#actually im kind of just this way fundamentally i think but especially with Thing I Spend Time Thinking About Daily sdkjfjsdklfh

[cerealmonster15]

kiss marry kill crewel trein vargas

WHFJWKJFKLDSJF wait omg i gotta think about this one for a minute. i love overthinking these things LOL!!! hang on lemme try and make a case for them all, weigh the pros and cons before deciding...

so like im pretty close in age to vargas and crewel so that gives them a bias to the first two but fksdjfhsdj i do like trein 😔 i like how much he cares about his cat and his students and his daughters 🥺 hes been married before and it SOUNDS like hes had a pretty loving family relationship from what we've heard. i feel like that makes a decent case for marriage, also he's a cat lover and im a cat lover so tbh not a bad consideration. HOWEVER he is still old enough to be my father and has a more old fashioned way of life that i think maybe would clash a lil jkdjfskf

vargas is so funny but hes so stressful LOL JFKLDSJFSDLJ i'm obsessed with his vargas camp thing. like he's so nuts for that... taking the children camping and then kidnapping and hunting them for sport to train them or whatever the hell his plan was there. and roping crewel into the second one lol 😭😭😭 it's so bonkers but it's soooo funny. like i think he'd stress me out w/how fitness oriented he is (I enjoy physical activities and i practice martial arts but lowkey his fixation reminds me a little of my father and i dont like that association LOL 😬) BUT i do love comedy. so i could be swayed i suppose. maybe. jsdklfhsg

and then crewel is def very pretty but also stressful LOL DSJKFLSD THERYE ALL STRESSFUL this is the game about stressful characters after all. his temper scares me but i do like that he also cares about his students in those moments where it matters,,, i also think it's very funny that he was convinced to join vargas in hunting down the children in camp fjsdklhgds AND that he's partially responsible for beanfest Being The Way That It Is. i like whenever we learn teacher lore like this kjfdsjfkl this man was too aggro of a rebel and changed the course of the game or whatever. but also hes a dog person and i have learned in my life that i generally cannot live with dogs due to how I operate as a person 😶 but considering his whole THING is that he is a MEGA DOG LOVER AND. well i think he has dogs. i assume he does. i actually cant remember if he literally does have pet dogs or just makes that his aesthetic FJKSDJFKLSJFJ i think he does. i remember he and trein at least but heads over many things and one of them being cats vs dogs l o l. i like some dogs but they do not pair well with my sound sensitivity i think it would just Not Work jfksljfldshfg

this just tells me i dont wanna marry any of them LOL ☠️ i'd pick sam if i could, hes fun i like him 😔 FDSJKFJSDKLGH but i will play by the rules ummm um um ummmm.... i dont want to kill them either lol i like them!!! i do this any time my partner throws a question like this at me too lol im like okay hang on lemme lay out the facts and think critically about the situation 🤔 KJFDLKSHFLKSDJG

okay fuck it i think marriage goes to vargas. i was close to picking trein but even looking past the age thing i still think he'd be too ~old fashioned~ w/his mindset and i very much don't care for living life traditionally,, also i dont think we know how old his daughters are exactly except that theyre 'grown up' so theyre probably around my age tbh and that would Feel Weird dsfjlkdsgh everything else was nice tho i'm sorry trein. in another life i think i wouldve liked to co-parent lucius w/u 😔 i think vargas could be fun tho. he's sillystrange and i would perhaps partake in martial arts with him. i cant decide if he'd be too scary about it and brute force his techniques [which SUCKS and is NOT FUN when people do that!!!] or if he'd be like on top of having good form and doing it well skldfhsdklfj who knows....... BUT THIS AINT ABOUT THAT I NEED TO MOVE ON!!!!!!

and then kiss. if we are going fully superficial quota here then yeah my initial thought would be kiss crewel lol he's pretty what can i say 😔

I'M SO SORRY TREIN THAT JUST LEAVES YOU LAST IN THE KILL SLOT NOOOO AUGH i tried so hard to fight for him [??? fighting myself??? whatever LOL] bc i felt like it's too cliche to be like "idk hes old" so i wanted to give him fair consideration 😭😭😭 I LIKE HIM!!!!! I LIKE THE FACULTY!!!!!!!

anyway thank u this fully distracted me for like 30 minutes LOL um. who would u pick tho 👀

EDIT I CHANGED MY MIND

[genderkoolaid]

expand on ur "mental asylum Marxism shit" thing about children & grief?? from what you've said im pretty sure i will relate from my own experiences as a grieving child. also it sounds interesting!!

so i was thinking about how weird it is that, when a child has to deal with the death of a loved one, they say something like "no child should have to go through this! no child should have to even think about death!" which strikes me as weird because i was a child who dealt with the deaths of multiple close family members, very close together. the first was my great-grandmother, who i lived with and who was my best friend. death was never foreign to me (my mom has always been very death-positive on top of all that). grief was just part of my life like everything else was.

but i realized that its because people think childhood should not have any flaws. you should be 100% happy and fulfilled all the time. any time a child experiences anything painful, its bad. not "children should have access to love and support," but "children should not have basic life experiences because the idea of childhood being anything other than fluffy purity scares me."

because children in society are fundamentally not people. especially in a society structured around christian beliefs in natural law theory, that what is natural = what is good, healthy, and Divinely commanded. so on top of children being the property of adults, they are also forced to be the symbols of Nature. whatever is the most useful to whoever needs them. which means we built up this idea of children as tabula rasas, pureness incarnate. like a magic mirror where if we look into it, we'll be able to catch a glimpse of the true face of humanity. every single thing children do can be scrutinized for some grand truth about humans as a whole. and then, the ways children are treated also reflect how we think humanity should interact with its own nature.

example: the idea of humanity as inherently sinful and wicked, with that urge needing to be suppressed through state violence (hello hobbes) = the idea that children are annoying and shitty on purpose and need to be forced via punishment into being Good Citizens.

this is also why children cannot be trans, even though all trans people must prove that we were trans children. being queer must be unnatural; and even if not, its inherently sexual, and sexuality is dirty and bad. so children can't be trans, and they also can't read books on puberty until their parents decide when and what exactly they are allowed to learn. child victims of sexual assault only matter to the extent that they can be used as a symbol of a cultural threat; calling Jewish or trans people pedophiles means saying that they are foreigners attacking basic human nature, and indirectly, Divine command. if you aren't the right kind of victim, or when you inevitably reveal yourself to be A Person with complicated experiences and opinions, you are no longer of use to the agenda.

it sucks that bad things happen to anyone. aspects of youth can exacerbate the pain sometimes, but sometimes it does the reverse: I wish I could have spent more time with the family members I lost, but I know other people who are glad they loss family members young, because they weren't really hurt by it. I think the main thing is that, even sometimes when we talk about our past selves, we project this cultural idea of Child As Purity and ignore the actual person having the experience. when we "empathize" with children by projecting Purity onto them, we aren't actually connecting with them.

[frownyalfred]

every day i slog through various a/b/o tags looking for a) interesting speculative evolution worldbuilding and/or b) actually hot sex. and every day when i find nothing i go "hmmmmm i could always go back to TheResurrectionist....." so i just want to say thank you for writing such good a/b/o verse and im rlly glad that im not the only person out here thinking about what kind of ways society would change if a/b/o dynamics were real! (and also writing interesting sex scenes)

Thank you so much! I'm really lucky to have such curious anons who are always pushing me to expand and explain my a/b/o worldbuilding. It's a really fascinating lens to look at human behavior through, especially since so many things change but there are some fundamental things that really don't.

Someone commented on one of my coral room fics about how seeing Lex talk about struggle with omegahood really made them think about their own encounters with misogyny and womanhood, and that made me really happy! Because I wanted the omegas in this fic to be more than just sex toys, their secondary gender is integral to the story in a way beyond just sex. It forms the basis for so much of Bruce and Jason's self-hatred, which informs the decisions they make after that. Big decisions, like coming back to Gotham guns blazing or trying to kill Superman.

But also yeah, the possibilities of sex and instinct are also so appealing to me. Especially in such a gender essentialist society. I read a fic once about an omega who didn't mind sex but hated getting knotted, full stop, never could convince them otherwise. And that just stuck out to me, as something that felt so grounded? Idk. I'm rambling.

[mythalism]

I really love your metas! I have a few questions and I’m very interested in your opinion.

Could you elaborate on how you interpret Solas’s romantic connection with Mythal and his love for Lavellan? In the game, there is a line stating that before Lavellan, Solas had never been in love and didn’t even know what it was, which makes me question the idea of romance with Mythal.

I played Inquisition only after Veilguard and was surprised that many perceive Solas as someone capable of casual sexual encounters without emotional depth. In his romance with Lavellan, he seems utterly captivated by her and incredibly respectful, he practically radiates tenderness and deep adoration toward her. Such behavior doesn’t seem believable to me for a man with extensive sexual experience. To me he seemed more like a demisexual. His love for the atmosphere of intrigue and tension didn’t convince me of his sexual 'promiscuity'. After all, one can enjoy that kind of atmosphere without actually engaging in physical pleasures. He seems very restrained when it comes to his physical body. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he had no sexual experience at all or if his experience was extremely limited. I also got the impression that Mythal wouldn’t have lowered herself to her 'doggo' in that regard.

thank you dear <3 im always happy to yap

for me, the moment i saw that mural of mythal stepping away from solas's embrace and calling him "love", i went "oh my god they were lovers" and nothing has successfully convinced me otherwise since LMAO. obviously the game very deliberately leaves it up for interpretation, and i totally understand why people dont interpret it as such. however i do think the game does deliberately suggest it for the people who want to run with it, but subtly enough that you can ignore it if you want. for me, "i will follow you wherever you go", calling him "love", his request that she basically run away with him, the resentment between them afterwards, all reads like romantic love to me. i also just enjoy the crazy fucking drama that the idea of them being lovers adds to literally everything. it especially adds to solavellan in my opinion, though many would argue it takes away. i think it adds juiciness and context. i also think many of the parallels to solavellan further suggest that solythal was romantic. but i also think calling them just lovers is incomplete, the same way i think calling them just friends or just vaguely mother/son, queen/knight, goddess/devotee or whatever else would incomplete. their relationship clearly does not conform to modern thedas's idea of love; both bellara and mythal herself say this and i believe them. mythal herself says no one mortal could understand their connection and its one of my favorite lines of hers. how could we ever understand what its like to love someone for thousands and thousands of years? what shapes might that love take over millennia? all of them, i'd wager.

just because i believe they were lovers does not mean i think their relationship resembled anything like what he has with lavellan. i think the immortal nature of their love is the key to the distinction. i dont think they were every anything remotely resembling monogamous. their relationship was fundamentally unequal (so is solavellan but in a different way lol). mythal probably used the amorphous nature of their relationship as a tool for manipulation. while solas was devoted and loyal, she was hot and cold. veilguard weirdly forgets this, but according to myth she was MARRIED (or the ancient equivalent) to elgar'nan this whole time too. it is elgarnan who is the sun, and mythal who is the moon, and solas the wolf that howls after it LMFAOOO. solas was quite literally secret third thing. he loved her like a goddess. she loved him like her loyal guard dog. he knew it and resented her for it but could not help loving her still. i dont think this makes it any less romantic love, it just makes it really fucked up romantic love, unrecognizable from how we'd recognize it, or how modern thedas would.

@/baphometsss wrote a banger the other day about how solas's love for mythal and felassan differs from his love for those he meets later (lavellan but also his friends in the inquisition) because his relationship with them is characteristic of how spirits love. i really loved this interpretation because even though i dont agree with all of it (which ill get to in a moment), i think people do misunderstand what i mean when i say i am a solythal lovers truther, and this post clarifies it. solas loves mythal in the way immortal spirit god-beings love each other. solas loves lavellan the way a mortal man loves a mortal woman. both can be romantic, both can involve sex, but the core of the love is very different; especially when the crux of solas's story is learning to be a man instead of a spirit/god.

i know a lot of people interpret that line (assuming you're talking about the "the dread wolf could not foresee what it would mean to fall in love") as meaning the dread wolf has never been in love and honestly... i have never understood that interpretation. like if thats your vibe and you choose to take it that way because you wanna headcanon it, amazing. have a great time. but i see so many people taking it as gospel as if it literally says "solas has never experienced love before" which it simply does not say. it says he could not have anticipated what it would mean to fall in love, and to me, there is a big "now, in 9:41 dragon, with a mortal woman" implicit at the end. im making assumptions about the intention too, but i think both are fundamentally interpretations, and the game once again does not say for certain either way. i think they did this intentionally the way they kept the nature of the solythal relationship vague. but yeah i dont interpret it that lavellan is solas's first love. i think mythal is, sorry LOL. but it doesnt really matter because their relationship was a fucking mess and he resents her just as much as he loves her so who cares.

this is just something i was pondering earlier when i first saw this message this morning but i think this is where the distinction between immortal godly vs. mortal human love comes back into play. i am not sure that immortal beings would be capable of love in the same way that mortals are, because there is no threat of loss. imagine how different it would be to love without the inevitability of grief? all the time in the world, all the power you could ever want. what would that look like? how would it feel? would you love as deeply if you knew it was eternal? now imagine that changes; suddenly you are powerless. suddenly, you have so much to lose. how would love feel, then? it makes me think of that quote that is always attributed to the illiad but is actually from the 2004 movie troy and written by david benioff which makes me want to fucking die but anyway the quote is relevant nonetheless; "the gods envy us because we are mortal... everything is more beautiful because we're doomed." i think falling in love with lavellan forces solas into an understanding of love he has never experienced before. and it fucks him up really bad. lavellan's mortality forces solas into the desperate, frantic, tragic mindset of a man in love with a ticking clock. we see time and time again that he cannot act like a god around her. he tries at first. he fails and cracks every time. he sees her in trespasser and literally falls to his knees to kiss her one last time. in veilguard he reveals that it was a relief that she allowed him to just be himself. i think what makes solas's love for lavellan unique and special is not that its his first, but that it is humanizing. mythal required solas to become a god to serve her purpose. he loved her through it all even if it ruined him. lavellan asked for absolutely nothing except the truth. he loved her through it all and it ended up saving him. to me, both are romantic loves that achieve very, very different ends.

now to get to the sex. the interpretation of solas as someone who Fucks mostly comes from 1. his mind-boggling age, 2. his comments about being very different when he was young; "hot-blooded and cocky", and 3. the comfort with which he pretty explicitly flirts with lavellan. in my interpretation, all of these things do indicate at least a level of confidence and experience with sex, though not necessarily a raging libido. i agree that solas is probably demisexual, at least when we meet him. i think it makes sense with his nature as a spirit. but i also dont think that means he never had casual sex ever in his THOUSANDS of years of life. or that he didnt have plenty of emotionally charged sexual experiences, rather than casual ones. i mean we are talking a lifespan of at LEAST 7,600 YEARS. AT LEAST! we even know that spirits fuck from a codex in trespasser LMFAO. i dont think its fair to say that his tenderness and adoration with lavellan excludes him from having fucked crazy style in his youth. i do think that sex is not at the top of his mind, and that he still clearly struggles with the mortal impulse of sexual desire that his body would have created, and that his instinct is to deny himself those desires. i just dont see him always having been that way, and i think his comments support that he was different when he was young. i just dont know how a virgin would slip in that indomitable focus line so smoothly you dont even realize what he just implied until you walk away and realize you're blushing. i do think sex and physical intimacy is an important part of his relationship to lavellan though, whether it is present or absent, because its consistent with this theme of the physical versus the spiritual, god versus man that he is constantly struggling with. i am trying to tie this all together but honestly ive lost the plot. asexual solas is valid and actually a lot of what i love about solavellan is that sex is relevant thematically but it is not the foundation of the relationship. i always like to say that sex haunts their relationship, a heavy presence just out of frame that both of them are trying not to look towards. i think its soooo juicy. but i also just like the idea that young cocky solas who canonically used to gambled also was a playboy. come on he NEEDS to get that hair pulled

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/768731859531235328/im-a-cis-woman-who-sometimes-likes-to-roleplay-as?source=share

yeah, anon, along with people pointing out that drag is a thing that exists and most drag queens/kings identify as cis outside of that performance (though plenty don't), there's also all kinds of sexual roleplay that doesn't involve wanting to be that thing 24/7. lots of people love to play "doctor" who have no desire to actually go to medical school and become real doctors, because the sexy version is fundamentally different from the non-sexy one. why would playing with gender be any different from that? of course it's true that some people do try those things on as kinks and then it awakens something in them - in the same way that most of us who are into anime knew a "guy" who really liked crossdressing cosplay and would always jump at the chance to do it, and now that person is, well, no longer a guy. sometimes it can be a way to try on an identity that you are considering but not yet sure about. likewise, there are more than a few drag queens who end up realizing that they are trans women down the line. but many more who don't! anyway, my point was that i went through this journey. i used to have a lot of fantasies about having sex as a man specifically, with both men and women - and i played with the idea that i might be trans or genderfluid. but for me, i realized that a lot of the appeal of it was that it was temporary, something i could turn on and off at will (and not just in the sense of gender-expression, but like a complete physical transformation). i wasn't interested in being a man if it meant i stayed a man. i still wanted to be a woman most of the time. (also, i identified as bisexual at the time and these fantasies largely went away around when i realized i was actually a lesbian. i'm not sure what exactly that says, maybe that it was more rooted in anxiety around women's expected "role" in sex than it was about actually wanting to be a man? maybe that the idea of being with a man was more appealing if it was gay, closer to the thing i really wanted? who knows) from when i've talked to trans people about this, a lot of them say it's easy for someone for whom the answer was "i'm trans" to in retrospect see signs everywhere - and therefore assume that the same signs mean the same to other people. and of course, they often feel like they lost years of their lives to an identity that didn't fit them - of course they want to save others from the same fate! but it's just that we all have a bias toward seeing the world through the lenses of our own experiences. that it meant one thing for them doesn't mean it means the same for you, especially in isolation. most cis people aren't totally wedded to everything about our genders, either, and a lot of us play around and experiment with gender in our own ways. (so basically, i see it as similar to those "comphet lesbian checklists" that were floating around tumblr a few years ago - yeah, a lot of those can be signs you might be a budding lesbian, but half the shit on that list is true for women who turn out to be completely heterosexual, too, a lot of it's just about the bullshit of female puberty) again, useful to think of it like anything else. religion is one that comes to mind: oftentimes, a strong hyperfixation on a particular religion or the culture surrounding it can be an early sign that you want to convert to that religion. lots of muslim converts, for instance, talk about being fixated on middle-eastern/north african culture or islamic history for years before they converted. but also, there are just as many if not more people where those hyperfixations turn out to be fleeting ones, or even where it remains a lifelong passion but is purely academic (you meet a lot of them in academia, naturally).

--

[qoldenskies]

prev ask abt donnie being all sparkly eyed abt twin sense and leo shutting his mouth and letting his (little) brother have this eeeeeeee /pos

also would love to hear you talk more abt raph+leo and donnie+mikey dynamics

i could talk for hoooours about raph and leo's dynamic specifically because they are SO interesting and im sure it shines through in the way that i write them at least a little, because i do like getting the chance to pair them together and make them riff off each other. what can i say, they're fun when they're bickering about nothing (or, they're actually bickering about something but leo gets offended and derails it and raph takes the bait) and they're fun when they get along and comfortably colead, or when they just have one whole braincell when they put their heads together

i also really enjoy the potential of a post-movie dynamic where when leo is more comfortably situated into a leadership role being a really important voice of reassurance for raph, more than he already is at least. leo could come in and help calm raph down and tell him it's not so bad/it's going to be okay, but i think raph KNOWING there's someone else who knows how to care of everything is going to seriously help his blood pressure lmfao. especially because leo responds to stress more competently and is a lot better at making structured plans on the fly.

honestly i would love to see more hurt/comfort or whump with these two where raph is the one going Through It especially because leo is actually pretty protective of him in canon, he always gets the MOST upset/offended when people fuck with raph in particular. leo knows very very well that raph is easily upset and he gets angry when people push him around and take advantage of that. unless he gets to do it but if he did raph totally had it coming (/lie)

and when i talk about how second oldest leo feels key to their dynamic i mostly mean when it comes to their conflict like ... raph holds leo to a higher standard than he does anyone else, at first at least. he's always telling him to take responsibility, trying to catch him out in a lie, and arguing with him about the way forward,, and like, leo having a more contrarian personality and being easily suspicious of people (especially because he's so perceptive) is a big reason for this, but i think raph and leo kind of being in their own camp as the oldest two would explain this trait and explain why raph puts so much focus on leo shaping up specifically. i also notice that raph is a lot more comfortable making fun of leo which plays into it LOL

^^^ and post-movie a lot of these problems are resolved-- raph learned pretty early on (in bug busters, probably) that taking things seriously and not listening to leo just for the sake of it was only going to lead them into danger, and in the movie leo learned that being uncooperative and petulant as a defense mechanism was only going to hurt his family and himself by extension-- but i also think there's a lot of angst potential in this dynamic on both sides tbh. it's pretty apparent they fought/fight so much because they fundamentally just misunderstand each other. leo is trying to 4D chess his way out of this unwanted responsibility but it doesnt work at all on raph who is so direct-- raph just keeps trying to lecture leo and make him understand because he's not picking up any of leo's cues at all. really all of their problems would be solved by direct communication but leo would rather die than do that (<- kind of literally? he comes close) and raph doesn't really strike me as someone who's very good at articulating himself and laying all his cards out on the table, he has a lot of emotions that are difficult to put into words. means they can scuffle lots and that's fun

[prof-peach]

Bit ooc but I have a question. How you do go about planing out your PLA comic? Like how do you actually turn your ideas/ storyline into comic form? Is it chapter to chapter or do you have the whole idea already planned out? Trying to find my own way in comic making so I’m just wondering if you could give any advice. Feel free to ignore if you don’t feel comfortable answering

So, at first this was al i could think to send.

because its incredibly accurate to my process.

Jokes aside, a lot of how i work is back and forth chaos, fighting with ideas until im happy with them. I will start with a list (usually not written down because im unhinged and keep a ot of it in my brain) and organise it in a way that makes sense to the situation, in this case workign with a game with an established plot...not that its a very strong one.

with a set of ideas, and a game to work around i will ramble and rant to a few choice people who i bounce well off, and also stare into space for hours on end building the ideas. This process can be days, it can be years. For context, i have some notes from 2019 about things i wanted to include that are still relevant. I have been scheming how to break and rebuild this OC for ages. Theres no correct time frame, so long as you simply do the work.

Once i have a fairly loose plan, i start to solidify the benning and the end. What is required to make a character compelling, what makes them believable, what makes them human in a way that we recognise. this isnt always a positive thing, people like to call characters who do bad things problematic, but its human nature to make mistakes and be damaged or difficult, the process of the story is not always rainbows and sunshine. For me, this hits even harder, as im trying to tell a story from the perspective of someone fundamentally broken, so showing those breaks and cracks has to be done wisely.

This is the point where i make notes about things that need to change from the start to the end. And ill say one thing, this story in particular, I have not solidly planned the middle. I am allowing space for me to come up with new ideas at points. Being locked into a dead set of ideas can be quite limiting, and as creators we consume and process things constantly to generate new stories. Id be a fool to make a plan and stick to it. everything i do is vague guidelines.

However, I know exactly how the story ends in Hisui, and where it goes to from there. And i think me personally knowing the end goal makes it easier to plot steps towards that, and some of those steps are anything but progressive.

If nothing else, the end was the only thing i saw clearly, and it has only become more complex and loaded and emotional as the rest of this has fallen into place. If you can see the goal, you can work out how to get there with time.

Regarding the chapters, i tend to draft plan up like 3-4 of them at a time, and then go in order to sketch out one after the other, so i have plenty of time to change things while i adjust. its constantly a process of seeing what you make, seeing issues, and scrapping whole parts just to redraw something better or new, unique even. I dont think a single page ive posted has resembled the very VERY first draft thumbnail ive made, and thats just how i do. Every panel, how big they are, the angle you hand the viewer, the way you light things, the expressions, this all dictates SO SO much.

Taking time over it is kind of the job, and let me stress, this is normally a job done by a team, especially the highly popular comics. one inks, one colours, one shades, one handles text, one edits, theres so many people behind it, so dont be bothered by the pace at which things are made if youre working alone like i am. One person means longer production times, if you can, spread the workload out, but its not required. Its why i always say it doesnt matter how long it takes to make, so long as youre still making.

I think its also worth noting, comics are consumed quickly, the bakcgournds and small details can be lost in the ace of the storytelling, pick and choosing your battles is wise, save your time on panels where you want the reader to shift along quicker, keep that pace high, and add in more detail and depth to panels you want to champion or get the viewers to hang around on more. its ok to let go of a "perfect" image in favour of getting content out, if youre being driven nuts by it. Again, time be damned, be happy with it. And if you can let go of petty details, id suggest doing it when possible, so long as it doesnt effect the storytelling.

I mean what else can i even say. This work is a passion project, I love it, more than i can even put into words, and i think you kind of have to, to make comics without monetary motivation. sure you can get lucky and find ways to make it big, but for most of us, its the love of the story. So maybe try not to be your biggest hater, its easy to slip into the behaviour, so try be gentle on yourself and the process. I should take that advice myself haha! but i really do mean it. This is HARD work, so be kind to yourself over it.

anyway, with a rough idea, a bunch of sketches, and time, they get inked and fussed over, i make a billion changes to layout and story, and eventually posting can happen but not after fighting with the monster that is creating. Idk what else i can say. This is not work for the feint of heart, but anyone can learn to do it.

Good luck, comic artists can always use it!

[hellonerf]

im just wondering, could you expand on how you see americas character? im really interested in how you characterize him and how much youve thought him through.. especially the deeper parts of his personality .

wow this is very sweet 😖❤️ i'm flattered whenever people say they like my characterization(usually i assume people think i'm crazy or something). um i don't really know where to begin here. if you're curious most of the most notable things in my mind i put in the "ame bible" tag on this blog. 😊 i have an old drawing from march that has like most of the "core" parts of my ame written down but i don't like the drawing anymore so i'll just list down what i wrote that time here ->

> going with canon that he's physically 19 maybe 20ish. i think a youthful boyish demeanor suits him -> adding on to this, a pretty important part of him to me is that he is immature. most of the time the maturity he can show is performative and comes from imitation. that plays into another thing i think about him where he imitates normal people's emotional/social interactions without really "getting it"(why i say he's emotionally inept)

> often susceptible to paranoia and (to some degree) a kind of neurosis -> my add-on for this is that i'd just wipe out the "to some degree" i only wrote that back then because i was shy about my hcs LOL. he's neurotic. he is

> he is difficult to deal with... annoying, frustratinng, exhausting (ambiguous mental disorder lol) -> still true. i still have "ambiguous mental disorder" floating around him whenever i think about him lol. mostly only because he'd never acknowledge it so it'd never be talked about

> thoughts are contradictory often--high anount of cognitive dissonance (doesn't dwell too long on these) -> again still true, kinda plays into the "emotionally inept" thing to me? because he doesn't like actual examination his thoughts get tied around in knots like this. and he doesn't look at them enough to untie it so it just keeps building up 🤷‍♂️

> need for attention often reaches heights he's unaware of -> i feel like i didn't word this that clearly. i meant it in that he is an attention seeker and he knows he is but he doesn't know just how far he'd actually go for it until he keeps pushing it. i think this kind of thing still needs a catalyst for him of course(like someone withholding that attention for example lol...)

> 100 step skincare routine akin to patrick bateman or cassie euphoria -> lol true

> fundamentally lonely, or he'd believe himself to be -> nowadays i'd scratch this to just be fundamentally lonely. maybe it's not entirely true but i think it's applicable by itself. it is kind of self inflicted like this though

> some kind of self pity but only the right amount that he doesn't ever better himself -> lol true

> (doesn't dwell on how he treats others partly due to this)(he seems to not dwell on anything emotional in his point of view) -> i'm kind of laughing at how vague my wording in these are because i was so shy about my headcanons 😊 chill out... anyways i think this is still true also that he is cruel to others and it feeds into how he thinks because otherwise he would have to confront how cruel he can be and that conflicts with his self image hard. in his eyes he's reliable and cool and powerful and he treats people badly but "only if they deserve it! only if they had it coming!". if he dwells too long this whole idea crumbles(throwing back to the cognitive dissonance thing). he's not at worst a trickster hero, he's just not a hero at all. but even if i think his hero gimmick is played up and he somewhat knows its not serious it's still a part of how he views himself. like he's thinking maybe he's a little arrogant a little narcissistic but he's not bad! in a way he IS the hero people just deny it! that kind of thinking

> fake but sometimes he doesn't view it that way, sometimes he does -> what i just said about my old vague wording lol... anyways. he's fake this is just the truth. he knows somewhat he's fake (actor moment) but it's not like. he doesn't see it the same way other people would? to him it's just social sleuthing. it's just here and there to get things done 🤷‍♂️ as far as anyone besides himself know, it's kind of his entire being. like he doesn't perceive how big his lies are lol

> in the end he likes to think of himself as better and more put together than he is, but he is not capable of not being "himself" one way or another -> ? why did i insist on wording these in the most confusing ways possible. but well yeah he thinks he's more in control, of himself specifically, than he actually is. on his self image too.

> more self aware than he wants to be, not as self aware as he thinks he is -> it'd be great to him if he was genuinely unaware of how he is at all. but he's also playing up how much he acknowledges about himself here

> a lot of him smells of artifice. but physically he smells like mostly a clean, chemical scent (like drycleaner) -> i still stand by this! i guess it depends on where he is though? if i had to choose another scent it'd be like a soda or something. or depending on the region or something. but most of the time i think he smells like this

> comparatively low pain tolerance but still bashes his head on walls and gets into fights -> i think he's a stupid baby who actually doesn't do that well with pain. i guess compared to other countries is what i mean? i mean i think it depends on the current state of the country too. instead of sharp pains he's dizzy or something... but he has elaborate forms of self harm anyways

> bad with tears of any kind from anyone (actually seriously insensitive) -> true! i think about ame crying now more often than i did back then, but it's still true. he doesn't cry a lot and he's actually good at not crying. it's not like he had to train himself to cry less it's just not a need most of the time. his negative emotional responses are sanded out usually. when someone else cries he is genuinely really out of his element. if he's not being deliberately cruel he's really awkward with it

> body often bounces between more chub or muscle depending on how obsessive he gets about it, basically never skinny but i still suck at bodies -> i would hope i've improved at drawing bodies at this point 😭 i lean into drawing more chub on him because drawing muscle seriously pisses me off. and he's cuter like that 😊. anyways this still applies! but i should say when he's being obsessive about how his body looks he doesn't accept "excess fat" (he doesn't have a good view on this). if he's trying to be muscular it's in the particular kind of impossible model way, not in the way of natural muscle gain. and i don't think he'd like being skinny. his ideal body is a specific one that he has to work to maintain(which makes everything worse when he's really fucked up about it)

> not normal about food but we all knew this already -> playing into the previous point. ame my princess. sorry(he's killing me with rocks) but it's still true! in the way i described before. it's always true we all knew this already. i think in terms of eating disorder it's more like ? a binge eating disorder? i don't really know specifically. things he feels he should have control over but he doesn't. mentally devastating

> sometimes genuinely apathetic, sometimes idgafness played up -> self explanatory i think sorry my fingers are starting to hurt

okayyy that's all pretty much 😊 well no not all. if you're really curious just read through my posts because ame insanity is in all of them and i'm serious. important things unmentioned : all of these every single one applies to my genderbend ame i think this is obvious but i need to say it they are functionally the same person in my mind. if i had to think what makes me think of ame like this it's probably cause before i reread or rewatched hetalia i watched the musicals first lol. but to be honest i think this is just how he is in my mind? like even without the musicals i'd just view him like this. partly because of my own view of the united states of america as an entity, as a foreigner. ame as a concept and such and such... i was so shy about these headcanons then because it was straight up how i viewed his mental state like i couldn't view it any other way if i tried. this is my default read of ame and i didn't want someone to be like you're fucking insane? thankfully people like it somehow. thank you for reading all of this if you did ❤️ bye my hands hurt

[foundnthestars]

SKY IM GONNA LOSE MY MIND!!!!! THE CHAPTER!!!! AHHHHHH MY BOYS!!!!

God I can't word anything correctly because I'm so caught up in how much I love it all!! The "sad little kid and disabled old man" act was really funny. I feel like Mabel is gonna get on their asses for that as soon as she learns about it.

I said it in my Ao3 comment but I'll say it again, I loved the scene with the translator implants!!! Dipper getting all worked up about it is so relatable. Me too buddy. Excited to see where their new literacy takes them, but also kind of sad that we don't get anymore of the incredibly funny dynamic of "worlds most anxious preteen boy does all the talking while the worlds best conman has to Just Stand There"

AND THE BONDING!!! AND THE CONVERSATION AT THE END ABOUT FORD!!!! AND DIPPER'S GUILT!!!!! AHHHH ITS ALL SO GOOD! I love it so much!!!!!!!!!! Million kudos :D

THANK YOU COPPER!!! your support is so, so appreciated — i really hope you know that!!! the mutual excitement for this fic really keeps me going! you are seriously the best. :)

oh, mabel is for sure going to have some Words. she's going to get on their asses about that and about a billion more things. i think when some time passes this bit will be something they look back on with some kind of humor. like dipper and stan will be closer than ever, joking about those few weeks when dipper was constantly giving him shit and hardly speaking to him. like it wont be funny, per se, but they'll be so close that it'll almost feel like a fever dream to look back on, and they'll all share a little laugh looking back at this time. especially the "worlds most anxious preteen boy does all the talking while the worlds best conman has to Just Stand There" bit. mabel will be extremely pleased that her forcing them to play charades ended up paying off.

but all that being said, stan was right in saying that mabel couldn't care less about dipper's criminal activity. as in, she won't think differently of him or be disappointed. dipper's internal monologue was a little idealistic of mabel. in reality, as we see in the traditional drifting stars au, mabel would've had to do similar things to survive. dipper is so hard on himself and anxious that he assumes that he's a fundamentally immoral person and that everyone else in his life (namely his sister) is good and better and incapable of "failing" in the ways that he does.

i think dipper will naturally get desensitized to this feeling because he'll have to. stealing will become one of the top ways they scrape by, so it follows that he'll have to get over his moral values a bit and find a way to rationalize his behavior even though it's in direct opposition to his values. i kind of had to grapple with canon (where stan's criminal activity is played off as a joke nine times out of ten) and actually try to have the characters grapple with this because theft is not a victimless crime, after all. i think as they continue to figure it out and dipper grows older, they'll make more of a pact to try to take from people who are well off. stealing from big corporations and the wealthy ✅ stealing from individuals and small businesses ❌

unfortunately they didnt have a lot of options this chapter.

and AHH, the translator scene! poor dipper. i almost had him pass out at that scene just to make it more relatable and cause i think it fits his character but i wanted to give him a break. but really, uh... are these guys ok? are they eating enough? i should probably know that. also as im writing this im realizing i didnt actually include them drinking any water these past few chapters. everyone assume they've been boiling lake water these past few weeks, okay?

i was really in a rush to get these guys talking and reading and hearing again. the amount of times i wrote dialogue between stan and dipper this chapter and then remembered, oh shit, stan actually still can't hear anything, was WILD. and also the scene where dipper's looking for acksyien's shop wasn't possible without a side character helping him recognize the alien word on the building since they couldn't read yet. it made for some fun world-building, but these new translators will make those things easier. my favorite implied bit i think is that stan and dipper's interdimensional translator collar was basically a giant beacon/sign that announced "i can't read!" to everyone around them.

I'M SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED!! thank you again for all the support. im happy to write all the bonding and there's more where that came from. more, even. a bunch of crazy stuff is about to happen — some of it good, some of it real bad, but at least they'll have each other every step of the way.

probably. hehe.

[yuri-is-online]

I hope im not the only one who finds it kinda annoying when people write mc/prefect as someone who doesn't have basic table manners just so they can be taught by riddle in riddle x readers, or if they're slovenly and ungraceful just so vil can chide and "fix" them in vil x readers, or any other incompetent reader/yuu x competent LI dynamics out there. I know readers are supposed to be "empty" and flexible for many kinds of readers, but it started to feel alot like self-depreciation for me.

I can't say I've seen too many fics with this specific set up, but there's a pretty good chance I ignored and forgot about them. I am more familiar with the Vil concept though, at least I think? But either way I think the issue you might be finding with these things is that they focus on Yuu's incompetence/inability to function as opposed to the potential for intimacy the scenario could create σ(￣、￣=)

This sort of feels like a weird point to bring up, but table etiquette and basic manners can sort of mean two different things. The type of manners you could argue Riddle would want to see expressed at tea/at an unbirthday party could be much more formal than Yuu is used to, which could make for a cute set up for a fic! Picture Riddle trying his best to teach Yuu about etiquette and finding himself having trouble keeping proper decorum, he wants to hold Yuu's hand so badly, he finds himself letting his finger brush up against the back of Yuu's hand while he tries to guide them through what fork to use... or Riddle trying to teach Yuu to dance and getting too caught up in how excited he is to touch them that he forgets to speak (,,>﹏<,,)

And with Vil, I think people like the concept of having someone dote on them and dress them up in expensive things, but there is also a fundamental misunderstanding of Vil's character that a lot of people have where they think he would see someone in basic sweats and assume they need to be "fixed." The main thing Vil desires is for people to work on self improvement and accept nothing less than the best version of themselves. He's not a Kardashian who wants everything airbrushed and the same, he even admits to being privileged in his upbringing and not understanding Neige's struggles in book 6, he's such a well rounded character, maybe the best in the entire game but back to the topic I am actually on-

Walking someone through a skin care routine or washing their hair, especially if they are having a hard time taking care of themselves due to injury or mental distress is something that can be so painfully intimate. People have different ways of caring for themselves and the VOLUMES it speaks to have someone learn and know your language of self love is sosososo important. Makeup is something Vil loves to express himself with, watching him pick out things to use on Yuu so he can express his love through his work shouldn't be about how he is "fixing" Yuu because that's not how Vil would see it. He is speaking to the beauty he already sees and enhancing it with his own, picture him slowly, deliberately, tracing a lip stain onto Yuu's lips and drawing out the process so he can experience what it is like to kiss them without breaching the delicate line his contract has forced him to walk. How he watches Yuu lick their lips later in the night and swears he can feels it; Yuu worries that they're doing something wrong when Vil keeps insisting on doing their make up because he's always so slow about it but really he just wants to place his claim on them in as subtle and intimate a way as possible.

or something i dunno this was just where my mind went

[bitchslapblastoids]

Can I ask how much you talk to your partner about Dan and Phil and how do you talk about them? As someone who is not/has not been in a serious relationship, I find it hard to imagine how I would talk to someone about this, given my level of obsession. I don’t even really talk to friends about it. Like, do you talk about fic? Do you show your partner their videos? How did/will you bring up Iceland?

You don’t have to answer this if it’s too personal- totally get it! I’m honestly just so curious when I see phannies talk about their partners who aren’t also phannies.

Hi I actually really love this question bc it’s def something I think about fairly often, bc the tension is real. I am openly thirsting over these men, I have a real life partner, I share a life with him, but I also spend like a third of my life online thinking about the lives of these two dudes….it’s a thing. Just a heads up, my answer got really long.

My partner pretty fundamentally doesn’t get Dan and Phil’s whole thing, so I don’t show him vids or talk much about specific goings-on in the d&p landscape, bc it’s just a bummer to try and articulate or share something knowing it ain’t gonna land, lol. Even trying to explain the tour each time I came home from it all giddy made me feel like language was a hindrance and an impossible barrier to surmount. It’s just so hard to explain d&p’s brilliance when you don’t have some basis of common knowledge to draw on. It’s also hard to make someone else get the inherent appeal of two people’s chemistry and connection if they aren’t inclined to gaf about that kind of thing.

But he does know pretty much the full extent of my whole thing going on here lol. He’s seen my blog, sometimes I show him a post if I’m particularly proud of it/think it’s especially funny, I’ll talk to him about mutuals I’m chatting with sometimes or things happening on here that are specific to and exciting for me…basically I’m deeply uncool about it all. And yeah he knows about my fic (he hasn’t read any and I hope to god he never will, but i talk to him about broad strokes of plot in my longer fics, and he knows i write smut as well). I’m around him all the time when im writing so it’d be a pretty massive thing to hide, plus the process of writing/publishing Bowl of Oranges and its reception was sooooooo meaningful and giddying for me, so it was kind of all I could talk about for a bit there. He was/is wonderfully supportive and is happy that I’m writing and putting stuff out there.

i talked to him about Iceland the other week when i was close to impulse buying a ticket after the tysons shows, and he was down! If i follow through with booking a flight and hotel, he would come (not to TIT just to Iceland) and we’d just make a mini trip out of it. He’s used to me spending dumb amounts on concerts and we’re still fairly independent with our finances, so the money stuff isn’t an issue.

We’ve known each other for so so so long so he really understands my obsessive personality. We’re both quite strange and atypical in our own ways and I think have learned how to grow around eachother’s oddities and be patient and curious with one another rather than judgmental.

There are times I worry about my screen time and that I’m becoming too entrenched in fandom world at the expense of physical world, and i think at times I can neglect nurturing my relationship with him/all kinds of other components of life, bc the dopamine of phannie tumblr is a powerful fucking drug. So i try and be mindful of that. Definitely something im still working on.

To be completely honest about another tricky thing - I have definitely gotten stuck in a comparison trap before, of wishing that my connection and communication with my partner was as inherently easy and joyful and silly and immediate and Dan and Phil’s seems to be. My partner and I have many different interests, so while there are tons of things we connect over, there are also tons of things we can’t really share in the joy of experiencing with one another, and sometimes I’ve held Dan and Phil up as this paragon of love in comparison, feeling salty that I didn’t have what they have. I’ve gotten over that though, bc it’s definitely on the harmful side of parasocial; we only see some of their time and lives and they obviously have differences and disagreements too, and differences are good. And to be frank, will I ever have what they have (someone you grow up with and share 99% of your interests with and can share every dimension of your life with and not burn out on their company)? Of course not. I do think it’s pretty remarkable and special and I think most people in life won’t. And that’s ok because I also feel deeply fortunate to be with the person I’m with and I choose him year after year.

To touch on an elephant in the room - telling him I write smut fic was the thing I put off the longest bc I was scared/embarassed/felt kind of guilty about it all. And then I did and it was literally so fine. Idk, he’s great and I’m very lucky. I do have to be rly mindful of how the fantasy of it can impact my sexual desire. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about Dan and Phil’s life and relationship and, let’s be honest, sex life, and so shaking myself out of that and remembering to be embodied in myself and my relationship and my sexual partner can be a challenge. This feels weird and pretty vulnerable to talk about on here bc it kind of lays bare how you really can’t just compartmentalize this shit to one tidy section of your time and brain. but I can’t imagine other people don’t also find themselves in a similar position.

In sum, I do have a hard time with balance in life, and this is all something i think I’ll always be working on finding better balance with. But it’s not hurting anyone, it’s not rly hurting me, and it’s brought a lot of joy and creativity and connection to my life, so I try not to be hard on myself about it! I’m also deeply fortunate to have a partner who gets me and accepts me and is wholly nonjudgmental.

I’d rather die than anyone else in my life see this blog though. I have a couple friends who know I write fic and have a tumblr, but only the ones who I know are also into fandoms of their own and therefore get it. I’d reeeeeeally rather die than anyone I know irl see my ao3 that’d truly be the end. 🙃🙃🙃

Ok thank you for the question clearly I have a lot to say!!!!!

[foreseers-flower]

again. im right at the start of season three so no spoilers outside of that but isaac being / identifying as sufi is so . important in contextualizing his character action, ideals, and personality ESPECIALLY because this story takes place at the height of sufist ideal in the islamic world.

this is not because i believes isaac is an especially spirtual muslim - but rather i dont think his disillusionment makes much sense if you don't understand his core values before he becomes a follower of dracula.

first, sufism is not an actual sect of islam like sunni or shia. it is probably most accurate to describe as a lens in which the faith in interpreted and practice, that places emphasis on the inward aspects and elements of the religion. it is fundamentally just islam with additional practices that are shunned / rejected by modern orthodox religion.

most muslims who would describe themselves as sufi at this time were often normally sunni muslim who subscribed to the four main scholarly houses of muslim belief. especially in the fourteen hundreds, during what was and still is considered the islamic golden era.

it is not a particularly unique thing for isaac to identify as a sufi muslim in that regard. however if your only reference for islam is modern islam - which is both deeply conservative and legalist, you will probably just see isaacs beliefs as unusual. his act of self-flagellation in particular will probably seem jarring.

sufism placed heavy importance on ritual in a way modern islam does not. orthodox islam views love as obdience, but this was not true during the islamic golden era. rather sufism viewed love for allah as a process of spiritual unification. it also focused much more heavily on the concept of a spirtual journey and emphasized kindness and high moral standard.

(this was as a result of the devotion sufists particular showed to the prophet SAW, who they believed to be the pinnacle of all of humanity. this is true of modern islam but the way sufist went about it was unique, because in order to achieve this they required a spiritual master )

codified sufist belief was structured around spiritual leadership. usually this spiritual leader was a master of some kind, someone who had close ties with the prophet (SAW). western text refers to them as saints but it is more complex than that.

in sufism, a spiritual leader often had murd (disciplies) who under went trials in order to find more spiritual enlightenment. and the last stage of islamic spiritual enlightenment in the case of sufism was the concept of fana.

AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MOSTLY.

fana in sufist doctrine is the annihilation of self. because sufism is focused on spiritual unification with both allah and the prophet (SAW), the concept of fana intended to be achieved through ritual, meditation, etc (basically all the stuff disciples practice under their saints) - the idea is that achieving this level of connection happens when you are able to let go of earthly ideals and your human ego.

fana has two interpertations. anhillation of your individual ego in order to become an instrument of gods will and/or be prepared for the enlightenment required to connect with your lord.

(there is some debate about the exact end goal, but the modern poet rumi and famous sufist believed it to be about unification over becoming an instrument)

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW FANA IS REFERRED TO IN MODERN SUFIST TEXT?

"to die before one dies," I.E. THE THING THAT ALUCARD SAYS ABOUT DRACULA AND IS VERY OVERTLY REFERENCES.

AND THAT IS WHAT IS MAKING ME SO...

so much of isaacs character is reflective of the spirtual journey sufist muslims made at this time. the seeking of a master, the critical lens and view of mankind the high standards he holds humanity too (and thus, the solace he must find in vampirism - a thing that exists outside of faith, to beings who are not subject to such standards and of whom he does not expect kindness.), the ritual aspect of his identity both as a forge master and the Captain who he is with now.

both isaac and hector develop a hatred of humanity based on their experiences. if by any chance they will take his character in the direction i assume they will - then i do not doubt the rest of his character arc will turn him onto the path of what i figure is some kind of redemption.

AND THE REASON I THINK THAT IS BECAUSE IM SURE ISAACS CHARACTER ARC WILL FOCUS ON HIS EGO, WHICH IS FOUNDED ON HIS HATRED OF HUMANITY.

isaacs anhillation of self and ego will in some sense of the word, i think, be a return to his humanity. no doubt, he has currently already undergone the process of being a murd not by one master but many which also became common in the 14th century !!!!! and from what i can tell captain is the final iteration of that!!!!!

so his final step, his arc being fana - to die again before dying and return to his former self (i.e. a reformed, aware version of the version of him that believed somewhat in humanitys) going on a spiritual journey would be completely in line with all the way isaac has already had parallels to 14th century sufist practice.

BUT IT IS SO EASY . SO EASY TO MISS THE BRILLANCE OF THAT IF YOU DONT KNOW!!!!! BUT I KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* note, master in this context is more akin to spiritual leader.

[swordfright]

thank you for answer my reliquary/(ex)catholic dream ask! i also don't particularly think that any of them are full-on Catholic catholic but the little mention of even thinking of it As a relic is so fascinating to me

the reverberations of religiosity in dsmp are so interesting to me (but i'm currently studying religion, so it's kind of a revisitation with a new lens? :P)

there's so much about dsmp (that you say, is fundamentally baked into the story) that plays with/reiterates/refutes typical religious understanding (at least—i mean likely all of them are coming from christian/new greek mythology (for lack of a better word, idk, post-pjo) religious background, so playing w that space at least) and i just find it so fascinating, especially as you say, there are many god(ly) characters (+ religion that happens To people!).

i think what's especially interesting to me is that, like, none of these religious elements are really 'necessary', like the whole prime church thing grows out of a joke and becomes a real thing. and then, of course, catholic tommy (+ on people drawing catholic with a bigass crucifix, people—increasingly?—drawing c!quackity with a cross, esp (afaik) in the las nevadas fanarts. what does that imply about him!!).

(+ fwiw, on catholic relics/its uses, i was recently doing a reading on discourse on resurrection esp. in early (medieval) christianity, and there was a discussion on whether or not saints' bones constituted the whole or only part of a body—on the one hand, the saints had to be entirely enshrined within the part, otherwise the divine energy (for lack of a better word) would be nullified. but also, resurrection requires the whole body, reconstituted. so, there's a funny kind of unintentional parallel there too; stagger!dream on the one hand has faith (ha) that resurrection works, but the relic also constitutes the whole. and then he throws it into the lava, much to the disappointment of all the dsmp!catholics, im sure)

sorry for this hilariously long ask lol. the wording of 'relic' is just so full of implication that it just sent my mind spiralling (in the way that great fanfiction gives the space for!)

(context: earlier ask)

YESSS i love this ask i'm sorry it took a couple days to get round to answering it!! i love the way you phrase it as "reverberations of religiosity," and i think you're definitely right about how most of that religiosity is likely theologically and aesthetically inspired by christianity and uhhhh "post-pjo" understandings of greek mythology. probably american protestant christianity specifically, based on what we know about some of the most vocal CCs and their backgrounds; at least, i think that's a reasonable assumption and we can definitely point to those influences in the story. there are also places where religiosity/religion in dsmp looks a bit like the divine patron system in D&D and some other ttrpgs to me, though idk if i would argue there's a direct connection. it's possible, i suppose!

none of the religious elements are "necessary" to the story in a strict sense, but i do think they're sort of a natural next step for a story that's about A) what it means to build something, and B) what it means to have power. my thoughts on this are pretty disorganized but monotheistic concepts of God as ultimate creator/builder and ultimate power-holder are really playing into why introducing deities to a story like dsmp just...makes sense? (actually, maybe one of the most interesting angles here is that the dsmp doesn't use a monotheistic system?? idk, feel free to weigh in!)

another thing i find really interesting is that a machinima style/computer game-based story doesn't need a concept of religion in order to feature resurrection as a plot point, because even though we tend to associate the two IRL, a video game already has built-in revival mechanics. so resurrection on the dsmp never had to be religious, and the fact that the CCs made it explicitly religious anyway is really interesting.

as far as stagger's concerned, i arrived at that scene (and at dream throwing the knuckle bone into the lava after reviving tommy) because i was trying to work backwards from what we know dream knew about revival at the time. the only part of the fic that could be considered canon-divergent is the premise, which is that the bulk of the stagedduo revive book experiments happened after dream's incarceration, rather than before. we don't really have confirmation either way about when the experiments canonically took place, but dr3 has made some very convincing arguments (and also some bits here) that they likely happened prior to the prison arc. speaking personally, the only reason i'm still kinda on the fence about when those experiments happen is that there some things about dream's behavior in prison that reallllyyy make it look like he doesn't know much about how the book works, especially in retrospect after we've seen more examples of what revival looks like in canon. the main resurrections that we actually get to see (aside from vikk and lazar) are tommy, wilbur, and dream himself. when punz revives dream, he does it long-distance. he doesn't have a physical corpse, he doesn't have a ghost, and he's not in the same location where dream died. this means you apparently need NONE of those things to revive someone; you can revive anyone from anywhere with just the knowledge of the revive book! this new info totally recontextualizes dream's resurrection of wilbur from a year or so earlier: if dream could've brought wilbur back any time with very few restrictions, why did he wait so long? why does all of the dialogue in wilbur's revival scene lead us to believe that ghostbur has to be in the same room with dream in order for him to be resurrected? that scene is very much framed as opportunistic: dream reviving wilbur because ghostbur happens to be there, because tommy was stupid enough to bring him along, and dream takes this opportunity to demonstrate his power (and why they shouldn't kill him.) imo, in light of the new info about how revival works, wilbur's resurrection reads as having happened that way because at the time, dream thought he needed to be in physical proximity to a person's ghost in order to revive them, and only later discovered this wasn't the case. which to me implies that the revive book experiments hadn't happened yet. so, working backwards from all that, i tried to picture what may have been going on in dream's mind when he was thinking about reviving tommy.

IF (because we don't know for sure, but if!) tommy was really the first person dream revived, or one of the first, then dream wouldn't have had much experience raising the dead yet. we know for sure that he didn't know you don't need a ghost to revive someone yet, which can also serve as an explanation for why he waits a couple days before reviving tommy — he may have been waiting for tommy's ghost to appear. when he realized there wasn't going to be a ghost, i think it's fairly logical to assume he may have gone for the next best thing: the physical body. considering all this, I don't think it's a stretch to say dream could conceivably try to resurrect tommy using a body part (knuckle bone, in my fic) and when the revival works, he assumes it's because you need a body or a ghost, and only much later finds out that you don't need either of these things to make a resurrection work. the reason i wrote dream hiding tommy's knuckle bone was because i kinda doubt the warden would let dream sit in there with the corpse for all that long (what if the prisoner whittles one of tommy's femurs into a javelin! oh no!) so that part was extrapolated from what we know about sam's neuroses during this arc of the story.

you mentioned you were doing research on relic discourse in early medieval christendom and for the record i would love to know whether there was ever any consensus reached on that btw! like, did the church come to any sort of conclusion on whether the part constituted the whole, or no? ngl it is extremely funny to me that my fic accidentally replicated centuries-old theology beef 🙏🥴 HILDEGARD VON BINGEN I'M SORRY FOR MAKING YOUR RELIGION ABOUT MY MINECRAFT TWINKS PLEAE FORGIVE M

[cdroloisms]

dr3 please send help im so obsessed with jmah au but Specifically Box Au i think this is a Problem. box au is so absolutely crazy to me . imagine getting not one au but TWO AUS WORTH OF TORTURE 😭😭 do u have any more fun facts or other info u can give us abt it 🙏

HAHA god box AU is so nuts soooooo nuts

just checked my tag man I gave yall NOTHING didn't I ??? okay okay box AU information. once again, here are the main two posts about the premise of this AU, which is actually an extension and sort of "bad end" for my and kat's JMAH AU. In short, when jmah!Quackity takes over the prison at the end of the AU, the dominos fall so that jmah!Sam offers to let him visit Dream to get the revive book (like he did in the first canon timeline) in the prison to bargain his way out of the main cell. Quackity scoffs at Sam's attempt at a deal, considering the guy doesn't have any real leverage, but realizes that he needs to protect the prison from any Technoblade-related interference (especially because at this point Sam has spilled about timeline #1 and has either directly said that Techno was responsible for things going south with the prison the first go around in some kind of emotional or pain-driven rant, or Quackity has put that together himself) and that he can get much-needed Sam revenge by fucking with Dream. As a result, Sam is let out of the main cell, and Quackity tortures Dream daily much like in canon--only this time, he answers to no one, he's the Warden now bitch, and Sam is his shitty little janitor/mechanic/punching bag probably sometimes when he gets pissed the fuck off, which is often. Sam is allowed into the main cell post-sessions for only 30 minutes a day.

For Dream...it's a horrific betrayal. Worse than the first, honestly. When Sam first arrives in the jmah timeline a stranger to Dream, the emotional impact was kind of secondary to being suddenly thrown head first into the deep end of "Sam is unrecognizable, crazy as fuck, and probably about to actually murder me" -- in canon, c!Sam's whole deal at the beginning of the prison is still sudden, but at least there's some sense in connecting Sam as Warden to the man he was before. With a year's worth of context missing, Dream is honestly too busy what the fuck-ing to process how badly he's been betrayed by Sam. No frogboil, this time -- just the alarm of Sam building what ends up being a torture machine on day two (2) of the prison. On the other hand, the last year of his life has been spent playing catch up, having to make sense of the man that Sam now is Or Else. He has devoted everything to figuring out the rules to abide by, mathing out what makes the Warden grimly satisfied and what makes him give into sudden and alarming violence. Sam at the beginning of Dream's prison stay is a stranger, but by the end he very much isn't one, and it's the Sam that has become his whole damn world that sells him to save his own skin.

That being said, it's still just Sam. Quackity's visits are. Well, they're not pretty. He doesn't have to answer to Sam, this time, and is actively against the idea because jmah!Quackity REALLY REALLY hates Sam. Dream is angry at first, because of fucking course he's angry, he was sold, he's utterly fucked, Sam broke something unnamed but fundamental between them, every time he's left bleeding out it's because his Warden let another man own him--but at the same time, there is nothing else. Nothing else. Quackity is barely even in this for the book, honestly--what's more critical to him is 1) revenge and 2) the power of having control over Pandora's Fucking Vault, and both are kiiiinda dependent on using Dream against Sam but not really about Dream. The book would be a great cherry on top, of course; he has zero love lost for either person here, but what's most important is Making Them Pay.

Sam, therefore, is actually in a really uncomfortable position, because the reason why he proposes this deal (and his mindset as he proceeds through this time period) is that he doesn't actually want to be on opposite sides from Quackity. He killed Q, but because he was a security risk, because he had broken into the cell because he was going to take Dream away -- Sam hasn't exactly mathed out the fact that his complicated ass camaraderie with Quackity in canon is COMPLETELY in ruins in jmah's timeline. He's working on a plan to get the prison and prisoner back into his control, of course, but he wants to believe that the current situation is controlled and sustainable, just a different name for what had been the arrangement in canon--even though, y'know. That's absolutely not the case.

The way this works is largely that Quackity more or less visits daily to torture Dream (but unlike canon, he's not exactly beholden to any kind of Sam timekeeping or pedantics on the schedule or hemming and hawing about visitation) and then lets Sam visit for 30 minutes a day to patch him up. Otherwise, Sam's job is to reinforce the prison from Technoblade--something where he and Quackity are actually on the same page, so Sam is definitely working on that, but he's also trying to rig things up without Quackity's knowledge to get control back of the prison pwetty please. Quackity definitely keeps Sam in one of the other cells when he's not around, for obvious reasons. Sam keeps trying to appeal to him and honestly probably gets punched and shit for it LOL. LMAO. It's a strange and unsettling dynamic for Sam, who has seen something so similar to this before but not quite the same--he's still patching up Dream after sessions, but he's hesitant to ask him to give the book up to Quackity, who has made it quite clear that Sam will see hide or hair of the damn thing if he gets it--nah, he'll just kill Dream and Sam can have his old room, how about that? He's coaching Dream on how to respond to Quackity.

He knows that Dream can endure a lot. It's been an obstacle for so long, but here it works in his favor--he'll get control over the prison and prisoner again, soon. All he's asking from Dream is to endure it--and he already knows that he can.

Quackity isn't barred from permanent damage in quite the same way as he was in canon, but it takes awhile for Sam to really grasp the implications. Here's a post delving into some of the details about the way that the torture progresses--in short, Sam tries to cling to the cope that he and Quackity are on the same side, it's not all that different from the first go around, he can make this work without having to choose one side or the other in a super definitive fashion--until Quackity drives him to the edge and he recognizes that his options are to kill Quackity or to lose Dream, and we all know what happens when it comes to that ultimatum.

After Quackity dies, the dynamic changes quite a bit for Dream and Sam again. Quackity takes Dream's leg, Sam only barely manages to keep him alive through a failsafe he'd installed in his old dispenser system, Quackity dies in a pretty bloody fight with Sam fueled by pure Dream-related desperation and little else. The cell is...a wreck. Sam had been pretty adamant on keeping it more sterile than the first go around, absolutely hating the mess that Quackity and Dream were responsible for, but he's hardly had the time to clean the thing in his half an hour granted for him to do everything he can to keep Dream from bleeding out before Quackity arrives again. His perfect system has been tainted with layers and layers of grime and blood and viscera--Quackity has taken to shit like writing on the walls with Dream's blood, at least in part just to fuck with Sam (Sam tried to have A Conversation with him like he would've in canon about the state of the cell, and Quackity does nawt appreciate Sam's acting like the Warden, especially when he no longer has any power to back up the posturing.) And for Dream...Sam betrayed him, yes, but more recently and more importantly--Sam saved him. Sam protected him. Sam has brought him somewhere light and soft and clean and is telling him no more Quackity, ever again, you're safe, and isn't reacting violently when he behaves erratically and touching him gently and his leg is gone he can't fucking run and Sam saved him.

Sam is around Dream...quite a lot, after all of this. He's um. Well. Clingy, honestly. Being so far removed from the prisoner, what was happening to him, having zero control, often not even being allowed to supervise the visits from the atrium (unless Quackity wanted him there, in which the visit would've been So Obviously a show to fuck with him)--it really was his worst nightmare, in many ways. And Dream is dealing with like, a month or so of horrific trauma on top of almost a year's worth of Sam-related conditioning, and now Sam is being strangely nice and lenient and he's in so much less pain than he's been in a very long time. It's not the best mixing pot of mutual mental illness and codependence and intimacy...at all. Aha. (the c!awesamdreamons get. A LOT WORSE.)

(And well...in canon, there are a lot of reasons not to give up the revive book. There's the plan, the fact that the book preserves his life, the fact that there's no confidence in Quackity for sure or even Sam's investment in keeping Dream alive. Only here, Sam's deal has been so singularly wrapped around Dream much moreso than the book--the book had been a frequent part of interrogations, yes, but so was Tommy, and Ranboo, and the TNT on the prison, and Technoblade, and so on. Here, Dream has suffered through a huge blow to his confidence in the idea that he'll ever make it out, knows that Quackity is pretty damn okay with killing him regardless of the book...knows that he's been sold once before. In the early delirium of being saved by Sam and needing to do something, anything, to make sure that the last month won't happen again--in the reeling from losing his leg and the grappling with the idea that even moreso than he'd already begun to think through JMAH, that he would never make it out of the prison, never see anything but these obsidian walls again--in the knowledge that Sam has lied to him before, pulled the rug from under his feet before, that any and all kindnesses from the Warden were so dependent on what Dream was able or willing to sacrifice, and the fact that he therefore can't be sure that the threat of Quackity is actually gone for good...it's a lot of strain, and the concrete reasons to give up the book are a lot less solid in this scenario. So.)

[sonny-d]

i think toritsuka has the same understanding of women as i have but he hasnt had his lil like fundamental realization abt it yet

even as a man that likes men i do not go near men they scare the fuck outa me im mostly only friends with women and trans men and like a few a very small amount of cis men bc again they scare the fuck out of me bc i have some underlying issue with touch that i havent figured out it might be like child abuse or smth i have no idea and i dont rly wanna know but my few guy friends will try to fight sometimes and i swear as soon as one of them comes near me i go for the dick not the gut not the head i need to immobilize them as easily as i possibly can with the least effort in case i mess up but women arent like that im just fine with touching women bc they arent typically as aggressive

also i totally said men and women what that actually means is masculine ppl and feminine ppl but on a much deeper level than i think most ppl understand so men and women works better for the explination

so i think toritsuka has the same kind of understanding of masculinity and femininity so thats why he only ever tries to hang around women and saiki (saiki is smth else ill go into) is bc he trusts women the same way he trusts ghosts and thats also part of him trusting ghosts is not only that they are inherently good but that they literally cannot touch him

and now for why hes pervy (its sexual so beware)

on my rankings of what incites the most feeling sex is my number one especially with someone i like bc its physical and emotional stimulation and its just good its a way to feel things and this is not a me specific i dont think im pretty sure this is common so i think it applies to toritsuka and thats why hes pervy is bc he needs that kind of emotional stimulus and i think it rly goes with the cotards delusion thing somebody said bc smth i thought of earlier is that hed get it with his heart like hed feel like his heart is dying (im not projecting i swear) and the appeal of sex is very heavy in the increased heart rate so i think its some kind of reminder for him as his heart beats faster and more aggressively that hes alive

@jkgnggj this is for the fic fr

[joodles98]

do u ever think about raileon as being two sides of the same coin? the dragon guarding a castle and the king who loves his subjects yet is trapped in a tower. childhood friends (perchance) turned into friendly rivals and eventually lovers.

do you think they idolized red and blue as kids or teens (depending on how old you think they are bc in my mind reguri are slightly older, maybe like late 20s while raileon are early 20s) and they dont talk about it but you can clearly see the parallels of battle prodigy child who goes on to be champion and rival who ends up becoming the 8th gym leader who prefers double battles plus a researcher (and both r super gay)

yes to all of that a million times ❗️these characters are so intertwined to me.

i have all kinds of scattered thoughts

i think leon would have invited rednblue to galar to get their input/expertise in creating his battle tower (since they have the experience in setting up the battle tree 😋)

blue would love how cutthroat the galar league is/the gym leadership system, also really enjoy the commercial appeal of it/spectacle of the stadiums. red doesnt really care for any of that but he fucking loves gigantamaxing his charizard. he feels his cool meter thru the roof. when he sees gigantamax pikachu for the first time his heart explodes

there is something to say about red and leon confronting its hard(scary) to go back home. but its nice to have someone on your side to remind you of who you are and who you can be.

red especially, who "threw away" the obligations of being champ because the core of his journey was to test the limits of his strength, learn and grow, and battle for the sake of it because its what he loves to do. period. (and ending up becoming a hero just because he saw abuses of power and knew he could stop it, since no one else was.) leon realizes that living and battling really could be simple and fundamental once he's free of the excess of championing lol, and the only real pressure and maintenance of reputation comes from a personal definition within. that's it.

red as a character, to me at least, symbolizes we get to choose what we let go of, what we carry on, and what's new that we'll venture into. nobody's judgement, no matter how big or loud it seems, can "make" us do anything, that is, if we have the courage to decide what defines us and act accordingly

basically. i think red is a character who is the epitome of authenticity (the responsibility we have to our own life and dreams.) he is just doing his thing forever fuck the haters. mad respect. everybody can learn from him

on the other hand, i think leon symbolizes possibility. the way identity is a constant process. like the many lives we have the fortune to live in our one life, if we have the courage and resilience to begin again. (resilience and not stubborn kind that makes you blind to opportunity. im talking like a strong acceptance of reality, unwavering belief that life is meaningful. i think that's what leon's growth arc is about 🤧)

blue and leon could become drinking buddies over the self-reinventing journeys they undertook after losing 🫣. its so fascinating to compare the outcomes of someone who was champ for less than an hour vs. someone who was champ for over 10 years (a whole childhood/teenagedom!). also considering leon just had a whole fucking terrible week before his loss that probably already put his identity on shaky foundation. (the darkest day and losing to eternatus in front of hop. being betrayed by rose. etc).

when i think of older blue and post game leon they are a reminder of at the end of the day its that you gotta make sure the things you do is for You

baseline reguri for me is that blue never actually "hated" red. jealousy and frustration can make a kid who just wants recognition and praise pretty volatile. for raihan, especially when he was younger, he had to be pretty vigilant to not let his jealously of leon taint their friendship/rivaly. it could be a factor in his investment of a personal brand and celebrity through his influencer status(quiet his inner doubt/impostor syndrom/make up for the he perceivs he lacks).

but i also think raihan's interest in history makes him the contextual thinking type to have been skeptical of leon's experience as champion, especially since leon's hard to read. (the way they both have different types of trust issues. lol) it kinda protected his heart from being too hurt of the physical distance leon's championing put in their friendship over the years too, especially since their rivalry continued on into a professional, profitable setting and they both had images to maintain. (whereas red and blue are coworkers also lol, but working side by side.)

i want to talk about raileon slow burn so bad but i have to go to work rn 😭