#but also be the person to do something completely new to me with

[randum-famdoms]

Something I have seen people complain about is when the story “stops” for a character to mentally think about their feelings regarding something.

I think that’s bullshit.

Like, okay. Think about it. How fast is your train of thought? Faster than your reading speed, right? Do your thoughts all happen in neat little sentences, or as more of a nebulous and/or choppy half-formed thing that *you* understand, but would sound like nonsense on a page?

Also, the character probably isn’t actually taking as long to think these things as you are reading it. “Character A feels xyz about this” isn’t taking ten seconds to actually happen, feelings coexist with action!

Now, there is a time and place for introspection. It is my personal philosophy to have the amount of introspection reflect the pacing of a scene. Fast battle scenes will be far more action-heavy and introspection-light compared to, say, a calm breakfast.

I think it balances the annoyance over pages of introspection completely breaking the flow of an intense section of the story (at least, from the perspective of the reader), while still maintaining some of that wonderful interiority (which is actually a new word for me, and I adore it).

I’m the first to admit that I am far from an experienced or professional author. I don’t have a professional editor, and my only education is via Highschool and middle school classes (and while I was always in the advanced classes, a few even college level, they were still restricted by being part of the American education system). I definitely can think of times where my grasp on the interiority slipped. Especially when it comes to describing things that wouldn’t necessarily be noticed by the pov character, simply because I as the author do know about it and think it’s funny or important.

I’d imagine a good rule of thumb regarding this would be to treat it like dialogue. People always say to read your dialogue out loud to notice any problems. Well, just act out the scene as though you are the pov character. Not necessarily irl, but in your head. (And maybe even irl if you can manage it, it can’t hurt!) What way are you facing? Would you be able to see that annoying dog? Would you focus on the person you are talking to’s face, or their hands? Is this activity one that you would space out during, or does it require laser focus?

Basically, all the things you would not think about if you imagine the scene like a movie as you are writing.

Picturing the scene as a movie can be helpful, particularly for things like imagery. But it does have its shortcomings, as op said.

It can work thematically for some stories, but when it comes to most writing that is not third person omniscient, it’s definitely something that can cause the reader to feel… distant, I guess. Less immersed.

It’s also something that, sadly, many writers will have to teach themselves and seek out to learn, because, as OP said, it’s becoming harder to find in modern works. This is doubly so do people who mainly read non-published works. I will sing the praises of fanfiction until the day that I die, and maybe even after, but the fact of the matter is that 99% of fanfiction authors are self taught. They may not know how to incorporate interiority. They may not even have ever read a work that had it.

I know a lot of people say that you should read the “classics”, and you may be thinking that could help here, but I for one am a fierce defender of not putting up requirements to be considered a writer, and that includes required reading. Yes it can help you learn skills, but so can more modern works. I learned a lot from reading Percy Jackson, and other lesser known books, and none of them are considered classics on par with The Great Gatsby or Shakespeare.

Instead, I propose this: if you want to get a better grasp on writing with interiority, try actually consciously focusing on your day to day life for a little while every day. Focus on your train of thought, on the things you focus on, on the things you see.

If you want to read something, great! Ask for recommendations, go to your local library and flip through books until you find one you think you will both enjoy and which has a good grasp of the concept.

First and foremost, however, in any writing, is to remember how we as humans actually live and interact with the world, and you’ve got a primary source of research at all times: yourself. Exclusively using other texts as sources will only ever end in a very broken game of telephone.

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

[thewertsearch]

@necrowyrm asked: happy new year!!! enjoy the last little bit of homestuck before act 6! Anonymous asked: You have NO IDEA how much I was looking forward to your reaction to this flash :D @teddy-bearer-of-bad-news asked: a very late congratulations from me for making it this far! i gotta say, saving CASCADE for new year's is probably the smartest thing i've heard all week. may your experience be nothing short of righteous, comrade Anonymous asked: Cascade … Even years latter knowing it almost by heart, every once in a while I will take a little quarter of an hour to rewatch it, Say what you want about Hussie but there is a good reason Homestuck became so iconic. @adeptarcanist asked: The leadup to Cascade was honestly my favorite sequence in Homestuck, and maybe one of my favorites in any media ever? The way the narrative splits apart into all of the different scenes swirling in towards the critical moment, both advancing main plots and finding time to spend a moment of melancholy with characters who’d been left behind (The Jaspers and Nepeta scene :( )… it’s such a strong narrative device, and the tone it generates is impeccable. @calamitascalliope asked: I literally watched the flash again, and it still gives me chills every single time. Welcome to your post-Cascade life. You won't be able to think about anything the same ever again @iris-in-the-dark-world asked: "she looks so cool… but she’s so tragic… but she looks so cool…" has become a brainworm for me. i too love the handmaid's design btw, cascade time has been i think the most anticipated non-personal event of the entire year for me. i'm so excited @publicuniversalworstie asked: I want you to know that I also opened Cascade and started watching with you right after I saw your "oh my god it has chapters" ask, and I finished just as you posted "I will never be the same" !! And I bet lots of other people did too <3 so it's like we all watched it together!!!! Happy New Year and thank you for liveblogging!!!! It's been a pleasure！(and will continue to be) @krixwell asked: I would like you to know that your "Right, we're good to go!" and "oh my god it has chapters" posts were posted right as I was outside watching midnight fireworks ring in 2025 for the Central European timezone. Happy new year! @captorations asked:

hey remember when rose just up and fucking said that. anyway congrats on reaching cascade! it absolutely wrecked me back in the day, i think i stared at those flaming curtains for a solid ten minutes as my brain permanently reconfigured. the first few notes of the track alone still give shivers. getting your reaction to cascade was a wonderful birthday present. (speaking of getting older: aradia 🤝 dulcinea also got that "distressingly short lifespan only to die early anyway" story thread going on. the parallels are paralleling.) anyway happy new year and congrats you are… slightly less than halfway done with homestuck. have fun!

Hey, guys. Cascade was so fucking good.

Like, there's really no competition; this is the best Flash page in the comic thus far. Peak music, peak animation, and absolutely a peak narrative. It tied up mountains of plot threads, providing complete answer to questions we're been asking for literally thousands of pages. It completed over a dozen arcs, both big and small. It made me gasp three times in fourteen minutes. It let Jade become a furry.

11/10, and I'm glad people had as much fun here as I did on New Year's Eve. Happy 2025, and happy Act 6!

@morganwick asked: Sally, predicting Cascade: "I have approximate knowledge of many things." @morganwick asked: "You literally have the whole world in the palm of your hands." -Sally to Jadesprite, December 16, 2024 (You might also want to reread post/770701212350857216 in light of recent developments.)

Hah!

I mean, based on her powerset, it made sense that Jadesprite would do something like this eventually, but it's pretty funny that she did it more or less immediately.

And in the end, CD really was a tricky little bastard. We'll definitely need to keep a closer eye on him, next time around.

Anonymous asked: Take a moment to consider that if anyone were to use the Homestuck website as it stands now instead of the Collection program, Cascade would have been presented in the YouTube player in Standard Definition, artifacted to hell, with a clear boundary showing the dimensions of the video from the very start. Preservation is so important.

Jeez, you're not kidding. The 1080p is fine, I guess, but it certainly doesn't hit like the Flash version does, especially with its lack of moving panels.

I know something had to change when Flash kicked the bucket, but surely there was a better way to preserve the video's soul.

Anonymous asked: to give you some of an idea of what homestuck fandom looked like during this time period, im cribbing from a very popular homestuck post: “first, this upd8 was something that we had been waiting for for WEEKS. A literally unprecedented wait period at the time. We were used to suckling at the teat of daily updates, a constant stream of conversation and plot twists and buildup, and as EOA5, we were finally going to figure out what all these countdowns and plot threads and disconnected elements were building up for. And when the progress bar reached 100%, and when the page FINALLY loaded on 10/25/11, it was chaos. This was 2011, a primetime peak point and growth period of Homestuck fan density.” (…) “MSPA crashed, as it had started to during the last few big [S] updates. Hussie had already bought new servers in advance, but even when allegedly thousands of dollars were spent it couldn't handle the accidental DDOS attack of Homestuck fans. People were up all night waiting for this upd8, the curiosity was killing me. I know at some point he was receiving at least 1 million unique visitors per day to his site [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, upwards of 2 million during this time], and even though Hussie had foreseen such traffic and thusly hosted [S] Cascade on Newgrounds, a dedicated video streaming site, Newgrounds was similarly unprepared for the sheer amount of people frantically mashing the play and refresh buttons, and also crashed. Immediately. MSPA and Newgrounds crashed definitively for at least two nights in a row” (…) “Andrew Hussie has gone on record to say this was one of the few times he thought Homestuck wasn’t worth it, because the sheer unbelievable cost (was it $10,000?) [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, it looked like it was going to cost $100,000 to keep [S] Cascade up for several days] of servers and the chaos of no one able to see the upd8 and crashing nearly every site after. He was tweeting during the whole debacle, stating he was reluctant to put it up on Youtube because of all the moving elements of the flash, and style, and how youtube degraded the quality of the file size, and how he tried to scratch out buffer time and pauses by putting periods of silence between each section of the 14 minute upd8, the longest upd8 yet” “So after Newgrounds patooted, he didn’t put it on youtube and instead put up the entire flash file on Megaupload, where it could be downloaded in it’s entirety to be watched. UNFORTUNATELY, Megaupload also crashed very quickly, which Hussie felt much headache over. But before that happened I managed to get the file, since I happened to be up very early that night! Next it was on dropbox, which didn’t crash but had “link unavailable” on and off. ”Spoilers were flying everywhere, people didn’t understand everything that had happened, and by the time the timeline of events in and out of [S] Cascade was all straightened out, people became even MORE hype. Like this whole thing lasted at least four days, and on top of that, the upd8 was good. Fandom exploded.” it is impossible to quantify the experience. The fact hussie was going to have to fork over A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to host it is crazy. I am never going to be over it.

Cascade's complete obliteration of the Flash-hosting internet says a lot about huge Homestuck truly was - but I think an even bigger indicator of the comic's success is the fact that Hussie dropped literally thousands of dollars on server upgrades to host the thing. That's not an investment you make unless you're expecting some serious returns.

[corviiids]

hello thank you for asking i am very flattered. i would be most honoured to give some advice that i am most certainly unqualified to give!!

ok advice 1: hey why does everyone keep telling me to read and write a lot

i think this is the most commonly given advice. i have always found it true but incomplete, because on the face of it this kind of focuses a little too much on volume. which by itself just isn't going to do that much for you, or it will, but it'll do it very slowly and ineffectively, because the second part of this advice i don't see nearly as much (and the part that makes it work for me) is that after you read or write something you need to do The Why Interrogation. what are you looking for?

when you like something, why do you like it? not just in terms of copying and learning an author's stylistic quirks or techniques, but in a more abstract way:

is it the narrative? that the premise is novel, that the progression of the story is unexpected and thrilling, that the stakes are high?

is it the characters? what is it about them? do they have compelling backgrounds? does the author spend a lot of time in their heads? is the pov internal in a way that lets you experience the story from their shoes? does their biased narration tell you more about them? or is it a detached narration that lets you see the characters in a way they don't see themselves, so the gap is intriguing?

is it the telling? maybe the prose is beautiful - what makes it so? sentence structure? unconventional use of grammar and punctuation? elegant, sophisticated vocabulary? or maybe the dialogue is sharp and human so conversation flows naturally. is the story paced carefully? does the author linger more in certain moments?

the same exercise is useful for what ISN'T working.

if your attention is drifting, what's making it drift?

purple prose? clumsy prose?

does the narration drag?

do the characters feel stagnant, and why?

plot doesn't make any sense?

maybe this sounds obvious, but imo it's a crucial piece of the advice that i just don't see as much because people tend to focus on volume of works consumed/created. the reflection and analysis is what makes that volume useful, otherwise you're just churning through content. the question should always be why, why, why. why did that work, why didn't it work, why did i like this, why does it suck. then proceed to: if i were doing this, how could i make it work?

advice 2: don't forget that all the words you need already exist.

this is more subjective advice. this is something that works for me personally. so ymmv. have you ever tried magnet poetry? you should try magnet poetry.

i always see writing as kind of a puzzle. if i have an idea in my head, the idea exists. the job is actually a translation exercise: how do i express the thing in my head as a thing other people can see? in this way it's like visual art, but it's also not like visual art at all. in visual art you choose where all the lines and colours go, completely freely. any line you draw is a brand new line.

in language, all your parts already exist. all the words already exist. (you can make new ones if you want but that's a whole different thing.) you are plucking symbols out of a collective understanding. it is like lego. all you are doing is selecting the most effective pieces and placing them in order. so for me, i am simply trying to find the 'right' words to fit each context as best as possible. it becomes a game of arrangement, which determines your expression.

then syntax and punctuation become your rhythm, which is how you determine flow. sentence length, word length, whether you omit words or use more, whether you want to be a bit unconventional. character also plays into this - i am not writing an advice 3 because i am getting self conscious but advice 3 would have been consistency of voice.

so i would prioritise vocabulary and timing. what are you trying to say (which words do you pick) and how do you want the reader to experience your words, how do you want the words to feel and sound (how will you pace your sentences)? remembering that all the parts are already there. it is the world's biggest game of magnet poetry.

advice 3 which doesn't exist: keep your voice consistent.

this advice doesn't exist. im not writing this i got embarrassed and stopped at 2. but if i did write this it would say, remember who you are. (remember who is writing your story. are you a character or are you god? remember how much you know. remember which feelings you have access to.)

[d3lly1000]

I finally watched Sonic 3!!!!! (IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE)

I had been holding back so I could talk without worrying about spoilers, but I think I can now comment on my general opinion of the movie.

There will be spoilers, so you have been warned!

I’ll admit that I found the first act a bit rushed. I understand that they had a lot of characters to “reintroduce” and new ones to add (especially Shadow), but I felt a bit lost with what was happening—it was really convenient how the script handled a lot of things just to get to the point.

For example: Shadow attacking in Japan with no real explanation, Rockwell quickly finding Sonic and the others. Even Commander Walters showed up just to explain what happened in the past, only to die unexpectedly right after. Even though he's not a particularly memorable character, I felt like his death didn’t carry the weight it should have, even for Team Sonic who witnessed it.

There was also the fact that a lot of what happened in the first act had already been revealed in the trailers and TV spots, which kind of deflated my excitement, knowing what was going to happen. But as I said, things were happening so fast that I couldn’t process all the information right away! XD

I have to say, I absolutely love the interactions between all the characters. The relationships and how they were developed felt so unique to me. I’ve always had the headcanon that Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic acted like siblings, and in the movies, I got to witness that in a meaningful and very loving way (shoutout to Tails saving Sonic and Knuckles protecting them, my boys <3).

One of my favorite scenes is definitely the argument between Knuckles and Sonic, as it really shows their maturity. It shows how much they are changing with each movie, which is so valuable to me because it demonstrates that the characters are really learning from their experiences. In a franchise, this deepens their moral journey and enriches who they are — it’s truly wonderful.

Speaking of siblings, I can’t not talk about Maria and Shadow. Right from the beginning, I could already feel the heartache hearing Live and Learn in an acoustic version. I think for fans who know how iconic this song is for the franchise, the idea that MARIA COULD HAVE BEEN THE ORIGINAL COMPOSER of it (at least in the SCU) hits so hard.

The narrative of Shadow talking about Maria always moved me, and the film managed to emphasize what she meant to Shadow in such a sweet way. Seeing the scene where Shadow recalls the day of the accident and then carrying the Eclipse Cannon gave me chills.

The parallels between Sonic/Shadow and Tom/Maria were something I was really looking forward to! The franchise often makes these types of comparisons between characters, not just in the games but also in the movies. As I mentioned before, I think this makes everything richer — it gives you a new perspective and helps you understand the complexity of characters by revisiting the "same memory" through a different person. I love when they do that!

ABOUT THE FIGHT SCENES, ALL OF THEM. I was breathless! I have to confess I was cursing A LOT during the third act. It was so epic, something you wouldn’t even think you'd see! Super Form battles were such a great concept for the situation, seeing Sonic get so angry really fed my fan dream of seeing him want to destroy everything XDD. Shadow literally crushed him, both physically and mentally. He REALLY IS THE STAR of this movie. The whole year was his. And he delivered in every possible media!

((I screamed so much when they did the pose, Live and Learn, it was so epic.))

Jim Carrey’s performance is always amazing. I’m still stunned at how naturally Gerald and Eggman felt together. It really seemed like a completely different actor, and that’s insane! I think the only thing I wish we’d seen more of was scenes between Gerald and Maria in the past, but who knows, maybe they’re planning something for a "Shadow solo spin-off."

The light shines, even when the star dies. – I was already emotionally losing it inside, there were just so many things to process.

AND THE POST-CREDITS SCENE HAUSFHSAIFHGVSNUHGUSAHGUSAH

OK OK I’M >TOTALLY< NORMAL ABOUT MY BABIES

Literally my two FAVORITES showed up. METAL WILL BE THE MAIN VILLAIN, I have so many theories and DEFINITELY it will be an adaptation of Heroes and CD. I CAN'T WAIT to see him in action, the whole Artificial vs. Natural thing is something that really resonates with me in the rivalry between him and Sonic.

AND HAUSHFUASFHUASFH AMY MY GIRL!!!

She’s so cool, she appeared in SUCH A UNIQUE way, the cracked moon in the background, revealing herself by taking off the hood... I can’t wait to see her in 2027... I need it so much aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I definitely loved the movie a lot. I still want to rewatch it in English since I saw it dubbed in my language, but I think I’d give it an 8.5/10 or 9/10! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE!! I’m still shaking remembering the action scene sahufzahghaghs

[princesscolumbia]

As someone who writes about aliens, I'm just going to say it's not a big spiritual deep-dive to write about them, either. Space aliens, illegal aliens, trans-universal/timeline aliens, cybernetic beings that are technically alien life...you name it, you can write about it with research and...

(Goddess help me, I just used a Spongebob meme!)

There's a post that circulates about how Tom Clancy has never served in the military but writes remarkably accurate military fiction. When asked, he explains that it's pretty much just him thinking through, "What would happen if abc did xyz? How would we handle it through a military lens?"

Of course, this requires that you put enough in your head so you can think through these kinds of questions in a logical and reasonable way, so this, also, requires research. It won't always look like what you think it does.

I have a project that (minor spoilers for those reading my stuff) has a plot thread that concludes about 400-600 years from now where humans are basically hybrid beings, nearly equal parts nanite and organic tissue. Not cyborgs, the synthetic bits aren't something added in, they're born with them, having received both the genetic material AND the nanites from their parents. By the time they're born, the nanites from both parents have reconfigured to be unique to the child's nanites as an amalgam of the nanites from both parents. The nanites basically make the humans immune to any previously encountered disease, repair ALL damage, even just the damage caused by aging, and allow the human to learn to control the nanites to directly shape their own body. In this transhuman future, the human consciousness isn't even necessarily confined to that particular body because it lives just as much in the nanite swarm as it does in the blob of tissue that forms the organic parts of the body, so even the total obliteration of the physical form isn't necessarily lethal so long as they have a connection to a network and enough time to escape through that connection. (Surprise ground-zero nuclear explosion or teleportation to the center of a star would do it, but even said nuclear explosion could be escaped with a fast enough network connection.) Said network connection can be always on, and for most people it is, simply because it gives them access to all of the rest of humanity no matter how alone they may be IRL. Since the nanites are simply part of the person's entire framework of who they are, the build instructions for new nanites would be constantly updated in the person's...person-hood framework in their consciousness 'blob' on the network. If the person had to do this kind of jump, they'd simply find the appropriate machinery connected to the 'net to build their nanite swarm, which would then seek out the appropriate organic components to build them a new body and they just move into that.

While I was workshopping this as an end-point for this particular series, I stumbled onto a series on ScribbleHub that...sadly seems to have languished, because I'd love to see how the stories in the series end! But, the central premise is about humans making first contact with an alien intelligence that is based on mycelium. They're a complex multicellular life form that exists in a networked-by-default state. The individuals exist inside a collective consciousness as distinct individuals and have their own cluster of cells in the colony, but they have a somewhat loose relationship with the physical world because they can simply grow custom tailored bodies from the cellular colony and then inhabit said body, break it off, then go about their business. They can sever their connection completely or keep it going remotely, and everything we would do with tech and tools they do by just growing whatever tech and tools they need from their own collective cellular mass.

The two ideas smashed together in my head and I realized something...

Individuals exist untethered from a single corporeal form

They live connected to others as both a community thing and a survival thing

They can exist as nothing but a concept but prefer to be tethered to a physical form, regardless of how instantiated it is or how big or small the physical form is

They can build themselves bodies from the ground up so long as the resources and network connection exists

The smallest unit of survival for propagation is a single cell. Sure, that single cell may not be able to do much and may not be connected to the collective, but it can replicate, and from that replication, create enough more of itself to rebuild an entire civilization if necessary

The collective is just as important and invaluable as the individual and everyone in the community is incentivized to maintain their collective since that's where they keep all their stuff. (And by "stuff" I mean "all the memories and experiences and everything that makes me 'me' is at least backed up in part of the complete whole of all the everything else about my people and my community")

Their perspective shifts from time scales of years and decades to centuries and millennia

Life experiences and knowledge and even basic empathetic understanding can be transmitted to others easily because it's just data and data can be copied and sent easily

I realized that between what Murbellass and I wrote, there's a convergent evolution happening on the galactic scale.

It all comes back to crab mushrooms.

(While this creates an interesting setting, I didn't really have anything but the setting until @machoestofmen showed me some humanoid automata monsters from Dragon Quest XI that trap creatures in the cages that make up their lower halves and look like dresses and they suggested, "What if this but forcefemme?" and I'm all, "Sounds like a mechanical version of HDG...wait..." and now I've got ANOTHER damn plot bunny in my head where all of these ideas come together in a story that takes place about a thousand years from now...)

MY POINT is...I don't know any mushroom people. To the best of my knowledge, no mycelium are connected to the Internet for me to ask, "Hey, how does this work for you?" But I don't have to. By exposing my mind to new stories, new ideas, new things to research that I've never encountered before, I'm able to imagine how such things might happen, what occurs when xyz meets abc, and then extrapolate the 'What happens next?!' from there.

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

[honey-minded-hivemind]

How are the gargoyles reacting when they first find out about Dragon and that they are lost clan? And how do they feel about Brooklyn being buddies with them?

How does Brooklyn feel when he finds out about Dragon being his...sibling, I guess? Cause he likes them sure, but he's not dumb. He knows there is a wall there. They like him and enjoy his company, but they hide a lot from him and for good reason. Do the reasons no longer matter now that they are family in his eyes, or is he still conflicted on what is going to happen to the kind human who rescued him out of the water, simply because it was the right thing to do?

Goliath, watching Reader and Brooklyn hang out from far away: I don't trust them.

Goliath, seeing Reader glare at someone: Omg, that's my child. I didn't trust my child. What is wrong with me?

Okay, good questions!

One, when they find out Reader (Dragon) is lost clan, they're now trying to get them to join but aren't taking no for an answer. They feel they should have realized sooner.

They react to Brooklyn amd Reader being buddies with suspicion, as it seems odd a human would save one of their's... But then again, this human also goes out of their way to spend time with Brooklyn, and don't bother asking him questions about the clan, if anything, theu avoid those questions... They'd much rather ask his favorite color, or how high he can climb, or if he wants to see a few statues in the park... So they begrudgingly will have them watch out for them... Except seeing such a small human, a young one too, on their own... It doesn't sit right with them... Were they abandoned? Or cast out? Is anyone looking out for them? Hmmmm... They'll need to keep a closer eye on them then... Perhaps Elisa or Matt or Xanatos or Fox can talk with them, find out what's going on...

Brooklyn finds it a bit spooky, or world-shaking, that Dragon, his odd friend, is also one of his lost hatchmates from a thousand years ago, the one that was murdered... On the one hand, that's spooky and scary and feels too close to the Magus and magic for comfort... On the other hand, they're someone he used to know and love, so that means they aren't lost forever, he can see them again, they're back! ... But on the third hand, what about, well, Dragon? They're their own person or gargoyle or whatever they are now, and he loves them too. He doesn't want them to stop being Dragon, but he also wonders if they'd remember him or their other brothers or Goliath and Hudson amd Demona... He feels it's like with Elisa amd Xanatos and Fox and Matt, right? Sure, they're human NOW, but they used to be gargoyles, they just have those memories buried... So nothing has to be given up or sacrificed to have both, right? All in all, he feels very confused and worries if there's any right choice for this matter...

Of course he knows he and Dragon aren't completely honest with each other. They avoid talking about where they live or their families or what goes on when they aren't seeing each other and playing around or trying to find new places to hang out and look for stuff. He knows they fear the others, and that there's a slight fear of him... but he feels the same towards them. So it's fair, right? It isn't healthy exactly to worry so much about what could hurt them or come after the both of them... but they tend to push that aside and try to do something fun. Climbing brick walls or old statues, see who can find a hidden item the fastest, challenge each other to hide and seek, and every now and again go fishing... So no, maybe they're not completely honest... but for what it's worth, he likes them, and they like him. They're both trying, and that's all they can do. He appreciates they don't talk about him to other humans much... but he can't help but tell Goliath and the others about them. He worries about them, especially since while sure, it's fun to have someone who isn't afraid to wrestle or jump from heights or climb things, that isn't normal human behavior, is it? And where do they go when he leaves? Are they safe? Are they warm? Are they eating? So he found it best to voice those concerns to the others... He just hopes it doesn't come back to bite him...

Goliath and the others grow just a bit fonder each time they hear a new escapade that Brooklyn and his odd human friend went on, and start to grow worried themselves. Perhaps they need to finally step in... Make themselves known... Or at least offer shelter if they're in need of it...

What they don't expect is to smell the scent of clan on them, or how their glare and their laugh sound like Goliath's... or how small they are, compared to the world around them...

[moviememokeeper]

OK HEAR ME OUT

Reca's s/o is a orchestra director hcs

plot twist? they don't look like one like idk hair a little messy, bags under the eyes etc just like the complete opposite,

but when they are in their element? they do ✨incredible music✨ just reca sitting there just going "BRAVOOO" "AMAZING" or something lol

I am in love with this idea honestly I love the idea of Reca having an s/o that does music in general it's so fun

anyway

when he first found out about your job he was very pleasantly surprised

he's always loved listening to music but can not play an instrument or write a piece to save his life

so he had a lot of respect for you from the get go

when he first went to one of your concerts he was even more in awe

seriously, it took ever piece of him not to start shouting and clapping midway through

after the show this man will hug you so tight you'll struggle to breathe. he does it impulsively.

he also will not. shut. up. about how much he loved it, how great of a director you are, etc.

even after you two start dating this behaviour does not stop

he's your biggest cheerleader

at home, when he sees you write music, he notices that you're quite relatable when working...

by which I mean, messy hair, eyebags, paper everywhere, running on 3 hours of sleep and 27 shots of espresso

yeah, now he's starting to understand why assistant director gets worried about him all the time...

so he starts paying more attention to you - not that he didn't already do this, it's just that he wants to make sure you take care of yourself

constantly reminding you take a break and drink some water

depending on what kind of person you are it might take a while for you to catch on

at times, when he notices you're tired but refusing to stop working, he'll just pick you up and carry you to bed so you can cuddle and maybe fall asleep in his arms

when you're having a creative block he'll do anything he can to help you find some inspiration for your next piece, after all he knows the feeling all too well and is very aware of how frustrating it can get

he also just adores hearing you play music at home when you're working on a new piece, it does not matter how many times you play the same bit over and over, he adores it

that's all I've got for now, feel free to tack on more if you can think of any :3

edit to add: Ranpo pfp spotted - I love bsd

[mirx-xko-offical]

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of body swap fics

the idea of you swapping bodies with someone like Rook you stressing out hard and rook having the time of his life gaining a deeper understanding of you

not to mention the fact the beastmen and merboys avoid ‘Rook’ like the plague and r very off scared of ‘your’ new personality

this lady’s, gentlemen and, our other gendered friends, is a amazing idea. I’ve never written for Rook so this is going to be fun !!

prompt: Body swap

Content warnings- Second person pov, nothing romantic (honestly because I don’t know how I’d make this romantic tbh), Not proofread, Rook (and probably Vil) is probably OOC mainly because I haven’t written him before (and quite frankly don’t like him that much but please don’t come after me for it 🙏), probably short because I’m trying to finish it for once

You’d never expect to not only wake up in someone else’s bedroom but, to also be in their body too… The bad thing is that you seemed to swap with someone who has a certain stalker reputation. Oh how you wonder how you’d make it through the day. Hopefully he doesn’t do anything weird to your body.

You dress yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror before a certain housewarden walked in, seemingly checking in on the blond that your soul is currently in.

’Rook! There you are. Where were you this morning? You were meant to wake me up!’

He complains as you just stood there awkwardly, unsure how to explain the current situation you’re in.

‘That’s the thing…’

You mumble on, explaining how you weren’t the blonde he was looking for but instead the magicless human. He simply stood there before sighing.

‘Why must it always be you potato…’

‘I don’t know..’

You sulk for a while as you followed Vil around, so ready to get out of the blonde’s body. Speaking of the said blonde, what just is he doing while he’s in your body? You’d much rather not think of it…

You sigh as you walked into your potions class, the only class you really have with him. Everyone turning towards you suspiciously as you kept your head low, most of them not knowing about the swap of bodies.

You sit down at Rook’s usual desk, looking towards the doorway before finding Rook or rather you walk in with the amount of confidence you’d never have in your life.

You decide to just keep your head low and wait u til the end of class to confront Mr. Crewel about it.

You look up at the clock again, something you did often today it seemed. 5 minutes til the end… You thought to yourself, your mind always making sure you knew the time.

Time passed by slowly as if it was slowing down to a complete stop. You look at the clock again, reading the time. 3 more minutes…

Then those 3 minutes turned into 2 and finally I to 1. Most of the students by then were already packing up their stuff as Professor Crewel finished the lesson.

You sigh at the sound of the bell finally ringing, standing up from your seat before walking up to the professor. You glance over to see Rook do the same.

You were the first to speak, telling him about the entire situation through your awkwardness, looking up from his desk to see him nod, understanding what you were saying.

‘I am sure I have something for you pups.’

He hummed as she stood from his desk, walking over to a shelf, grabbing a potion with a small purple hue. He gave it to you both, telling you to simply drink it and you’d be back.

You look over to Rook, him giving you his signature smile before drinking it himself, giving you a nod to drink it as well.

You looked down at the potion before placing your lips against it, drinking it quickly as if almost out of desperation.

You gasp before feeling your vision fade before finding yourself opening your eyes, looking down to find yourself back in your own body. You look at Professor Crewel before nodding to him respectfully, walking out of his class with a thank you.

You’re sure that both you and rook had came to an agreement, to never have this happen again.

[thetadispatcher]

"It's fine, no harm done." Sure the interaction had been far more unpleasant for him, but it hadn't damaged him in anyway. It had merely left the sensitive sensors in his hand tingling and caused him to be forced to reboot, but the information he'd been forcefully given hadn't corrupted his memory or been corrupted itself.

He'd been able to make sense of and properly view the overwhelming amount of data once he'd come back online, the entire event had only taken a few seconds so Strasky didn't have the time necessary to start thinking he'd broken Dan. So, the android only had to deal with the man apologizing for not warning him sooner, and for the things he'd been forced to witness.

Dan was just glad he now had a system to keep Strasky from getting worked up over seeing the androids Brent was currently building. He only had to get someone to distract the man well Brent preformed the functions test on them as that caused the skin to activate, making it harder for Strasky to look at them and keep his composure. So he had Sixty play the distraction as Brent preformed the test on the newly completed android.

Sixty did as he'd been silently instructed to do, he began fiddling with something breakable which caused Strasky to quickly try to get the item away from him. The RK800 played keep away with the man until Brent shut the android down and set it aside with the first one, then he let Strasky snag the glass decoration from him and set it back on the shelf.

"I estimate this will take an hour to complete the entire order, now that the new computers are here." Brent responded calmly, he was clearly used to dealing with impatient humans given how well he handled the behavior. "If you wish to, you can join the military units in the dining room. I believe they are playing a card game, one where you win by lying. So it should be entertaining for you, even if you cannot join in on one of their more extreme rules." The JB300 felt Agent Bishop would likely enjoy the games the military units played, even if he couldn't use the tool they did to weaken and shut down most of their functions.

Personally, he didn't understand why they liked to play something that was a less extreme version of roulette, but as long as it kept them entertained he wouldn't judge.

Vincent glanced at his black and purple uniform as Peter giggled to himself, he wasn't as accustomed to the human's strange behavior as Dan was. So, the AP700 would find himself frequently trying to understand the odd and cryptic things the human said to him. He only stopped when Dan mentally reminded him that it was best to just brush it off, seeing as Peter likely just found noting Vincent's favorite color funny due to being under the influence of the painkillers.

The yellow and red of Vincent's LED shifted to blue as he looked up at the other android, clearly finding his presence comforting as his stress levels fell significantly. He held up the crochet wolf he'd just finished outfitting with a yellow rain coat, silently waiting for the other's opinion on it as the yellow returned to his blue LED.

"Sometimes I make notes on the more absurd things he says, they range from questionable to outlandish. Usually they're just things he blurts out well upset. Although I don't know if most would make sense as a fortune, or if people would want quotes from the guy who told Elijah Kamski to suck his dick." Dan felt androids would like Peter more due to him telling off the whole of Cyberlife, and the boy had enough humans that didn't like him supporting androids.

"'I'm the video game boy, I'm the one who wins.' Is a personal favorite of mine in terms of things he's yelled at me because I was beating him. He's also tried to convince me clearly broken controllers weren't actually broken, 'the exposed wires help it breathe better' was an interesting one. I could go on, but some of my favorites are just from him forgetting I'm not a human, or just how common it is for him to crack himself up."

Dan chuckled slightly as he glanced at Peter, who'd finally passed out in his arms. He still knew better then to put him to bed as Peter would wake up the moment he couldn't hear the beating of the PL600's thirium pump and his pump regulator, it was a sound he noted calmed Peter and provided him comfort.

"It took me a bit to get used to how much he screams, but that's probably due to my own experiences with it." Daniel piped up, he had grown accustomed to Peter's rage fits and how they were harmless to him. "Now, I find it funny to watch him loose his mind over something like chess. I never knew someone raising their voice at me would be amusing."

Sixty turned to Willow once he was certain he'd no longer be need, excitedly motioning for her to follow him, so he could finally show her the room where they stored whatever Vincent made during his visits.

"Empathy is a wonderful gift." Willow said, eyeing Dan, "Perhaps I should have mentioned to be careful while handling Strasky."

It was hard to ignore the structure gel going off now that she knew what to be on the lookout for. She was glad all that information being dumped on him at once had not caused him to overload like it did with the brain scans.

Deviants were simply built different perhaps.

"In other words, we have commissioned a young genius who must be kept on a leash." Bishop mused.

"You keep yours in a jar." Rook pointed, getting a confused look from the android, "Do you even have to ask?"

"Not at all." He shot Bishop a skeptic look, before heading back to where Vincent was.

Bishop crossed his arms, "So, how much longer do we have to wait? There is work I have to get back to."

"You guys should write down what he says and put it in fortune cookies." Rook suggested, "It's so cryptic everybody would love them."

[zeiat]

sorry i know i already reblogged the post yesterday to point out the error but every time i see that screenshot from counter craft that misrepresents the source of the quote about publishing and tiktok hashtags on my dash it has thousands more notes than before and it makes me feel insane. tumblr misinformation in action.

also i follow counter craft, which is how i heard about the romantasy plagiarism scandal at all, and once i'd read the actual new yorker piece about it i was kind of furious at lincoln michel (counter craft guy). he clearly didn't even read the article beyond MAYBE skimming a couple of sections of it, and he took an already overblown situation and used it as a soapbox to complain about people creating "slop" instead of "art". which, like:

was completely unrelated to the actual situation, really

was insulting to at least one of the authors involved, for whom the new yorker piece described the writing of her """slop""" novel as a deeply personal act she did for herself following the loss of a child and the premature birth of another

represents the same old pearlclutching about romance novels that's been happening since time immemorial

like, a big part of his argument hinges on the fact that the novel that contains alleged plagiarism was collaboratively written by four people to meet a tight deadline while creating a product with mass commercial appeal. lincoln michel insists that this must have created "slop" and argues that that SOMEHOW has something to do with AI. i think a co-written novel sounds pretty cool, actually, and it's a relatively common thing in the romance industry, especially in self-pub (which this was not, but it's the same market). co-written by four human beings also means it was very explicitly not AI.

also, like...he's raging against the idea of novels written specifically to have mass commercial appeal. why are we singling out romance as a genre for this? james patterson exists. there are also dozens of authors whose names are slapped on bad ghostwritten thrillers that sell like crazy and can be reliably found in airport bookstores. (my dad reads those kinds of books exclusively.)

art created for mass appeal has existed for at least as long as capitalism has existed. this is not a new phenomenon. this is not an AI problem. it is also not a tiktok problem.

[ki-kink]

hi, I like your work, which I discovered 2 days ago. I am an obese person, blue eyes, blond hair with glasses without a beard. Can you turn me into a person, who by drinking a black liquid becomes muscular and dressed from head to toe in black latex outfit. Thanks !

You are no longer sure whether you really should have registered for this test series at the Institute of Biochemistry. The consent form would have been ten pages long if you had printed it out. Actually, you're only here because you were told there would be an expense allowance. And something to eat. You're actually always hungry. And there really is a kind of buffet. With energy drinks and protein bars. You would have preferred cake or something.

A guy calls you into the meeting room. He looks like he lives in the gym. You've got those types where your muscles twitch every time you breathe. You once read that the word muscles comes from the Latin word for little mouse. Because it looks like there are mice running under the skin. That's exactly what the guy looks like.

He's leafing through the completed questionnaire. Makes a note every now and then. Looks at you, looks at the questionnaire again. Puts the questionnaire to one side. He looks deep into your eyes. “You are perfect for our requirements. Do you really want to be part of the experiment?” You swallow and nod. He offers you his hand. Damn, his handshake feels like a vise. He opens a drawer and takes out a vial. “Break off the head and swallow the contents in one gulp. Do not rinse.” You take the ampoule. You break off the head. The liquid suddenly turns black. “Swallow quickly” shouts the guy. You pour the contents down your throat and swallow. The liquid looks thin. But it feels oily and velvety as it trickles down your throat. And the last drop on the edge of the ampoule has solidified. A black rubber pearl.

You feel good. Fit. Full of energy. Cool! You wouldn't have expected an effect so quickly. You just want to get up. The guy pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. Holds the screen up to you like a mirror. You freeze. Your neck is black and shiny. And the black and shiny spreads out. Chin, shoulders… You can feel it covering your body. And the muscles beneath the black surface begin to dance. Little mice. And then less little mice. Veritable rats dance under your skin. Your T-shirt gets so tight. You look at your hands. It looks like you're wearing latex gloves. The T-shirt hurts. You rip it off your body! You rip your pants off your body. You groan loudly. And then you faint.

“You'd better put this on” The guy is standing in front of or better above you. You're lying on the floor. He has a pair of shorts, a belt and a gas mask in his hand. He throws you the shorts. “Not everyone has to see your beast." You raise your head. You have to straighten up because the black and shiny mountains of muscle on your chest are blocking your view. Something that looks like a monstrous black dildo sticks out between your legs. You reach for it. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck” No, it's not a dildo. Black latex is dripping out of your rock-hard cock. You laboriously tuck the monster into your shorts. And without asking or thinking, you put on the gas mask.

You are the prototype of a new bionically optimized special forces unit. Optimized for use in NBC combat missions, but also for rescue missions in extreme situations. Your physical characteristics are perfect for this. Your only problem is between your legs. You are always horny. As you shouldn't be. The feeling of running your hands over your skin would give any man a hard-on.

[mission-light-if]

Mission Light - Update 08.01.2025

Hey, it’s me again after a long time. Happy New Year, by the way!

A lot has happened—uni started again and I had a writer’s block throughout November and part of December. I’m way behind where I wanted to be, but things finally getting better. I’m almost finished with the prologue now. I had planned to release the second part in October, but here we are. It took longer than I wanted, but oh well.

I plan to be more active here in 2025 and write more, even though it’s going to be a busy year for me.

I always plan too big and end up overwhelmed by my ideas and tasks, which causes me to freeze and do nothing. So, I cleaned up my ideas and to-do list for the story and cut some things. It would have been cool to include them but I’m just one person and the prologue is already way bigger than I expected—160,000 words (including code, with some repeated passages, so it’s not really 160,000, but that’s what Twine says).

I had to compromise. Maybe that’s why the prologue seems a bit messy to me right now, but I’m working on cleaning it up and improving it.

I’ve decided not to promise release dates anymore because I often can’t meet them. Chapters, updates and content will come when they’re ready. However, some of you might have noticed that I updated my Tumblr blog and the itch.io game site.

I’ve realized that I get frustrated or hit writer’s block when I don’t immediately feel a sense of success, probably due to my ADHD. Sometimes, I get so frustrated that I want to abandon the whole project. But each time, I get mad at myself because I want to prove that I can finish something—that I can finish this and stay consistent without changing my interests and projects every week.

To help with that, I’m considering weekly updates on my progress in 2025. It won’t be much—maybe a few hundred/thousand words per week—but it might help me staying motivated. I would still make bigger announcement posts when a chapter is complete, so that those who prefer to read completed/finished chapters can wait for that. But we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve also done more character art and CGs and I’ve updated my art style. I’ll be posting those in the future. I also plan to write some short stories or prompts. I know I haven’t been consistent in answering questions, but please send them if you have any—it really helps me stay motivated when people engage with my work.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading, and thank you so much.

Take care,

Jakob (yes, I changed my name, haha)

[askhezureviews]

no spoilers/specifics but when you get to Ghostfuckers it becomes so obvious Brandon is doing the writing again

it's the closest helluva has gotten to its season 1 self in all of s2, and it's still not fantastic, if I'm being honest

there's only so much he can do to right the ship

ep11&12 ping right back into Goetia melodrama, because of course

OKKKKkkkk finally sat down and watched this episode!

Hey! Look, it's like, their first actual job in forever!!! They're actually going to the human world again, great!

I'm very relieved Brandon was brought in to rewrite this. I know some Viv fans were upset about the leaks, but I think it was actually a good thing these leaked and sparked enough outrage for Viv to cave in and change it because Millie unaliving herself for being a bad wife is completely inappropriate. I'd personally feel ashamed and embarrassed if I had wrote that. She claimed they had plans for Millie, that she will get her episode in season 2, but she didn't. Even with Brandon's assistance here, she really didn't. I'd say those leaks are proof she lied to her audience, however... at this point, Vivziepop is merely not self aware of her writing and doesn't comprehend the stereotyping she does to her own characters and their stories. So I don't think she lied, she's unable to comprehend that she isn't delivering on what she claims she will.

The episode establishes: -Blitz's business is now bankrupt. He has not paid his employees in over a month. -Wally Wackford knows IMP and hangs out with them?? / wants to hang out with them?? -Ghosts aren't real in Helluva / Hazbin universe -There's infestor demons that eat off angst I guess? First time we're ever seeing one

Seems like a good portion of this episode is a scooby doo reference. The montage scene was unnecessary, you could have cut it for time / budget.

~~~

Regarding Millie: She claims the most screen time, but this episode actually isn't about her. The main focus is on Blitz. It's Blitz's trauma, Blitz's pain, Blitz's melodrama, and she just happens to be on screen dealing with it. We get a small pinch of something, but I'll talk about it after this analysis:

Millie asks Loona to take care of Moxie for her. These two still haven't passed the bechdel test yet. The only thing I recall them talking about outside of the men in their life is when Loona takes a jab at Millie's age in season 1, which also isn't ideal.

Millie claims she "always has fun with Blitz" and that he is her "best friend" which is news to the audience. This is the first time they've ever hung out in an episode. "I've never had a real friend that I didn't wanna f*ck." But you DO want to f*ck her. Earlier in the episode, he had Millie punch a card he's used frequently. Unwavering loyalty in exchange for leaving Moxie and Millie alone on 1 date. In a single episode he seems to have changed his mind quite suddenly and I'm unsure why.

Millie's backstory is chalked up to "She left the farm to become a hitman in Wrath. The market for assassin's is actually inflated in Wrath, it's high competition, so she was in between jobs. Blitz finds her after she stole their kill, and offers to pay her double. She accepts (Even though he went back on this, he does not pay her double. In fact, she barely gets enough to survive between both her and Moxie.)" She's hired by IMP to do various assassin jobs, and then Blitz decides to move to a different ring and use humans as their new clientele. This is an extremely smart move for his business, because there's quite literally zero competition for this. Millie for some reason thinks she "won't fit in"(??? you don't need to?) because imps are only good for their muscle" This doesn't make sense for Millie to say here. If anything she should have been more insecure staying in Wrath BECAUSE she would be actively compared to the higher competition of her birthplace. Here, they've hit a gold mine.

"Blitz, you made me realize I could be anything! Not just a simple farm girl or underpaid goon." But you are. Millie IS a simple farm girl and underpaid goon. Assassins are extremely common jobs for imps in wrath. She has not subverted people's expectations nor does she have a unique job to that of an imp.

"My mom said sweat, blood, and hard work washes the tears right off!" - Okay now THIS is the first piece of Millie development we have received in perhaps ever!! This implies that Millie's mother/family were emotionally unavailable to her as a child. That whenever she was upset/miserable, she was taught to bury her sadness with work. Which indicates she's a workaholic who probably needs therapy / has trouble expressing emotions properly. This would be a direct cause/effect action that shaped her into who she is today. This is an actual real Millie moment, and it comes from a passing comment. I don't think the writers caught on to what they did here, but THIS is good Millie development! THIS is a genuine character trait that is all hers!

~~~

Some stuff that did get a genuine chuckle out of me:

"I should have been a theater critic, I have objectively correct opinions!"- Moxie , It's also nice to see Moxie attempting to be the brains of the operation again, trying to solve their financial crisis, even if there's no way to save it.

"Your husband is still a little fuckable." - That actually made me laugh too despite the context being a little confused

Anyhow, overall the episode felt like it could have been 15 min long. They should have shortened it. We didn't really get much Millie backstory or character development. Instead of being insecure about her womanhood due to stereotypes(bad wife), she's now insecure about her race/species due to stereotypes (inbred brute). It's still not the best, but it's better than the leaked storyboard. Otherwise the entire episode was basically Blitz wanting to fuck a ghost. Also Blitz's trauma... again. Felt like filler you could frankly delete.

[rey-jake-therapist]

So I keep reading that Sauron and Galadriel couldn't have spent sexy times together because it would have bound Sauron to his form, which I'm pretty sure is wrong, so I searched Google and found something funny dating from 2013. 'Couldn't not share it.

"Sex as means to reproduce.

My answer depending on what that s-word means: I. Couple Glue: Sauron: Not interested in such thing. Wears only friend in his world on his finger until he looses both. Valar: They surely had a couple thingy. Tantric sex that Sting hasn't dreamt of or something. Maiar: Not as apparant as the Valar but probably yeah. II. Love pendant (Obsession) Sauron: The REAL baddies in Tolkien's world aren't some misunderstood emos (for which he has my respect). They don't love or obsesse over gals. EXCLUSION: While he was a blender, he might have faked it (if it was useful for him he would have). Valar/Maiar: Dunno. Probably. Possibly. They want the couple thingy, after all? III. Physical activity Sauron: Surely. I mean why not? And the time argument is irrelevant if we exclude the love/obsession/couple thing. Valar/Maiar: The ones that were happy to try new things surely… Unless it was binding to human form and/or the couple thingy was great enough. Wizards: The time argument holds, as they will also engage in a love/couple thingy. The old age probably protected them from it. Saruman, just as Sauron, was a complete Baddy: yeah he prolly did it. He even got new clothes, as he probably tried to tell himself that the women actually liked him for himself. IV. Reproduction Sauron: Deffo not. Immortals probably had some way to control this, as there was no overpopulation issue in ME. But he would probably kill his women and eat the babies before he conceives possible competition. Valar: Couldn't. If the tantric thing was also as good as sting thinks - lucky bastards. Maiar: Had probably something to do with choice."

To be clear, I didn't write this stuff: Source

More seriously, regarding the subject itself:

From Tolkien's essay Ósanwe-kenta, Vinyar Tengwar #39:

Here Pengolodh adds a long note on the use of hröar by the Valar. In brief he says that though in origin a "self-arraying", it may tend to approach the state of "incarnation", especially with the lesser members of that order (the Maiar). "It is said that the longer and the more the same hröa is used, the greater is the bond of habit, and the less do the 'self-arrayed' desire to leave it. As raiment may soon cease to be adornment, and becomes (as is said in the tongues of both Elves and Men) a 'habit', a customary garb. Or if among Elves and Men it be worn to mitigate heat or cold, it soon makes the clad body less able to endure these things when naked". Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a "spirit" (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hröa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving. "We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things. Nonetheless it appears to be an axan, or maybe necessary consequence, that if they are done, then the spirit must dwell in the body that it used, and be under the same necessities as the Incarnate. The only case that is known in the histories of the Eldar is that of Melian who became the spouse of King Elu-Thingol. This certainly was not evil or against the will of Eru, and though it led to sorrow, both Elves and Men were enriched."

So it's clearly said that the most binding is "begetting or conceiving", in other words: making babies. Melian lost the ability to change form ever again because she conceived Luthien, not because she had sex with Thingol (yeah I know that one event often leads to the other, but Elves are known for being able to decide when they want to conceive, and I presume it's the same for a Maia). And even in this case, in the text it's said that begitting and conceiving are the "most binding" things a Maiar can do, but it doesn't straight out state that it automatically involves losing their capacity to shapeshift... But then, Melian is the only example of Maia who had a child, and she remained in an Elf form.

Regarding everything that's not begetting/conceiving, it would take Sauron to use his hröa (his body) during a certain time before losing the capacity to shapeshift. And if I understand this text well, it would be the result of him getting attached to this hröa, in a way: he would be so used to this form that he would also lose the desire to leave it.

[wirewitchviolet]

The Big Lie of Transphobia

There is a lot of really horrifying transphobic stuff going on at the moment, even relative to the baseline. Like arrests and federal repression in the U.S. and don't even get me started on that new policy from Facebook and the propaganda amplification that's going to do. So you may find yourself wondering what you can do to help.

As always the real answer to that is to just give all the money and other material aid you possibly can to every trans person you are personally aware of. Individually. Don't look for a charity to donate to, there really isn't one. Make those patreon pledges and write those checks and empty those wallets and cosign for those houses, go!

But if what you're really asking is, what can you do that won't personally inconvenience you, the best thing you can probably do is to really internalize that the Big Lie backing up all the transphobia out there is a complete lie, and convince everyone else you can too. And what's the Big Lie behind transphobia? "Trans women are men who believe they are women." As usual with these, I'm going to expound on that a ton under the fold here.

It really is the lynchpin of everything transphobes have to push. If you don't believe it, none of the things they're pushing for makes even the slightest bit of sense, but if you DO believe it, even if you aren't all in on the other hate stuff, it's going to warp the hell out of your perspective and make you a crappy ally. And wow is it ever deeply embedded in there.

So for what it's worth, as a reminder, when people make statements like "trans women are women" that is stating an actual fact. That's not some weird feel-good slogan that "really" means "you should treat trans women like they are real women" or something. It's just what we freaking are. We aren't men who have some strange mental illness that makes us think of ourselves as women, we aren't people who start out as men and for some reason make some kind of decision to become women. We're just women, always have been, just like any other woman.

If you've met a number of trans women, you can very clearly and plainly see that's true, but the thing is, most people haven't. And the lie gets pushed damn hard. Most people's idea of what a trans woman is, and for that matter, most other things about life, comes from what they see in TV and movies and the like, and on those occasions where a work of fiction features someone they'll call a trans woman, they tend to get some dude to put on a dress to play the part, which is usually also some sort of weird crazy murderous sex worker. Movies and TV also tend to depict cars as prone to burst into massive fireballs if anything goes wrong with them, glass windows as something you can jump through without being sliced up so badly by the shards you're basically going to die instantly, police as caring helpful people who try to solve crimes and return people's stolen stuff and such, and people with albinism as having strange magical powers. None of this is actually true in reality.

So yeah, it's not even a little bit true. If you look at the people who insist the loudest that it is, you'll notice they are completely out of touch with reality and preach all kinds of ridiculous BS. Get it into your head that there isn't even a sliver of truth to it, and it's easier to get on the right side of a lot of things.

Are trans women trustworthy? Yeah? I mean, as much as the next person. Why wouldn't we be? Because some freaking weirdo is sharing all kinds of weird conspiracy theories and setting up weird freaking stalker shrines about us? Pretty clear who it is you shouldn't be trusting there.

Is it OK for trans women to play sports? Yeah? Why would that even be a problem? We don't have superpowers or anything. We're just regular freaking women. Well OK a lot of us have pretty nasty health problems leaving us a bit less physically fit than most women, but you know, doing athletic stuff should help with that.

Is it OK for trans women to use public restrooms? Yeah? Like honestly, I know a lot of guys get weird about women going to the bathroom in groups sometimes but there's nothing sinister about that, just sometimes you need to pull someone aside to ask if you can borrow some embarrassing thing or double check makeup or check if someone's date is as big a creep as they come off and you need to run interference. Mostly though people just need to pee sometimes, and society generally prefers that people do so in a toilet and not the street or whatever.

What about children being trans? Like... everyone's a child at some point? A lot of the downsides to being trans come from associated medical issues which can be totally prevented if spotted early, so it's actually very good to have kids look out for whether they might be dealing with those and get the appropriate medication, which is true for basically anything.

Well what about [whatever stupid BS derailment]? Yeah I'm addressing a group of people who actually need to have it explained to them that women are in fact women and not men, let's not go confusing people with whatever weird sidetrack you want to get onto.

[justwater4meeeeeeeeee]

hiii water!!

i just wanted to tell you a ginormous thank you for being my best role model <3 i was going to say that you're my biggest role model, but you're literally the opposite of that! i had this desire to binge a few nights ago, but i thought, what would water do? i watched some of your daily steps videos from tiktok, and omg my hunger disappeared faster than ever. it was actually insane how just how fast i snapped myself back into the good mindset.

so thank you for posting your tidbits of life and your motivating thoughts about 4n4!! seeing your posts about wieiads, steps, and daily thoughts helped me get out of a horrible binge cycle that lasted from august until december. i've been binge-free for the last 4 days, and even though that's a short amount of time in the long run, it's weird how i feel that i'm a completely new and different person. i'm thinking back to when i would binge everyday, and i just think it's insane that i was doing that, like that past version of myself wasn't me at all. idk if that makes sense tho

anyways that's my big thank you for being my role model! i'm also a ballet dancer so i find it really cool that you're so disciplined in your mind & your body, and i strive to be like you (not in a creepy way) <3

sending a giant bundle of hugs and love from norcal :) wishing you safety from the fires <33

I love you so much. I am speechless (and I always have something to say) your kind words mean the world to me, thank you so much for letting me know all this and it doesn’t matter that is only 4 days, it takes a lot of willpower to get out of the binge cycle, the hardest step is done, so so so proud of you<3