#but i am speaking in terms of the character i'd like that to be clear

[moonfruito]

i can't stop thinking about genloss being a representation of being a content creator and how it relates to the last scene. "let me die. i don't want to keep doing this." the mask flashing on and off in morse code for sos. ranboo's asking for things to be over in terms of the performance that he's stuck in and wants to be freed from his role as a hero that everyone relies on, and simultaneously the person behind the performance doesn't want to keep existing with the pressure and responsibility of thousands watching him and waiting for him to entertain them. they're switching back and forth between the 'real' version of them and the performing version of them, and yet they're saying the same thing, over and over. because it doesn't matter which part of him is saying it. it's just a cry for help.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello. I am writing a character with intellectual disability, and I have found your posts about that really helpful. Thank you for taking the time to make them.

I am trying to do research and write him well, and I was hoping you could give me some advice on how to do that. My problem is that I would like to describe the way he speaks and the sound of his voice, but I'm not sure how to do that respectfully.

What I would like to describe is the way he takes a little longer to complete his sentences, needs more time than others do to plan what he's going to say, and pronounces some sounds a bit differently because of motor skills issues. I want to honor his unique voice and also help readers understand that he is noticeably disabled.

Are there any words or terms that would be really good/preferred to describe this sort of thing? And, on the other side, is there anything stereotypical or hurtful that should be avoided?

Thank you!

Hey!

I recommend our guide on writing speech disabilities.

In-dialogue, you can try showing him taking a break mid-sentence or using a lot of filler words/sounds to show that he's taking his time. You can spell them out in his speech, but I wouldn't overuse it - you can put more of them at the start, but later your readers will remember that that's how he talks, and occasional reminders should be enough.

It's important to remember that;

1) ableists often mock the things I just mentioned, and

2) they're nonetheless real and real life people (me) talk with those patterns. I'd urge you to show them as just how he talks, not something that's inherently "annoying" or "child-like". Stray away from any sorts of infantilizing comparisons in general (that is, if he's not an actual child).

For him taking longer to plan what he is going to say, that's very real. How it shows (or doesn't show) will be very personal, I specifically tend to look up + fidget with my hands and people who know me can recognize that it means I'm trying to say something but need a moment (though strangers also often get it). But he can show it completely differently of course.

I don't think there's a consensus on what's the best way of "spelling out" someone's speech disability. My personal preference is leaving it out of the actual speech, but making it clear in the dialogue tags. It's also easier for readers who might have reading disabilities or not be native speakers of the language you write in. So you could make it clear there whether it's that he's slurring words, has a lisp, or stutters.

For terms, a lot of the accurate ones have also been used to mock how we talk. "Slow" would be the best example, "loud" would be there as well. A lot of us will talk slow, a lot will talk very loudly. I do the latter, and I know people who do both or neither. The key is to say it in a way that's neutral and not pass it off as some funny quirk or an outright gag. It's just a speech characteristic, the same way that someone could have a lower pitched voice, or speak very softly.

You can also show him struggling to follow the flow of the conversation. So sometimes it could be that he just loses the main topic and just asks what the discussion has been about (I do that all the time), or continues going on the subject that the other character(s) already moved on from.

Thanks for the ask and being thoughtful about it,

mod Sasza

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi Ice! This one is maybe a little on the outskirts of 'creating Black characters', but it is related to the introspective questions you posted a little while back, so I thought I'd ask for your opinion. I'm sure this isn't an one-easy-answer thing, so I'd love to hear from any other Black people reading this as well!

I'll try to keep it short.

I'm seven years and 300k+ words deep in a fanfiction about anthropomorphic animal characters, and your introspective questions made me face the fact that I've been the ignorant fandom racist. I wrote my main character as white. Now, 7 years later, I stumble over a post pointing out ... those are locs

I don't know if the authors intended for this character to be Black (nonblack voice actors, supplementary material also clearly doesn't draw him this way, though that stuff was all over the place re: consistency) and I frankly also am not sure if they Should have, given his role in the narrative, but a) that's not really up to me to speak on and b) he's got locs and mostly black fur and was inspired by Anubis. I've been whitewashing, there's no way around it.

I briefly considered going back and just straight up changing the story to make him Black, but I quickly realized that I have been writing him from a white-centered narrative and just slotting a Black character into that would arguably be Worse. Or at least racist in a brand new way. I can change how he takes care of his hair, but not the themes on which the entire narrative is built upon. I've been writing about a white man and I can't just pretend I haven't.

So my question to you is ... what now? How do I best acknowledge this? Do I just quietly come to terms with the fact that this story is racist and do better next time? I would like to acknowledge it in some way, I have a small but loyal audience and if I could use that platform to start a conversation (or just put out a 'hey, don't be like me') that would ... maybe at least be better than nothing? Possibly?

I know there's not a simple solution here that will Fix It, but I thought I'd ask an actual Black person who's open to educating what might be a good next move. Maybe avoid making another, new White Person Blunder. Here's to hoping.

I really appreciate all you do, your blog rocks and so do you.

Is that Shadow?

Okay, so I had to have a conversation with Hot Chocolate on this one because this one's a doozy! I appreciate that you're willing to stop and reflect though. Most people wouldn't be willing to do so this far in!

Admittedly, the fact that you're seven years into this means this will require a lot of effort. And, tbh, I might be confused bc I cannot tell what that character is 😅 So! After some thought, here's what we came up with:

Take a hiatus. Point blank period. Take a BREAK, do not pass go, do not collect $200! Idk what lore you've written, but you've written a lot of it. Take as long as you need to reread your works, and see if at any point you ever made it clear that this was a white person, or anything other than the Black character you now think they should be. If it feels undefined, where you can turn "hair" into "locs" or add in small details, then that could be your smooth way out. It doesn't have to be massive changes, but it could help. It'll take you time, for sure! But you dug seven years in, it's gone take you time to dig out. Maybe if you skim 15k words a week (or ctrl-F it for hair, for examples), that's... 20 weeks? Go at your own pace, faster or slower.

Unfortunately this happens a lot, where influences for characters will be taken from cultures of colors and improperly represented (the "African" god from Genshin). That's just a fact. So I don't necessarily blame you for the confusion, but... Now you know.

If possible, get a sensitivity reader! Preferably a Black one. Ngl, given the massive amount of work, you're likely going to have to pay them. Maybe give them half and you take half. Idk, but let another pair of eyes look at your work. Or maybe there's a Black reader that you could speak to and see how they feel about the potential change.

Should you choose to keep going, just try to be more purposeful and intentional about that character's Blackness. Definitely tell your readers what you figured out, why it's important to you, and then move forward from there.

Now, RECOGNIZE that many of them will NOT be pleased! That's kind of the thing about opening your eyes when it comes to racism in media! A lot of people will NOT be happy that you decided to be more intentional, especially if they've been imagining their favorite white guy for seven years. You're going to have to weigh your integrity and your will to create against that. People might leave, people that you thought were cool AF until it was time to show true colors. Be ready for that.

But that's just what I would do 🤷🏾‍♀️

[hetaliahyperfix]

Hetalia Headcanons: Nation Physiology- Death

Tw: Discussions about death and cultural destruction

In a previous post, I discussed both canon and headcanon ideas about how immortality works. Yet, how does a nation die? It certainly seems like they can endure a lot. Well, this post shall discuss what can and what cannot kill a nation.

Before we get any further though, I will need to discuss something very important if we are to understand this topic: nation vs state.

Nations and states are actually not synonyms of each other, despite many using them as such. In fact, the distinction is important enough for this discussion that I have decided to make sure we are all on the same page when it comes to the differences between them.

Instead of being long-winded though, I have actually put a very useful graph under the cut that will quickly compare the differences between the two:

(Third row from the bottom is wrong. I believe it is supposed to be "Not as stable as a nation" and "More stable than a state.")

In canon, the characters are exclusively referred to as nations, not states. While these things can often coincide, they are not synonyms. I'd also argue that Hima does not use it as a synonym. The characters have been pretty consistently made to represent the nations, or the religious/cultural/ethnic parts of their respective groups (ex: France is not simply the modern borders of the nation-state in today's Europe, he represents the French people and their culture).

Nations have also been shown to almost universally exist before their state does. As an example, America was born before the official establishment of the United States of America (1776 or 1789). If America were simply a state and not a nation, this would not be the case.

This distinction here will actually be very important in understanding what can or cannot kill a nation going forward, so that is why I felt the need to make this distinction clear.

So, using both canon and history, this is what I came up with:

Nations very rarely, if ever, die from occupation. Just about every nation has been occupied at some point. Just as an example, the original strips took place during WW2 when Germany occupied the majority of Europe, yet all those European nations continued to exist. Russia occupied the Baltics as the Soviet Union yet they continued to exist. Vietnam was colonized by France until 1954, yet we wouldn't say she was only born in 1954. A more ancient example is Ancient Rome. We see that, when an empire conquered territories, those nations remained. When the Roman Empire occupied land in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and various nations in Europe, all these nations still remained. At its height, the Roman Empire covered the majority of Europe, the Anatolian Peninsula, the Levant, parts of Arabia, and North Africa. Yet, I am positive all those nations in these areas continued to live but only as part of "his house," so to speak. In canon, characters who are occupied by foreign nations refer to it as living in the other nation's house (ex: the Baltics said they lived in "Russia's House" when they were part of the Soviet Union). Already, we can see why the distinction between state and nation is important. If they were states, they would not survive the occupation.

Territory changes rarely ever kill a nation. Nations in canon are constantly gaining and losing territory. This does not kill them. Even civil wars, despite popular headcanon belief, don't seem to kill nations. As an example, China is canonically over 4,000 years old. Yet, he has had his territory divided by civil wars hundreds of times over his history. In fact, it was such a prevalent thing, it even got its own term coined to describe it: the dynastic cycle. While this graph doesn't show it, you should keep in mind that each time it gets to the part where people revolt, the dynasty would often split into several different states. Here is a map of what this region looked like in 1936, right before WW2.

Loss of state or lack of state borders does not necessarily kill a nation. There is nothing in canon to indicate one way or the other, but I choose to believe that nations can exist even if they don't have official territory to call their own. To act like state borders are the only thing that determines a nation seems to deny the legitimacy of nations that were always nomadic or were forced into a nomadic life due to conquerors ousting them from their homeland. Native Americans groups were sometimes nomadic or were forced out of their home territory by the US government, yet I would not feel comfortable saying that means they weren't ever real nations (in the case of them always being nomadic) or that they ceased to exist as a nation of people (in the case of being forced from their homeland). There are/have been a lot of diasporas of people in the world who were either ousted from their homelands or always nomadic including the Native Americans, the Sami, the Romani, the Jews, the Ainu, the Aboriginal Australians, and more. All of these groups would have or still have either one or multiple personas for their groups, regardless of the fact that they didn't have a state to call their own for a long period of their history. Some of these groups have since been able to get state borders of their own (ex: the Cherokee Nation has a reservation covering multiple parts of Oklahoma). This is not the case for all these groups. This is because some of these groups either have no interest in a state of their own (the various Romani groups) or are interested, but have been denied (the Ainu). Also, the amount of personas they would have varies because not all of these terms refer to a single distinct group. For example, there would most likely be a single persona for the Ainu, but multiple for "Native America" as this term refers to over five hundred different nations native to North America that are around today, and each would most likely have their own persona.

So, with all of that being said, what can kill a nation? Simply put:

The destruction of a distinct national identity of a nation of people. This might seem self explanatory but it requires a bit more explanation. Basically, a nation can exist as long as their people do. "Existing" in this case refers to both physically existing and to culturally existing. So, for a nation to die, they either need to experience the complete destruction of their culture, or the complete death of all their people, or a combination of these two. Let's use a nation that canonically died: Ancient Rome. While I said that states don't need to exist to keep nations alive, they can often be intertwined with the national identity of a people so, in a case where nation-states are the same like Grandpa Rome, the destruction of the state can lead to the death of a persona. The fall of the Western Roman Empire brought about the collapse of the Roman identity (in the West, at least) and now, today, you will not meet someone who identifies with the language, religion, and culture of Rome. Nobody identifies as a Roman, at least none who were part of the original ancient culture that Grandpa Rome would have represented. Basically, his culture was effectively wiped out, so he died.

While a lack of state borders in itself won't kill, it can compound the problems that do kill a nation. If death is caused by the loss of a distinct cultural identity unique to that nation group of people, then states can often be very useful in maintaining these cultures. State borders are often founded around distinct nation groups or the formation of states can cause unique nation groups to rise up. So, while nations can exist without state borders, there is also no denying how important they can be with the formation and/or maintaining of national identities. So, while losing state borders in itself won't kill a Hetalia nation, it might lead to circumstances that can kill them aka, the death of their culture.

With all that being said, national identity can be a bit fluid. The culture of China during the Shang dynasty is not the same as the culture found in the People's Republic of China today, yet both are represented by the same persona. I think changes in cultures will not kill a nation as long as you can trace their culture's path pretty linearly and it progresses naturally. One really absurd example of this is Prussia. First he was the Teutonic Knights, then Prussia, and then West Germany. Those are some pretty big leaps (and honestly, I think they don't even make sense and only happened to keep him alive because he is a popular character).

All of this is to say that what ultimately kills a nation is the loss of their people and culture that represents their nation, the culture being the biggest factor.

A nation can die if their people completely assimilate with another culture, destroying their own distinctive national identity they represent. A nation can die if the people comprising their nation all perish, leaving no one left alive that was part of that distinct culture. A nation can die if their people go through a sudden and extreme enough change of cultural identity that they are basically a new group. A nation can die if they lose their state borders and, either gradually or suddenly, the people of the nation associated with that state loses their national identity.

A nation does not die from civil war as long as one or multiple of the states involved still represent the culture of the nation persona. A nation does not die from the loss of land, change of territory, or even complete loss of all land as long as a group exists that still holds onto the national identity associated with their nation persona. A nation does not die from occupation as long as the group occupied keeps a distinct sense of nationally identity associated with the nation persona.

Well, that's all. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Also, if I got any history wrong, feel free to correct me. I did my best to research, but mistakes sometimes still happen.

[kerryweaverlesbian]

A friend of mine asked for advice on writing a poem so, I figured I'd share it more widely. This is how I personally tend to go through the process (although sometimes poems just come in a stream of consciousness and I'm like damn where'd you come from???)

This gets long so, under the cut

To me, a poem is circling around an idea through building a structure, so:

1. Figure out a key idea that connects two things together("smoke is a metaphor for hidden places" + "Mary Supernatural's relationship to motherhood" = "Mary Supernatural's hidden feelings about motherhood explored through the metaphor of a house fire")

OR a scene where something very sensory is happening ("eating a live octopus", "running on a cold day")

2. Write a short paragraph of whatever comes into my head as I think about that. Connections to other works, random lines, images, concepts. The ideas can be cliché and shit and not be used in the final piece!!

I'll do one rn for the octopus concept:

"What could the octopus be a metaphor for? Struggling to create a piece of work? Like how I rotate pieces of media around in my head for a while sometimes without getting a clear thought on them, as I am with Mouthwashing right now. The struggling kick of life. A life without hands, only senses. A constant reaching forever. Maybe a squid would be better, it releases cloudy ink...? But it's not as big as an octopus. Poem speaker confused between squid and octopus. The sensation of being strangled from the inside by the octopus tentacles. Fighting against yourself and your own instincts to give up. Tears forming as ideas form. Salt and copper. The tongue is kind of like a tentacle in itself. 'I swallow it, until it becomes mine'."

^ this helps solidify the ideas of the poem without having to battle through 3 or 4 drafts while looking at a blank page willing ideas to come out. Sometimes I just do that part in my head but it can be helpful to refer back.

What I love about poetry is that you can just skip to the exciting bit! You don't need a bunch of characters or scene descriptions or dialogue. It can all be the bit that makes you go hell yeah cool cool cool!! (<- guy who finds literary analysis cool)

3. Whichever of those ideas speak to you, use some to write a first stanza. The rhythm can be whatever sounds good in your head:

"I'm eating an octopus

(Live)

With gusto,

It's fighting me back but I bite."

So now we have an established rhythm! For this one it's

7 syllables [no comma]

(a short aside)

3 syllables,

8 syllables.

Now for the rest of the poem I can use that same rhythm, which keeps me focused. If you don't want to come up with your own rhythm, there's plenty of established poetry rhythms and rhyme schemes, if you google "types of poem" they will appear as if by magic. And of course you don't have to use a pattern at all. Again, this is just what I do.

To be clear, I don't tend to literally count out the syllables, you can feel what the rhythm is by saying the poem out loud (which you should do FREQUENTLY as you write to make sure the emPHAsis doesn't go ON the WRONG word). There's poetry terms for emphasis but I don't know them because I only did up to AS level poetry 😉

If you ever find the rhythm isn't working, change it. It's your poem. Do whatever you want. Changing the rhythm can also be used to show "this is a change/escalation in idea". It's a song with a bridge.

4. Keep talking about different parts of the metaphor in that structure:

"The tentacles writhing

(I chew, I chew)

A battle,

A hunt for the truth.

The hinge of my jaw

(It hurts, it hurts)

Unkindly,

I stick in my tooth."

^ I often slip into rhyming, this also helps not get stuck thinking of literally any word from the english language that could be used. As Monica from FRIENDS says, "rules help control the fun!"

"The [something] of muscle,

(My tongue? Its leg?)

My burden,

My begging for proof."

^ my close personal friend square brakets when I can't think of a description this instant! Wooo!

"[Some sort of 5th stanza that has an end rhyme for proof, maybe with the "salt and copper" concept?]

I'm eating an octopus

(Live)

But I'm winning

It's hard, but it's worth it, the fight."

^As you can see I added an extra syllable for the second to last line, you gotta just listen to your heart sometimes. When ending things I like to harken back to the beginning! It can be a little cheesey sometimes but that's okay, poems are allowed to be cheesey!

That's my general approach. Something that really, really helps with writing poetry is also... reading poetry. You get to experience a lot of rhythms and rhyme schemes and ways of talking about ideas and how different poets use the foundation of a poem to express their meanings. Reading this poem back, I was writing spontaneously but I can very clearly see influences of A A Milne (my mum's favourite poet!), The Jellyfish by Marianne Moore and my dear friend @lesbianjoannaharvelle 's poem I wish I could draw for the theme of wrestling with creativity. Our works are in conversation! Isn't that cool!!

Anyway. Kiss kiss.

[fountainpenguin]

im trying to explain foop's alt personality to a friend, do you have any posts explaining the existence of the guy bc i could swear you do but cant find them.

I love him!! He's named Hiccup in my fanfics and tagged on my blog as #alternate bat prince. He'll also get a full character profile on my sideblog, but he has a short bio for now.

I love the alt personality so much because it really drives home how much Foop broke during his time in Abracatraz... which gets more horrifying once you remember time was frozen and he was probably in there for a good 30 to 40 years, separated from his parents or friends his age, unable to grow up.

One of the overarching themes in FOP is how poorly the Fairies treat others while acting like they're superior and kind, and Foop is one of the best characters to show how Fairies fawn over kids of their own race vs. how Anti-Fairy babies are regarded with suspicion. The Fairies threw a 1-day-old in maximum security prison and left him there. And that REALLY put Foop through the wringer.

From his second episode of existence, you can tell he's changed since his debut episode, and that he's confused by what's happening to him. He blinks in alarm when he switches early on and speaks about himself in a different way than he does both before and after that moment (Ex: Refers to himself as "we" at one point). You can tell he's in a weird adjustment period, and seems to have adjusted to life with his alt personality much more in later episodes.

And this alt personality doesn't go away. He debuted in Season 7, returns in Season 8, and then cameos several times in Seasons 9 and 10 (indicated by certain hand gestures, voice shifts, and extra eye highlights when he switches)

"Man's Worst Friend" (S10) is a really good example, especially the scene where Anti-Sparky says he'd like to have Foop for dinner and you immediately get the chubby cheeks, clasped hands, and gushing about how nice of an event that would be.

He's a very deliberate, long-term addition to the show and I love that about him so much. I'm so glad he wasn't a one-episode joke. No....... no. Foop has a lot of trauma and it never goes away, even when it's not the episode's focus.

It's so cool that you can still see these subtle signs of his alt personality even when the episode doesn't make it part of the plot. Such a nice way to see the long-term effects of his childhood trauma while also being super clear that Foop is a well-rounded, well-written person who is still growing up and living his life.

I love that this didn't become Foop's entire characterization, nor was he portrayed as "a polite, misunderstood boy with a super evil scary alt personality." Nah. Foop causes trouble because he's Foop and he wants people to fear him. The alter is a totally separate thing to unpack (A newborn was separated from his mother and locked in solitary confinement during early development).

His alt personality exists and is part of him, but only two of his episodes truly emphasize it. The rest depict more subtle shifts. I just love it so much... the thought that went into this and the quiet commitment to having the alt personality show up in later episodes. Foop is one of my favorite characters and I love exploring his life.

My favorite thing about the alt personality is that it's very easy to glance at him and say "Oh, he's the stereotypical 'good' personality and Foop is the 'evil' one." And then you take another 30 seconds to get to know them and you're like "Oh. OH... oh my gosh. Why is he like that?"

I am specifically referring to him taking one look at Poof and cooing, "Does Mr. Popular want to fight??" Hey...

HERE is an outdated video showing all the personality switch moments I saw. I've found more switch moments since then (Ex: In "Fairly Odd Fairy Tales," some I missed in "Man's Worst Friend," there's one in "Certifiable Super Sitter," another in "Terrible Twosome" that's separate from Foop experiencing the Terrific Twos effects). I'd like to make an updated one sometime in 2025.

HERE is my post about the music switch in "Best of Luck," which happens to align with Irep holding his hands in a way only his alt personality did in the OG series. No idea if that was intentional, but I did laugh a lot. Why did they have Irep do that hand gesture at that exact moment. The gesture only the alt personality uses. Hey. what.

HERE is a post about Hiccup's relationship/connection with Poof.

HERE is the announcement post for a one-shot I wrote from Hiccup's POV in high school

Happy New Year!

[ribbononline]

Hello I am obsessed with your art—your line work and your colours and shading sjfjslkdkd I want to put your artwork in my mouth and consume everything. Your AC characters are so cute, i loved your timeskip Shauna and your pixel art is amazing???? I simply must know if you’re open for commissions and what guidelines you have because I would die 🥺

Aough, thank you so so very much! I'm so happy to hear that :'D As for commissions- yes, they're open! I don't have any pretty sheets I'm afraid (graphic design is not my passion), but I have the rundown.

Further details under the cut!

I'm fine with doing:

Fanart

Shipping

Self inserts/Sona's

OC's

Furries

Pokémon, stylized animals, or any monster type creatures

Pin-ups

I don't do:

NSFWT (Not Safe For Tumblr. Sorry)

Real people

Backgrounds

Mecha's (I'm just not strong enough)

Eternatus (Sorry for singling you out buddy. You're the only Pokémon that truly terrifies me when it comes to drawing)

Currently not taking any pixel commissions, I don't have a set enough 'style' yet to feel comfortable charging for it. I'd like to one day, though!

Please note: if you want something like a Pokémon or a similarish creature, feel free to ask about pricing! A Togepi and a Rayquaza are at very different levels there and I wouldn't make you pay the same for both.

In general, if you have any questions, always feel free to reach out!

General terms of service:

Payment is upfront. Please note that prices are in euro's!

Payment is done via PayPal. I do need to set up a Ko-Fi, though.

Each second character is 80% of the price.

Please do NOT use my art for any commercial use.

Please do NOT alter my art with AI or use it to work with AI.

Feel free to post wherever, just credit me if you post it on any socials!

I have a right to refuse a commission for any reason.

Please have some sort of reference sheet ready! It doesn't have to be a full drawing, just... something. Can be a picrew, a collage, a general 'something like x', but please have something ready to work with!

Let me know if you want your commission posted after it is done. If you do, let me know if you wish to be credited as the commissioner or would prefer staying anonymous.

What you can expect of me:

I work in three 'phases'. First is the sketch- you'll be send some quick thumbnail sketches to establish the general pose and vibe you want to pick from. Once you have one you like, I'll send work on the full sketch! Sketching is the stage for any and all big changes, so please mention anything you want changed here.

Once the final sketch is approved, I'll move on to the second phase, lines. Not a very exciting stage, it's just the lines! Again, I'll run them by you for approval first, to make sure I didn't miss or mess up any details.

Finally is the third phase, colors! This is both flats and rendering. I don't mind tweaking colors at all, just let me know if you want any changes in them. After this phase is approved, that's the commission done! Each phase should take around a week at the maximum, assuming there's no breaks in communication. If for whatever reason I might take longer then that, I'll make sure to mention it as soon as possible.

I have a discord which communicates slightly easier then on Tumblr, so if you have one as well and you don't mind I'll make sure to reach out to you there! Otherwise, Tumblr does always still work too.

I hope that's somewhat clear! Generally speaking my commissions are always open, no timed slots or anything like that. Whenever works for someone else works for me. But yeah!

[shinyzango]

may i ask you an Italian-language question? there's a name im trying to blend together with Italian, and i could use some guidance if youre willing

i wanted to explore the idea (not married to it, i may end up not even doing anything with it, and im sure im not the first to think of this anyway— but i find it a fun thought-experiment and id love your help if youd be willing to offer it?) of merging Pinocchio and the Nutcracker as both a character and their plots. for funsies✨️

and i just would like some help with how to blend the name idea i had. and to get said help from someone who is, not only fluent in Italian, but is also a fellow Nutcracker nerd (i love your work btw!!) would be so lovely. and also you can tell me tell me if i accidentally am doing a dirty word/bad word/worse or any similar "don't, just stop" thing since im tragically monolingual. i just wanted to see if it's possible for this name to not be clunky or in poor form, would love your help if you're up to it. (if you or anyone reading ever want to use any name/s here, assuming they turn out to perhaps NOT be awful blendings of Pinocchio×Nutcracker?? then, yeah, feel free use as far as i care. i dont own jack shit)

also no worries if you dont want to help for any reason at all, you dont need to explain it to me, i can take a simple "I'd rather not help with this" and be respectful about the rejection. truly, no worries. just wanted your help IF youre willing to offer it

also apologies this is so long. i blame my ADHD mostly (tho i doubt my autism helps, i think its mostly the ADHD) with me going "eVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT" and my lifelong inability at being succinct

-

now, Pinocchio as a name, according to various sources such as but not limited to Wikipedia (who i will be quoting, bc copy and paste is easier since a lot of this Ask will be me transcribing from books 😭) and my copy of Pinocchio's own Foreward: is "possibly derived from the rare Tuscan form pinocchio ('pine nut') or constructed from pino ('pine tree, pine wood') and occhio ('eye')"

i don't know Tuscan forms of Italian for the rest of this, i only know what my dad's two Italian-English dictionaries told me for the rest of this ("Oh, your dad speaks Italian?" no, he does not. he tried to learn! he gave up. but he still has the books. mostly bc he's a hoarder, our home is VERY cluttered with his many things. but he used to go to Italy a lot, for a specific multi-year project that has long-since ended. we are not culturally/ethnically of Italian heritage, as far as i am aware. but still cool to look through these books!). and you're going to call me either stupid or smart, but at first, let's be clear: i was definitely stupid. i did not follow up my learning about Pinocchio's name-meaning with "What's a nutcracker/The Nutcracker in Italian? Surely the title of the book has been translated into Italian. What is the title in its Tuscan form?". i went straight to my dad's dictionaries to look up "crack" and its branches, said branches including the word "cracker". i wanted to see if i could take "Pino-" and add the Italian form of "Cracker, Cracking, Cracked, or similar" at the end. because, again, i was stupid, and i was taking the long and hard way for an easy answer

since, my dad's dictionaries didn't have "Pino" for ne to verify the alleged Wikipedia meaning with (fair enough, how often does "pine" come into conversation? idk), i had to google this because i wanted to make sure i knew if "Pino" was/wasn't the equivalent of "nuts" in English (as in a "Dude! You kicked me in my nuts!" slang or "Deez nuts" meme type of way) or was a slur or something else that i Do Not Want (with the margin of error that i am still monolingual and inexperienced in Italian and Italy's culture, and most websites for translating ive heard refer only to formal meanings and not so much slang. unless its multi-generational slang, like "cool" on English as a slang term would be likely in a Other Language-To-English website guide, since its a prime example of multi-generational slang. but "Skibidi rizz"? not so much). you never know nuances when youre monolingual, doing your best to navigate a foreign language (even if it's "just" for a name), i just wanted to check

i tried to see if i could see anything specific about the Tuscan variation of Italian's definition of "Pino" was, but all i got was stuff about pine in Tuscany and an artist by the name of Pino Daeni's painting titled "Tuscan Stroll". youd think that'd tell me "well, as least you know Pino can't be bad if it's this guy's name", to which i will remind you, up until recent decades, the name "Gay" was as common as the name "Joy", and English-users stopped using it as a name once the meaning became more synonymous with "queer" than "happy" (i say this as a queer person btw, dont mistake me saying "this name isnt common for obvious reasons" as me being queerphobic please, im just stating the fact thats its declined and we all know why). so Pino Daeni, born in either the 1930s or 1950s (sources differed on the same painting when he was born?), COULD have a name that is akin to "Gay" in the sense that it is NOW out of the possible-names-that-wont-get-your-kid-bullied category. oooorrr it could also be the equivalent timelessness as "Richard" (a name i chose specifically bc one of its nickname is "Dick" in English, and i still dont know if "Pino" or how any other word i discuss here is used in Italian slang. again, shinyzango, if youre willing, please help lol) i far as google and a few sites would tell me about "Pino" in Italian-Spanish sense specifically (and idk if that means it is the same in Italian AND Spanish or if Italian-Spanish is specific fusion/variant of the languages/s, im so sorry), "Pino" could be used in Italian to reference "Pine nuts" (YAY, I THINK WE MAYBE GOT AN IMPLIED "NUTS" FOR THIS NUTCRACKER-FUSION'S NAME EVERYBODY), "Pine wood" (as in the logs, the branches, specifically. though idk if that includes the tree's bark but i assume yes?), "Pine leaves", "the Pine tree itself", and, finally, the all-encompassing elusiveness of "Pine" in general. im really boping the "Pino" = "Pine (Nuts)" is accurate to what im trying to accomplish here, but what can you do, i dont have Tuscan forms of Italian stuff and google isnt coughing it up either

which i did TRY to look up Tuscan-forms of Italian words. and i was told it was a dialect, a still-living one at that (as opposed to the term: archiac dialect). but nothing is telling me its dictionary of how its vocabulary branches off and/or overlaps with the standard Italian language. the closest i could find on my own was Wikipedia's "Dialectal Features" section under its Tuscan Dialect article. and that is too above my pay-grade, it went into phoemes and graphemes and all that, i got Fs in those classes despite my best efforts and it's been at least 3+ years since my last class in that. nope. i am just accepting the Tuscan dialect of Italian is inaccessible to me rn (unless shinyzango (a) knows it for whatever reason and (b) wants to help with that. but this isnt me trying to pressure you. this is me acknowledging that idk your life, maybe you know the Tuscan form. and if you do know it and yet dont wanna help for whatever reason, all good, no bad blood). so, no matter how much research and thought i am trying to put in here, im still very lost and just doing my best. so, shinyzango, please be forgiving if i am making any faux-pas throughout this. i know "Pinocchio" is theorized to be a blend of two Tuscan-specific Italian words, but i just got "Pino-" and whatever i find that can come next for the Nutcracker half of this (hopefully successful? idk. im paranoid im fucking up somehow lol 💀) name-blending of these two wooden boys

anyway. so i continued to be stupid by thoughtlessly NOT choosing the easy and obvious method of looking up "a nutcracker/the Nutcracker" in Italian for this name-blend's second half. and yet?? somehow, my dad's two English-Italian dictionaries were nice to me and i got super lucky i wasnt told an alternative word. i was essentially given the one the Easy Method wouldve brought me. albeit the easy method wouldve brought me to it faster.. anyway, i got lucky. because within "crack"'s long list of Italian-specifities, i came across "(nut:) to crack — schiacciàre", which that shorthand meant "within the term 'to crack', for reference wanting to crack nuts specifically, you would use the word schiacciàre and its branches in Italian". i then went to schiacciàre's page in my dad's other Italian dictionary and saw the different forms of "schiacciàre"

the second dictionary confirmed most of the first dictionary. i was a little bit concerned that maybe schiacciàre was inaccurate? (obviously, this feeling went away when i did eventually do The Obvious and look up what "a nutcracker/The Nutcracker" was in Italian, but i didnt know that at the time when i was looking at this entry). because this dictionary said "Schiacciàre (Transitive) - (1.) To crush, to crack, to mash. Used in cooking. Per schiacciàre lo zenzero si può usare un coltello piatto. To crush the ginger, you can use a knife flat." which you can see in this first definition block, "to crack" being the second meaning and not in the example sentence made me a little bit worried on if this was the best word or not. again, i know now i didnt need to be worried, i now know the Italian word for "nutcracker/Nutcracker". but i was sticking by the path i was on for a bit longer, thought i might as well read the branches

which included its inflection term, the word everyone was waiting for— schiacchia! meaning "(a) cracker"! to which i did, after i was done reading the entire word's list of different forms, think "oh, i should look up a nutcracker, in general/The Nutcracker & The Mouse King's specific title in Italian". to which i got both the relief (bc i didnt choose the wrong word!) and the frustration (bc i maDE THIS SO MUCH HARDER ON MYSELF FOR NO REASON!) of seeing "a nutcracker" in Italian is lo schiaccianoci and "The Nutcracker & The Mouse King" is (Lo) Schiaccianoci e il Re dei topi (which i find the nuance of the grammar of fascinating! to translate it back to English, and with the matching capitalization included, the title would be "(The) Nutcracker and the King of mice". bc "The King of Mice" gives off a slightly different vibe as opposed to "The Mouse King". like, The Mouse King feels like epithet anyone with influence over mice could gain whereas the other (The King of Mice) feels both mundane and more legitimately royal, like this is definitely a political position, like "The Queen of England". at least thats the vibes diffentiating between the two in English. idk if my impression for "the vibes" of the Italian title is accurate in Italian. god, i wish i wasnt monolingual). anyway. so you think that'd be it, huh! i found the Italian form of "(a) cracker"! that's gotta be the other half of this proposed fusion name!

...but no, i do have a second option im kinda into. bc, again, i looked up "a nutcracker/The Nutcracker" AFTER looking through the WHOLE list. and what grabbed my attention reading the branches of the word "schiacciàre" was also the first-person singular present term that is schiàccio, which in English would assumedly be the equivalent means "(I) crack". as first-person singular present terms in English are as follows: "Am I?", "I am", "I go", "I write", "I weep". so, like, it's a present-tense verb + "I". that's all that "first-person singular present"-specific terms mean as far as i am aware. hence, my assumption that "schiàccio"'s English equivalent would be "(I) crack". and the Italian form of "I" isn't present, but i think it's implied??? (im so unsure, im so sorry lol) some stuff i read said the "I" doesn't have to be literally present to be explicit in Italian? so it's not in English, where something like "Wasn't thinking" has the missing-"I" that can be assumed to be present p easily despite its lack of literal presence— BUT in English, the lack of "I" makes that an improper sentence. it can said colloquially. but it isnt correct grammatically. and im saying i was lead to believe that the Italian-equivalent-of-"Wasn't thinking" would be considered a proper sentence and gramatically correct? so itd be more like "(I) Wasn't thinking", in a sense? and furthermore, i was lead to believe the specific conjagation of schiàccio in Italian would not need the "I" unless you were adding an "I" for emphasis? like "No, I cracked the nuts, not him" kind of emphasis? i feel like im making less sense the more i try to explain it. but that was my reasoning to structure "(I)" like that within "(I) crack"?? again, im doing my best amidst my Italian ignorance 😭

and, shinyzango, under the assumption youve decided to help me, if i have totally misunderstood Italian grammar, you can just say "you were lead astray about the (I)-thing you wrote up, that's not accurate" or "it's more complicated than that" and leave it at that. you dont have to give me an Italian grammar lesson. mostly bc i assume you dO NOT want to give me one lol i p much just wanna know if im right, wrong, or got mixed results. asking you to be an Italian grammar teacher is not something you advertise, i just was fascinated with how much presence does the "I"/"(I)" have in schiàccio because of the POTENTIAL(? BC I COULDVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT ALL THE "I"/(I)" STUFF, IM SO SORRY) thematic analysis potentially then within the name, as i discuss in the following paragraph

but i think, not only would the implied gramatical aspect of the Pinocchio-Nutcracker fusion having verb-form of "cracking" apart even in its very name would be neat as well as it being neat— but also the potential of applying personhood to themself in that said very name with the potentially-"invisible yet explicit" "(I)" i aforementioned (with great confusion and lack or sureness, but yeah, as i aforementioned) would possibly be a very important thematic element for a fusion of a puppet-boy who wants to be "a real boy" × a man who had his personhood stripped away from him through transforming into a nutcracker??? and to have it perist anyway? have his personhood remain silently within his name? to have it, invisible yet hold weight in his very identity-moniker itself?? that could be very powerful of such a little word like schiàccio to do, assuming it even can do that "(I)" thing it may/may not be able to do (and, again, all of this assuming i am not missing any nuance in Italian here and i doubt that. i doubt that very much. i definitely a missing something, i just know it)

OH but ALSO, with schiàccio, we get this implication of being overwhelmed of "cracking" under the pressure (idk if my understanding of that potential translation is at all correct in Italian. i apologize if my dad's dictionary is leading me astray in any of these definitions). because there was another entry in my dad's dictionary, "Schiacciàre (Transitive) - (2.) To crush, to overwhelm, to crack, to snap, to flatten. A figuritive form of speech. Lui lo rifiuto schiacciato. The rejection crushed him". so it could(?) refer to a type of ego-death, maybe? thats usually an incidental yet pivotal pillar of a theme in transformation-stories. y'know, the ship of Theseus thought-experiment personification of it all. but when we now apply schiàccio's "(I) crack" outside of the kitchen-definition of literal cracks, and instead into that second definition's figuritive form, we now get this type of mental-breakdown implication? this Italian-specific warning for angst up ahead, literally tied to the guy's name? i think thats neat, assuming im understanding it correctly. foreshadows to the tragedy and hardships lol

plus, we also get the "-o" at the end of "schiàccio", assuming it's workable with "Pino-" without any problems. and that ending "-o", i think, links a bit more of the paralleism to Pinocchio's original name, at least visually? idk. maybe thats just me. that's a nit-pick of a bonus anyway

so this was a very long ask, all to beg the question/s, under the assumption youre willing to help me here (no worries if not, shinyzango, you do not have to help me at all if you dont wish to) is there something in your Italian fluency that sees a "anon, no, you dont want that" nonsense nuance-meaning in either of these Pinocchio-Nutcracker blended names im missing? a hidden dirty joke im fully unaware of?? is there one that flows better than the other? is the format weird? are they both shitty? lol idk what to ask specifically for what could be wrong here, but?? please? and thank you??

Pinoschiaccio

Pinoschiaccia

but yeah, any help you can offer would be much appreciated. dont worry if you dont have any help, if you dont want to give me any, eithet way, we're all good. i just hope i didnt commit any faux-pas in asking you all this. thank you so much for your time

Don't worry, thank you for asking me.

I just have to warn you that while I am native Italian, my grammar is also very bad LOL But I'll still try to give my input at the best of my capabilites.

Also while I'm not going to go through each single point of your ask to save up some time, do tell me if I missed something important to answer, as sadly big wall of texts tend to fry my brain and I end up missing on some parts as I read through (NOT YOUT FAULT! It's just my brain being dumb ksjdgn)

Anyways, onto your ask:

first of all, welcome to the world of learning a different language that do not share the same lingual roots LOL

Sadly I can't help much with the Tuscan language as I'm not from Tuscany and I'm not a linguist, but I can tell you that Pinocchio, while including the common Italian male name "Pino", to me it feels like it's may also be because the doll was sculpted with pine wood, which has the charateristic of having many knots (eyes, so "occhi") in its pattern. Buuuuut apparently in the original book by Collodi, he was named Pinocchio after a rich family of the same name, as a way to grant him good luck. So at this point I don't know LOL

And yeah nutcracker in italian is "schiaccianoci", which literally translates to "crack walnuts" althought it's meant for nuts in general. (fun fact: as a generic name for nuts we use "frutta secca", which translates to "dry fruits", which is not to be confused with "frutta essicata", which is "dried fruits".)

As for the other grammar notions:

yeah we almost never put adjectives before the subjects. In such case as the Mouse King, the correct way is "Re dei Topi", aka "King of the Mice". We could also use "Topo Re", but it's usually as a title/name said to make more of an effect.

For the whole "I" debate, yes in Italian we can easily drop the subject in our sentences because the verbs have all the variants that are specific to the person (I, you, them) and the quantity referred to (singular, plural). I do have to admit that I still tend to drop the subject when I speak in english out of habit because of this pffff.

And one last notion just to add more madness to this mess of a language, accents on vowels can drastically change words' meaning. For example, "schiaccio" and "schiacciò", while still having the same meaning of "crack", it's actually different tenses and subject. "schiaccio" is "I crack" (present). "schiacciò" is "They (singular) cracked" (past).

(btw I'm not writing "schiàccio" because it's not normally written with the à, in case you were wondering. the more common accents are not written unless you specifically need it to differentiate which one you're intending)

So yeah, I don't blame anyone who get incredibly confused when trying to understand Italian dkgnsdkj

Also yeah the verb "schiacciare" can have a bunch of different meanings depending on the context, both literally and figuratively, although I can't really tell any at the top of my head;;

Anyways, putting this whole Italian notion aside, let's get to the real point of the ask:

I can see why you came to the conclusion of going with Pinoschiaccio/a, which is completely fair. But if I were you, I would switch them around as it would sound more natural.

So personally, I would go with Schiacciapino.

And if it can help with anything, I can also add this extra italian notion: while we have a bunch of words that end in "-ino" such as Pino, it is one of the suffixes we use to change the "adjective" of the word. In this case, "-ino" is used to indicate something small (ie. "Gatto - Gattino" = "Cat - Small Cat/Kitten", or "Topo - Topino" = "Mouse - Small Mouse". And also yes another fun fact, "Topolino" is another way to say small mouse, althought in a cuter way. And it's what we call Mickey Mouse here in Italy. Same with Donald Duck, which we call "Paperino", aka "Small Duck". The more you know :V) Anyways yeah, just a small extra information in case it could be of any use for your story.

BIT OF A DISCLAIMER: sadly I can't tell you if this does in fact lead into ambiguity territory as sadly if there is any, I am not aware of it. I would have to ask other fellow Italians to give their own opinion about it.

--

Anyways I'm ending this rambling of mine. I'm not that better after all SDLGKNB

I hope I was able to clear up your doubts and questions! And again, if I ended up missing some points, do let me know!

[bellabrady]

Hey! I want to say absolutely no hate here, you can think whatever you want about characters, I just want to make some points for you to consider! If it makes you change your mind, cool! If it doesn’t, well that follow button doesn’t need my finger on it since we clearly have different views :)

I am not going to be commenting on Chim begins since I haven’t watched it in a while, but I just finished rewatching Hen Begins and was discussing Bobby Begins Again with someone, so here we go.

In Hen Begins, Tommy is never hostile towards her. He doesn’t defend her from the captain, but he’s also a young gay man who is probably terrified of that same hate being turned to him. When Hen is doing her speech on the fire truck most of the crew has tightened jaws and seems mad, but Tommy seems relaxed and thoughtful. And at the end of the episode he tells Hen: “We would’ve done a sweep of the area eventually, but eventually would’ve been too late. Good job.” with a smile and then proceeds to shake her hand and pat her on the shoulder. It is also heavily implied that he was one of the people who left a complaint about the captain and his treatment. Everything about this episode screams a man who was keeping his head low and trying to slip under the radar, not a man trying to be hateful.

In Bobby Begins Again, they throw him a nice going away party. I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to buy assholes who are rude to me a cake.

Then later Chimney is able to call him up and ask a favor that Tommy does without complaint, which makes it seem like they’re on good terms.

And in the most recent episodes, he steals a helicopter and lies to higher-ups, something that could easily get him fired and cause him to lose everything. Once again, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t risk my job and my life (they were on a dangerous mission after all) for people I’m not good friends with.

Lastly, Buck does not strike me as the type to date someone who doesn’t like his friends, his family

Again, no hate, just giving you my observations

thank you for being so nice about this!

i do disagree, however. tommy was 100% hostile to hen in hen begins. ('new york bitchiness is a compliment?' for example, or him throwing gear at her feet so she'll tidy it up and barely sparing her a glance)

i also am simply not a fan of giving characters' past actions depth when it's very clear that back then, they weren't written with that depth in mind. i can promise you the writers did not write hen begins & chimney begins while thinking of tommy as a gay, closeted man. (yes, i'm aware there was that one jacob twilight joke but personally i think you might be giving the writers a little too much credit if you think that was planned forshadowing or something. it was just a silly scene)

furthermore, even if we do run with the whole 'tommy was afraid to speak up because he was afraid and closeted'...standing up against misogyny and racism has nothing to do with being closeted, since neither of those things are related to sexuality, so standing up against those things won't make anyone assume that you're gay. tommy being closeted isn't an excuse, in my opinion.

i'm also aware that the characters have forgiven tommy but i just...don't really care about that because in this show, everyone forgives everyone, constantly. buck forgave his parents and they have a good relationship now — that doesn't mean i have to forgive the buckley parents now too.

as for your last point, i'd argue taylor definitely wasn't the biggest fan of buck's friends and family and they weren't a huge fan of her either. but i also don't think that really matters here, since it's been established that tommy is good with hen and chim, so buck has no reason to assume there's bad blood. it once again boils down to the simple fact that i, as a viewer, do not have to forgive a character's actions simply because other characters did.

anyway, once again thank you for not being rude about this and i hope you have a nice day :)

(i hope my response doesn't come across as rude either)

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Why are these inconsistencies our friends?

My theory is that S4 is being re-shot to better accommodate the public's demands that flooded the internet post-S3 debacle because S3 was, so far, the weakest season of the show.

When ANY show underperforms, the network requires an RCA (root cause analysis) and this entails focus groups, surveys, script scrutiny, etc.

The RCA of The Bear S3 returned results that pointed to a lack of Sydney airtime, a lack of backstory for OG characters, an excess of Faks airtime, no or very little Sydcarmy subtext, the producers' insistence on trying to make the C-person character happen, and no real progress on the plot overall, resulting in mixed reviews, less viewership, less engagement, and a unanimous consensus in calling S3 the weakest link.

AND, here's the meat:

Back in July rumor had it that only 2 S4 eps were yet to be shot, which at that point was not yet considered the series finale because S4 had not yet been confirmed as the final season. I posted about it:

This aligns with what Ebon said:

BUT

Also last month, Mr. Landgraf, the head of FX, said that 4 out of S4's 10 eps were yet to be shot, I also posted about it.

So, here's where the "inconsistencies" begin and that's actually great news for us, truthers.

Because we know S4's series finale is still in the WR as we speak and the series finale will be shot next year between February and March.

And if a few months ago they said they only had 2 eps to go and now the head of FX is saying that they actually are yet to shoot 4 eps of S4 to wrap production, then that clearly reads as "reshoot"/"rewriting". They are wiping 2 eps they had previously shot and re-shooting, IMO in a clear case of FANSERVICE, probably encouraged by the network itself as damage control, to make sure S4 doesn't behave the same way as S3 did in terms of numbers and public's perception.

I have been blowing this whistle for a while now, but evidence keeps piling up, so I like to keep track of it and share it.

Notice a cast name missing here? I do :)

Source: Cosmo

That could easily mean that S4 may not be ready for a June release because of all that re-writing of scripts and re-shooting of scenes to comply with the audience's demands that the RCA made clear and that the network is pushing for, require S4's premiere to be postṕoned a few weeks. I deem it unlikely but not implausible.

If I'd have to guess, S4 will be released in June 2025, as per usual, because 4 to 5 weeks of re-shoots are enough to shoot 4 eps, but the point here is that we are talking about 4 eps, NOT 2 anymore. That means they changed the ending, they wiped some characters, they went in a different direction, and they need to re-shoot and re-write eps. AND I'M SOOOO HERE FOR IT.

I am under the impression Storer was going to pull a Lalaland ending where Carmy and the C person got back together explicitly and Sydcarmy endgame was gonna be implied, like in Lalaland but with a better closure, where Carmy and Syd did end up together in the 11th hour but that was never gonna be fully shown unless there was a S5.

But after the RCA and the less-than-desirable repercussions the real-life relationship between JAW and MG had amongst the fans, the network decided to take control of Storer's final delivery and "advised" him to re-write and re-shoot the series finale, according to fans' expectations. And we all know which portion of the fandom I'm talking about, the only one that really matter$ for the network:

This includes an explicit Sydcarmy endgame, more Calo presence in the WR, less unpopular characters given more airtime than Sydcarmy, etc.

In other words: WE WON, otherwise, they would still have only 2 more eps to go and the scripts would have been wrapped by now.

FUCK YOU, STORER!

[marzipanandminutiae]

As someone writing a book set in 1858, I often worry about how my writing will come off. I speak quite affectedly but not enough that my normal way of talking is mid-Victorian enough.

I have no more worries. By virtue of using "How do you do" instead of "Hello" (extremely casually of course) I am already 700× better than that writer.

Also I'd heard of that book and was on the fence, the dresses on the cover being... well an attempt was made, at least... and hoped the inside would be better. Very glad I haven't bought it at all, I would have combusted into flames

Here's the thing- I can accept some anachronistic language, especially in the right setting. We're NOT living in the 19th century, nor does anyone currently alive have memories of it. No matter how much you immerse yourself in literature or letters, you're not going to get it perfect. And for some people it's a stylistic thing; if you make that clear, I can roll with it. On top of that, some terms are older than people think. I didn't get annoyed when a character said "fake" in the text, because that dates back to at least 1775 as an adjective, 1812 as a verb (albeit meaning "to rob" rather than "to pretend"), and 1851 as a noun.

But in this book, it's just. So blatant. And the book isn't comedy or satire. This author really said "I'm going to write a novel set in 1857 and make no attempt whatsoever to get the dialogue right" because...it was too much effort? She just doesn't like the way people talked back then and wanted it to be #relatable? I have no idea.

[paper-cuts-and-fresh-bruises]

So I thought I'd make a post on this as it's been a minute since the season 3 trailer dropped and what I'll be talking about was something that was making the rounds and I thought I'd say something when the craze had died down; but amongst the various topics of conversation, weirdly Colin's virginity seems to have come up, along with the general nature of his sexual experience. So be warned I'm going to be referring to spoilers at points from what's been posted by others on here and on Reddit, I'll leave a gap between this paragraph and the next so there you go, read at your own discretion. (note: post may be long, whoops)

So even if you've remained away from spoilers and seen only the trailer and other official promo stuff, it's clear that Colin has returned from his travel's more experienced this time in more ways than one, namely it is clear that he has been deflowered (kind of hate this term but I couldn't think of something else), and beyond that he's then also become particularly experienced in the bedroom and in the ways of charming women and such. I've seen some people say that they wished he'd still been a virgin more so because they would've found the dynamic of both him and Penelope being virgins something interesting to see as a shift from dynamics of previous seasons, and whilst I don't necessarily hate that, what's disturbed me is the way other people have had such a visceral reaction to Colin having any involvement with any other woman ever and getting ridiculously angry; which is funny when really they should be seen as interesting points of character development. In episode 1 of season 3 he returns home obviously looking as he does now and there's the whole sequence of the dropped glove that he picks up and kisses the hand of the lady in question it belongs to, Colin has returned feeling he has a solid sense of himself but also thinks himself untethered to the necessity of connection in order to engage in sex or even just flirtation, but this is important as the season progresses. In episode 2 from what I've read, he visits a brothel in which he pays for the services of a woman who works there, everything goes fine, I don't know exactly how much we will see of that encounter but it'll probably be enough; also to note, the source of this information stated very clearly that this interaction and a following one in episode 4 do not bear significance or even compare on what we will get with Polin in terms of an array of content that this season delivers.

Speaking of episode 4, reportedly he goes again but this time he's unable to engage as well as he did before and without a doubt this is due to Penelope. Additionally, this is an interesting look at sex in terms of it just being for gratification, and sex in terms of connection, a means to an end versus an act of love. In previous seasons, the depiction of brothels/sex work establishments doesn't really bear the same importance plot wise (side note I am not nor should you go shaming these people in that line of work as it's one that deserved respect like any other, it is simply functioning as a part of the conversation here), unlike here where I think that it's really important as it show's Colin's inner need for connection in order for it to work, because when he was away he probably had no issues getting his kicks because he convinced himself this felt right and back home would be no different, but that only lasts briefly and why you may ask? because the friend who he'd left and returned to transforms from a woman only in name to a woman in fully realised form, from a wallflower into an Emerald, and this kicks into gear the real maturity he needed to gain, realising from not just her appearance but the other qualities she possesses and the ways in which he is both attached and attracted to her, that she is who he has truly loved this whole time, he just needed to get out of his own head. It should also be pointed out that in the show, Colin has always drifted with finding himself let alone sorting out his feelings, so it is highly likely whilst he was technically violating polite society rules with his interactions with Penelope and this should've fired something off in his brain, that it caused him instead to think this is simply something that someone does with a friend they value highly versus being a by-product of his underlying feelings that he has with no one else. And as such, whereas Penelope was the one pining before, now he will be the one doing so and he's no longer on the pedestal he was previously so they'll be on even ground to start something real.

On a quick note, this is a friends to lovers ship but I want to make it clear, especially with men and women dynamics, that not all friends are going to have this trajectory whether we're talking about characters or irl people; friends to lovers tropes should be understood as two people who's connection starts with friendship and there's always a sense it could be something more whether or not both parties are consciously aware and it's to do with how they explore that, and is NOT in any way the case that these friends can somehow never be just friends with a strong connection, case and point Penelope and Morgan from Criminal Minds, close friends and nothing more and they're great.

Something also to say is that the obsession with Colin's sexual experience is just as bad as they way women are treated for their sexual experience, it creates this weird value and attributes a weird rating system of respect to something that's not our business, as well as fetishizing what people do or don't do with their bodies and making assumptions about their activities, so you know maybe we should agree to not do that. Beyond that, how about we actually watch what happens instead of spiralling out of control about this stuff. Also, if I see anyone who aren't fans of this ship to begin with, just leave, you're wasting energy on something that you literally don't need to be, do what the rest of us do and exit out and invest your time in what you actually enjoy instead of festering hate.

[pinkpeccary]

1, 2, 9, 14, 19, 25 for the spotify wrapped asks!!!

1: Catchiest song

i'd give this to #18: Bad Day by Charlotte Sands. the chorus is fun and the beat punctuates it really well. it captures an emotion i am very familiar with (i'm upset right now and you can't make me feel better) and i've found it popping into my head when i'm in that sort of mood which a) helps surprisingly much and b) supports it's catchiness

2: A song you didn't expect to see in your top 10

i'm a little surprised by #6: every word by Animal Sun. of the four songs from them in my top 100 it's the one i discovered the latest, and i really like it but wouldn't've guessed it'd be so high.

9: Favourite lyrics of your #1 song

Make me bleed if you need to confirm that it's something I can do And I'll paint it red If you're still unsure, let me lie for a day Before they formally announce me dead When I'm gone, cast the bronze for the bust of my head To be displayed in the library Engrave that I gave my consent To be anything that anyone prefer I be

specifically it's that last line that speaks to my heart, but i think the context of the chorus as a whole is important to that.

14: A song you think is underrated

Like A Child by Mother Mother (#31). fun fact, MM was my #3 artist this year but only two songs made it into the top 100. i have a deep love for their music in general, and there are more songs i listen to, but this is one that's been resonating with me the most recently and i think it's a bit of a hidden gem based on streaming numbers compared to others on its album.

i feel like this song represents something important for me about where i am in terms of healing. the Mother Mother songs i listened to in high school was largely about depression and anger and struggle. songs like All Gone or Happy or Body or Burning Pile. then in 2018 they released It's Alright (and the rest of Dance and Cry), which timing-wise was around when i was starting to put myself back together and figure out who i was as an adult, with the ability to make my own choices. and now, Like A Child feels like a acknowledgement of progress. and importantly, a recognition that having an unhappy childhood or growing up too fast doesn't mean you can never go back. it won't be the same, but engaging with childlike wonder and joy even as an adult is still a powerful thing.

MM has a lot of bangers, but this one deserves more love imo

19: Is the most streamed song by your favourite artist your favourite of them?

now this is a hard question because it says favorite artist not top artist. which means i need to pick. i think i'd probably have to say Raynes or Noah Kahan- if it's Raynes, maybe? top song by them was Cast the Bronze at #1 and i do love it, but Second Thought (#7) might be my favorite so i'm not sure. if it's Noah Kahan it's an easy no- my favorite by him is Homesick, which was #2 last year and #21 this year. but my most streamed this year was Catastrophize at #3.

also fun fact: in the artist message for top listeners Noah Kahan called us out for having gone through "something traumatic" and said "if you're an emotionally stable person and you're listening, i would consider listening to something else" which. yeah. if it was not clear already the theme of my music listening seems to be "childhood trauma" (but in like. a normal healthy it's just a part of who i am way)

25: Favourite lyrics of your #100 song

I just turned 14 And I think this year I'm gonna be mean

for this one it's definitely this specific line and doesn't need the surrounding lines for context. i've seen this song getting clowned on more recently for being written by a trans man cringe which is weird cause it's good. i think it's interesting from a personal gender perspective because i relate to it on vibes more than actual matching experience. kind of like how mountain goats songs are somehow the most relatable when they're about hyperspecific characters in hyperspecific situations. distilled emotion or whatever.

anyways i had a lot of anger as a kid and tended to bottle it up and then explode. i also have a lot of baggage about being "nice" because it feels like a box i was put into very early on and never allowed to leave. one of the biggest healing things for me has been allowing myself to feel anger, embracing the idea of being mean, and especially in the context of being a kid.

"i think this year i'm gonna be mean." as a teenager i never knew where the anger came from. like, i knew immediate causes, but it took moving out for college to realize just how much living with my family was fucking me up on the daily. so like. idk, the idea of just. deciding to be mean. not for any reason. i just am. it's relatable.

Ask Game Here

thank you for the ask!!

[dross-the-fish]

I saw your LO post and something stuck out to me. Most people focus on Hades as a love interest but you made the case that Persephone isn't wife material and I wondered if you could elaborate on that.

I presume you're talking about this post.

I stand by what I said.

This pink teenager isn't wife material, no adult over the age of 25 should look twice at her. This is because this character is functionally a child.

She's technically the physical equivalent of 19 but feels alarmingly younger than that because of her background and upbringing. Hades is supposedly in his 40's and has a full time job and his own assets. At my age and current life stage I'm actually a lot closer to where he's at than I am where she is and I cannot fathom what her appeal would be to anyone outside of her age group.

What is the allure? Is it the way adding her as a household driver would skyrocket someone's car insurance? Is it the way they'd pretty much be guaranteed to have to finish raising her? Instead of coming home after busting your ass at work and having another grown-up to talk to, you'd have to go through the emotional labor of having to play parent/teacher to this child who probably doesn't know how to write a resume and has never had to experience the mental, physical and financial burden of running a household. If you were to date someone like Persephone you'd have to be ok with never getting any kind of mental, emotional, or financial reciprocity because she's not equipped to function in an adult relationship as an equal partner.

That's a HUGE thing and when you get to be my age you will care about these things a lot more than you care about the frivolous "dating" elements that tend to be the focus of younger people's relationships.

Persephone would be incapable of relating to a character like Hades in any meaningful way and while it's cute, I guess, that she's "nice", nice isn't enough of a foundation to build a long term relationship. Due to her lack of age and experience she's not capable of giving advice or even actual comfort if someone had to come to her with typical adult concerns. At best she'd maybe be able to give empty sympathy and, I'll tell you right now, empty sympathy gets old fast.

A very long time ago I dated someone who was my age but at a totally different phase of life and it was a huge mistake. I'd try to talk to her about my job or an apartment I was considering renting and she'd just give me this glazed look like I was speaking another language. The only things I could talk to her about were media or college so when I needed to talk to another grown-up about the very real things I was going through (feelings of inadequacy at my job, concern over financial stability, finding affordable housing) I had NO ONE, because she had never had to worry about any of those things and couldn't comprehend how serious these concerns were. I think the last straw was when I wanted to go do something and she had to ask her parents for money and permission first.

We were both 22 and I had already had a job and my own car for 3 years and the idea of asking my parents for money or permission to do anything seemed ludicrous.

To be clear I don't blame her for that, everyone grows at a different rate and some people get to certain stages later than others, but it did really highlight that this wasn't a person I should continue to date and not someone I could ever feel like I was on equal footing with because she still lived and behaved like a teenager. We were the same age, but sometimes I felt like I was taking on a role that should have been filled by her parents and nothing kills a romantic mood like feeling like the only adult in the room is you.

So yeah, someone like Persephone shouldn't even be trying to start serious relationships, she should be learning how to navigate through life with her peers, people who are also still learning crucial life lessons. But that's not what's going to happen. There's something incredibly gross about the fact that the one who's going to have to teach her how to be a functional adult is the 40 year old man who's eventually going to marry her.

[huntunderironskies]

If (hypothetically speaking) a guy (not necessarily me, but whoever's doing it would definitely be very smart and handsome) were to make a game about were-creatures (guess what it's inspired by) in an urban fantasy setting (ft. a lot of fighting on both the social and physical front and sick-ass powers), how would you like the player characters to be handled in terms of mechanics?

For context: I'm planning on doing a splat type deal (like a character class if this somehow breaches containment from my normal sphere) with your species being your splat. This will determine powers and other benefits you'll have access to. Uncertain if it'll function on an x/y splat axis, this is still very early development phases and honestly I need to hack out just how I'm going to handle everything before we get to that step. I'm torn on whether or not I like the idea but I feel like the secondary solution here is to just do both.

And to be clear, I am very set on having a monster secret society here. I don't like the idea of them being individualistic or isolated, so having the splats be culturally cohesive in some way is very important to me. I'm also somewhat set on having a medium-to-high crunch system here, rules-lite monsters has been done a bit more extensively than I'd like. This will almost definitely be an in-house system as well.

So, with that said, here is my cost-benefit analysis for the three options. You might have to pitch me the secret fourth thing but I promise I will at least consider those.

Folkloric Archetypes

As you are probably very aware if you've heard me talk for more than five minutes, I really like religious studies. It's very easy to come up with general roles that certain animals can play within human folklore and mythology. Tricksters, warriors, psychopomps, and so on. The idea here is you get fairly abstract powers (like being able to talk to ghosts if you're a psychopomp) and get to roughly pick what species you might be that fits into that general archetype.

Bonuses: Permits a very wide variety of potential animal species. Lots of wiggle room in terms of what species can be what and I could just give general examples. Allows people to use their own animal species I might not have thought of.

Drawbacks: Extremely difficult to give broad archetypes any specific lore focus or concentrated society. My preference is towards simulationist systems and it'd be very hard to come up with ways to handle form bonuses since that will absolutely be a thing, what's the fun of a shapeshifter system if you don't get to literally go beast mode? Not as much room to expand on roles either since there's far less you can do with general archetypes.

Species-by-Species Case

Kind of self-explanatory. You get a grab bag of well-known species heavily associated with shapeshifting (wolves, hyenas, cats, bears, possibly seals, et cetera) and pick one you like. You'll still get at least some abstract powers, though.

Bonuses: Lends itself well to mid-to-high crunch simulationist thing. Easy to incorporate actual fun facts about what the animal in question is capable of and make those innate abilities. Easier to justify in an urban fantasy setting as having inspired various folklore bits IRL, meaning they feel like they have a natural place in the setting. A lot easier to justify each group having highly specific cultural practices, making the options feel more unique.

Drawbacks: Way less freeform in terms of character options, meaning player options are more limited. Simulationist usually means tons of tweaking stats and having to fuss over game balance while remaining somewhat realistic, so lots of cognitive overhead for the designer, who may or may not be me.

Both (usage of an x/y splat axis?)

Yeah. My first thought is that in this case the species splat would be like..."giant predator" or "stealth ambusher" or whatever, and then you have a cultural splat that's more like what your folklore role is (so the whole "trickster" or "psychopomp" thing.)

Bonuses: Best of both worlds...? Maybe?

Drawbacks: Not sure how to handle the way shapeshifter culture would work here. Justifying something like a trickster bear seems like it would be difficult which could lead to some incongruities. oh god so many powers to make

[the-only-authority]

Authority,

You are the last person I have yet to send an apology to. This was on purpose. If I'm going to be honest, you are actually extremely intimidating and therefore the most anxiety-inducing when I have wronged you. Which I have. Repeatedly.

Much of the points here are the same as Suggestion's, though I will repeat them anyway for clarity. ("Or I will live, or bathe my dying honour in the blood, shall make it live again..." For some reason, I keep thinking of that quote when I talk to you. Maybe it is fitting here.)

Repeatedly -- in fact, from the very beginning -- I have assassinated your character, disgracing and ridiculing you with no reason to do so whatsoever. Admittedly, I do find it difficult to navigate what you would and would not find disrespectful. But by this point, I should be able to understand the general fact that my ignominy is highly dishonourable. I know our stubborn attitudes may clash at times, but regardless of this, I should know by now to not question you on these sorts of matters.

Furthermore, like Suggestion, I should *not* have allowed myself to fall into that trap of disregarding how you would have felt to have seen an impostor taking on your mannerisms and making extremely violating claims; and I should have owned up to what I had done earlier on to prevent this from simmering for so long. That was horrible and absolutely revolting of me to do.

I am thankful that you did not List me for this. I'd like to be able to stay off that list. If there is anything I can do to have my name cleared, anything I can do to pay reparations for my transgressions, please. I give you the same offer I presented to Suggestion; say the words and I will complete the task given to the best of my ability.

I should also note that I'm extremely thankful for the support you have cast my way. Not just in recent -- by taking one of my entries off the List after I confronted Rhetoric, by defending my temporary stint as a Psyche skill (even if that was a stupid idea) even against your second-in-command, by encouraging me to remember how to do my job in order to help Savoir Faire -- but also in general. I still think of your guarding during my shut-down, back during the secret admirer debacle, you know. I am in complete debt to you. I'm serious about this. I feel horrible for my behaviour in light of this.

I don't expect you to accept any apologies here; all I seek is to form a foundation for me to build respect in your eyes back up again. (Hopefully this hasn't been too grovel-y for that. My words here are honest. I have learned from my previous bouts of miscommunication with others.)

I hope that eventually we will be on speaking terms once more. I have made a pledge to improve my behaviour and intend to enact this moving forward.

Trick-or-treat, Authority.

With all due respect, @in-omni-scientia

I can respect someone owning up to their mistakes, even if your groveling here makes it hard in your specific case. I suppose, as you pointed out, that just comes with the territory of speaking to me, as I am of intimidating statue and mind.

Furthermore, I am nothing but merciful - you must have noticed, that I have allowed dialogue between us in the past days - more than you deserved at that point.

When I support you, I do my job. You should remember doing yours even in situation where you get... distracted.

You are not getting off the List competely. I will take this into account, however. There have to be some calculations, considering that you messaged me "last", however.

As a show of good will I am going to use the text editing tools recently discovered by me to give criticism on your meandering, lengthy letter:

Authority,

You are the last person I have yet to send an apology to. This was on purpose. If I'm going to be honest, you are actually extremely intimidating and therefore the most anxiety-inducing when I have wronged you. Which I have. Repeatedly.

Much of the points here are the same as Suggestion's, though I will repeat them anyway for clarity. ("Or I will live, or bathe my dying honour in the blood, shall make it live again..." For some reason, I keep thinking of that quote when I talk to you. Maybe it is fitting here.)

Repeatedly -- in fact, from the very beginning -- I have assassinated your character, disgracing and ridiculing you with no reason to do so whatsoever. Admittedly, I do find it difficult to navigate what you would and would not find disrespectful. But by this point, I should be able to understand the general fact that my ignominy is highly dishonourable. I know our stubborn attitudes may clash at times, but regardless of this, I should know by now to not question you on these sorts of matters.

Furthermore, like Suggestion, I should *not* have allowed myself to fall into that trap of disregarding how you would have felt to have seen an impostor taking on your mannerisms and making extremely violating claims; and I should have owned up to what I had done earlier on to prevent this from simmering for so long. That was horrible and absolutely revolting of me to do.

I am thankful that you did not List me for this. I'd like to be able to stay off that list. If there is anything I can do to have my name cleared, anything I can do to pay reparations for my transgressions, please. I give you the same offer I presented to Suggestion; say the words and I will complete the task given to the best of my ability.

I should also note that I'm extremely thankful for the support you have cast my way. Not just in recent -- by taking one of my entries off the List after I confronted Rhetoric, by defending my temporary stint as a Psyche skill (even if that was a stupid idea) even against your second-in-command, by encouraging me to remember how to do my job in order to help Savoir Faire -- but also in general. I still think of your guarding during my shut-down, back during the secret admirer debacle, you know. I am in complete debt to you. I'm serious about this. I feel horrible for my behaviour in light of this.

I don't expect you to accept any apologies here; all I seek is to form a foundation for me to build respect in your eyes back up again. (Hopefully this hasn't been too grovel-y for that. My words here are honest. I have learned from my previous bouts of miscommunication with others.)

I hope that eventually we will be on speaking terms once more. I have made a pledge to improve my behaviour and intend to enact this moving forward.

Trick-or-treat, Authority.

With all due respect, @in-omni-scientia