#and then this happens and it's the only area of issue

[the-rhyme-witch]

I didn't mean to be a mage. That's not a very mage admission, is it? By all rights and certainly by the bards, I should have grown up a peasant in poverty and fought tooth and nail through strength of character and a certain sparkle of charisma to fight for my right to mage training.

But I didn't.

If I'm honest, I just fell into it. Can we pretend I didn't though? The reality -Dais went to a job interview with her boyfriend Marfv because he thought watching him apply to be an apprentice was somehow date material- doesn't make me sound particularly employable as far as Mages go. (More employable than Marfv though, given that limescale is more appealing. He's dumped. Obviously.) I'm not always tip top when it comes to selling my gifts but even I know that a reputation makes a mage (and , okay, for honesty sake, Marfv dumped me but it was totally mutual and I don't replay the moment over and over at all).

I also absolutely didn't mean to end up a mage in a fight. I'm not a fighter. I know folk who are but for me, a mildly sharp rebuke plays on my mind and stops me sleeping for days. But I did.

I'd just finished my apprenticeship. It was my first job and I was so nervous, I had to keep my cloak on just to disguise the amount of back-sweat coming through my robe. I had been approached by a merchant group and after some paperwork, a scroll signed in blood and a clammy handshake, I'd climbed into their wagon trying my best to exude confidence rather than bodily fluids. It should have been a simple job. As mage, I would be a simple fire starter. Use a few finder spells to get water and fuel, deflect the attentions of minor eldritch horrors, perhaps take a turn cooking, the usual stuff. I knew I should have been feeling the confidence I was faking as I was perfectly skilled in those areas. The goods we were transporting were unremarkable too, just a stack of ecklenwood staves headed out to the Recklen University Of Sorcerers, presumably for turning into fortune staffs and unlikely to bring a huge fortune in the process.

I hadn't anticipated a bandit attack. To this day, too, I can't remember the details. What I know happened is that the attack came as a mundane pit trap, the wagon overturned and I fell out, as did att the staves. I like to think I threw a fireball or two, maybe shouted a Dread Curse? But what I know happened is a ecklenwood staves went right into my head.

I should have died, even as a mage. We have an unfortunate issue with unconscious magic. Magic is symbiotic in nature and it doesn't want it's host to die. Conscious, a mage can patch themselves up or a friend with a series of incantations, but unconscious, the magic runs amok like a toddler with a handful of paints and an expensive rug. I'm told I was lucky. Not only was it ecklenwood but the stave went through one side of my forehead, pierced one half of my frontal lobe and trashed one half of my amygdala but stayed there. It stayed there long enough that magic filled the gap.

It stayed there long enough that when the merchants pulled it out of my head and I sat up, they immediately terminated our contract. At least, that's what I took running away screaming to indicate. And once I'd dragged my bewildered, frightened, bloodied self back to the Mage guildhall, still inexplicably alive, and recovered and was seen by the healer Archmage, I counted myself lucky, despite the fact I would be wearing an eye patch on my forehead for the foreseeable future.

It wasn't until later that I realised what had happened.

Unguided magic, you see, has the will but doesn't know the way. It looks for a guide and when the body doubles, it's useful (it's why magic is great for arms and legs and kidneys and not great for livers and stomachs and hearts). When one half of my brain had been wrecked, the magic had squinted at the healthy side and gone "yeah, I can do that!"

Which I am grateful for. I am. But...

Look, at the time I wasn't in a great place. I was a new qualified Mage feeling like I was playing dress-up, my loser boyfriend had dumped me, my mind was not a cheery place. And the magic? It made a magical patch with that as a guide.

A mage is their reputation. A true mage goes on to inspire tales like "Grindhurst the Great and the Fall of the Gods".

I fear my bard story might be "Dais and the Bind of the Unkind Mind"

When a mage is badly injured, magic sometimes "fills in the gaps"—growing an arcane hand or leg. You suffered brain damage that would have killed most. Magic filled in your mind.

[daylightstring]

i manifested a new house for my family and some revelations about the law.

i’m honestly super emotional even typing this because housing has always been a huge issue for my family, but not anymore. it’s finally resolved.

basically, our lease for the house we’d been living in for five years was ending. now, i don’t want to take full credit for this manifestation because my dad worked incredibly hard to make this happen too. in my family, my dad is the only provider since my mum has her own mental health struggles, and me and my brother are focused on our studies. because of that, getting a loan for a good house was really difficult. but knowing the law, i decided to start affirming and visualising every time the topic came up, no matter what was happening in the 3d. i kept telling myself the house is already ours, only moving boxes is left. even when my parents were stressing about it, i stayed in my own reality internally.

luckily, once i started persisting, my parents found a really decent house in our area that was still within our budget. i kept affirming that the house was already ours, that all that was left was moving boxes. and guess what? we got the call that the house is officially ours. it’s a modern, four-bedroom house with a huge backyard. it’s beautiful.

this is probably my first really ‘big’ manifestation and it’s helped me understand the law on a whole new level. i had already studied the law a lot and understood the basics from reading source material, but actually living it through something life-changing hit differently.

when i kept repeating to myself that the house is already ours, that moving boxes is the only thing left, i realised this mindset is exactly what makes manifestations happen. nero knowledge, my favourite manifestation creator, always says that once you’re no longer dependent on seeing change in the outside world, that’s when it happens. whatever it is you want, you have to claim it with unbelievable conviction, so much so that even if you didn’t get it, you would still feel like you have it. that’s the level of certainty it takes. brazen impudence. refusing to accept ‘no’ as an answer from reality.

identity is everything. i hate to say it, but you need a strong self-concept to experience true life-changing shifts. that’s the real principle behind the law that every successful, enviable person has lived by. i know this because i tried to manifest a new house two years ago when i was deep in anxiety and depression, and it didn’t happen. my identity back then was someone terrified she wouldn’t get what she wanted, and the universe, being a mirror, simply reflected that.

stop identifying with labels that do nothing but hurt you. i understand trauma. i’ve lived it too. but you can’t spend your life staring at your wounds. you’re strong. you want to change. i know you do because you’re here, reading this, waiting for that big “aha” moment that will fix everything. but it’s not going to come from the outside. it will only come from you, when you apply the law and choose a new identity. like neville said…there is no one to change but self.

you have to stop caring in the wrong way. when i say ‘stop caring’, i don’t mean stop wanting your desires, i mean stop being so attached to the idea that once you have it, everything will change. there is no ‘after’. it’s happening now. right now. soak into that feeling, claim it, and live from it.

[crispy-art-on-fire]

YOU KNOW I HAVE THE BRAINROT WHEN I AM BRINGING MULTIPLE AUS TO LIFE- ANYWAY PYGMALION AND GALATEA AU. Blitzwing sculpts his ideal man and falls in love with the statue and Optimus comes to life with an allspark fragment as his heart.

Detailed rambling under cut.

So basically to cope with the boredom and chaos of Megatron being dead and Lugnut being a pain Blitzwing decides to indulge in making a statue, his masterpiece. Working on it instead of blowing a fuse and trying to kill Lugnut. Eventually he begins to talk to it, complaining about his day and arguing with himself. They know it's purely just sounding their ideas out and an outlet for the things they cannot say to anyone else.

But then it stops being just that and Blitzwing begins to seeing Optimus as a person, someone listening to him. He anthropomorphizes Optimus and begins to seek comfort from him, he falls in love with something that cannot love him back. Beginning to fantasize about what if Optimus was real.

Then plot happens and the allspark is fractured. One of the shards burrowing deep into Optimus and so bringing life to him. Optimus remembers everything Blitzwing told him and so decides to try to help him: To attack the Autobots.

(In this au the leader of the repair team is Sentinel Prime after he got demoted for breaking the rules and causing Elita-1 to be lost.)

This misadventure ends pretty well after they get over the scare of being attacked by an Optimus who doesn't know how to emote and basically has to consciously remember "oh I can talk now." In that Optimus also doesn't really have any ideas of his own and can be easily convinced to not fight them once given 1 reason not to. The deepest core of his being is that he wants to do good in its purest form.

So meanwhile Optimus is off learning that being alive is beautiful and fun Blitzwing is freaking out. Their coping statue is gone and while they first suspect Lugnut of finally destroying it the idea of Optimus having walked off himself pops into their mind and oh they simply must investigate. Turns out yes! Their imaginary boyfriend is alive now and that might be the most exciting scariest thing ever.

Blitzwing brings Optimus back to the Decepticon base and he is officially on the team but not really. This is where the two actually get to know each other because Blitzwing knows nothing about Optimus except that they love him more than anything and Optimus knows everything about Blitzwing but doesn't know his own feelings. It's awkward, it's cute, Blitzwing is the most overprotective guy ever which might be the only reason why it takes so long for the Decepticons to realize that Optimus is very bad at being bad.

The breaking point being Optimus not being able to handle it anymore tries to break Professor Sumdac out and getting caught. Blitzwing as his creator gets the responsibility to execute him but once bringing Optimus to an isolated area cannot bring himself to do it. Faking taking the shot and telling Optimus to leave and never come back. Optimus does, thanking Blitzwing before he goes.

Optimus officially joins the Autobots. And he might trying to do right but having been around only Decepticons for most his existence makes it so easy to do things that make everyone look at him like he's a monster. It takes a while for either to get used to each other.

Blitzwing is doing Great he is doing So Fine in that he doesn't have a breakdown immediately. He created something to pour his feelings into and then it came alive and rejected him. Issues! But they still love Optimus and it feels like a curse they way they need to know him and what has become of him.

In moments of weakness they meet, for Optimus to talk and Blitzwing to listen. With no one else to rely on or share his newfound thoughts Optimus shares it with Blitzwing knowing that they want all of him and he cannot want them back.

ITS ABOUT THE YEARNING. THEY NEED TO SUFFER.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I hc that chat lacks self-preservation instincts because Adrien uses Chat as a form of escapism and kinda disassociates from real life, thus making it not truly come across to him how dangerous he is actually being. What are your thoughts on this "theory"/idea/thoughts on why Chat almost kills himself constantly.

Warning! Doyalistic analysis incoming: I think you've put more thought into the topic than the writers have. We're six seasons in and I can't think of a single episode where Adrien's self sacrificing streak was treated as a problem. I don't think that canon even acknowledges that it's a reoccurring issue. Every time he's killed, mind controlled, or otherwise incapacitated is treated like the first time because this is a formula show and you're generally supposed to view every episode as a standalone story even if it often doesn't feel like one.

While I don't like that canon made that choice, I will defend it to a mild extent because I get why it keeps happening. Or, at least, I think I do. My best guess is that the writers aren't viewing the self-sacrificing thing as a serious character beat. They're just using a standard trope and Adrien just so happens to consistently be the easiest character to shove into the role that the trope requires.

The trope in question is usually called the "red shirt" trope and, to save myself some time, I'm just going to quote TV Tropes' to explain what it's all about:

[Red shirts] are the Good Counterpart of Evil Minions and Mooks — set filler for our heroes' side. Their purpose is almost exclusively to give the writers someone to kill who isn't a main character... [Red shirts] are used to show how the monster works, and demonstrate that it is indeed a deadly menace, without having to lose anyone important. Expect someone to say "He's Dead, Jim", lament this "valued crew member's senseless death", and then promptly forget him. Security personnel in general fall victim to the worst shade of this trope, as most of the time their deaths aren't even acknowledged at all; according to Hollywood, you could walk into a bank and shoot a security guard right in the face without anyone making a fuss.

All of the above is why canon consistently lets characters be disintegrated, captured, mind controlled, and so on. These moments are not meant to be serious character beats. They're just there so that the show can raise the stakes for the day's fight.

While the trope is usually reserved for random characters that don't matter, Miraculous tends to use established characters instead because there's a magical reset mechanic which makes negative status effects a temporary issue. It's less the writers calling Chat Noir useless and more them taking advantage of the fact that they can "red shirt" characters that the audience actually cares about. That's a much better way to raise the stakes than red shirting a random character that the audience has never met.

Zombizou is a perfect example of this. That episode sees the entire miracuclass sacrifice themselves, but the message is not that they all have self worth issues. The message is that they trust Ladybug which is the only message canon is trying to send on the occasions when self sacrifice is actively chosen by a character, thus dialogue like this dialogue from Lies:

Cat Noir: There are only two liars left in Paris and one of them knows the ultimate way to catch her attention. Ladybug: No way! Don't do it! What if I fail?! Cat Noir: You know what? I trust you.

Other episodes see the self-sacrifice happen by accident and those don't even get a line about trust. It's just there to raise the stakes.

Of course, that's the Doyalistic explanation. If you want to get Watsonian, then I think your take is a solid one! I just don't think that it's even remotely intentional which is why I would only go Watsonian if you're doing something like writing a fanfic. Don't expect canon to ever address this issue because canon doesn't see it as an issue. It's even one area where I don't judge canon too harshly because this is a really standard trope so I get why they keep using it. Every episode has a fight and you have to do something to keep them interesting! I don't know how you make 130+ fights feel serious without some red-shirt-style moments. That's why the trope exists! It's just the nature of the beast.

My only real criticism is that Miraculous keeps red shirting a character that a lot of the audience understandably views as having self worth issues. That's not a choice that I'd personally make. If Adrien is going to be your standard red shirt option, then don't make him read as depressed and struggling to find his place in the world. Or, at the very least, round robin the red shirt role between the various cast members so that Adrien doesn't stand out in the role! In my opinion, it's yet another case of the writers really not thinking beyond the most surface level implications of their writing choices.

Since you seemed interested, I'll note that my favorite way to address the self sacrificing issue is to have this behavior come from Adrien doing what needs to be done even though he has no desire to die or even just be hurt. After all, Ladybug does need to survive every fight. She's the one with the cure! He's right to protect her! The story doesn't end there, though. Instead of just accepting this, I use it as a way to bring Carapace onto the team because you don't want to just randomly expand the team. Establish a problem, then expand the team to solve it. Ladybug needs to survive every fight and Chat Noir keeps getting hurt? Bring in a human shield. Problem solved!

[steamberrystudio]

28/04/2025 Devlog!

Hello everyone! Here is the tumblr update coming in a day late due to a hectic weekend and me being forgetful!

Summary Bullets:

Finished Wil's expressions for Chapter 6

Started on side character expressions

Worked on some new sprite stuff

Received the final background

Worked on POV scenes

More accessibility stuff

Art:

Not much in art news this time. I worked on some new sprite stuff for this episode and also received the *last* BG. I feel like I've been getting BGs for this game forever after having them done, then redone, then a lot of them redone again.

Writing

Worked on Asher's PoV scene that will go out with Chapter 6 but is about the events of Chapter 5.

One down...five to go.

Other Stuff:

Coding sprite expressions. Ugh.

I got all of Wil's expressions done for Chapter six and started on the side characters. My goal is to work through all the side characters since they have fewer lines than the LI and I can tick them off the list a bit faster.

Then work on the LIs.

I'm estimating there will be 2000 - 2500 expression switches in this chapter. And I've got about 1100 of them done. So. Huzzah. 

I also continued to work on some accessibility related things - mostly the way self voicing interfaces with the glossary. 

I think by my last update, I'd mostly fixed the issues with self voicing and the glossary, customisation, and affinity screens.

With the glossary, it was realising there was no signifier for the glossary hyperlinks other than the link being coloured differently. So I had to add a notification to that, which was simple enough.

But then it became an issue of finding the new entries in the glossary. So I added a "NEW!" tag to them.

But then the self voicing wouldn't read it. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

No matter what I did. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

This is why "adding alt text" sometimes isn't enough. Because sometimes for whatever reason it is, the self voicing won't read it. Or it reads it twice. Or it has some other weird issue.

So I fixed that finally. After a short struggle.

But there is still an issue where it's reading stuff in a weird order and I want to fix that *if I can* - however it's on the back burner for now so I can make progress in other areas.

Something else I did in that regard was go through and look for every hard scene transition where the narrative text and dialogue does not make it clear a transition to a new location happened...

And I added alt text that just indicates there was a scene change to a new place.

This will hopefully allow people to follow the story a bit easier if they're just listening because there won't be any sudden and silent changes to a new location.

And finally I have been going in and writing up glossary entries for all the people and places you encounter. The main purpose of this is to allow me to add in descriptive text that describes the person or place *without having to insert it into the story narrative as alt text*.

This will allow people to read the descriptions only if they want to. They can do it when they want and they can go back and re-read them if they want. I still have to go back through and add all the unlock statements since those have to be done manually but that is, again, something I will tackle later.

Upcoming Weeks:

I will be focusing on expressions and POV scenes first and then going on into flowcharts and the remaining things. So for the next two weeks at least, it'll be expressions and POV scenes.

And hopefully I will remember the update in two weeks and actually touch base again then.

[thedeviljudges]

-

[everlastingday]

okay, turns out i am hopping in with a tangent, because i am a yapper at heart and i have thoughts! first and foremost, agree with everything ahella says above, and i'll try my best not to just repeat what was already said so perfectly.

i hate to make this about anti-intellectualism, and i'm not saying that online activism doesn't have a place or function, but i do think that there is a distinct lack of criticial thinking that goes on in a lot of progressive online spaces in the name of activism. people will see one thing and file it away as a specific incident of racism, but never actually learn from that and learn to apply it to other areas of their life. they might learn the "what", and the "who," but not the "how" or "why".

when you only think of racism as a series of isolated events - a racist thing that is perpetuated against a certain person or group - but fail to understand how that one incident is a part of a larger picture, you will never start to be able to identify the patterns of when it happens. you'll never be able to "see" when something racist happens without having to have a poc point it out to you.

this isn't just a fandom issue, but i'll use fandom as an example. sometimes i'll see well-meaning people ask the question of how there's been racism in the fandom, or what about what someone has said is racist, etc. and sometimes, it's not so much what is said about non-white characters (though it often is that too), and more so how it's being said. and i understand it can be frustrating to hear that sometimes racism is just kind of a vibe you get, but here's the reality - when poc grow up in predominantly white spaces, we often internalize at a very young age all the different ways racism can manifest simply because we live outside of whiteness, and that "racism vibe-checker" (sorry i can't think of a better way to describe it lol) is something that we just develop from experience. for a lot of white people, they will never learn how to develop the skill to identify and understand racism, simply because being white means that you can carry on your life without ever acknowledging the systems that created and perpetuate racism.

this often results in poc being accused of making everything about race, or that we're overly sensitive, etc. the reality is, everything is about race! racism isn't a thing you do, it's an entire system of things that perpetuate the status quo that keeps white people at the top. it's a system that makes it so that white people never have to think about race if they don't want to. so if you, as a white person, want to learn how to "see" racism, you actively have to make an effort to do so.

and yes, it's going to feel exhausting. it's going to feel overwhelming. but that is the reality that poc experience everyday, and we don't have the option of opting out of it.

obviously this applies to much more than just racism, but i just think a little critical thinking would go a long way for a lot of people who see themselves as progressive.

Do you see racist things? If you ever feel like speaking out I would love a chance to make sure I'm not accidentally doing or agreeing with anything harmful.

i really appreciate your kindness anon and i know your intentions are good but if you want, bear with me this long answer because this is exactly my issue; people not realizing there is a wrong foundation dominating these kinds of online spaces we're on. people falling for anything as long as it has a nice sounding veneer that softens the fallacy of it. and this is not (just) about fandom. people need to start treating political education and being principled as a fundamental duty we're fully accountable for and not just something we just want to make sure we're not getting wrong.

it's a labour that requires sacrifice of time and effort on daily basis. it's our responsibility to study, to understand the structures of oppression, to be able to point out all the contradictory positions people take and especially from lazy audience who just endorse anything by clicking a 'share' button.

Don't wait for someone to speak out or wait until someone tells you what has been harming them for too long. Acts that perpetuate oppression don't happen inside our bodies and it's only me who can tell that my stomach is hurting, the symptoms and patterns of harmful positions and acts are out there all the time they just fly under the radar for those who don't do the work to see them as a systematic behaviour, in the wider scope, that's how the privileged, the protected and the politically illiterate/indoctrinated maintain the status quo; by leaving everything on the back of the struggling people to fix, without reaching the stage of maturity of being finally capable of understanding and combating those tools of imperialism on their own (choice of words, language, ideologies, actions, online behaviour etc), people are just too lazy to lead with correct principles that's my issue. liberalism just never graduates from that school, it retreats back to individualism right after telling you its willing to care about the collective in an actual effective way. and during that period it just keeps on inflicting piles of harm for us, the principled, to undo and label as ideological hazard.

I'm just so tired.. I've seen so much betrayal and sustained so many moral injuries from so called communities on here (lgbt circles, fandoms, people with their nice sounding liberal zionist shit and harmful normalization positions on the Palestinian struggle and the current ongoing Genocide etc etc) that pinpointing individual incidents feels in vain.

the term 'community' has been reduced to some depoliticised liberal abstraction where individuals conflate indulging in sexual consumerism and fun activities with collective work. and it points to a larger contradiction where selfish pursuits are masked as liberating and empowering (people who say shit like joy is resistance from the comfort of their couch. i see you), at the expense of emergency mobilisation, investing labour in political education and cultivating real connections based off shared values and struggles. especially now... just the levels of self gratification on here.. the people who treat politics/people's lives as an secondary backdrop to their blogs to show off moral integrity between their usual content. the romanticising of colonial violence or the total negligence of it, the reduction of the global south struggles to english ready made appealing content. all the selective celebrity culture garbage, etc.

I don't speak out here because for most people, politics is about appearing radical online from time to time and not about being able to defend a position with conviction and sacrifice a lot for it.

and because academics, western degree holders, big blogs (often run by a white person), the english-speaking diaspora voices, are more preferred, promoted and listened to

because articulation in english, layered with academic jargon, is constantly mistaken for sound politics.

I don't speak here because myopic victim narratives are centered over structural critique.

because identity wins over principled politics - every single time.

and I'm not interesting in pandering in front of a people here who selfishly give all their time to hobbies and self indulgence and cause harm by endorsing and agreeing on things they think they comprehend from the moral perspective. they don't listen let alone put labour into being responsible individuals. idk that's why i said before i feel like a hypocrite for being here in the first place. I have my other online circles where i find the sound political ground i seek so here I just try to stick to fandom content and nothing more, i just can't help sometimes the way i get angry at the things i see, but again, that's on me for choosing a space where performativity dominates, I'm responsible for that I'm very aware.

Apologies for the long reply Xx

[itspileofgoodthings]

had a very nice realization about peace, especially spiritual peace, the other day. (Been brewing for a while.) and it’s just: peace is for the non-peaceful.

[story-book-sillies]

Grieving over someone who isn’t gone is such a complicated feeling. Especially when they are your best friend. Especially when they want to leave you.

I still can interact with them today. I can see them with my own eyes, hear their voice with my ears, understand their deepest dreams because we just know each other.

But soon, I won’t be able to see them in person, the only way I can hear their voice will be through a phone, and now someone else will learn to understand them better than me. I will slowly be forgotten as someone else becomes their remembered.

And it hurts. But it happens. And I knew it was coming but I didn’t want it to happen so fast. It’s like when you know something is going to bite you but it hasn’t happened yet. You anticipate the pain so it’s like the pain is already there.

They’re still here but they’re already gone. They’re not gone forever just gone for now. You’re still a kid. They’re all grown up and they’re leaving you. It hurts.

[cutieacefuck]

used to have a paid hour for lunch but I guess my job is really trying to get rid of its best workers 🙃

[mantisgodsdomain]

Slowly, yet painfully realizing that we're probably the exact type of person that random fandom guys would miscast as a father.

[andoutofharm]

okay yeah making this its own post because it needs to be said. at the end of the day they are workers doing their jobs and shouting shit at them and acting entitled to a certain type of performance is never okay. it’s wonderful that they love doing it and that it can impact and reach so many people! that impact and their place in the music scene as entertainers does not mean its okay to treat them this way.

[simptasia]

so actually its not flu, it's covid

[sprucetreeconspiracy]

thinking about it sex work isnt inherently less safe than doing any other 1:1 meeting work (a thing youd do a lot in home care as a nurse for example), it's the structures and stigma that make it less so

[fiendishartist2]

*describing smth that only happens in rich areas* yeah so basically i think teachers need to punish kids more

[crappy-homestuck-confessions]

Kinda sick of the angst in HS when it comes to fan stuff. Not in the sense that things should be happy or that its not fun, no not at all. I'm just sick of how it becomes a competition of "I suffered the most" basically.

.