#also making fantasy animals based on irl animals is so fun even if it’s basically just a color/aesthetic swap

[animal-appreciation]

I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo I love you Potoo I love you great Potoo

[cat-esper]

WIP Questionnaire

I was tagged to do this by @teacupsandstarlight

In return, I shall be gently tagging @awleeofficial, @illarian-rambling, and @ahordeofwasps + open tag!

Questions:

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

The Enochians. The initial inspiration for Records was actually Peter Mohrbacher's artwork which I saw at a con. I imagined a world where these vast and horrific angels just appeared in the sky over a world that was basically their sandbox. All I had to figure out was who lived in the world and what they would do about it.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I picture Records having a whole intro title and credits sequence with very 80s CGI fantasy landscapes to this song here:

The fictional band Red Tape Rocket plays an important role in this series and I based their sound on my very favorite irl band, the Moody Blues, so there's a fun fact for you.

Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

Definitely Sydney and Dell. Sydney's a girl who struggles to see herself in a positive light after being told again and again that she's worthless by members of her own family while being quietly brushed aside by the people who are supposed to care. So when she ends up on the Spiral, it's very much a journey of self-discovery and learning to be confident in herself and boy, do I want to give her a hug.

Dell started out as an email attachment that, due to some strange reality-warping shenanigans, gains sentience on Reyna's computer. She's super excited to speak with him and teach him things because her life is sad and she has no friends and he ends up leading her on a quest to the Spiral. I already know he's going to be fun to write because AI/robots always end up my favorites anyway XD

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

I've always thought this would make a cool Jim Henson movie so probably fans of weird, dark surreal fantasy like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal would like it.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Probably getting everything to fit together in a way that makes sense but also allowing myself to leave certain elements a mystery. Usually when I plan my magic systems, I like to make hard rules for them but the Spiral is home to an eldritch skeleton thing that literally warps reality so anything can happen.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Depends what constitutes animals, I guess. I have a lot of strange creatures that inhabit the Spiral but all of them are sentient (yes, even the sandstone), so I guess they'd be more like fantasy races than animals. But they include the Varixxi, moth-like winged humanoids, the Aroon, clay pot tortoise-looking guys, and the Keem-Torali, which look like tentacled Horta that secrete acid and chill in extremely salty water.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Walking mostly or, if they're lucky, my characters may catch a ride on a Colossus, but they're very hard to climb on to and you have to be careful not to get stepped on. Incidentally, there's also the molted exoskeleton of an eldritch abomination that sometimes becomes a portal when someone dies next to it, but that's not very practical.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I've actually been taking a little break from this so I can focus on Incantations but I really want to have my draft of book 1 finished by the end of the year.

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

This is pure, old school portal fantasy escapism. The main characters are all unhappy in their normal lives, wish for something more, and they get it. They're not your traditional heroes, but they get to save the world anyway.

What are your hopes for your wip?

If this story and these characters resonate with at least one person and can help them get through the day, I'll be content.

Records of the Spiral taglist: @awleeofficial , @desastreus

General taglist: @thatrandomlemononyourcounter1, @teacupsandstarlight

Blank questionnaire below the cut:

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

What are your hopes for your wip?

[maddgicalgirl]

Paracosm Resources <3

Need help bringing your paracosm to life? Try these free resources!

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

(Cont. below cut, or with real time updates on this google doc!)

Art Programs

FireAlpaca - 2D Art Program, Animation. Where I make most of my digital art, and paint the frames for my animations :) It is free to use, and easy to learn and use! It can make basic animations as well, such as gifs. It requires download.

Krita - 2D Art Program. Professional, free digital paint software :) I have not used it before, though I have heard good things.

GIMP - 2D Art Program, Photo Manipulation. It's free to use, but I do not like it/recommend it highly. But! If FireAlpaca and Krita don't float your stoat, try Gimp! For 2D art, but also able to emulate Photoshop to a degree ^^

Inkscape - 2D Art Program. Free to use digital illustration software. Makes 2D art :)

Of course, who can forget classics like good old MS Paint, and the new and exciting 3D MS Paint, which can both be used to create some really neat things! Classic MS Paint is available here in browser form! If you need that. I just think it's neat!

Art AI

Petalica Paint - Coloring Software. An in browser, watercolor manga style coloring software, which can (almost) effortlessly color in any of your line art pieces! I've played around with it for my Thorn illustration style piece, and enjoyed it! It is free to use, and can take user input to make the colorations more precise.

ArtBreeder - 3D Realism Software. Using Artbreeder, you can create lifelike images of your paras, planets, or potentially even fursona, using the intricate AI they let you work with for free! A premium version exists, but most functions are fully usable without - though I recommend donating ^^ You can randomly generate, or prune and shape what you make until its perfect! Slow to use and get the hang of, but very worth it! Artbreeder is also pioneering an intriguing animation software to go alongside their product! Browser based.

3D Software

Blender - 3D Modeling, Animation. The best (in my opinion) free 3D modelling software.

MagicaVoxel - 3D Pixel Art. Free to use! Could be interesting :)

MikuMikuDance - 3D Rigging. Anime style rigging and animation software, free to use, and certified internet artefact! Has stood the test of time, and is still used and loved today. Can support ports of many kinds of assets, including, I believe, those from Blender, and of course those that are downloaded. DA has a bunch of old MMD communities you can raid for assets!

Animaze - Face Rigger. Use 3D models and a webcam to watch your paras talk! Models can be made in Blender, downloaded online, or even from CHARAT V, CHARAT GENESIS sister app!

Character Creators

CHARAT GENESIS - 2D Character Creator. Browser based anime style character creator, with multiple crops and poses, and infinitely customizable options. It is legitimately insane. Has a 3D function called CHARAT V which can apparently convert characters made in CHARAT GENESIS into 3D models compatible with Face Rig and Animaze!

V-Katsu - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, intensive character creator, by the same people who made Koikatsu, and Koikatsu Party, two amazingly detailed 3D hentai makers. While V-Katsu is a SFW VTuber maker, if you're looking for NSFW anime content, you could always spend roughly $70 on the full NSFW versions. V-Katsu requires a translation mod (free online as well) which you have to install, or the ability to read Kanji <3 Works with VR tech.

V-Roid Studios - 3D Character Creator. Free on steam! Anime style, fairly in depth character creator, that allows for some degree of digital 3D hand sculpting, particularly with their amazing hair engine, to get your paras looks perfect!

And, of course, Picrew has thousands of character creators of various styles and quality uploaded by the artists who made them! Also, honestly I think we as a society should embrace making dinky chibis in Gacha Life. IDK why everyone is mean to the gacha kids, like we weren't all cringe at some point,

World Design

HomeStyler - 3D and 2D Room Designer. Make a model of an interior for a home or building, using real 1:1 furniture of IRL brands! Apparently this is free to use, though there is a premium version, and  it offers 3D and 2D models.

Map to World - 3D Planet Maker. Turn your fantasy world into a 3D model of the planet. Put maps directly on, or design the surface and textures of your world. Takes a lot of getting used to, but it is AMAZING. Free to use, and browser based!

PlanetMaker - 3D Planet Maker. Make a customized 3D planet! Free to use browser site! I have never used this, but I would love to mess around with it sometime! Allows you to add orbital rings, change textures, and more at the click of a mouse.

If on sale, I also recommend snagging a copy of the Sims, particularly 3 or 4, for character creation and world design. Maybe not the best gameplay without mods, but it's also a load of fun, and very easy to add custom content to! Minecraft also. But you just need Minecraft, in general. Beyond its ability to fairly faithfully recreate structures from your paracosms, it's just Good.

Game Creators

Maybe you wanna turn your paracosm into a cool game idk, just thought I'd put these here!

Construct 3 - 2D Game Creator. Beginner level game making :) Drag-and-drop if/then style programming.

GameSalad - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style/no coding, beginner friendly. Free version available!

Solpeo - 2D Game Creator. HTML5 based game engine for 2D and isometric game development. Some programming knowledge needed. Platforms supported: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9+. Free version available.

Stencyl - Codeless 2D Game Creator. Drag and drop style building/no coding skills needed. Has editable templates!

Scratch - 2D Game Creator. Very easy to use and totally free, though relatively basic!

Unity - 3D, 2D, and VR Game Creator. Make games with 3D software. Import your own assets (Blender compatible) or download free options, or buy the rights to models. Works for 3D and 2D games. Free version available, and now works with VR tech!

Unreal Engine - 3D Game Creator. Extremely advanced 3D game developer. Highly customizable. Free to use!

Twine - Text-based Game Creator. Use a map to make a branching paths text-based story game. Free to use.

Squiffy - Text-based Game Creator. have used Squiffy and it can make some really, truly incredible things. Can take a while to pick up, and learn how to use to its full potential. Free to use! Has an online and offline library of player creations you can get inspiration from!

Quest - Text-based Game Creator. I've never used this, but it seems cool! Use it to make interactive text-based DND game adventures in browser.

Ren'Py - Visual Novel Creator. Visual novel engine, that is well acclaimed, and of course, free to use!

Companion AI

Replika - 3D Companion.

Kajiwoto - Chatbot Companion. Customizable, learning AI you can shape into a personality. Communicates via Discord like chat box.

Organization

Toyhou.se - Character Gallery. A customizable library where you can upload all of your paras and characters for the public to view! Free to use, but requires a premium member to invite you!

Refsheet - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

Notebook.AI - Character Gallery. I haven't used it before, but I've heard good things, and that it's a suitable alternative to toyhou.se if you can't get an invite!

World Anvil - World Building Toolset. Like character galleries, but for worlds and their lore :)

Scabard - World Building Toolset. Aimed at DnD campaigners, but I reckon it'll be useful for many!

YARPS - World Building Toolset. More focused around story and lore than Scabard or World Anvil, and looks beautiful! Still in its prototype stage, however.

Pinterest - Photo Organizer. Look at, collect, and sort images into boards. Personalizes your feed based on that, and is free to use and join! However, unlike their myriad of wonderful recipes, DIY tutorials, and the likes - a lot of the images are uploaded by second parties and not credited, so be careful reuploading anything you find! Also great for finding outfits and art inspo for your paras!

Generators

Fantasy Name Generator - Name Generators. Does what it says on the tin! Generates fantasy names. Is a lovely website, run by a purportedly lovely woman.

Fantasy Map Generator - Map Generator. Randomly generates a fictional map, which you can view in 2D or 3D.

Donjon RPG Generator - Multiple Generators. Can make maps, weapons, items, etc.

Seventh Sanctum - Multiple Generators. One of my favorites from high school! Does all kinds of things - the standard items, spells, and names - but also prompts, backstories, characters, and even comedy generators!

ShindanMaker - Multiple Generators. User created and uploaded, any kind of generator you can imagine, of varying complexity. And when I say any generator? I mean ANY generator.

Audio

Audacity - Record and Edit Audio. What can't Audacity do? I love Audacity to death. At surface level, it records audio. I've used it to record voices for my paras, and get audio for animations and games I've worked on. I cannot recommend it enough. Comprehensive editing, and with some investigation, it can do so, so much more than just record simple dialogue.

FL Studios - Compose. Compose music with an unlimited free trial. Upgrades available for purchase!

Indie Game Music - Royalty Free Music Library. Free to use Indie Game Music. What it says on the box!

AudioJungle - Royalty Free Music and Audio Library. Thousands of free to use audio clips!

Online Piano - Someone could use this, for recording, or just messing around. I've seen plenty of paras who play piano, this could just be used for fun!

Online Guitar - Same reasons as above, but this site looks kinda sketchy. Use at your own risk or reward! Audio

For real, if you ever need music, sound effects, or really any MP3 clips that can be used without infringing on copyright laws, just search 'royalty free' (music/audio/insert thing here) same applies for photos! Make sure the source is reputable, however.

Tutorials

W3Schools - Coding. Learn the basics of coding, for free, online!

Miscellaneous

Debut Video Capture - Screen Recorder. Record game footage and let's plays for free! Professional and home versions. I see a few of our community members have paras who run YouTube channels, and I thought these might help! It could be a nice way to connect your parames. YouTube quality <3

Pixton - Comic Maker. Comic making website. I have no experience with this at all, but some may find it useful!

Picfont - Image Editor. Puts customizable text on an image. I used these for @paraesthetics paracosm header edits <3 It has a premium version (???) but the free version has all functions, but it crashes regularly (honestly seems timed :/) but once you get it down, it's a very quick process, and you won't have to worry about that at all.

Itch.io - Publishing. You can publish your self made games here :)

Korsakow - ??? Described as, "The Future of Storytelling" and is apparently a way to create interactive films. I *just* found out about this, but thought I should include it for someone who may know how to use and appreciate it! Free? Unknown, at the moment.

Tips and Tricks

Animation Done Easy

Our forefather's of internet animation used MS Paint, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity. All of these, or their equivalents, are free on standard computers. I, personally, use FireAlpaca - which works just as well, if not better, than MS Paint for animation - but takes longer, and definitely lacks that retro feeling. I also use my trackpad to draw and animate everything, so its doable, but probably not totally comfortable, to animate like this for most people :)

⚠️ Updates always pending! Suggestions always welcome! Feel free to message me any tips or questions <3 ⚠️

[tiktaaliker]

@m1sosazai ok ok ok SO i guess this rant is more about pokemon evolution in the darwin sense of the word but i have to talk about that first before getting into the domestication stuff (or i guess i don't have to but i want to)

putting it under a readmore because it really is horrifically long i am so sorry

to start it off, one thing ive thought about a lot is how a pokemon evolving compares to irl evolution. and surface level? not a ton of similarities other than "one creature becomes different creature." like, normally, evolution is VERY gradual, takes place over an EXTREMELY long time, and affects the species over many generations rather than the individual. Pokemon evolution, on the other hand, happens all at once, is instantaneous, and affects the individual and not the species (especially since all pokemon hatching from eggs are base evos? VERY wack when trying to compare it to macroevoltuion)

AND speaking of eggs, egg groups???? VERY wack. usually in an evolutionary sense a split into a different species is defined by members of the different populations no longer being able to have fertile offspring (not gonna get into the weird world of hybrids here because that would make this even LONGER, so im just going to. completely ignore stuff like wolfdogs and domestic/wildcat hybrids for now lol). so, like, if you're trying to fit pokemon into our normal taxonomic system, all pokemon sharing egg groups can TECHNICALLY be considered different breeds of the same species. like dog breeds? rattata is to copporajah as a chiuahua is to a Samoyed. and then you add in the fact that a lot of pokemon have double egg groups and then it gets even MORE complicated and weird

so, yeah, sure, pokemon evolution and irl evolution aren't one to one analogs, and same with pokemon species and animal. seems pretty obvious, looking at it. but then the question is, what IS evolution?

one thing i considered is that it's something akin to metamorphasis in insects and amphibians. and in some aspects, sure yeah it works! there's even some pokemon where the middle evolution is a cocoon. there's some pokemon that are amphibians with a tadpole/larval stage!! but the main thing that makes it kinda weird is that, with the exception of the handful of baby stage pokemon? you can throw the first or second stage into the daycare and still get an egg. one of the biggest things about having larval stages and undergoing metamorphosis is that reproduction isnt possible until the final stage!! like for bugs especially that is the entire point.

ALSO, there's the fact that a pokemon's evolution is STILL a different pokemon than the previous stages. a bullfrog tadpole is still a bullfrog, and a monarch butterfly caterpillar is still a monarch butterfly, but a weedle is not a beedril. im mostly basing this on the fact that later stage pokemon can learn different moves/can get different abilities after evolving, and even get different typing. i guess you COULD argue that a line of pokemon are technically all still the same species of pokemon a la caterpillar and butterfly, and the moves/abilities are just the result of form begetting function, but that's not as fun for me in this fantasy creature scenario so i am opting to ignore that point. so while i like the comparison superficially im not gonna just accept it at face value. there is TOTALLY more going on here.

so, my theory is that its sort of a strange mix of darwinian evolution and larval stages. it's the mechanics of larval stages with the end result being more similar to irl evolution. i think that, both genetically and physically, pokemon are far more malleable than real animals. something i also think is interesting that plays into all this is the fact that pokemon usually evolve via "experience" and "levels," which is basic in a gameplay sense but biologically? absolutely FASCINATING to me. this is already really long and i havent even gotten to what i really wanted to talk about so ill keep this short but i think pokemon are beings with EXTREMELY high amounts of potential energy, and can all somehow harvest energy released by defeating other pokemon, convert it into biomass to become stronger, and can sometimes use that energy to trigger evolution. but that's probably something i should save for a different multi-paragraph ramble in the future lol

and THEN there is actual literal macroevolution happening in pokemon that we can directly see the results of. regional variants!! pokemon that have different typing and appearances and sometimes even evolutions that change in different regions!! and SHELLOS MY FRIEND MY BELOVED SHELLOS. there is direct and stated evidence that populations of pokemon CAN undergo macroevolution. this is a canon thing that happens.

but even then, it occurs WAY faster and WAY more dramatically than how it would occur naturally. like there's some that could be argued mightve happened after a split a very long time ago (aka all the alolan variants, island ecosystems ARE fantastically good at isolating populations after all), but then we have the hisuian forms. so, the hisui region in legends arceus is roughly analogous to meiji era japan (if i recall correctly??) so ill be operating under the assumption that the game takes place sometime between 1870 to 1900. also fun fact because i literally just realized this, the origin of the species was older than the meiji era. the more you know.

ANYWAYS, i would like to talk about sneasel. im focusing on that line in particular both due to the connection to hisui/sinnoh (weavile being introduced in gen IV) and the fact that it's a new evolution INSTEAD of a modern evolution. so, for a lot of pokemon, its not exactly clear where they ACTUALLY originated from; it can't always be assumed that the region where we first see them is where they're ACTUALLY from, like with yungoos being stated to "imported from another region" into alola. so with the other hisuian forms (especially pokemon that can't be found normally in dpp), it's plausible to think that MAYBE these are much older offshoots of pokemon that died out entirely and no longer occupy the region, like with the slugma line, or even the qwilfish line, since it's plausible that after a while after hisuian qwilfish died out, regular qwilfish might've just migrated from somewhere else to the waters around iron island and filled in the nice again. or its like the zoura and basculin lines, which are both. pretty much already dead. or with ursaluna and kleavor, its that the conditions they required to evolve don't really happen anymore. i could go into a whole OTHER rant about electode but im already getting off topic enough

ANYWAYS. sneasel. i believe that of all the regional forms sneaseler is the wildest in terms of implications. first of all, TWO new types, fighting and poison? every other hisuian pokemon other than the zoura line have at least 1 shared typing from the other forms. and unlike kleavor, which evolves ALONGSIDE scizor, sneasel evolves into sneaseler INSTEAD of weavile. a hisuian sneasel cannot evolve into a weavile. so what happened??? what i am trying to imply is that maybe hisuian sneasel came BEFORE the modern dark/ice senasel, and evolved in the darwinian sense to fill a different niche. hisuan sneasel is implied to be a more direct hunter, while the typical sneasel is infamous for stealing other pokemon's eggs. additionally, im basing on hisuian sneasel coming first on the fact that it's REALLY unlikely for a species to re-evolve a trait that was previously lost.

considering that hisuian sneasel and sneasler were around as recently as the 1900s, that's like. a relatively VERY short time for something that major to change. im guessing that sneasel got REALLY close to complete extinction but eventually bounced back as the modern form via a bottleneck situation, but that still seems like a very short time for something that major to happen? so like. to try to sum my thoughts up quickly because i am becoming hyper aware of how LONG this is getting holy SHIT, something about the nature of pokemon as a whole allows them to evolve in a darwinian sense MUCH faster than in real life; since just being in a region can change a pokemon's evolution, its possible that maybe outside conditions can actively cause mutations in the egg, allowing a population to adapt faster and more efficiently to their environment?

and so, FINALLY, i can actually talk about domestication. the whole point of this rant in the first place????? whoops.

in real life, domestication is a VERY long, VERY arduous process. it's pretty much a type of targeted evolution. it's usually either a very deliberate process in terms of selectively breeding for desirable traits, like with a dog's temperament or a sheep's wool production. its NOT something that can be done quickly, and there has to be a trait to select for in the first place. there are also some cases of self-domestication, where the animal directly benefits from being comfortable around humans. for example, domestic cats and house mice are both self-domesticated.

my theory is that, in the modern day, EVERY pokemon is technically domesticated.

so, here's some of my reasoning; for one, you can't just go outside and grab a raccoon from your yard and expect it to act like a pet. it's not a domesticated animal, its WILD. on the other hand, you CAN grab a cat or pigeon off the city street and you have a chance of taming it down if you work at it enough. they're not wild, just feral. in the same reasoning, a wolf is gonna be WAY more dangerous to be around than a stray dog, and a wolfdog (i know i said i was going to ignore those but shhhh its my rant i can pick and choose what i discuss in too much depth) is going to have a SIGNIFICANTLY different demeanor than a dog.

in the modern pokemon games, however, you can just catch whatever pokemon you want and you can pet it and dress it in funny hats. you can catch a literal dragon and like 5 minutes later PLAY FETCH WITH IT. additionally, you, the trainer, are never directly attacked by wild pokemon. you have to fight them, but only with your own pokemon. when you run out of pokemon, you are able to flee and get to a pokecenter relatively unharmed!!! no matter where you were!!!

in hisui, on the other hand? these pokemon are actively trying to kill you. most pokemon in the game, when they see you , will either run away or just start swinging. and, yeah, you can catch them, and can use them in battle, but there's a few things different; there's no set turn order, with each pokemon going once per round. you just gotta hope you're fast enough to get a hit or two in. there are NO double battles. the only time you fight more than one pokemon are with diamond/pearl clan, who don't use pokeballs; i like to think that they don't actually directly command their pokemon in these battles, maybe they give a few but its mostly just the pokemon doing their own thing. and in those, you only get one pokemon at a time. this, along with akari/rei's trouble with pikachu not listening, implies that it's typical for a trainer to not have as much... i woudn't call it control, that sounds too harsh, but i think its more like the trainer and pokemon don't have as much immediate understanding on how the whole battle thing is supposed to work, i guess.

so at some point between the time of legends: arceus and modern times, pokemon as a whole became domesticated. i think it's reasonable to think this something that COULD happen in that span of time, since i already explained here my thoughts on how pokemon can undergo change much quicker and at a much larger scale than irl animals.

as to how it happened? for one, i feel like the whole thing the diamond and pearl clans are doing with both nobles and just the pokemon they partner with is like. a perfect example of domestication. like they are probably more likely to keep pokemon that do well with humans around their settlements, and just like. idk i feel like whole noble thing could end up with domestication even if its completely accidental. like im pretty sure the ride pokemon in particular are probably self-domesticated at LEAST.

but ok, my WILDEST theory as to why even in legends you can catch a pokemon that wants to rip your arms off and five minutes later chill out with your new buddy? and how pokemon as a whole went from being potentially deadly to a mild inconvenience while traveling between towns? pokeballs. it was pokeballs.

so, like, i think catching a pokemon in a pokeball is kinda similar to evolution in pokemon, in that the energy involved in the process allows for rapid and dramatic change. like, ok, a big motif with evolution? the pokemon is shrouded by a glowing bright light. what happens to a pokemon when it's caught? there's a bright light before it enters the pokeball. its definitely WAY less of that energy than with evolution, but i think it's probably VERY similar. so pretty much part of the whole appeal with pokeballs is that it speeds up the domestication process in the same way evolution speeds up... evolution. it's the pokemon universe's equivalence of selectively breeding wolves to make a dog (and falling into my previously proposed theory of an individual pokmeon acting almost like a species in terms of evolution)

and then, in legends arceus, you're expected to catch a LOT of pokemon. you're probably going to catch multiple of most of the pokemon. and you're ALSO gonna be releasing these pokemon. those are no longer wild pokemon, they're feral, and mixing in with the rest of the population. over time, this mass catching and releasing for research ends up adding a LARGE amount of domestic pokemon to the wild. with pokemon being so adaptable, its possible that these pokemon pass their better temperament towards humans onto their offspring, and now there are pokemon that are more domestic without ever being caught, and all this compounds over several generations until pokemon are no longer trying to murder every person they make eye contact with.

ok hm i think all that might sound a bit colder than i wanted it to? im mostly just having a moment about how being a pokemon trainer is inherently an act of love and trust going both ways. you have to trust your pokemon! your pokemon has to trust you! and a pokeball is a symbol of that trust and also the result of people trying to form a bond with these strange creatures!!!! and i just think that it would be really, REALLY cool if, the pla protag's effort to make people trust pokemon more is also causing pokemon to trust people more!!!! it goes BOTH WAYS.......

ok ok ok and as a final note, my thoughts on starter pokemon!! i think they were the earliest attempts at domesticating pokemon, and the process was a lot more similar to irl domestication rather than the pokeball theory. I like to think that maybe the Cyndaquil at least was captive bred (its kinda a mouse and kinda a ferret and BOTH of those are domesticated animals). the Oshawott is a bit iffy, but based on the final evolution im guessing it was chosen specifically for battle prowess. ROWLET tho. ROWLET. IT'S FALCONRY. IT'S FALCONRY!!!!

falconry is a REALLY old practice that i find EXTREMELY fascinating because. yeah those are still completely wild animals even today pretty much every falconry raptor is going to be wild caught. but falconry is also a thing of trust and understanding the bird's wants and needs and!!! it just fits SO well with the themes of pokemon!!! literally the whole reason why i started thinking about pokemon domesticity so much was because i could NOT stop thinking about decidueye falconry ever since the starters for legends arceus was revealed.

EDIT because i forgot to mention!! so i think that with the starters, by modern times they're all 100 percent completely domesticated to the point of no longer naturally being found in the wild. sure, youll find some wild ones sometimes, but theyre gonna be random, small clumps of pokemon probably released by a trainer that was breeding them. like feral cat colonies. typically you're only gonna be finding a starter from a pokemon professor, or a breeder specifically focusing on starters. they used to have wild populations in the wild (ie sinnoh starters found the wild in legends arceus) but all eventually just. stopped existing in the wild for some reason or another?

anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk

[cosplayinamerica]

AUTHOR INTERVIEW : Ryan La Sala

The best thing about being in Artist Alley is the opportunity to meet people. You are sitting behind a table and basically the entire convention comes by you. Over three days you are chatting, laughing and sharing stories with the community. It was 2019 and I was sharing a table at Anime NYC 2019. It was my first time back to New York in a number of years and this is how I met author Ryan La Sala who just released his first book Reverie at that time. He mentioned he was working on a book related to cosplay. Fast forward to now Jan 2021 and his new book Be Dazzled is out!

But before we jump into the book, let’s talk to Ryan about his experience cosplaying. I mean I do run a cosplay blog!

EJEN: So Ryan, after digging around on Google I discovered you cosplayed at New York Comic Con previously. Take me back and let’s talk about how you discover cosplay, what do you love about it and take me through your experience cosplaying and convention going.

RYAN: I’ve always loved crafting costumes, and I’ve always loved cons and anime, but for some reason I didn’t cosplay myself until I started dating this guy who needed help on an iceman look. We dated for a few years and it was through him that I got really into the world of cosplay, even building us matching Hawkman cosplays for NYCC one year. I started writing a book about cosplay soon after, and fell deeper in love through the process of research. I love cosplay for so many reasons.

Dressing up is such an effective way of outsmarting reality and inhabiting the body of someone powerful, or eccentric, or dramatic. It feels good and it looks cool. Plus, I have profound respect for the work that goes into building these looks. I love that cosplay is half armor, half art, and entirely fun.

The irony of writing a book about crafting and cosplay is that I rarely had time to work on my own cosplays. The result was that despite being super crafty, I was constantly the only one in my group of con friends not dressed up, which meant I got to hold their stuff and take photos of them while at cons. Which I actually love! It gave me the ability to absorb the atmosphere and appreciate everyone’s hard work, and observe. That’s what I needed while writing, but now that the book is done I’m super excited to get to work on all the things I couldn’t create these past few years. Soon, my friends will be forced to hold my things and take my photo!

EJEN; Cosplay is like any creative process faced with barriers and difficulties, some of them interior battles and along the way I think we find ourselves through this process.  Share with us how cosplay has informed you and your writing.

RYAN: There is nothing more humbling than that task of taking something imagined and attempting to make it material. Cosplays are like that. So are books. The mark of a job well done is often the lack of any signs of effort, but the truth is that effortless excellence comes at the steep price of a lot of rejection, failure, and determination. I learned this early on in my own crafting ventures, and it prepared me for the monumental task of taking the worlds in my head and trying, despite physics and reality, to put them into the heads of others.

If you’re me, you start every project with half the knowledge you need to finish it. Half if you’re lucky. The rest has to be figured out as you go.When I create something--a craft, a cosplay, or a book--it’s often an exercise in trust and vulnerability. I trust that if I just keep going, I’ll finish, and maybe it won’t suck. And that’s a vulnerable thing to do--to know perfectly well that you’re not nearly as skilled as you need to be to accomplish something, yet setting out to accomplish it anyways.

EJEN: So your new book Be Dazzled has been tagged as Project Runway meets Comic Con. I’m sure your con experiences help create the characters Raffy and Luca, can you talk about how these two came into being as well as the genesis of your second novel?

RYAN: I was a mess at my first NYCC. I stayed up every night for like a month prior building matching cosplays for me and my boyfriend, who wasn’t very useful at crafting but was super hot, so we balanced each other out. Anyways, on the day of NYCC I was irritable and exhausted, but also elated and inspired. It was a strange, super-specific scenario, and immediately afterwards I called my agent to tell her I wanted to write a rom com based on it. 

That’s how I got Raffy and Luca, and their fraught relationship drama taking place during a cosplay competition. Raffy is this super determined artist that fights through perfectionism and anxiety to deliver amazing work, yet Luca, his ex-boyfriend, gets tons of recognition cosplaying because he’s hot. The book is fiction, and the story is made up, but it’s rooted in a real experience and a real relationship.

And for anyone wondering, me and that guy broke up. It wasn’t because of cosplay though, I promise! We’re still best friends, and the book is actually dedicated to him.

EJEN: How was the writing process with the second book? I mean with your first book there was definitely many, many years put into that book. This time I assume your writing time has shortened plus you definitely have more experience under your belt.

RYAN:  I’m careful about saying this because I don’t want the Novelist Mafia to put a hit out on me, but writing this book was a lovely, painless process. I think it’s because this book is made out of pure love and joy. Even though it starts with a breakup, the book itself is about all these things I love, and have loved forever.

Crafting, anime, costumes, cons, new love, second chances, teamwork -- it’s all readily available joy that I just had to write down. And it also helped that the emotional plot of the book was something I myself had gone through, so much of this felt like therapy.

And, of course, there’s the deadline. First books are hard because no one is asking for them, usually. You can just go on and on until you’re done. Second books, however, are often developed with a deadline looming. I’d like to think I’m a better writer the second time around, but it may just be that I’m a tad bit more….inspired.

EJEN: I love your story how growing up you didn’t see queer people represented in the books you read so you were inspired in a way to make own path plus the way you found yourself a book deal makes it sounds like a dream. Though you know as well as I do there are many curves and many paths to reach your goal. What are some nuggets you would give creators out there hustling for their dreams?

RYAN: Take your dreams seriously. Afford your dreams the dignity of your best effort. There’s lots and lots of advice out there meant to ease off the pressure, to give you a break, to treat yourself, to take care, to take a break -- all of that is good advice. But I always tell creatives that it’s also okay to know exactly what you want to do, and to pursue it with unremitting resolve. I especially want queer creators to know this, because so often no one is asking after our art. We have to create it without any promises it’ll be recognized, and it’s so easy to give up as a result. So I’m here to tell you to take your work seriously, because it deserves it. And you deserve it.

EJEN: What would you hope readers would take away after finishing your book.

RYAN: My greatest dream is that someone will put down my book and be inspired to make something amazing for themselves. It doesn’t have to be a cosplay or a book. It could be a dragon made out of laffy taffy for all I care. I just want people to get in touch with their own ability to make cool stuff, and to take risks expressing themselves.

My second greatest dream is that readers realize that stories like this--that are joyful and queer--are too rare. I hope they put down my book and ask for another just like it.

EJEN: So how are you handling the pandemic ? Are you using the time for your next book?

RYAN: I certainly should be, but I’ve found instead that the pandemic has created an oddly perfect scenario for me to focus on all the arting and crafting I didn’t get to do while I was writing a book about arts and crafts. I’m writing more, but I’m also working on lots of mini-projects. I’ve started a crafting channel on YouTube, for instance, and separately a podcast in which me and another writer are reading a fantasy novel written by Tyra Banks as if it’s a IRL Bookclub. Stuff like that.

EJEN: Awesome, thank you Ryan and good luck with what comes next, I hope to see you in the future at Anime NYC or New York Comic Con!

Be Dazzled is available now. Read the first chapter here.

[trisarahtops-sketches]

Hey, small question here. Any tips on anatomy and proportion for fictional animals like wyverns, and things IRL like humans.

Small question... but be prepared for a long answer haha. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I do have a few tips.

To understand anatomy, you have to study it. Whether you’re doing a full illustration or just a sketch, you should use reference. There are a couple ways to do this.

Studies: When doing an art study, the goal is to copy what you see and try to understand how it works. (Or at least, that’s how I do it...) Studies are typically done in preparation for an illustration. For example, if you were planning on making an illustration of a cat, you should do several studies of cat anatomy before beginning the actual illustration. But studies can also just be for fun/practice whenever you feel like it. It never hurts to practice.

Referencing: When you’re creating something original instead of a study, you should have references, but you shouldn't be copying them exactly. You should ideally use multiple references; for example you might have one photo for the angle of the head, one for the pose, and another for a hand position. (You can sometimes use your own hand as a reference too.) Here is a tutorial about referencing, it’s a little hard to follow, but I agree with the logic.

It’s good to draw directly from life as much as you can, but obviously that’s not always possible, so photographs are a good alternative. For humans, I know a good resource called SenshiStock, which is a collection of stock photos meant for artists. Although, you can also find references just by looking up stock photos on google. 

These techniques apply to fantasy too: first do studies to practice and understand, then use that knowledge + references to create something. A lot of fantasy creatures are just combinations of real animals, and therefore you can use those animals for reference. But things like wyverns are harder because they aren’t really based on anything real. You can still use references for certain things, like a snake or lizard for the head, bat for the wings, etc. But since their anatomy isn’t real, you kinda have to know a bit about how anatomy works to fake it.

You might have seen a version of this image in a biology class:

It’s important to understand that even though different animals have totally different anatomy, they still follow certain rules. I think it helps to study and draw many different types of animals, until you have a basic grasp of some of those rules. Looking at the skeletal/muscular structure of different animals can help you understand what’s going on in there, and help you make more informed decisions regarding fantasy anatomy. Basically....it boils down to practicing a lot.

I hope that helps!

[paulisweeabootrash]

2020 mini-review pack

Di Gi Charat (1999)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: VRV (Hidive)

Di Gi Charat (pronounced like “carrot”) is a series of fast-paced 4-ish-minute shorts nominally about Dejiko and Rabi-en-Rose, rivals trying to be Earth’s greatest idol.  Who are, respectively, a catgirl and a bunnygirl.  Oh, and also they’re aliens?  That’s... uh... certainly a premise, I guess.  The actual show consists of self-contained gag-filled episodes with no ongoing story, in almost a sitcom kind of way, throwing the characters into situations without context, but with a stable “baseline” situation (unlike, say, Pop Team Epic, where the characters serve more as stock personalities playing different roles in different sketches).  Dejiko is a snarky schemer.  Rabi-en-Rose is a snarky schemer whose main activity seems to be bothering Dejiko at work.  Puchiko is a small and quiet child and behaves accordingly.  And Gema is... something?  I have no clue, honestly, and neither does the fan wiki.  Other recurring characters fill stock roles such as “manager” and “otaku”.  A lot of the humor centers around poking fun at fandom.  It’s a show by, for, and about otaku from an era before our current internet culture, and since I’m a millennial and not from Japan, that makes it unusually hard to evaluate.

W/A/S: 8/2?/5?

Weeb: Chibis.  Catgirls.  Idols.  Kappas.  Kawaii verbal tics.  Akihabara.  Low-detail background characters who look like blobs or thumbs with faces.  Kanji left on-screen but untranslated.  Particular sorts of highly-exaggerated facial expressions we may have become familiar with through emoji, but which still haven’t made their way into American media generally.  This is ludicrously Japanese.

Ass: This really isn't that kind of show.  Although it is certainly designed for adults, as evidenced by the presence of phrases like “naughty doujinshi”.

Shit: The art is fun.  It has style shifts from comic strip to watercolor painting to mainstream 90s anime, and looks better than some of its contemporaries that were, uh, “real” shows.  The opening takes up about a quarter of the total runtime and gets annoying quickly (but that's because it’s clearly designed for being part of a broadcast block, not binge-watching).  Still, unless I’m missing hidden cleverness on account of not having the background knowledge, there’s not much to it.  It’s just okay.

-----

First Astronomical Velocity (band, active 2011-present)

Platform: Spotify, surprisingly

Okay, this one is a bit different, and I’m jettisoning the whole format for it.  Remember how I said the music-centered episodes of SoniAni were actually pretty good, even though the modeling-centered episodes were so offputting I never finished the show?  Well it turns out that First Astronomical Velocity, Sonico’s band, has released several IRL albums.  Physical copies may be a little hard to come by, but official uploads of a lot of their music can be found on Youtube and Spotify.  Do your musical interests include at least two of: string arrangements that would be at home in a particularly sappy movie soundtrack, 90s-00s alternative rock, synthesizer beep-boops, and that constricted cutesy Japanese women’s vocal style (you know the one I mean)?  Then this is for you.  They’re a pretty good... uh... alt-pop-rock band, I guess is what I’d call them.

-----

Interspecies Reviewers (2020)

Episodes watched: the entire 12-episode season

Platform: I plead the 5th.  But it’s getting a video release soon, so it will finally be legitimately available in English!

I started this year with a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show, and now I’m ending the year with... a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show.  But unlike Nekopara, this show had me cracking up, eagerly clicking “next episode”, and not complaining about the premise.  I’m sure a lot of people do have a problem with this show’s premise -- which centers almost entirely on various forms of sex work -- and I understand and respect that they will want to skip this show.

But for the rest of you: Interspecies Reviewers is a wildly-NSFW comedy about a group of fantasy world adventurers who gain fame and fortune reviewing brothels of different species.  I expected excessive nudity and fantasy tropes, but I didn’t expect to also get serious thoughts.  Like showing, in the golem and Magic Metropolis episodes, some of the unsettling problems that are looming IRL as deepfakes and sex robots are in development -- note especially the contrast between consensually and non-consensually basing automata on real people in those episodes.  Or the discussion in the last episode of how much riskier sex would be in a world without magic (i.e., ours).  This is a much smarter and more interesting show than you’d expect, considering that it has so much sexual content that it got dropped by two of the networks airing it and even its US distributor.

W/A/S: 5/10/4

Weeb: Although heavily influenced by the Western fantasy media canon of European mythology and Tolkien and tabletop RPGs, familiarity with the tropes of fantasy anime will help you “get” this too, as will familiarity with the -sigh- character dynamics and censorship practices of hentai.  Especially because it’s a comedy, there are probably also instances where I have completely missed topical references or wordplay that a Japanese person would get, but I can’t think of any specific instances right now of “there was clearly supposed to be a joke but I missed it”.

Ass: Look, this could not possibly have more sexual content without unambiguously becoming porn.  Genitals are (almost) always carefully hidden by viewing angle or conveniently-placed glowing (something lampshaded in one episode as an actual feature of one of the species they review), but otherwise, expect lots of nudity and almost nonstop crude humor.  Do not watch this with children.  Do not watch this with your parents.  Do not watch this with friends you don’t know well enough to know how they’ll react to something like this.

Shit: This show is better-made than it deserves to be.  It’s pretty dumb at points, but it’s fun enough to make up for it.  The art is consistent and pleasant, and the opening and ending themes are extremely fun, but it’s not a serious standout in any of those departments.  Also, I swear the background music is stock music, but I don’t remember what other show(s) I’ve heard it in before.

Stray thought: Crim is a precious and relatable cinnamon roll and I love them.

-----

OreSuki OVA (2020)

Platform: Crunchyroll

So, I know I didn’t cover the whole season in my initial review, but I still want to mention the hour-ish-long finale of this show, which was released straight to streaming.  Short version of the rest of the season: Joro starts to actually fall for Pansy, but a new challenger, Hose, appears.  He is irritatingly attractive and effortless at maintaining the right persona for the situation, leading Joro to describe him as “the main character”.  Hose is the sociopathic manipulator Joro wishes he could be, and Pansy, who has a bad past with him, clearly wants nothing more than for Joro to stand up to him.  But, since this is OreSuki, it’s not going to be handled simply.  No, instead, strap in for a grand finale of Joro and Hose competing in, and trying to manipulate through rules-lawyering, an absolutely ludicrous competition to win the right to date Pansy.  And, on top of it, we also get to finally see how Sun-chan got to be the way he is and what happened at that pivotal baseball game that set off the whole plot.  What has Joro learned from the experiences of the past season?  You’ll see!  And you’ll facepalm about it!

Really, you must watch this if you watched the regular season.

W/A/S: 6/5(!)/4ish

Weeb: Basically the same as I said before.  Gags referencing other Japanese media, anime and otherwise, and it's better if you’re familiar with the high school romcoms and harem comedies Joro thinks in terms of.

Ass (and slight content note): -sigh- Why does the camera need to be there?  Also, Joro, you just committed a little bit of sexual assault for the sake of this contest.  Stop.

Shit: I want to rate this overall better than I did the regular season because I think it’s an excellent finale overall because, even though it ends in a very “let’s leave everything unresolved” way that’s common in media that rely on absurd relationships to propel the plot, it does so in a way that makes sense in character.  I personally think it would’ve been stronger if it had, well, confirmed its title, and at least some of the other “challengers” had lost interest in Joro, but I guess they probably want a Season 2, since they have so much more source material to work from.  There are... oh god 14 light novels?!  That is too many.

-----

Your Name. (2016)

Platform: DVD

Two high schoolers -- small-town girl Mitsuha, from Itomori, and big-city boy Taki, from Tokyo -- find themselves in each other’s bodies for a day.  They both think at first it must be a very vivid dream, but when it happens again, and they start finding clues like notes they don’t remember writing and comments by friends and relatives about their out-of-character behavior, they realize the body swap is real.  This begins a relationship of mutual understanding that nobody else can really understand -- or would even believe (except Mitsuha’s grandmother, who is... familiar with this phenomenon) -- and the plot then pivots to a tense adventure where they use their connection, some crucial information Taki has, the skills of Mitsuha’s friends, and the intervention of Itomori’s patron deity, to save the town from an impending disaster.

And that’s all I’ll say about that, because I really do think this is something you should go into blind.  My only remaining comments are that (1) the red string of fate is critically important imagery, and is particularly interesting to me here because, if I took a particular scene correctly, Mitsuha made her own red string of fate from sheer necessity, which is a very different twist on that trope, and (2) I am now curious about the history of the body-swapping phenomenon in-universe.

W/A/S: 4?/2/2

Weeb: As mentioned above, symbolism of the Red String of Fate shows up throughout the movie, as do the occasional distinctly Japanese quirk like a wildly out-of-place vending machine or a café with dogs, and but for the most part it’s a cross-cultural story of understanding and dealing with someone else’s life, and of forming a connection other people don’t -- can’t -- truly understand, and to some extent of divides between urban and rural and modern and traditional that I think could play out in any country with just the local symbolism tweaked.  The significance and content of Shinto beliefs and practices depicted, particularly kuchikamizake, are made pretty explicit, so although foreign to the vast majority of the non-Japanese audience, I feel like this movie also has nearly no barrier to entry for people not familiar with the cultural context, so I don’t want to rate it very high on this scale.

Ass: Look.  It involves teenagers switching bodies.  What do you think they do?  Especially Taki?  But it’s played for laughs, not titillation.

Shit: This movie is beautiful and punched me in the feels and was very satisfying.  The closest I have to a complaint about any aspect of it is that the musical breaks that I guess are supposed to mark acts of the movie almost make it feel like binge-watching a short series instead of watching a single self-contained movie.

[kweebtrash]

Hey, not necessarily a sex question. But as someone who loves reading fanfic and appreciates fanfic writers, I still can't bring myself to write it. How did you get into writing fanfic, and was it ever weird for you? Do you have any advice on how to feel less weird about it? Especially smut about real people? (To be fair I can't bring myself to write smut in general idk why)

I started writing naruto and yu yu hakusho fanfiction when i was ten and it was just a regular oc and the character i liked. It wasnt good at all but i thought it was the greatest. When i met my sister (non biological) in middle school we decided to come up with our own "anime story". We would write it in notebooks and pass it to each other during class and get in trouble for it. So i guess that was the first time ive written an "original" story. By the time i was 12 i knew what sex was (mostly) and i knew teenagers did it (my characters were teenagers) so i was like oh if they like each other then they should do it. But because i was 12 i was like THATS ICKY TO WRITE ABOUT (in detail) so i made them get in bed and then skipped ahead and wrote THE NEXT DAY 😂😂😂

Then when i got access to a laptop and internet thats when i round "real" fanfiction online and smut back when it was called "lemon/lime/citrus" whatever the fuck that means. I still remember my first one was about neji hyuga LMAO.

I started reading more fanfiction throughout my teenager years and kept writing for anime, wrote bandfiction, created a bunch of OCs to rp with my partner at the time and i think by the time i actually started having sex that i was like ok this isnt so weird to write about anymore. So when we would rp we would just text each other sex scenes and i guess it became normalized because we were doing it irl so writing about it was just like hey! We sorta know what were doing! Oh i also used to watch a lot of porn as a teen? Idk why. That stopped after like a year or so but i found out shit through that, like bdsm, squirting, how utterly gross blowjobs are, what a hitachi wand was, how much i hate spit, etc. So that actually helped me discover like my beginning kinks. Porn is still terrible tho.

I think the first time i wrote smut was with a wrestling fanfic? And i had been reading a bunch of fics that had smut and with my basic knowledge and slowly finding out what phrases i liked in order to describe things it flowed a little more naturally but it was still hard.

Then i think i didnt really write much until i wrote my pentagon story which i think is terrible but other people like it. I guess with my practicing, experience, and sex education it started becoming easier? You can tell in my pentagon story that i was still getting back into the swing of things bc my sex scenes are atrocious and ridiculous 😅

I never really liked reading series myself bc i didnt want just prose and build up. I wanted smut. I was like THATS WHAT I CAME HERE FOR. So i made it a point to write smut in every single chapter so that way people stayed interested. In doing so it also helped me practice and get better. Then i read A LOT of bad kpop fics and was like....why dont these people know that sex isnt like porn??

There is a lot of copying in kpop fics in the sense that a lot of them are written the same way and we get the usual; some u realistic giant dick, "ministrations, pussy, cunt", kitten every other word, thigh riding, everyone confusing abuse with bdsm, "daddy" popping up left and right without going in depth to what meaning that holds, random weird shit. And i realized WOW I REALLY HATE KPOP FANFICS lol. So when i started writing messy i was like OK FUCK THIS IM GONNA WRITE SEX LIKE HOW ITS SUPPOSED TO GO. Then i starting writing smut where the condom broke, they talked about birth control, having a mental breakdown during sex, sexual assault, accidentally wacking each other while moving around, giggling, talking, explaining what you want. This i think helped me a lot, especially with my mental trauma that was associated with sex. I wanted to make it fun and real while also possibly teaching my readers about sex and maybe influencing other fic writers to not just regurgitate what they read.

As far as advice, im not quite sure if i have any?? Maybe i do lol. Take it with a grain of salt maybe?

With writing i would suggest

Read fics you like and highlight key phrases or actions you think are sexually appealing

Practice writing shorter scenes, you can even do time stamps or drabbles, things like that-people love those on here

Look into things. Honestly i knew what a cock ring was but someone requested i USE it in a fic and i was like shit guess i gotta google how to use a cock ring and while awkwardly watching videos of guys putting these things on i learned about metal ones, cages, silicone, rubber, rings, how long you should keep it on for, etc. So RESEARCH! is key too

If youve never had sex before that also helps if you research. Porn can give you a little bit of knowledge in generic motions or toys to use but by no means is it great as far as realism and sometimes its just plain icky.

So porn can be a basis, research can be a middle layer, reading other fics and seeing what you like and dont like is on top, and writing ur own is like...idk frosting lol.

As far as being weird with real people; since i wrote bandfiction and wrestling fics i was used to writing about real people for a little under ten years or so. Also i have a really active mind at night and i have tons of sex dreams that fit into like a story based setting. Thats where all my ideas for prose, dialogue and smut come from. Not everyone ofc has a brain like that but writing down things here and there might work. Lets say you have a favorite idol moment-like some really slutty dance move during a performance, you could time stamp that for inspiration. Save a lot of gifs and pics of them looking *chefs kiss*, listen to some music (i like alina baraz, sabrina claudio, galant, alex tbh, and jooyong for softer, gentler scenes or if you wanna get freak nastie listen to some dumbass jae park, or pretty ricky, or any sex related song thats not pretty lmao. Like rude boy by rihanna or something with a hard beat).

I think its also good to try and picture yourself in a sexual situation. You dont have to look like you, you could make up however you want to look in the scenario, its fantasy after all. Also think "would i like this?" Like i wont write about some idol spitting in my mouth or slapping me or peeing on me or something because thats not stuff that im into and i would be forcing myself to appease someone else and the writing woukd end up sucking big time. This also doesnt help the lack of good fics bc people are just following the requests they get even if they dont like it. I would write about what i think id feel in the moment. Id probably be nervous or if im pretending i could be a cool badass, i would think about things that i find attractive like his (imma use his bc i do write mostly about boy idols) face in the shadows of the light, how nice or soft his lips look, they way hes conveying emotions and looking at me if we were in love or if we were angry, the hold he has on me, why would it be going slow? Is it sad makeup sex? Is it a first time together? Is it just comforting after a bad day? Why would they be rough? Are they angry? Had a fight? Had a slow burn relationship and its culminated into a big explosion? Did they hate each other but hide their true feelings?

So i would suggest not just thinking about sex but thinking about the moment and all the things that lead up to, happen during, and the aftermath of it.

And of course if you don't understand anything or need more info about sex you can always ask me!

I hope this help and sorry its long😅😅😅😅

[derekscorner]

Between KH2 and KH3, which game did you like more, both story and gameplay-wise?

Ah is this that KH2 vs 3 debate I hear is ongoing? Well if you’re in for a sit I can answer that.

Gameplay:

From this angle I quite bluntly find KH2 Final Mix more fun. I’m not going to argue what was arguably better or worse, gameplay preference is a matter of…well preference no matter how many wish to deny this fact.

Not that you do but I”m sure some lover or hater of one will see this and try to retort. o3ob

Anyway; I felt Kh2 final mix was more technical and “harder” if I had to describe the feeling. Like 3 KH2 is normally overly easy but when put on critical mode it’s technicalities shine.I had to learn tactics, I couldn’t spam X or △, and I learned uses for summons. Which I found ironic since the 2 summons are far more useful when you dont initiate their moves.

Like if I let Stitch wander the screen he’ll deflect projectiles and keep my MP full. Chicken Little is a great early Magnet substitute and Peter Pan+Tinker Bell gives you a Phoenix Down.This was an improvement to KH1 in which only Tinker Bell was a spell with decent combat use. 1′s other summons had more supplemental uses imo.

KH3′s summons were nearly win buttons I felt. Simba in particular, while damn spectacle, felt broken. I never bothered to learn them as I didn’t need them. Which I’m sure they have their own uses but I’m not really fond of many control schemes for them so I opt out of it.

In terms of the magic system I felt 2 and 3 were opposites. In KH3 magic is far too powerful, something many have noted. And while you dont ‘have’ to use it that’s not an excuse for a problem. You should choose not to use it not force yourself to ignore it for challenge.

KH2 on the opposite spectrum made magic nearly useless I felt. Many enemies didn’t stun nor have elemental damage. Fire’s AOE animation was good for early Critical game and Blizzard helps that first Hollow Bastion visit but many enemies shrug the base spells off later.In contrast, KH2′s Magnet and Thunder spells can be OP. Reflect in of itself is practically the only spell you’d ever need to use due to it’s nature.

So while many have long rants on either’s magic system I dont really think one trumps the other. each one is equally flawed with issues I dont see ever being addressed.

In terms of keyblade combat I preferred KH2′s because I felt like Sora was automated in 3. I spam X cause I’m a scrub at timing presses (DMC5 is helping me overcome that) and due to this I noticed real quick that Sora’s combos just felt really automated.

Like I’d press X for one hit and get three. In contrast, KH2′s combat is harder. Sora animates combos as fast as my lazy ass can spam X and I’m not floating around like a final fantasy god.

I’m not really sure how to put this feeling into words but I do feel Kh2 keyblades are funner or snappier to combo whereas in KH3 I’m playing a watered down FFXV with it’s hold/press X for combo string.

Both games are so similar outside this issue that I dont see no reason to list likes or dislikes. If anything, from here, KH3 had great quality of life changes. The menu system was easier on the eyes and I’d be a damned soul if I didn’t admit I like switching keyblades mid-combat.

I also really appreciate KH3 finally using Re:Coded’s keyblade ideas. It’s been there since that DS game yet no one every expanded on making keyblades unique since. It was a very foolish step backward to me.

I love that keyblades level up, I love that each one has a preference and the only way that could’ve been better is if they adapted Coded’s system entirely and gave each keyblade (or most) it’s own unique combo.

KH2 quite frankly just falls short in a hindsight perspective since keyblades were “stat sticks” and you only ever chose weaker ones for an ability. Which, back then, was a huge step up from KH1.

So KH3 wins in this area I also dont really hate on Kh2 for it since KH2 is a product of the era. This idea of keyblades growing with you didn’t happen till Re:Coded.

As for Shotlocks…I dont like them. I hated them in BBS and I hate them here. It’s not even a comparison to KH2 type of opinion. I hate Shotlocks, I never use shotlocks so I’m going to skip those.

I mean sure, KH2 had limits but the only limits I use are Knocksmash so I can’t exactly praise KH2′s half of that either.

And when it comes to Forms vs Transformations I think both have pros and cons the other lacks. For example, some Transformations are really cool, I love the hammer weapons or the dual pistols.

I also believe the staff transformation is what KH2′s wisdom form should’ve been in terms of how it does magic or basic attacks.

That said, I also really dislike many second forms keyblades have. I never evolve the pistols into the bazooka, I never turn the hammer into the drill, I have those second forms. It’s to the extent I prefer keyblades that have one form such as the staff.

I’m also not fond of the Kingdom Key’s 2nd form change. It’s a neat throwback and I love the outfit recolor but I dont find it fun to use.

Between the two games my favorite forms are Valor Form, Anti-Form, and the Staff Transformation. Odds are I wont use anything else unless I feel particularly bored.

I might use others more often if KH3 forced me to rely on them for tactics but as of right now it does not. This may change with 3 gets it’s Critical Mode DLC. Similar to how KH2FM forced me to rely on forms I hate like Wisdom or Final.

As a concept I will admit that I dislike transformations. I dont like the idea of keyblades becoming magical swiss army knives. KH3 pulled the idea off better than I expected but I dont like it all the same.

The only, and I mean only, thing I felt KH2 did better was tie forms to a meter. In KH3 the commands appear randomly (and often) and I dont gain consequences for using them.

In KH2 this was tied to your Drive Gauge. You had to plan what you used and this is an issue I felt KH3 had as a whole. Rather than shotlocks, I’d have preferred that Focus Gauge to be reserved for my summons and forms so that I could have better control of what I picked and to reduce how broken they are in-game.

The rest is miscellaneous opinions so I’ll rapid fire:

Gummi Ships: always hated them, BBS did Gummi Ships best. Point goes to KH3 here since I can at least skip most of it.

Minigames: I’ve never found a KH minigame fun. No one wins here

Worlds: KH3 wins this aspect too. World towns have actual people in them and when it uses original plots the worlds are quite good. I also appreciate the power to explore and soft platform again. It gives me a more immersive feeling than later titles ever have. (although I feel KH1 was still better than both here)(entirely because of how many small details/cameos/secrets a KH1 world had compared to sequels)

I dont really have a more technical opinion than that. I do however think Arendelle was a horrendous world and I hate to even be there. For a myriad of reasons….reasons that would be a rant post of it’s own.

Lil Chef: I never use the food. I dont care if it’s a good spot for ingredients. If I want to cook stuff I’ll do some irl or play FFXV.

Enemies: KH3 used nobodies more than KH2 did and I find that a damn crying shame. I also felt Unversed were underutilized. KH2 still takes the point here due to the combat points I mentioned above.

KH3 fodder is prettier and can be more elaborate but KH2 is funner to play and destroy them in so KH2.

The Disney Rides: I don’t use them, they break the game. I do like the choo choo though since it’s situational to specific battles. KH2 has nothing akin to these so there’s no comparison, I just wish the rides could be disabled or that they worked more like the train. (set to key fights)

KH2 vs KH3 Commands: Eh both aren’t that good. KH3 spams you commands to shift through and KH2 has so many for spectacles sake that the games get easy. There is no winner here, if anything KH2 should’ve restricted these like KH3 restricts the Train ride summon.

Final Fantasy: I dont like FF games but I consider the ones of Kh1 part of the main cast. Their alternate KH selves are important to me. The lack and fading of FF over the years is quite honestly something I dislike and 3′s total lack of them is inexcusable to me. KH2 takes this point since I got to at least meet Leon and crew again.

Then there’s the story.

Anyone that’s followed the blog or met me knows I strongly dislike the direction of KH’s story. It’s not a matter of things others debate, I do not like it. I hate it and I’m still teetering on quitting.

I wont even go into the points cause I’ve made a whole series of posts about my story gripes. I wont link them since this isn’t a shameless plug, I just want to iterate that my issues with the story has driven me to make 20+ tangents plus the older more angry rants.

Others liking it is fine I think, I get easily annoyed if someone tries to excuse something out of nostalgia or adoration, but generally anyone that likes it while admitting faults or agreeing to disagree is fine. (you do you folks)

If I had to rank them I feel KH2 is where a lot of issues started and I feel a lot of issues got worse after since the sequels tried to “fix” that mess. If left alone KH2 would’ve been a poorly written entry and a good stopping point for any disillusioned fan.

KH3 as a contrast tied up everything after 2 up til 3 itself. I do not consider the story good, the pacing is very jarring because it lacks a mid point, it’s weighed down by all the BS prior to it.

I do not feel attachment for the “trios” of the series, I find the repetition of them annoying. I find it a shame most have more dev time than the originals they’re cloned based on.

And I frankly dislike Xehanort as a villain. He’s not interesting, his motives seem to switch with several report entries and I dont eve get the satisfaction of ending him like I did Xemnas or Ansem.

I was entirely indifferent to the entirety of this game’s narrative as I played it. Something that worried my friend @blackosprey because I was so tired I could not even care enough to hate it.

I did fine the trios reunions well done. I dislike them for a list of reasons but they were coming back anyway, their fates sucked prior, so those were well done. I finally felt hype when the LW appeared (only to vanish, fuck you nomura) and in the final battle.

The ending was confusing to me. So many got a happy ending so I fail to see the logic of Sora vanishing. The Luxu reveal, which I found fucking hilarious, was the only sequel bait needed.To have Sora just up and die felt like a stupid decision and I’m sure many more found it insulting.

And when mentioning Luxu I dont mean it in a sarcastic fashion. I genuinely find him funnier in retrospect due to this retroactive change. Nearly every line or scene he’s said is now funny as hell because he’s this ancient troll. I consider it the first legitimately earned twist Nomura has made in ages.

Still, KH2′s writing and story isn’t great either. I could rant why, I have ranted why, but despite it’s flaws it was an “ending” to me.So if asked 2 or 3 I will pick 2. The writing in Kh2 is bad for lots of reasons but if I ignore the Ansem reports it’s no a story about Xehanort.

Ignoring one KH2 report let’s me live this simpler story of Sora and a scientist gone mad and the journey to stop him. It had a lot of stupid things or one of the worst “twists for twists sake” moments ever in the ‘two ansems’ reveal.

But still, I can play Kh2 and be in a KHverse where Xehanorts, Keyblade Wars, Ceremonies, timelines, sleeping worlds, data world abuse, and clones upon clones dont exist.

It’s not nostalgia so much as everything I came to dislike was post KH2. KH3 was all about these things I dont like. My favorite for key and nostalgic reasons is KH1, my pick of the question is Kh2.

KH3′s best assets that can’t be contested was it’s graphical evolution. I played KH3 three times back to back due to this, I came away from KH3 wishing KH1 or 2 looked like this. No game prior contests the look.

So all in all, as I reread this, it’s largely a mixed bag. Neither game is grand but I prefer KH2 because combat is more fun to me and it’s not tied down by a narrative and mythology I’ve come to hate.

I can play KH1, CoM, and KH2 and never be annoyed about something I loved going in a direction I hated.

[dirthara-mama]

Dragon Age Questions

 I was tagged by @cullenvhenan and @gothkimmyschmidt ! Thanks babes!

Tagging: @drellvhen  @lyrium-lovesong @dalish-ish @ghostwise and @empresstress13 (no obligation, of course!)

01) Favourite game of the series?

Overall, Inquisition. The CC is pretty good, hair options notwithstanding. I think the story adds an incredible amount of lore. I actually don’t mind the open world aspect, it truly doesn’t feel any more empty that Skyrim imo.

DA2 had the most fun combat for me. Origins had a bunch of elements I like but I played it so far after it’s release that it’s always going to be visually dated in my head and not in an endearing way.

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

My partner let me borrow some games when we first started dating, Dragon Age Origins among them. I played it, really enjoyed it, but moved on to a few other games in the stack like Fable and ME3.

The summer of 2017, I think, I saw him playing DA2 and wanted in. I tried it, didn’t like it, so he suggested Inquisition. And yeah, here we are. (I did go back and play DA2 after 1 & 3 and I liked it!)

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

DAO: 3?

DA2: 1.5

DAI: I’ve finished Trespasser twice, started a bunch of half-finished playthroughs though.

04) Favourite race to play as?

It’s fairly obvious that elves are my favorite. I feel no shame about that. They’re so damn cute.

05) Favourite class?

Rogue

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

I tend to make similar choices in DAI, but it’s definitely more fun to mix things up in the first two games.

07) Go-to adventuring group?

DAO: Leliana, Alistair, Shale.

DA2: Fenris, Isabela, Merrill.

DAI: Blackwall, Solas, and I usually mix it up between Dorian, Cassandra, and Sera.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

Definitely Ayelet. I’ve spent the most time with her and her creation was in response to a character I wasn’t super happy with in the first place.

09) Favourite romance?

DAO: Alistair

DA2: Merrill’s is so so so cute.

DAI: Solas, which is no surprise to anyone.

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

I’ve read some comics, am currently listening to the Masked Empire in audio book form but MY GOD is Weekes’s writing a slog to get through. I also have World of Thedas v2 and Hard in Hightown!

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

I absolutely love flipping through World of Thedas. The art, the obscure info, THE ENTIRE CHANT OF LIGHT

12) Favourite DLCs?

DAO: I’ve only played the DLC with Shale and tbh I doubt another one can top it.

DA2: Again, I’ve only played the one with Sebastian. And he’s bae anyway.

DAI: Jaws of Hakkon. The scenery is beautiful, the folks of Stone-bear Hold are gems, and the feels?? Perfection.

13) Things that annoy you.

The washed out look of DAO, and how very slow combat is.

I absolutely hate the look of elves in DA2. In Origins they barely have pointed ears, and suddenly they’re green toned, huge-eyed folks that don’t have any differentiation between their foreheads and nose bridge.

Some of the retcons on DAI are annoying. 3 mages per Dalish clan? That’s a no from me, dawg.

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Considering all the beautiful land Orlais has usurped, I’d have to go with Orlais just for the scenery. However, the politics are Stupid.

15) Templars or mages?

Mages, but my characters typically aren’t concerned with the conflict between the two.

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

They’re all in the same universe! I only have one canon Warden, Champion, and Inquisitor, but the rest of my crew play roles within the same universe.

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

The Warden’s mabari is Barkspawn (it’s a basic meme now, I know and I don’t care).

Ayelet has two pets: a cat named Vherise and her mount, a red hart called Nema.

18) Have you installed any mods?

I have a very very unorganized mod folder, yes.

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

No, Myri would never have chosen that life for herself outside of the circumstances of the game.

20) Hawke’s personality?

Purple.

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

No, I like when everyone sticks to their own aesthetic. I change their colorways a bit though. Sera gets black and pink everything. Viv gets the fancy silver fabric. Dorian looks so good in green.

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Myriani would have found some way for Jowan to escape. Ayelet would have tried to save her friends and clan mates at the conclave.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

Not really as far as Myri is concerned. Even after DAO, the canon story of the Warden holds true for her. After a short period of traveling she becomes Warden-Commander of Ferelden, continues her relationship with Alistair, he goes to Orlais, eventually her higher-ups ask her to investigate a cure for the taint or at least the Calling in the West. And that suits my larger timeline just fine.

Ayelet has a few small differences. Mainly with regards to Dalish clan life and customs, her romance, and a lengthened timeline for Inquisition. How exactly are we meant to believe all of those things take place in only a year?????

24) Are any of your character(s) based on someone?

Ayelet is like 50% a self-insert, I guess. She has a different personality, and totally different face. But we have the same hair and some commonalities in background. It just makes it easy to get into her head.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

I leave Hawke. Meta af, but I feel like Hawke is supposed to be left there as part of their arc. Something tells me Hawke will survive while a warden might not.

26) Favourite mount?

Any of the harts. That screeching gives me life.

[pinayelf-archive]

Dragon Age Questions

I was tagged by @feeshies! Thank you :D

Tagging: @star--nymph @crystal-grace @dirthara-mama @bitchesofostwick @inquisitorsmabari @mybookswerealltome 

01) Favourite game of the series?

Inquisition. I know it’s not the best plot-wise etc etc (disc horse here) but for me it’s the most fun to play, I think the mage moves are cool and I like taking screencaps. Also cause Josephine is my most romanced jfisdnfuni

Plus my characters look Asian. 

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

I knew about it when it first came out because my high school friends were into it. Funnily enough I was not. I would hang out with them while they played it and I’d get bored and wait until they were done so we could do something else.

I didn’t start playing it until April 2017 when my friend convinced me to play DAO because she said I could be gay and evil. Got hooked. 

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

DAO: Hmmm? Does this count as full playthroughs? Because I’ve only ever fully played as Amihan. But if we’re talking like getting pretty far in-game I’d say four or five.

DA2: Two times? The lighting irritates me lol, I can never see my Hawke.

DAI: I’ve finished it through Trespasser twice. But like DAO I’ve gotten pretty far in-game four or five times.

04) Favourite race to play as?

Human. I know it’s boring lol and I know it’s not that deep but I feel like it’s because I never see myself in media and shows so I make humans to see myself as the hero of a fantasy story. Idk. 

It’s funny because I’m assuming Imryll is my most well known OC. 

05) Favourite class?

Mage. 

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

Ehhh...slightly? I have Circle loyalists and Rebel Mages and it’s...I play almost all mages lmao so...but they have different attitudes towards different things. With certain characters it’s usually me just pushing the mean option through the whole game so I guess lol.

07) Go-to adventuring group?

Like just for running around and exploring? Well you can’t really do that in DAO or DA2, so I’ll just answer for DAI. I somehow make sure Vivienne and Sera are in the mix just cause I really like the two of them.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

Amihan. She has the most complex development so far, just with her decisions and the way she views things and how she changed.

09) Favourite romance?

DAO: Leliana

DA2: Anders (tbh I haven’t tried other romances yet I don’t play DA2 too often)

DAI: Honest tie between Josephine, Sera and Cullen (But if I HAD to pick, it’s Josephine)

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

No

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

N/A

12) Favourite DLCs?

DAO: Lol I got lazy playing with them and I zoomed through return to Ostagar so I really can’t say.

DA2: Mark of the Assassin is funny and I think Tallis is really cute.

DAI: The Descent, even though it does give me heebie jeebies. Maybe that’s why I like it.

13) Things that annoy you.

The lighting in DA2, the way Sera was written, that stupid Druffalo fetch quest. 

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Someone is gonna kill me for this but neither. Orlais is pretty so points for that (like seriously the maps in Orlais are gorgeous) and I don’t really care for Ferelden (SORRY) so...

I’m gonna have to say Free Marches. I’m a big Free Marches stan. (Shout out to Ostwick)

15) Templars or mages?

Personally, mages. And if you pick mages in DAI you get a field trip with Cullen

But writing-wise it’s dependent on the character. Like Monica is evil and got mad at Irving for letting her get conscripted so she annuls the Circle for revenge.

Theo sides with the Templars cause he’s a Templar. 

Also lmao, idt your choice in this matter reflects your real-life morals and it’s annoying that people think it does because for the most part people are just writing stories and creating characters.

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Yep! I have a lot of different timelines with the same characters, I like making them non-protags because I like exploring the world and lore from an NPC’s POV. 

I have one switched around where Amihan is the Inquisitor and Imryll is the Warden.

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

Amihan named her dog Pikachu. I never know how to write this or explain this in canon so I never bring up her dog. I named her dog Pikachu because I named it after my own dog.

Sinag’s dog is named Cinnamon, after my other dog but this is easier to write in canon lmao.

Tala’s giant nug mount is named Pudgy but I don’t really use mounts, I don’t like it.

18) Have you installed any mods?

I’m a basic bitch, so yes, I have a lot.

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

Amihan: No Monica: No Violetta: ...? Mayari: Maybe

Wow they’re all Amells

20) Hawke’s personality?

Purple. I’m planning to make Veronica blue though, but I haven’t gotten around to it.

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

No cause I want the armor to fit their own Styles TM Plus I’m scarred from Catholic school uniforms lolololol

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Amihan probably wouldn’t have snitched on Jowan to be petty

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

Amihan wasn’t friends with Jowan, her only friend was Finn and no one liked them because they were annoying. 

I don’t know if this really goes against canon but Tala and Imryll weren’t born in the Free Marches, they were from a Seheron clan who merged with Clan Lavellan because it was getting too dangerous to live in Seheron.

Isadore isn’t a Trevelyan, she’s an apostate mage from Kirkwall who lived in Darktown and was part of the Mage Underground

Marikit isn’t a Trevelyan either. She was from a peasant background and was taken away by Templars to the Ostwick Circle but what happened of her family is unknown and she doesn’t remember them. 

Monica Amell is Quentin’s daughter with Revka. Hence the uh...creepiness. 

24) Are any of your character(s) based on someone?

I’m going to straight up say it but Isadore is a self-insert. I made her cause out of all the LIs Sera is probably the one I’d date IRL and I wanted to date her. 

Zeke Trevelyan is based off Zayn Malik’s face, but not really off him, I just like his face so I made an OC who looks like him. Theo Trevelyan is based off Taron Egerton’s face for the same reason I made Zeke, but none of them are really anything like their faceclaims, they’re their own characters.

It was self-indulgent what can I say.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

Dependent on character. It’s an even between the Warden and Hawke.

26) Favourite mount?

That nug. What a good nug.

[patchdotexe]

If ye don’t mind me asking, what’s Kin mean? I’ve looked around on the internet and the definitions don’t seem to fit how i see em used..

it’s kind of like… well, it varies from person to person (and it even varies among my alters ghjfdkhgd;;)

the most prominent kind you see about on tumblr nowadays is fictionkin, where people identify as a fictional character– like, basically having a response of looking at an image of them and having the same “that’s me!” response as if they were looking at themself. this can because of feeling like they were that character in a past life, or that character is an alternate universe version of themself, or identifying with them because of similarities in trauma or mental illlness, or because they’re just a lot like that character in general, or… just because!

the strength of it can range from “this is literally me and i remember things from their canon as if they actually happened to me” to “i like representing myself with this character”. if someone has multiple kintypes (characters they ID as), they can have various kins on any end of this scale.

for me, mathonwy is a coping kin– i identify as him because of mental illness stuff, and i started drawing myself with a variant on his mask and it kinda stuck as an element of some of my personas. i also like presenting myself as him by using icons and having a url based off his name, because it makes me feel better? kind of hard to explain.

lal, meanwhile, is someone i draw a lot of parallels between myself and him, and project a lot of myself onto him and it kind of led to this weird… thing. (and bc this can be a concern in mc storytelling stuff, this is specifically lal the character. some ppl can mistake it as “wait so you mean the person behind the character?” if its a rp thing and my answer is “no, absolutely not”)

one of my alters, Pat, is a fictive of an obscure character– meaning that kir system origins are “there is a version of this character that lives in my head”, basically, and for kir the explanation behind it is trauma & coping with events in my life that were happening at the time i got into kir source media and i got attached enough to the character to help me work through what was happening to me that my brain kinda. made kir. but that’s an entirely different thing and is system-exclusive, and on top of that kie has “typical” kintypes as well! like Tails. kie’s the sort that has “remembers canon events as if actual memories”, which can actually be kind of rough on kir when kie gets things scrambled up between “wait did this actually happen, or is this weird memory stuff”

…and then there’s Cazwell, who also has memory recall but it’s never anything important or relevant to any questions she gets asked about it.

HOWEVER all of this is about fictionkin, which is actually a comparatively new thing! like, ive been on tumblr for way too many years, and fictionkin in current tumblr… society, i guess, has only been a thing since like 2015. not as in that fictionkin only started Existing in 2015, but that previously it was only a tiny fringe subsection of a much bigger community: otherkin! or therians, or nonhumans, or however they feel like calling themselves depending on situation. it’s basically the above, except swap “fictional characters” with “animals, fantasy creatures, or anything nonhuman”. this can also be because of past life/spirituality, alternate universe, coping, or just relating really hard. ica’s a gryphon!

it’s kinda weird to us to see the sudden shift to fictionkin being a) very widespread and b) actually more wellknown than otherkin? bc when we first got involved in the community in, like, 2011, fictionkin as a term didn’t EXIST. they were labelled as “fictives” despite that being a system-exclusive term, and there were actually a lot of arguments over it, if it was even a legitimate identity, etc.

something to keep in mind with all of this is that kins, fictives, etc Know theyre not “physically” what they identify as. as awesome as it would be to be lal irl (i’d be like a solid foot taller! holy shit!) im not, i just like using icons of him on the internet and drawing myself as him (…this is actually where digger came from.) and while sometimes we make jokes like “we’re [character/animal/etc] irl” its a “this is pretty much Me” thing while still knowing its just… not.

its okay if you dont “get it”, just like.. be respectful if it comes up? like, dont make fun of people, because it can often be very personal to them. i know it can sound ridiculous, like with the whole komaeda kin thing (some kintypes get… reputations… if theyre from a popular media that a lot of people find connections with, especially among teenagers figuring out their identity and potentially using kintypes to help build it), but i kinda just consider it a fun fact about me. like, for me, i see my fictionkin thing as a list of characters you can learn about and learn more about me as a result, because i identify as them for personal reasons.

[fortunesque]

Fav Writers Meme

Fav Writers Meme

Tagged by: @mazurah​ (You honor me! Thank you! <3)

Tagging: @siawrites​ ! Because she’s the writeriest writer I can think of :) And I also tag @cosmicastrogazer because she writes too :DDD

The questions:

What is your total word count on AO3? How often do you write? Do you have a routine for writing? What’s your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing? Do you have a favorite fic of yours? Your fic with the most kudos? Anything you don’t like about your writing? Now something you do like! Tag some of your favorite writers:

POST INFO IS UNDER THE BREAK!

What is your total word count on AO3?

391,061 on one fic: To Dust. On ff.net, it’s 861,469. And those works span over a decade of my life, in which I learned a LOT about things so like... the older stuff is not only rough, there are some cringey concepts so don’t expect anything woke. We are all works in progress.   

How often do you write?

Daily if I can. I have an app on my phone called “streaks” where I mark a task off each day I do it. The goal is to not break the streak of doing it. When I do one day, I put a tally mark in my bullet journal. When I get to a certain number of tallies/points, I get a reward. This is the only way I’ve found that I can stay on top of stuff (works for exercise and other tasks, too) If I don’t write, I re-read and correct, or read something old to reinspire myself and keep my head in my story.

Do you have a routine for writing?

No. I don’t have any clue how to make the moment come. And that’s why I’m lucky to publish a chapter every 3-5 months. Frustrating! It’s all in my head but the focus just doesn’t happen often enough to make the magic happen.

What’s your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Uh. Um. Uh. XD

There’s a reason why Erich Heartfire is a huge, strong guy. That’s it, there goes my “very serious writer” cred, haha. “UGH there we go! I knew he was a writer fantasy!” I had to flaw him up a lot, though. IRL a guy like Erich would be way too forward and freak me out. But, he definitely looks nice ;) I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having nice-looking characters of any sort.

I also have a thing for odd contrasts within characters, and turning sterotypes upside down. Maybe this is a trope, idk. Examples:  -Mehra Dreloth- a Telvanni Master who likes to bludgeon p dang hard and absolutely ripped. Daedra-loving Dragonborn. Secretly a softie. -Vulpes Inculta- very Darwinist and athiest-  not the kind of beliefs you’d expect of a “True to Caesar!” type. Tall and slender, pretty, and very forceful and cruel. Like a wild animal with a civilized veneer and all the educated trappings. -Erich Heartfire- huge, strong “manly” guy, but practically no body hair. Cannot grow beard. Loves reading, charming, manipulative, sneaky, sleeps around a lot. Power bottom. The opposite of his stereotype and look. -Lucien Lachance- haven’t published much with him but he’s going to be different, from the few fics I’ve read with him. Fervently religious, caring, nurturing, yet he’s definitely a death cultist. Bibliophile. Also since people associate his voice with SEXY, well... he’s ace in the storyline I write.

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

To Dust, so far. But Heartfire is shaping up to be really great. This series is my favorite.

Your fic with the most kudos?

To Dust is my only AO3 fic, with 203 Kudos. Newton’s Third on ff.net has more reviews and favorites so as far as popularity is concerned, N3 has the most. Then again, To Dust is on two sites and is about even on both. This sounds like a math problem and I’M NOT FALLING FOR IT, OKAY?

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

I second guess myself when I do something “daring”. “Oh, they’re not going to buy this- it’s such a shark jump”. I tend to miss on scenery details, as well, to the detriment of my writing. Someone kindly brought this up to me years ago in a review, and I thank them for doing this. It helped. I’m trying to pay more attention to that.

Also, I tend to write sentences in this format, annoying myself when I read it over and over again, especially in earlier chapters. (break the sentences up, dude!)

Now something you do like!

Dialogue and internal monologue are fun! Most of my “snippets” are dialogue based. I also have fun switching up quest events while keeping the outcome basically the same.

Tag some of your favorite writers:

SO this is really, really awkward. I don’t read ANYTHING. Fanfic, fiction, nonfiction, NOTHING. I read the news when I check my emails and that’s it.

I’m a bad writer and I should feel bad for not reading! But that’s energy that gets taken away from writing XD I tag anyone who sees this and writes! You should talk about your work! BE PROUD!

[thedepthsremember]

20 Questions: Choices fanfic writers edition 

Tagged in this by @breaumonts! Thanks :D 

1. When/what age did you start writing?   In elementary school, I wrote and drew my own picture books, which at that age I definitely thought was the best thing to do forever. In middle/high school, there was some self-insert Spider-Man and Harry Potter fanfic that I hope stays buried forever. I picked it back up more regularly during an awful period in college where I lost my love of drawing (unfortunate, considering my major) but still needed to express somehow. 2. What inspired you to start? Similar to my art it's been a way to express myself, to tell my side of how I'm seeing things. A lot of the time it's like solving a puzzle, what was that character thinking? And then I just keep chasing that thought. 

It weirds me out that writing feels more like..... excavating. Like it was there and I’m just uncovering it. Drawing doesn’t feel like that at all.  3. Where and when does inspiration usually strike you? I do a lot of driving, so usually then, or if I'm doing something repetitive at work and I can let my mind wander. While I'm getting a massage is a random one but I'm relaxed and my mind can just play without getting in its own way.

4. Where and when do you usually to write? Morning? Late at night? On the bus? In bed? Lately it's been my favorite way to procrastinate sleeping because it's like I'm being productive! Hahaaa

I'll write entire scenes in my head before I write anything down. Sometimes I'll dash down little parts on paper or in my phone to make sure I don't forget. 

5. Do you listen to music while writing? If so what genre/playlist? A lot of chill video game instrumentals are a good default, unless I have a playlist or an artist I know will set the right mood. I'm pop trash so usually that'll fall to the background enough that I can focus. 6. Which category do you like best? Angst? Fluff? NSFW? Other? I would love to wrote more fluff, but it seems to tend towards a lot of angsting and anxiety with some humor thrown in, I guess because that's how I deal with my own thoughts. I do get to give them happy endings, so that's nice! 7. Which category do you find most challenging to write?  Smut is really difficult and awkward for me, partly bc part of the appeal of the actual acts irl are they help me turn my brain chatter off, so it's hard to put that back into descriptions. Plus I'm just self conscious about how personal that is. 

Also anything with an actual plot. I can give you moments and that's about it. 8. If you had to pick your favourite Choices book, which one would it be and why? TRR is the one that sucked me in and stole my soul for whatever reason, BUT I can also admit a lot of that is for what it could be. It's a good thought playground. Like Harry Potter. 

Perfect Match is shaping up to be my jam, I live for sci fi and found families and all that "what is the nature of humanity" nonsense. It's like Dollhouse without being built on a base of creepiness. 

I also really love the ILITW cast, enough that it balances out how much of a wimp i am when it comes to scary things.  9. If your Choices LIs were real, which one (and only one!) would you personally want to be with? I've said before that Damien from Perfect Match is the closest to my irl type, but right now I'm kind of exhausted of that "I'm too cool to like things" sort of dude. Idk let's give older Lucas (ilitw) a shot. He's motivated but has a playful side, we might balance each other out. Especially after he figures himself out more in college. 10. Do you share any physical characteristics with your Choices MCs? Pics/selfies optional :) Riley is small and ready to brawl and I've basically given her an idealized version of my body type when I draw her. Uhhh like half of the others end up being long haired blondes because even though that's not my hair anymore it was like that for most of my life. 11. Which MC do you share the most personality traits with?   Perfect Match MC feels the closest, a lotta the other MCs are leader types, PM MC is like Alright yeah let's kick ass so we can go home and eat ice cream. Feels very purple Hawke. 

TRR MC in her more absurd moments also feels very familiar. I have a story about the fancy hats.  12. Which Choices character do you feel you have the best grasp of in terms of personality? I get Drake bc that fucker is every guy I've befriended who then caught feelings because he's not used to being treated nicely. :| He also has a “the people I care about deserve the things I want more than I do" thing that I am only now realizing feels.... awfully familiar....... :| …...let’s move on. 

13. What’s your favorite Choices pairing to write for? Obviously Maxwell x MC. I love pairs that have a good push and pull, where they can be silly but care about each other.

Sidedish of MC+Drake friendship because my wish fulfillment fantasy is those previously mentioned guys stop ruining a potentially good friendship with their moping and actually be a pal, dammit.  14. What is a pairing/s you hope to start writing for? Like anything else, lmao. More friendship stuff? Hana's only been in one of my fics which bums me out. 

Pretty sure some Damien x MC and Hayden x MC will be coming now that PM2 is happening. Something with more ladies. Eleanor x MC from THOBM! Ghost gf fitting into the modern world has plenty of potential. 15. What do you hope to improve in your writing? Current struggle is I keep trying to write smut and then distracting myself with what happens before/after. Gah. 

More actions / feelings. I feel like too much of my writing comes from dialogue with actions peppered in to meter the rhythm. 

16. Any pet peeves related to writing? So. Words have always been a finicky thing for me. Things will make sense in my head, and then I say them out loud and realize people aren’t seeing things from the same spot. So sharing my writing is A VERY SELF-CONSCIOUS TIME. 

In terms of the actual process: When I just wanna write something self-indulgent and I start actually trying, and then we're like 5 miles off track from the fun part. I also get pretty self-conscious that the OOC police or something is going to come for me. 17. Are you inspired by any IRL experiences when you write? Care to share? A lot of flaws or traumas I'll saddle my characters with are my own but tweaked, because I like the idea that someone can have them and still succeed. 18. Is there any particular piece of work you consider to be your ultimate writing goal? uhhhhh i. don't. know? If I could make someone laugh and cry in the same fic that's golden. 19. Did/do you write for any other fandoms? If so which ones? I have a bunch of drabbles for Dragon Age. I also just checked my ancient FF.net account to make sure the really old stuff is gone and found some Teen Titans and ATLA stuff I completely forgot about. 20. In your spare time (when you’re not writing) what other hobbies do you pursue?   Art mainly, I'm back into digital for the first time since graduation (I majored in animation/illustration) so that's kind of exciting right now. VIDEO GAMES. I like to bake but my housemates have way more self control than I do, meaning I always end up eating most of whatever it is, so that's dangerous. I do like to work out. Share and tag fandom writers! @riseandshinelittleblossom and anyone else who wants to! 

[pack-the-pack]

But Why Omegaverse of All Things??!

Okay so, recently some minor conversation sparked because of one of my posts regarding omegaverse, and why is it a thing and why it’s so popular. I even talked briefly with one of the people curious about it. Therefore, I decided to give some insight and explanations(?) to maybe why this is the case, once and for all. Obviously, I can’t speak for anyone but myself, however I’ll take the liberty to make suppositions about what might have brought people to like it. So if you feel like you don’t agree with something or the reason behind why you’re into this flaming pile of trash with us is not explained here, feel free to add on to it. After all this is just my humble perspective.

{Where and When it started?}

Well Wikipedia says it all started around 2010 with the one, the only, the massive: Supernatural Fandom. But really this is kind of a trick question, cause Omegaverse didn’t “start” anywhere. Those who have been in the Star Trek fandom might recognise terms like “Pon Farr” and “mating bond”, and those have been around longer than the 2010′s. And these have a striking similarity (if not the same stuff) you might find in ABO works. There are ABO fics dated even before said dates, do it’s not a exactly a precise date we’re looking at here. So yeah, it doesn’t have a clear starting point, and with good reason. We can’t pinpoint it’s origins because ABO it’s a collective of various different aspects drawn from many different places at the same time. We don’t have any set rules to what is and what’s not Omegaverse. You have elements of lycanthropism, sex pollen, vampirism, wolf pack dynamics, mpreg, scenting, soul mating, knotting, etc. The whole shabam! But really no one agrees in anything. We all just have this abstract universal understanding of what Omegaverse is and what is not. The elements present can be tossed in and out without harming the concept in the slightest. It can have all or just a few elements mentioned above and it would be just as valid.

Granted, the “modern version” we know today become more popular and well stablished around 2014/2015 ‘til the current year. And why did this happen?

{Projection}

We are living in very turbulent times recently. Be it in the realm of politics or… yeah politics. But regardless it’s undeniable that some things are changing, be it for the worse or for the better on your perspective one thing is true and will always be: Once shit starts to hit the fan we like to sit in the corner for a while and project our feelings into something. Usually this outlet is fantasy and imagination, which leads to ABO… somehow. “Okay but why daheck Omegaverse of all things?” as the title of this post inquires. Cause let’s be honest, Omegaverse sure is weird. I think (and again this is just my OPINION) it’s because Omegaverse can get you out of the “normally perceived” human world and toss you into something that is different from your reality but still similar enough that you can project your thoughts into. And things don’t “change” in this world, is all kinda the same every time. Omegas are Omegas, Betas are Betas, and Alphas are Alphas. Regardless of gender, of class, of economics, of society, of anything. These things don’t change. And it might give us a false sense of security to look at a society and an entire world where things have a sense of certainty. Yah know… unlike real life.

{Simulation}

Trying to understand how the world works and why B is B and not C is what humans do best and what we have been doing for as long as we can remember. So when you say “Alphas are X, Y and Z” it stimulates your brain to go “but why daheckity heck is that?”, opening a whole new plethora of thoughts about how this fantastical world and the people in it works. This kinda intertwines with the projection part, cause ABO has the “animalistic” side of people presented way more forefront and highlighted than irl. But just like in ABO humans might be capable of rational thought but at the end of the day we’re just glorified animals with a big ol’ brain inside our bone-made-thought-cage known as a skull. Once you start to look at ABO in a “biological sense” some thoughts start to occur to you, such as: “Is this somehow applicable in my life?”, “do humans have similar biological drives like that?”, “Is this nurture or nature?”, “are we really more than animals?”, “how far does our biology interfere with society”, “is society molded around our biological needs or do our biological needs mold themselves around society?”, “how far can our brains interfere with our bodies and vice-versa”, etc.

Just like any other trope and fantastical concept Omegaverse can indeed offer you a valid platform to project and simulate things you might not understand about real life or even about yourself. It proves itself to be a really fun and entertaining process and it also has a plus for getting some biases that might interfere with your judgment out of the way thanks to its huge flexibility. Yes, I am indeed declaring that Omegaverse for all it’s quirkiness and weirdness is capable of provoking thought. You’re welcome, I regret nothing.

{World Building and The Whole DIY Aspect of It}

I think this one is the one that resonates with me the most out of all the reasons. For those who are into world building but aren’t very kin into having to start from the ground up or just aren’t very good at it… BOY Omegaverse has your back, son. Since everyone else kinda already did half the work for you all you gotta do is take the abstract core concept and go full Picasso on it. The liberty omegaverse gives you is unbelievable and the worlds you can build around it can range from small island to a whole galaxy system. Which is very rare for a fanfic/fanart trope. Cause the other most popular AUs are crowded in way more rules and stuff you gotta follow or else people start to poop their pants cause “the wands are made of dragon-heart-strings not scales YOU HEATHEN!”, But all joking and exaggerations aside ABO is really unique in this aspect. You can focus on the biology, fashion, architecture, culture, religion, history, art, music, entertainment, etc. All revolving around ABO. The ammount of things you can explore is simply insane. Crafting a society based around these three dynamics is beyond fun (and I know there are people who make more dynamics aside from these but I’ll stick with the basic ones). And having every person bring something new and crafted completely differently from what you have but having just the same core focus every time you click in a ABO work is really something special on it’s on.

I think D&D players might know this feeling all too well, cause although there are general concepts and stuff that don’t change, you’ll never have the same experience twice and everytime it’s a new different and exciting adventure in a whole new world to explore. ABO is kinda like that but with weird ass human-wolf people instead of classes :v 

{RPying and Making New Friends}

This one is not exactly my cup of tea but I’m aware that a lot of people stay in the ABO community for this reason. Since ABO has a lot of material to works with it can be a goldmine for people that are into RPying. Be it with friends or to meet new people, the ABO community is rarely judgemental and is open to pretty much everyone, so it can be lots of fun to incorporate all the aspects you love about ABO into some good time with nice people. I know that @omegaverse-seeker is one person’s blog you can go just to find other people willing to RP with you using Omegaverse. So if you’re interested go check it out. 

{Social Commentary}

If you follow me long enough you’ll know that BOY HOWDY do I hold some grudges against this one. But since it happens a lot I feel like it would be unfair for me to not comment on it. Many people use the whole ABO genre to build narratives and push some sort of agenda or just make a social commentary about the real world. And god knows how this drives me NUTS most part of the time, because Jesus is it done poorly 9 times out of 10. Even if it comes as totally annoying and breaks the immersion of things for most part, there are times in which is done well and results into some really interesting and thought provoking stories. Like I said before projection and simulation is a big part of this. So when someone manages to take something as broad as ABO and transform into something that will make you lay down your phone for a while to actually think about some aspects of your life and the lives around you it really is something. Obviously it ain’t gonna be A Clockwork Orange lvl kind of thought provoking. Let’s get real people we’re all just amateur students on the internet no need to overestimate things. But the potential is totally there. The genre allows for this kind of potential to exist. And given the talent, the time and the faith required Omegaverse can bring up some real intriguing questions about our lives and the society we live in.

{Coping Mechanisms}

This one might come off a little risky, cause god knows this site and the word “sensitive” go hand in hand with one another. But even if it sounds a little pretentious (like everything else in this list) I’ll say it either way. Some people might use ABO to cope with some things they are not entirely comfortable with (I’ll not enter into the whole transgender “issue” that is brought up every  time someone wants to talk about how terrible Omegaverse is, Okay? That’s a whole can of worms I’m just not willing to open here, and not today… or maybe ever. But I digress. Back to other forms of copying) Some people might use Omegaverse to cope with some aspects of themselves they are still trying to come into terms with. Since within Omegaverse there are three dynamics, each with two genders, and every single one of them with exceptions within exceptions this can be a good outlet for people who might not “fit in” with what they belive they should be. For example a boy who’s more feminine and not as physically strong as his peers might look at ABO and see all the Omegas and Betas and go like “Oh I’m not defective or not as good I’m just different”. Or a girl who’s too masculine and physically strong dispite being a girl (like myself) might look at ABO and go “Oh, I’m not out of place, I’m just more ‘Alpha’-like”. Or “I’m not average. I’m a Beta”, lol @betasverse is gonna kill me for this one. 

Generally I don’t encourage this form of coping mechanism, or any form of coping mechanisms by that matter. I personally think that you should face reality as it is and try not to run away from it using short cuts and made up explanations. But if this is what gave you the initial kick or what’s helping you in the process of coming into yourself all the power to you my dude. Just try not to get too lost in it okay?

{Kinks}

And last but not least, you might just be into this sort of stuff. A lot of ABO is not plot related AT ALL. It’s just pure porn without plot and the bliss of dirty-dirty kinks. And Hey what’s wrong with that? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We all got something that turns us on. If yours is people in heat and the whole submissive-dominant, Mpreg or any other things going on in ABO, go ahead children. Have all the fun. And if someone tells you it’s wrong to “fetishize” this or that, just tell them to shove it up their butt. Cause this is a stupid word anyways and what you do in the privacy of your home with yourself or any other consenting person is nobody’s fucking business but your own. 

There’s also other things like family Dyncamics you’d like to see incorporated to your ship. Or you think some tropes within Omegaverse are cute and think it would suit your OTP very nicely, etc. But I think I tackled all the main ones already, and if we are to analyse every fucking reason we’ll be here forever. So there you go people. The answer for “but why Omegaverse of all things?”.  

If you’re curious about any of the things I said here and want to see them be put in practice I suggest looking up mine and all the other ABO content creators here on tumblr and on ao3. Here’s a master list you can use for the tumblr ones. And here some good ABO fics with interesting concepts as a starting point if you’re new to the whole thing (a fair warning tho, most of them are incomplete and in permanent hiatus).

[ririthedevil]

@ander-redsgomarching

Okay so I thought this best to post as a singular post! I personally don't watch much fantasy and romance, but I can recommend you things I have watched which go along with those genres as sub-genres! (skip to the bottom for a less detailed list).  I think you’d like Sword Arts Online - romance and fantasy! It’s very popular and set within a virtual reality gaming realm called SAO, which is just a normal avatar medieval-esque game where they can fight, earn objects and coins, and be whatever they want etc! One day however the owner of the game decides to create the ultimate challenge after the beta tests and the official release of the game. The characters get stuck within it due to this challenge and if they die within the game they die in real life - and if anything irl tries to take their VR headsets off they can die too! To survive the game, they have to win it by reaching the top level and defeating the bosses as they go. (Don’t wanna give more than that away but give it a check)! It’s on Netflix I think!

Also I have to super recommend a new anime I just finished called Erased! It’s a crime one. It’s about a guy who randomly can set back time to a point in his life where something went wrong in the future but he can fix it (i.e. a truck driver almost hits a child after he has a heart attack while driving and the main character goes back and stops it from happening). One day however he gets set back by over a decade and is back in school (he turns the same age physically as he was back then but has the same mind of a 29 year old) and has the chance to stop the murder of children from his school. It’s like 12 episodes long and is super great!

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is another favourite of mine - it’s fantasy and action (about 64 episodes long too). Also on Netflix! It’s within a world of a science called Alchemy, where you can create things on the principles of equal exchange. Yet there are taboo subjects such as you can’t bring back people from the dead. It’s about two brothers who try to get their mother back who passed away but because they never followed the rules one brother loses his arm and leg and the other his entire body except for his spirit which his older brother puts inside of a metal armour (which can walk and talk). So the overarching plot is that they try to find a way to get the younger brothers body back and become a part of the military to get access to materials which could help them discover a way. HOWEVER this is just one of the many motivates of the whole show, which is based in a time parallel almost to that of World War 2 (where there is a military state, war and a genocide). I want to explain so much more but don’t want to give anything away! It’s sometimes funny, sometimes heart breaking but super breath taking! No Game No Life I have just started watching, and is about two siblings who are well known within the gaming world for being undefeated. They see the real world in lousy terms and something of a game until they get a weird email challenging them to a match and once they accept they get taken into this fantasy world. The world however is one where conflicts (from small arguments to the fate of countries) are made not through war but through high stake games, and each person in the game has to contribute a wager equal to that of other players. 

Zero No Tsukaima

is

action, fantasy and romance

- it was also one of the very first anime I ever watched and has three seasons (though honestly i just recommend the first two). It’s a class based anime almost, where elite Nobles within high class academies perform magic and within a certain year can summon a ‘familiar’ which they can train to do whatever they want (mostly fight in this case and protect them). The main girl of this anime, called Louise (nicknamed Louise the Zero because she’s super bad at magic) summons however not a usual beast but instead a human boy Saito who she basically makes somewhat a save as she perceives him to be lesser than that of other familiars. Over time however with each others encouragements, Louise gets better at magic and Saito becomes a wonderful fighter. I think I sold this one a bit poorly because honestly I can’t remember a lot of it as it’s been like 6 years if not more since I last watched it! But I always think of this anime when I think romance! 

Clannad also is a true romance and a true heart breaker, centred on the love story of two individuals since they met in school and the problems and lovely moments they have experienced along the way. It’s incredibly bitter sweet and made me cry on multiple occasions! 

Someone recommend Fate Stay Night to be once which goes along the fantasy, romance genre and is meant to be a bit bittersweet. I think though more recently I am going on to more action packed anime shows and off of romance. So I found the first few episodes a bit more talkative thus got a bit bored. However it is one a lot of people recommend so maybe it’s just not my cup of tea but could be urs! 

CODE GEASS is my pride and joy and I cannot recommend it enough - it is action and mecha with hints of romance throughout it though its never over exaggerated! It’s my absolute all time favourite anime about a highly intelligent 17 year old boy named Lelouch who is Britannian ex-Prince who is in hiding and his sister Nunnaly (who is blind and cannot walk) and one day wants to take on the throne to stop the injustices he sees in the world. The world itself is based on a time of intense colonialism (yet is set in the future, funnily enough 2017 is the year) where Britannians rule a third of the world and Japan becomes instead a country called Area 11 under their rule and it’s people are called Elevens who are seen as lesser beings. This is just one injustice Lelouch wants to wipe away and one day when he is about to be killed by a soldier after trying to save a woman he is given a power called Geass which allows him to command an individual to do whatever he says (but he cannot use it more than once on the same person)! Using this power and by leading a rebel force which is trying to take back Japan, he uses his power and amazing intellectual gifts to take on Britannia's elite- all within his disguise of a mask and cloak in which he calls himself Zero. Throughout the time you find interlinkages of plots with both much hated and much loved characters, and find yourself questioning who the real villains and heroes are all the time! I CAN’T EVEN WITH THIS ANIME IT’S SO AMAZING AND SO FAR 50 EPISODES LONG UGH! It’s sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes mind boggling and absolutely brilliant. It takes on political notions and racism, while still balancing out with light hearted episodes which make you realise these characters are just kids at the end of the day! 

I’ll stop here not because I feel like it’s too much info now and maybe I should have just created a list and have u find what u think looks best just by name at first glance. 

Other animes are:

Howl’s Moving Castle - fantasy, romance movie (cute af)

Wolf Children - another romance and fantasy of a young lady who falls in love with a man who can turn into a wolf and they end up having two children together who can also turn into wolves. Bittersweet but it’s love story for both the couple and between that of a family, as well as a coming of age story too! 

Kaze no Stigma - this is incomplete though because the person who wrote the novels it is based on passed away before he could finish 

Cowboy Bebop - action and crime and is AMAZING AF OMG 

Kill La Kill - action but beyond weird but in a super satisfying ‘i can’t keep my eyes off of this and need to know what happens’ kind of way. The plot twist in it made me go bonkers! 

Ouran High School Host Club - a comedy and romance which is also an absolute classic for those starting anime 

Soul Eater - also super fab and another classic - action and fantasy based within a school in the United States where humans can transform into weapons and have friends who can wield them. It’s a super fun anime where you easily fall in love with all the characters. 

Yuri on Ice! - romance between two male figure skaters, with one who is world famous and a champions who becomes a coach and another who has lost his confidence after losing in a World Championship and wants to find inspiration again. 12 episodes and just another anime you call in love with every character.

Boku No Hero Academia - still ongoing within a world where like 80% of people in the world have super powers (called Quirks) and a rare 20% do not. The main character is one of these poor individuals, despite desperately wanting to become hero like his idol All Might. One fateful meeting however comes about when meeting his hero for the first time, who sees potential within him as someone with a brave and honest heart. Therefore he entrusts him with the ability of One for All, where one has incredible strength and speed which in turn allows him to go study to become a hero at the Hero Academy.  Yet there are troubles ahead, with the Villain League coming out of the realm hoping to destroy such heroes and students of the Academy being trusted to deal with the events to come. 

Your Name - a time travelling, mind swapping romance movie which is OUT OF THIS WORLD STUNNING OH MY GOSH! The animation is crisp and the plot line exceedingly good which makes you almost weep! About a girl and boy who switch bodies and go on a quest to find one another to change back. They communicate by leaving notes to one another - either on notepads or on their phones. It’s a bit complicated to explain the time travelling aspect throughout it but YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. 

OKAY NOW I’LL STOP OR I’LL COMBUST from wanting to rewatch all of these.