#already showed it on discord might as well put it here too

[watermel0ns-dumb-cringe]

They're my roman empire

[metalomagnetic]

Either must die snippet

***A dear friend asked on discord if I have some EMD writing left, so here it is.***

----

Harry hadn’t stopped screaming since he entered the kitchen; he’s furious. It’s been a long time since he exploded in such righteous anger.

Cheeks red, jaws set, and those damned eyes of his glinting. Why, it’s almost like before, back in the war. Of course, now at least he can appear somewhat intimidating, what with the size of him. He doesn’t intimidate Voldemort, but it is easy to imagine he could make a random individual cower. Voldemort would like to see Harry going off like this on some pesky journalists or one of his stalker fans. It would be entertaining.

As it is, it’s not entertaining at the moment. It irritates Voldemort to be screamed at.

One flick of his wrist, and he could silence Harry. Another flick and he can send him crashing into the wall. To resist temptation, he drums his fingers on the table, reaches inside to find patience. It’s getting harder and harder to be patient these days. He had to suffer it for a while, but now he’s back in power. A Minister, not a war lord, yet people learned not to trifle with him, not to glare at him, not to talk back.

Even Harry learned, as the years passed by. He minded his business, and he let Voldemort be. Yet it’s not worth the trouble to put him in his place, now. He can already imagine the dramatics that would follow. Harry would break again, and Voldemort will either have to lock him in an attic, never to be allowed in public, or he’d have to put in the effort to build him back up, and he certainly lacks the patience for that. Hermione would be insufferable about it. Delphini would cry.

Harry must be aware of these unpleasant outcomes, too, because while he screams, he doesn’t dare do more than that. He cries, too, tears of pain and frustration and pure despair. That improves Voldemort’s mood a tad. Harry always looks good when he’s crying. “I asked for one thing!” his voice breaks, rough. “One thing! You have everything, and I said nothing- you use me, you use my name, you- I only asked for one thing.”

What a lie. Harry might not verbally ask for much, but those pitiful eyes of his ask plenty, and Voldemort gives it to him. The ungrateful brat.

“And you couldn’t let me have it! You’re a monster!”

Show him, a voice begs, a voice that was dormant for so long, but it’s waking up lately. Show him the monster. Show him how patient you’d been with him all these years. Show him how it could have been.

Voldemort ignores it. His fingers curl around the table, momentarily, because just drumming them isn’t enough anymore, he itches for his wand, but then the crisis is avoided, and he is in control, he won’t snap. He does stand, because it’s safe to do it, his temper is in check, and Harry tired himself out with his tantrum. “You asked for her life,” Voldemort reminds him. “She is alive.” Moly Weasley lives. Thought it seems a misfortune befell her earlier that day. Well earned. Delicious revenge. Harry, sadly, is not the type to enjoy the poetic justice, the mastery in this delivery of punishment.

She lives, like he wanted, she isn’t even in pain, but the score was settled. Fleetingly, he wonders if Bella is happy, if she laughs gleefully in the afterlife. Perhaps not- Bella was never one for poetry, for subtlety. She got her vengeance in blood and screams. Harry stares at him, shaking his head. “I hate you,” he whispers. Voldemort did not want to break him, but he broke, anyway. So fragile, this boy of his, despite his impressive muscles, he shatters like glass. “Nothing new,” Voldemort replies, and walks out of the kitchen.

As soon as he reaches the garden, he feels his anger rising, now that he isn’t focused on not hurting Harry until he explodes into a pile of blood and bones. He gets angrier and angrier with every step. He feels as impotent as Harry must feel. No matter how mad the boy was, how obviously hurting, he did not even think to draw his wand at Voldemort, or punch him, like he once did. He would have- for Molly fucking Weasley, he would have. Harry has few limits, but the Weasleys are one. Harry would crash and burn with them, for them, the world be damned. He didn’t, however, because he must know, deep down, that it wasn’t Voldemort. But he can’t admit it to himself, not consciously. Voldemort is a convenient scapegoat. Voldemort is a monster, rotten and evil, and it’s easier for Harry this way. Easier than the truth.

He Apparates to Lestrange Manor, and he thinks of Bella again. How odd- he hadn’t truly thought of her in years, but now he feels her around; when he walks to Lestrange Manor, is feels like before, like when he’d walk this path and knew he’d find her and Rodolphus inside. He doesn’t, of course. He finds a copy of her, instead. Bella left him copies of herself, echoes that remain to dwell the earth in her absence. Voldemort walks past Andromeda, strolls through the Manor, until he finds Rodolphus’ copy.

Voldemort knows Rabastan is guilty as soon as he lays eyes on him. That stiff posture, the fear in his eyes, even if he keeps his chin up, defiant. “Your wand,” he snarls. Andromeda followed him, she’s frowning, confused, asking what the matter is. The matter is that Voldemort was disobeyed. “Leave,” Rabastan begs her. “Leave,” Voldemort snarls at her. Andromeda is a cheaper copy of Bella, in all senses. Tamer, sadder, broken. But wiser. She leaves.

Rabastan gives up ‘his’ wand. It’s not his, of course, just like Voldemort suspected. He knew, as Harry was screeching, as Voldemort sat there trying not to snap, he was thinking how all this could have been accomplished. Delphini is at Hogwarts, after all. Impossible for her to also be at the Burrow. Unless she Apparated there. But she wouldn’t risk doing all that with her wand. It became quite obvious who would have given her a wand. “It had to be done,” Rabastan dares to speak. “You moved on, but I can’t; not until justice was served. You moved on, but Delphi couldn’t.” Delphini is a far better copy of Bella, compared to Andromeda. But, as Voldemort feared- you do not fear!- as Voldemort suspected, she is no true copy of her mother. Oh, she’s her spitting image, she has some Black traits in her personality, but no- Delphi is his copy. The anger reaches its peak. Voldemort always treasured Rabastan over most others, awarded him more leeway than most others. But Rabastan is no Harry, he’s no Delphini, and Voldemort snaps.

He reminds Rabastan who he serves, whose mark is on his arm. Useless, of course. Rabastan was never one to cow for pain, nor learn from it. Yet his pain serves to soothe some of Voldemort’s anger, lets him take it out on him. Another convenient scapegoat.

(-)

She does walk like Bella, a confident, defiant tilt to her hips. She walks loudly, proudly, as if used to have others look at her in awe, covet her. She brought her heels, even if the path to the Forbidden Forest is not exactly best suited for heels. Whenever she angers him, she knows to make herself look even more like her mother.

Once, when he searched her mind, he saw Rodolphus teaching her this, on the night before he left her at Rowle’s. “It’s best if you look like her,” he told her, advising her to let her hair free, to wear the dresses Bella favoured. “He treasured her above all others, and, in time, I hope he’ll treasure you, too.” She doesn’t stop at a respectable distance, like Bella would have done when she knew she messed up, when she angered him. No. Delphini comes close, closer than anyone dares.

She’s taller than Bella already, and the heels almost bring her up to his chin. She looks up, and those are his eyes, that is his glare, his defiance, his stubbornness. “What potion did you give her?” “My own invention,” Delphini says, and pride flushes stronger on her face. “They won’t detect it.” “And if they do, then what is the problem, no?” Voldemort asks. “Who is going to suspect a perfect school girl? And if they do suspect her, who is going to blame the Minister’s daughter? Who would dare arrest her?” Delphini shrugs.

“If you plan on using my influence to stay out of trouble, if you know you can easily fall back on me to protect you, then you should discuss things with me before you do them.” “Why bother,” she spits. “You would have said ‘no’. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” He should have tortured Rabastan more, because not all the anger is out of his system. Furry comes back hot, coursing through his veins, going to his head. “Ask for forgiveness, then,” he hisses, and he takes the step that separated them, towers over her. If she wants to play these games, he’ll play them. She will lose. It’s time for her to learn to lose- Harry spoiled her, far too much. He ignored Voldemort’s warnings that Delphini shouldn’t get away with everything she does, that he should push back, whenever she tests them.

As always, Harry’s kind, tolerant heart, explodes spectacularly in his face.

Delphini doesn’t cower, not truly, but he can detect the current of fear that passes through her. Strangely, it does nothing to improve his mood. Terrifying people usually soothes his fury, but now it just taints it with an unknowable feeling. “I thought you loved Harry,” he says, softly.

“I do!” Her fingers curl into fists at her side. Her neck is bent back uncomfortably, trying to keep Voldemort’s gaze. “She’s alive, isn’t she? Like he asked. She loves Harry, didn’t forget him, and she’ll no doubt dote over him, like a mother. In fact, now that she only remembers loving him, she’ll love him even more! I took nothing from Harry! He can have his pretend mummy! I only took away the memories of all her living children! It’s only fair!”

Delphini’s voice gets louder. Defensive. “She stole my mother from me! So it’s only fair she forgets all the beautiful memories she has with her children, memories she didn’t let me form with my mother. It’s only fair she will only remember her dead son, like I have to remember my dead mother, every time I step foot into the Great Hall, where that harpy took her from me. From us! You lost her, too! And now Molly Weasley cannot remember her husband, either! It’s fair, it is!”

It is beautiful, he agrees. It is poetic and it is just. It is perfect. However.

“You knew he’ll blame me for it; you understand he’s devastated; you understand how he’ll avoid me now, how he’ll suffer, how he’ll moan and whine at me for months on end, start drinking again, retreat into his spare bedroom and rot there for who knows how long. You are perfectly aware Hermione will blame me, too. That it could potentially harm my work. You knew this would affect me. And you did it anyway.” He cups Delphini’s face, and she finally flinches, though she doesn’t draw back.

So beautiful, this child. So intelligent. She loves Voldemort, understands him like no other. His perfect girl. If Voldemort would have ever wanted a daughter, if he’d have been given the chance to make her, build her from scratch- this is what he’d have imagined. Only, he still wishes she would have been more like Bella, or Rodolphus, or Harry; it would have been easier. For him, and for her. Alas, she is not like them. She is like him.

“She deserves it,” Delphini insists. “She hurt me!” Ever her tears are perfect, pretty shapes, clear, trailing down her cheeks. “That never works with me, Delphini,” he reminds her, using his thumb to brush one tear away. “I know!” she hisses. “Nothing works with you! That’s why I didn’t ask! Because you give Harry everything he asks, you are so attentive to provide him with what he needs, but you never care about what I want. What I need. I asked you to punish her, you promised me, remember? When I first met Ron. You promised me! But then Harry asked you to spare her, and you did what he wanted. You forgot about me, about my pain-“

“Shut up,” he says, softly. “I allow you far more than I would anyone else. Harry is my prisoner, he does only what I allow him to do, even if he deluded himself into thinking otherwise. I give you freedom. I don’t make decisions for you. I accept you as you are. But-“ he takes his hand away. “Do not trespass against me, Delphini,” he warns her. “If you want to hurt others, don’t use your mother as an excuse to do it. More importantly, don’t hurt people that are useful to me. Ask before you pull something like this again. And when I say ‘no’, better heed it. Or leave. Go far away, and make trouble there. This is my country, and nothing happens inside it without my say so. I worked for sixty years to subdue this island. If you want that kind of power, you will have to work for it, too.”

[johnnylandslide]

WoL Magic Cards Tutorial!

I'd made a custom Magic: the Gathering card of Johnny recently, and shared it in the Seafloor discord, and since there was a lot of interest in the concept I figured a tutorial might be nice so we have something to do while we wait for plugins to come back. Here goes!

Download CardConjurer This is the tool I use to make custom cards. It's just a web app developed by a college student; he got DMCA'd by WOTC so it's not hosted on the internet anymore, but you can still run it locally.

Just unzip the contents somewhere, and then run launcher.exe when you're ready. It should open up the app in a browser tab.

2. Navigate to the Card Creator

3. Pick out a Frame

Enter this search box on the right. We're going to be using the Nickname ("Godzilla") frames. These give us a small subtitle box below the card name that indicates what the Magic card's actual name is.

If you want to create a custom card instead, use the Borderless frames.

In the menu below, you should see the different colors of the borderless frames. You'll have to add three of these elements to the card: the text box, the card name, and the power/toughness box. Do them in that order, by clicking each element and then Add Frame to Card. If your card is legendary (or if you feel like it), use the Crown option rather than just Title.

You'll have to choose the correct color. If your chosen card is monocolor or >=3 colors, this is very easy since you can just choose that color or gold, but for two-color cards the process is slightly more involved. First, add the color that goes on the left using the Add Frame to Card button, and then add the right color using the Add Frame to Card (Right Half) button. Use the gold power/toughness box.

If any of the card elements get out of order, you can reorder them using the layers controls at the bottom of the page.

4. Import the card text

Navigate to the Import/Save tab, and type in the name of the real card you're putting your OC over. Select the specific version of it using the dropdown afterwards.

(For some reason, Firefox suggests completing this field with my credit card information. I think it knows more about Magic than it's letting on.)

After the card is imported, navigate back to the Frame tab, and click Load Frame Version. This will force the text on the card to fit into the frame set that's currently selected in the bar on the right, which should still be the Nickname ("Godzilla") from earlier.

We should have something closely resembling the real card in the editor, now.

5. Make it yours!

First off, go to the Art tab, and upload your image. Once it shows up, you can adjust it by clicking the actual card in the editor. Clicking and dragging pans it around, shift+clicking scales, and ctrl+click rotates.

Next, pop over to the Set Symbol tab and remove it, since this is your own card and isn't from a Magic set.

And now, go over to the Text tab to finish this off! Start by entering your card name into the Nickname tab.

If your chosen card name is too long and ends up clipping the mana cost, you can reduce the width of the text box with the Edit Bounds menu until it fits.

Next, go to Rules Text to update the name if the card refers to itself. I changed all instances of "Vadrik" to "Johnny". Since this card is really just to look at and not to play with, I also renamed the Day/Night mechanic to fit the Black Mage flavor even better. Feel free to get creative!

You can use {flavor} to add flavor text as well. I added the {lns} commands after some words to add line breaks to make the text blocks look better.

You can also edit the typeline in the Type tab, if the creature type doesn't match your WoL. Johnny is already a Human Wizard though, so I didn't have to do that. Technically this would be a mechanical change of the card, but since these aren't real cards anyway I think it's a valid concession to make. Just don't go abusing it if you actually end up printing these out LOL

6. Download the card image

Finally, head back over to Import/Save, scroll all the way to the bottom, and hit Download you card.

And you're done! There's obviously a lot more that's possible with CardConjurer, and tons of avenues for creativity. If you end up following this tutorial, or creating any other FFXIV-related MTG cards, I would really love to see them!

[novantinuum]

Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

~

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too! 

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

__

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

__

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here? 

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text. 

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

__

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15) 

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.) 

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.  

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

__

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Dirty Work 47

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: hi again.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You give up on escape. You don't want to upset Loki any more than he already is. You go back to the bed and sit against the headboard as you think. It would be a lot easier if you weren't here so why has he locked you in? 

The laptop continues to play the show you've lost track of. You wring your hands and close your eyes, skull pulsing as your nose throbs. The smell of grass and snarling grunts fill your head and you force your eyes open. You're in that room, not there…

You reach over to the cell phone on the night table and bring up Loki's conversation. 

“May I have some water?” You send the text and sigh. He said if you need anything, to ask.

You wait, not certain if he's seen the message or even if he'll answer your request.

Some minutes pass as you examine your palm, tracing the lines listlessly. You might be waiting for nothing. It feels like you've been doing that all your life.

You slump down and mindlessly stare at the laptop. You run your fingertips lightly over your bruises and the thin cuts on your arms. The movement raises goosebumps on your skin.

You might take a bath, it might calm you. Maybe that's what you need. You can't figure out what exactly that is, just warmth, just... certainty.

You sit up but stop yourself as you hear the lock click. You glance over as the door opens little by little. Loki enters, gingerly balancing a tea cup in one hand.

"I forgot," he says as he speaks quietly, "I thought perhaps you might be sleeping."

"Oh, uh, thanks," you turn your legs over the edge of the bed and fold your hands one over the other. You watch him place the cup and saucer on the night table.

"Not at all, my pleasure," he assures, taking a pointed step back as he faces you. "Are you hungry? Or perhaps you require another blanket--"

"Why did you lock the door?"

He blinks and raises his chin. For once, he doesn't have an answer ready. He looks at the door then back to you.

"To keep you safe," he replies as if it's obvious.

"I am... aren't I? It's just us--"

"It is only an extra measure. Last night..." he trails off, his green eyes flitting back and forth, "we needn't talk of it but we know now we can never be too safe."

You frown, "but... but you don't need to lock me in--"

"I must," he insists and throws his hands up, marching away, "if you only require tea, then I must return to my work."

"Loki," you stand, "I want..." you hesitate, "I want you to lay down. You don't need to work. You need to rest."

"Me?" He presses his hand to his chest, "I'm quite well, thank you."

You shake your head, "I don't think--"

"I will be back again to check on you," he dismisses as he spins away, "enjoy the tea."

Before you can argue further, he's gone. The door snaps shut behind him and you rush forward. The lock loudly grinds into place and you wiggle the handle.

"Loki," you slap the door, "please..."

You hear his footsteps on the other side, walking away from your pleas. You huff and let your forehead rest against the wood. What is wrong with him?

✨

After a long but unsoothing soak in the tub, you return to bed. You put on a movie, and lay on your side as you curl up. You don't know what else to with yourself. You don't have the energy to bang or holler at the door.

The windows darken and cast a haze over you, adding to the darkness creeping through the silent house. You wish it would just be over. That he'd stop feeling sorry for you and just send you off. The only reason he hasn't is because you look like a beat cat. You saw yourself in the mirror, you are pathetic.

You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling. The lock once more ticks. You lift your head as Loki enters. This time, with a tray. He places it on the dresser then comes to take your empty cup.

"Dinner, pet," he announces.

You sit up, leaning on the heels of your hands, "have you eaten?"

"Don't worry for me," he chimes in a shallow tone, "you must eat."

You push yourself straight and cross your arms, "will you eat with me?"

"I'm not hungry," he clinks the cup on the saucer.

"You should eat anyway--"

"I have," he interjects so quickly he must be lying.

"Loki," you stand and once more he's on the retreat.

"Please," you step closer and he evades you. "Why are you doing this? What did I do?"

He stops, just by the door. He clutches the cup tightly.

"You did nothing," he says, "and I should've done more."

He turns without another word, before you can think of any response, and leaves you to ponder his cryptic statement. You sigh and listen for the lock. Click. You look over at the tray of food.

There's enough for two there. More than. If he'd just come back, you'd share it with him and you could talk. 

If you weren't so afraid of talking, maybe life wouldn't be like this. If you'd been braver with your dad, asked him why he didn't love you, asked him what you could've done to make him. You think you're done being quiet.

Your stomach growls loudly as the scent of the pasta tugs at your nose. You near the dress and consider the heaping plate. It was nice of him but he shouldn't have to keep you like a mouse in a cage.

✨

Loki returns to gather your unfinished dinner. He doesn't linger, once more abandoning you to silence. You lay in bed, alone. He doesn't return.

The morning arrives and you get up to look out the window. You take in the greenery below, longing to sit among it. You open the pane as far as it will go and let in the scent of pollen and dew. The song of birds only has you distraught. You’ve never felt more desolate.

You shut the window and go back to bed. You’re exhausted. You can’t worry anymore. Not about him or even you. The dread is eating you up. You can’t fight the inevitable. So you’ll just let it happen. You give up.

You cocoon yourself in the blankets and close your eyes. You drift into a vague sleep. You hear the door and Loki’s voice but pretend to be asleep. You don’t want to talk to him when you won’t get much of a response. He can just get it over with already or leave you alone.

You slip back into unconsciousness. When you wake again, there’s a cup of cold tea and porridge waiting for you. You eat the gummy oats in stale milk and sip the tea. You roll back into the thick duvet and cling to the only escape you have; sleep.

The day passes in that pattern. You wake to nothing at all or a glass of water, a clementine, a turkey sandwich… The only marker of time is the hue leaking in through the window. The night welcomes you kindly into darkness and you sleep deeper than before. 

Another morning. Your head aches. You can’t sleep anymore. You can’t keep hiding in the blackness.

You moan and watch the sunlight on the ceiling. Loki lets himself in, the click of the lock announcing his arrival. He puts a cup of tea on the nightstand.

“Good morning,” he greets.

You don’t answer. He stands straight and peers down at you as you ignore his gaze. He hovers.

“Would you like me to draw you a bath?” He asks.

You blink and stay silent. You refuse to move.

“Pet…” he says tentatively.

You roll your back to him, “leave me alone.”

You hear him inhale but he keeps from his retort. He hums and clucks. His footsteps trail away from you, the door shutting gently right before the lock slides into the slot. If he’s going to lock you up, you’ll do the same. You’ll lock it all inside.

You don’t touch the tea. You get up to sit by the window and watch the cardinal soar in red smears in and out of the trees. Blue jays hop along branches and grackles peck at the grass. You cup your chin and lean on the window ledge as you imagine yourself out there.

The sun reaches its peak but Loki doesn’t show. Good. At least you understand each other. Your stomach growls but you ignore it. You go into the bathroom and draw another bath. You bask in the heat and emerge, less than refreshed as the grimness remains.

You knot a towel above your chest and stand at the mirror to change the bandages on your nose. The doctor told you how before he set his attention on Loki. You do your best to remember what he said. You finish, nose thrumming.

You go into the bedroom and stop short. Loki’s there at the foot of the bed. He looks at you as you enter. There’s some stubble around his jaw and his hair is uncombed.

“You are upset,” he says.

You shrug and cross your arms.

“You should be, I failed you,” he begins, “my brother…”

“Not that,” you say. “Loki, let me out.”

He leans back on his heel and peers over at the door. He returns his gaze to you, eyes narrowing. His jaw clenches and his throat tightens.

“Why?” He asks, “you’re safe here.”

You heave, “I’m tired. You need to let me go. You don’t want me and I don’t want this. I don’t want to be stuck inside forever. I don’t want to be a burden anymore…”

“You can’t go,” he shakes his head, “why… you think I don’t want you?”

You sniff and gulp tightly, “I’ll be okay. I’m feeling better and you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“I want you,” he says.

“No you don’t. You barely look at me. You leave me here all alone. You won’t sleep beside me, you won’t let me touch you. That’s what we agreed to, or maybe I misunderstood.”

He lowers his chin and sucks in his cheeks. He shifts on his feet and flutters his fingers at his side. He’s silent as you wait for his final word. Go, get out, leave.

“Loki!” You scare yourself as your voice rises, “you have to talk to me. You can’t do this. You can’t keep me here and just ignore me. You can’t… keep me in this prison.”

“Pet…” he murmurs, “I have to… I have to…”

“I can’t– I can’t do this. If you won’t tell me to go, then I’ll just go,” you warble, shaking, “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

You go to the dresser and hastily grab clothes. You look at them, all you need is a top and a bottom, you must have some shoes on the mat. You storm towards the door but he catches your arm and spins you back, inserting himself in your path.

“Loki,” you clutch the clothing to your chest as you rip away from him. You back up, facing him as he blocks the door. “It’s okay, you don’t have to do this.”

He startles you as suddenly he’s charging at you. You stumble back, dropping the clothing as you backpedal away from him. Your heart lodges in your throat as flames lick in his irises. You hit the door frame as he corners you by the wall. 

His hands come up to frame your face and he leans in to kiss you. You squeak as his nose brushes your painfully and he grips you tightly, urging his tongue between your lips. You touch his arm, squeezing it as he devours you.

His urgency is terrifying. His arm loops around you as he presses himself against you, crushing you to the wall. He enshrines you and you hit the dresser as he throws you off balance. He staggers with you as you bounce off the wood. He keeps you against him, clinging to your lips as he moves blindly around the room.

You hit the footboard then the bedpost, grunting into his mouth as breathes you in. He stops you at the side of the bed and lifts you off your feet, breaking away to toss you onto the bed. You cry out as he crawls onto you, penning you in as he holds himself above you. He pants down at you as you writhe and whine.

“Loki…” you gasp.

“I want you,” he repeats, “I want you. You are mine,” he lowers himself to kiss your lips again, “all mine,” he pecks your cheek, “you belong to me.” His lips make a path along your jaw and down your neck.

You squirm as he covers you in kiss, tickling down your neck and across your shoulders. The towel slackens and falls open as he pins you down, your knees splayed around his. His fingertips brush along your skin as he dotes on every inch. Just along your chest as he follows the curve of it.

You look down at his dark hair, hanging in a disarray of coil. You clutch the blankets beneath you and murmur. He stops and flips back his locks, looking at you. His gaze gleams with desperation. His hand frames one side of your chest and his eyes cling to yours as he slowly leans down to kiss the swell of your breast.

“I will show you how I want you,” he rasps.

[cinnanamii]

Ganjis 3rd year birthday letter and the heavy mischaracterization of the characters in game 3/just ranting about the birthday letter

(⚠️⚠️‼️THIS POST WILL BE DISCUSSING LEAKS/SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR GAME 3 OF IDV!! IF YOU DONT WANT TO BE SPOILED ON GANJIS 3RD YEAR LETTER OR GAME 3, SCROLL AWAY PLEASE! AND ALSO KEEP IN MIND, I AM NOT A GAME 3 EXPERT! IF I GET ANYTHING WRONG FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!!‼️⚠️⚠️)

Ganjis 3rd year letter was leaked recently (you can probably find post about it on tiktok and on discord servers) and I am so far beyond unimpressed and disappointed.

To start out this yap session/rant, I’m going to list the characters serial numbers, so that you can know who I will be talking about so that you can get a grip on what I will be discussing.

• 3-1-2 is anne

• 3-?-1 is aesop

• 3-1-4 is ganji

• 3-?-3 is Victor

The fact that netease decided to fill the letter with shock value racism, ruin annie as a character, and just ruined Ganjis character arc, and basically made Victor useless is so BEYOND me. This is a a lot, so I wanna start by talking about the blatant mischaracterization of annie and ganji in this letter.

To start off, they made annie so unnecessarily, hateful and racist towards ganji. It would make sense for annie to be afraid of loud noises, as they did introduce her as a timid woman, but making her afraid of ganji and becoming violent to him because of his accent is so beyond me. The whole reason why annie attacked ganji was originally because aesop manipulated annie into hurting him, not that annie got scared of the way he spoke? Plus, due to her timid and sweet girl type personality i could never see annie physically fighting/attacking ganji, it’s just not something that would happen. How could she ever have the confidence to do that, when she was literally scared of ganji? Then, on top of that, annie wouldn’t be provoked by his accent so easy? In her trailer, she was literally described to be like her mother, who was very nice, that being a trait annie had. So for her to just go attacking him so so EXTREMELY out of character for her.

Then, next screenshot I’m showing right now is the shock value racism randomly put in this for god who knows why?

“unfavorable impression” caused by 3-1-4’s accent? This is so ooc for annie, it feels like a poorly written oc/au. The antagonization of annie feels so unnecessary and just not needed. Game 3 might not have had a Hunter, but it did have an antagonist, that being aesop. The whole antagonization doesn’t feel right for her at all.

Then now, I wanna talk about Victor. One of the main things in game 3 is that they were not able to talk or communicate with each other. if they were able to do that, what’s the point of him even being here if they could already speak verbally? His writing was already kinda not the best, but this entire letter takes whatever relevance he had to the plot away. He needs to get something consistent, or else in this case his character is just useless. It’s completely unfair that aesop is able to get clear motivations and goals, but the other characters goals and aspirations just get handled horribly.

Game 3 was so unique in the way it functioned, and with the characters that were so similar, but so different at the same time. What could have been a group of compelling a deeply well written characters now feel like a dumpster fire or mischaracterization and the severe lack of coherence. All just from one letter too. This feels like a big fat slap in the face for me as someone who loved game 3, and all of the characters for game 3, ESPECIALLY annie, and if you loved game three, also this should feel like a slap in the face for you too.

**im aware that this is a leak, and it could be potentially false, but this has been on my mind practically ever since I heard of it, and everything is just so absurd.**

edit: the letter was updated and changed, a few things did change (examp; annie isnt racist anymore) but that dosent mean I don’t have issues with the letter, I’ll probably make an updated post eventually if people r still interested in this

[queer-ragnelle]

hello..👋👋

as someone who wants to get into arthurian legends.. where do you think I should start? is there a precise canon to follow? oh and.. this might be a stupid question but.. how would you describe guinevere's and lancelot's relationship...? i personally really like them because of what I've heard online, but i got shamed for liking it a while ago from people who really hated guinevere and said gawain or galehaut(not sure if i spelled it right) would be better for lancelot..

Hello anon!

I have a Beginner’s Guide to Medieval Arthuriana pinned on my blog. There’s no precise canon to follow, but you’ll get the most bang for your buck reading the works of Chrétien de Troyes and the Vulgate Cycle. Much of what Chrétien developed ended up in the Vulgate, like Lancelot rescuing Guinevere from kidnapping, but there are more elements added from other stories, such as Lancelot’s upbringing in the lake which originated from Lanzelet by Ulrich von Zatzikoven. On the other hand, Yvain’s journey as Knight with the Lion doesn’t make it into the Vulgate, so that’s worth reading on its own.

Regarding the part about people shaming you: block them if you haven’t already and anyone else who does so in future. I’m terribly sorry those people were unwelcoming as you begin to read and learn about Arthurian Legend. Let that not reflect on the community as a whole—there’s many lovely people here that’ll be happy to help you along. I hope you’re able to cultivate a positive online experience to the best of your ability and start enjoying the legends with us! :^D

But back to the fun stuff—I also really like Guinevere/Lancelot! My favorite dynamic is when Arthur is included too, but Guin is my number one pick for Lancey. ;^) It’s hard to describe them in so few words but I think it’s important to establish that they’re friends. This is an oft overlooked aspect that really deserves attention. They care for each other deeply. She helps him out of his madness and he helps her out of danger. This is something Arthur couldn’t do for either of them, much as he wanted to. That’s what makes the pair special, to me.

As for shipping wars about medieval characters….kinda ridiculous! And shaming other people over it is just abhorrent. I’m sorry you had to deal with that! Personally I enjoy Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot and Galehaut/Lancelot. I think it’s obvious I favor Gawain with his wife Ragnelle lol but Gawain/Lancelot is fine too. Gawain can have a little Lancelot. As a treat. I even enjoy “crackship” type pairings, like Bedivere/Lancelot or Kay/Lancelot or maybe a little [unrequited] Agravaine/Lancelot, and if the author or filmmaker chooses to write her in a positive light, Elaine/Lancelot as well. But that’s just it—there’s certainly no such thing as a “better” person(s) to couple with Lancelot. It’s literally fake. It’s fiction. It’s for fun! Doesn’t sound like the people you’ve encountered were having very much fun and put that on you, which was wrong.

Here I’d like to mention I run a discord server called the Arthurian Theater Server. Every weekend I stream TV shows and movies, mostly Arthurian, sometimes random fantasy. But it’s more than visual media—my friends and I share resources, character playlists, art we made, stories we wrote, we’ll liveblog retellings or newly discovered medlit translations, and discuss anything else Arthurian! We have custom made emojis for all the knights and ladies, a variety of original art stickers of the characters provided by several members, and an array of sounds bites ripped from films and TV for the soundboard to be played while streaming. Tumblr can be a little hard to navigate with the unreliable tag system, so this server is dedicated to an organized and moderated exchange of ideas and content. You’re welcome to join us!

Let me know if you have any other questions, it’s never a bother. Take care!

[gatheredfates]

Happy weekend, all! 🦇 I'll probably do one more spooky update next week to round it out and then we'll be back to normal Compendium updates! I miss the spooky season already. 🎃

This is also a final plug for SEAFLOOR Saints Wake Gpose Challenge for anyone who might be interested! All works are reblogged to SEAFLOOR as well as queued on my blog. 🍬

If you know of anything I have missed, please reach out to me via my Discord or the Google Form.

Without further adeb, the following communities have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives. 👻

COMMUNITY FOCUSED / EVENT SPACES

The Kwehnnedy Center—The Kwehnnedy Center for the Performing Arts gives performers a venue to showcase themselves and audiences access to some of the finest shows Eorzea has to offer.

MISC

Beginner's Guide to Gposing with Anamnesis/Ktisis—An entry-level walkthrough of how to download posing programs, load actors, edit character appearances, and manipulate poses in gpose. Written by @lilbittymonster.

CHANGELOG

Etheirys has been removed from the Large Scale Communities at the request of its owner due to imminent shutdown.

FFXIV Roleplay (Tumblr) has been removed at the request of its owner due to imminent shutdown.

If you'd like a FFXIV-based forum/communityto join, I would suggest Final Fantasy XIV Roleplay at this time!

The Google Form contained the outdated categories for Compendium sorting. This has been updated.

Have you thought about joining our Tumblr Community? You can find it here!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document. 🐈‍⬛

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs or other ventures used to generate roleplay.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[blueishspace]

Adventures of the Darkest Witch Shelby. (2)

For @emilynyaesmp.

She had a great idea, she had to make potions but perhaps... perhaps she could seel them in exchange of wealth! Surely her schemes would be more succesfull with monetary support! That however meant making a potion shop of some kind and to gather enough ingredients to mantain a potion shop she would also need to go to the Nether.

She understood it was the source of evil, that it was supposed to bring confort to those who dabble in the darkest arts. Yet ... She was worried, it didn't take a genius to know that in this land her magic was weaker and previous encounters showed she needed more then magic to survive. She would need gear if she wanted to conquer the hellish dimension...

She had gotten obsidian, that part wasn't hard, however her material had gathering had been rudely interrupted by a disheveled man stumbling into her swamp.

Pix: "Hello? Hi"

Shelby: "Who dares enter my swamp-"

Pix: "Oh hi there! Couldn't help but notice the amount of mangroves here, would you mind sharing some of it?"

She looked at him, was this man really walking into her swamp and demanding wood from her? She was going to enjoy punishing his insolence!

Pix: "Oh, but before that, I heard there was a witch in the area and I tought to say hi and pay my respects!"

Oh? She was suddenly intrigued, respects huh?

Pix: "I have brought a gift"

An offering... well she supposes his punishment will be delayed by a while. She can't help but be flattered, is she already so feared that the rulers will cone to here beating gifts to tame her wrath? This was easier then she tought, especially considering her initial failures. Still that man's smile does not resemble a desperate man pleading for mercy... It's weird.

Shelby: "A gift?"

Pix: "Why yes, I call this a bundle! Really helpful for storage of different items. I already put inside some different herbs and even a fungi I have found!"

She had to admit, with the trip to gather ingredients coming soon this was incredibly lucky and an extremely useful gift. It didn't take her much to decide to give the fool some of the wood, he had been useful after all. The man soon left with a happy smile, weirdo.

She finally entered the Nether, it was difficult but she had done it. The harsh heat burning her skin only encouraging her into going deeper. (Ooc: You know, like the achievement... I'll see myself out). She had even found the Nether fortress and had looted what she could, finally she felt things were starting to go right for her, soon she would be able to bring the server into true chaos and all other evil witches would be in awe. And now by building a table of enchanting she was going to be much more powerful, yes, all was going according to plan.

The pirate came back, that was the perfect opportunity to sell her cursed potions... yes, a source of money and a chance to cause discord at once.

Shelby: "I must warn you that these potions come at a price"

Joey: "Well, yes, I know how shops work."

Not what you meant.

Shelby: "No, the price might be steeper then you expect".

Joey: "Yeah, american taxes suck don't they?"

What? No! And he just- She was going to get a migraine.

Joey: "Here! Some emeralds!"

And then he just left, great.

Then soon after the pirate she was visited by a very weird man, she tried to get a few words in but his energy was just too much. She decided to just give him what he wanted and let him leave over having to deal with him ... She didn't really want to be helpful but if it meant not being assaulted by horn noises every five seconds she would take it.

Sausage: "So do you have anything I could use to... Revive dead people?"

Record scratch, he was interested in necromancy? Him? That was surprising for once.

Shelby: "Resurrection?"

Sausage: "Yeah, something to turn a walking corpse back into a person?"

Oh, turning a zombie villager back, foolish of her to have been interested. Still, making weakness wasn't too hard and the reward of him leaving was worth the price.

Shelby: "Take these, trow it on the zombies and feed them a golden apple"

Sausage: "Ohhhh! Thank you! See you soon!"

The worst offender however arrived third, a man with blue hair and colorful eyes who introduced himself while standing on her roof.

Shelby: "That's my roof"

Scott: "Oh right I'm on your house. Let me get down"

She let him of course,it would be messy if she were to miss him and hit her own roof with a spell

Scott: "I had to get on top of the trees to find my way you know?"

Shelby: "Yes, the mist too likes to confuse"

She meant it to be threatening but it came off much more like a concerned warning.

Scott: "Just not used to so little colour"

And now he was judging her design choices? At least she didn't look like a rainbow trew up on her. Still she let him keep talking, there was something off about this man... Despite the colorfulness there was also a hint of decay, the smell of rotten flesh, death followed him. If she focused enough she could almost see his blue hair shift to black for a few seconds... Interesting.

Scott: "I am in search of mystival wood to make magical gear, you don't suppose I could take some of the lumber here"

He offers her dyes, pink and purple and magenta yet all smell lightly of bones, she takes the offer... These dyes must contain something more then normal ones.

Scott: "And if you need more colour come to Chromia. Kingdom of colour. It's really a place to dye for."

Even the slogan was ominous, she wondered if that had been an accident... And with that he too was gone.

Prev Next

[dandelion-wings]

In the classic 'warmups that ate my whole writing session,' have some not-so-baby Kaeya (he's like fourteen here, but still fairly newly-come to the Dawn Winery) from yet another AU @theabysscomeshome and I were kicking around on Discord yesterday. >> I like the Dawn Winery family vibes, okay.

---

They have a lot of trust to rebuild after the incident. Master Crepus says that they need to start with more focused language lessons, so that they can actually explain to Kaeya what's going on. Adelinde does understand where he's coming from, but she thinks it needs to be a little more basic than that.

Fortunately, Kaeya seems to have latched onto her as the safest person around: domestic, slight of build, without a Vision and apparently not combat-trained. He doesn't have to know what the head housemaid has taught her to do with kitchen knives (or what she has done with them for Master Diluc, the once, and what she would gladly do for him). She takes care to be always gentle with him, to keep her voice soft, to reinforce that perception of safety. To make her someone he doesn't feel he has to flee.

Master Crepus looks sorrowful every time Kaeya ducks behind her when he enters the room. He understands why, though, and he doesn't press. There's time enough for Kaeya to re-learn how kind he, too, can be. For now, Master Crepus reassigns Adelinde from all her other duties. Taking care of Kaeya is one of only two she has to concern herself with. Keeping watch on him is the other.

He *was* the other half of the incident, after all. What he did cannot happen ever again.

Despite that reassignment, Adelinde carries on with some of a housemaid's work, picking and choosing whatever seems to suit Kaeya's needs that day. It means she spends a lot of time in the kitchen. He may not trust them, but putting temptation in front of him long enough does induce him to eat. And everyone from the Cathedral's healers to the fieldworkers agree that he absolutely needs to be fed.

"Two cups of flour," Adelinde tells him, showing him the bag, then each scoop, as she measures it into the bowl. Formal language lessons are all well and good, but she knows that the expensive Akademiya tutor isn't teaching him this vocabulary. That he can see in the process that she's not putting anything harmful into the food is just as important.

(That first potion was, she thinks, a terrible idea. It was absolutely necessary; the Mages' taint *had* to be cleared, or it might have killed him or worse. And there was no way to tell him in words why it was given, or what the effects would be. But they never should have slipped it into his food.)

"Salt," she goes on, showing him the block. "We'll scrape some off. That's enough. Then we'll cut in the butter, and the lard. You want to taste that? It won't taste good, but all right. Now we sprinkle milk over it as we knead it together. I'll do that. Do you want to start chopping the meat?"

No one else would approve of giving him a knife, which is why Adelinde has cleared out a small side-kitchen instead of working in the main one. The thing is, he knows full well he's under watch. She sees how he flinches whenever someone looks so much as alarmed at his behavior. He's afraid of being hurt, again, if anyone even thinks he's trying more magery. How can he think otherwise, with his burns still healing and Sir Jean checking in almost daily on Diluc's behalf? It's not as if his fears are groundless. If he attempts another Abyssal ritual, they'll have to do *something* to stop him.

If they want him to trust them, they need to demonstrate that they're willing to trust him in exchange. So, the knife. Adelinde isn't ready to turn her back on him yet while he's holding it, but she'll do that eventually, too. For now it's no surprise that she isn't when she's working at the same counter and all that they'll need is already arrayed in front of them.

She rolls out the pastry and divides it out into the pie pans while he chops the meat fine and dumps it into the bowl. Then, after making him wash his hands, she presents the spice rack before him. "What do you want to put into this?"

For this, she gives him is the appropriately-sized spoon and free rein. The pies may come out oddly-tasting this way--they have before--but he knows by now what she does use, and she wants to let him experiment. He tastes a bit of each spice, thoughtfully, mixes them in his hand and tries various combinations, and finally pours scoops of each one he's chosen into the bowl. Adelinde watches him out of the corner of her eye as she whips the eggs, but he doesn't do anything she'd have to scold him for--dumping a whole spice jar in, or licking his finger and sticking it into a jar to taste, or touching the meat and then a jar. He's so much more careful with food than Master Diluc ever was.

Pouring the eggs in, she offers him the spoon. "Do you want to stir?"

He does. Adelinde watches as he mixes it all together, then pours it into the pastry herself before showing him how to fold the tops up. Then into the oven--he stays well back from the heat--and she makes them both hot cocoa while they wait for them to bake. He huddles over his mug like he expects it to be taken from him. Or tampered with.

(*How* she wishes they hadn't put that potion into his food.)

She takes the pies out herself and puts them on the cooling rack, pretending not to notice Kaeya scraping the last, dregs of cocoa from the pot while her back is turned. He never tries to ask for more

than he's offered, and that's from more than just the language barrier; he's expressive enough in his gestures when he wants to be. Someday she'll be able to tell him that he can have as much as he likes. For now, she'll let him get away with all his pilferage.

And make more hot chocolate while the pies are cooling, of course.

By the time they've finished the second pot, they're cool enough to eat without burning his mouth. Adelinde gets out a plate, then pauses, a thought occurring to her. Instead of loading it up herself, she hands it to Kaeya, then steps back, gesturing towards the rack. "How many do you want?"

The look he gives her is eloquently disbelieving. She can almost hear the question: surely she's not telling him to take the whole batch. There's no way to explain to him yet that she *would* let him have it all if he wanted, and hope he had the sense to save some for later rather than give himself the stomachache, but that's not the point. Right now she just wants to give him a choice.

She's expecting him to simply take a pie or two, readying herself to smile and nod in approval so he knows he's not taking too much. Instead, he looks at the rack, clearly counting off, then looks at her and says, with tremendous care, "I want... two?" He holds up two fingers as he says it.

It's the first time he's actually tried to answer her in Mond. Adelinde beams at him.

"Yes, you can have two," she says. "Or more. Three, or four, or five," she adds, holding up her fingers in turn, because she doesn't know whether 'more' is a word he's learned yet, nor any of the numbers. "As many as you want."

Kaeya studies her for a moment as if looking for a trap, then says, "I want four."

"You can have four." Adelinde gestures again towards the rack, encouragingly. "Choose whichever ones you like."

He takes the pies, quickly, before she can take the offer back, and then returns to the little table in the corner and hunches over them. Adelinde takes three pies for herself. She only really wants one, but she hopes that this way he won't think he's over-indulging; she can manage two, and wrap the third in her napkin as demonstration, so that if he does end up finding he's taken too much he'll know it's all right to keep for later.

She compliments his spice choices as they eat, though privately she thinks the rosemary was too much. Kaeya unhunches, slowly, once he's wolfed the first two down and finds himself working his way more slowly through the third. He's looking uncertainly at the fourth when Adelinde finishes her own second pie. She deliberately wraps hers in her napkin and tucks it into her pocket, making sure he's watching. He wraps his own, watching her as she does it and relaxing further when she nods.

"I want... one more?" He holds up a finger, again, and the wrapped pie in the other hand, and Adelinde smiles and nods at him before rising to get him another napkin. Kaeya pockets them and looks satisfied. Then he looks up at her and, again in Mond, says something that from the intonation he must have learned in his formal lessons. "Thank you."

Something warm swells in Adelinde's chest. "You're welcome," she tells him, and on impulse holds her arms out wide. He steps forward into the hug, tentative at first, then clinging tight when she pulls him in against her. She pretends not to notice how he's shaking and simply holds him until he chooses to let go.

It feels like a first step forward, after all their steps back. She's so, so proud to be part of it.

[dreamingcloudie]

❛❛ In which; Dottore as a streamer... ❜❜

✎ ❛❛ I'll have to admit, this character is quite... alluring.❜❜

Pairing(s): Streamer!Dottore x (kinda) Game-Character!GN!Reader (Mordern AU)

Genre/Format: N/A (headcanons)

Warning(s): wrote this at 6am without thinking straight so possible grammar mistakes and sentences that don't make sense

Notes: There really isn't much of x Reader here, sadly :( I might write more of this in the future but idk

I know i have requests to do but this idea came out of nowhere and it was too tempting to not write something for it— I've only written headcanon once so this is short. I have no idea if I'm doing this right 💀

Let's be real, this guy would probably stream live torture on the darkest part of the internet

BUT, let's just pretend in this AU he's not an evil doctor man <3

He is a tired university student who majors in biology and thrives to earn a position in the medical field

And that means becoming a coffee addict and endless nights of staying up late to study 

Sleeping? What's that?

I can see him being so focused on his studies to the point where he doesn't interact with the internet much

If someone showed him a popular meme he wouldn't understand 

Boomer

L

Due to how busy he is, he doesn't have the time to find a job

He lives off of the money his parents send him every month lol

That was until someone introduced him to the wonders of the internet…

One of his friends—Childe, told him something about a streaming platform and he should go check it out

And that night when he got home, he pulled his laptop out and searched for it

He also learnt that people can earn money streaming whatever

For instance, most of the people streams "let's plays"

He scrolled down a little and he found people streaming… questionable things, and he was baffled they get paid for it

So that means, he could stream anything he wants and he'd earn money from it, as long as he has a certain amount of viewers 

Say less

And an account was made 

This basically becomes his part-time job now

He usually streams to tutor struggling students and you best believe they were very thankful 

He'll sometime do "study with me" streams too

As he takes his fifteen minutes breaks from studying, he'd talk to his viewers 

And when I tell you this man has the driest humor ever—

That's what got his channel to grow

Viewers would clip his dry ass jokes and post them onto other social media platforms, which caused his view counts to blow up

As he got more and more popular, his viewers would beg him to do gaming streams

With how dry his humor is, they thought his commentary would be gold…

And they're absolutely correct, they get to see a different side of him too 

Surgeon simulator is the very first game he was introduced to by his fans, to get him interested in gaming

Man's cursing every time when he accidentally drops something

"Now, we put this lung over— Shit."

Cue chat spamming the Kek emote 

It's been months since he started to stream and things are going pretty well for him

He comes back home from his lectures today to find his Discord server is filled with loads of fans telling him to check a game out, mostly because of a certain character

The general chat is flooded with hundreds, and I mean hundreds of pictures of them

And Lo and Behold

It is you

The moment he first has his eyes on you, his jaw drops

God DAMN YOU LOOK FINE AS HELL

Not to mention that harness you have on you—

Ahem

Anyways

He doesn't even know who you are or what game you're from

But man he's head over heels for you already 

The next time he starts his stream, the first thing he says is:

"Everyone was going crazy on Discord yesterday about a game character. And now my question is…

"Who are they and which game are they from?"

Babygirl took his first step into the world of simping <3

[thecoramaria]

Do you have any advice for self-promotion for people who feel anxious about promoting themselves? Sometimes I fear I sound too "arrogant" or "overconfident" when I'm trying to promote. I don't want to come across as self-important, but I want to hype myself up to an extent. Thank you!

I think it comes down to identifying what "arrogance" and "overconfidence" actually are and how they would actually look in this situation. Being arrogant about promoting your fic would be:

Going on about how your work is inherently amazing or that you're objectively talented. Or that writing fic is easy and implying that anyone who struggles with it has something wrong with them.

Putting down other writers, fics, tropes, or ships to try and make yourself and your work look better.

Declaring anyone who hates your work a "hater" who is "jealous" or has "bad taste."

Being blind to your own flaws.

Promoting your work on other people's work without any kind of prompting, or only using certain communities (such as discord servers) as a place to promote your work instead of interact.

And plot twist! Putting down your own work or lampshading all the problems is a type of arrogance as well, because you're already assuming the reader will hate what you've done. The reality is that if they do like your work, those kinds of comments from the author will make the reader feel stupid for liking it anyway.

Basically, arrogance is trying to tell other people how they should feel about your work. That's what puts a bad taste in people's mouth.

The following is not being arrogant about your own fic:

Sharing snippets of your work so people have the opportunity to decide for themselves if it interests them and would be worth checking out.

Saying how proud you are of your work, or how hard you've worked on it to get it to where it is. There's nothing wrong with showing pride in what you do, and often when people see how much work has gone into something, they get even more interested in it.

Creating memes, graphics, artworks, or shitposts about your own fics. Be your own fandom! I promise it's like the most normal thing ever.

Recommending your own fic to someone when they express a desire to read something like whatever you already happen to have written.

Pointing out particular elements of your own work that you enjoy. People will post about how they write their dream fics all the time.

Providing behind-the-scenes commentary on what you've written or pointing out particular moments from your story you love. E.g. "Omg I just wrote this super fluffy scene and it's sooooooo cute! I can't wait for you to read it and I hope you all squee~!"

Pitching your fic. This is when you try to appeal to your "target audience". E.g. "Are you looking for a spicy enemies-to-lovers slowburn about [Ship Name]? Then boy howdy have I got the fic for you!" Basically, you're describing the premise of your story and elements people might be interested in and then throwing it out there.

The difference here is that you aren't telling other people how they should feel about your work. You can say you're aiming to evoke a certain feeling, but ultimately, you aren't making it sound there's an objectively correct way to go about it.

In conclusion, as long as you aren't trying to tell people how to think or feel about your fic (or promote it in inappropriate situations), you're never going to come across as arrogant or overconfident about your work. If anyone does think that, it's worth asking yourself if that's a "them" problem first and foremost, or even get a second opinion from someone you trust.

[tavyliasin]

Making the Most of Discord - Fandom Server Layout

As I've had more than a few positive reviews of my delightful House of Hopeful Sinners (aside from the fun fake reviews we put together for the post in my pinned advertising the space) I figured I might use the setup to help demonstrate the potential ways to use the features when making your own server.

This is by no means saying "this is the only right and correct way to set up a server" it's more of a "this is how I manage it and it has worked really well for our purposes, feel free to use what we learned from it in your own spaces!"

I'll put different headings below the cut as we go so you can skip to what you need, and a little shameless self promotion right here for our creative focused 18+ NSFW Baldur's Gate 3 Fandom space~ CWs - Screenshots show mention of NSFW topics and titles. There are no details but some of the topics are words that would be on CW lists.

Rules, Ownership, and Mods

Starting out your own server is exciting, and we don't like to sit here and think "we're going to have problems", but it really is best to try and anticipate issues and put rules in place to prevent them. This is really going to vary based on the kind of place you are running, but as long as everything is clear your users can feel confident in the space. Nothing can damage a community more than a disagreement that is blown way out of proportion or an incident that gets out of hand. None of us are immune to mistakes, either, so being prepared is the best first step!

Make Your Rules Clear

Ambiguity in the rules is a very easy stumbling block. Keep your rules nice and clear, as specific as they need to be, and make sure that your moderation team are happy with the rules and how you would like them to be enforced when needed. I strongly recommend using a reaction role bot with your rules post so members agree they have read and understood the rules before entering the main server (more on roles and bots later!)

Choose Your Mods Wisely

Temptation might be to choose mods from friends, and that can be a good way to go! However, even with the best intentions, not everyone is going to mod in the way you would like them to. It can often be better to be a little more selective, and either offer the position to people who have mod experience already or use an application form with some questions that will help see if the mods will uphold your server values the way you prefer.

It can also be helpful to cover different time zones if your server is international, and having enough people will mean that nobody feels pressured or guilty if they need a break for any reason. Remember too that mods are volunteers, if you're the owner then final decisions and responsibility will come down to you in the end.

Age Restriction and User Safety

If you want to host NSFW content you need to be aware of user safety. Your most basic tool here is to set channels as age restricted. This is technically enough to cover you legally as the user has to manually confirm via a popup that they are old enough to view the content.

Personally? I prefer spaces that are explicitly 18+. I ensure this in HOHS by having people specify to a mod what year they were born. People are less likely to lie to someone directly than they are to click away a popup. This said, I do not recommend taking IDs or personal details due to Data Protection laws in various countries (as well as your members' rights to privacy, should they wish it). Verbal confirmation of the year of birth is fine. If you find someone is underage later, you can kick/ban them.

If your space is open to all ages with only some 18+ channels, you may want to verify birth year with users before they get a role to access those channels.

The reason for this is twofold. First, obviously, is safeguarding minors in online spaces. Although we are all well aware that minors access unsuitable content on their own, it shouldn't be encouraged or openly allowed, particularly with socialising with adults. The second reason is that any adult discussing NSFW topics with a known minor - even from an informal educational point of view without any unpleasant behaviour or intention - is very much at risk of ending up on a watch list. I'm very serious on that one. I have friends who have seen entire Discord servers and all their members in real legal trouble and on offender registers because the server knowingly allowed minors to participate in NSFW content channels.

So. Keep all of your members safe, check when you need to, and set up your channels and rules in the way that suits your space.

Categories and Basic Layout

Layout and Category Names

Your top category should be your welcome area if you have one, with your rules and whatever channel you want people to arrive in first at the very top. It can be tempting to put your admin section at the top, but this can make it more awkward to make your server invitations. Each category should also be nice and clear as to what is found there, so members can find the channels they want even when all the categories are collapsed.

This is how I arrange my welcome area, which is several channels which all technically contain rules (Contract Signing is the main rule list which users are directed to manually when we verify their age and give them access - more on that later!) but I personally prefer to make it easier for people to find things separately rather then being overwhelmed in one long channel. Use the layout that works for you!

A lot of servers also prefer to have separate categories for NSFW content, which is a very good way to run things if you want to have specifically separated content for peoples' comfort. You won't see that in the HOHS channels though as we are set up to be NSFW by default, and there is essentially only one pure SFW chat channel.

Naming Channels and Server Maps

I also personally prefer easy channel names. Whilst fun nods to fandom things might be an aesthetic/flavour choice, it may not be as helpful for your members to know where a piece of content or conversation belongs~ Having a map with a brief description of each channel's purpose will also help members to navigate, especially in a larger space.

Whilst it can be nice to use symbols or emojis in your channel names to denote the content (particularly using the 18 symbol for NSFW areas) this might make it a lot harder to link the channels in your server map or for users to link the channel to say "let's move our chat to this channel" when the topic changes, or "there's more on that topic over here". Emojis can work at the end of channel names with less interference, and honestly is something I am considering for aesthetics, though it's a lower priority.

Text Channels, Forum Channels, Voice Channels, and Threads

This is a big one for organisation so I'm going to go over them in sub headings one by one!

Text Channels

These are your bread and butter basic chat channels. They're wonderful for discussions and general chat, but in my opinion their weakness is in content sharing. Things like fan creations can get lost quickly when people respond to them, so you risk either discouraging the chat about a piece of work or losing work in the sea of conversation.

You can, of course, use slow mode in text channels so that users can only post once in each period of time. For extra busy servers, or open public servers, this can be a useful tool in spam prevention too!

Messages can be pinned in text channels which is handy for instructions, references, or other important information, but you are limited to a maximum of 20 pins and they might not be obvious to all users.

There are other ways to refine your text channels. For example, you can select whether people can post images, voice notes, files, and links into a channel. This is very useful if you need to prevent spam in a more important channel, or if you do not want to moderate the use of voice notes (more on those later).

For things like WIPs, some people like to have a slow mode so one new post every 6 hours and contain the discussion on that post to Threads. This can be helpful for some setups and work well, but it may still make older works harder to find so it's better just for more regular progress rather than a library of works.

Threads

Threads are essentially a side conversation within a text channel. They're fantastic for certain purposes like discussing an item that was shared, or containing a long conversation on one topic, and particularly things like discussions on lore and research that people might want to come back to at a later date without having to search through a text channel.

Text channels have a setting for how long threads will remain visible in a channel list.

After this time, threads are still available within the channel from the threads tab, but won't show up in the channel list until there is new activity inside the thread. Below is what threads might look like when active in the channel list - we use them in HOHS for Kink Specific Chat which means that only the people who have joined the threads will see them when they're active, and allows for people to choose which of those in depth conversations they want to be a part of. Informed Consent, really, and I keep a list of links to the threads in the CW list channel so people have an easy reference to find the content they do want to engage with more.

But these could be used for anything you like, from character specific chats to off-topic discussions, and you have the choice in your role setup to allow any members to create/use threads or have them only created by your mod/admin team so you have more control if you don't want a lot of threads popping up that are harder to moderate. This is how our kink specific topics appear in the channel list, but they are only visible here to those who have joined them. Like text channels, users can mute threads at any time and they won't get the white dot of new activity, or users can also leave threads if they want to leave that conversation entirely. Threads can be locked by moderators or put into slow mode too, so you do have options for control where needed.

(I also just want to note that the Feminization topic thread is not in the slightest bit transphobic or problematic, though it is here because not everyone is comfortable with that content and we respect that in this house~ HOHS is a very LGBTQIA+ positive and inclusive space)

Forum Channels

These are my absolute bread and butter for sharing fanfiction, art, and resources. Forums are newer to Discord, so it might take a bit of learning and convincing for more experienced users to get used to them, but trust me on this one; when you have Forums set up they are a much better way to display and discuss creative works.

The reasoning really is that works are searchable, taggable, and people can confidently discuss a work without worrying about clogging a chat channel.

Forum posts can look a lot like threads in the channel list, and have a similar timeout method for how long they stay in the channel list with no new comments/activity in them.

This is an example if how I've arranged the HOHS FanFic "Library" - I have covered the names of most of the fic post titles for other users' privacy and left my own visible as the examples for you. Similarly to Threads, only the posts that a user has interacted with will show up in their channel list, so you don't need to worry about everyone's channel lists being swamped with forum posts that aren't relevant to them.

So here, each of the speech bubble headers is the Forum Channel title. When you're actually in a forum channel you (or any member) can refine how the posts are viewed. Here's some of the art share channels. I have covered the images to protect the works, as I do keep strict rules that art must have a link to the original artwork on a public share by the artist unless the artist is the one posting (ie, no sharing paid patreon only works or things the artist has not made public) so that proper appreciation can be shown to the original.

So this is in "Gallery View" where each post appears as a square with an image preview if there are images. You'll also see tags on the posts - these are a great way to find works and sort through them! You can have up to 20 tags available, and members can apply up to 5 tags to a single post. The tags can then be selected in the gallery menu to show works with that tag on them. This is what I have under "Main Character Art"

You can choose the emojis, and you are able to use your server emojis for these tags too if you like! Unfortunately though this is going to be a tedious part of setting up forum channels, you can't copy them over.

As an example of tag filtering and List View of a Forum, here's the Villain Fic Forum. So again we have those friendly grey boxes to protect the privacy of other members, but I've left my content uncovered for you~

Here you can see I've selected the Haarlep filter, so it is showing works with the Haarlep tag starting with the most recent. List view shows a shorter preview of each piece, and I hovered over the +1 part of the tags on the third post to show you how the extra tags can be seen. The most recent comment is displayed in the preview as well.

So essentially this way people can share their art and fics without worrying they'll get lost. People can also discuss each work in its own post without a long list of threads, and browse older additions based on the tagging system or searching by title in the top bar.

I think that mostly covers forums other than the setup of them which is relatively straightforward - similar to text channels you can use slow mode for both new forum posts and/or comments on forum posts, and the tags can be whatever you want them to be. Just remember you have a maximum of 20 tags for each forum channel and a maximum of 5 per post.

The only other thing is when you are adding tags there might be errors if you have made any other changes to the channel - save those changes with this button before trying to add tags!

Voice Channels

The last area to look at is Voice Channels. These are going to be harder to moderate, so you may want to consider what your community is like and what you want and need from voice channels.

Voice channels come with their own chat channel attached which can be useful for those who don't use a mic, those just dropping by who haven't joined the voice (so you can see here I'm not actively in the VC but I can open the chat window), for sharing images/links that you're discussing in voice, and similar.

Some people prefer to have a separate text channel to chat in alongside voice, which can be better for when you're streaming or running activities, because the attached text chat takes up a part of even the popout window for the voice/streaming/activity.

There are more options like stage channels where you can have a limited number of presenters and the audience are muted. This is great if you want to host talks or specific events and watch parties!

Lots of options so you can age restrict the channels as needed, as well as setting user limits. When a voice channel is active you can also set a status to it. You can choose if members are allowed to do this or only certain roles, but it's a good way to let members know what's going on without joining.

You might need to be cautious with the quality and settings on these if people have difficulty participating with connection quality.

Again, moderation is going to be a concern in a larger or open server, so make sure you have rules established and that members know who to contact in case of issues. But when used well, voice channels can be a lot of fun and even comforting or inspiring for members to get together and play games or work on creative pieces alongside one another. You can even host watch parties with some services.

Roles and Permissions

Roles are going to be the backbone of your member organisation. Beyond the usual Mods and Member roles, you can use them for a number of different organisational and interactive features within your server.

The Order Of Roles

The function of roles will go in the order you have them in your server. This determines where they show up on the member list (it is optional to have roles separate like this), the image that will show up with a member's name who has the role (this is for level 2 and 3 boosted servers), and the colour of a user's name who has the role.

So here even if a Haarlep's Helper Mod had the Swinger of Swords role, their name would be that red tone. Similarly if a user chose both Healer of Souls and Friend of Nature, their name would be Yellow because Healer is the higher ordered colour.

Role Colours

The main thing to remember with Role Colours is to ensure that they are easy to read for people using the default light or dark mode of Discord. Those who pay for Nitro may have more options for background colours, but most members will use the defaults. You will see examples when setting the roles that can help you determine if the colour you have picked will work. The default list are balanced relatively well to have contrast to show up in a readable manner for you, so it's more the custom colours that you might have trouble with.

So that standard dark red is pretty clear on both, but this custom blue is somewhat painful on the dark mode version:

Similarly this pale yellow is perfect on the dark mode, but against the light mode background it's almost invisible.

Commonly Used Roles

Some of the most commonly used roles are for pronouns, so users have an easy way to know how to refer to their friends in chat. Some servers like to assign a colour to these for a quick visible reference. I've used images with them in HOHS

So this is also in the order so that the highest role is the one that appears next to the name (you can only have one image icon unfortunately), and hovering over the image will also show the role name.

This is just one way you can make use of the roles for your members~ I'll go over making it easy for members to choose them a bit lower down but I would like to mention one of my favourite uses of roles:

Optional Pingable Roles

These are some of the more basic alert roles I use - members can opt in, and some of them are able to be pinged (notification tag) by any members. So people can use "@ Beta Reader" to ask for those with the role if they're available to help read and edit a WIP, and the admin/mod roles can alert members to server changes with the Server News Alert role.

One way I really like to make use of these for member engagement is character based pings which are perfect for fandom servers like ours~

These are just a few, I've got them set up for a lot of characters, and allowed anyone to mention the roles. I encourage members to use them for both fics and art, so people with the role know there is new content for their favourite and where to find it. With the bot setup, people can remove their role at any time if they find the notifications overwhelming.

So this is an example where I used them for a fic, tagging the character roles. We do the same when sharing found works and art, which means those looking for the content don't miss their favourites.

Role Permissions

Your roles can all be customised to have global permissions, and each channel can have its own permission overrides where needed too. So for example you might want a role to be able to post images and files in most of the server, but you might not want that role to post them in a specific channel that you want to keep as text only.

It takes a while but properly setting up each channel will give you better control over the content to reduce the moderation work in the long run (ie, you won't need to ask people not to put things in the wrong places).

A Note On Voice Notes

Voice notes are going to be a very personal preference thing. I generally prefer not to use them, because users may not be able to listen to them at the time which makes moderation more difficult too. I have also seen issues arise from the use of voice notes, especially when people post them with no context note of what to expect.

So, personally, I disable voice notes in my server. I have seen them well used in other places, and they can arguably be an accessibility feature, however if you leave voice to text and text to voice enabled then those who need to hear or use voice instead of typing should still be able to interact as they need to.

I would generally advise asking members to leave at least a few words with their voice note, for example "replying to [username]" or "impression of [character]" or "discussion of [topic]" so that people know what to expect when they hit play. It's entirely up to each of us how we run our own spaces, however, so choose the best option for you and your server~

Helpful Bots and Setup

Bots can help you get the most out of your server without too much hard work once they're all set. These are the ones I personally use and recommend for different features, but there are a number of options out there to choose from!

Reaction Roles

If you have roles, this is the easiest way to allow people to choose and assign them for themselves and change them when they wish!

So this is using Carlbot https://carl.gg , which I have renamed "The Archivist" for a theme in our server. There are a lot of functions to Carlbot, but the most commonly used are these reaction roles.

It's relatively easy to set up, but you will need to manually type or copy the emoji code for the reacts you're using for the roles. There are a few other settings you can play with there too, like only allowing those with certain roles to pick up a new role.

It's also a great one to have people confirm they have read your rules to access the main server if you role lock your main channels to the member role.

Starboard

One fun feature that Carl (and some other bots) have is Starboard. This is a way for members to highlight their favourite messages on the server and look back at those moments! You can choose how many star reactions are needed for a post to go there, then they will automatically be sent to your starboard channel. You can also choose whether or not to include NSFW marked channels, so if you want Starboard to be SFW only that is an option. One that I didn't take for HOHS given that we are NSFW by default~

Ticket Bots

This is one of your easiest moderation tools - you can use a bot like https://ticketsbot.net/ which will allow users to raise an issue privately with ease. The command is often /open to bring up a new ticket which mods can then join - it'll show up as a thread for you. It doesn't take too much setup on the dashboard and there are other options, but this can be a lot easier than asking people to DM a mod directly.

Automated Messages

Carl and other bots can send automated messages on a schedule for you. This can also include notifying certain roles, so if you want to have a weekly progress check-in set up for creative communities, or even self care reminders a couple of times per day, that's all very easy to get running and can help you to keep the community ticking over with engagement on a semi-regular basis.

Post Embed Fixing

Meet one of my favourite content bots - Keto (Click here to add it to your server). This one takes site links to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and others and puts a proper visible or playable version in the server.

This is so useful particularly for TikTok where the standard Discord setup will show you a still image with a play button on it.

You can see here that the bot automatically takes the link and converts it to a playable video (which is a still image here, but you can see the buffering bar on there). As with other bots, I gave it a nickname in the server for flavour and fun~

Good Gods That's A Lot Of Work

I know, right? Setting up a server isn't something you can do overnight, not if you want to have a larger space. Often servers will reorganise as they go, making more space as they find what their needs are, but if you can set up how you want it from the start, that can make things a lot easier so people don't have to adapt and adjust as much to a change.

Any Questions?

I think I covered pretty much everything other than the very basics of server setup, but I am more than happy to help any of you with questions about the setup, use of forums, channel layout, and anything else you need with your Discord organising~

And as always, those who share our values are welcome in my House of Hopeful Sinners~

[basil-appreciation-comic]

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

the comic is cancelled. you probably already assumed that since i havent posted anything about it in a while but yeah the things dead now lol. mainly because i dont care much about omori anymore, the comic sucked, and it was too much effort. i feel kinda bad about leaving you guys in the dark for this long tho, so i thought id go ahead and include all the scrapped stuff for the comic that never got finished

while i was writing the comic i started a google doc that laid out ideas i had for future pages. heres that if you wanna know how the story ends

it was written over several months and (most) things are in order of where they go on the timeline not when i wrote them so it might be a little hard to follow

also some art i never posted

(at least i dont think ive posted the last one)

i quoted not liking this comic as one of the reasons i stopped so let me explain that with a list of things id change about this if i were to remake it (which i wont)

remove the swearing that was so stupid

make omori mute (and probably use sign language)

omori does not express fear or stress in-game, thats sunnys job. quit it

he also does not cry and generally shows emotions (even the big ones) in more subtle ways (which i think i was trying to shift towards later in the doc) idk why he was so emotional all the time

literally everything about how i portrayed omori actually that was all just awful

the panic attack scene is fucking embarrassing i have no clue what i was thinking. im so sorry for writing it like that i did 0 research beforehand

make it shorter why did i think that would work out

id probably just make it a fic, comics take way too much outta me compared to just writing things

it does not need a big epic ending and probably shouldve ended not long after they escaped black space

the romance is horrible but thats the foundation of the comic so idek what id do about that

stop making everyone talk like therapists 24/7

and yeah it has a lot of problems but i still do care about this due to the ammount of effort and love ive put into it, i just cant and dont want to continue it

so yeah thats where this story ends ig. i had a lot of fun along the way, and thank you so much for all the support. bigger thanks to that one sunflower discord server (if you came from there you know which one) for being my main motivation and support throughout this journey. sucks this comic never got to see its full potential but im relieved to finally lay it to rest. the blog will stay up for archival purposes but i will not continue the comic any further obviously. the ask box will remain open if you wanna say anything or if you have a question about the story or whatever. thanks for reading.

[lousypotatoes]

Hello!

May I request a Mukuro Ikusaba x reader camping in the woods oneshot?

Into The Woods - Mukoro x GN! Reader

Song Recommendation:

Heart Of Oak - Richard Crawley

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"Do you have everything?"

"Yeah, just gotta grab the bug spray,"

"Hurry up then,"

You and your girlfriend, Mukoro were going camping, something that you absolutely did not want to do.

Camping in the woods had always scared you, since you were a child, but Mukoro insisted that the two of you go, and you couldn't say no.

"Hey babe?" you asked. "How about we don't go, and instead watch a movie here?"

"Y/N, we already talked about this," she said, giving you a look. "It's confront this stupid fear of yours."

"It's not stupid!" you said, feigning your offense.

"No one else we know has a fear of camping!" Mukoro said, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, well it's a real thing! It's called Arkoudaphobia!"

"Whatever," Mukoro rolled her eyes. "Can we just go already? Please? I want to get there before the sun starts setting."

"You're lucky I love you," you muttered, walking out the door. "Or else I would of punched you as soon as you brought it up."

"Uh huh, sure you would."

"I totally would!"

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"How do you do this?"

"How the hell do you not know not put up a tent?"

"I've never been camping before this," you huffed. "And besides, lots of people don't know how to put up a tent."

"Yeah, like little kids," Mukoro said, kneeling down. "It's basic survival skills."

"Yeah, well I never learned those kinds of skills," you said. "Can you please show me? Pretty please?"

"Fine," she groaned. "Okay, so you first have to attach the poles-"

"Which poles?" you interrupted.

"Those ones over there," she said, pointing to the poles laying in the dirt. "And then you fasten the poles through the tent, and then you just raise it."

"Raise what?"

"The tent," Mukoro groaned. "You raise the tent."

"Ohhhhhh," you said. "I get it,"

"You think can set it up all by yourself?" Mukoro asked.

"I think so," you answered.

"Good," Mukoro said, kissing your cheek. "I'm gonna go find up some wood for the fire. I shouldn't be long."

"Don't go too far," you said as she got up.

"Don't worry, I won't,"

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"What was that?"

"Just the wind babe. There's nothing out there, I promise,"

You and Mukoro were in the tent right now, trying to go to sleep. Unfortunately for you, there were weird noises coming from outside, keeping you from falling asleep.

And unfortunately for your girlfriend, you being scared kept her from falling asleep.

"Mukoro, I swear there's something out there," you said, pulling your sleeping bag over your face, like a scared little five-year-old scared of the monsters under your bed.

But this time, there were monsters outside the tent.

"Y/N for the last time, there's nothing outside," Mukoro said, taking your hand in hers. "I know that camping scares you, but you seriously have to get over this fear,"

You sighed. "I know," you said. "It's just hard for me y'know."

"I know," Mukoro said, pulling you closer to her, your bodies touching. "But it's gonna be okay. I'll be here with you every step of the way."

You leaned up and kissed softly, your lips molding together.

You pulled away after a moment.

"I love you Mukoro," you whispered.

"I love you too," she whispered back. You didn't see it, but there was heavy blush on her face. "Now c'mon, let's get some sleep, we have a busy day tomorrow."

And with that, you closed your eyes, drifting off into sleep, comforted by Mukoro's comfort and words.

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might make a part 2 tbh

OMG I GRADUATE IN 5 DAYS

I AM SO NOT READY FOR THIS

please join my discord, it'll be the best graduation present ever 🙏

stay safe and drink lots of water <33

xoxo, Izzy

[moonpile]

The Trouble with Home Tours - ESO U43

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/661795/ - U43 Home Tours - Preemptive Feedback

TL;DR: A description field alone would solve a lot of problems. With the other sub-features, it could've been great.

Intro:

I admire the project this is based on: EHT Housing Hub. Due to clues in datamines and because EHT's creator was hired to work for ZOS (he was on the reveal stream), some of us suspected for months that Home Tours would be the new feature in Update 43. It was not a surprise.

The disappointment is not about what it is. It's not that "we already have an addon" (the feature could've been better for all of us, PC and console alike).

It's that I hoped it would come with more utility and improvements on EHT's Housing Hub,

rather than being an extremely "lite" version. I actually don't use HH much due to UI and UX; official implementation could improve these.

For now, I’m not looking forward to Home Tours. I don’t want to share nor tour builds if there’s no way to share the description or POI.

Feedback:

1. Descriptions:

Anyone who's done housing events knows that descriptions are crucial, both for explaining the build's story and visitor tips/directions.

Two things make me want to visit a build:

Screenshots

Description

HT has neither; tags don't suffice. It will be a mess when there are thousands of listings.

Example from EHT Housing Hub: Hovering over a home in EHT shows the description. Home Tours could improve upon this UI and make it fit the game's aesthetics.

Also with EHT, players can put a custom book containing the house description. This would be a great sub-feature to bring in, keeping things in-game rather than in UI.

Example: custom books

I don't like to use EHT effects: they don't match the in-game aesthetics/UI, show through other objects, and not everyone has them enabled. Official implementation could improve this.

1.5 Weather Control:

Worth mentioning weather control again since it shows up a ton in descriptions: "Please visit in sunny weather or lights don't work!" etc. Dark, low-contrast rain & lightning flashing are physically painful and annoying as a builder, but it's bad for streamers or judges too: they don't have time to wait around for the right conditions or return when it's finally sunny again if they have 50 others to visit.

2. House Nicknames:

Disappointed that titles are not showcase-specific.

I use nicknames with BMU to organize my houses for easy travel. (I constantly change the numbers, so if I'm actively working on a house it might be 00 or 01.)

But I don't want my "Teahouse for Azandar" to show up as "04 ATHFA" for visitors... or worse thanks to the character limit:

3. Point of Interest markers:

Descriptions could be shorter if we could place graphical POI markers, with an option to add short flavor text that would show on interaction. (No slot wasting: these should not be furnishings. Should be able to show/hide so they don't clash with the visuals.)

Example, EHT's POI markers:

Again, style doesn't match and these show through walls and objects. Official implementation could improve upon EHT.

I started making graphics like this to help visitors. The above in-game features would be better.

Since I couldn't include a graphic in-game, and without descriptions (and because of the EHT copy-paste issue!) I’d rather not use the House Tours feature for now. Discord, Reddit, Youtube, etc. are all better ways to find housing inspiration and community.

I'm making my own housing directory, here.

...

From the outside, it appears like there may have been hurdles that tied devs' hands, preventing something more feature-rich.

I know others are disappointed it's not one of many other oft-requested features. But since this is what we got, I hope others will ask for these improvements as well, and that the devs can keep working and expanding on it.