#but it's based on a fairly recent post lol

[mariocki]

A young Peter Wyngarde guests as journalist Andrea Bakolas (a fictionalised version of the real Gregorios Staktopoulos) in Overseas Press Club - Exclusive!: The George Polk Case (1.9, ABPC, 1957)

[novantinuum]

jen's "Hard-Light Hybrid Steven" headcanon dump

Okay so I'm just making this its own post, because frankly at this point... the original post is so hard to get all the pulp out of due to the headcanons being spread over multiple reblogs and half of it being in the tags.

So here we go. Self indulgent headcanon time. This is how I'm now personally interpreting things within the realm of my own fic work and the post-canon storylines that live in my mind. This is NOT, however, a work of meta- I am by no means suggesting this to be what I see as "canon," only having some fun playing around with ideas I think are cool on a speculative fantasy anatomy level. Take it as you will basically, lol. This is ultimately just for me.

With that stated:

"jen what the fuck do you mean when you say hard-light hybrid Steven, what are you even suggesting"

Essentially I am proposing that Steven becomes progressively more hard-light based in form as he ages. When he was born he was two almost entirely separate halves mashed together- organic and gem- and those two halves slowly but surely merge over the years (hard light replacing organic matter) until one day they are literally inseparable, and Steven is one permanently cohesive being... entirely hewn from hard-light, but with a level of anatomical complexity that still makes him a complete anomaly amongst Gems and humans alike. Instead of the innards of his body being solid light, he is still formed of cells- only now, those cells are entirely hard-light.

His gem is somehow mimicking the form of organic matter with a level of detail that's absolutely unobtainable by shapeshifting or tailored reformation alone. Steven has become the single most complex hard-light system to have ever existed.

Some more specifics on how I imagine this merge working:

Much of the "merging" is natural over time, basically his gem branching out new bits of hard-light circuitry within his body as it integrates within his system.

However, this process is sped up significantly by all the spills and injuries Steven deals with throughout his childhood... because his body's instinctive response to injury is simply to replace damaged cells with hard-light analogues. An almost instantaneous patch job.

Steven's component halves being so distinct early on is a large reason why he takes so long to harness many of his powers.

This is also why Steven's (mostly) organic half is so weakened during the split in Change Your Mind- at that point there's a lot about his anatomy that's been converted to hard-light, so it's basically as if White Diamond yanked the power source out.

(Same idea for why he's so weakened during the movie when his gem's on the fritz... his gem's connection with the rest of his body got partially severed for a time, which. Is not Good for someone who at this point is more hard-light than not hard light.)

At a certain point post-canon, it becomes impossible for Steven's organic and gem halves to be separated. They are so tightly integrated that attempting to remove the gem would only poof him.

Now, here's the thing though...

Steven does not realize that Any of this is taking place until the blunt reality of his strange new anatomical nature is put on display for all to see... when he actually DOES poof.

Here is how (in my own post-canon musings, which I have simplified here because y'all don't live inside all the intensive lore that jangles about my brain) I envision that taking place:

So, Steven would be in his mid to late twenties at this point. He's married to Connie, and they have an infant son.

Recently, there was a fairly severe Gem incident that left Beach City and Little Homeworld pretty damaged. Things are still being mopped up from that.

Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl head out on a quick mission one day to intercept one of the last few supporters of the Gem who attacked the Crystal Gem's hub of operation, and at first it seems like it's gonna be a straightforward trip.

Then, Steven sees the Gem in question pull a destabilizer wand on Garnet, and- unwilling to watch her to get ripped apart like that again- throws himself in between. He can take it, he thinks. These things never hurt him one bit as a kid

He cannot take it.

He poofs.

His gem unceremoniously falls to the ground, along with the clothes he was wearing and whatever he had in his pockets.

Cue the others going "what the actual FUCK" because based on everything they've ever witnessed and known about him no one had "Steven poofs" on their bingo card.

The insurgent Gem is captured and dealt with, but now... oh, boy. There's literally no playbook for this. Nobody knows what to expect.

Steven's gem is quiet for WEEKS. During that time, the Gems end up consulting the Diamonds on Homeworld to ask for intel on diamond reformation, but none of them are much help- Rose and Steven are the only ones who have actually poofed. Beyond them, this is completely unprecedented.

In a very vague sense, Steven is aware of what must have happened during this time... (even if a part of him wants to deny it, because How???)

He can pick up vague snippets of what's happening just beyond his reach... catching voices and what must be faint sensations of familiar people handling his gem, but beyond that he has no awareness of the passage of time, and he has no means by which to reach out to them mentally.

It takes almost two months for him to finally reform. When he does, his gem quickly shifts through its previous three forms and then just... outright h a n g s for a while on the new one... as if what's trying to "load" up is so complex it's goddamn buffering.

(my brain can only think of This image uyhjfsdbyuhjfg)

No one really knows what to expect but when he finally reforms, he... looks mostly the same? Still rather human in appearance, externally? The only notable difference is that his irises are pink now. (But with no diamond pupil- not unless he's going Full Power Mode.)

Steven also reforms WITH an outfit much like a Gem would.

The second he's back, he runs to embrace Connie (who is sobbing in relief) and asks how long he was out.

And he did NOT anticipate that answer to be two months.

As it turns out, he missed quite a few baby milestones while he was gone, and he feels horrible about it- it's not his fault of course, but he feels so bad that Connie had to go that long without his support, and that there's all those special "firsts" with his son he'll never get to experience.

This whole incident marks Steven's final "retirement" from participating in real combat- he outright tells the Gems to not involve him in any other combat situations unless the whole ass planet is under threat, basically. The potential risks are just not worth it now that he knows how long he'd be out of commission, should he poof once more. He can't put his family through that again.

Now, with all that outlined...

Ways that Steven is Weird now:

He looks rather human- his hair looks like hair and his skin looks like skin- but after he reforms, literally every "cell" of his body is fashioned out of hard-light.

However, if one were to theoretically slice him in half (which I PROMISE I am not going to do, this is only a thought experiment ahahah-), his internal anatomy would glow much like the Gems' do. (See below image for what I mean.) The "human-like" appearance of his skin and hair and other externally visible features does not extend very deep.

He "bleeds" pink now- but it's only surface, and is all just excess hard-light. No real blood.

His body would no longer show up on a radiograph- just the gem.

Many of his anatomical features (not all of them, though) are now vestigial in certain ways-? Like, various functions have overtly been taken over by his gem... he doesn't need to breathe or have any lifeblood beyond light pumping through his system, so his heart and lungs serve no necessary purpose anymore... but all of these organs still "exist" as like an echo of what once was, perfect mimics of their organic form but hewn from hard-light.

That being said, Connie enjoys the reassurance of his heartbeat, so he retains that function while conscious.

(Not to mention, "breathing" is literally just a habit for him by this point.)

HOWEVER, when he sleeps (another thing he technically doesn't Need to do but does anyways) his breathing and heartbeat stops entirely and it kinda spooks Connie out. The literal only evidence she has that he's still kicking during these times is the soft hum of his gemstone.

He does not have a biological NEED for food or water anymore and can fully operate on exposure to light alone, but he still really enjoys eating and drinking anyways. In fact, he's still able to absorb energy from food... so it's basically like he's over-charging his battery or whatever. He also still experiences taste (so still posesses some form of taste receptors) and instinctively feels "hungry" at meal times, so like... the running theory is that he must have hard-light analogues for all these receptors and neurotransmitters and hormones that communicate sensations like hunger in his system even though their function is entirely redundant with his gem powering everything.

Furthermore, his memories and sense of self and everything one might refer to as "the soul" is stored exclusively in his gem now. Which means, if one could manage to analyze his brain like one could with a human brain, there would be entire sections that simply... don't light up the way that others (such as the parts of the brain that govern motor control, as an example) do. This is because all the "data" once stored there has migrated.

He can fully shapeshift now, if he wanted to.

He can also still visually "age"- it's all based on his mental state, same as before.

But despite being hard-light in nature now, he can still interface with organics in fusion because his form is still so organic in shape and function. He's still the bridge between humanity and gemkind. I like to think that... theoretically... a Gem might be able to fuse with an organic too, but the sheer burden of trying to shapeshift and maintain such cellular complexity is what stops this from happening.

Steven, though? His very existence as a hybrid acted as a template by which hard-light could learn to understand organic life. He is still an intensely unique being, even IF he no longer consists of any actual organic matter.

_

I am sure I will probably add something to this later, but for now, those are all my musings.

Anyways, thank you for taking a brief visit to the deepest recesses of my brain, where I am chewing at the drywall and bouncing around the room like a cat who has just devoured the goddamn motherlode of catnip. Good night! !! :DDD

[meanbossart]

Ask compilation: DU drow, Orin, Astarion, lore things and little fun facts.

Trying to make a dent in this dang inbox. As always, thank you so much everyone for your patience and curiosity! Sorry that it is straight up no longer possible for me to reply to everyone, but I will keep doing my best within reason. Enjoy!

Absolutely! I had a lot of requests for bottom Astarion on my patreon which is why I was kind of on a roll there for a minute.

Though, for the record - I am really not very invested in strict bedroom roles at all. Or clear and distinct dominant/submissive dynamics. So please don't overthink it whenever there's a switch, no pun intended.

You wanna know how often they smash? Man, I don't know, I guess fairly often considering their lifestyle post-game (very active, often on the road).

Assuming that everyone agrees that sex doesn't have to involve penetration, I'd say once every other day or less, really depends on the circumstances though. DU drow's libido is much higher than Astarion's, but he's not an animal and can hold off fine. Astarion is likely to be pickier in regards to location and how-recently-have-we-bathed status as well.

I keep meaning to draw him, but I have like... A million things I want to do 😂 so its rough!

BUT you will at least continue to see him in ANE! And I'm sure i'm bound to draw him again in the future.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

If you mean in his bhaalist "AU", where he has the red robe and the extra scars, I imagine he would have gotten it through killing Isobel.

I think as a changeling she probably has the ability to just... Transform her hair however she likes at will, right? And based on her attitude plus some lines we get from Sceleritas about her own former-butler, it sounds like she would be really opposed to being serviced in that way, to me at least.

I see her as pretty aggressively independent with the way she operates, which is another factor that sets her apart from DU drow, who really enjoyed lording over the other Bhaalists and making an errand boy out of Sceleritas, to the point where he practically depended on their help to function.

Neither! I wasn't willing to let anyone take either of my eyes in my first playthrough, LOL.

I have since always given the Volo eye to SOMEONE, usually Gale, but I don't consider that canonical. I don't think anyone was desperate enough to let mister frumpy-hat over there ice-pick their eyes out.

He did do them himself. It was a profoundly stupid display he got caught up in because of Gortash. Also, de-handment is kind of a theme in his life, at least inside his head.

I have a comic about it planned for the future ;)

What do you mean, that's canonical to the game and everything! He loves the cuck chair!

He is an angsty 29-year old in denial. Your interpretation is still perfectly accurate.

Hates the guy. Hates when Shadowheart Astarion people joke about him being the Drizzt of his generation. Hates the guy like literally any countercultural weirdo hates Taylor Swift or the Weeknd. If he saw him at the line in the grocery store DU drow would find a way to roll his eyes loudly just so he could notice being an asshole.

Stay tuned, I'm cooking 🧑‍🍳

If you're asking about game strats, badly, LOL. Pretty sure I died twice to her in my first run and it was a rough way of being thrown into "serious" DnD combat.

With the exception of a couple of encounters that just so happened to turn out SURPRISINGLY cinematic, I'm just realizing that I actually don't think too often about how most of the fights went in real-time! I imagine Autie Ethel's in particular wasn't one that DU drow went into of his own accord, probably rather at a companion's insistence. That's as deep as I've thought about that personally.

Now... Back to game strats. I personally try to get a surprise round on her however I can by sneaking and shooting an arrow or AOE in her general location, since she always stands on roughly the same spot while invisible. I have my companions spread about the arena so we can take her clones down as fast as possible, and as soon as I identify who the real Ethel is I just have the strongest martial characters wail on her until she begs to be let go. Hers is one of the few fights that is actually pretty dang easy at this point for me - and I SUCK at this game.

That would certainly take a while! But, Bhaalist DU drow does kind of have an end goal, actually.

That might also turn into a comic eventually, but it would a rough one.

He pretty swiftly disposed of her, DU drow doesn't like being talked down to, which Minthara very promptly does. Him (and I, by extension) had very limited exposure to her and she was just kind of a speck of dust in his story in particular. Though I have since grown to adore her character in my proceeding runs where I do recruit her!

I guess if he got an invitation and it wasn't particularly painful to arrive at the venue, sure! He would specially love to take Astarion to Gale's wedding ceremony and purposely upstage him at every at every opportunity, LOL.

Yes. He got pretty freaky with the pain-priest. This is gonna sound like a lie but I made him get naked for it without even knowing there was a buff to be gained (I didn't get it, unfortunately, I don't remember whether I failed a check or if I had camp clothes toggled on, so it didn't count as being truly nude). I wasn't taking the game very seriously and just doing dumb roleplay things to see what would happen, LOL.

And I consider that canonical. I think DU drow saw the opportunity to show off his physique And had a strange inkling that this was a practice he was... Somehow familiar with.

Imagine my joy when Astarion and Shadowheart start having a back-and-forth about my absurd display. That's when i knew those were my people, to be honest.

[spliqi]

spliqiii hi!! i remember seeing you talk about a theory regarding higuchi's ability and i was thinking about that now. with innocent purposes. so i wanted to ask if you can redirect me to the posts you made about it? (and/or elaborate when you answer this ask!) no pressure of course <3

aaaa hello!!! here are the main posts i made about it. but i can absolutely just explain everything again because i love to yap and i have even more thoughts on this now than i did back then

it's difficult to say for certain what her ability could be since we know literally nothing except that she has/will have one (thanks to asagiri's vagueposting on twitter). in my opinion it would be pretty strange for her to be the one exception to the 'all authors have cool abilities based on their works' rule when she's such a recognized figure in japanese modern lit. so. here's where i fell down a rabbit hole of trying to figure it out with nothing but crumbs and a dream.

for starters there's a lot of unanswered questions around higuchi. the problems she faces with belonging in the mafia seem normal on the surface but when you look into how highly she's ranked it gets ?????. she leads the command unit with akutagawa, a unit that sits directly below the executives and above the black lizard + the majority of the organization. if she doesn’t bring much to the table as mori and tachihara imply in chapter 14, how did she get so high up? she’s also one of the few characters that report directly to mori himself:

not to mention how she must have joined the mafia fairly recently and reached this position super fast, as her and dazai didn’t recognize each other in chapters 3-4:

she’s presented as a totally ordinary character with "relatable problems", and yet her rank doesn’t match this at all. i could see it if she were on the lower rungs of the mafia, maybe the level of a grunt like oda was, but since she isn’t, all i can think is she must have something that the mafia wants, something valuable enough to make mori look past her poor suitability and give her such a high position working as a bodyguard (bodyguard??????) for one of the strongest characters in the series. and of course the most logical conclusion to draw is that it’s related to her mysterious ability.

i’m assuming it’s not an ultra-powerful fighting skill (as cool as that would be), since that would kind of defeat the purpose of her struggle in chapter 14, and it would be odd in that case for her subordinates to look down on her so much:

plus asagiri denies it outright in this 2019 interview:

after digging around, examining each of her scenes down to the atom and bouncing ideas off of mutuals, i think it would make the most sense for her to have a life support or healing-type ability, especially one that comes with some kind of cost to her own wellbeing. it fits the caring and self-sacrificial nature of her character, and her acting as a "nurse" figure would explain both her connection to mori, a doctor, and also her being assigned to work with the terminally ill akutagawa, despite the seemingly massive gap in their capabilities as mafiosi. if her ability is directly linked to treating his illness it could also give us an explanation as to why it’s been a secret for such a long time, as asgr would have to reach the point in the story where akutagawa's illness is revealed first, and timeline-wise the cruise ship scene where that happened was like. a few days ago lol

we only see her around injured people that she could potentially heal a couple of times, but both of these scenes are interesting. the first is with akutagawa after the cargo ship battle in the first arc:

she reaches out to touch his hand with a little glowy effect, but hesitates when she remembers he doesn’t want her to help him. possibly a touch-activated ability? possibly because she’s conflicted about putting herself at risk when she knows he won’t even appreciate it? this takes place immediately after mori berates her about her worth to the mafia/in comparison to akutagawa, so if she does have a healing ability i imagine it's one she has to use sparingly, to the point that her usefulness is being called into question.

at the end of the chapter he apologizes to her and takes her hand, she starts crying and holds his hand back, and a few chapters later he reappears unscathed and stabbing nathaniel. despite having *checks notes* a broken jaw, a fractured spine and skull, first degree burns from head to toe and being in a coma 😭. which could just be animanga logic. but maybe… just maybe…

the second scene is with mori in cannibalism arc, and this one always gets me bc the direct parallel of higuchi at mori’s side and yosano at fukuzawa’s is wild !?!?!

higuchi and yosano are also both conveniently written out of the plot during the annihilation sequence in 55 minutes, when everybody gets hurt:

so. yeag. it makes sense to me. the healerguchi theory is probably the strongest i've seen for her ability by far lsjdjskjrkrj

i also think this theory links well into the irl author’s work - many of ichiyo's protagonists were "overlooked women" like maids, prostitutes, waitresses etc. if her job does involve her being a nurse to akutagawa you can see the clear nod to ichiyo's stories about vulnerable girls in roles of servitude. plus the concept of her ability physically draining her... dying as a result of caring for someone... (<- guy who's trying so hard not to mention flowers at dusk. and failing):

if higuchi has the ability to transfer her lifespan/life force/whatever based on one of her own characters who died slowly due to her unrequited love for a man with the same name as akutagawa… i fear asagiri’s pen game may have been fire all long

[project-sekai-takes]

i feel like a lot of characters have undexplored/underutilized angst. this post is going to be extremely biased™️towards my favorites, but characters like ichika, kohane, and all of more more jump really but especially minori and shizuku are who i'm talking about. i'm not saying that proseka should be needlessly slapping angst onto their stories just for shock value and fun because that's just pointless and not enjoyable to read; i just think that the angst these characters already have is usually underexplored by the fandom and game itself.

i know that ichika and kohane had the majority of their angst material covered/resolved in the main story (kohane also had vbs wl2 so it's probably covered there too but i havent actually reaad it), but i think we as a fandom should dwell on what they were like and what they were experiencing back then more often fr 🗣️. i think this kind of angst allows exploration of certain character aspects that are usually left forgotten or undiscussed. (bro ichikas closest friends left her with no real explanation so she she thought it was her fault and was extremely lonely because of it man can we talk about that please 😭)

minori is another example. i know mmjs overall story and her themes especially revolve around hope and not giving up, but c'mon she had her auditions rejected 50 times and she still kept going strong. that takes some serious passion, determination, and willpower, and i feel like that should be acknowledged more often because if i was rejected like that for at most 10 times i would have straight up folded and given up. minoris first focus and airis first focus both have a lot of minori struggle that i just never see talked about?? (read: "sorry we're not hiring your team because of that faceless amateur. we'll hire everyone else individually if you kick her out though 😁) its just a shame because its so important to her character and the angst potential is crazy!! (ok im sorry lmao)

shizuku also has a lot of angst material in early game (main story argument with airi, masking perfection, the entire thing with her old group in general) that i was really surprised wasnt featured in like...those angsty tiktoks and fanfics LMAO. i did end up finding some for her but the roots of the angst were mostly fanmade and not completely applicable to her character. i personally don't have any issues with making up tragic backstories/angst material for characters (in fact i love to see it and actively do it myself) but like the canon material is right there, there's a lot to work with already it doesnt have to be completely fanon lol /nm /lh

i know the rest of leo/need is probably also lacking in good angst content, but honami and shiho already got a ramble from me so they're on standby for now smh /lh. (airi and haruka might also be lacking but iirc airis the most popular mmj character and the recent haruka events have some good angst coverage so idk about their current standings). saki has a weird situation where her angst content definitely isnt lacking but most of the time its only used to fuel tsukasa angst. i don't actually think theres anything wrong with that because so much of his motivations were initially based off of her (wanting to be a star and making other people smile), but once it becomes only about him and has nothing to do with her, who is actually the one suffering, i just dont feel like it's used fairly. angstkasa is wonderful and all but saki is her own character :[

anyway sorry that was kind of an incoherent rant about my favorite characters, but i really enjoy angst and would absoultely love to see more depictions of it for the blorbos. thank you for reading o7

-🕊️

.

[thicctails]

i recently saw your GBC AU and I can say that I am now one of the many people who has fallen in love with it. I am also a little more curious about the AU. For example, I noticed how Bill interacts with the Pines and his parents. How did it come to the point that Bill is now just living with the Pines family? Does he even live with them? What was it like for everyone involved?

I feel like Scalene and Euclid would want to reach out to their son but for multiple reasons. For one, maybe convince him to get help (It's a given fact that Bill Cipher needs therapy) or maybe not kill anyone. Depending on how much they investigate the matter based on Bill’s and Ford’s toxic relationship (Speaking of which, how does Ford react when his “Muse” starts living with them?) do they ask themselves what else Bill has done? The yellow Dorito has a LONG criminal history with not many redeeming qualities (other than being a feminist).

Of course, Id also see them wanting to reconnect with their baby boy and apologize for everything they have done to him in the past. But again, trillions of years have passed and their Little Billy ain't so little anymore, and has developed a dark, if not sadistic sense of humor. While his parents may be what breaks the camel back and slightly motivate Bill to change his ways, undoing the unhealthy mindset that is severely rooted into him will take more than a little lullaby to fix.

Every day the Primary Colours trauma triangle cult grows >:)

To answer your question, Bill doesn't end up with the Pines and his parents in their reality until Weirdmaggedon, which is caused by an alternate version of himself tearing open the weakened wall between the Nightmare Realm and Reality. Before then, he mostly uses dreams and very weak vessels to interact with them, such as the various plushes Mabel makes for him.

After Weirdmageddon, Bill is severely weakened and fairly injured (think half-blind and pretty scarred up), but he and his folks can exist in the 3D and 2D planes. (though Bill usually avoids going 2D if he can) After the human Pines parents lose custody (Soos and Melody adopt Dipper and Mabel officially, since Stan is a criminal and Ford... well, Stan used his identity lol) the Ciphers mostly watch over the kids and the Shack while Ford and Stan are out at sea. When the Stan twins are around, Bill usually makes himself scarce.

Dipper and Mabel are probably the ones that are the most comfortable with Bill. They don't have any real traumatic memories with him in this AU, so they're just happy to finally get to meet and hang out with their older brother, strange as he is. Bill encourages them to get into mischief and often pulls pranks, but he never actively puts them in danger. He's actually really possessive/protective over the twins once it sinks in that they aren't just squishy little humans his parents love, they're his baby siblings.

(Ford mentions that Dipper might need to see an optometrist within earshot of Bill and he injures himself summoning fire to guard Dipper from him. Bill has nothing but hellish memories of his experience with an optometrist and will not allow Sixer to take Pinetree to be blinded like he was. It takes a long time to calm him down and convince him that Dipper isn't going to be harmed.)

In the months before Weirdmaggedon, things between Bill and everyone who isn't the twins is... awkward and tense, to say the least. Scalene and Euclid are, obviously, thrilled that their oldest isn't just a long-gone smear of burning flesh and dust, but it's also very mentally taxing and difficult to interact with him. As i said in a previous post, they often accidentally set off the others' triggers, and Bill being, well, Bill, means that they also have to come to terms with the fact that, while they will always love their son, he's not the velcro-shoe wearing, bubbly little stargazer they once knew.

Ford, understandably, does not take Bill popping up in his house very well, and is even more upset by the fact that he's getting near Dipper and Mabel. It's only Stan's insistence that he's actually helped the kids freely before that keeps Ford from forcing everyone into Mandatory Family Thought Encryption. He never forgets what Bill did to him, nor does he ever forgive him, but he doesn't murder him in his sleep when he's vulnerable after making a deal with the Axolotl at the end of Weirdmageddon, so there's that. Plus, it is reassuring to know that the once all-powerful King of the Nightmare Realm folds like wet laundry under the Power of Mabel. The creature that once haunted his nightmares looks a little less scary when a 13 year old girl has painted his nails a glittery pink and made him have a disco tea party with her pet pig.

As for him getting help? Well, that's actually part of the deal he makes with the Axolotl! Weirdmageddon almost kills him (turns out fighting yourself while actually caring about not hurting people leaves you somewhat vulnerable!), but the Axolotl agrees to save him, if he agrees to monthly therapy sessions with him, as well as him and his parents having a regular life span. Total reformation really isn't going to be possible, not for Bill, but when Dipper and Mabel have passed on, he and his folks will go too, and if Bill has made progress towards being a better person, then they'll be reincarnated together.

It's hard and it SUCKS, but its better than Canon Bill is doing lol.

[starryredpandawrites]

So with Bendy copying Audrey to be a person (based on the two bendy bites) would that mean he would also copy the cat?

The reason I thought this is because imagine Audrey comes home to see the cat in loaf form only to turn and see Bendy also loaf-

AbsoLUTEly he would, you genius!

Loaf Bendy would be so precious, both as a toon and a demon XD Toon Bendy is gonna be limited to non-verbal imitations (loafing, stretching like a cat, pushing stuff over etc.) but our big inky boi has no such limits.

There's so much potential here for animalistic behaviors and I'm such a sucker for that, like:

Imagine he starts hissing at Audrey as the Ink Demon. The first time he would probably freak her out. By now, she's gotten fairly used to all his noises and he probably has been using his own version of gurgly hissing that's only called hissing for lack of a better term. Then one day, she does something he doesn't like, like reaching for the remote while he's watching TV, and he just full on cat-hisses at her. It would still be garbled cuz that's how he is and I imagine it would be a lot harsher than a regular cat's hiss. This new sound would definitely cause Audrey to at least flinch and possibly jump back (if she was on the couch, she would probably fall off b/c funny) in fear/shock.

Now, I'm split on whether he would feel bad and not do it again for a while (he hates it when he scares her accidentally, it brings up bad memories) or if he would try to abuse it to get her to do more stuff for him since she's used to all of his other threatening mannerisms. It would probably depend on the severity of her reaction idk

Another possible first scenario where Audrey hears him hiss for the first time could be her overhearing him playing with the cat. Cat thinks it's normal, he learned it from the cat so he obviously thinks it's normal, but Audrey would probably freak out even more because she's still secretly worried he's gonna eat the cat at some point. (I just remembered I named the cat Inkblot so I'm gonna start using that name again lol). He would be super offended by Audrey's overreaction, especially if she tried to separate them. Maybe he starts lecturing her on how Inkblot needs to learn boundaries through his language since he doesn't speak English or sign language and Audrey is just reeling that he's mentioning boundaries when he's constantly pushing hers

OMIGOSH HE COULD LEARN TO PURR

GUYS, I HAVE A LEGIT EXCUSE TO WRITE THE INK DEMON STRAIGHT UP PURRING IN THE FUTURE

Ohhahwaqihufaiouqouihfd I'm so excited for this

yeah sure, it's gonna be garbled af and I was already planning on writing plenty of inky rumbling in the fic but now I can straight up call it purring which is splendid

ESPECIALLY IF HE LEARNS IT'S POSSIBLY HEALING

Problem, I don't think scientists figured out that purring is helpful until recently. (Google has confirmed they first started to suspect it in the 2000s, ugh)

Other problem, can Audrey get sick? For the sake of sick fics, I wanna say yes, but she's also not human so the logical/world-building side of me says no.

Screw logic, imagine Audrey with a cold, just chilling in bed, trying to get better, when Inkblot jumps up on her chest and starts purring. Audrey would appreciate the attention (since she's the cat's third favorite) but she also likes breathing and would keep moving the cat off.

Eventually, the cat leaves and she thinks she's free, closes her eyes, and suddenly the pressure is back but 10X heavier and way rumblier.

It's da Inky boi in his full demon glory, laying practically his whole torso on her and shaking the room with the power of his rumbles. Cue Audrey complaining and trying to shove him off, but not only is she sick but Bendy is obviously way stronger than she is. She has no choice but to submit to the cuddles, but she does convince him to just put his head on her so she can actually breathe.

Okay, I think that's enough silly self-indulgent ideas for one post lol

[nefaricussims]

My "Choices" Sims-ematic Universe

Many years ago, my friend got me into the app "Choices", which is one of those apps were you play through choose-your-own-adventure stories. Pixelberry's quality has decreased drastically in recent years but I'm still a big fan of their older works. I'm also a big fan of the Sims and CAS so over the years, I've grown a collection of Choices characters remade as Sims which I lovingly call my "Choices Cinematic Universe" (you know...like the marvel cinematic universe...) because they're all living in one save lmao.

I didn't think I would ever share these Sims here but people actually noticed I used Blades of Light and Shadow for the promo of this posepack and the lovely @simsillagrim asked me to share my other Choices Sims sooo here they are!

I didn't always make the whole cast of a book because, well, I only made my favourites lol. Some of these are from 2019 and some were made in the last year so the quality and likeness varies a LOT. I never said I was good at this. 😂 I'm also weird and couldn't decide whether to add MC, the default names or my own so expect a mix of all lmaoo.

Another important note is that 95% of the "It Lives" Sims were NOT made by me. They're made by the AMAZING @alltimefail-sims. I'll explain more when we get to them.

ANYWAY, let's finally start:

I think these were some of if not THE first Sims I made. You can tell by the kind of clothes I chose for some of them 💀 although I did slightly update them for this post. I only made my LIs and Diego & Varyyn because they're one of my favorite choices couples ever.

I cannot tell you how MANY times I've changed Edward. There's something about his face that I just cannot get right. 😭 I do like how my MC looks though. I'll forever mourn this book, it deserved a sequel. :((

Made them around the time I bought Horse Ranch bc duh. BSC was such a silly book, I loved it. And yes, I accidentally called my MC like a character in the book. It was hilarious.

The most recent addition to the CCU! And a joint effort between me and my friend @thatwinglessthing, and by that I mean they did all the work and I just tweaked things on Donovan a little. 🤣 And made my MC of course.

To prevent this post from becoming too long, I won't list every picture individually. Shreya and my MC are almost as old as the ES Sims I think. I've always wanted to make the rest of the Pend Pals but never really got around to it. Ironically, Shreya wasn't even my LI, it was Beckett. 😂 Nik & MC are fairly new and I'm quite proud of Nik tbh.

Random combo but we're nearing the end of the smaller groups haha. Guinevere is still missing her Lancelot, I honestly don't know why I still haven't made her. 😔 I'm super proud of the ROD Sims tbh, especially Mona. They were fairly easy, too. On the other hand, I struggled with TCH, especially Jack. 😭 I LOVE his canon ouftit but I just couldn't get anything remotely close and at one point I just gave up lmao. I do like Kieran's outift though.

Alright, now we're entering It Lives territory. 😂 As I've mentioned before, a huge thanks goes to @alltimefail-sims who made ALL of the It Lives characters and gave them away for free!! I marked it in the pictures as well but every Sim except MC, Noah and Jane were made by them!! And yes, I made an adult Jane. 💔 Her design as well as some of the others are based on the characters' looks in ILW instead of Woods bc that's basically the canon time in my CCU. It's only very slightly visible in the Noah/Jane photo and later in the ILW photos but I even built the cabin where most of Within is set in because I have problems. 😂 If you wanna see that too, let me know! I'm actually quite proud of it haha.

Listen, I know Parker is missing.....but I just do not like him. 😂 Or at least I didn't care about him enough to put him in my game. There are countless other characters who deserve to be added to the CCU before Parker LMAO.

And we conclude the It Lives section with the Within crew! One could also say the founders of this little project as I've made Choices Sims before but it wasn't until I added all the It Lives Sims to my game that I actually made a save file and started playing with them. 😅 MC #2 is missing their blind eye (where the scar is) because I just cannot find any CC for a blind eye on that side, it's always either the other or both eyes?? Technically, they should have 2 cyan eyes as well as they're my Shadow Rowan buut. I wanted to keep the heterochromia.

Annnd last but certainly not least the Sims that started this post. 😂 Technically, you've seen them (minus Kade) before but this list felt unfinished without them soo, here are the Blades Sims again. 😂 Nia and Valax are definitely my favorites, I think they turned out really good and Nia's outift is just PERFECT. They're all a mix of their book 1 & 2 outifts because I did try to make book 3 outfits as well but failed miserably. 💀 So I just chose those I could remake the best. Except Kade because he deserves a cool outift too and not just the same fit for all 3 books. 😭

And that concludes this massive list. 😂 I haven't made new Sims in a while but I definitely wanna keep adding to this save. I'm not sure if anyone out there will ever see this AND read everything but if you did: thank you! And I hope you enjoyed this little insight on my mediocre CAS skills. 😆

[interstellarsystem]

Little Plural Things

Systems can present in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, being a system can be loud and obvious if you're naturally more overt and/or out about yourselves as plural. Sometimes, it can be quiet and barely noticeable, but still there--just harder to see. Our system is fairly obvious if we're unmasked, but there are still things that escape even our own knowledge when we're masking as hard as we can. Little things that to us, remind us that our system is undeniably real. This is a post about those experiences we've had with barely-noticeable signs of a system.

Not every system will relate to these experiences, some might feel similarly about a few points, some may have others of their own entirely, some might not know or not have anything like the experiences we mention, and that's all part of being plural. No two systems are mirror images of each other. This is a post about our experiences.

1. Handwriting

Recently, we've had it brought to our attention that we have different handwriting. We don't write with a pen/pencil often, but we were asked to fill out a worksheet for our psychologist recently. She told us that whoever in our system wants to contribute to it can, and suggested that we signify who wrote what in some way--to which we chose different pencil colours for different headmates. We took the worksheet home and put things on it depending on who was in the front and if they wanted to.

It turned out, that some of our writing widely differs from each other. Out of the 6 people who wrote on the sheet, most of them were wildly different. Rift and Martin wrote the most tidily, with Rift's writing looking more "proper" and "adult". I (Vince) apparently am not the best at neat writing but I managed to be better than what our "normal" writing is like from what we remember. Merlin wrote messily like he was writing very fast. Mystery wrote with very large letters with sharp angles that overall made it look like it was written by a child new to writing. Which makes absolute sense. It's not a child, but its hands in-headspace are bigger than ours and that was the actual first time it had written anything on paper since it got here.

Somehow, it took until our psychologist pointed it out for us to notice how different it was.

2. Vocabulary Choices

Something we are able to notice sometimes is how our vocabulary and sometimes sentence structure changes based on who is speaking. Some obvious examples are our British headmates substituting "bloody" for other words as an exclamation and the difference between what some of our headmates would call a "chip" or a "fry".

Other times though, it's more subtle. Sometimes there's certain phrases that will just have a word or two swapped out and it does tend to point toward who is fronting even if people do use multiple of these. Some examples are:

"I suppose" vs "I think" vs "I believe"

"Kinda" vs "Kind of" vs "Sort of" vs "Sorta"

"Recently" vs "A bit ago"

"Sleepy" vs "Tired"

"Lol" vs "Haha" vs "Lmao" vs a keysmash (Even though these are text-based they are quite telling.)

"Quite" vs "Very" (Speaking of the above.)

Getting more subtle with them, some other examples are:

"You know" vs "Y'know"

"Uh" vs "Um"

"Uh-Huh" vs "Mhm"

Sometimes typing is influenced too. The amount of em-dahses within the text, the consistency of proper punctuation, how mechanical the text feels, how many run-on sentences there are and even how much tends to be written in one message/post can all point toward different people being in control.

3. Accidental Accents and Inflections

While accents are usually very obvious, we're generally good at masking them. Generally.

Due to us living in Australia, our headmates with accents straight from London don't stick out too bad when they're struggling to mask, but they are still noticeable to those around us who know we're plural. Passerby on the street or people who don't see us often don't think much of it, but certain people we are close to know that a few people in our system find it harder to mask and can tell when they're fronting very easily because of it.

Even if we are masking our accents properly, some parts of the way we speak still come out. Some of us end sentences on a higher-pitch more often due to what our accent generally has us do and some end more on lower-pitch notes when speaking. Some of us put emphasis on certain syllables differently. There's lots of little things that go into language that make it hard to completely mask.

4. Food Choices

More of a noticeable one, but something we tend to brush off as "just a bad batch" when it happens. Some of us like and dislike different foods and drinks, some of us to an extreme degree.

Mystery hates the brand of juice we normally buy and thought that it might've just been past expiry (it was not) or just a bad batch of the juice, but they're consistently the only one who doesn't like it.

Rave likes spicy food much more than the rest of us because they have a harder time tasting it. I on the other hand can't handle spicy food at all and am worse with it than the others in my system.

Some of us favour different brands of food and some of us might like/dislike textures of food differently too.

5. Default Facial Expressions

Different resting facial expressions are something we hardly notice because we don't look in a mirror often due to dysphoria. What we do know though, is that some of us just rest our faces differently.

I look more stern and tired than others. I have a bit of an angrier resting expression.

Martin looks a little bit more anxious due to being an anxiety-holder, but he also looks softer and kinder.

Crowley also looks tired but has less of a stern look and more of an almost blank one.

6. Body Language

This is one we don't know too much about because we can only get knowledge on this from other people, but most of our headmates have a different "vibe" by the way they carry themselves.

I end up seeming to-the-point and business-like.

Martin reads as being very anxious even if he's not always.

Crowley reads as smug.

Mal reads as if he's planning something mischevious and silly.

We've been told that Filigree just reads as "gay".

We're not sure what actions make us seem this way, but some of us can be clocked by others around us as fronting without even talking first. I don't know how people do it, but it's something in our body language.

7. Clothing Choices

A few of us have different clothing choices--Crowley still wears sunglasses everywhere due to light sensitivity and wears dark colours, I prefer to wear button-up shirts as opposed to more casual things, Martin prefers hoodies that are lighter in colour and Merlin prefers to dress in pink and black and more fluffy textures.

We don't have too many clothes overall so to others it does just look like we're cycling through our wardrobe, and sometimes we are, but there's certain styles some of us tend to lean toward more than others.

---

Some of these might seem quite noticeable, and maybe they are if you know we're a system, but people change a lot so once again some of this is much more subtle than it sounds. People who don't know that you're a system hardly ever notice, and if they do they put it to "having an off day" and leave it at that.

We wanted to take some time to appreciate those little things we find it hard to notice, though. And maybe it'll end up helping some other system realise how unique they are as individuals and help fight off the imposter syndrome like these realisations did for us.

[genericpuff]

A while back you made a post mentioning Down to Earth is trash and I would like to here your take on it. No pressure on it I just like hearing your opinion on things. FYI I hate Kade lol

I did, and I've been meaning to post about it, but I've been taking some extra time to re-read as much as I can so that I could better collect my thoughts :' )

Now I will mention, I have not caught up to the most recent episodes. Most of my thoughts here will reflect the earliest parts of the series, as I didn't end up sticking with this one. So please take my criticisms as someone who just never got into this series for various reasons, not as someone who was incredibly into the comic and fell off it (like I am with LO). I will try to judge it and review it fairly based on that context.

Most of my issues with Down to Earth don't stem nearly as deep as my issues with LO, Let's Play, or even Big Ethel Energy. Frankly, I think the comic is 'fine', but I don't think it's necessarily all that good either, and the amount of attention it gets from the platform lends to the fact that I really think its success is due to a lot of generated hype. This is one of the other comics on the platform that gets a LOT of priority advertising, not quite as egregious as LO, but still a lot.

The short answer: I think the comic is just overrated and pretty basic in terms of its storytelling and art, and I don't think it's necessarily a good "romance" comic for some of the same reasons I don't think LO or Let's Play are good romance comics. I think the only reason I don't get quite as mad at it as I do with LO or BEE or LP is because (as far as I can tell) it's not really advertising itself as some feminist progressive piece of work. It's sorta just "what you see is what you get", and what you get isn't really all that great (for reasons listed below) but at least it doesn't try to sound smarter than it is most of the time. Read it the same way you would watch a fluff anime.

Moving into my long answer, I will say some of the things that were initially appealing about it: the art is very colorful and cutesy, the comedy (for the most part) is inoffensive and simple, and the story is really easy to pick up and get into.

That said, I do think some of those praises are also part of its weaknesses.

While the art gets better over time, there are certain aspects of its stylization that still feel very "baby's first webcomic" to me. Which is great if you're someone who's into that style, but when I read it, it never really stops feeling like a Canvas comic, if you catch my drift. Nothing really sets it apart from the flood of Merryweather-esque fan service comics that are in the Canvas section.

And boy, is there a LOT of fanservice in this comic. I think the main plot point itself is fanservice in and of itself - cutesy anime alien girl crashes on earth, and winds up living with the depressed NEET-like guy, shenanigans ensue from how "inexperienced" she is due to her alien status. Everything from the circumstances of this character's plot to how she's drawn screams "this is for people who like to read about small titty girls with big asses being put into a situation where they have to rely on a man". The comic takes many opportunities to draw the FL, Zaida, as wide as possible (and of course, the ML Kade loves this trait about her, it's one of the first thing he notices aside from the fact that she speaks an alien language and can do weird alien things like telepathy and flying).

Thankfully this does get a little better in the later episodes, you can tell the creator was struggling with anatomy in places and then honed their skills, but there are still times it regresses back to the extremely-pinched-waist-mega-badonker-hips look.

Don't get me wrong, having a protagonist with wide hips like this is all fine and dandy, but there's a point where you can tell it's purely for fanservice and that's definitely what the comic wants you to know from the starting gun. She fits perfectly into that "born sexy yesterday" trope that so many romance FL's do (cough Persephone cough) while also having that "uwu I'm so inexperienced :(((" vibe that you get from characters like Sam in Let's Play. Shit, Kade pretty much starts sexualizing her before he even knows what her deal is as a person. Does he even know how old she is? Is "she" even a "she", do these aliens have different concepts of gender identity or even different types of reproductive organs than what you would find on Earth?

Look, I get it that I'm probably WAY overthinking it, you can write comics about characters from other dimensions and planets without having to get into the nitty gritty of whether or not they have periods, that's fine. But the real problem is the fact that her being from another planet seems to be used purely for creating an infantilized character with extra steps who's easily laughed at for not knowing things (don't even get me started on how "alien" could be replaced with "someone who doesn't speak English or have access to modern devices" in a lot of this comic, but I feel like that's way too deep of a criticism to be pinning on something that's literally designed to be a quirky fanservice fluff comic.)

Like, you want an alien girl who looks human but still acts reasonably like an alien - while even tackling subjects that come with being an "outsider" - without making her act like a literal baby? Starfire from Teen Titans.

(granted, the whole "smooching to transfer information" thing is definitely a little weird in hindsight, and there are definitely moments of fanservice, but that's about as weird as it gets lmao you don't see Starfire acting like a literal toddler, she is smart and capable, she just isn't from Earth, which is the whole point of her characterization being parallel to that of what foreigners experience ! She's not stupid or incapable of taking care of herself, she's just not accustomed to life on Earth!)

Like, this is in one of the newer episodes and I just-

(I suddenly have to throw up-)

It really dials the creep factor of this whole relationship dynamic to 100 when they drive home just how "babylike" she is through panels like this. It's not really her being unaware of customs around her, it's just her being written as babylike as possible with the fact that she's an alien being used as justification.

But it really makes you think about Kade's intentions when he goes straight to buying lingerie for the girl he just met who's been forced to stay with him in his home. He doesn't even really make efforts to help her get on her own feet, he just accepts this as his fate and goes "welp I guess I gotta make sure I don't get fired from my job" because now he has to support the baby girl that landed in his backyard. So Zaida ends up having no agency as a result. It just feels like a contrived situation meant to force an unaware, vulnerable girl into being taken care of by a guy who's, frankly, a creep.

And boy, Kade is actually kind of a creepy scumbag.

Kade makes for a really uninteresting and frankly pathetic character, he's just sort of a whiny man baby and you just know if Zaida was an earthling who had spent time on this planet longer than a few days, she probably wouldn't put up with this shit LOL Like, deadass he basically threatens to harm her within the first few episodes of the comic-

Like, this is after she's ruined his Playstation or w/e, and it's just like DAMN girl, this is a RED FLAG. But of course, she's an alien girl who's ignorant about everything, so it creates that power dynamic where he basically has full reign to take advantage of her at any time. Ladies, if a guy says you shouldn't trust him, take him at his word.

Zaida's characterization is also very inconsistent between her being an alien and her just being an "uwu baby girl". Often times it just makes the whole "alien" thing feel like it's only there to justify writing yet another "I'm babyyyy" romance. Sometimes she's WAY more privy to things than you'd expect her to be and then other times she's doing the dumbest shit for laughs.

Now to be fair, she DOESN'T put up with his shit here, but the fact that the writing for Zaida is inconsistent makes scenes like Kade being a creep being more about the creator realizing they're leaning too hard into her being vulnerable to abuse and so they quickly have Zaida combat it with some strange amount of awareness despite the fact she's only been living with him for a few days... but not enough awareness to maybe realize this isn't a good living situation. Like, again, she may be able to speak English, but that doesn't mean she's fully aware of what Earthlings are like, so she's suddenly really smart about what it means to be taken advantage of by a human man even though everywhere else in the comic she's written like a toddler.

And of course, like many of these webtoons tend to do, they don't linger on the implications of this scene too long, so they quickly turn it into a punchline to ease the tension. Audience comfort restored.

And that brings us to the comedy. The "jokes" in this comic basically boil down to, "haha, the alien girl doesn't know how to take care of herself on Earth!" , which frankly, I think is just a very thin veil for infantilization. I mean, really, the fact that she's an alien doesn't even really matter in the world of this comic, it takes a while for the comic to even really give us a glimpse of what her life was like off Earth so most of the comic is just typical slice of life cutesy moments you'd find in literally any shoujo or romance webtoon. You could switch out the fact that she's an alien with her being from another dimension, or turn it into an isekai where she was the female character in Kade's favorite video game who suddenly got zapped into the real world, and it would make fundamentally zero difference.

They even sorta lampshade this fact but swiftly move on from it.

There's nothing really that makes her an "alien" in any unique or consequential way, she's just a carbon copy anime girl with pointy ears who could be replaced with any other trope from other romance subgenres like this. She can eat human food just fine, dress in human clothes, and as long as she wears a hat over her ears, she's literally indistinguishable from the humans around her.

I will add as well that there are a lot of little ways they hint towards the implied dynamic between these two, at least in the beginning. The whole "second rule: obey" bit, while passed off immediately after as a joke, feels like it was inserted there JUST to create that imbalanced power dynamic that so many "romance" webtoons rely on, similarly to LO and Let's Play. The fact that he corrects himself from this just feels like, again, lampshading.

And again, after this we do see Kade legitimately acting like a creep and he DOESN'T DO ANYTHING to help Zaida get her footing beyond paying for her room and board and telling her to mind her vocabulary, so this seems more like him trying to create a situation that's beneficial to him where he's effectively trapped this girl into relying on him.

They even lampshade this as well so that leads me to believe they're fully aware of this dynamic and how creepy it is, so they try and play it off as a "haha so funny" joke to ease the tension or create suspension of disbelief.

When it comes to the actual execution of punchlines, again, 90% of the jokes in this comic are "haha alien girl so stupid!"

(I will admit this scene did make me laugh, but it's telling that it was the only one that stood out to me for that because every other joke in this series is very mid and resorts to the same type of "haha she's a stupid alien girl" punchlines.)

(omg mental illness! so funny! /s)

If you really want comedy written around aliens describing human things in weird ways, then just go read Strange Planet. They're actually aliens and they're consistently funny through much smarter writing that doesn't rely purely on "lmao they're stupid because they're not from here". If anything the aliens in Strange Planet are way more welcoming and endearing to the concept of being a fish out of water than simply making them stupid for a punchline.

(i swear to christ, "crisscross flop disc" and "prohibit anxiety" are lines that have lived in my head rent free for like 3 years now, it never gets old and THAT'S how you know it's a good joke LMAO)

And the story, as mentioned, is easy to get into, but ultimately that winds up meaning it's not really all that well done. Like, it's fine! It's a cute comic to read if you're into this sort of thing, there are a lot of sweet little moments that feel good to read between Kade and Zaida, but ultimately because of the focus on the fluff, that's all it ends up feeling like - weekly doses of fluff. Even when it tries to have some semblance of plot, it's quickly undercut by fanservice. So it's just kinda boring and vapid.

Case in point, one of Kade's observations of Zaida is that she apparently looks "just like his ex girlfriend" who he still clearly hasn't gotten over, but we don't actually see even a hint of what his ex-girlfriend looks like until MULTIPLE episodes later after the "sparks" have already started being formed between him and Zaida.

Um... she doesn't really look like Zaida at all aside from them both being generic anime girls, but okay lol by that logic the girl he served at the store in Episode 7 also looks like Zaida.

So it kinda makes the whole relationship feel superficial, like he's only interested in her because she vaguely reminds him of his ex, and it's taking so long to get through any amount of plot through all the fluff that I can't be sure if they ever actually address this. I'd like to think they do eventually, though from what I've heard of the later episodes after his ex-girlfriend makes an appearance, it seems more like they go the LO route of making the two relationship "choices" just be complete opposites where one is actually sweet to the ML and the other is abusive JUST to make the sweet FL seem like the "better option". IDK, obviously my criticism of this is lukewarm because I haven't kept up on this comic in ages, but I have the sneaking suspicion the whole ex-girlfriend-the-ML-can't-get-over plotline isn't gonna be used for his development, just to further propel him and Zaida into a relationship - and by extension, manufactured drama to make their relationship more "interesting".

Overall, I don't think Down to Earth is anywhere near as egregious as Let's Play and LO, but it's definitely cut from the same cloth, and that's why it frustrates me to see it - alongside LO and Big Ethel Energy - being marketed as "new voices in romance".

(also real talk, it's so disingenuous for them to include LO in this "new voices in romance comics" panel when it's been around for so many years that everyone and their grandma who uses WT knows about the comic, if they aren't reading LO by now they REALLY don't want to. It's not "new", if anything it's one of the oldest ongoing webtoons on the platform and it REALLY needs to end already lmao)

Far be it from me to gatekeep an entire genre, but this brand of romance comic isn't really "romance". It's vapid fluff loaded up with egregious fanservice that's meant to give you a hit of dopamine every week, while never lingering on serious scenes for too long because they don't want you to realize just how imbalanced the relationship is between the two main characters. It's not quite as concerning as LO or Let's Play, but it does have a vibe that's really uncomfortable when you start to feel it. So having comics like these held up as the "golden standard" of romance is just... it's really telling as to what WT's priorities are and how unhealthy "romance" has become in mainstream media.

And if I can get a little "old man yelling at cloud" for a second, I miss when romance was sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. I think the only mainstream and successful romance webcomic (and it's not even an Originals!) that I've seen in the last several years that isn't loaded up with these problematic tropes is Heartstopper. Heartstopper is sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. Heartstopper is way more of a pillar for a healthy romance than what any of these "new voices in romance comics" can provide. It literally couldn't function as an Originals series because the definition of a WT romance comic would undercut the actual point of Heartstopper.

These unhealthy standards and dynamics that we've set in the romance genre have been so pervasive for years now and I really just wish they'd go away.

y'know what, this whole essay is really just a promo post for Heartstopper now, go read it-

[yellow-faerie]

@wormsontoast I do indeed have some thoughts about Archivist!Georgie (from the au vaguely outlined here) and since you showed a mild interest in it, I shall now tell you all about it here haha

So there are two things I kinda want to say before I keep going because this au has been changing and shifting in my head a lot and I want to get a bit more of it out into the world.

The first is that each archivist au is based off of as few changes as possible to the canon timeline, aiming (ideally) for only one change that causes ripples throughout the timeline. For example, in the Gertrude-causes-the-apocalypse au, the one change is that Agnes and Gertrude get bound when they are both much younger and the web manipulates things from there, yada yada that's not why we're here BUT you see the vision.

The other thing is that my initial intention was that most people would have a pair, forming some sort of couple or QPR, two people against the world kinda thing - one of them would be the Archivist and one of them would be their apocalypse + 1. This was mostly because (in my head at least) I saw one very eye-aligned character in each couple.

BUT I have recently been doing a re-listen and one thing that stands out to me is that so many of the main characters want to know things, that I think a lot of them could have ended up in the Archivist position in fact. Martin seems to actively encourage reading statements in S3, and Tim definitely has the motivation (when the circus gets involved at least) to be manipulated into the position - more curious though are Daisy and Georgie.

I'll leave a potential archivist!Daisy post for another day (because that's a wild au and a half haha) and talk instead about Georgie, who was meant to be the purpose of this post lol (I'll pop it under a readmore)

So, Georgie - the first thing is how does she become the Archivist? I think the point of divergence for this au would be that Georgie and Jon don't break up during Uni (or just after) and keep their relationship kinda going for a while, and when Jon mentions joining the Magnus Institute, Georgie goes with him.

The real question is why. Georgie in the podcast is fairly avidly against chasing the monsters, so I can see her as taking a job there as a way of keeping Jon safe - I think she sees him as quite naive for his scepticisim and knows that she will not talk him out of it, so she better just be there to stop him from going somewhere he shouldn't.

Jon and Georgie do break-up though, although fairly amicably. They keep living together because it's way cheaper than living alone in London and they are friends. Georgie also starts WTG but it's very much a side project to work (one that she keeps putting off making her full time job, even though she wants to, because the Institute's library is just too good for research).

She's also the one to push him towards the cute librarian with whom Jon has several cringefail attempts to woo before they start tentatively dating.

I reckon that during the course of being in research (with Jon and Tim and Sasha), Georgie gets marked by the web. They'd marked Jon but then Georgie had come, and so they saw an opportunity in her (or wanted a back-up just in case).

Either way, by the time that Gertrude dies, Georgie is the one that Elias chooses as the next Archivist (and I honestly think that Gertrude might have thought that Georgie would be the next Archivist too - Sasha is good but you can't beat actual fearlessness coupled with good sense).

She gets to take with her Jon and Sasha and Tim (Elias is like...let's make sure I have plenty of hostages to work with when the time is right) and that's the Archives team sorted. They're fairly competent, considering the fact that none of them have a library science degree.

Season 1 goes much the same but we meet Martin when he escapes Prentiss. Jon has been going to the library for Georgie, getting out books on archiving and the like and periodically finding references, mostly because he's the one who's closest to the library staff (well, one library staff member in particular).

But Jon mentions that Georgie assigned him the Vittery statement - something about facing his fears - and he hates it, so Martin suggests they go together after work, and he would deal with any remaining spiders for Jon. (Who is Martin, if not down bad for Jon?)

(That is, of course, a rhetorical question lol)

Something something, Martin gets trapped in his apartment for two weeks by the Worm Woman despite not actually being in the Archives. Then he comes straight to the Archives to give a statement, where Jon is working late and waiting for Georgie to finish so they can go home. Jon is the one that suggests Martin stay in the Archives, after he turned down the offer of staying on their sofa.

So Martin lives in document storage and continues working in the library with the rest of his coworkers none-the-wiser, and gets kinda absorbed into the Archives nonsense as Sasha meets Michael etc. etc. And Martin and Jon get really close, from late nights and evenings and weird little dates.

It goes from like...dating to being genuinely quite serious; they have been together for probably like 2 or 3 years by this point but this is a tipping point in their relationship. They keep talking about how they'll move in together after all this is over, so Georgie can finally have her home studio and Martin doesn't have to go back to his flat.

Anyway-

There's also Melanie. She comes in because Georgie was one of the people she contacted in her search for answers and Georgie was like...come and make a statement, maybe we can do something.

Melanie is slightly less derisive of the Magnus Institute (only slightly) mostly because she likes Georgie more lol

Martin is in the library when Prentiss attacks, and is the one that Sasha finds when she runs up from the Archives. Jon and Georgie and Tim are down in the archives, knocking in walls and fighting off worms, and Sasha and Martin go find the CO2 suppression system.

Sasha turns the right corner; Martin doesn't and ends up in Artefact Storage.

Tim finds Gertrude's body. The tide of worms split him off from Georgie and Jon who end up getting wormed in the archives before the fire suppression system gets set off.

They have a few weeks off. Not!Martin and Jon do move in together as had been planned, staying at Georgie's while sorting out a place together. Before everyone returns to the Institute (Martin got the time off too because he was deemed sufficiently traumatised by it all), Jon and Martin move in together, Sasha and Tim have another ill-advised hook-up and Georgie ends up...alone.

Queue the paranoia arc. Georgie might not be able to feel fear but I think that would make a paranoia arc even funnier, because she is convinced that she is seeing things Rationally only for her very much not doing that.

So the thoughts get a bit vague from here. I have some thoughts for each character though!

Martin is obviously taken by the Not!Them in this and so that really fucks Jon up. Jon is Georgie's oldest friend and very much her closest support net, often being the one to feel fear in her place (like she uses him to gauge how she should react to a situation, something that developed because there hasn't really been a time since Georgie returned to Uni where they haven't been in relatively close proximity).

So Jon goes off the deep-end after the revelation of Martin's death and the fact that he wasn't even living with the guy. He takes the responsibility of Martin's mother onto his shoulders, he literally ties up all of Martin's loose ends and then I think he just...stops caring.

It's a mix between Tim's complete S3 despair and Jon's S2 paranoia. He literally cannot trust anyone anymore, no matter how hard he tries, except maybe Georgie because of the whole Archivist thing. And so he goes to the circus with Georgie and Tim and Basira and Daisy.

And he is the one to press the button and die.

I don't usually like taking that away from Tim, because it is a decision so tightly linked to his backstory but I actually put him as ending up in the Coffin in this, shoved in there by a well-meaning Gerogie with her mind being twisted by the Unknowing.

I like the idea of Georgie having a bit of a superiority complex in this AU, where she is sure that she knows better than everyone else because she can't feel fear so she can see things Rationally and Correctly (she wildly underestimates how much other emotions can influence you).

Anyway, back to Tim. He wasn't as depressed during S3 because Georgie's own mini-paranoia arc involved a lot more of digging into statements because she is much more certain that the knowledge of who killed Gertrude is in there, and also Sasha is very much alive and well.

I mean, Jon's rancid vibes are definitely off-putting but like this is at the point where they realise they can't leave and the dread powers exist so the vibes aren't great anyway.

So Tim ends up in the Buried. How does he get out you ask?

Sasha.

I have been waiting for a potential AU in which to put Vast!Sasha and I have decided this is the one. No I don't know how yet but this is my decision - I love the idea of Buried!Tim and Vast!Sasha being something of a couple.

Beyond that for them though, it's mostly vibes.

I think Basira might actually choose to work with Peter Lukas in this one. I wouldn't have Georgie go into a coma post-Unknowing because she's already touched by the End and I don't think she would choose to wake up again, because she simply doesn't have the fear of death that influenced Jon, so she's around for the inter-season shenanigans that occurred.

So Basira doesn't trust her or Elias or Peter, but she decides that as she knows Elias and Georgie, and she's been offered this position by Peter, she'll take it.

(She's trying to ignore the pull of Daisy, hunting out there somewhere, lost after the circus - she never even got the chance to fight against it)

Melanie would be a very interesting one indeed, because part of what attracted her to Georgie in the first place (I think) is that Georgie knows about the entities and can understand her trauma, but is determined to not be a part of it, so they would be so much more messy than in canon.

I honestly couldn't say how her story would thus change. Melanie is a very fascinating character to me and I struggle to sort her out in my head without writing her (and so is Georgie - that's the problem with not writing them as much as some other characters :/) - that said, I do think she doesn't go full eye gouging because she does really love Georgie and doesn't want to leave her in hell alone.

(Hand in unlovable hand and all)

(I also think that Tim and Sasha might decide to do some eye-gouging with friends, as not-quite fully realised avatars of other powers, and try and settle down together somewhere, just in time for the apocalypse)

I'm not sure what all of Georgie's marks would be, or how she'd get them, and if you've got this far I am sure you understand my thoughts are vague and disjointed; but know it will be tragic and upsetting because I refuse to let myself write happy AUs lol

ANYWAY, thank you for showing an interest in this AU :)

[thelovetheystole]

Heads up, it's another long one !

I just remembered that I had saved this twitter conversation from a while ago, it's from a woman that manages several uk soap stars (Claire K etc), and they were discussing soap returns with her, and how long it can take to iron them out. Two small excerpts of what she said:

Apparently she manages an actress that is about to return to one of the soaps after like a decade, and it's been planned for a long while now, with magazine covers having been shot months ago etc. But still no news is actually out yet about who it is and when. And she's saying it's fairly common for it to take a year from a decision being made to bring someone back until they are on screen.

Anyway, as always I'm thinking of Ryan, and Robert returning lol. They called Danny at the start of 2023 and had him filming by august and appearing by october. Aaron was obviously fairly easy to write back in the show, since he had literally just driven away. But for maximum drama, they waited for SSW.

As for Ryan, when he and Danny had their pub meeting in 2023 he would probably have been gearing up to film ACGAS. We have no idea when he later secured Casualty and Miss Scarlet after that. But we do know now that he most likely started filming Casualty around December and that Miss Scarlet only wrapped their filming of season 5 in April this year. Then he was likely doing ADR for it after that, based on the picture he posted.

Would Emmerdale/ITV even try to secure a deal with an actor who is currently working elsewhere I wonder? Danny talked about trying to talk him 'round in his return interviews in October. But Danny isn't the same as Emmerdale's production team, which by the way has changed a lot since early 2023.

First Jane was there when Danny got the call, then she left, so when Danny was saying those things about trying to convince Ryan, a lot of changes was going on bts. Then Iain came in as head boss, then Kate left, most recently they appointed Sophie... They could all feel different about what direction to take.

Add to it that the Robert character is possibly more complicated to write back in than Aaron, with the prison sentence to consider, and also where they wanted to go with other characters. Would they want to finish something else first, would it clash with another story etc. Another thing is obviously they would want a super dramatic return for Robert, not a random thursday in, say, August. If Aaron got SSW for his return, I would expect nothing less for Robert. (There's always Christmas too!)

I guess this is my very long winded way of saying that I still don't think it's too late for a return, and I think the prospect of a love rivalry with a new half brother sounds a lot more promising from a story telling stand point than 'let's just tell Robert's return story with his brother instead'... They did say adding this particular new Sugden to the show would open for a bunch of new story possibilities down the road. Like what, if not Robert coming back?

But, then again, maybe they just lost patience in waiting for Ryan, and I'm being delusional again, lol.

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

An intro to my blog; Witchcraft, tarot, and general unhinged energy.

Bare-bones/TL;DR: My name is Frog or Froggo, whichever you prefer, I use he/him pronouns and this is a blog dedicated primarily to my practice as a witch. I do tarot readings over on Ko-FI, as well as some on here that are donation-based (You tip if you want, but you don't have to.) Donation-based readings are temporary to promote the paid readings, and I'll be closing requests once I feel I have a decent amount of people interested (or if i find that it isn't working and I'm just instead giving free readings and no paid readings.) Send in an ask for a donation-based reading, or head on over to my Ko-Fi if you want more of a guarantee that I'll get to your reading/want your reading prioritized. Please check the bottom of this post for what readings I do/don't do before sending an ask.

Me:

I go by Froggo or Frog

He/him pronouns

Trans, panromantic, polyamorous, and just generally queer.

auDHD

20

Quiet sunshine and rainbows type of guy, until you get to know me and then suddenly I won't shush and I keep talking about psychological horror

interests outside of witchcraft include writing, Genshin Impact (I promise I don't associate with the fandom they scare me so bad), music, anime, and "weird miscellaneous facts."

My craft:

I've been practicing off and on for about four years, but I've been around witchcraft my whole life. I no longer consider myself a beginner, but I wouldn't consider myself a beacon of knowledge either lol. I know enough to be comfortable practicing on my own, and giving others a few resources. If I ever post something with inaccurate information, something that appropriates any closed practices, or something that is otherwise not advisable, PLEASE let me know!

My interests in witchcraft include Tarot/oracle cards, deity work, crystals, and working with dragons. (Although, that last one is very new to me so I have very little experience to share so far.)

My work as a witch has begun to shape out as involving things that others fear and reject. I personally find this hilarious considering that I used to be so scared of everything.

I work with Persephone, Hades, Medusa, my familiar, Loki, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Khaos. They appeared to me in that order, with Aphrodite and Khaos being fairly recent additions as I'm typing this. (5/12/24) Note that this is a list of EVERYONE I work with at all, and some of them (like Medusa) only rarely show up in my life currently while others are more active.

I have a sideblog about my work with dragons, @officially-other, but it's so heavy on UPG, identity talk, feelings, etc. that I keep it separate from this blog. It's brand new as of editing but I plan on it being completely transparent.

Things to expect from me: An unreasonable amount of witchcraft memes, lots of fun little stories about my guides/deities and interactions with them, general stories about my craft. My asks are open, but I may not always have an answer to any questions! See the "not a beacon of knowledge" bullet point earlier.

DNI: Racists, misogynists, trans/homophobes, ableists, bigots of any kind, pɘdo, I feel like I'm forgetting something but overall just don't be an asshole okay??? Plz???? Thank you. 16+ minors are okay, below that you can follow and lurk just please don't start a proper conversation. (/lh, lighthearted)

TERMS FOR READINGS

Yes I know this is a bit long. I don't require that you read this but I don't answer asks with problems that could be solved by just reading this. I am no longer doing readings for anon asks, so please be off anon. Paid readings and any Tumblr readings that tip/donate beforehand will be prioritized, but other than that please be patient- when I post readings, I often get a lot of asks that takes weeks to get through.

Readings I will do:

General readings

Love readings (PLEASE check that it doesn't fall under "won't do" first)

Readings with a specific deity or entity (Paid readings get channeled typing,)

Pretty much anything that isn't on the "wont" list. (I reserve the right to say 'no' if something is brought up that I'm uncomfortable with but didn't think to put below.)

Readings I wont do:

Physical health readings (go see a professional)

Anything that constitutes "mind reading" (instead of "how does [person] truly feel" try "what's left being unsaid" or "what do I need to know" type questions.)

Sexual readings

Readings on a voice chat/call (yet)

Deity Identification readings (just not confident in them)

future spouse readings for free (I will do them paid, I just do the free readings to promote + for fun, and future spouse readings aren't fun for me)

[ohthesearemyprey]

As this blog seems to be a bit dead, I have decided to host a mini character lottery to revive it :)

(THIS IS THE ORIGINAL POST)

Lottery Game Info:

Ends Oct 12th 2024

ENDED!!

Rules:

The idea of this is fairly simple, comment the next number and you will be automatically entered into the lottery

For example, if the most recent comment has the number 5, you comment 6.

If you are the first to comment, comment number 1.

You may not comment more than once.

Only comments on the original post (that does include reblogs of this post since it does show up on the original post as well) will be counted.

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR COMMENT DELETED IF:

You are NSFW or KINK blog. I understand that I have a higher tolerance for interaction than most, but since the prize does mean interacting with me directly, I am not comfortable with that.

You are a hate centered blog, harassment blog, or any blog which has anything to do with either of these.

I will choose the winners through a random number generator. I will choose the order based on what number was rolled first, second, and third.

For example, if the generator chose 5, 3, and 8, whoever commented 5 would get first pick, whoever commented 3 would get second pick, and whoever commented 8 would get third pick.

There will be 3 winners, and depending on who wins first, they will get the following prize:

Will get first pick

Will get second pick

Will get third pick

Fairly straight forward, ya?

"So, what will I be choosing?" you may be asking.

The winners will get to choose, in their given order, which of these pred concepts they would like to become the proud owner of!

(I know they aint fullbody concepts, but, to be honest, I dont have that much time right now. If you are moot, and politely ask, I may do a quick fullbody sketch for you, its not gonna be anything detailed lol, but, again that's only IF you win)

I cant force anything, but I honestly would like it if these designs went to someone who draws them, and keeps their design in the SFW Vore community. I do love these designs, and its kind of hard for me to part with them. But I am hording characters lol, so I need to let them be free.

So ya! That's about it!

Comment your number folks!! ->

[hagweeds]

Hello!

I recently stumbled across Santae on Tumblr, gave it a try, decided i wasn't really vibing with it, and quit (never joined the discord or really poked at the forums) all before finding out about the... Unfortunate stuff going on.

I had no clue, and now im feeling twice shy about interacting or supporting other similar sites. I very firmly don't want to support anything AI related, so i was wondering if you maybe had a list somewhere of sites( in development or otherwise) that you can recommend?* I wouldn't even know where to begin looking.

(*Already Hoarding dragons on Flight Rising, so any OTHER sites)

omg sure yeah!! there are a lot of smaller petsims around and the two upcoming im excited about:

UPCOMING

- Pawborough (FR style breeding sim with cats)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tbpt/paw-borough-the-feline-virtual-browser-rpg/description

https://www.pawborough.net/demo

PB is currently in closed beta testing and if lucky you might still find people giving away keys? But I think most are claimed now. Open beta will be open to everyone, but there will be no further wipes at that point so it could still be a while. Updates are posted daily in discord and it's open for everyone to join.

Breeding is slightly different than FR though so I would recommend playing around with the breeding demo. It's not wheel based like FR and I'd describe it more like when you mix paint colors?

Would encourage you to look at the more recent KS updates because they did revamp a lot of the art that's in the original campaign (hydde from fr is on the art team!)

- Mythaura (another breeding sim but with various mythical creatures)

https://mythaura.com/

https://ko-fi.com/mythauradev

Not currently in beta but the devs do put out monthly updates on progress, and you can donate to their Ko-Fi for beta keys. Currently I have 33 keys (and get more every month) so you and anyone else are welcome to ask for a key when it opens up.

This one was around in dev for a while but died off as the original creator moved on to IRL things. Current owners worked on the site with the OG owner and with permission reference the original concepts. Since it's been with the current team updates have been consistently every month.

Some cool previews for their DnD/adventuring mode are in the more recent updates! Also there are shiny familiars 👀

EXISTING

- Pixel Cats End (based on FR dom adopts from Ice)

Small community and new content is slow but steady as it is one dev. No gender restriction on breeding, cats belong to North/South/Trade. N/S can breed with each other and Trade can breed with all. Very gender inclusive and all cats pronouns can be freely changed at any time. Breeding is based on genotypes and it's fairly complex (cats have hidden traits and some are recessive etc)

If you like chasing rare breeding outcomes it's pretty fun! There are rarer patterns and things like Albino cats. There is also a DnD grid based adventuring mode that I find pretty fun to grind, final boss gives out drops that include a G1 cat generator.

4dopt

I'm just going to steal the post @jinogasux-fr made lol https://jinogasux-fr.tumblr.com/post/771749879998447616/doing-another-reblog-of-this-because-4dopt-had-to

Basically it's very customizable heavy adopts and all pets /items/etc are drawn by and submitted by players.

Wolvden/Lioden (wolf and lion breeding sims)

Both sites are owned by the same team but Wolvden is the newer game and works a little differently than Lioden.

Big warning that in both sites your pets will eventually die and freezing them is a premium item. The upside to this is your account does not "rollover" until you tell it to. So if you don't log in for a week, your pets won't have aged until you rollover again. Breeding is also a lot more restrictive in terms of who you can breed and when (like on Lioden you have one male pride leader who can breed, but if you want to breed one of your females to a different male you'd have to use another player as the stud unless you retire and select a new leader)

Both sites tend to have very dramatic communities but the gameplay is solid and functioning. Staff can also be questionable but if you keep to yourself it's not on the level of CJ DMing players yaknow

Subeta

If you liked the questing on Santae, just play Subeta bc thats where CJ took it from and they do it much better.

Subeta is older but still... relatively active? I think they're still revamping the site but everything still functions. I played obsessively 10 years ago.

Largely focuses on human avatars with pets. At the time it was kind of the adult Neopets site (iirc it was 16+ only originally)

There are some other petsites that I just don't recommend: Marapets (owner is a freak all I really remember), Neopets (as an old school neo player i just can't recommend neo anymore lol), Dappervolk, Lorwolf

In terms of where I find or go looking for these, it's unfortunately not one place. A lot of these I discovered either through my FR-based friends or through Tumblr. https://www.virtualpetlist.com used to be pretty good back in the 2010s but looking now they do seem to be featuring AI art sites.

I do frequently see that people tend to make topics in the General Discussion area for new sites, so it's worth keeping an eye there too: https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/gend

Sometimes I'll also browse Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites as that's how I found PB originally.

[butterflydm]

In the continuing adventures of my Rook, I have met my last three companions, and also learned that the spoiler I accidentally ran across wasn't an endgame spoiler after all, yay!

As for those last three companions, Taash feels like a similar kind of "brash 19 year old" energy that we had from Sera in DAI; Emmerich is very polite and I like him; and Davrin is pretty aces so far (and Assan!! My baby!!! Rook can hug him sometimes!!!!).

Davrin needing to go from Assan's bodyguard to his primary nurturer has been very sweet. We've had a couple of good conversations about it.

As for the spoiler that I was worried about, I accidentally ran across a title about needing to choose between saving Treviso and Minrathous, and I was worried it would be an endgame choice but it was actually right after I recruited Davrin, so fairly close to where I stopped off in my last post. Didn't get spoiled too badly!

I really liked the effects of it! I chose Treviso, for a couple of reasons -- my Rook was more invested in that city due to Lucanis; and also they assumed that Minrathous had more resources to handle a dragon than Treviso did, given what they saw at the beginning of the game. The game taking Neve away for two main story missions in order to help clean up the city afterwards, and 'hardening' her character in ways that had gameplay effects is very cool! Poor Neve! She's also the one who got injured in this game, because I took her along at the start, so she's having a rough time. I think I'm going to make my second Rook a Shadow Dragon to make sure I have enough personal investment in Minrathous to make sure I pick it over Treviso in my second run (I think I'll also go with my Inky who disliked Solas in that run, to see if it changes any dialogue or etc).

We saw Ghilan'nain when we went to Treviso (very effectively creepy, with the tentacles and all) so I wonder if we would have seen Elgar'nan if we'd gone to Minrathous instead.

I don't think I mentioned this last time, but Varric telling the framing story has been fun and ominous, lol. Every time I get a new companion, he's basically like "and then a new source of trouble snuck in behind them in their wake" lol. And I love the art that we get every time that it's Storytime with Varric.

Companion updates: the character who gets along best with Lucanis so far is Taash -- everyone else is creeped out by the demon aspect, but spirits are more integrated into Rivani culture, so she takes it in stride and even already had a conversation with Spite (and on a meta level, I love that 'Spite' literally kept Lucanis alive while he was imprisoned; embodiment of 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me to do'). But Bellara recently had a positive conversation with him too, so that could be a good sign.

Varric has even sorta warned Rook against getting too close to Lucanis (specifically because of the demon). He's having Anders flashbacks, I'm pretty sure lol. (too late. fairly certain I'm going to romance Lucanis. The only person who could maybe persuade me away is Davrin).

Bellara's hero worship of Neve in the early parts of the story was cute but I don't know if that'll have a chance to continue with Neve hardened by the story's events.

Loving exploring the regions and they really do feel so big. Definitely more 'gated' than DAI but that's not a bad thing. Areas open up when you do quests with people but then stay open afterwards so that you can go back to them, which I like.

I am also loving all the new explorations into the lore! The Crossroads and the Lighthouse make this spirit-loving girl feel great. Cole was one of my favorite companions in DAI, I romanced Anders in DA2, and I took Wynne everywhere with me in DAO because she was my healer, so I ALWAYS spend a lot of time with my spirit-based/possessed companion, lol (I also loved Justice in DAO: Awakening).

I love learning more about spirits and demons and the relationship between the two, because I've always found it interesting. (Haha, it really was A Moment when I found out that Wynne is apparently 49 in DAO; I thought she was in her eighties or something when I was playing the game, lol.)

On the mechanics side of things, I like the new version of upgrading gear, and DAV really cut down on collectables & fetch quests -- there's really only one 'collectables' quest and it has a solid and immediate impact (powering up the caretaker). I also like that the companions 'skill points' are based on their relationship with you and that they skill up as you get to know them better and get closer to them.

The fighting feels fairly fluid and intuitive playing as a rogue. I was finding it a little trickier with my first Rook (who was a mage). But shifting between archery and daggers is pretty smooth, and the combos are fun. And now that I've specialized as an Antivan Crow, I can do 'Murder of Crows' as my ultimate attack, so that's a fun time.

Hours played so far: roughly 30