#and most of the time I'm 100% some fictional character I know and not someone original

[level2janitor]

Introduction to the OSR

what's an OSR? it's a game that's kinda like old-school D&D. or is old-school D&D. or is compatible with old-school D&D. an OSR game generally has some or all of the following principles:

low character power with highly lethal combat. in old-school D&D a 1st-level fighter has d8 hit points and a longsword does d8 damage, and you die at 0HP. this is not to ensure characters die all the time but to emphasize the next bullet point:

emphasis on creative problem solving. most situations cannot be solved by straightforward use of your abilities (such as charging into every situation with swords drawn, if a fighter), so the game tests lateral, outside-the-box thinking.

emphasis on diegetic progression. spells are found, not obtained automatically on level-up. you get XP by finding gold more than killing monsters. most of your cool abilities come from magic items. making alliances & hiring followers is encouraged.

focus on managing inventory, resources, risk, and time. the players are constantly faced with meaningful decisions; this is the heart of the game.

very sandbox-oriented. the focus on creative problem solving means the game must be accommodating to players taking a course of action the GM didn't plan for. use lots of random tables to generate emergent story. some elements of new simulationism.

high tactical transparency, i.e., the optimal course of action is rarely system-specific, and ideally very possible for a new player to intuit.

usually semi-compatible with old D&D, but not always. usually rules-lite, but not always.

what does the OSR mostly NOT do?

focus on character builds. these change the focus too much to be on the rules than the fiction, can create situations where stuff everyone should be able to do is an ability locked to one class, and impede tactical transparency.

resolve everything with a die roll. combat uses dice to be scary, unpredictable and most importantly not your default course of action. everything else should bring up dice rarely - dice are your plan B when your plan A fails. the best plans need no dice.

use linear storytelling or put players into a writer/GM role. linear storytelling gets in the way of the decision-making so core to the playstyle; letting players write details into the setting is mutually exclusive with them discovering it.

rules for everything. 400 pages of crunch is worse at simulating a believable world than the GM and players' shared understanding. OSR games rely constantly on GM ruling.

mostly still applies to all the above. making your system a "pure" OSR game comes second to doing what's best for your game.

System recommendations

old D&D or a retroclone

old-school D&D - or old school essentials or basic fantasy or swords & wizardry, which are old D&D's mechanics repackaged with quality-of-life tweaks (and the upside of not giving WOTC your money) - are usually the go-to when recommending someone's first OSR game. they're actually not my first pick, though!

PROS:

very complete, with more robust rules than a lot of the lighter games on this list.

100% compatibility: most OSR adventures are statted for old school essentials. converting them to other OSR systems is usually simple, but not 1-for-1.

easier to find games for. anyone interested in the OSR space knows what old school essentials is.

CONS:

jank. these games largely still have weird saves, level limits for non-humans, some still have descending AC, etc etc. it's not that bad but it is there

i hate thief skills. lots of essential dungeoneering actions are locked to the thief class as abilities, with abysmally low success chances. this is stuff i prefer being handled without a roll. thieves in this system suck and make everyone else worse at dungeon crawling by existing.

there's just lots of really cool shit in other systems i'm about to go into that you just don't get here

Knave 1e and its various hacks

this is a 7-page super-lightweight system that boils everything down to just the essentials.

rolling a character takes like 5 minutes. roll stats, roll gear, roll traits, go. done. it's great.

characters are defined entirely by stats and gear, no classes. wanna be a fighter, have high strength and carry a big sword and armor. wanna be a wizard, have high intelligence and fill your inventory with spells. item slots are elegant and pretty limited.

initiative is instant: roll d6. 1-3, monsters go first. 4-6, PCs go first. swingy, but god it is so smooth and shaves like the most boring 5 minutes off of every combat

monsters are so very elegant. old D&D gives monsters a "hit dice" rating to determine their HP, e.g. a 3HD monster rolls 3d8 for hit points. knave takes this number (HD) and uses it for attack rolls and saves (aside from exceptionally bad/good saves), so a knave statblock looks something like this.

spells are all one or two sentences long & extremely easy to remember.

7 pages is so light. i have the system basically memorized.

DOWNSIDES: there's no dungeon crawling rules (standard for meatier OSR games & something i consider essential) and no real bestiary, though the second point isn't a huge deal cause they're so easy to make. it also kinda assumes you already know how to run OSR games, so there's very little real advice or guidance.

KNAVE HACKS

knave 1e is in creative commons & comes with an editable word doc for you to publish with modifications, so there's a ton of variants (there was a spreadsheet of them somewhere, but i can't find it).

Grave is a favorite - i'm two years into a grave campaign and it's fantastic. it's a dark-souls-y version of knave with some really elegant innovations.

you have a set number of deaths before you for-reals die, as every character plays an undead as is dark souls tradition. makes it good for OSR beginners! being able to tell when you're close to your final death is really good - it lets you emotionally prepare for losing your character & raises the stakes more the more you die. (though honestly you should probably cut the number of extra deaths in half, it's super generous)

XP and gold are combined into one resource, souls. legendary creatures drop big souls you can make into magic items. this has ended up being the coolest thing in my current campaign. my players love finding powerful souls to make into magic items it's so fun

uses preset packages of stats/gear instead of knave's rolled ones, filling the role of more traditional character classes. has the wonderful side effect of not making you get stuck with low stats cause you rolled bad one time.

you have stamina equal to your empty item slots. you spend stamina on spells if you're a caster, or free maneuvers (on top of your attack at no action cost) if you're not. it's super elegant.

there's 3 classes of spells: wizardry for intelligence, holy magic for wisdom, and witch stuff for charisma. nice and intuitive.

there's a page of 50 magic items each a couple sentences long. this PDF is worth it just for the magic items.

DOWNSIDE: see the downsides for knave 1e. all still apply.

i enjoyed grave so much i made a variant of it with the dark souls bits removed (and some dungeon crawl rules added!) to use for my standard fantasy campaigns.

Knave 2e

sadly knave 2e is not purchasable yet (i backed it on kickstarter so i have access, though). but when it comes out i highly recommend it.

much larger and denser than knave 1e. it finally has dungeon crawling rules, it has GM and player guidance, everything is refined and the layout is so so nice and readable.

combat is a bit more interesting than 1e. you can break your weapon against an enemy to deal max damage. you get a free maneuver on high attack rolls.

there's rules for stuff like alchemy, warfare, building a base. it all kicks ass.

there are so many goddamn tables. i rifle through it anytime i need inspiration.

DOWNSIDES: some of the new rules are a little untested & wonky. introducing randomness into how often your rations spoil or your lights go out can cause issues.

Mausritter

you play tiny little mice! in a world full of big dangerous things that want to eat mice. cat = dragon. you get it. what more could you want

the mouse thing is just super intuitive. you get the dynamic between you and the big scary lethal world. fantastic OSR game to introduce kids

nice and robust ruleset; nothing feels missing

tons of super nice GM stuff! faction rules, tools for rolling up hexcrawls and dungeons, plenty of tables

super clean readable layout. font isn't too small to avoid being intimidating. guidance is really nice and clear.

combat is autohit. super fast & lethal.

100% free

look mausritter is just. good. i wanna run it so bad someday

Worlds Without Number

sort of a middle ground between OSR stuff and 5e. paid version here free version here

lots of classes, at least in the paid version. the free version comes with just the warrior, expert and mage. there's feats and more of a focus on builds than most OSR games. if you like more mechanical build variety than a typical OSR game, this is a great game for you!

extremely good multiclassing. y'know how in most games if you just mash together two classes you think are cool you'll end up with a total mess? not here! every combo is viable and works fine! easily the best multiclassing of any game i've touched

an absurd amount of GM stuff and tables. easily more than any of the other stuff i've praised for also having them. but personally i haven't dug into them as much, so i can't really comment on them

skills the way modern D&D has them. you roll dice and try to beat a target number. i don't tend to like rolled skills, but most people do, so if that's your thing WWN has them

DOWNSIDES

the layout is terrible. everything is a huge wall of text with very little use of bold text or bullet points to draw attention to the important bits. the table of contents has like 15 things in it for a 400-page book! i couldn't find any of the paid-version-exclusive classes for like a month after i bought it! looking up rules is a nightmare.

the way the default setting handles "evil races" is like an exaggerated parody of all the problematic aspects of how D&D handles it. like, it wants so bad for you to have an excuse to genocide sentient free-willed people. but at least the default setting is easy to chuck in the trash

Dungeon Crawl Classics

the goal of this system is to take all of the crazy gonzo moments people remember playing old-school D&D in their childhood and turn all of that up to 11 while cutting the stuff that doesn't add to that. i think a lot of its innovations have ended up kind of standard in newer OSR stuff (like fighters getting maneuvers with their attacks), but it still has more to offer.

the funnel: you start the game with four randomly rolled dipshit peasants that you then throw into a meatgrinder to get horribly killed. you pick one of the survivors to be your 1st-level character.

maneuvers: fighters roll an extra die with each attack that gets bigger as you level. if it's a 3 or higher, you get to do a cool thing on top of your attack. pretty standard for OSR games, but this game popularized it!

crit tables: fighters also get more crits and nastier crits as they level. every crit, you roll on the crit table. maybe you chop off a dude's arm. maybe you just knock them over. maybe you shatter their shield. it's very cool

spell tables: i don't really like roll-to-cast mechanics, generally. but DCC goes so all-in on roll-to-cast that it still looks fun as hell to watch. you cast a fireball and maybe it goes how you want. or maybe you explode, or you nuke everything in a half-mile radius, or from now on you permanently ignite flammable materials you touch, or whatever. casters just have to put up with turning into a weird mutated mess across a campaign

there's no dungeon crawl rules, no encumbrance - this game is all about the big over-the-top wacky shit, and is not really interested in the more down-to-earth number crunching. it's more in the you-die-hilariously-all-the-time area of OSR than the you-avoid-death-through-clever-play area. not really my thing but the system knows exactly what it wants to be and i respect it

iron halberd

this one is mine! as the author i'm not qualified to tell you what isn't good about my system, so just assume it's worse than i make it sound, but here's a bunch of the selling points

semi-random character creation where you flip back and forth between rolling dice and getting your own input. roll stats, pick ancestry. pick starting gear kit, roll different dice based on which kit you picked. etc etc. stats are random but all equally viable (no rolling incredibly low or high stats). every time i run this game the character creation is a hit. seriously go roll up a character it'll sell you on the whole thing

you start out a lot stronger than a standard OSR character but grow way more slowly. i don't like 4th-level characters being 4 times as strong as 1st-level ones; HP never gets that high. emphasis is more on diegetic progression instead.

way too many subsystems for alchemy, crafting, strongholds, warfare, renown, rituals, likes 9 pages of magic items, a whole subsystem for becoming a cleric mid-campaign. i couldn't help myself i love this shit

in my current campaign we had a player permanently sacrifice some max HP to become a necromancer after deliberating on whether that's a good idea for like thirty seconds, which instantly made me think my necromancy system is a success

also free

Adventure recommendations

(in rough order of size)

Moonhill Garden (by Emiel Boven): look at this. look at it! this is like the best template for a little dungeon in an OSR game. all of the little factions are tied together. this would be a great oneshot to introduce people to an OSR system with.

A gathering of blades (by Ben Milton): a system-neutral, one-page sandbox. i ran this for an iron halberd game and it went super well. lasted like 7 sessions. highly recommend.

The Waking of Willowby Hall (by Ben Milton): a single dungeon with a million things going on. it's super chaotic with half a dozen different factions crashing into each other and a big angry goose. highly recommend, especially for kids

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford (by Chance Dudinack): small sandbox with a fun fairytale vibe and a very fleshed-out little town. and a big nasty dragon.

Evils of Illmire (by Zack Wolf): this is a very dense, entire campaign's worth of hexcrawl in a very compact package for like $5. it doesn't do anything particularly new, but the value-for-money is absurd and it's a really good template for how to do a sandbox if you're used to 5e adventures

Ask me anything!

if anything here is unclear or intrigues you, send me asks! i love helping people get into OSR games. i'll link frequently asked questions here if i get any.

[will80sbyers]

It's funny that not only your posts but other bylers' posts always talk about how much Will does for Mike, how much he loves Mike and how much his actions say that vehemently and I absolutely agree with that. But when it comes to Mike's part, there is absolutely NOTHING to prove that Mike loves him back, where did you guys get that from? Will always sacrificed himself for Mike, always tried his best to protect him, but Mike never did much for him. Yes, I know you will deny this with some passive aggressive response, deep down you know this is true, Mike does not respond to Will's feelings, much less to the same extent. Just as you say El is unhappy with Mike, Will would be too, you should also want someone better for him.

Bestie I wrote a 20 pages document about Mike's thought process and made 300+ power point slides about Mike's character and Byler, I love Mike Wheeler with all my heart and he would be the best boyfriend to Will and he will be 🥰

Mike has been the heart and fought more than anyone else (except maybe his family) to get Will Byers to safety and he loves him with an intensity that you can only have in your dreams because someone that actively spends their time sending annoying asks about a fictional ship can't be a good person in my opinion

YOU are the one that has such a low idea of Mike Wheeler and you still want him with El?

You're not watching the show correctly if you think that Mike is anything else than a boy with the biggest heart and the bravest behaviour on that freaking TV show

Mike Wheeler is the reason why they got Will back in season 1, he never gives up on his friends and wants them all to be happy and he loves and supported Will through his difficult time in season 2 and even in all the other seasons, he's always there for him when he needs him the most and without him Will would be literally dead, Will's speech in the van talking about how Mike inspired him to be brave and keep going was not just Will saying random shit, we have multiple moments between them since season 1 where Mike shows his love for Will

It's not Mike's fault that he doesn't know about Will having feelings for him, it's not Mike's responsibility to make Will feel better for his jealousy or heartbreak and it's not his fault if WILL decides to lie to him about the painting, Will is completely aware of that, you apparently are too stupid to get it

Mike being a dumb teenager a few times in the show doesn't make him enemy number one, all of them have been dumb teens because it's normal that they are while dealing with all of the big feelings they are all experiencing, as is normal that they will all grow up and change and learn how to deal with them in a better way

Believing that Mike doesn't love Will is the real delusion ❤️

Some examples of Mike loving and deeply caring about Will:

I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO CARES ABOUT WILL to his family after Will goes missing

Fights for him in season 1, convincing the others to go out in the woods just to have Will back with him

After he thinks Will died he goes home and cries to his mother, desperate

Has a whole scene where he's focused on caressing the drawings Will made because he misses him so much

Convinces El to use the radio so that they can find him, bringing her to school just for that reason

Beats up a bully that would have 100% kicked his ass twice harder if it wasn't for Eleven, just because he insulted Will

Is Will's best friend since kindergarten and Will made him stop feeling alone and scared, they found companionship with each other since they were basically infants

In season 2 when Will is showing signs of not feeling well he's the most worried for him and he said so to his friends

Takes care of him when he has the Halloween episode, brings him to his home and they talk and share confidences and Will feels understood by Mike and opens up to him, Mike never judges him for "being crazy" and actively wants to go crazy together with Will, they do this for each other again and again and again during the whole show and during their whole friendship

He listens to him when Will talks about Dart being from the upside down and immediately believes him

When Will is missing from school he's so worried that he decides he has to go to his house to check on him after seeing him have the episode on the school field

Stays with Will and reassured him and gave him courage and strength and made him feel like he has some agency in what's happening to him by telling him that maybe he can spy on the monster and he's not completely powerless

Stays with Will in the hospital to support him through everything.

Mike saves his life again in season 2 with his speech btw and he also saves him by having a plan to fight the mind flayer with the fire and also understands that they can't close the gate if Will has that inside him still, he is the first one to think about Will's wellbeing again and worry about him...

In season 3 he's a dumb teenager so yeah, he's distracted by his brand new relationship and hormones, but when Will actually opens up to him about the fact that he's hurting their friendship because of that Mike IMMEDIATELY takes action and changes his behaviour, he takes Will's opinions in such high regards and takes them to heart and acts accordingly

He apologizes to him for being dumb and acting out FIRST thing and then he changes for the rest of the season and goes back to being the best version of himself ( his relationship with El is part of what is making him act like that btw, like Nancy was acting like a dumb teen in season 1 because of Steve and Barb told her but she didn't listen and then Jonathan told her and she did listen, they are kids that's what kids do because of peer pressure and wanting to fit in, it happens since the dawn of time )

When Mike loses Will we have a whole ass scene dedicated to that showing Mike's internal thoughts even if we don't hear him say what he thinks yet he's devastated again

He's suffering as much as Will is.

In season 4 we are given hints that he even tried to call Will and WILL was the one really pulling away, he's not "the bad guy" he was 100% right here. Will is speechless because he is in the wrong here, Will was pulling away and feeling jealous and feeling abandoned because he has feelings for Mike but Mike felt the same exact thing, he felt like he lost Will too, they understand each other on a deep emotional level, they have a bond that El and Mike did not really show on screen imo

Will feels comfortable opening up to Mike and so he is always ready to do the same for him, he sits down and listens to Mike's fears and feelings because he loves him, exactly like Mike listens to Will again and again

They make each other feel loved, all the love Will felt from him in season 2 Will is now giving it back to him in season 4

It's funny that they were still in a supposed fight in this scene lol they are such simps for each other!!!

Mike Wheeler's love for Will is like breathing, he doesn't realize but he's doing it at all times 🥰

There's more reasons and more scenes but I can only put 10 GIFs so I'll stop here, I'm sure you won't even read this because you're just that type of person that doesn't even have the balls of having a real conversation with someone instead of attacking them randomly just because you feel insecure as fuck 🫶

[bennie-jerry]

My Beef with Wanda Maximoff - An MCU Rant

Sorry not sorry, I will ride the Wanda-ain't-shiitake train till the wheels are worn out. I do not care what her fangirls say. And if you're legitimately going to be so overly offended just from me disliking a FICTIONAL character, I highly suggest you click off, make some tea, and watch a Ghibli movie.

How many times does it need to be said? Just because someone suffers from some form of (small or big) trauma, IT DOESN’T GIVE THEM A PASS TO DO EVIL SH—

I really REALLY sincerely hope there's lore or bits I'm missing here (and if so, PLEASE tell me because I WANT to be wrong so BAD). But from what I know and remember, I feel as though I have every right to be disgusted with who Wanda is as a person.

It frustrates me so much how this carmine-colored narcissist will whine about people being scared of her, but she does stuff only a scary person WOULD do.

Purposefully setting the Hulk off so you could use him as a wrecking ball on innocent civilians in Johannesburg during Age of Ultron? Seems scary as heck.

Literally warping the universe itself to hunt and kill a teenager who did nothing to you during Multiverse of Madness? Seems scary as heck.

Brainwashing an ENTIRE town JUST so you can live in delusion about your man not being dead during Wandavision? Seems DOUBLE scary as heck.

Don't even try to defend what she did in Age of Ultron. Even if she supposedly didn't INTEND to have civilians killed, she sure as HECK didn't seem all too sorry that it happened. She wasn't ‘regretful’ that she did it. She was only ‘regretful' when Bruce confronted her on it. She has the nerve (the utter AUDACITY) to hate Tony Stark for the same CRAP that she does (if not worse, which let's be honest—it’s worse).

At least Tony Stark DIED out of an effort to save everyone, whereas Wanda usually tends to only help others when it benefits HER.

Wanda is nothing more than a Multiversal brat with a god-complex and no one can tell me otherwise. If something does not go 100% her way, she completely acts out and throws a reality-warping tantrum.

“Oh, but she tried to fix everything in Wandavision!”

Yeah, only after finding out she was BRAINWASHING people!

How the FREAK do you reality warp an ENTIRE town (especially at the large radius she used her magic) and expect NO one to be under mind control? Would you NOT try to fly around the premises to see if ANYONE else was there?

Once again, even if this was an example where she didn't INTEND for it to happen, then that proves another great flaw that she has.

Wanda hardly (if ever) thinks through her actions. And then when her actions bite her in the butt, she has the nerve to be surprised. Wanda almost never (and I'm being generous here) considers how her actions harm or affect others until it turns around and affects HER.

She did not deserve Vision, he was too good of a man for her, sorry not sorry.

Just the stuff she did BEFORE Multiverse of Madness ALONE is enough to not like her.

Let's not even get into the fact she never ACTUALLY apologized to Bruce Banner for everything she put him through. All she said at most when he confronted her is, “I know you're angry…”

Oh wow, REALLY? I couldn't POSSIBLY understand why Banner would EVER be angry at you for essentially brain-raping him (going into his mind and memories without his CONSENT) and using his worst fears against him to trigger Hulk so you could use him like a personal killing machine, further lessening the very few support systems he already HAD. She should feel grateful Banner didn't immediately throw her through a wall upon seeing her.

“But she became an avenger and helped them in Endgame!”

I could not give less of a DOOKIE about the fact she did that. Wanda fighting Thanos was literally the ONLY option she possibly had if she didn't wanna turn into dust along with the other half of the population. Sure, she also did it because she was forced to kill her boo BECAUSE of Thanos, but let's be honest—she would've had to fight him regardless. Her handing Thanos’ butt to him (while a very cool scene) doesn't prove JACK about her character.

The fact she ever BECAME an avenger after effectively traumatizing the MAJORITY of them is mind-boggling to me.

“Oh, I'm sorry I weaponized all of your traumas against you for my own personal gain because I wanted to work with a genocidal robot, can I join you guys?”

“Sure, Wanda! Come into the team and we'll pretend like you didn't do a darn thing!”

(The fact this isn't even ALL that she's done is absurd, I can still keep going—)

Don't even get me STARTED on Multiverse of Madness. And before anyone tries to say, “She did it so she could have a reality with her children!”

BRO, HER KIDS WEREN'T EVEN FREAKING REAL—

Wanda Freaking Maximoff wanted to murder a TEENAGER all for some children that were not even ACTUAL people. And when she did have them, didn't she make them FIGHT against the military in Wandavision or am I mistaken (which I VERY MUCH hope I am because what the he---)?

I do not care whatsoever what her reason is or what trauma she went through. Attempted murder of a minor (ESPECIALLY in this case, a minor who didn't even do anything) is inexcusable to me.

There is no way in frog fingers you guys are ACTUALLY trying to justify and/or downplay a grown ADULT trying to murder a CHILD (because that's what America was—a CHILD).

(Her and Miguel O'Hara would get along GREAT, when's the collab--)

And by then, she had ALREADY brutally murdered a whole bunch of people and probably corrupted the multiverse even FURTHER than she already had.

It wasn't until an ALTERNATE version of her (who ACTUALLY had her kids) told her to sit the [BLEEP] down (I'm paraphrasing here, but you get my drift).

Wanda is NOT a victim. Is she a good villain? Yes. But this witch isn't a victim. Not anymore at least. She doesn't apologize for her actions. She doesn't take responsibility. She doesn't reflect on what she does.

And even when she DOES finally do ANY of those things in ANY capacity, the damage is already done. In fact, it's not JUST done, it's also BURNT inside the oven causing smoke to go everywhere.

There is no rhyme or reason you could pull out that will convince me to be anything short of angry with this character and I'm so tired of her fans trying to defend her just because she was a lab rat and lost her man.

Once again, it's not bad to like a character that does awful stuff. But please, for sanity sake, STOP acting like they're a lost little angel BECAUSE you like them. I know they say "hurt people hurt people" but that still doesn't justify doing bad stuff just because bad things happened to YOU.

[panlight]

I know I've mentioned this before, but sometimes I think it's a blessing that SM hadn't really read/watched much Vampire Stuff before she wrote Twilight.

Don't get me wrong--there are definitely times where I'm very frustrated by this, where she misses a key moment that someone more genre savvy would have taken full advantage of. The main character being turned into a vampire in such a clinical way removes so much of the intimacy and eroticism of vampire lit, for example. Or the way she didn't give her vampires any weaknesses and how that makes it so much harder to raise the stakes and put them in any real danger. Or to feel bad for their cursed existence because like . . . it actually seems not that bad without all the weaknesses and limitations.

But It's a blessing in a way because it allowed her to come up with characters like Emmett, Esme, and Carlisle. MOST of the sympathetic, 'good' vampires in fiction end up being like Edward. This brooding vampire who hates what he is and probably has some kind of Dark Past (Edward's vigilante era in his own opinion) but wants to be good but oh, the endless midnights! And obviously that's a compelling story; these tropes are used so often because people ENJOY them.

But then you have Emmett, who is a 'good' vampire too and just . . . doesn't care. He's nice. He'll protect you. But he's also killed people. Whoops. Probably felt bad about it at the time. Probably still feels a little bad if he thinks about it now. But he's not brooding about it. He's generally pretty happy and fun and doesn't take things too seriously. Normally this would be a 'bad' vampire or at least morally gray vampire but as written by SM, he's clearly intended to be a good guy. Just one of the bros who happens to be a vampire.

Then there's Carlisle, who had every reason to be the brooding vampire who hates himself (was actively hunting vampires when he was turned! son of a pastor! alone for centuries!) but instead he . . . just got on with it. Also I think his success with vegetarianism is in itself kind of unusual and refreshing for the genre. I know lots of people think he'd be more interesting if he had killed people but as someone who read Twilight during a marathon read of other vampire fiction the fact that he HADN'T was actually what made him interesting to me. It was bizarrely . . . hopeful? It's the kind of thing that someone actually vampire genre savvy probably wouldn't have done.

Likewise Esme just being this white suburban midwestern vampire mom and playing it 100% straight. This isn't some commentary on how vampirism is a shallow perversion of motherhood or whatever, Esme IS the mom. She does mom things. It's taken seriously. She's not some sinister Other Mother, she is genuinely loving and gentle and motherly and again, I feel like someone genre savvy wouldn't have played it that way.

Anyway, yes sometimes I long for more typical vampire stuff in Twilight, but sometimes the lack of genre knowledge worked out in its favor.

[cosmicjoke]

Alright folks, here we have yet more evidence that 7m7n7 is a completely unhinged freak show of epic proportions. They don't even deny the fact that they're the one sending my and of course numerous other Levi blogs the literal most vile shit imaginable while hiding behind anon, accusing me of being a "misogynistic man" while calling me a "cunt" and claiming to be a straight woman while also calling me a "fag", and yet they somehow think this is a win for them. Anyway, they've really stepped in it now. They flat out admit in the tags of one of the screenshots that they want to send me and others death threats. I'm posting this so everyone can be aware of who this person is and how they operate. I'll also be sending all of this to the admins on here. They have numerous other accounts here on tumblr, which is how they kept sending me anon hate, despite me blocking this particular account and several others. It's beyond amusing how they accuse me of being the one to "start shit" and of being "obsessed" when they confess to having a post "about me" that they've had saved in their drafts for months, lol, and when they're the one that's been attempting to harass me for months on end, literally stalking me on tumblr, on twitter (the one time I went on there to participate in a Levi themed event) and on a03, lol. Anyway, have a gander folks, and remember, if we all report this lunatic to admin, it's 100% possible to get them banned.

And by the way @7m7n7, just you wait. There's plenty of evidence of the shit you've said about Levi and Eren on twitter. It's all going to come to light, soon enough. Further, if you think I blocked you because I can't "counter" the pure bullshit you spew, then you're even dumber than I realized. I blocked you because I don't have the time to get into back and forth exchanges with a person who's intellectual capacity is equivalent to a puddle of piss and who displays the kind of unhinged, obsessive, hateful and deviant paranoia that you do. I don't have to defend or explain why I have no interest in talking to or reading the drivel of someone who makes a habit of sending people death threats, threatening to doxx people, calling people racist, misogynistic, homophobic and ableist slurs, and who regularly tells anyone who disagrees with their blatantly repulsive takes that they should kill themselves. That's why I blocked you. You're a worthless, vile, disgusting garbage dump of a human being and you aren't worth my or anyone else's time. I would rather get a hole drilled into my skull than have to actually converse with you. It would be a more productive use of my time.

If anyone wants to actually see the exchange we had on a03, too, instead of taking this moron's word for what I supposedly did and didn't say, here's a link. Just scroll down to the comments section and have a look:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37903426/chapters/94653316

By the way, I have zero issue with "dom Levi". People can ship Levi in whatever ways they please, it's no skin off my back.

What I have an issue with is people portraying Levi as some psychopathic, pedophilic rapist, sullying his character with these absurdist takes, and insisting it's "canon", and then trying to harass, threaten and bully you non-stop on anon in an attempt to drive you from the fandom simply for pushing back on this frankly repulsive mischaracterization by talking about Levi's core characteristics of compassion, empathy and kindness.

And just to address their asinine accusation about me "getting off" on the idea of Levi being raped or tortured, anyone who knows me on here, and particularly, anyone who's actually read my work, will know that I never portray or frame these fictional scenarios in a light meant to titillate or fetishize said scenarios. I write about them within the context of exploring and understanding the brutal and tragic reality of physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, in an attempt to engender a greater understanding and compassion in my readers for victims of these crimes. I never write smut which depicts rape fantasies or in any way romanticizes or glamorizes the act of rape. This bozo looks at my tags and just assumes I'm writing smut. That never has been and never will be what I do with these particular issues or subject matter.

[blkkizzat]

I've been holding this in for a while but the latest "lets flood the x reader tags with posts complaining about what writers write" has pmo to my limit. allow me this please and i will put the rest under the cut...

for the love of god please stop calling people on tumblr, especially smut writers/enjoyers, 'porn addicts' because you sound like an uneducated, highly sheltered, dumbfuck.

i'm sorry but you sound slow and like you have zero life experience. and it seriously makes me question if you are a minor hiding behind an 18/19 age tag. (because it is always y'all especially saying this).

do y'all know what addicts are? have you ever had an addict of anything in your life? do you know what that entails?

What IS a porn addiction.

being an addict means your entire life is centered around your addiction.

it means your work, school, home and general relationships with everyone in your life is being negatively affected by this addiction

It means if you are driving/taking public transport, you watching porn.

out with friends or dinner with family? you're sneaking away to consume porn or reading smut.

At work/school, you watch or read in the background (think of all the stories of kanye west in adidas boardroom meetings literally having porn playing in the background while they discuss shoes... insanity and i can only imagine the amount of paperwork HR had to do to ensure no one would gets sued).

Overall, you are constantly consumed by the urges to consume smut/porn and its the main priority in your life. THAT is addiction.

What is NOT a porn addiction:

It's not after a long stressful day of work, school, and just surviving in this fucked up world (especially if you support yourself 100% and pay bills) wanting to decompress and escape by writing, consuming or enjoying smut/hentai/porn about fictional characters.

hell it ain't even a porn addiction if to fall asleep or decompress you need to self-soothe rub one out to it at night to relax to smut or hentai or porn links.

It's more of a reflection of a fucked up world who majority of people are so stressed because they can barely afford a living or have no access to mental health services, let alone medicines, or maybe they have all that but they also are just trying to exist in a country that either wants to take all their rights away or see them d3@d. it could be literally anything that causes them stress and they just want some relief and endorphins. that is not an addiction. sure its not the solution to their issues, but its helping them get by and they are perfectly functional without consuming porn.

now COULD there be some people on this app who do have porn addictions? Sure, but those aren't the people you know about who are taking the time to write fics, or engage with others or be apart of the community. they are likely just blank accounts liking/reblogging so they can just binge all day.

and low key the once or twice i did see someone say "they had a porn addiction" they literally just sounded like the actual root of the issue was depression and using smut/porn as an avoidance to dealing with issues. BUT it didn't quite qualify as an addiction because they were easily able to disengage cold turkey and not have it negatively effect them when they did decide it was getting to be unhealthy. thats also not an addiction, maybe heading towards it but not there yet. addiction means dependency you dont have a dependency if you are able to give it up easily.

wanna hear about someone who actually had a porn addiction i've personally seen? so storytime...

i've worked in media most of my career. at one point i worked for the mouse's sports company (think about it lol should be obvious). for orientation i was flown out to big HQ. everyone is given a tour of the facilities where they film everything at. also we saw behind the scenes. you know in tv/movies you see those dark rooms where producers/editors sit during a live broadcast? those rooms. so at this company they allow people to see into those rooms without disturbing them (as they could be live on air) as there is a dark one way type of mirror so you can see in, but they cannot see out/see hallway light that would be distracting.

one of the jobs in the production rooms at this sports company is a sports analyst. now this aint no easy job to get, it is probably one of the hardest jobs in the entire company to get, harder than executive interviews, as they open applications once a year and there is probably 6K+ applicants for that ONE position. your job is to feed the sportscasters sports facts live as they are on air. 95% of what you give them has to be off the top of your head, so you literally just have to know hundreds of random sports facts and just be able to give that to them at a moments notice. its a very respected job in the company cause these guys know their shit and study sports facts for years to get this position.

so wouldn't you know one of them had a porn addiction.

on my tour, literal first day at the job, and we were walking by one of production rooms. there sitting at the back row, so the row we can see the easiest that is in front of the windowed mirror. he is literally sitting there with three monitors: whats happening live on air, random files/notes, and then hardcore porn of this woman getting fucked from all angles by like different men. He wasn't even jerking. He wasn't even looking at it. He was just doing his job like having that porn up was the most normal thing in the world, like it was a fuckin podcast lmfao. LOL our tour guide was so scandalized, she immediately rushed us away from there and phone in on her walkie talkie. (it was a kiiii though me and this other guy were trying not to laugh but i was literally in tears trying to hold it in. i think other people thought i was crying cause i was upset but it was just too funny but i had to play it off cause people got yelled at for laughing).

but the sad part is i heard later that the guy didnt even realize he had it up. that watching porn was just so normalized to him and something hed do all the time he didnt even think that he had pulled it up at work. Now he fucked up his dream job and is unemployeed with a super niche skill having to provide for his family and i think he had like 3 kids too. He'd studied 5 years straight to get that job and he blew it. THATS what addiction looks like. That's how it can utterly destroy your life. Even an addiction that is not drugs can physically destroy you can still tear apart your life.

I don't think anyone who calls people reading smut on tumblr 'porn' addicts understands that. nor do you have the proof to know what people do outside of this app to know how it is or isnt consuming their life.

this was long and alot but i needed to get his off my chest cause some of y'all really be pmo by how ridiculous you sound throwing around the term 'porn addiction' please grow tf up, quickly.

imma start blocking y'all saying it too cause regardless of your age im going to assume you are a minor cause theres no way an actual adult with any kind of education or life experience is saying this shit.

cut it tf out.

xoxo, Kali.

p.s. this also includes haters of twt porn links saying people who like/enjoy them have addiction. im callin' your dumbasses out too.

[momentomori24]

Keiji is a character that I'm pretty sure every one of us can recognize is an absolute weirdo (ok maybe some are too hard on copium for the "weirdo" part) and sketchy as hell, but thinking about everything he's done it really feels like he's so much shady and ruthless than we give him credit for. So here's me bulletpointing some the moments that I haven't seen too many talk about, a little theory throwing his status into question and addressing the massive elephant in the room that almost everyone refuses to acknowledge. If there's something else you feel I missed or wanted to evaluate on, do leave it in the comments.

[Also, disclaimer: I will be discussing Keiji and Sara in a romantic light near the end of this post, so if that makes you uncomfortable please proceed with caution or skip entirely. This should go without saying but for my own sake I will say it anyway-- No, I do not condone their relationship in real life. No, this is not meant to be "shippy" or endorsement of any kind. This will simply be pointing out their dynamic as another example to prove the whole point of this rant. But if someone else does ship them that's totally fine. Fiction doesn't equal reality and if you harass a real person over fictional characters you will not see the light of heaven. Be civil, please and thank you. My block button is rated E for Everyone and if anyone decides to ignore the warnings and be an asshole I won't hesitate to use it. Thanks for listening. Disclaimer over.]

*Being a murderer.

I feel like I should start with the most obvious and undeniable. I don't think this is debatable to anyone here. Mr. Policeman may have been an accident and kinda confirmed by Midori to have been set up, but he still shot and killed an unarmed man in a moment of panic and recklessness. Even putting that aside, there's no denying that he killed Megumi in cold blood to get out of his debt to her and covered it up to the group to preserve his credibility. Regardless of what you think of Megumi, he has no excuse here. Not only is he one more kill away from being a serial killer, he's the only participant in our group that has actually killed people directly aside from Alice. Another reason why I bring this up is cuz something that completely flew over my head is this:

At the start of the game he had the audacity to complain about not having a partner or someone he knows with him like Sara does as if he didn't literally let Megumi get ripped apart by chains probably not even an hour ago Keiji what the hell--

*Throwing Kanna under the bus repeatedly.

Despite positioning himself as a protector and someone to rely on, he's far from above putting their youngest members in danger. Next to voting for the fourteen year old girl to die, he had the great idea of letting said fourteen year old be the one to babysit their biggest liability. Up to the point where they would stay in the same room both day and night. While I absolutely 100% trust that Sou would never EVER do anything to her, Keiji had no guarantee of that when he send her off. Hell, he literally just got done accusing Sou of setting Joe up to die (which I don't believe almost solely based on the fact that he said it, more on that another time maybe). He knew Sou was bad news, and openly acknowledges how adults can be terrifying, but he did it anyway. The dubiety of throwing the already traumatised little girl to keep watch on what they thought to be the most dangerous adult that had manipulated her once before is not lost on me, and that he didn't take any responsibility for her afterwards isn't lost on me either. To be fair, the Sou and Kanna thing doesn't just fall on him, it falls on everybody (Alice gets a pass because he actually swapped out with Kanna to watch Sou for her), but he was the one with the final say on the matter and who encouraged her to take the role despite Reko's rightful protests. The fact that he also voted for her to die in the Main Game, and is the only adult to do so, doesn’t help his case.

*Attempting to frame Sou knowing Reko was actually responsible.

While you could argue he was trying to cover for her since he knew why she did what she did, trying to pin this act on Sou to cast more doubt on his is extremely shitty. Never mind the blatant corruption and the irony of a supposed man of the law abusing his power to knowingly frame an innocent person (in this situation at least), and him sowing more seeds of confusion and resentment within an already rattled group, and giving Sou legitimate reason to be suspicious of him (and by extension Sara)-- this makes it so difficult to trust him after realising he's done this. Literally every time he accuses someone of being or doing something suspicious (mostly Sou), I always have to think in the back of my head if he’s telling the truth or just telling a blatant lie. He's shown that he's willing to not only lie to cover for himself, but to lie to delegitimize someone else. And Sara never caught onto it (Sou and maybe even Nao likely did tho). She never openly acknowledged it-- No one did. The complete lack of mention of what he did here makes this action quite missable. Hell, I didn't even catch it the first time. Has he done this before? Who else has he lied about? Who else would he lie about? Who else would he knowingly pit against the group? You don't have to wait for that answer, because I will provide an example later. And with "later", I mean now.

*Casting suspicion on Gin before the vote while hiding the fact that he killed Megumi.

While it's not as blatant as with Kanna, there are two instances where Keiji shows a readiness to either put or leave Gin in harm's way. The biggest one for me is in the Main Game. Like, how dare you. That is a furry child, sir. This kid’s like TWELVE. Even though he makes a valid point about calling out suspicious actions to clear them up so we can all trust each other, casting doubt on Gin of all people right there feels pretty screwed to me. This was before the preliminary vote. His words could’ve very well gotten Gin voted for if he couldn’t disclose why he did what he did for whatever reason and therefore being unable to clear himself from suspicion. It’s even more fucked when you realise that Keiji has literally murdered his partner and is currently planning to get Sou killed while giving this whole spiel about doubting others so that we can believe them and pointing the finger at a little kid to make an example to the group. But when Nao, Sou and Sara call him out on his suspicious actions that could rightfully damage his credibility, he tries to shut them down completely. My brother in Christ, you brought it on FIRST (don’t get me wrong I’m very much aware he didn’t really mean the whole “trusting each other” bit but come on dude)--

Speaking about not meaning what he says:

*Letting the group think he’s Ok to vote for knowing he’s the Keymaster.

This kinda got to me because I thought this was Keiji actually being… vulnerable? Accepting the consequences of his actions and allowing them to vote for him in their distrust without protest even tho it could cost him his life, maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a lot of times-- or any times, really-- where Keiji has willing put himself into the line of fire, at this point at least. He always finds a way to keep himself safe, give himself insurance, and I thought that this would be the one time he doesn’t do that. But this feels so ominous looking back knowing that he was the Keymaster the whole time. That our distrust and betrayal and his resignation to it all didn’t matter because he was going to be safe no matter what. That he knowingly allowed us to assume that he was a safe vote because he didn’t want his plan to kill Sou to be ruined, which narrowed down choice of people we can safely vote for even further. That this action is ultimately the reason why Sou and Kanna were our only options to kill off in the end. If he had admitted it there, we could’ve found someone else to vote for so our final options could consist of three people, not two. But he didn’t, and the rest is history. There’s a lot of things he’s done I can’t get over. This one ranks pretty high. The second Main Game is already a huge sore spot for me for obvious reasons; knowing that a lot of the things that happened were due to his inaction where it truly mattered and activity in all the wrong places doesn’t make me fee any better. He didn't say he was a safe vote-- he didn't lie-- but his words carefully omit that voting for him means a total party death, something he should've stated then (and before this, really).

*Leaving Sara with the sacrifice card.

Despite making a big show about “always being by her side” and being her “reliable policeman”, he chose to look away when she was in real danger. He attached himself to her as her right hand man, made her shoulder the responsibility of being the leader, constantly manipulated and flattered her to win her trust and gain her favour-- but when she needed him the most, he basically left her for dead because it was the most beneficial to him. Keep in mind that not only did he know about her getting the sacrifice (he was also the sage so he'd have seen the trade happen), but he had the tokens to help her get rid of it. But those tokens weren’t for her life. They were for his. He used them instead to give himself the Keymaster as insurance for the Main Game (the Keymaster he stole from Sou/Kanna most likely to buy Sara’s trust btw). His desperation for survival outweighed his sense of obligation to keep her safe, and that’s the most subtle yet transparent he’s been about his selfishness. What makes this so much worse is that Keiji is our support character. He’s an ally, and our closest one at that, to the point where Sara burned her hands in a futile attempt to rescue him and signed her life away to save his. And yet his loyalty and protectiveness pale in comparison to other characters. Compare his actions to Sou’s: one of their many parallels and similarities is that both their girls get hit with the sacrifice card. As we’ve established, Keiji was fully aware of Sara being send the sacrifice by Sou, had 50 tokens ready to go and chose to secure his own survival than save her life. Kanna ended up doing it instead, attempting to trade the card off Sara with Sou realising what happened immediately. And what does Sou do? Completely bend over backwards trying to keep her alive. He lied about being the Sacrifice so the others wouldn’t suspect Kanna of having that role, meaning he could try gathering vote for her without anyone seeing his true intentions. He tried to stop her about coming out with the truth of what she had done so she doesn’t sentence herself to death. After everything he did to survive-- after how much he lied, how much he schemed, how much he hurt, and how he had thrown himself away to replace everything that made him Shin with the man that had traumatised him years before the game began to scrape together even the tiniest chance to survive-- he threw it all to the wind and was willing to let it all be in vain if it meant she got to make it out of the Main Game alive. The worst part is that Sou had never intended to make it through that Main Game. He confessed to already knowing that Kanna would choose Sara over him if she truly had the Sacrifice card. Yet he still did what he did all in the hopes that she could win. Because it was all about her survival first, not about them surviving together.

It also gives a different context to Sou's panic and him stumbling over his words trying to come up with any argument to get them to stop. At first I thought that Sou was afraid for his life. Which would make sense-- Keiji and Q-taro set him up to die and seemed pretty adamant on having everyone voting for him to get it all over with. But he was already prepared to die the minute he realised Kanna traded with Sara. So it means it wasn’t his life he was fearing for here-- it was hers. To him, if they voted for him there, it wouldn’t have just been his end but hers too. But we know that Kanna isn’t the one who has the sacrifice. It’s Nao, and considering how the Main Game can end either or both of them dead, I wonder if he regrets not having given up there, not letting Keiji get away with that shitty stunt he pulled knowing it would’ve at least guaranteed her safety than leave her fate in hands of a girl with enough reason to kill her. Ignoring the sounds of my heart shattering into pieces for the 100th time thinking about the Greenblings, it’s so fascinating that our biggest rival and most distrusted member has a greater sense of loyalty and responsibility for his ally than Keiji has for his own. Sou can be a liar and manipulative and selfish, but for how unpredictable he is something I can always trust is his love for those he holds dear (Kanna) and general desire to protect our most vulnerable (Gin). Sou loves Kanna, and so he’s fine with protecting her even if it comes at a price he never wanted to pay. Keiji surely cares about Sara, but unfortunately that is something I can’t say about him-- at least at that time (also the fact that Sou ended up taking more care and responsibility for Kanna despite Keiji having been the one to throw her on him in the first is so ironic).

*Continuously pushing Sara to take on the role of leader.

I think one of Keiji's biggest failures in the game come from his treatment of Sara despite positioning himself as her most reliable ally and her partner. From the very get-go, he was very adamant of making Sara be the one to shoulder the responsibility of the group. He, along with Joe (he didn't do anything wrong here), pushed Sara to be the Challenger during the Russian Roulette, despite Q-taro and Kai being readily available. He made Sara be the one to interrogate the suspicious convict while distancing himself from the situation. And he encourages her to lead them through the Main Game, lets her make the choices that steer them all forward and as a consequence take the fall for them as well. Rather than take on the role himself, or let another adult take it, he places his full trust in her and makes her shoulder everyone's weight so he doesn't have to. And he can see the effect it has on her: having horrific hallucinations due to the immense guilt she feels. But having Sara as their leader gives him a greater shot at survival and helps his credibility, so even though he tries to provide her comfort he still continues to keep her in that role. Again, the high schooler taking responsibility for the adults falls on a lot of the older people here, but Keiji was the one who kickstarted it rather than just go along with it like everyone else had. Gin, Nao, Kanna, Reko and even fucking Sou to an extent all have moments where they take the burden off her and relieve her of that pain she shoulders all the time (or at least try to). I need Keiji to take more responsibility for both the group and for her.

*Pitting Sara and Joe against each other.

This is just another example of the previous point. This isn't as bad, and I could give him the benefit of the doubt that this might have not been intentional, but it's something I want to bring up regardless. I'll be the first to say that Keiji wasn't wrong here. Prying into everyone's votes is a very bad move, especially since no one knew that Mishima would actually die (it was introduced as a practice round, after all). I agree with him, Joe was being rash, but instead of leaving the conversation there, he decided to throw Sara into it to pick a side. Which is... not good. He already won the argument and already had Reko on his side. Bringing in Sara could not only make Joe feel worse and potentially strain their relationship (especially if she rightfully chooses Keiji's side like he was expecting and hoping for), but just puts Sara in the spotlight during something she doesn't want to be part of. While there's a chance he might've done this because he know Joe is more likely to listen to her than him, he should've known better than that. It again makes her take the responsibility of giving the final verdict that would've otherwise gone to him.

*Asking Sara to take responsibility for his life

I've got nothing other that the grown adult swearing his life to the grieving, unstable teenager to take responsibility for while asking her if she'd die along with him is weird as heck. Keiji's said weirder things prior to this, but this one is a different weird. I think Beanieman's post mostly echoes my thoughts on this on, so I'll link it here for this point. This part kinda bothers me:

He shouldn't be encouraging her taking on anymore responsibility than she already is. He knows that the deaths that happened under her leadership haunt her. He knows that she's very much unstable enough already, to the point where he takes baby-steps to avoid triggering her trauma over Joe. He positioned himself as her reliable partner, her rock to lean on (quite literally sometimes). We see first hand how emotionally dependent she is on him. If he died, it would destroy her-- she'd destroy herself over it. He knows this (or should) but he still does it. His disappointment and dismissiveness when she understandably rejects him makes it worse. The guilt of potentially not living up to his expectations is not what she needs.

*Potentially working for Asunaro

This is more ambiguous than everything else here and more a theory than anything but it's been on my mind for a long time that Ranmaru might actually be onto something here. We know that Asunaro has a strong hold on the police. Midori was able to infiltrate the force, and they were able to get rid of Mr. Policeman for looking into the corruption going on, first having Megumi fire him and secondly getting Keiji to kill him by planting false info about the suspect having a gun. Megumi was also able to get Keiji off the hook for murder, which I believe Asunaro had a hand in too (I theorize this might've been her wish). There's also Alice, who was arrested and sent to prison despite the fact that he (legally) didn't kill anyone since Midori was a doll. The police are connected to Asunaro-- by extension Megumi and extending further potentially Keiji.

Something I've seen someone rightfully point out is that neither of the options you're given to say in response to the accusation... actually deny it? Both choices dance around answering directly, which is suspect as fuck. If Keiji truly wasn't with Asunaro, why not shut that theory down immediately? There's no benefit to answering anything but "no" when he's innocent, and he's lied straight to people's faces for less. So why not just debunk it? I think it's cuz there might be some truth to what Ranmaru was saying here. The biggest reason I think this is because despite the fact that Keiji quit the force, he and Megumi were still associating with each other years later. They were kidnapped together and partnered up for their first trial. One missable piece of dialogue is Keiji admitting that he was with his partner-- or rather a "coworker"-- before getting knocked out.

That slip of the tongue and backtracking makes me believe this part to be true. Him switching from "my partner" to "a coworker", which is a lot more distant and impersonal, makes me think it's got to be Megumi. However, I don't believe that Keiji would wanna keep in touch with her after what happened willingly, so I can only imagine that it's due to that debt he has to her. My little game theory here is that after the shooting, the debt he owed her was a forced recruitment into Asunaro. It's the only thing I can imagine he meant by "the worst kind of debt", a debt he'd literally let her die for to get out of. And if this is true, then it could also explain away his instant attachment to Sara, since he'd know beforehand that she's someone he can depend on due to her having the highest chance at survival. Maybe he already knew about her beforehand, one way or the other. We know Hayasaka did (which I think we as a fandom moved on from way too fast btw). Kai and Sou did too. There's always a chance. And unlike Sou's victory rate and Midori's favourite number, it's not zero. One person made a comic about this idea I recommend checking it out, it's tastefully unsettling. But still very much unsetling and uncomfortale. Be warned that it's also Keisara-centred, so if that makes you even more uncomfortable they did the job right you can ignore it. Proceed with caution or don't read if you don't like.

*Being a predator

I have been waiting so long for this one XD For context: a while ago I made a longpost discussing the sanitisation of soushin and this kind of toxic attitudes in fandoms regarding "problematic content" (ships, characters, shows, you name it). In it, I mentioned that it's not only soushin that receives this treatment but a certain other dynamic too. It's not a rainy day, however this has been way overdue and if I don't get this done now I never will.

Something I've seen a lot, and I mean a LOT-LOT is this notion that Keiji acts "like a father" to Sara and that their relationship is a completely platonic father-daughter bond and that he's the resident dad of the group? Like, it's cute, but that's not at all what their relationship is. At all. Not even a little bit. We called Sou and Kanna siblings before the Greenblings reveal. The difference is that not only does half the fandom think this man is gay, but he's only ever been protective and caring and loving without any romantic intentions towards Kanna ever. His title as her brother was deserved, based on the genuine affection and platonic protectiveness similar to that of Alice's. Keiji has made advances tho, on many occasions, and his flirting is repeatedly acknowledged by other characters. Namely Sou and Reko.

(Sou grills him for being a creep every chance he gets I love him XD) But yeah, these are not the type of reactions and comments you receive when being a "father-figure" to the teenager. You get all this when you hit on the teenager. Which he does all the time by calling her "cute" every time she asks something and his "cute little detective", swearing himself to her by saying that "he's always on her side" or something like that, asking her if she'd die alongside him, repeatedly claiming or insinuating that they're on a date, or ""having a moment"" and going to ""take the next step"" when in private (*cough* groomer *cough*)-- you name it, he likely said it. He's a walking-talking ladykiller machine and teenage girls aren't safe, apparently.

(Quick note: The dialogue for the Russian Roulette one is a tad different now. In the new translation he says "cause you're so darn cute" now. I dunno if that makes it sound any less weird, but I felt like putting that out there. What I'm also putting out there is that according to the trivia he calls her cute 8 times throughout the game so. Yeah. *Cough* groomer *COUGH COUGH*)

Like, who tf says this?? Especially that last part 💀 Even if you wanna die on the hill that these are supposed to be "jokes" not to be taken seriously, we should all be able to agree that the (ex)police officer in his late 20s jokingly hitting on the high schooler he follows around is still weirdo behaviour at best and down right despicable at worst. The fandom seeing lowkey predatory/inappropriate behaviour from a figure of authority persistent for almost three entire chapters and dismissing it as "fatherly" and "platonic" is, well, concerning. It's very concerning. If your dad acts like Keiji, you should probably call the police. Unfortunately for Sara, Keiji is the police. And considering this guy got away with manslaughter, I don't think said police would do anything anywho. But yeah-- he uses flattery and flirting to distract her from prodding to much at him while simultaneously aiming to gain favour in her eyes. He showers her with reassurance of his loyalty and affirmation of his deeper attachment towards her and her alone every chance he gets to cement his position as her closest and most trustworthy ally. He insinuates a romantic partnership between them to others to mostly keep her to himself or the two of them alone (he always does that when they're investigating or going to investigate by themselves). There's such an obvious romantic undertone to their relationship and his actions that it going almost completely ignored in the fandom feels weird to me.

I want to make clear that there's nothing wrong with headcanoning Keiji as a father figure to Sara. It's cute. Keiji didn't have a dad himself, and the closest thing to a father figure he had was the man he shot dead. He's a damaged and hardened guy. But Sara's dad is involved with Asunaro and Gin's is an alcoholic, and in a situation where they both need guidence and protection he tries his best to grow and change, fumbling to become that decent father none of them got to have. It's nice, and a wholesome dynamic for our "characters with memorandum counterparts and only non-determined deaths" trio. But that's obviously not what their dynamic is. There's a difference between headcanoning something and erasing canon and the Yttd fandom leans heavily into the latter. Keiji's a creep, he always has been, yet 90% of people I see always portray him as a Mr. Dad Guy or completely sanitise him to hell when him being creepy and unnerving to be around is what made him such a fascinating character. Just like I said with Soushin, the sanitisation to make canon more digestible is one thing: harassing or insulting the people that explore canon is another. I'm gonna take a bullet, derail this rant and say it-- Keisara shippers get so much shit for literally being right it's so infuriating. Keiji does hit on Sara, a lot. He's creepy and weird like that. Him flirting with her isn't a "mistranslation" or a joke or anything like that; his dubious wording and antics are very much intentional. Yet the only people I see actually addressing and acknowledging that without adding fluff is keisara shippers and other ""proshippers"" only for them to get fucking sniped for it I cannot 💀💀 I have yet to meet a single eastern fan who calls this cop "fatherly". This really feels like such a western issue cuz the majority of the japanese fandom agrees that this man's a predator (correct me if i'm wrong but keisara is the most popular ship in the japanese side of the fandom, right?). Then again, eastern fandoms are more chill over there when it comes to separating fiction and reality in general anywho.

*Yeah, I think I'm done with the Keiji slander. Yay. Time to unceremoniously end this.

There's more to say about that, but this is a Keiji post, not another shipping discourse post (although it's hard discussing Keiji's predatory behaviour without bringing it up too). Before I do spiral from the original point, I'm going to try and reach some sort of conclusion here. While I did spent the majority of this post just reading Keiji to filth, and am very salty towards him in particular, this was not just to rake him through mud for my own sanity (tho it's part of it XD). Keiji's character is that he started off as someone who wanted to do the right thing, someone who wanted to be good and moral and protect others by joining the force only to kill all the progress he made along with the person who inspired him to become an officer in the first place. It heavily contrasts the Keiji we have now, a sleazy, unreliable and corrupt ex detective who flirts with underage girls and is willing to resort to the most bankrupt of decisions to save himself. A man that has long lost hope of his wounds healing that he lets them fester and his rot spread onto others. And while I headcanon Keiji to just inherently be a piece of shit, his former self tried his best to be genuinely good before he became so convinced he can never be better that he made peace with his shittiness in the end.

With all this I wanted to highlight some the shadier and bankrupt things he's done that I haven't seen much discussion around and refresh myself on them before the final part. Both so no matter how emotionally dependent and therefore rose-tinted Sara is about the man I don't forget what he's actually like and what he's done while also being able to appreciate how much he's changed for the better. Some of my favourite examples about how he's changed are these:

Before the second Main Game Keiji was willing to let Sara and Kanna die because it was the most beneficial option for him, but in Chapter 3 he takes the on the role of "it" from Kanna and refuses to tag Sara when he thought he was gonna die after failing to beat Midori.

Actually showing more sympathy towards Sou after the Main Game. He was very mean about dismantling his pretence of a cold front to Kanna's death, don't get me wrong, but he showed a lot more consideration and understanding for Sou's feelings and acknowledgement about his active role in it than he ever had beforehand.

He was genuinely fighting for everyone to survive the game, not just himself. While Keiji would prefer everyone making it out safely, he has a tendency to guarantee his own survival first through any means necessary. His plan to corner Midori in the banquet could've cost him his life if it weren't for Q-taro's final stunt, yet he still reassured Sara to save Gin even tho it could've resulted in his execution from Meister potentially finding him guilty of violating the rules.

Him hugging Mai and trying to be more cheerful was cute as heck. I'm sorry but him showing more vulnerability around his allies and being less closed off in a way he hasn't been before is something I'm very head empty about. That he was hugging and interacting with Mai without making any unwanted advances or ladykiller jokes and generally just having a more friendly vibe was nice. It makes his creeping on Sara more unfortunate, but I'll take what I can for now. The bar is in hell.

And that's it, I think. Overall, I hope they do address some of his actions here in the final part or make them have an impact on his and Sara's relationship. Especially that Asunaro part. The person who wished for Sara to join the death game is still unknown and so is Keiji's consent form wish (same goes for the Dummies, Hinako and Megumi), so I'm curious if they're related or not. If he's going to go down an even darker path or redeem himself as much as he can we'll see when the final part drops. He has the potential to go both ways. This is going to be kinda awkward if the next part reveals him to have been a decent guy all along, so hopefully that doesn't happen. Please be morally bankrupt, man. This post didn't end up the way I wanted it to, nor bring up as many points as I would've liked, but I know I won't finish it if I went full perfectionist on it (I already spent months on this writer's block do be a bitch) and it's looking kinda long already. Hopefully it's still decent enough as is right now. I'd like to say that this is my apology for the last longpost I made, but I brought up one of the most controversial and hated ships and traits of Keiji's character and defended them, so maybe I shouldn't 🙃 Anywho, hope you enjoyed and cheerio.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Anonymous asked: Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is it okay if I just say fuck it and write something "poorly written" on purpose?

[Ask edited for length]

I'm going to try to tackle this question in parts, because it's actually a quite good question with a complex answer. So, bear with me...

The answer to "is it okay to write something 'poorly written' depends on two things: the chosen definition of "poorly written" and your intentions with the work.

Defining "Poorly Written" - What does and doesn't qualify as "poorly written" is largely subjective, meaning that it's different for everyone and every situation. There are certainly things that fall into a more objective category... like, if your work is riddled with typos and bad grammar, that will be broadly seen as "bad writing." But, just because a few people say something on the internet doesn't make it broadly true. When you see advice on the internet like "if your character holds important information back from the reader until the end, that's bad writing," don't just assume that's true. Dig into it. Research it. Verify it on multiple reliable sources. If you can find that same advice coming from multiple reliable sources (see below) it's probably broadly true and something you should strongly consider if you want your work to be broadly successful. You can break a "rule" here and there, but be mindful about it.

Some of my favorite reliable sources for writing advice: K.M. Weiland/Helping Writers Become Authors, Joanna Penn/The Creative Penn, Writers Helping Writers/Angela Ackerman/Becca Puglisi, Jane Friedman, Advanced Fiction Writing, Chuck Wendig/Terribleminds, Kristen Kieffer/Well-Storied, Mignon Fogarty/Grammar Girl, Nathan Bransford, Abbie Emmons/Make Your Story Matter, Bethany Atazadeh, Brittany Wang

Your Intentions with the work: obviously, if you're writing for yourself or a small group of friends, just for fun and entertainment, do what you want. If you're writing with the intention of publishing and you want your work to do well, you do need to mostly stick to the "rules" that are known to work on broad levels.

The reason you see advice like, "all dialogue should serve a purpose," is because it's understood that broadly-speaking, most readers don't enjoy dialogue that is obviously fluff and serves no purpose, for the same reason that your eyes glaze over when you're in a group of friends and someone starts telling a long and irrelevant story about some minor inconvenience they had the other day. People don't like their time being wasted, and if you force your reader to read two pages of your characters having a completely irrelevant conversation about fashion, you're going to lose the reader's interest.

I see a lot of advice like, "If your characters know important information that they don't tell the audience until the end, that's bad writing..."

Part of the problem with advice that you see from random people on the internet is that, quite often, they see a bit of broad and reliable advice, but when they repeat it, they strip it of a lot of the additional information that makes it true. This bit of "advice" is a great example of that, because there's a lot of detail missing. For example, having a character withhold information from the reader is fine to a degree (this is called an unreliable narrator), but there needs to be some indication early on that the reader isn't getting the whole story. There need to be other clues the reader can pick up on throughout the story that makes them question whether or not they're getting the whole truth from the reader. Otherwise it comes off like the writer dropped it into the story at the very end for convenience or drama's sake.

Others I've seen are "If your character has a backstory that's not 100% relevent to the plot, you need to cut it"

Stories can be plot-driven (more about the plot than the characters), character-driven (more about the characters than the plot), or a combination of both (where both have equal importance.)

If you're writing a story that is partially or fully character-driven, who your character is--and how they got to be that person--is one of the most important aspects of the story. Not only because it helps the reader understand why your character is where they are when the story starts and why things need to change, but it helps explain why they make the decisions they make, who and what's important to them, why it's important for them to reach their goal, and gives us a starting point for how they're going to change throughout the story. It's their backstory that is going to build all of that up for the reader.

Backstory explains your character's important life experiences up to the start of the story. So, there is no point in going into detail about the two years your character lived on a beach in New Zealand if that experience didn't play a role in who they are at the start of the story. It just becomes useless information that serves no purpose and clutters up the story for the reader.

Or "Here's why this trope is boring and overdone and why you should remove it"

Advice about tropes and cliches are often opinion-based, because for every person who says "love triangles are dumb and here's why you shouldn't do them" you'll find people who say "I only read books featuring love triangles."

The key thing to remember with tropes is that when you read they're tired and overdone (which makes them cliches), it's fine to use them, just find a way to put a new spin on them. Find out how the trope is typically used and do something different.

And now I just feel awful. I feel like the entire premise of my story is just complete trash and I need to scrap it and start over. I feel like I need to remove everything that I actually want in a story so that it's "correct".

You definitely don't need to do that. Again, take random internet advice with a grain of salt. If it's something you're really concerned about, try to verify it on multiple reliable sites. If you can't, you're probably fine. If you can, those sites will probably also offer alternatives or ways you can fix the problem.

I'm self publishing, does it actually matter?

YES. FULL STOP.

If you are planning to self-publish but are not going to take the time to make sure you're putting the best book out there you can, you are only hurting legitimate self-published authors who do put in the effort to make sure they're putting out their best work.

Having said that...

Will people really read my story and go, "Oh dear, these characters didn't just pop into existence as soon as the plot started! They actually existed and did things before the story takes place!?

No, probably not, but that's because this is a really dramatic interpretation of the advice that backstory should be relevant.

Again, the reader doesn't give two shits that your character spent a year backpacking through the Alps unless that experience played a role in who they are when the story begins. If they had good or bad experiences during that trip, learned things, met people who matter later, etc., then that becomes plot relevant. But, if you can remove this bit of backstory from the story completely and it has no impact on who the character is or the reader's understanding of the character, then it doesn't belong there. Period. Again, the reader doesn't want to have their time wasted, so they don't want to read story after story of your character's time in the Alps if it doesn't matter.

Or "Look, and now they're having a silly conversation and talking to each to her about things unrelated to the plot! And that guy has a pet cat that's never used for anything! This is awful, poorly written trash!"

Again, this is an overly dramatic interpretation of the very solid advice that dialogue needs to matter.

That doesn't mean that every single word uttered needs to be blatantly plot-relevant, but truly, broadly-speaking, readers don't want to read an eight-paragraph argument about which pizza place has better pizza in your character's town unless this argument is in some way relevant to the story. You may be an exception to that rule... you may love to read stories that meander and have a lot of fluffy dialogue and pointless scenes, but you're in the minority, and in that case, you might be better off posting your work to someplace like your blog or Wattpad where you can use tags to find the small segment of other readers who like to read original fiction fluff.

But... the bottom line is that I don't think your story is in as bad of shape (broadly-speaking) as you think it is. Writing advice can feel very, very personal, especially when we see it from randos in internet threads who can't tell the difference between fact and opinion. So, don't take it to heart. Do some research on reliable sites, and if you can't find a bit of advice mentioned, it's probably nothing to worry about. If it is mentioned, they're probably going to tell you how to fix it without scrapping everything you've already written.

Truly, no worries! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[onlyherefortheshowmances]

I haven't wanted to be part of the discourse(tm) that has been everywhere for the past couple weeks, but I do want to put somewhere my theories of what happens next, with where we stand now. The following is just me using deductive reasoning/logic and what information we currently have available to see what might come after, including a statement on my thoughts regarding the discourse. I'm really not interested in debating any of this with anyone, so please just take this as my opinion and move on. Remember this world is FICTIONAL. The PLAYERS are real people, but the characters are not. I'm also going to throw out there that I am autistic as fuck, so it's 100% possible I'm misunderstanding the discourse entirely, but going off of what I've seen and read, here are my thoughts.

Discourse Related Statement:

I'm honestly a little confused why people are angry at Bells Hells (or moreso Imogen) for how they've handled this, because even the Matron understood that if they just re-sealed Predathos (which seems to be what you all wanted them to do), someone else was going to come along and release him (most likely Ludinus which would be even more chaotic). They're doing the best they can with what they've been given. Predathos is a god-level entity, there is no destroying him, only locking him away (like the betrayers and Vecna have been), and now that seemingly the whole of Exandria knows what he's capable of, SOMEONE is going to unseal him no matter how hard they were to try to seal him back up, so they need to figure out a way to CONTROL him instead of just sealing it back up and hoping no one else figures it out when they (a group of chaotic level 15 adventurers) just managed to free it, so clearly it's not that hard to do, now is it? Right now they have control of the timing instead of the world being surprised when someone else does it who knows how far in the future. Re-sealing is only putting off the inevitable which is like... my very least favorite thing people seem to love doing. So right now, while Predathos is weakened and therefore controlled within Imogen, the Gods actually have time to prepare for how to handle this as opposed to just indefinitely trying to keep it sealed away, when we all (or at least I) know that is very unlikely to be a permanent solution.

Now, predictions for the remaining part of campaign 3.

Bells Hells will (with some luck of the dice) talk their way into Vasselheim in effort to speak to the Gods (because there are temples to all or nearly all of the prime deities there which is likely to be there starting point for seeking out interface with them). The Matron clearly already knows their plan (or the part of their plan that they already discussed with her), so I think they'll maybe save her for last as they make their rounds. If they can manage to get all of the prime deities in one place, all the better, but I don't think that'll really be possible, so I think it'll be more like a few small groups going through their story and explaining what's going on. For her sake, it might be best if Imogen just stay on Exandria while they others go talk to the Gods (possibly even a divide and conquer strategy due to time), and that way the guards and celestials and such can keep their eyes on Imogen the whole time which I'm sure they would prefer anyway.

Each God will make their decision to either go through with the Matron's reworked ascension ritual to become mortal or to go on as they are and risk being devoured when the time comes.

A factor that I don't know if anyone else has actually considered is... I don't think the Gods will be telling the entire populace that they're going mortal, maybe they'll each tell a handful of their most trust high-level followers (champions, chosen, etc.), but swear them to secrecy. Because if the entire populace knows the gods now walk among them, someone like Ludinus is sure to find a way to let Predathos know that once Imogen no longer has control over it (which will happen when it regains its strength).

I'm honestly, still not quite sure what their plan is with the betrayers, though honestly, I'd just let them get eaten if it were up to me, but I know Braius would at least campaign to save Asmodeus. However, Vecna is another thing, because he is technically a God and sealed away, but I would really like to see them let Predathos at least eat him, because... we really don't need another round of THAT chaos.

As for the powers granted by the Gods to their followers (Clerics and Paladins and some Monks), that's a trickier question. I can say with almost certainty that things like Commune and Divine Intervention will no longer be possible as they won't be able to communicate directly with their God anymore. However, I don't think things like... items that were created by them will lose their power (i.e. the vestiges will still do what they do, etc.), and I'd like to think that powers that they've already imbued people will won't go away completely though their nature may change slightly (as I mentioned with the direct communication related spells) and I also think no one would be able to gain any additional levels in divine classes with the Gods being mortal because they won't be able to imbue NEW powers/gifts.

That's really where I'm at right now. I feel as though most if not all of the prime deities will agree to the mortal plan just for their own safety at this juncture and then while mortal they can work up plans for how to permanently solve this issue such as a more permanent and secure way to lock Predathos away or even destroy him between all of them working together. The betrayers are more of a question mark at this point (and as I said, I wouldn't mind seeing at least a few of them get eaten if we're being fair).

Now, another side note that has been clawing at my brain for several weeks is Keyleth's question of what would happen to Vax if there was no more Raven Queen. I'm of the opinion that she trusts him enough to tell him that she's going mortal (and possibly also the maidens of Ravens Crest including Lieve'tel). She will no longer be able to watch and pull at the strings of fate in a mortal form. I know Vax will be so confused and beg her to tell him what exactly to do in her absence (though not really absence so much as... different existence), but she's always been about letting people make choices for themselves, remember she took Vax as her champion BECAUSE he was willing to test the threads of fate to save his sister's life. She knows all of times Vox Machina has accomplished things that the fates really shouldn't've allowed, and yet, she still wants/wanted Vax as her champion, and I think that says something. I imagine he would, after a long discussion with her (which may be cut short by Imogen announcing that if the Raven Queen doesn't do the ritual right now she's gonna get eaten), decide that if she's going to be on Exandria, he should be, too, but in order to keep her new mortal identity from getting out to the masses (see previous notes about why I think that will be part of the plan), she will ask him to not just... follow her around all the time since he's incredibly recognizable and well known at this point, which will for the most part leave him to his own devices on Exandria other than I'm sure still helping departing souls if/when he sees them, and perhaps a few secret meetings with the Matron here and there.

So, I do think that maybe, just maybe, this solution may work out for the best for... pretty much everyone I'm most concerned about. Vax gets to stay on Exandria (in his new immortal celestial form that doesn't age at all - but he will need to take care not to get himself killed since the Matron won't be there to knit him back together while she's mortal) with Keyleth and his family and the rest of Vox Machina. Still knowing that the Matron is safe and that once there is a more permanent solution to the Predathos problem, he will once again be her champion as he's been for the past 30 years. The clerics and paladins will keep their current abilities for the most part, though lose their direct connection to their god(s) aside from the handful of most trusted champions and chosen that are entrusted with the details of what's happening. Predathos can live his best life eating the betrayers or just angrily flying across the planes in search of deities he can no longer see (until the deities in their mortal forms come together to find a more permanent solution - which I think that could be a good plot for campaign 4, tbh). And I think we're going to get more Luxon involvement judging by the Matron's comments in her recent discussion with Bells Hells.

[somecosmic-typashit]

Can our loved one's shift for us?

This is random rant post about my "dream" from last night that made me click. I actually can't believe how I couldn't catch the drift more early.

(January 17th 2025. Edited on January 20th.)

ִֶָ 𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆★⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ

I used to wonder a lot can people from our desired realities shift their awareness for us. Mind you, back then I was being skeptical about that because I still didn't understand most shit since I was on shifttok, sooo no wonder I was limiting and miserable as FUCK (cuz dayum). Some apps are just bad, bad for community and tiktok years ago was referring to shifting and D/R people like fictional characters and daydreaming. But ig it's fine now, we all have our own stupid moments and grow from them, so here's my take on it now with story time.

Okay, most of us here on Tumblr already know that we are just pure awareness and energy, which includes people from our desired realities (Obviously, but because of my unaware ass in the past I'd often exclude them and think they're just fictional). Since everything around us, like everything, is just complete and empty space, or in short, scientifically proven energetic field. People from our D/R's can shift just like we do, they can shift to us, as long as we're convicted they do and treat them like they can, they will. Second conclusion is the fact that they won't necessarily look the same just like from desired reality, again, just like us. This isn't our original world, and that D/R is neither theirs, they're also infinite beings that will take appearance of someone different to be compatible with current energy changes of reality or overall fit the vibration of the world, that also fits their preferences. I already knew everything is connected, but I didn't know THIS MUCH.

It's also crazy too how not just your surroundings, but also dreams show exactly your inner thoughts/questions etc. Last night I had a shift that I thought was a dream, it was related to all of this about how my lover shifted his awareness to slightly different version of this current reality that's within me.

I knew that everything is a reflection of our subconscious but this took it to a whole new level, and my so called dream came just at the right time when I have been contemplating about all of this. But anyway, I was taking casual walk in the town at night, all people looked slightly blurry and transparent. Similar to when you have moments of derealization or disconnection. During my walk, I spotted a man who looked clear as day, and stood out of everyone else. His whole style, overall vibe and presence was familiar, but his face wasn't, few of his features were but not all of them. He was looking for something that turned out to be me, and he looked frustrated while trying to find me somewhere outside in public. When our eyes met, both of us froze completely. We probably looked like deers under headlights in the middle of road, like we knew there was something familiar between us, but we couldn't pinpoint it. The intuition was guiding us atp

It was so realistic. (Duh, obv it is. Dumbass me in past) We interacted of course, he was the one that approached first and said something like: "Do you recognise me? Because I recognise you" and I could immediately tell who it might be, because no regulars would do that, plus I don't know a lot of people from here nor I'm known much. I won't reveal his name, but I asked him is he who I think he is and I mentioned the name. His whole face turned more excited and smug, the frustration and confusion melted off his whole being istg. He said "yes". We went to more secluded place because I needed to be 100% sure it's him. I don't remember all questions that I asked him, most of them were related to us and something absurd to close minded people, but I remember all his answers being correct. They were exactly what I thought they would be.

From what happened and from how on point it was, it obviously wasn't a silly dream. But it it wasn't obvious to me at first. The way we talked, behaved, moved, the way we felt and expressed ourselves. Like our subconscious minds orchestrated together. Idfk how I couldn't realise it sooner. My reactions were on the fucking point, AND WHEN I SAY ON POINT, I SAY ON POINT and after we were done with my little quiz, I literally SNIFFED THE MAN, I SNIFFED HIM TO MAKE SURE IT'S REALLY HIM IN FRONT OF ME AND NOT SOME RANDOM. I WAS TWEAKING, BUT I WASN'T DISAPPOINTED...NOT AT ALL. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK HOW HE LOOKS I JUST WANT HIS WHOLE BEING.

(It's just that I don't realise it immediately that I shifted. Like, I always think I understand it that moment when it happenes, but each time I think about it more, it turns out that there's more to it. All damn time omg. Genuinely it feels stupid)

We were laughing and making comments, reuniting with humour. I was admiring and observing him carefully whole time, later we agreed on going to my place and for him to stay over. It was really joyous and affectionate night, a bit 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 too... but we won't go into too much details, BECAUSE IT'S PERSONAL. But anyway, we were chatting whole time about everything than fell asleep together on my bed, and when I woke up (in that encounter), there was few small gifts placed on the floor next to my bed. Most of them were my favourite coffee & cappuccino brands I'm addicted to, the door of my bedroom was open and I could see him putting back on his shirt in living room while PLAYING AND TALKING WITH MY CAT. OH MY GOD I FELT LIKE I WAS GOING TO DIEEE. IT WAS SO ADORABLE AND SO SPECIFIC.

(Edited:) That was where experience ended and I shifted my surroundings again, I won't exactly say "returned back here", it feels awkward to refer to it as something separated when you start to understand that you don't move yourself, just surroundings and how they're constantly changing. Although istg. I was literally drooling when I woke up. It made me get up around 5AM from how insane it was, but I couldn't stay awake for long since it was still too early for my brain to process what happened. Not to mention today when I was going to school, I saw a large band sign with quote or song written on it that said "You are never really alone." I went feral from inside, if there wasn't any people I'd lay down in the middle of the road and scream on top of my lungs. No doubt in that. Absolutely not. The timing. CUZ BYE, THIS WAS HIS WHOLE WAY OF SAYING "Remember what you want girl, and how it's already yours, but keep in mind I'm always there with you 😝😏." THIS IS ALL TOO FUNNY I'M LITERALLY DYING, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't motivate me more and gave me some reassurance, like holy fuck I love him sm, he's my girl 😩

(Edit:) that encounter made me realise that nothing is separated, everything is just transfering and that whenever you think you overcame the limits, you find out another thing you are limiting about without being aware of it

[theinquisitxor]

October Reading Wrap Up

October was a great reading month and I got through ten(!) books in the month. That's more than I've read in a while, so it felt good to be able to know I can still read that many. I read some spooky/halloweenish books, as well as continued a few series, and finished a series.

1.Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters 2) by Juliet Marillier, 5/5 stars. I started the month with reading the second Sevenwaters book. Just like with book 1, I enjoyed this immensely, and I found the characters and storyline to be strong and engaging. This one is even more romance heavy than the first books. Adult historical fantasy

2.Paladin's Hope (Saint of Steel 3) by T. Kingfisher, 4.5/5 stars. Another good installment in this series and new mystery that our characters are faced with. This one was a bit shorter than the first two books, and I wish this was a little longer, but otherwise it was great as always! Adult fantasy romance

3.The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way by Bill Bryson This was my nonfiction book for the month, and I read this on audio. Enjoyable, but I felt like it was a little dated. I've read other more recent books on linguistics, and enjoyed them more. Nonfiction.

4.Echo North by Joanna Ruth Mayer, 4/5 stars. This was an enjoyable YA fantasy, and a good blend of fairytales I really enjoy. I don't read a lot of YA anymore, but this reminded me of some of the 'older' YA that is really good. East of the Sun West of the Moon, batb, cupid & psyche retellings all blended together. The author also credits Robin McKinley, DWJ, and Edith Pattou as big inspirations, and I could tell. YA fantasy

5.Last Argument of Kings (First Law 3) by Joe Abercrombie, ?/5 stars. I honestly was so done reading this trilogy, and just wanted to know how it ended so I could just finish it. I skimmed most of it, and only read the Glokta chapters and the ending. This type of fantasy is 100% not for me. I only finished the series because my brother gifted me the boxed set (and he read them). Adult fantasy

6.I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacquline Harpman, 5/5 stars. This is a lesser known classic that's gotten some popularity recently. It's part dystopian, part science fiction, and reminded me a little of The Wall which I read earlier this year. Very poignant, dark, but an exploration of self and a woman on her own. This is translated from French!

7.A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, 4/5 stars. Another good T Kingfisher fairy tale retelling (however this was quite loose on the retelling), but also dark, featuring child abuse and animal horror. But there is humor, and a good cast of adult characters trying to fix the situation, and I like how T Kingfisher writes competent adults.

8.Witch Week (Chrestomanci 3) by Diana Wynne Jones, 3/5 stars. I started this on audio, but finished with the physical book. Can't say I enjoyed this one as much as the first two. This just reminded me of how horrible middle school was! A good halloween time read though. Middle grade fantasy.

9.The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky, 4/5 stars. This is a historical fantasy that has been on my tbr since 2019. This is light on the fantasy elements, and about first contact between Inuit and Vikings in present-day Canada about 1000 years ago. Our main character is an Inuit shaman, and they and a viking have to team up to save the land and their peoples. Super detail rich and well written.

10. Graveyard Shift by ML Rio, 4/5 stars. A good read for Halloween, and excited to see that ML Rio is publishing again! A thriller about 5 people trying to discover who made a new grave in an abandoned graveyard. As someone who works in academia, I liked the academia element in this story, I only wish it was longer!

I'm on track to finish my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year, which is 80 books. Usually I get somewhere in the 90s, but not this year I guess. For Nov and December, I'm planning on finishing the Sevenwaters series, and Chrestomanci, so I'll be prioritizing those books.

November tbr:

The Scorpio Races (reread on audio)

Child of the Prophecy (Sevenwaters 3)

Heir to Sevenwaters (Sevenwaters 4)

Chrestomanci: The Magicians of Caprona (book 4)

Paladin's Fate (Saint of Steel 4)

Nonfiction

The Word for Woman is Wilderness

Cape Cod (on audio?)

The Virgin in the Garden

[aitadjcrazytimes]

It's been a good run

But it's time to bring this to a close!

The saga is over, C, T and I are all together. T and I are in the swing of it, C approves as much as it is possible for him to approve of anything, everyone knows about the blog and is chill.

C is back at his rightful place of walking his sister down the aisle.

I'm getting everything I want, and we're all free to make each other miserable until the day we die.

I'm not going to be updating this blog anymore! Nobody else involved with the situation will be submitting any more AITA posts either, because they are either not on tumblr or agreed it would be annoying.

I will say that there is some stuff on here that I've alluded to that isn't necessarily 100% in the spirit of things, so I've included some stuff below the cut for the folks who have caught onto that. I would not suggest reading it if you like how all of this played out and want to keep it that way. I know that's incredibly vague, but I'm not sure how to phrase it without making it weird?

Thank you all for listening and talking to me over the past few days! That's where I'm leaving it!

...

...

...

...Is everyone who wants to keep believing in the disaster polycule gone? Yes? OK!

So, this was fake. I made up the whole thing. TK and C and T and everyone else are fictional characters. Did I lie? Yes. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Q: All of it? Even the og AITA post? The followup AITA post? The screenshots?

A: All of it.

Q: Wh... Why did you do this...?

A: Well, first this all started as a Red vs Blue fanfic for the ship Chexer (Church/Tex/Tucker)-

It started as a fanfic for Chexer. However, I was already working on a different fanfic for RVB that was totalling about 15k words at this point (+ at least 90k to go), and I knew I would never have the time or energy to write this one. I thought: yknow. this would be really funny as an aita post.

Q: It was a fanfic of a Halo fanfic series.

A: Yep!

So, I submitted Tucker's perspective. I did not expect for it to get more than maybe 100 notes at most. I totally thought someone would call it out right away.

The funny part is, if I'd dedicated all this energy to a fic instead of this blog, I'd probably have about 15-20 thousand words of fic already, but whatever, can't ruin my personal day!

Also, I wanted to see how many people would figure it out/how long it would take for it to become too obvious that this was a fandom thing. I was dropping names and RvB lore since the beginning. A few people did figure it out, and I DMed them in private to let them know.

Q: But why make the blog then?

A: Because I love to lie and be a nuisance to the general populace! <3

It was always my intent to wait until Carolina's perspective got posted (i am honestly still shocked i got away with "Carey/Georgia/West Virginia/Alabama/Miss Louisiana 1988"), let it simmer for about a day, then come clean. Which is what I'm doing now!

The reason I'm coming clean now instead of dragging it out is because I don't want anyone to feel stupid or like they got duped. You're not stupid! You were a part of this story! This was, as one anon said, a creative writing project. It was a collaboration! Thank you so much for helping me!

That said, I'm sorry to anyone that finds this disappointing! I had a blast doing this, but I will not be doing it again. I have gotten my fill. I have had my taste of being an influencer, and now I can go on with my life without ever feeling like I need to start a youtube channel.

Q: How did you keep up with a consistent timeline?

A: I didn't, especially at first. But in my time as a liar who lies about things, I have found that usually people are willing to believe you when you say "yeah, i lied about that".

Q: Wait, what about the thing with your kid?

A: Yeah, I fucked up on this one. In the other fic I was/am writing, Tucker was around 33. So, when I was saying what Junior's age was, I subtracted it from 33 and got 18. It wasn't until I was showing my partner the blog and they said "Wait, he had his kid at 13??????" that I realized I had fucked up. Oops!

Q: Was it really ALL fake?

A: For the most part. I will say that I did actually drop chocolate cake all over my tits that one time and had to shower by myself like a fucking loser. That one was true. I did also get my nails done for the first time ever, which did actually affect my typing. And I am in a band (but so is Tucker, canonically)! There are a few other things as well, but I don't want to list all of them.

Q: DID you ever read homestuck?

A: Nope. And I never will.

Even the title, though I will say that the title I came up with was "Leonard "Alpha Bitch" Church's Decidedly Not Lo-Fi Beats to Get Nasty and Get Clean To: The Movie"

Q: So there was never a combination sex/bathtime playlist?

A: Maybe! But perhaps more accurately: the combination sex/bathtime playlist was inside of you all along. You can make it. There are only three songs on there that are canon to the lore of this blog. Those are No Children by The Mountain Goats, Take It Out On Me by Thousand Foot Krutch, and one unknown song from the album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV by Coheed and Cambria (Yep, the call was coming from inside the house, I gave Church my music taste). I had intended this to be Wake Up, but it's out of my hands now. The rest is yours to fill in.

Q: What's your main blog, so I can follow you?

A: Hi, this is aitadjcrazytimes. You're not getting that.

Q: Your AO3 handle?

A: Nope, not that either.

You will never find me. And that's the way I want it. You will see me in every blog. Every new follower. Every stranger you meet on the street. You will look into your discord kitten's eyes, and you will absently wonder if he was the one behind aitadjcrazytimes. And you will never know for certain.

Q: But-

A: Let me live on in your memory. The only person who knows both who I am and the fact that I did this is my partner, who is not into RvB or commonly on tumblr. I am not a RvB blog. I am not a writing blog. I am a nobody on the fringes of tumblr society who's been here long enough to know how to remain in the shadows.

And, even if you do manage to find me, against all odds:

No one will ever believe you.

I am closing my askbox. I am also closing my messages. If you have anything to say to Tucker or Me (tumblr user aitadjcrazytimes), you are welcome to do so in the replies or reblogs, but you will not be receiving an answer. I'll keep this blog up for anyone that wants to go through after the fact and do a deep dive or what have you.

Thanks to everyone who made this into the wild ride it was! Live long and get fucked or whatever! Xoxo <3

[kikyan]

Yandere Pomefiore Headcanons

TW/CW: Dark Content up ahead!! Yandere content specifically!! Themes will include but not be limited to, yandere, possessiveness, violence towards reader or characters, manipulation, mentions of stalking, obsession, etc. (I think that should be it but unless I'm missing something please do let me know!!) Please proceed with caution!!

DISCLAIMER: These are my interpretations of his/her/their persona and none of these is 100% accurate. I don't condone any of these actions in real life and all of this is purely fictional and should be taken as such! Underage characters will ONLY be given SFW headcanons, please respect this decision!

Banner made by @herestrish please don't steal my bestie worked hard on it and I love them so much :((

Vil Schoenheit

Beautiful Vil indeed, Vil is one of the characters who I feel relate to the most. His desire to be the fairest is rooted in the ideology that he has to work twice as hard for the praise that comes at no cost for Niege. Vil’s S/O would be someone who can see past that, maybe someone who can see the ‘ugliest’ parts of him but still want to be with him. Someone that can accept Vil for himself. With that said, he’s a manipulative, possessive, and overprotective yandere. 

It needs to be said that Vil is probably the most reliable housewarden here. I feel like he’s the type you should go to for advice because he tells it to you straight. He doesn’t sweeten his tone or downplay the situation to spare your feelings, he’s direct. The best way I can describe Vil and Neige is that Neige is cute, and Vil is hot. Niege is the cutesy persona, the kind and charismatic main character that you can’t help but root for in every situation. He’s literally the one who beats the villain with the power of friendship. Vil is a sophisticated and respected individual, the one who worked hard to get what they have, because of this. . .he’s often made to play the role of a villain. The one who is blinded by greed and stops at nothing to prevent the MC from getting what they want. That’s the role he plays. His S/O would be someone who sees past that, long story short someone who can respect and love Vil for himself rather than some silly persona he’s been pushed to play. Someone who can see Vil in the worst light but accepts him. You see the ugly but rather than shy away from it you learn to embrace it. 

I don’t want to say that he’s manipulative to the extent that Jamil might be, but he’s good with words. Pomefiore is a dorm that radiates beauty, not just physical appearance but how one carries themselves. This makes sense when in book 5 he talks to the others about skincare and even reminds Epel that ballet isn’t exactly a gendered sport. Beauty is how someone carries themselves, what they reveal when facing a tough situation, and how they view themselves and others, that’s beauty. If his S/O ever had a doubt, they would seek Vil’s opinion first. Of course, he knows more and his opinion is highly valued. His manipulation isn’t too complex but it follows the ideology that if a stranger gave an unsolicited opinion you won’t pay too much attention. Still, if a trusted friend gave it, you’d be inclined to trust them more. Under his guidance, Vil will slowly alter your mindset as well as your opinions of others. He’s Vil, he has a keen eye for these things after all. Vil says things straightforwardly so you know he’s being honest, that’s gotta count for something! So while it’s not a big thing at the moment, his words start to weave themselves into your conscious decisions. He’s not someone you would doubt, much less disobey. 

He’s quite possessive. In the way Jamil doesn’t want to give his S/O up, he can’t stand the idea of someone taking you away from him! Vil is quite infatuated with you, you see. The one thing he wants is standing right in front of him, he’s not letting his opportunity go by. He’ll start by conviving you to spend time with him. You’re failing your potions class? Vil can offer to help but it won’t come for free! The occasional fashion advice or skin care opinion, always offering to teach you the ropes and how to accessorize. Granted if you don’t ask for it nor actively seek it, he’ll never push his opinions onto you. If you do however ask for his advice, he’ll make a tight schedule that takes up your time and includes himself in the mix. Would he isolate you from others? No, but he would drop some side comments that might make you reconsider who you should be hanging around with. The choice is yours but he’s quite persuasive. He would never let Neige know of you, he can’t risk you becoming a fan or choosing Niege over himself. He just can’t let that happen. This ties in with his over-protectiveness, he’s by no means a pushover. With fame comes risk and Vil is more than qualified and prepared to ensure your safety. In the event that he does go public with your relationship (which he will), some crazed fan might send something to you! 

Overall, there are no traits that I can use to define how dangerous Vil can be as a yandere. Vil would probably force you to go through some rigorous training, anything that proves your loyalty to him. I think it’s what he values the most. Loyalty to him. Once you prove you can be trusted, Vil might start to expose bits and pieces of himself to you but don’t get your hopes up. Does Vil want to be worshiped? Yes, but he wants you to love him. It has to be you, nobody else can suffice. Nobody else sees Vil the way you see him and that’s what he wants. He wants your eyes to be on him, He’s in the spotlight and you’re the only member of the audience that he yearns for. Don’t let your gaze wander, keep your eyes focused on him. While it’s your attention and affection that he yearns for, he by no means will resort to groveling. He has too much pride (though maybe in extreme feelings and conditions, he may but unlikely at the moment) and I feel like it contradicts his ideology of working to earn. If it’s your affection he wants he’ll work hard and strive to gain. Do I think he may have a moment where he slips up? Yes, like in book 5, that wasn’t supposed to happen but it did. He had the idea of beating Niege at a dance competition but towards the end almost took his ass out. I feel like it starts to be futile, normal means of gaining your affection aren’t working, or keeping your love he may stoop down to using potions. Designed as ‘sharing’ snacks and drinks, he may slip in a potion that will make you agree or idolize Vil to a certain extent. He by no means will buy your love or use cheap tactics to earn it, but he may fall into a fear that you may leave him resulting in a potion to keep your love. 

Also, I realized that with these headcanons I don’t exactly highlight something that makes them unique, but I will start doing that with the remaining characters! Vil, what makes him unique is that he’s as suffocating as the poisons he makes. He’ll slowly start making his way into your life and cloud your senses. Anything and everything you do is for Vil. The air you breathe is for Vil. He demands absolute loyalty (as I’ve repeated countless times but I can’t organize for shit) and that loyalty is slowly woven into your routine. You use his skin care, you style your clothes a certain way because Vil told you. You style and accessorize yourself according to his recommendations because Vil is right. You act the way Vil would appreciate (in your eyes because I'm a huge believer they will love you for being you), and you are dedicated to him. The most unique thing about this is that it’s all according to Vil’s design. He managed to flip the table and make YOU seek him out rather than him doing all the hard work. 

These headcanons probably don’t do him justice but on the scale, he’d be an 8/10. It’s Vil, he would never show such unsightly behavior and I think that is where people would fall for it. If anything I think pomefiore is a dorm that can show multiple faces. They hold themselves to such a standard that at first glance, they could never do that! He excels at potions and poisons so he is quite a danger to others and his S/O. His manipulation is hidden under the guise that Vil is only helping you out. It’s Vil, sure some of the things he says might sound rude but he’s just being honest. His reputation does help him conceal his true behavior. His love is suffocating and overpowering. Surely you can learn to accept this ugly Vil as you would the beautiful Vil.  Not to mention, he’s clouding your mind to the point all you can think about is him (managed to save these headcanons because I thought the song Aishite X3 (I’m typing all that out) and how I personally feel Vil would relate to it on some form.

After editing these headcanons I came to the horrifying truth that this sounds like Nate and Cassie’s relationship in euphoria. . . shit. Oh! Before I forget, on the rope-chain-saw scale I think he would be chain. He isn’t one to restrict you physically, but he would restrict with you magic and potions. As I mentioned before, he’d try to manipulate you to turn the tables around, it would be you seeking him rather than him seeking you which would put him on the rope scale. Since he has a possibility of using magic to keep you obedient (rather than make you because he still wants you to make that choice) he would be placed on the chain, you can win back freedom (basically he has no use for the potions at this point) as long as you continue to prove your devotion to him! Okay, this time FOR SURE I’m done! 

Rook Hunt

This man scares me, he’s horrifying. In canon, he’s probably just a bit off-putting and he’ll be nice to you but as a yandere? That being said, Rook is manipulative, possessive, obsessive, and sadistic. Let’s get into it!

The biggest thing with Rook is that we need to see his reference material, he’s a hunter. That predator and prey dynamic is quite strong as we’ve seen in the beanfest event, he likes the thrill. Normally I’d say to run but he enjoys the thrill of that so start walking slowly. Let’s talk about his S/O, I try not to put too many traits because I truly like to believe that they prefer the personality of their S/O as opposed to anything specific but he’d be interested in his S/O. Their way of thinking and the way they carry themselves. We know he loves beauty and has no problem voicing his admiration, but when it comes to his S/O, his comments increase a lot. He loves the way you dress, the way you carry yourself, the way you write your name, and the way you speak, if you have any anxious ticks they don’t go unnoticed and he loves them as well. He’s very observant of any and all things you do, it’s scary. He’s like Kalim who sees the beauty and the good things, he just communicates them differently. To be honest, right now, Rook would make you love things about yourself that you hate or never knew about. As a yandere, that doesn’t change but his love increases by a lot. Tying this in with his obsessive trait, he knows everything. When you leave class with Grim, his eyes are on you. When you take a test and scratch your head, look confused (stuff you do basically), etc, he’s watching. He takes in any and all information possible. Things that are routine to you, he analyzes and takes great interest. Like a hunter studies his prey, he studies you just as well. Maybe at first, it was just something he does, but then it started to become extreme. If you take walks around Ramshackle and you feel eyes on you, it might be him. He doesn’t do anything other than stalk but that doesn’t make it any better. His eyes are ALWAYS on you. Taking in EVERYTHING. He’s extremely obsessive if you couldn’t tell.

Manipulative and this is also where I want to include his ‘unique’ trait. He will NEVER trust you. I’m like jumping a couple of steps but this will all make sense, promise. His manipulation isn’t like the others where they isolate you and try to make it seem like you only have them. It also isn’t something based on authority where they say, “I’m this so you should trust me” or where they use their fame to get you to comply (AKA blackmail). No, Rook takes on a different route. He’s a hunter and he’s always setting up bait but his reasoning isn’t always to prove your loyalty and love, it’s because he finds it fun. Like the Leech twins, you’ll have to be constantly on edge with him. It’s all about observing you. If you read yandere fanfiction, I’m sure you’ve seen prompts that involve the yandere placing the darling (you) in a situation where they can escape, but it’s secretly a test. With Rook, you’ll NEVER know it’s a test. You could stay put for three hours and Rook comes back saying he was busy. You realize then, you could have gotten help but you didn’t. Sometimes, he’ll leave you for 15 minutes and the moment you turn around to run, he’s there. You’ll either have to try to escape at every opportunity or stay put at every opportunity. He could send you on an errand, running papers to a teacher. Out of the fear that he’s watching even though logically he wouldn’t be in the office, you don’t say anything. You realize too late that it was a perfect opportunity to flee from him. This ties in with his unique trait.

He will NEVER trust you. In fanfiction when the darling has been ‘loyal’ (basically playing into their hands waiting to get the upper hand and flee) for some time ranging from a couple of months to years and the yandere assumes that they’ve finally given in. Yeah no, that’s not happening with Rook. You could be together for 10+ years and with 8 children, but he’ll NEVER assume you’ve given in. He’ll play the role and display signs that make it seem that he has but rest assured he hasn’t. He can be the perfect husband, and doting father, and just be a textbook family. You think you’ve planned well, surely after all these years he would believe your charade but no, Rook still keeps an eye on you. Not to mention, he has an army of 8 kids. He probably taught them to recognize signs and to snitch on you. Imagine you’re planning on leaving him but taking the kids and you tell them the plan but all these fuckers turned on you. Yeah, trust is something that comes hard with Rook (if you ever gain it), but this also ties in with the rope-chain-saw scale. He’d be rope. He enjoys the thrill of the hunt and I don’t see him as someone who tires of it. He’ll have some restrictions but overall, he wants you to be as free as possible. You won’t have any extreme restrictions or anything holding you back other than your fear of him. Funny enough, this brings me to my second point, he’s sadistic.

He doesn’t mean to harm you physically, but mentally he loves it. Physically, maybe but it’s not that common. He’ll find your scared expression beautiful and exciting, it shows how much you’re afraid of him. Of course, he wants your love and honestly, in a non-yandere setting, he’d be the perfect boyfriend. As a yandere, he THRIVES off the idea that he’s the biggest threat in your eyes. It’s the thrill of the hunt that makes that catch so much sweeter. Despite all the opportunities of escape (test or not), you don’t take them because of that fear. Any and all bait (escape or not because it’s mostly used to track your reactions) is meant to cause mental anguish. If you do bite he may inflict some physical pain but it’s not something that happens often. In the commissioned fic I wrote, you ran and Rook used an arrow to stop you. Yeah, he’ll do that again. He’ll treat you very well after (medical sense) but he’s not above harming you temporarily. I didn’t put him on the scale as saw, because he doesn’t want to take away your ability to run. Back to the original point, the mental anguish he causes is so much worse. It’s the way he will pamper you, loves you, gives you gifts, and speaks sweet words that make you melt away in a blissful state. You seem to forget that his eyes are closed on to you, he sets up traps that you may or may not recognize until after he appears to give you praise or punishment based on the result. You can’t read him and you can’t predict his intention so you live in fear. That’s what sadistic Rook loves, he’s the cause of your pain and fear.

Wrapping these headcanons, Rook gets an 11/10 on the yandere scale. I wanted to say 10/10 because he’s a danger but because he’ll never trust you he gets an 11/10. Escape really isn’t an option (unless you want to end it all but even then your snitch children might step in). He’s possessive like most, if not ALL yanderes. You’re his, trust me others will regret messing with you. I don’t think Rook would isolate you so he’s not possessive in that sense (like some of the yanderes) but he still wants you to be his and his alone. I don’t think he’d brand you (this brings up a tiny point how despite what you think he sees you as an equal and not as a pet because the mental anguish he causes is what leads you to make that dynamic) but if pushed to the point, he may and find beauty in something of his on your skin. He’s dangerous because he causes an INSANE amount of mental anguish (cater levels) but he can also be physical if need be. He’s always watching and his love is like an anchor, constantly weighing you down and making it hard to breathe. All eyes on you as he sees everything and anything, not to mention his unique magic? Yeah no, escape has and will never be an option. Honestly, I feel like maybe (since this isn’t canon and a yandere headcanon) the whole Pomefiore dorm might be in on it. I see Rook trusting Epel and Vil with you or knowing about you. They might even be the unsuspecting bait that Rook plants. If you thought one pair of highly trained hunting eyes was bad enough, imagine a dorm full of eyes that are trained to see people in the spotlight.

Epel Felmier

So starting right off the bat I’m gonna say what his unique trait is. It’s his appearance. Book 5 was about Vil trying to get Epel to see that his cute face was something he could use to his advantage rather than a disadvantage. So, he’s going to take what Vil taught him and put it to good use. Overall characteristics would include manipulative and overprotective, with a hint of possessiveness.

Finding a way to tie in his unique trait with these characteristics is simple but let’s get into it! Manipulating you and others is quite easy for Epel. Though he doesn’t like being seen as some dainty and petite individually, he’s more than content using it to get you and others to listen to him. You would probably lower your guard a lot more with Epel because it’s Epel. At first glance, I think most of us could push him away if things ever got physical. Which is why Epel doesn’t seem like a danger at first. Epel's gentle and soft-spoken nature is something so refreshing to be around with (especially after hanging out with Ace and Deuce) and is usually quite calming. Epel is sweet and caring, always minding his manners which are suited for someone in Pomefiore. He doesn’t need to do any extra work because you feel comfortable around him talking about your personal life. When something occurs, you may ask Epel for his advice or maybe just to listen (which he’s always down for). It’s different from the others because sometimes Ace happens to say things so bluntly and Deuce, while having good intentions, says things that just don’t work. Epel is a soft-spoken person who offers advice in a tone that doesn’t mean to criticize or look down upon. Finding ways to effectively get his point across without the need of hurting your feelings. You trust Epel so much and while he appreciates this, he knows it stems from his appearance.

I can see him slightly being annoyed by this at first until he starts to slip up. Imagine your surprise when Epel is single-handly arguing and fighting the students who made fun of you. Imagine your surprise when the sweet boy starts to act out, saying things you didn’t expect to leave his mouth and just starts acting different. It’s total whiplash. Once he’s gotten your trust and you start to reconsider, his appearance comes to the rescue when you start accusing Epel of things he’s done. Honestly, I can see Vil and Rook stepping in if things get serious but most of the time his good looks do the talking. What do you mean Epel scared you? He grabbed your wrist and left a nasty bruise? That doesn’t sound like the Epel I know. Did he say all those mean things to you? Are you sure? Epel doesn’t speak like that! Suddenly, he’s making everyone turn against you for speaking out against him. How scary is Epel?

I want to include overprotectiveness and possessiveness together because they go hand in hand. Epel loves you and he’d fight for your honor! It’s quite cute, brave, and courageous to see someone of a small stature standing up against the bad guys. He was raised on the principle of treating everyone with respect and you’re no different! His possessiveness ties in when others try to steal you away from him. No doubt looking down on him because of his size and he needs to show them who’s boss! Well, he sounds tame, so what’s the big issue? Ladies and gentleman, it’s a power dynamic scale we have going on. See Epel is so used to being seen as someone small and petite and while he appears that way to his darling, he has the ability to remind them who is in charge. Though I don’t see Epel as being someone to get physical with you off the bat, there are times when he sees it as his last resort (and by last I mean he tried one other option and gave up). Considering he has a short temper, it’s more often than not. He can be like Ace who says some mean things and basically degrades you but no point in telling anyone because it’s not like anyone would believe sweet Epel would say that. He can pose a threat and when all else fails, start resulting to hitting you to keep you tied to him but again no use saying anything because who would believe you? Granted, there is only so much he can hide behind leading me to a small point, I think Vil and Rook would encourage his behavior.

Vil would dislike the way he’s so rough with you but he did gain your trust with that pretty face of his. Rook would find it amusing. Honestly, he’d feel the same when he thinks you shouldn’t be too rough with your darling, but Epel is a stubborn one who doesn’t accept defeat. In the rope-chain-saw scale, he’d be split between rope and chain. Honestly, like Rook, you start to grow a fear of Epel. While most of the time he’s his usual self (the one you came to love), saying the wrong thing could set him off and spell disaster for you. It’s like walking on eggshells for your safety. So at some point, Epel has no need for too many restrictions but Vil encourages him not to slip up. Not to get too cocky and assume he’ll always be at the top because an unssuspecting person came come and steal you away. It’s as if they’re trying to make him worse than he already is, resulting in the border between chain and rope. Depending on what happens and how he feels, he made add too many restrictions and he’s always inconsistent with them, but most of the time he’s a rope. Doesn’t feel the need to keep you caged and away when you already know the consequences that await you.

Epel overall isn’t too dangerous, maybe a 6/10? His behaviors can start to get predictable but do be careful with that face. He may even stage a situation where you’re the one hurting precious Epel and onlookers judge you. How could you come to hurt someone like Epel? Surely he didn’t pose too much of a threat. Though, while he physically is strong and has a quite short temper, his behaviors can become routine and easy to follow. He’s really only a danger more than Deuce because he would have the help of Vil and Rook. I’m sure that over time you could turn the tables on him and either fight back or paint him to be the villain he is. He’s truly like the poisoned apple, beautiful and tempting on the outside but rotten to the core.

[konigsblog]

That mlmxreader blog also keeps claiming that you're sending your followers to go attack them and send death threats. They do a lot of arguing that your dark fic is not real dark fic and that you're purposely trying to trigger and retraumatise them - is what I gathered looking at a couple posts...

I think that for one, there are definitely writers who do romanticise some topics unhealthily with things such as rape/assault/torture, but I don't think you're one of those people? Like you frequently tag and keep stating that what you're writing is fiction, it's fantasy.

On that note, they keep trying to argue that CNC is the more "moral" kink to be writing vs. rape. I honestly think that rape fantasy is something people do fantasize about and can sometimes just not be CNC (bc they keep trying to pin it back to that kink). It's the fact that there's no established relationship and discussion like in most BDSM pairings where they talk about rape play. At the end of the day, you tag your works properly. I don't see much issue with writing what you want when you make sure to tag (which you do!) and are aware the subject you're writing about and its usual connotations (which you're also aware!). People can be mad and uncomfortable, but at the end of the day it's them who chose to keep talking about it. I think people need to get used to being uncomfortable on the internet. This is not a new concept and nobody here is a "hero" for anything.

Sorry I just paraphased some posts and asks with some of my own thoughts on it!

i mean, my content is supposed to be dark, it's dark content for a reason, and i'm not describing these characters to be standard; i'm writing them manipulative, vindictive, depraved, ect. i do appreciate you, anon, as you weren't rude, and instead polite. i appreciate it, my dear! 💗

i don't really care about this whole thing, but something i have never said was to send death threats. now, we don't know if they're lying – they could be – but, if they aren't, stop. i didn't tell anyone to send death threats, because i don't condone that. aside from death threats and mocking someone's trauma, i seriously don't care what you want to do. whether you don't block them, block them, whatever, they've made multiple posts directly insulting me in weird ass ways, so i couldn't really care about their immature opinion.

i'd like to point out something they said though, kinda funny, considering they've mentioned me multiple times outside of their callout post. they said they made ONE post about me with examples, that would be their callout post. but, they're not counting how they're talking about me in response to anons, or how they're mentioning me in their hashtags. it's childish. yes, you 100% have the right to not enjoy a certain kink/coping mechanism (because funnily enough, people use different ways to copes) but it's immature to name people, talk about how what i'm doing is "disgusting" or how i'm a "vile cretin" (like what lmfao 😭)

here's some screenshots of what i'm talking about when i say they've even insulted me, or made comments. this is 4/11 screenshots.

and comparing my supporters to an iof soldier... 😬 wtf is wrong with you? that's disgusting.

now, if anyone sends this to @mlmxreader, go ahead and let them know that they're not the centre of the world, them multiple posts taking about me and insulting me is immature on their end.

[anukkuna]

Day 15: Morally dubious police work

Sorry, I'm one day late, but here it is!

Spatort content first, some more serious real life stuff later under the cut.

#Homeoffice

Let's be honest, Tatort cops are - most of the time - not an accurate representation of real police work (but that wouldn't make for entertaining TV so... yeah. It's true for almost any crime series, I guess). It's fiction, after all, so it doesn't have to be 100% accurate, as long as it tells an interesting and engaging story (and the inaccuracies don’t pull you out of it too much. That’s probably why an acquaintance of mine, who works as a police officer, once said they can’t watch Tatort. The depiction of police work is often so far off that it throws them off too much).

Personally, I often find myself enjoying morally dubious characters or storylines that I’d find far more troubling in real life.

In real life, I wish Adam hadn’t let Moritz Leimer go. Sure, Moritz might not come after Adam again - maybe he ‘learned his lesson’ when it comes to the King’s son. But he’ll most likely remain a criminal and end up breaking into someone else’s home, hurting or traumatizing another victim. In Spatort, however, I don’t feel as strongly about this.

Adam's decision is morally dubious. In a way, the morally right thing to do would have been to press criminal charges against Moritz. He didn’t just break in - he had a gun, for fuck's sake. This isn't a minor offense, where it would be completely up to the victim whether they press charges or not.

"Das sind mindestens zwei Straftaten, die da gerade davon laufen!"

- Leo, Die Kälte der Erde

On the other hand, Adam can't do that for personal reasons. His reputation at the station is already damaged and he has no idea what Moritz knows or how an investigation might play out. Did Uncle Boris figure out where the money was hidden? Did he tell someone to check under that tree? Has anyone noticed the freshly dug-up earth - or even followed Adam? In the end, would it be more than just the current hearsay... would there be evidence that Adam has the money?

That could mean some serious trouble for him, risking both his job as well as his already strained relationship with Leo.

Plus, Adam was the victim in this specific case - so it could be argued that it’s his right to decide not to file a complaint. And maybe Moritz isn’t as dangerous as he seemed at first? After all, Adam was right: he didn’t shoot him.

"Herrgott, haben se nicht jemanden schicken können, der halbwegs gefährlich wirkt?"

- Adam, Die Kälte der Erde

Moreover, Adam needs to be able to continue investigating - and we wouldn't want him losing his job, would we?

There’s a sense in which Adam’s decision seems both right and wrong at the same time - that’s what makes it morally dubious. It’s the kind of situation where you think: yeah, they shouldn’t have done this, but then again… maybe they should have. Maybe it was justified.

The same goes for Leo’s suggestion to threaten Betty Henschel to force a confession. For a lead police investigator, even considering such a tactic should probably be viewed as a serious moral failing.

Then - once again - as viewers, we know from the start of the film that the four are indeed responsible for Roswitha “Kiwi” Jäger’s death, and we might feel that threatening one of them into a confession is necessary—and therefore justified—to ensure they’re sentenced for it.

(Credits to @snowfox-98 for this collage!)

Yet, not all instances I considered as morally dubious at first, remained so on the final evaluation.

After considering it for a while, I'd say: Leo meeting Adam at the lake and using the evidence he was handed there... or Esther and Leo striking a deal with the criminal to arrest Jens Modall (the evil lawyer)... I don't find these morally dubious.

These were, quite literally, the only options they had to save Adam’s life (to prevent him from being wrongfully convicted of murdering his father). Sure, their actions weren’t in line with the law, so what they did was legally dubious. But the law doesn’t always align with morality, and vice versa. (For instance, in a country where homosexuality is criminalized, we wouldn’t view being homosexual as morally dubious). The same logic applies to cases of civil disobedience.

There are plenty of other decisions from Spatort that could be analyzed and debated over whether they’re morally dubious (and I absolutely love the posts I’ve seen on this so far!).

There’s one teeny-tiny sentence I’d like to highlight as particularly morally problematic:

P: "Der muss es sein. Wir haben sonst keinen."

L: "Das passt nicht zu dem."

P: "Komm, lass mich mal weitermachen. Wir knacken den schon."

- Pia und Leo, Das fleißige Lieschen

Pursuing an investigation when you don’t have any conclusive evidence that your suspect is guilty - and pushing it anyway just because you want a conviction - is wrong. It’s a slippery slope where you start caring less and less about whether the suspect is actually guilty. (Even if that’s not your intention, you just keep pushing and pushing... Just ask Isabelle Grandjean from Tatort Zürich - that did NOT turn out well.) That seems both legally and morally wrong.

Reflecting on this while writing this post, my thoughts kept circling back to real-life cases - not just of morally dubious, but outright morally reprehensible police work that continues to this day (not just in the U.S., but also in Germany).

If you’re interested in three (rather recent) examples that remain significant in Germany today, I’d like to invite you to read about them below.

Oury Jalloh

The first case marks a grim 20-year anniversary from just a few days ago (Jan. 7th): the case of Oury Jalloh, a citizen from Guinea who lived in Germany and died while in police custody cell. He was arrested after street cleaners claimed he had been drunkenly harassing people following a night of clubbing (allegations that were later denied by the supposed victims).

Police brought him to a cell at Dessau police station, where he was searched for dangerous objects. Then he was restrained, tied down on hands and feet to a bed, due to his intoxicated state, but also because he was very angry about being arrested. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:

"Policewoman Beate H. was working in the second floor control room, together with Andreas S., her superior. On the intercom she heard Jalloh rattling his chains and swearing, so she attempted to calm him and she reports later she heard other officers in the cell. She went to check on him herself at about 11:30 am, without noting anything unusual. She returned to the control room, where Andreas S. turned down the intercom volume and she told him to turn it back up. At around noon she claimed she heard splashing sounds and told Andreas S. it was his turn to check. She originally said that after the fire alarm went off, Andreas S. turned it off twice. When another different alarm went off, he went to check what was going on. Gerhard M. followed Andreas S. downstairs to the cells, where they found Jalloh alive but burning to death. His final word was "Fire".

The police suggested that Jalloh had burnt himself to death, using a lighter to ignite the foam mattress he was lying on in the cell. One appeared in an evidence bag several days after Jalloh's death."

An independent autopsy report found that he had a broken rib, a broken nose and a fracture at the base of his skull, indicating that Oury Jalloh may have been tortured before his death. During the investigations it was found that there had been at least two previous incidents, where persons held in custody had died after being locked up in the same police station (due to internal injuries or fracture of the skull).

One police officer has been suspended, another was displaced to a different station. The charges (of murder) against them were, however, ultimately dismissed by the court.

2. The NSU (National Socialist Underground)

They were a German Neo-Nazi militant organization uncovered in 2011 and they were responsible for several murders during these years. The article is a long one (even more so in German), but what's important here is that it's also an example of police being "blind on the right eye".

They didn't consider or straight up ignored evidence for a right-wing / fascist motivation behind the crimes (all intended victims were (descendants of) immigrants) but instead suspected immigrant clan-feuds to be the motif, despite a lack of evidence for that.

3. NSU 2.0 / The Frankfurt Chat Group

In December 2018, a far-right chat group within the Frankfurt police force came to light. A fax sent by the group, which issued threats against the daughter of NSU victims’ attorney Seda Başay-Yıldız, was signed 'NSU 2.0' in reference to the National Socialist Underground.

The officers have been suspended from duty and are facing disciplinary consequences; however, they are not being prosecuted because the content of their chats is deemed far-right but not criminal. In the abstract, this might seem understandable, but when you look at the specific chats, it becomes deeply disturbing.

It is possible to view the actual chats from the group, as they have been made publicly accessible by a critical satire magazine in collaboration with an initiative for information freedom. If you feel up to it, you can access the real chat logs of the far-right Frankfurt police group through this website and form your own opinion:

But, of course: the devil's in the detail and obviously not ACAB. (I say this as a person, who, for quite some time, was very skeptical towards the ideal of police officers being there to help you or having your best interests at heart).

I just think that with regards to the political situation in Germany right now and the rise of far right and extremist parties, these are cases to be weary of and to keep in mind.

If you have made it to the very end - thank you so much!

I wanted to end this on a positive note. This is the link to a video by a guy, who talks about how he went from transphobe to trans ally:

This might seem a bit random, but I post this here because it is positive case of someone, who makes an argument for talking to one another, despite initial differences - and how progress can be achieved. With the election coming up and families begin often anything but homogeneous, maybe some of you will find this helpful or hopeful!

[not-poignant]

Worldbuilding and Writing Fiction are two separate skills.

Someone reblogged one of my shitposts yesterday (the one about intimidating myself out of worldbuilding) expressing confusion in the tags about how anyone could be intimidated out of writing through worldbuilding too much.

This was kind of baffling to me, because I think I've seen it 50-60 times now, especially with new, ambitious writers who are starting off with deep fantasy or science fiction projects. When you talk to them, they've often sunk months or even years of worldbuilding into the project, but when you ask how far they've come on the fiction side of things, they usually have writer's block, haven't started writing the story, or say they're not ready yet. 'I'm starting soon' is a common refrain. 'I just have a little bit more left to do.'

The main reason for this - I feel - is that worldbuilding and writing are two different skills. Someone who spends 5 years worldbuilding has learned how to get really good at worldbuilding, but that doesn't mean anything about how good their writing will be. Many folks think worldbuilding will automatically make a story better, but sometimes worldbuilding can become unwieldy and stressful, especially in the case of a) entirely new worlds / secondary world fantasy, or b) complex worldbuilding. Definitely not talking about contemporary romance here, lol. (Though no shade to that, I've had a lot of fun worldbuilding for those stories too).

Going from worldbuilding to writing is launching into an entirely new space. If you find writing new stories easy, that won't be a problem for you, in fact you may not even have realised they're too different skills before now.

If you find writing new stories intimidating, sometimes having hundreds or thousands of things about your world to try and constantly remember can feel overwhelming and mess with the executive function needed to start a chapter.

In some cases, worldbuilding can make it much easier to start a story. But it really depends on what you're needing to do. If you're just writing a contemporary story where you need to research two characters and two jobs, you're generally going to be just fine.

If on the other hand, you have the equivalent of a 500 page Wiki behind-the-scenes, it can feel overwhelming very quickly.

New writers fall into this trap the most, I feel. They become accustomed to what worldbuilding feels like, and they hedge on writing the actual fiction, because they just have more experience worldbuilding and keep waiting for their confidence in worldbuilding to become 'confidence in starting the story.' It doesn't work that way. They're different skills.

They might even be better at worldbuilding than writing! But that just means - if they really want to be a writer - that writing is the skill they really need to work on the most. That can be a comfort zone issue too. It can also be a 'only about 5-10% of all this work will ever appear in the story' issue, where folks want to share the worldbuilding more than the characters or plot, and therefore are just not inspired to work on their story. It can be a 'I want this story to be as good as my worldbuilding' issue. It can be a 'I find the worldbuilding part easy' issue. There are lots of reasons people stall out in worldbuilding and then feel intimidated to write the actual story.

This can also happen with established writers who become aware that the more they know about their world, the more they don't know about their world. It can start to feel like - if you write 10 articles for yourself, you end up with 100 more to write. If you write those 100 articles, you have another 300 to write. Worldbuilding never ends. Worldbuilding can be endless, and if you're an immersive writer, you can get lost very easily in the details, or in not knowing what details are critical and what details aren't. (A hint here is that you'll figure that out really fast when you start writing).

Stalling in worldbuilding can be a lot of things, it can tell you that there's something broken in the world, something broken in the story, it can tell you more about your insecurities, it can tell you how good you are at one skill and where you might need practice in another. It's super informative!

But, generally speaking, the advice I tend to give to many new writers is to try not to let your worldbuilding period last too long. Ideally, put a timer on it and see how it feels to start writing your story once the timer has gone off (3 months, 6 months, 3 weeks, put it in your phone or in your calendar, and start the first chapter, or some random scene, once that time is up).

If, after that period of time lapses, you still aren't ready to start your story, something bigger might be going on. It's an opportunity to dig deeper into the situation. And sometimes just ask yourself if you're using the idea of a novel as an excuse to do what you love most: Worldbuilding. If that's the case, there are other jobs you can parlay a solid worldbuilding ability into. It doesn't have to lead to novels. :)

But yeah it's super super common for many writers to stall out between worldbuilding and writing, and to feel overwhelmed by their own worldbuilding.

New writers get affected by it the most based on observation and hanging around writing forums, and the advice that gets asked quite often specifically on 'when do I go from worldbuilding to writing the story,' but established writers experience it too, because as Gene Wolfe once said to Neil Gaiman: "You never learn how to write a novel, Neil. You just learn how to write the novel you are on."