, first times and tooth rotting fluff because bumblebee is a sweeties🔞

When Bumblebee asked you to top, you were thrown off by the request. This was his first time after all but also him asking for you, a small five foot tall being to top a close to over ten to twelve feet tall robot was something you never expected to happen.

You stared at the Autobot who sat on the old worn out futon mattress you had salvaged for him to lay on at night. You straddled his wide hips while his big baby blue optics watched your expressions and facial features trying to figure out what you were thinking.

"Are you sure, you want me to top?" You ask him again, the yellow scout merely nods. A buzzing sound following in the sound similar to a hum.

You haven't topped before in a long time, guess it wouldn't hurt to try this put for Bumblebee. With a new energy that even Bumblebee seems to be surprised by, you push him onto his back with both your hands. You carefully scoot up further on his body to straddle his waist rather than his hips. The Autobot watches on with confusion yet also a curiosity as you start to shimmey out of your clothes.

You strip yourself free of your clothes, leaving yourself naked on his lap as you let him take your naked body in with an awed expression. His optics widening with a brightened shine that you assume to be lust and excitement.

You grab one of his servos and guide it to your chest, his servo tries to pull away but you hold it steady as you place it on your chest. He stiffens beneath you and watches your reaction as you smile and nod. Encouraging him to explore, first times were learning about each others bodies and what the other enjoyed.

Bumblebee seemed to enjoy how soft your chest was, his servo explored the area of skin. Groping at the mounds that were there, from the shiver you felt under your body and the pressure building under his modesty plate, you assumed this was getting him excited.

You have him explore your body, testing the waters. His digits crawl over your skin, mapping out evert square inch. He listened for any sounds you make. So he knew what was good and what was bad. His favorite noise was when his servo cupped your lower extremities a sound equal to that of a squeal and a moan left you. He whirred in glee before he pressed a digit further to your folds earning another pleased sound from you.

Except, he wasn't supposed to be topping.

You grab his servo and pull his hand back. He looks confused until you smile at him. "I'm the one in charge big boy~ Now open your panel, I wanna see what I am working with."

A click follows your order, from over your shoulder you can see his growing erection. He was a lot bigger than you had thought. He was a alien but you had expected smaller since he was quite small for most of his species.

His spike was a black and yellow pattern. The colors were pretty and matched his whole aesthetic. You grab for his spike, the whirring he made of surprise as well as his body jerking as you grab the phallus and tease the soft, sensitive tip earning a few sounds from him that male you wet at just how horny he was making you.

You stand from his waist and walk down to stand between his thighs. You sit down on yoru knees and take his spike in hand again before you decide to make eye contact with him as you lower your face closer to his spike. He tries to say something but your lips and tongue make contact with the yellow tip. His next noise almost made you laugh.

He cries out with a hint of static as he bucks up towards your face. You pull back in time before that had ended badly and then go back to the tip to start kissing at it and gently lathering your tongue along the slit on his tip. His pink transfluid was sweet yet bitter, it also was thicker than you had expected.

You start off slow with your blow job. Starting off with your tongue swirling the tip and sucking on the top of his tip earning sounds that send heat straight to your core. His optics shut with another moan ans you slowly start to take more of him in. His noises are absolutely arousing. He sounds so good as he moans and gasps at the small ministarations to his tip.

Not to mention he didn't give much warning as his spike starts to buck up into her mouth more. A slight gag of surprise leaving her as he tries to fuck her mouth but it is put to a end with her hands pressing down onto his hips as she suckles on the tip and urges him to let go while you used your own methods of getting what you wanted during sex.

Grabbing onto his hips you take his spike down your throat and try to take a portion of it and suck rather loudly and quickly onto it. His hips hump against your face as he tries to fuck your mouth while you help get him off with a blow job. He doesn't fair very long as it's not even a few moments later he's spurting his release down your throat making you gag with a surprise pull away as the warm cum covers yoru mouth and throat.

You struggle to swallow his large load as he fucks yoru face with a vigorous pace that has you reeling to a stop as you pull away with a loud gasp. Cum dribbles down your chin as you smirk with a chuckle.

"How was that for your first ever bj?" You ask nervously, the corners of his optics ceinkle in what looke dto be his way of smiling as he reports it was great now that he had the most attractive and best partner to be intimate with. You were amazing, according to his report back.

"Good, because I am about to start Round two with you~"

[mariacallous]

So, I'm not an expert in Chinese history, but I've read a lot of books on modern China (post-1949) and one interesting thing I notice is there's a fair number of western PhDs who rely on access to Chinese Government controlled documents to do their research and also just magically seem to also follow (generally) the CCP party line on Chinese history.

case in point, I'm working my way through David Shambaugh's "China's Leaders: From Mao to Now" I've gotten through the Mao and Deng chapters and while there were no glaring revisions, there were a lot of interesting things that leaned into the Party line of Mao being "70% good, 30% bad" for example the literally ONLY reference to Tibet was in the Mao chapter where he off handedly mentioned that while the PRC was founded in 1949 "Tibet and other provenances were not liberated till the 1950s" also following the party line that Mao before 1957 was good for China he stated without any source that Mao had Neurosyphilis which was effecting his mind during the Cultural Revolution. I've never heard this before having read Mao: The Unknown Story, Frank Dikötter's trilogy of China under Mao, and a number of other books that touched on Mao or his time.

also just now he rather boldly declared that the while people say the USSR "collapsed" "it was overthrown" and then moves on without clarifying what that means.

I've noticed as a generalize of these kinda of Sinophiles they lived or studied or visited regular China and are very strong believers in the idea of China as one continuous, largely unchanging nation/civilization for 3,000 years (Shambaugh using this figure in the opening chapter and Mao chapter) or 5,000 years (he switched to this number in the Deng chapter) while there are connections of course and cultural roots etc, one would not talk about European nations this way. Indeed Shambaugh at one point said Deng unleashed "the inherent entrepreneurial spirt, in the DNA of all Chinese" which could be a cute turn of phrase but again I've run into this idea of basically race science about the Chinese (but a good thing!) from professors like him before

I think it should be uncontroversial to say that while people have lived in China for 5,000 years and their history informs the society there now, its not different from the ways Rome informs Europe, and that the PRC does not represent a largely smooth continuation from the Empire but a clear break and building of a totally new nation for better (and mostly) worse. Also I can't stand anyone who lauds dictators, like giving Mao any "credit" for "building China" or acting like Tiananmen Square was the one regrettable stain on Deng's otherwise wonderful record.

that doesn't surprise me much, tbh - there's a similar phenomenon with "REES" or Russian and Eastern European Studies experts, who more often than not tend to be more R and less EE.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

How would you have handled the other miraculous holders?

I would have massively cut them down. The season two lineup was fantastic, though you could get away with two or three more. Eight really is about the max you can hit for a team before you start bloating the characters assuming that you're only dealing with one central group. If you're dealing with lots of side teams, then things get more complex.

There's a concept in writing called "Kill your darlings," which I'm only mentioning so that you have something to Google if you want to know more than what I'm about to tell you. The basic idea is this: to tell a good story, you need to be willing to cut things you like if they're detracting from your overall story.

As a personal example, I really like Juleka and Rose. I think they're cute and I like putting them together as a couple. But narratively speaking? They don't matter. You could cut them from the story and nothing would change because they're just casual friends to Marinette and Marinette really doesn't need more close friends for the stories I want to tell. Add in the fact that Purple Tigress and Pigella have awkward power sets that aren't all that interesting and, yeah, my love for these two does not override the fact that they have no place in the stories I want to tell. So I find ways to mention Juleka and Rose from time to time and I use them in a scene when I can, but most of the time? They're not in my stories because the goal of my stories is usually love square shenanigans and not showing off a cute healthy sapphic couple.

Similarly, the goal of Miraculous is the tales of Ladynette and Chatdrien, so the focus needs to be on them and these extra characters are really not needed. A fact that's super clear because of how underdeveloped the side heroes are. Most of them get a single recruitment episode and that's it. There's no build up to establish them as solid heroes, leading to them eventually being chosen. It's all shoehorned into 20 minutes and then largely ignored after that. I mean, Nino has been Carapace since season 2 and he's in a mere handful of episodes, none of which are all important character moments outside of his initial debut. The only temp heroes with anything interesting going on are Viperion, Queen Bee, and Rena Rouge/Furtive.

If I HAD to include the other holders? Then I would have massively cut back the love square content and come up with ways to power up the butterfly so that the extra heroes felt necessary. I might have even brought in additional forces of evil to battle. I also would have given the various team member clearer roles and given them their miraculous full time because you really do need to make massive changes for the team setup to work.

Team shows are wildly different from dynamic duo setups. Compare Kim Possible to Teen Titans and think about how different the focus is. Kim Possible has two very clear main characters while the supporting cast takes back seats. Teen Titans doesn't have a clear main character. All five Titans are given a chance to shine as the main character shifts from episode to episode and even season to season with each Titan getting a chance to be the center of an ongoing plot. If you want to have a team while keeping Chat Noir and Ladybug at the center of the story, then you need to build that team around them which you really can't do if you have a massive team of 18. A smaller team, though? You can make that work. For example, I still think Chloe's recruitment should have been a chance to give Adrien a character arc around boundaries and trust because it's really hard to jump into parent/child conflicts. Starting with a best friend one with the same vibe is a much easier path.

[nightfury-2001]

Now that it’s been a good couple of days since the trailer officially released, I think I know how I would alter Toothless’ design. For starters I would keep his anatomy and proportions closer to his model in the first movie, not the third. I’d make his head narrow and more streamlined, not blocky. I’d make his eyes more cat-like and more of an oval shape. I’d also keep his legs the same as they were in the animated movies. I don’t think the change in the live action was necessary.

I’d make his eyes less of an aggressive green. I don’t even mind that they wanted to make his eyes less pale, I just think the green they chose is too vibrant. I’d tone it down a bit.

I’d give him back his usual wing shape. It looks like they added a smaller digit on his wing for the live action? I don’t know, but it looks weird. I don’t think anything was unrealistic about his wing shape in the animated movies to warrant a change. Though I would keep the larger wings as shown in the live action. That actually does make sense. I imagine that dragons would be heavy. Their wings would need to be large in order to support them in flight.

I’d also keep the realistic scale texture the same and keep the third eyelid.

Yeah, I basically agree with all of this. It could have been worse but they messed up things I never would have guessed they'd mess up so I'm.....not happy with it, to say the least.

Changes I'd make/some of my own thoughts, putting it under a cut because this got really long and a lot of it is just me reiterating and expanding on changes you've already mentioned:

1. MAKE HIM PLANTIGRADE AGAIN! Making him digitigrade doesn't make him any more realistic (many real reptiles with similar bodies/builds are plantigrade!), legitimately ruins his shape language, makes his design much less unique and more "generic dragon", and makes it so much harder if not impossible for him to move in certain ways that either made complete sense for what he is (being able to tuck his legs in super close to his body to be more aerodynamic when flying, his lizard-like stances, etc.) or gave him so much more character (like during original Forbidden Friendship when he sat similar to a human).

2. Change his body/build to be more similar to his animated counterpart. Don't like the more.....dog-like or whatever build live action Toothless has. I mean I guess it fits a little more with him being digitigrade now but ughhhhhh. Don't like it, I miss his more barrel-shaped chest, the way his neck used to be, etc..

3. Give him his iconic wing shape back! Toothless' wings had such a cool design, really weren't all that unrealistic, and again the shape languageeeee........his new wings are much more generic and don't make me feel like this creature is the fastest dragon. All they had to do was maybe make them a little more muscular and/or larger/attach to even lower on his tail/body and like, it would have been fine?

Also was removing a wing digit/finger really necessary? Not that it would bother me much (or really at all) if they had otherwise kept his cool and iconic wing design, but like if they were trying to make his wings more "realistic" why not go even further and remove another digit or two and make his wings even more like a bat's? (That could have been kinda cool to see, actually!)

4. Change his head shape/face/eye placement to be more like his HTTYD 1 design. I knew it was probably going to happen but damn do I hate that they based his face/head more off his THW design. Remove the permanent eyebrows, move his eyes back a little and maybe change the shape slightly, and slim down his head pleaseeeee. His head also seems too big for his body for some reason? So definitely change it to be more proportionate as well.

5. Tone done the saturation of his eyes and make his pupils more square. I feel like live action Toothless' eyes are such a big part of why he looks so fake - NO idea why they chose to make them so neon and radioactive lmao. Also the square-ish pupils of HTTYD 1 Toothless are so iconic to me so I'd bring them back. Also also Toothless' eyes were never completely green, bring back the brown ring around his pupils!

7. Remove some spines and/or make them smaller/rounder. As said in HTTYD 2 and on the official website, Toothless is supposed to be Hiccup's age in dragon/Night Fury years. In-universe it's directly confirmed that he gained his little chin nubs from aging and out of universe it's confirmed that some of the changes they made to Toothless were to show that just like Hiccup, Toothless aged between the first and second film. Sooooo why does live action Toothless, who is supposed to be 15 or whatever, have longer and sharper head and leg spines very similar to his HTTYD 2/THW designs? Why does it look like he might possibly have his little chin nubs (though tbh it looks like they could be newly added extra ear plates)? And while I'm on the topic of his spines, why'd they make his dorsal plates/spines start further up his neck to where it looks like they might interfere with the saddle? Why slap on random extra spines to a dragon that's meant to be very sleek and built for speed???

6. Bring the larger/thicker scales on his nose, between his eyes, and near/on his lips back. Those areas look so......naked on live action Toothless and it makes him look very fake. Oh yeah and tone down the pink around his nostrils/nose/eyes - original Toothless did have a pink-ish tone around his nostrils/etc. but it was darker, looked better, and made more sense. It's like they're trying to make him look more like a cute mammal or something and it just doesn't work and is completely unnecessary.

8. It's a bit too early to 100% tell but I don't think they brought his beautiful markings back. Please.......bring them back............please 🥺

With all that being said live action Toothless' design isn't literally all bad - it looks like they brought his original more blue tone back in some way, the nictitating membrane is a cool addition and something I've had as a headcanon for a while now, smaller eyes make sense for a more realistic take (and I usually like to draw Furies with smaller eyes than in canon), and the way his two sets of tail fins seem to "flow" into each other instead of having spines on the sides of his tail is kind of neat even if I'm not sure I prefer it to the spines. Other than that though? The design is a big miss that seems to misunderstand fundamental aspects of the character and why he was originally designed the way he was.

[snakeeyesdraws]

Overly Analyzing Fortune Street character dialogue (Mario and Luigi)

So I've spent a lot of time browsing Mario wiki pages (organized easy to read information about a current hyperfixation makes for great destressing material) and one of the pages I've been really into is the quotes from Fortune Street (2011)! I've been thinking about talking about and discussing some of the character dialogue from it, since some of them actually have some fun character tidbits, and after seeing this post from pianokantzart (please go check out their stuff!) I decided to go ahead and do so!

Today we'll be focusing on Mario and Luigi's dialogue, and dialogue that involves them! If you would like to view these quotes for yourself, you can do so here and on the character's quote pages. I'll mainly just be highlighting some of the fun ones under the cut!

Mario

"Brr! This ship gives me the creeps! Best to win fast so I don't have to hang out here too long!" (The Ghost Ship)

This is an area-specific dialogue line for the Ghost Ship, and I find the implication that Mario is a bit creeped out by ghosts/haunted places, seeing as Boos/ghosts are an enemy that have notably defeated him numerous times via the Luigi's Mansion series.

"Wow! What a fancy palace! But I still think Peach's Castle is the best…" (Castle Trodain) "Ha ha! I'm gonna do well here. Peach's Castle is like a second home to me!" (Peach's Castle)

Simple but cute!! He thinks of Peach's Castle as a second home and feels safe there!! This is extremely important to me

"Dooo-doo-doo-doo-doo-dooooo! Hey, I love this tune!" (Super Mario Bros.) "Doooo--doo-doo doo-doo-doo! That sure is a catchy tune I've got stuck in my head! Oh, sorry, is it my turn already?"

He also really loves the Super Mario Bros. theme! The theme that is associated most with him and Luigi ;w; I like to imagine he hums its to himself whenever he's working

To Yoshi: "I'll help you find your cookies, Yoshi - just give me a second to brush these cookie crumbs out of my mustache!" Yoshi to player: "Yoshi! Yoshi! (Nice job on that promotion, (player's name)! Here, have some cookies to celebrate!)" Mario's response: "Why no cookies for Mario? Can't I have just one?"

There's also a running theme of him wanting Yoshi's cookies which I think is so funny. The Legendary Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom cannot turn up a tasty snack. Some people seem to push back against the idea that Mario enjoys eating?? But I think it's such a cute characteristic of his (and the fact that he basically admits to Yoshi's face that he swiped his cookies jsadjkkdlsa)

"Not to look a gift Yoshi in the mouth, but I was hoping for more coins..."

Mostly highlighting this one for the substation of "horse" with "Yoshi" in this quote. Fun little world building tidbit of Yoshi's being the Mushroom Kingdom's horses.

After player warps: "Ever get a stomachache when you warp, (player's name)? That happens to me sometimes!"

Even though he presumably uses the warp pipes all the time? Interesting... (side note but because I'm movie brain pilled, you could potentially read into it more here for that verse 👀)

After landing on a Take-a-break square: "Heroes never take the day off! What am I supposed to do with myself - go to the beach?"

Bro that is not a good mindset let yourself take vacations!

"Thank you for your patronage! You're very generous, (player's name)... Just like me!"

There's a lot of playful lines like this from Mario, I like when we get to see his competitive side and how he has a teeny bit of an ego (he's still overall humble and kind, but he knows he's the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom)

After player buying his circus tent: "I can't believe you took over my circus, (player's name)! Didn't you like my fireball show?"

FIREBALL SHOW???? HE PUTS ON A FIREBALL SHOW????? I am desperate for any crumbs of reference to Firebrand (even though he likely used a Fire Flower for this but still)

To Luigi: "Hey Luigi! Stick with me, Bro, and we'll win this one together!" Luigi's response: "You got it, Mario! We'll show (player's name) some real Mario Bros. teamwork!"

To player: "Nice work, (player's name)! But Luigi and I aren't going to give up quite yet!" Luigi's response: "Right you are! The Mario Bros. are just getting warmed up!"

THEM........ 🥺💖 WE LOVE TO SEE THEM WORKING TOGETHER

To player: "Psst! Hey, (player's name)! Princess Peach is watching, so I'm afraid I just can't lose to you today!" Peach's response: "Mario, I heard that! But don't you worry - I'm the one who's going to win!"

Dude is SMITTEN for Peach and it shows. He wants to impress her! I do like that we get to see that Peach is also competitive and playfully rolls with it

To player: "Keep going, (player's name)! It's way too early to give up!" Peach's response: "Hey, Mario-what gives? You seem like you're more concerned about (player's name) than you are about me!"

That said, Peach clearly likes having his attention on her LMAO it reminds me of the scene in Paper Jam where M&L Peach visibly got a bit jealous of Mario getting blushy and flustered over Paper Peach

Bowser to player: "You're in luck! If you beat me, you automatically get to become one of my minions! That's the law around here!" Mario's response: "Don't listen to him, (player's name)! I've beaten him a million times, and I'm no minion!"

Almost all of Bowser's quotes that invoke a response from Mario play out like this; Bowser provokes or taunts the player and Mario immediately snaps back or defends the player. It's fun to see a version of their rivalry here, albeit one in a much more relaxed and lower stakes setting. They will get extremely competitive even when it's just a game for fun

Bowser Jr. to player: "You're just being a big show-off, (player's name)! I'm NOT impressed!" Mario's response: "Don't be jealous, Bowser Jr.! Sure, (player's name) is doing great - but you're not doing bad yourself! Try to stay focused!"

While Mario will do the same if Junior taunts the player, here we can see him being encouraging towards him. It's a cute little moment! I feel like Bowser's Fury enjoyers will like this quote lol

Peach to Mario: "Hmph! Why does (player's name) have all the luck? Mario! I order you to go out and gather me some gold coins!" Mario's response: "Sure thing, Princess Peach! But, umm..how?"

I mean it when I say dude is smitten. One order from the princess and he's ready to drop his competitive streak to go fetch some coins for her LMAO

Toad to player: "I'm impressed with your business acumen, (player's name)! I wish I was more like you… Mario's response: "You can be, Toad! Just keep up the hard work!"

Friendship between Mario and Toad can be so personal, actually... and more encouraging and sweet Mario! Never forget that this man is kind and caring before anything else

To Birdo: "Ouch! Birdo, you're charging me an arm and a mustache! That's precious gold I'm never going to see again!"

AN ARM AND A MUSTACHE HE SAYS............ this man is a DORK

To Bowser Jr.: "I'm surprised you're charging folks so much to shop here, Bowser Jr. ! Just like your daddy, you are!" To Bowser Jr.: "Bowser Jr.! You're just like your daddy. Always getting in my way!"

He'll be encouraging and overall gentler with Junior, but it doesn't change that fact that Junior still gets in his way a lot JADSKK

To Donkey Kong: "Hey, Donkey Kong! Would you mind if I paid you in bananas? Ha ha ha! Oh, I bet you get that joke all the time!" To Donkey Kong: "You sure know how to roll that die, Donkey Kong! Almost as well as you roll a barrel!"

oh my god he's so obnoxious sometimes you KNOW this man is telling dad jokes even if he's not a father. And it's a small hint towards the DK and Mario rivalry that started in the old games!

To Luigi: "Oh, Luigi! Can't you give me a special discount or something? I thought we were the bestest of buddies!"

the bestest of buddies I could cry.... it's a very sweet sentiment, even though clearly it's said in a bit of teasing tone here. I now HC that Mario calls Luigi his bestest buddy whenever he wants something from him

To Peach: "Looks like I need to start picking some flowers for your victory bouquet, Princess Peach!"

THIS. MAN. IS. SMITTEN.

To Waluigi: "I hate to fraternize with my brother's nemesis, but it looks like we're going to have to work together! Let's swap shops, Waluigi!" To Waluigi: "What!? Waluigi's about to win!? I don't think Luigi is going to be too happy about that…"

Interestingly, we get to see the Waluigi / Luigi rivalry acknowledged by someone outside of them. I do like the implication that out of principal, Mario avoids anyone who has beef with Luigi.

Luigi

”Eek! No one told me there would be gh-gh-ghosts here! I wish I'd brought my Poltergust 3000 with me.” (The Ghost Ship)

LUIGI'S MANSION REFERENCE!! An obvious one, but it makes me happy whenever it's referenced regardless

"Leaping lasagna! This place is even bigger than Peach's Castle!" (Castle Trodain) "This place is wackadoodle! It's turning my brain into spaghetti!" (Good Egg Galaxy)

HE DID IT HE SAID THE FOOD JOKE THINGS!!!!

"Looks like my bro really cleaned this place up! I hope they gave him the key to the city!" (Delfino Plaza)

this one is just, so pure and cute???? supportive Luigi confirmed??

To player: "Hey, (player's name)! I'm Luigi! Oh, you've heard of me? I'm so flattered I think I'm blushing!"

This is also so cute and a bit sad - he thinks it's amazing that someone has heard of him enough to know his name outside of just "Mario's little brother"

"This game has got my mustache all mussed up! Where's my little comb?"

Implying he carries a comb with him specifically for brushing and cleaning up his mustache! Which makes total sense, considering these other lines of dialogue from him;

"I take a quick time-out to trim my mustache, and someone buys up almost all the shops! What gives?" "Ack! One shop left? All I did was take a minute to trim my sideburns… I need to stop doing that!" "Who bought up all the shops? Guess I was too busy grooming the 'stache to pay attention to the game…"

A lot of people interpret Luigi as very neat and tidy and almost obsessively keeps himself cleaned, and this dialogue most certainly solidifies that! People pointed out in the recent film that Luigi's hair is also a lot neater than Mario's, which lends to this idea. Apparently more than once he's been so focused on grooming his mustache and hair that he's missed something important lol

"It's not so bad being in second place. As a matter of fact, it feels just right! I wonder why that is…"

Ohhhh buddy,,,,,, the eternal player 2 mood LOL

"One day I'm gonna dominate this district. Then everyone will see who's the real brains behind The Mario Bros.!"

JDSJKASDLDASKLA this is such a sibling quote. Though it is interesting considering many people consider Luigi the more strategic of the two

After player lands on a Take-a-break square: "You've been working so hard lately, (player's name). Promise me you'll take it easy on your day off!"

A lot of characters will gleefully remark that they can advance while you're on a day off when you land on a Take-a-break square, but Luigi seems to genuinely want you to take it easy and I think that's neat

To player: "Did Mario teach you to play this game, (player's name)? 'Cause you've definitely got some sweet moves, just like him!"

CUUUUUUUUUUTE Luigi thinks the world of his brother, so of course if you impress him, he will compare you to him!

After player builds a tax office: "Built yourself a tax office, (player's name)? That was a calculated move! Ha ha ha ha!"

"You got any hobbies, (player's name)? I'm into lots of things: golf, tennis, basketball, beating you at this game…"

DORK I am going to lovingly push him into a locker. This was the blueprint for "You just got a-Luigi'd!"

After building an estate agency: "I bet Princess Daisy'd be really impressed if I owned a few more shops! Help me out, estate agency!"

One of the most favourite moments for Luigi/Daisy enjoyers. Because it really is cute! He just wants to impress her!

Going bankrupt: "Bankrupt!? I'm gonna get laughed right out of the Mushroom Kingdom!"

highlighting this one just because every time I read it all I can think of is "they're beating my ass in the QRTs"

Daisy to player: "If you win, (player's name), maybe I'll invite you on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Sarasaland!" Luigi's response: "Wow, what a prize, (player's name)! I wish I was in your shoes!" Daisy to player: "Yay! You got your salary, (player's name)! I guess that means you'll drop by my shop soon, right?" Luigi's response: "Wow, Princess Daisy! You're good…"

THIS. MAN. IS. ALSO. SMITTEN. I find it so funny that both Mario and Luigi are so head over heels for their respective princess GFs.

Waluigi to player: "Hope you're comfortable in last place, (player's name), 'cause that's where you belong!" Luigi's response: "Knock it off, Waluigi! I'm pretty sure you're the one who belongs in last place!" Waluigi: "Luigi, (player's name)… Is there anyone they DON'T let into this thing?" Luigi's response: "Ha ha! You're one to talk, Waluigi! How did YOU get on the guest list?"

LUIGI, KILL!!!!

More of the Waluigi / Luigi rivalry, and it's interesting to see someone who is usually more timid and soft spoken like Luigi be so confrontational and angry addressing someone who is clearly getting on his nerves. Waluigi seems to be one of the few people who can really push his buttons like that.

Mario to player: "Nice job, (player's name)! You're a real hero - just like Mario!" Luigi's response: "I wish Mario would call me a hero sometime…"

The post I linked before delves a bit more into this, but Luigi has a couple of dialogue lines about wishing Mario would think more highly of him. It doesn't come across as out of spite or disdain; it just reads as a younger sibling wishing he could impress his big brother who he looks up to. But as we all know, Mario clearly thinks the world of Luigi and he even shows it in this game;

Mario to Luigi: "Great job, Bro! Ha ha! You're my hero!"

They care about each other and I will hear NO arguments.