#but does data collection for fun

[sunny-daze-days]

I hate science! I don't want to do science! (Says the man going to school for science)

[nametakensff]

Hey guys, I'm a nerd and decided to keep track of my sneezes from 09/11/2023 to 09/12/2023 (excluding all induced/Chhinkni sneezes) and this is the breakdown

I sneezed a total of 446 times (again, excluding inducing etc) over 31 days

I sneezed 10 times a day on average more than any other amount

The lowest number of times I sneezed in a day was 5, the highest 42 - which meant there was a range of 37 sneezes from lowest to highest amount lol

The median number of sneezes a day was 12

And the mean number of sneezes per day was just over 14!

[bulletbilltime]

Oh y'all are sharing Spotify Wrappeds? Oh sure here's mine. I'm still waiting on my actual year-end list though. Yeah I'm making a homebrew year-end chart. Yeah it won't be ready for another 24 days. Yeah I use homegrown weekly data points harvested from local scrobble aggregators. Wait where did everyone go

[wheucto]

i was just going to say 'personalized advertizing' or something along those lines but ? ??? ? ? ? what ?? ??

[world-of-tomorrow-dreams]

Oh yeah it definitely felt drier than usual this year, this doesn't surprise me. @enbymetalhead and @lightineventide found that the "microgenres" were picked from user playlists, ie if a lot of your songs are found on user playlists with the words "pink" "pilates" "princess" well... that's where it comes from. Still AI to an extent, and it definitely would have been much better if there were more curators who cared about music.

Also I've been keeping up with my last.fm and a lot of the songs in my top 100 are just ...not accurate?? They're all songs I like at least, but having looked at my stats I have absolutely no idea what it counts as being "most played" (there's lots that didn't show up at all that should have been well within my top 50 and vice versa)

im genuinely convinced that they used ai for the monthly thing on spotify wrapped. what do you mean may was my "coastal grandmother ukulele oldies" phase. august was "pink pilates princess strut pop??" no one would say that september was my "sweater weather permanent wave indie" moment. no way we waited so long for this. multiple people and i also noticed that it took a few seconds longer than usual to load, maybe im just impatient but i wouldnt be surprised if that was ai preparing like all of it as i clicked through. spotify has been using a lot of ai lately with the playlist making, dj, playlist cover designer and now whatever this ai podcast thing is.

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 1 - The One About That Weird Ass Cressida Post

This is my first blog entry and, before you start reading, let me just drop in this little disclaimer: 

You will find that I bounce between fact and speculation with a mix of sarcasm and [I hope] level-headedness, common sense, and deductive reasoning.

I am a Lukola. Plain and simple. You will not change my mind. It’s an all or nothing thing for me. How I got here, I’m not exactly sure – wait, no I do know how I got here (thank you Nicola and Luke for being so fucking charming).

Of course, I knew what Bridgerton was before I joined the Lukola fandom. In fact, I watched both Seasons 1 and 2, and they were okay. Yes, just okay.

I knew that Season 3 was about Penelope – the only character I found remotely interesting – so when I saw an article on People’s page showing Nicola and her costar holdings hands, I admit I was intrigued.

Were they dating?

Let’s ask Mr. Google and find out.

No, apparently, they were not.

Okay, fine.

I then made the mistake of clicking on a video of Nicola and Luke being interviewed in Australia. And, motherfuck, they were like lightning in a bottle! Luke – being asked if he believed in friends to lovers – responded in a way that left me feeling a bit blindsided. My immediate thought was: “He fell in love with Nicola the moment he met her.” It’s funny how many people I’ve spoken to since who had an identical reaction and, to be honest, Luke’s response won’t make your heart flutter. But, it was something in the way he said it.

Now, let me explain my feelings about love at first sight. Actually, Nicola explained it best when she said lust at first sight is often mistaken for love at first sight. This, I agree with wholeheartedly. To me, love at first sight does not have to be lusty. It can be, sure, but it can also be something entirely different. Maybe it’s a fleeting feeling of recognizing someone in a way you cannot possibly articulate out loud. Maybe it’s a palpitation of your heartbeat. Maybe it feels like home. Regardless, when you experience it, you’ll know it.

That, my friends, is how I got here, and why I [sometimes begrudgingly] stay here – walking alongside this rather long, winding, and often pothole-filled road waiting for two people to admit to the general public – whether it be in a blatant or subtle manner – that they are, in fact, together.

I’ve noticed in this fandom we seem to have three types of people.  We have the Sincerely Ignorant, the Conscientiously Stupid, and the Fact Finders.

The Sincerely Ignorant are those that are easily persuaded. They are like sheep following their shepherd. In fact, the Sincerely Ignorant are the most dangerous as they tend to spiral hard and fast – and often without reason.

Next, we have the Conscientiously Stupid. These are the shippers that choose to live in error because it fits their narrative. We are all a bit Conscientiously Stupid but there are those that push an idea so hard that they omit certain truths from their storyboard. The danger here is obvious and their victims always include the Sincerely Ignorant.

Lastly, we have the Fact Finders. The people who track information – key players, side characters, dates, places, statements, etc. These are the people who often find themselves pulling the Sincerely Ignorant out of the water when they spiral, usually due to narratives being pushed by the Conscientiously Stupid.

I am a Fact Finder. Am I perfect? Fuck no, but I do find it fun to collect and analyze information and share it with my fellow Fact Finders. Plus, collecting data helps me maintain some indifference towards the USS Lukola because, let’s face it, this god-damned ship has been blasted by quite a few cannonballs at this point. Some days, I’m surprised we’re still afloat.

Let’s start with Cannonball No. 1. Pap-fucking-smear. June 12/13, 2024. What a fucking shit show. Who shows up to the London premiere? Antonia, Luke’s – I honestly don’t even know what word to use here because I have a lot of different thoughts but out of [a small amount of] respect I will call her – “girl friend�� [yes, that space was intentional]. We all know the story, Luke was papped outside his hotel with Antonia on premiere night and he was pegged an overnight dumpster fire.

And, oh my God, the Sincerely Ignorant and Conscientiously Stupid ran with it. I mean, they practically became wild dogs chasing down a fox under the command of Nicola the Huntsman. However, Nicola, almost immediately, came to Luke’s rescue by posting an “in support of” style story to her IG. I’m not saying Nicola wasn’t affected by this mishap. At the very least, the post-premiere PR efforts were dumped squarely on her tiny shoulders. At the worst, she’d had her heart broken.

I never liked the Papsmear pictures. Not because I disliked what they depicted but because there was something “off” about them. Luke didn’t look like a man happy to be out with his lady friend. He looked like a man who had been hoodwinked and whether that was because he knew he’d just made a major PR misstep or because he knew the narrative that would follow was false doesn’t really matter because it’s all speculative. But, what makes me believe it was the latter is what Luke did next.

On June 15, Luke put a story on his IG promoting Season 3. That isn’t all that interesting but the scene it depicted made me do a double take.

Could it be?

No…no way…

But…it was.

It was the scene in Ep. 6 where Cressida entered the Mondrich Ball and Colin pulled Penelope aside and told her he wouldn’t let Cressida ruin their evening.

What in the hot fuck? I mean, really, what in the hot fuck??

Did Luke really just blast out an IG story where his character tells Nicola’s character not to let the Cressida character ruin their evening? Was Cressida…Antonia?

Because that’s fucking loud.

I mean, of all the scenes over four episodes, Luke chose THAT one to promote Pt. 2?

Surely, Antonia or one of her friends or family members would have picked up on this, right? And, told Antonia.

No one is going to convince me that Luke and Antonia were in a blissful relationship after that IG story was posted. Why? Because the deductive reasoning part of my brain tells me Luke chose Nicola straight outta Pap-gate.

The Conscientiously Stupid may [rather they WILL] argue that it was just for PR. Okay, but that would mean Antonia accepted the comparison between Cressida, the Evening-Ruiner, and herself. Take a moment and put yourself in Antonia’s shoes. Would you accept this from your partner? (P.S. If you said yes, you have bigger problems in life than following real people’s relationships.)  We know Antonia accepted this role to some extent because we have evidence she attended events with Luke over the summer. So, what the fuck?

In my opinion, Luke’s IG story is a defining moment in the Lukola narrative, but one that was overlooked in June and one that continues to be overlooked – and ignored – now.

Luke’s character is telling Nicola’s character he won’t let another woman ruin their evening.

Let me repeat that again for you:�� Luke’s character is telling Nicola’s character he won’t let another woman ruin their evening.

Now wrap your head around that.

[lactoseintolerentswag]

Rise Characterizations Pt. 3!!!

Now that Leo and Raph are done, it's Donnie's turn for character analysis as a writing reference. So without further ado,

Donnie Character Notes

Language Habits:

Straight up talks like a redditor who hasn't touched enough grass (affectionate)

Oscillates between very scientific paper polished, sometimes adding a dazzle of shakespearean for dramatics, or abbreviations/a shorter version of a word with a more fun connotation (i.e. "brekkie" instead of breakfast)

Uses food as surprised exclamations or curses, "oh my peaches and cream", "banana pancakes!"

Emphasizes each syllable of a long word when he's excited or trying to make a point. Conquered becomes con-qu-ered

Either exaggerates his speech or speaks in deadpan

The science terms he uses as battle cries aren't chosen at random, but rather are related to the action/subject at hand, i.e. yelling "fibonacci" when throwing his spinning tech-bo

Will overly describe an item or a situation, and often gets caught up in these observations before processing what just happened

Will repeatedly yell "help!" when he's distressed and/or outnumbered

Refers to Mikey as "Michael"

Refers to his brothers as "brethren" or "gentlemen"

Refers to splinter as either "father", "papa", or "dad" depending on the weight of the situation

Refers to his tech as his "babies"

Answers the phone with, "You're conversing with Donatello"

Uses "gesundheit" instead of bless you

Personality:

The fixer, he supplies the family with tech and resources. He always has a trinket made for the situation at hand and/or offers his knowledge/data collected. He's always prepared to help. Even with outside resources, he likes to feel useful in solving their problems (i.e., building Todd that dog park)

The theater kid, in a similar vein to leo, Donnie has his own style of dramatics. He often uses shakespeare-like language, is mentioned to regularly recite the jupiter jim musical soundtrack, and has a music mode for his battle shell. He belongs on a stage, or at least thinks he does

Not good at lying, despite the glamour he can put on in the spotlight. This may be due to the side of himself that over explains his thoughts

An over-thinker, who really tends to over-complicate things. His first theory or idea will always be the most extreme buck-wild concept. After some filtering, he still word vomits

A dreamer/big idea guy. He does have big ideas and goals. A lot of these he's able to put into place, although some go a little haywire (see Albearto). He doesn't do things in halves, and puts everything into a project

Meticulous, someone who's very detail oriented. As mentioned before he tends to over-complicates things. This may be impacted by his love for data and collecting information (he does record Everything for a reason)

Always on the edge of violence, which is surprising. Donnie's not known as being the angry archetype of tmnt, but he can get a little violent in his fighting style and does often cite his desire to use lethal force

Low empathy, which is mainly due to his issues processing and recognizing emotions. He's been pegged as unemotional, but in canon he's rather emotional and expressionate, just lacking the skills to process such emotion (he's just like me fr)

Praise motivated, as seen with his interactions with Splinter. Also desires the praise of his brothers, who he doesn't feel understand him with all the teasing that's sent towards his direction. This also pushes him to seek validation and acceptance in other groups (i.e. the purple dragons), to feel a sense of security or belonging

Ignores his own mistakes, and will often pretend like they didn't exist or ever happen. This most likely has to do with his desire for praise, so he feels bad when he fails. If he never made a mistake, he never has to feel bad

Miscellaneous:

Fourth to unlock mystic powers

Uses "Bootyyyshaker9000" as most of his usernames and passwords, with his alt. username being "Alpha-Bootyyyshaker9000"

Has a fear of bees, spiders, and of course beach balls

Breaks the fourth wall the most

Loves the smell of pineapple, hates the texture

Has a hobby of rooting around in the junkyard and dumpster diving

Uses cheat codes in video games

Mikey's next of course :)

[proxycrit]

I love your au!!! I love how the hylian duo look like gremlins, I LOVE the expressions and sass constantly and the changes to the lore, the worldbuilding and also the emotions (OUCH). I love their relationship with purah and each other and the new champions. I love the depth you gave Yona and her relationship with Sidon and Mipha. I love how link feels comfortable talking to sidon in addition to sign, I don't know if he does that with anyone else but Zelda unless its absolutely necessary (eg: just launched out a cannon and is paragliding down, so hands are busy) (side note: i love how much of an adrenalin junky/gremlin he is!!)

I do got a few questions! Will the pair get the sheikah slate again (so say link has the slate and zelda the pad), and can both slates do the warping and item storage (food, ingredients, armor, weapons, etc) (if so: no WONDER link was so upset! His collection!)

Does link have access to the ultrahand abilities (ik you said not The ultrahand, but what about fuse or ascend or rewind etc?) Where is the mastersword??

Does Link still have the champions' abilities, or did he lose those when their spirits moved on at the end of botw?

I know these are a lot of questions but I can't stop thinking about it!! The last few updates sent me back rereading the whole au and now its just vibrating in my head and giving me no piece

This is long and rambly, just know I am very much enjoying this au! Its silly and fun and touching and cute. Thank you for working on it!!

Oo some notes (also ty for circling my au haha im glad other people fixate like i do)

(Prewarning— i did not finish totk despite putting triple hours in it, so a lot of this story is being written while playing, though i know the big broad strokes thanks to cultural osmosis and video essays. A lot of Familiar Familiar builds from my playthrough with BOTW over TOTK, so the sheikah influence is significantly stronger and I will always choose botw characterization over totk characterization as a result.)

That aside

1. Sheikah slate’s dead. Rest in pieces, link’s rare collectable korok poop. Purah’s extracting as much data as she can to put on the purah pad but you can see the dread in her eyes whenever she has to tell link resurrection is not possible.

2. No idea about the zonai arm powers yet— im thinking about ascend, but the longer i go through this story the less likely ill hand it to him just due to immersion breakage. He and zelda will be getting sheikah gadgets from purah though! Maybe ill have a scene of him wandering through the sky island shrines, but without zelda warning rauru he and sonia wouldnt have prepared anything for the hero of the future. (But i DO love ascension and fuse. Lowkey dislike the building mechanics from a concept art pov because the green glue makes me want to cry, but it’s FINE i GUESS)

2b. Master sword’s chilling in korok forest. Link put it back in this au because of Reasons (part of his and zelda’s characterization in this au is to discard their past roles and embrace the present, not as knight and princess but as hero and researcher. They both have to face the reality those roles aren’t dead, but it’s a work in progress. I may also never address it. This “one off hehe lemme draw some guys” idea quickly spiraled into a web comic series so apologies for the vagueness, because i too am watching them adventure with dread and awe and i don’t know where they’ll go with it. They literally write themselves.

3. Rip champions, their ghosts are Gone (but their influence remains. You go mipha, keep haunting the narrative girl, i love you)

I know that some of these story notes don’t quite match up to what totk states is stone cold canon, but that’s the joy of fan work! Anyways sorry for folks who i have NOT answered asks of— i have a lot of them and I’m much better at the drawing and writing part then the socialization aspect (please feel free to peak in to my zoo enclosure ever so often though. I need the enrichment)

[keferon]

Why’d monster hunter brainstorm timetravel to the specific era the story takes place?

Will the others ever see his alt mode?

The reason is the same as in canon - he wanted to save Quark.

Okay, I'll try and keep this short and sweet.

Brainstorm lives in the far future and is happy with Quark, until one day it turns out that Quark has a fatal spark disease that will kill him if nothing is done about it. They of course go to the hospital, but it turns out that only certain types of the disease are treatable and modern science still can't do anything about it.

Long story short, no one knows how to cure Quark's spark.

Brainstorm, as a true scientist and a good conjunx, naturally begins to research the subject himself and stumbles upon some strange information. All the sources, studies and records on the study of this disease go back a long fucking way. All that modern scientists have been doing for the last million years is just improving and refining the method of treatment, which was invented in absolute antiquity.

Brainstorm investigates further.

He discovers, all the original research records belonged to a mech named Perseptor, who amongst many other things was studying sparks. And it's when Brainstorm manages to get his hands on copies of these very original records that he finally realises why no one has been able to take this research any further. The records are very well structured, detailed and accurate, but half of the information is taken out of nowhere. The Perseptor specifies the types of sparks that certain substances affect in certain ways, but nowhere does he mention where he got this information from. He might, for example, write that certain types of sparks tend to develop internal micro-cracks when exposed to certain factors for long periods of time. And Brainstorm, having read that, can only stare blankly into space, because yes, micro-cracks in sparks is something that exists. But even in his time, there's no equipment that can detect them if they're INSIDE. So how the hell did an ancient mech with his primitive tools figure all this out???

His curiosity isn't satisfied. The research just cuts off in the middle, as if the mech that did it just abandoned it or died suddenly.

Brainstorm, like many scientists before him, tries to start his own research based on the information pointed out by Perseptor, but finds himself at the same dead end as all the medicine of his time. He just doesn't have the same mysterious way of collecting data that this...Perseptor had.

And Quark isn't getting any better

Eventually, Brainstorm comes up with a brilliant idea. What if, instead of trying to find a cure, he just (ha! Just.) went back in time and saved the dude who was definitely going to invent the cure but didn't have time? He decides it's genius and creates a time machine.

He goes back in time to find Perseptor and well, he gets a surprise. Turns out the dude who researched spark disease was a spark eater. And also on the verge of starvation, but Brainstorm finds a way to help him, it's all good:) It turns out that all this time, Perseptor didn't have any mysterious equipment to analyse the sparks, he was the equipment himself. In fact, he didn't specify the sources of his findings for the research, because the phrase ‘I figured it out because it tasted different’ sounds incredibly compromising and would have signed Percy's death warrant if his notes had fallen into the wrong hands.

Next, I'm not sure how it would have developed. I think as the story progresses, Perseptor and Brainstorm work together to invent a cure for Quark. And then, if you like to cry, Brainstorm goes back to the future and cures him, and Perseptor stays in the past.

If you want adventure, Brainstorm could take Percy back to the future with him. Quark would be really fucking scared and confused at first, but they'd figure it out quickly and conjunx Percy into their futuristic fluffy pairing. (Also, I have a lot of fun thinking about Brainstorm and Quark showing Percy the advances of future science, and the future world in general.

Also, I think Brainstorm would do a good job of hiding his alt mode while he was in the past, but a couple of times would use it to escape from someone. One time he'd also give Percy a ride, and I know Percy would be incredibly freaked out by the breakneck speed that jets can achieve ahahaha

——

That…wasn’t as short as I wanted…..my inner fic writer took control

[bewareofthenewphannie]

sigh....please don't kill me for this

AO3 Phandom Stats - Top or Bottom?

As many of you may have noticed there has been a shift in the depiction of Dan and Phil in fanfiction over the past few months from previously predominantly Dan being written as the bottom to now largely Phil bottoming. This post aims to put that trend into numbers and visualise it in a few overly convoluted diagrams below the cut.

Does any of this matter? Absolutely not.

Is it interesting? Oh boy, it sure is!

Disclaimer: This is an analysis of the fanfiction writing and tagging trends within the Phandom. It's at most tangentially related to the Real People Dan and Phil and is not meant to spark any type of discourse. I am doing this as an avid fanfic reader and with the utmost respect and appreciation for the authors of these fics, so I don't want to see any negativity directed towards them. Above all this is meant to be fun and interesting.

And as always - don't like it, don't read it <3

Note on accessibility: linked here is a doc with all the numbers shown in the screenshots of this post. Inspired by emma's stats I will be putting the cell range in the ID - if there's a better way to do this, please lmk!!

Methodology

To get the numbers shown here I filtered the works in the Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF) AO3 tag by "date updated" from the Jan 1st to Dec 31st of each year and by the following tags:

Bottom Dan Howell

Bottom Phil Lester

Top Dan Howell

Top Phil Lester

Short excurse on AO3 tags for those unaware:

The tags I chose are canonical tags, which means other tags that mean the same thing but are for example spelled differently are linked to this tag by tag wranglers and appear when you search for the canonical tag (see example below).

Additionally, the "bottom x" tags are metatags for the power bottom tags, which means fics tagged with "power bottom x" also appear when you filter works for these tags.

It's important to note that not every fic where one of them tops or bottoms is tagged as such. That means these stats very specifically look at the author's choice to tag fics with these tags and not the overall amount of fics where one of them tops or bottoms. However, I would argue it's fair to assume that it's at least somewhat reflective of the general writing trends within the Phandom.

For simplicity's sake I will refer to these tags as e.g. "Bottom!Phil" (b!p) going forward.

Stats 2013 - 2024

Here you can see how many fics were tagged with each tag in the respective year and the amount of bottom!dan and bottom!phil fics relative to the total amount of fanfic written in the same time span.

As expected, up until 2023 the split was about 2 b!d to 1 b!p fic (precise numbers: 71% to 29%; see pie chart above).

In 2018 we can see a peak in both in the number of phanfics written and the relative amount of fics tagged as bottom!dan.

Starting in 2023 (more on that below!) this flips and in 2024 the ratio of b!d to b!p fics was 1 to 4 (precise numbers: 81% to 19%; see pie chart above).

Furthermore, making up 4,62% of the total amount of phanfics written in 2024, the bottom!phil tag is relatively speaking twice as popular now as the bottom!dan tag ever was.

Sidenote: You can see that generally the amount of fics tagged with b!d and t!p, as well as b!p and t!d correspond to each other for obvious reasons (they're usually fucking each other). This year however there's 16 fics more tagged with bottom!phil than top!dan, which shows that there's been a very specific interest in writing and tagging bottom!phil in the last year.

Here you can see the total amount of phanfics written by year because I already collected the data, so I might as well put it here:

Stats 11/2023 - 12/2024

Now I want to take a closer look at the past few months post hiatus.

You can see that there's been a steady increase in the total amount of fics written per month!

That's incredibly cool!! (Love to all the wonderful writers out there <33)

Before we get into the actual stats, it's important to note that we're working with very low numbers here, so don't be fooled by overinterpreting percentages in the first few months depicted and look at the actual numbers! In the diagram below I excluded September and October 2023 because there simply wasn't enough data to produce useable results.

Contrary to what I expected, the increase in fics tagged with bottom!phil does not coincide with gamingmas 2023 (pour bot hem and top bunk kind of guy), nor phil's birthday live stream (topped by kakuna) but only really starts in June 24 and spikes in August for reasons I'm not fully sure about.

If I had to pin it on one thing it'd be the precious baby angel picture, which was posted in mid August.

Much more likely is though that this was simply a dynamic that built over months and had a wide array of reasons mentioned above and could very well be a self-reinforcing dynamic of more and more people looking for that tag and also writing for it.

If anyone has more insight on this, please share your thoughts :]

On that note, I'm finally done yapping, I hope this was at least mildly interesting!

[liketheletter-l]

31 and donatello plsssss - rem

cursed/turned into an animal

HAD A TON OF FUN WITH THIS ONE HEHEHEHE

no trigger warnings, just obscenely sappy twins

---

“Leo, stop laughing at him.” 

Leo does not stop, because every time he looks at the tiny, fluffy, angry kitten that was his twin brother two minutes ago, he like physically CAN’T handle it. He’s been laughing for those entire two minutes and he’s getting a little lightheaded. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Leo wheezes, tears streaming down his face. 

Raph pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re not sorry.”

“I’m not sorry, look at him.” The kitten Donatello skitters backwards on the sofa and hisses at him. Leo opens his hands and makes kissy noises. “C’mere Tello-lello, don’t you want a snuggle?”

Donnie makes a swipe for his face, claws out, but Leo dances backwards with his super fast ninja reflexes. Donnie tries to scratch Leo even when he’s not a cat, so it’s pretty par for the course.

Leo spreads his hands innocently. “Come onnn.”

“Leo,” Raph says, exasperated, probably envisioning Donnie taking Leo's eye out. “You can't tease him the whole time.”

“You have no idea how long I can tease someone,” Leo says haughtily. “But for real. I promise I'm not gonna hurt you, D. Just hoping to help with some data collection.” The data being: are those tiny fluffy ears really as soft as they look? Can we get a cuteness rating on the little toe beans, a standard ten scale, please? 

Leo reaches out a hand for Donnie to sniff, which he bites immediately and mercilessly. OW. Okay. That one's fair. An acceptable sacrifice. Leo scoops the tiny kitten into his arms. Donnie meows angrily at him, high and shrill, probably scared. But Leo is an expert in Donatello and this is no sweat. 

“Look, you’re okay, D.” Leo puts his hand on Donnie’s back, the fragile, shivering thing in his arms. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Promise.” 

Donnie meows again, weaker. Leo’s not a monster. He knows it must be scary to be suddenly so small and so vulnerable. Earlier Donnie was backed into the corner, hissing, in full panic mode. 

Leo tucks Donnie under his chin and hums, trying to convey incredibly warm and soft vibes. The gushy stuff, the sort of embarrassing sappy shit he would N-E-V-E-R say out loud even with a gun to his head, the I would die for you thing and the you’re safe with me I promise thing. Maybe one time when they were eight, Donnie found Leo hiding under his bed during a thunderstorm, and he crawled in there with him and rested his head on Leo’s shoulder, a flashlight and a book with too many big words for Leo to really understand but what he did understand was that his twin was there and he was safe.

“I’ve got you,” Leo says, so softly he has plausible deniability. Donnie brushes against his chin and Leo can feel his little heartbeat slowing under the feather-soft fur. Really really quietly, he starts purring.

[official-sonic-team]

the new frontiers dlc brought up interesting information regarding the symbol we periodically see throughout the game

the main point is that the symbol of the game is worshipped by the ancients as a god, or as a miracle of the god they believed in. it’s interesting to note that sage gives this information, as she has data on the ancients in her data banks, and thus can be relied as giving accurate information.

it is also important to note what sage also says: “perhaps the god of the Ancients depicted by the wall markings still exists out there today.”

which feels very poignant. sage has by this been point been carefully observing every action sonic the hedgehog has been doing. she has been adding more and more data to her collection, and has frequently shown before hand her own curiosity at sonic’s power.

importantly:

“how are you able to escape cyberspace?” and “how can you use the chaos emeralds?”

we know, of course, that all of sonic’s other friends were trapped in cyberspace. Sonic managed to be fast enough to escape. obviously, this is quite the outlier ability.

we also know that sonic’s ability to manipulate the chaos emeralds is an odd phenomenon. there is simply no other character in this series on par with sonic in his ability to transform using the emeralds, as he does so the most frequently and usually without consequences. sonic has even been seen transforming into his super form for fun (sonic 3) or staying in it for days at a time (sonic advance 1), and now using them multiple times in a row (sonic frontiers).

sonic is also one of the few characters able to perform “chaos control”, often said to be a “miracle”, was used as a parameter for gerald robotnik’s “ultimate lifeform”, and a rare ability. most characters are either robots (metal sonic, emerl), or developed by gerald (shadow, biolizard), or, in black doom’s case, are also an alien.

then, we learn that the chaos emeralds are originally from the ancients and their home world. most normal mobians on sonic’s planet can not use the power of the emeralds, or for very long.

knuckles also says something very interesting:

the connection between Angel island and the ancients are clearly stated, heavily implying the ancients built the ruins that are noticeably stylistically different from the echidna ones, which lean towards a more maya inspired style. the ruins being spoken about are implied to be the very technological advanced ones we see throughout the island, much more bold in color, reminiscent of futuristic realism, with inventions such as warp pads throughout the island. we know the ancient echidnas were not familiar with the emeralds (considering Chaos would never have been provoked if they had), and it seems unlikely in their dedication to protecting the master emerald from harm they would abuse that power to create technology. it’s also highly possible the chaos emeralds separate from Angel island/the master emerald given that sonic finds them in sonic 1 while exploring South Island, where the chaos emeralds seem to have been residing long enough to cause geographic changes. in essence, it’s highly unlikely the echidnas had created those ruins, and knuckles confirms it was likely the ancients. sonic frontiers emphasizes that the ancients were incredibly technologically advanced.

and within these ruins, we find two interesting artifacts:

the realistic depictions of hedgehogs in hydrocity and the infamous hidden palace mural- both of which are on angel island. the style of these artifacts match neatly with the futuristic, brightly colored ruins associated with the technologically advanced machinery around angel island.

thus, it can be implied that the ancients are the ones who make these pieces of art. which then begs the question: why? what interest would they have in a hedgehog?

perhaps that was the form they most often depicted their deity in. through prophetic visions inspired by the chaos emeralds, which transcend time and thus know one day sonic would have hold of them, or for other reasons, mystical or physical in nature, their deity was often considered to be a hedgehog.

and what is Sonic’s purpose, in sonic frontiers?

a) he guides the koco to the hermits, protecting them

b) he and his friends help the koco move on, as they are extensively ghosts, and often during these scenes, the symbol appears in the sky

c) he defeats the end for good

it is also interesting to note that the ancients parallel the story in sonic adventure one in quite a few ways, mainly in how tikal could not soothe chaos and simply caged them in the master emerald for all eternity, and it was sonic who pointed out that locking him up wasn’t fixing the issue at hand, but only worsening it. the ancients, too, had locked up a god like creature, and failed to defeat, or otherwise solve the problem at hand, and it is sonic who comes to finally destroy what had terrorized them for so many years.

is sonic the hedgehog the manifestation of the ancients god? an interesting question.

[avianoutcast]

avia I have a question, what does each of your group do in their free time, like, go for a walk, go to another universe, be with other people 🥺🥺💥

(sorry for the time)

(don't worry it's alright and thank you so much for that ask! ^_^💜💜✨✨)

-----

Additional Fact:

Avia also likes baking brownies and spying on Error lol XD

(and on rare occasions, she would visit a secret place she made somewhere in the void)

Outcast likes to hang around with the MTT during data collection (makes it more fun and thrilling)

Promise!Gaster would also try creating some inventions whenever he feels inspired.

----

[RESET]

[blessphemy]

I never considered myself the kind of person to get obsessed with a random side character but it’s happened multiple times now

I love Iris Murderbotdiaries soooooooooooo much and I’ve built her up sOO much in my head from Scraps. sure she doesn’t get characterized very heavily in the books but she is THE character to me. I’ve Blorboified her a bit what about it. Get off my lawn.

Her sibling is a space ship. What does that do to a human personality, to grow up with an experimentally advanced AI in the family? she’s an augmented human, can we unpack that. Do you think she and ART have some similar personality traits? Yes they do. I’m telling you. Ok but do you think ART’s personality was influenced by her or was her personality influenced by ART? (both.)

Her “fuck-you” smile. Her successful weapons handling. Her melodramatic and somewhat cringy declaration of her co-worker’s dark backstory (“He hates corporates more than any of us. They made him kill.”) (<- said to the resident SecUnit who (privately) calls itself Murderbot). Her crying over ARTdrone. She works in colony emancipation. With her dads. Her dad is the captain. Was she a nepo hire? I refuse to believe it because she is definitely fully qualified but also how could she not be. She’s ART’s favorite human.

also in the narrative I invented entirely in my mind she’s a bit of an asshole but in a cool and fun way. she collects tchotchkes. she knows data archaeology. (<- extrapolating from 1 line of when Iris commented on the records of the station in network effect.) she’s the specialest most talented and most interesting human on the perihelion crew and I WON’T hear a word otherwise. This is objective fact

[anim-ttrpgs]

Plans for the immediate future of A.N.I.M. as of February 26th, 2025:

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Work on editing and polishing Eureka is continuing at a steady pace and in fact finally picking up speed again after a bunch of hiccups in development. The fact that it is being played by a bunch of people in the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club right now has given us a lot of very useful playtest data that has been super helpful in polishing the rulebook.

Another beta build of the game will release on itchio on February 27th, 2025 with the last little bits of the module writing guide finally completed, just in time for submissions to open on the module writing game jam.

The Eureka Mystery Module Game Jam opens up submissions on March 1st, 2025, but the submissions don't close until April 1st, 2025, so there is still plenty of time.

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG

I have been busting my butt getting Silk & Dagger ready for alpha release on March 10th, 2025. It is not currently available to the public, but you can get it by signing up to our patreon. Normally I would not want to release a game publicly like this while it’s still in an alpha state, but our financial situation is such that we cannot really afford to keep it patreon exclusive any longer. We do better than most, but TTRPG game development does not make a lot of money.

Since Silk & Dagger will be releasing in alpha, not beta, it won’t be as polished, or even as finished, as Eureka for some time. The game is functional enough that it can be played, and is very fun and funny, but it has only been playtested like once and a good number of features have not even been written in yet. It is very much a work-in-progress/proof-of-concept, so do not set your expectations too high.

We will be holding more playtests on our official patreon-exclusive discord server soon as well.

After we release the Silk & Dagger alpha on March 10th, I will be shifting focus off of Silk & Dagger to work on A.N.I.M.’s third game, Death Bed, while I collect feedback on Silk & Dagger and apply it as needed. Patreon subscribers will get these improved versions monthly, while with the public alpha you will probably have to wait many months as I turn Death Bed from a bunch of scattered notes to a playable alpha version.

Once Death Bed is publicly released in alpha, my main focus will shift back to Silk & Dagger with the goal of implementing the rest of the feedback and bringing it from alpha state to beta state, while I wait for Death Bed feedback to roll in.

Death Bed: A Souls-like RPG

Death Bed is our attempt to actually bring Dark Souls-like feel and gameplay to the TTRPG medium, where so many others have failed before us.

You will start to see early pre-alpha versions of this game on our patreon as soon as April.

[your-enby-antihero]

CR English Speaking Tumblr Fandom Census

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So I got really silly a bit ago and did the CR Colour Association Poll and now I am back with a much larger undertaking!!!

Here I humbly present the CR English Speaking Tumblr Fandom Census. It has general questions about the general demographic stats of CR Tumblr, questions about Exandria-based campaigns of Critical Role, as well as silly goofy questions (like- Would you let Artagan strangle you?)

If you are inclined I would love (platonically in a vague parasocial way) you forever if you did the questionnaire. It does not collect your email just CR data!

-Good tidings Jayce :)