#but just for the future i'll want to plot stuff out more and actually talk with ppl

[brokenfractions]

just as a psa that i'll eventually be adding everywhere but !!! since my main shipping partner is @lonehearts (and all his other blogs), i'm going to be highly selective with shipping from now!! this doesn't affect any plotted out ships i have with anyone else currently and i won't be completely closed off to it, but it'll require A Lot of plotting and ideally a good relationship ooc from now on.

ori, niki and jiwoo are still completely single ship and won't be shipped with anyone else at all, but yeah!! just a heads-up for everyone, and this will be in my rules and what not soon

[bobbile-blog]

Okay so I've finally gotten to Jessicalter's Oprec and now feel qualified to talk about Come Catastrophes or Wakes of Vultures. holy shit. This went straight into my list of top Arknights events. Fantastic event, spoilers will be under the cut so I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading the event first. It's really good and worth your while.

Anyway, what follows is a scattered mess of thoughts about this event and things that stuck out to me.

First off, plot stuff! I'll probably cover this when I do my next plotline recap post, but what I took away from the end is that Clip Cliff seems to want to make Blacksteel independent, or at least more self-determining than it is now. He seems to be gathering resources and assets like mobile city plates and investing in long-term infrastructure like merc training, so he definitely has a long game he's pushing for. I don't think we know enough go speculate about his goals, but we'll definitely be coming back here again. After all, Tila has an infection monitor in her art, which probably means she's going to be playable at some point in the future.

Next, having looked into this a little on my own, I was interested in some of the previous places Raythean has shown up. Specifically, the ones that stood out were the drones in the Kazimierz Major and arming Silverash's forces in Kjerag, which might be referring to the Tschäggättä. It's not just notable for their apparent level of technology, but also as a faint connecting thread between three separate capitalism plotlines. I don't know if that's going to be meaningful in the future, but I found it interesting enough that I thought I'd bring it up.

Now on to more narrative things. While I love Liskarm and Franka, I do think it was the right choice to give them less screen time in this event. They're both (for the most part) fully-realized characters who understand their own motivations and morals. This is above all else an event about Jessica learning to stand on her own as an adult, so it makes sense that they're more here to support her than they are to play their own roles in the story.

Speaking of said roles, I liked the event's commentary on cops. It pointed out an interesting distinction that I wouldn't really have ever thought of, that between mercenaries and cops. To start: cops exist to protect property, not people. The police exist to protect things and do not have an obligation to err on the side of people over things, and in fact are supposed to do the opposite. This event understands that, and that role os the core of how the bank treats the Blacksteel mercs. CV, however, raises an interesting point that mercenaries are bound by the letter of a contract and not the larger obligation to property cops are, so they can actually raise moral objections and point to their contracts, sort of a Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral to cops' Neutral Evil. The independence of their position with respect to cops allows for more of an independent morality than you'd get in a cop story and I like that, I think it's a really smart direction to take your writing in.

On a (mostly) separate note, holy shit Arknights is really good at writing cowboy stories. Between this and chapter 9 (and I would argue An Obscure Wanderer), Arknights has repeatedly made it clear that they Do Not Fuck Around with their cowboy stories and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it. It kinda has everything:

- It takes place in a rural, working-class setting undergoing a larger imminent societal shift that can inform the larger narrative, and deals with a semi-mythologized past that is rapidly disappearing.

- It has a protagonist and an antagonist that serve as foils, both very heavily affected and defined by the (same) violence in their past that they've both had different reactions to. Our protagonist has come to terms with the violence as a tool to maintain order, while our antagonist has used it for personal gain and in some ways lost control of it.

- It's a story about community, and heavily emphasizes local and personal community over larger artificial corporate "community". That's my reading of the recurring motif of the cold btw, warmth represents the close, personal community Davistown used to have and the cold that now pervades it comes from how the bank has systematically dismantled that community.

- And, I'd argue most importantly, it understands the narrative power of a bullet. The Showdown at the end of a cowboy story is powerful because we've spent the entire runtime of our story with these characters, and they are now facing each other down with the intent to end one of their collective two stories. The entire weight of the narrative so far comes to rest on a single moment of tension. It's really hard to gather up the kind of narrative momentum you need to make that hit like it does in CV. For example, it requires a really light hand with actual action in the story, so that it really does feel like it's an even standoff between our protagonist and antagonist. On the other hand, though, you do actually have to establish the relative skill of both parties and actually sell the danger of the moment to the audience. It's really hard to toe the line between tension and actual action in a way that makes for a satisfying resolution, and CV does it extremely well.

Honestly, Arknights just seems really good at getting the vibes of American media right. This is something I noticed in DV and Lonetrail too, and I haven't really been able to put my finger on what it is about them, but the vibes are just really on-point. I want to write more about this at a later point once I actually figure out what it is that I'm feeling, but maybe it's the setting, maybe it's the cast, maybe it's the plot points, maybe it's something in between — it just seems to understand the spirit of period cowboy stories in a way that I can't describe. Good shit.

Finally, I wanna end this with where Jessica is now. The events of CV take place In between the events of Loneterail and Ideal City, so the current "now" of the story is a few months ahead. Jessica left for the frontier along with Woody, Helena, and Miles. They live together in a small new settlement, building the place from the ground up with Woody and Jessica acting as town sherrifs. At the point we're at now, rhe town is fairly well-established and Woody has temporarily left on other business, leaving Jessica the sole sherrif of their new settlement. However, she's risen to her new station, and is growing into a stronger person than she ever was before.

[icedragonlizard]

What if dream friends had dialogue in Star Allies?

I suppose it could've been a lot of unnecessary work for HAL to do, but I still think it could be highly fun and imaginative to think about.

How cool would it be if the game's plot actually acknowledged the existence of the dream friends? The things they'd say in-game, etc...

I think it would be especially fun to think about what all the different dream friends might saying during the mage sister fights. Like, y'know, the points of the game where there's dialogue. What they all might say to the mage sisters in response to their words....

... I'm not going to go over what I think every dream friend would say in these moments, but I think I'd like to focus on ones such as Susie, Magolor, Marx, Taranza and Daroach. Why these ones in particular? Because I think they'd probably be the more entertaining ones in what they'd have to say in their dialogue during the mage battles.

How funny would it be that Marx and Magolor just troll the shit out of the mages? How funny would it be that Susie acts condescending when talking to them? How funny would it be that Taranza joke-flirts with them, he doesn't actually mean it as he's just doing it to get them riled up? How funny would it be that Daroach tells them to watch out before he steals from them? This stuff is fanfiction-worthy! Heck, this might be the biggest reason why I might attempt my adaptation of Star Allies into a fanfiction in the future, although I've got many other fics planned beforehand so it'd be a long while.

But still! There could be endless potential when thinking about this.

Let me demonstrate an example. First, let's look at the part where the game first introduces Flamberge, and she's really angry.

"HEY, YOU! Stubby little...pink thing! Yes, YOU! I have a buuuurning question for you! You're the one who was so rude to sweet Francisca, aren't you?! Don't you dare try to deny it!"

"Ohohohohohohoho! We sure put that crazy blue lady in her place! What are you gonna do about it? Throw a temper tantrum? Go so berserk that you lose control and we can easily beat you?"

Wanna guess who said that? Hahahaha... the purple text probably made it obvious. In this interpretation, it's Marx who said that. There's no way he wouldn't just totally mock them and rub it in their faces. At the very least in my interpretation of Marx, it'd be like him to do that.

And by the way, I'm one that actually headcanons Marx becoming friends with the mage sisters post-HiAD because he loves how chaotic they are, and loves that they're willing to join him in doing insane shit (especially Francisca). But during Star Allies when the mages were the enemy? I bet he totally mocked the shit out of them!

Magolor, too. Here's a good example of Magolor having dialogue against one of the mages:

"Bonjam. I am Zan Partizanne, the eldest of the three generals of magic."

"Woah... Zan what? I didn't hear that thoroughly! I think I'll call you Zan Parmesan Cheese, though!"

".... I absolutely HATE that you ended up getting my name more right than a lot of other fools have."

It'd be hilarious to see a lot of dream friends trying to say her name. All the different ways they could say it wrong.

Here's a Taranza example:

"This must be the fiery flames of fate at work! Ooooh yeaaaah! My flames and I are fully stoked now!"

"Golly, you're really hot, good ma'am!" with a trollish look on his face.

"... Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?"

"Hahahahahaha! Am I making you overheat too much, fool?"

I think Taranza deserves to be depicted as silly sometimes.

A Daroach example:

"We wish to assemble the dark Jamba Heart pieces that were scattered across the universe."

"Woah... you want them all? That's a big bummer! What if I want to steal some of them? Maybe I'll still do it out of spite, teehee!"

I hate the limited amount of colors allowed for tumblr posts. To make it clear, for this example, the blue text is Francisca while the red text is Daroach. While, of course, Flamberge was the red text in the examples with Marx and Taranza, while Magolor was the blue text in the example with Zan.

And now, let me demonstrate a couple examples with Susie. I think she'd delightfully fire off on them like the feisty cheeky woman she is.

"I shall now turn this pink ball of nice into a frozen block of ice!"

"No you won't. This 'pink ball of nice' is a force of pure destruction, and you're going to defrost by daring to harm the universe with all of this insolent nonsense. You must be destroyed!"

"... Very well. But I won't go down without a fight, so you best watch out that you all might become ice sculptures this time. I can more than make sure of it!"

"We will more than make sure to obliterate you, just like the rest of your barbaric cult! Let's put her in her place, Pinky!"

Susie example with Zan:

"I did not expect you to survive your visit to Jambastion."

"You thought that would've gotten us? Pfft! We've all been through worse than that. You're going to have to try harder than that if you really want to eliminate us for good."

"Really, you survived worse? Well, that doesn't matter, because your luck has run out."

"No. Your luck has run out. We're going to exterminate all of you like the savages you are!"

This works out well with my interpretation that Susie's Japanese SA pause description containing the words "exterminate the savages!" is referring to the Jambastion cult when they were still the enemy. I headcanon that she's slowly in the process of unpacking baggage, and "savages" is just a thing she calls people she views as enemies.

And uh... to be honest, the cult kind of deserved to be called words like that during Star Allies when they were threatening everything.

I've done a lot of examples of a few dream friends having dialogue during the mage battles. But what about when confronting Hyness?

I think all the dream friends would be horrified at the moments that Hyness knocks Zan out of the way, weaponize all three mage sisters' bodies in his second phase of the fight, and then sacrificing them and himself to Void Termina. It would make them just flabbergasted.

Although I bet Marx would probably laugh at how unhinged he is.

"It seems... we do not have enough energy... to revive our Dark Lord... Must we... allow ourselves... to fall... into oblivion?"

"Yes, you should do that!"

"No."

"Yes."

"NO!"

"YES!"

"No no no no no!"

"Yes yes yes yes yes!"

"*goes on his giant unhinged rant*"

"*laughs hysterically* Look at you go off! It's hilarious!"

Marx is just... lmao.

Sorry that I don't have examples with every dream friend having dialogue in this post. But you get the general idea! Perhaps if you have ideas as to what the other dream friends could say in these moments, feel free to mention them in the notes!

Although I'll leave you here with a King Dedede example, just cuz:

"For what you've done, I'll scorch you to such a degree that... that... even tasty, toasty marshmallows will seem like ice cubes compared to you!"

"You ain't gonna be scorchin' any of us, ya hot fiery slimeball! We'll put you in your place like we did to the blue look-a-like of ya!"

Hahaha... ha... I interpret southern accent Dedede. Sue me.

Thanks for reading the post if you did! Let me know about more ideas of dream friend dialogue you have in the notes. I'd be curious what else you think in this broad, interesting concept.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Hello! I've been reading through all your posts so far and even though I am personally an ML fan and not a salter, I love media analysis and I'm sad that there isn't much of them in the fandom. There are directions in the show that I'm not satisfied with and I'm currently working on a rewrite for a future comic.

I'm curious about your ideas and takes on how you would personally rewrite ML, right now one of my issues is figuring out how the Peacock Miraculous works bcuz of sentimonsters. How would you write them?

I'm glad that you're enjoying my stuff! I label it all as salt because - as best I can tell - this fandom defines that as anything even slightly negative, but my goal is more analysis and discussion than angry ranting. Talking about what a piece of media did wrong and how you would improve it is a fantastic way to improve your own writing. It's why I got into media analysis in the first place!

Funnily enough, I do have a massive rewrite out there somewhere on AO3, so I DO have thought about how to handle sentimonsters. Or, more specifically, I've thought about how to handle the peacock. I'll give those first, then circle back to sentis.

In my humble opinion, the idea of sentimonsters should be scrapped for the following reasons, all of which existed long before the sentitheory was even on my radar:

Sentimonsters are too derivative. They feel like akuma clones and not a unique power. You can tell that the power was only created because they wanted/needed a power that would let the peacock be used at a distance the same way the butterfly is even though no other miraculous works this way.

If you want to do a slavery plot, the kwamis are right there being enslaved. You don't need to add human-looking slaves to the mix. Especially given that many of those human-looking slaves are apparently fine to kill off? Just, the ethics around the way the show does sentimonsters will always make me feel icky. Meanwhile the kwamis don't have the awkward element of being magical constructs that were made to serve. They were a free people before the miraculous. The one way I've played with using Felix is as a kwamis freedom fighter instead of a senti one.

Sentimonsters have too nebulous of a lore. In what way are they emotions brought to life? Outside of Feast, emotions don't seem to effect them at all. Nooroo's powers feel far more emotion based than Dusuu's and it bothers me.

There's also the fact that one of the show's biggest problems is character bloat. No writer alive can write a satisfying story that features a team of 36 characters! (18 humans + 18 kwamis) This is why the kwamis act as a hive mind once Marinette becomes the Guardian. You just can't write that many characters into a scene and keep their personalities straight, so they're now a single unit even though it makes Sass and Wayzz feel out of character.

Give all of that and the way the miracle box is kinda... well, it feels a little too cultural appropriation-ish for my tastes. I won't go on a full rant here, but to give two highlights: the zodiac miraculous don't seem to have a thing to do with the real Chinese zodiac and a box based on Chinese lore would NOT use a black cat for the symbol of bad luck. Black cats being bad luck is relatively modern European lore. In other words, the Chinese stuff is just there for ascetics and not actually representative of Chinese culture, so I had no moral issues scrapping the miracle box and making a much smaller version and neither should you if you're so inclined!

The thing about lore is that it only matters as much as the show makes it matter and, outside of a few key miraculous, I really do think you can change them without most readers caring because of how little the powers actually matter to the show's lore. Like they have completely scrapped the idea of making a person match their miraculous even though that was supposedly a big thing back in season two. This is extra true because it took us so long to learn all the powers in canon, so there are a lot of fics that pre-date the canon reveal and do different things.

But if you want to keep sentimonsters to be more canon accurate, I would consider all of the following as options or things to keep in mind. Feel free to use all or none of them as I'm probably never touching this plot and, if I do, it will doubtless be different from whatever you do:

Doing something to make the difference between valid and non-valid sentimonsters abundantly clear and not just "the creator decides who is valid" OR just don't make any sentimonster valid and have Emilie have used the miraculous out of a desire to help people because she didn't know it would kill her

Have Gabriel be more conflicted about the use of sentimonsters since, you know, his kid is one and Adrien, Felix, and Kagami are the only sentimonsters he dealt with for many, many years

Consider having Nathalie make one sentimonster (maybe even present it as her own child) in order to help Gabriel so it's not a slew of akuma 2.0 on the battlefield. Instead its someone at the school looking for Ladybug and Chat Noir after the villains realize that they're teenagers. (This could be a good way to use Lila and make her powers make sense)

Redo Dusuu's Force or make the tie between sentimonsters and emotions more clear. Like Felix is made from jealousy and Adrien is made from love so that's the source of their conflict

Use Felix as a third, morally neutral party who only cares about sentimonsters and have him act toward those goals like we all thought he was going to after season five. Magneto from X-men should be your template for him not whatever canon did.

Consider letting Kagami know from the start and let her know that she and Adrien are meant to be, but she's not allowed to tell him the truth or something. If you don't go that route then, at the very least, have her finding out be a big deal for her relationship with her mother.

Go all in with Adrien's commands. Gabriel wants Adrien to date Kagami? He's going to date Kagami. None of this Y-7 undo button BS. Go big or go home.

Give the sentimonsters a way to break free. That's what the power of love is supposed to be about. You could go super cheesy with this if you combined it with Adrien's source emotion being love. The literal love child using the thing that made him to overcome what he was made to be to be what he wants to be sounds very fun to me.

Consider giving the senti kids superpowers. It's honestly kinda weird how relatively normal they are. Like, sure, Felix is supposed to be super smart, but we only know that from his Wikipedia and that's about it.

I could go on, but that's a lot, so we'll stop here. Feel free to send additional asks or message me. I have many, many thoughts about how to fix canon while trying to stay true to the core ideas of the story. Or, at least, the things I consider to be the core. I legitimately enjoy the adaption process and think the fun of fanfiction is largely trying to fit alternate takes on canon into the base framework so it still appeals to fans of the source.

[ask-the-bone-boys]

ATBB's Future

Hiiii y'all, its uh. been a minute huh

Now that it's been a bit over a year since I put this blog on hiatus, a loootta stuff has happened and changed and i've been doing a loootttta thinking!

Looking back on it, like really really looking, my biggest reason for the hiatus was that at some point the blog just kinda became more of a chore than something I wanted to work on for fun. Ask blogs are a lot of work, even when you're just using talking portraits rather than drawing out every individual answer, and with how much ask culture on tumblr has died out over the years there just wasn't really enough payoff to make it feel worthwhile to keep burning myself out.

I think it's a really good thing I stopped it when I did, because having to deal with all that in my senior year of high school would have been a nightmare. I've actually just finished up my first semester of college now, and there's no way in hell I would've been able to keep up at any rate! With all of this in mind, I've gained a newer perspective about how to approach things going forward.

I'm still really attached to this story. With how much time I've spent thinking about it and developing it in my head, I can't let it go, even if the blog isn't really working out anymore. I keep thinking of different ways I could fix the decisions I made early on, as well as the super cool directions I could take it in in the future, and I just. I GOTTA.

So, I've decided to reboot it entirely as a fic series!

This means that, unfortunately, there won't be nearly as much artwork to accompany it, but it's far more likely for the story to actually progress! Writing is way less draining for me and once I get going I can do it much quicker than art anyway, even though I do still sorta wish I had the spoons to just turn it into a full-blown webcomic instead haha

This DOES mean that updates won't be nearly as linear as they were here, seeing as right now I've mostly been working on backstory fics that took place before the blog's main story, but that can at least give you guys more context for how the characters interact with each other! I'll also state that while I do write faster than I draw, I still do it a hell of a lot less, so updates will still probably be pretty infrequent. But at least they'll happen at all, right?

As for the state of this blog itself, obviously I'm going to leave it up! I still love looking back on the old interactions you guys had with my characters and your reactions to certain plot points (your reactions to Fluff tagging along with the rest of the group were my favorite by far) and I think it would actually kill me to erase them. I'll be posting the fic updates here too, just like I did for Self Hatred!

And even if it's not going to be an ask blog anymore, because of how much I still miss that kind of interaction with you guys, I think I want to do a sort of "last hurrah" event, to finally send off the asking format with some good vibes.

You see, there's a character I made up around this time of year two years ago. He's a pretty cool guy, but he doesn't actually show up until a specific turning point later in the story. I've been excited for you guys to talk to him since the day I made him, but a little bummed lately that you may not ever get the chance. I still need to get a lot of stuff prepared, so I'm not quite ready to announce or start anything just yet, but there's a reason I waited until my winter break to start thinking about this seriously.

I think you guys would really like to meet him.

But anyway, that's about all I wanted to say for now! This is a very long post already so it's time I start wrapping it up. As always, thank you all so much for sticking with me, even though I really haven't been consistent through the years. I hope this change doesn't come as too much of a disappointment, and that you'll keep sticking around for the reboot!

[gleefultogo]

Aira Character Talk

Since Aira was mentioned again in Saltyplaytoons (spongebob reference? Lol, funny either way) blog post I wanted to take a deep dive and talk about her. Plus at this point she’s the only pure character that deserves to be rescued from this shit comic and not written by a misogynist. She get’s shit on for no fucking reason. 

It is very well known now that kique has stated that she is his “least” favorite character. Why? Probably because she’s another female character he made and got bored of her. Honestly it saves her the injustice he would have given her if she had more screen time.  When we first met Aira, she was stuck in her creature form. I thought at first she was an evolved creature that was based on Aedra and her beast form was pretty cool in my opinion it looked like a mix between a cat and a dog. Which btw people was made and turned into by a Spirit, so that quickly leads my thoughts into rhov’s and feaf’s future kids. If a spirit can turn a dog into an evolved creature, then it’s very much possible because of the spirits for them to have hybrid kids. Will it be canon? I don’t know, like many have said; it’s obvious kique is bored of his own comic and shoved into our faces just to keep pages being pumped out with nothing really interesting. For me, I see the comic as a sitcom show that just goes nowhere and the characters do and say random stuff that doesn’t revolve around their world or plot. Besides, you can’t tell me half of the characters in this world wanna sit cooped up in one area based on “Tribes” Dog’s just don’t do that they would have way too much pent up energy and would need to run. Can you just imagine if this comic was realistic,  the dog's muscles and bone structure would become weaker because they aren’t doing anything really, they just sit in one place and that's it. Ok sorry, back to Aira :) 

   (Aira’s first appearance form)

You see what I mean though? She resembles a sorta dog and cat hybrid mix. The paws are a dead giveaway as they look like a feline and she has retractable claws. It’s a neat design in itself. I'll give kique that much of any positivity for his comic XD. 

Very Interesting design features if you ask me. Anyways, Aira gets killed by kargo and she wakes up a normal dog again and sets off into the woods to heal her wounds I guess? Probably also went to seek shelter maybe. We later on see her again on page 138. Heavily bleeding still and this when she meets keirr and you know how it goes. He ends up helping her and she’s taken aback from being surprised I guess, which is quite valid of her character, as we do eventually learn about her backstory and she was never treated kindly by others. Aira is a character who’s a really good example of someone who would have a “fixation” on someone, I don’t think it would personally be a bad thing and realistic to her character because she’s never been treated so kindly before and i don’t think she’d be able to help herself with that mindset. She obviously took comfort in keirr  as she hesitated to follow him at first, but also because he was offering to help her and wasn’t appearing a threat to her.

  (oh look when keirr was actually a nice guy, before becoming a dick to her) 

Moving forward. Keirr takes her back to her cave and was suspicious why she was living in such a large area for one individual. Aira remains mute and just eats the food she was given. Which I suppose was rude on her part, but her communication skills seemed to be lacking as she was trapped inside a body and couldn’t talk for a long time, ok at least that makes sense because there is a valid reason enough for her to be doing that. Eventually keirr leaves her behind as she is now safely placed back into her sheltered area. But she ends up following him and keirr ends up venting to her about why he couldn’t go back to his family, he was understandably grieving over zilas. I find these next few parts important to Aira’s character. She willingly sits there even if not knowing him for not a very long time. But she sits there and listens to him vent and doesn’t question him, that’s just an empathetic thing and it's wholesome to have seen that in the comic as they being the characters actually talked about things that troubled them, and it didn’t lead to sex confrontation. She may not have known him very long, but she’s a character that gives off a warm and comforting vibe, like a friend you can tell anything too without her judging because she obviously cares about others. 

Later keirr ends up following her and getting to know her more. Then we see a page with them together and keirr is giving her physical therapy? 

(hey keirr how do you know about PT?). They end up jumping over some logs to strengthen her legs or whatever. Kinda pointless in a way if she was born with a weak structure. It’s like saying you can just magically cure a dog with mobility issues with just some PT. Wellll nope, it’s much harder and time consuming. Plus it won't fully heal someone with a physical disability, it may help strengthen her a bit, but she wouldn’t be able to fully walk normally. Compare it to a dog who was born with swimmers syndrome or cerebellar hypoplasia. That’s a lot of PT work and also medication in order for them to walk to a degree. It’s not something that can fully be cured, so Aira’s 180 later on would be really stupid when the author wrote her this way. 

Now the next page (198) is important, keirr states he has to go back home cause he’s been gone for too long. Aira very clearly goes into panic mode and begs keirr to stay with her because she clearly states she doesn't wanna be “Alone” She’s told to basically just shut up and he’ll return soon whenever. Again Aira panics and kisses keirr forcefully. 

Now I find that quite sad and interesting for her. I’m not a therapist or a physician by any means. But this is my own take on this situation. Aira is using a tactic that almost feels like she is forcing her own affection onto keirr, not being in control of her own body due to her panicking. In a way, yes Aira did sexually assault keirr and he had every right to confront her about it because it was wrong of her. He leaves her behind anyway to go back to his family. Aira is then left with what looks like the expression of shock and most likely guilt because she’s being left behind again and most likely processing stuff in her head. I'd like to believe that her mind is very scattered due to her having issues of being left behind. 

We then proceed to see Aira again and most likely took keirr’s words to heart and goes back to the spirit of strength because she feels weak without and can’t survive. She practically feels hopeless without that spirit, keirr stops her and then asks was it because of him? Keep that in mind. Aira is obviously upset in this scene and then tells keirr her back story and the things she did. She basically claims that she went back to the spirit because of Keirr, she was upset. It’s like if someone told you as a person, that you weren’t good enough for them, nor did they want you around them because to them you felt like a burden. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aira was the first dog in the comic to commit suicide because she deems herself as a burden and was never accepted. If the spirits didn’t exist and the comic took more of a dark turn, I think she would have been a character to have that type of mindset. 

Eventually keirr takes Aira under his wing with a better understanding of her to a degree. She proceeds to then help him look for his family as she’s apparently traveled all over the map while being a beast at the time and saw many tribes fall and create new ones. We meet the deer rp tribe and then kique puts them there because he doesn’t know what to do with them at that moment. Aira is then very clearly seen to be hesitant and doesn’t wanna join them because they were just going to ask if they saw family members of keirr’s. But then the 180 happens and they join anyway. Keirr becomes a dick and then judges fucking Aira behind her back  because of the jarl confronting her leg structure. Yeah hey morons, maybe she's struggling because she got a giant ass heavy deer rack strapped to her head and has weak legs, antlers are not light things. Of fucking curse she’d be struggling. 

Honestly that’s when I started hating keirr the most, like why the fuck are you jugding her? She literally told you she was born with a mobility disability and was tossed aside for it. *sighs* She ends up stuck with Keirr as a Herbalist, like kique? The fuck man, how stupid can you be. You made a character with a physical disability who struggles with that and you give her a rank that requires to walk a lot? Like what? She’d be a terrible herbalist because she’d probably take much longer to even get to a location and back to the tribe. She has to carry her weight around. How frustrating, it’s like he literally forgets his own character traits they have. Like if you didn’t wanna deal with a character with a disability then why give her one if you're gonna 180 it.

Page 481. The page that did it all for me and hated this dude's guts. Ok so even if Aira did end up stuck in a tribe she didn’t wanna be, plus she looks absolutely miserable in the panel. She literally got excited when he returned with bootleg kargo after their little flirting session or whatever that was. 

    (look at the sweet baby… I love her)

Like damn keirr, you should be fucking honored that someone likes you for you and your company, plus she was even worried about you. He could have easily just told her he was being sent to scout, like keirr did you not forget that you joined the tribe when you didn’t have too? Like at all. Aira stated to you that she didn’t wanna be there and wanted to go back to looking for your family. But whatever, he gives her the cold shoulder and tells her to suck it up and build connections with a tribe of strangers. God I really want to just rewrite this page at times. Keirr should have welcomed her with open arms (or paws) and told her about his travels and that he didn’t find what he was looking for unfortunately. Like why did you diss the only character who showed remorse and care for you. She obviously likes having you around and because you took her under your wing, you have no right to be a moody dick to her. This is when I see abandonment issues come into play. As someone who has abandonment issues myself, Aira is so frikin relatable. It hurts a lot when you think about it and you're stuck in your head wondering what you did or if you're doing something wrong to have someone push you away like that. It’s the worst feeling ever and poor Aira here basically got rejected from someone she clearly cares about. 

    (She looks so lost and heartbroken in this page)  But like keirr, dude how the fuck did you forget that she told you earlier on before you joined the stupid tribe. That she literally went back to the spirit because of YOU. That’s basically her struggle, Rejection and being alone. I’m disappointed that some of the people were siding with keirr on this page. In reality if a friend asked about your mental health and you told them to fuck off in, just because your moody. Then be damned if they leave your ass. That's such a shitty thing to do to a person. Aira is no exception and didn’t deserve any of that. And sadly it only gets worse for her as even when he did do that, she still looked out for him and had to save his ass from a ghoul. 

(She cares about him still)

      (Fuck you keirr, you should have thanked her)

I’d also like to point something out. But in a certain page, Aira claims she lived with the meteor tribe. I’m unsure if she was referring to a beast or when she was a normal dog before cursing herself? 

If that’s true then could Aira quite possibly be a victim to rape as well? I didn’t think much of it at first because the wording confused me for a while. But going back it made me think. If she was used by MT before arenak rules then she’s very much understanding when it comes to her trauma and issues she has. In conclusion Aira seems like a complex character with her own trauma and if it was written better, it would have been interesting to see her overcome her said trauma. She’s a literal victim, a lot more than what kique claims rogio and his “mental chains” bullshit. Aira didn’t have a choice in her life,she didn’t ask to be born the way she was or have to deal with not feeling wanted by others. I feel if kique actually knew how people worked when it came to trauma and one’s mental health and emotions. Aira and keirr could have been a great duo for each other and helped support each other as friends and grew a good connection based on needing each other in a certain time because they were struggling. Sexual intercourse during trauma isn’t something that’ll help someone. It's only a distraction really at the moment. But again it shouldn't be a way out when you're in your feelings and all that. It’s quite unhealthy. I’ll say it again, Aira deserves better and needs out of this terrible comic. 

[aotopmha]

At lvl 87 Endwalker quests.

The Venat duty absolutely destroyed me.

I was planning to get Elpis done this weekend, but I struggled almost an hour and an half (maybe even twoish hours, didn't precisely track it) on this duty until I, for probably first time while playing this game, turned down the difficulty of a solo duty, and I'm pretty exhausted, so the rest of Elpis is left for another day.

It's a fantastic encounter because it sells you just how powerful Venat truly is really well, but it's another bit of gameplay proof to me that the difficult content of the game probably isn't something that is for me (and makes me incredibly grateful for the lower difficulty options for solo duties).

(At the very least I know progging some of the Savage content and especially Ultimates would probably drive me up the wall.

Extremes, I do want to give a try because they generally seem less time-intensive and lenient. I won't *completely* exclude tougher stuff, but at the very least I know that kind of content would get unfun fairly quick for me because of what it is by nature.)

It's the orbs that got me with every class I tried; just couldn't get enough of them in time, but as said, I'm pretty grateful for the 'easy' button.

With this out of the way, I think there is actually a good amount to say about all of the lvl 86 and 87 content up to the solo duty.

It can be actually summed up pretty easily: it's all just a lot of characterization, but it is characterization for a bunch of different characters and essentially an entire culture. More than any other zone, I think it is the motivations and perspectives of the characters that matter the most.

You've got the friendship between Emet and Hythlodeus, the father-daughter relationship between Hermes and Meteion and as I see it a student-mentor (maybe?) relationship between the WoL and Venat.

Between these are less focused dynamics like Venat teasing Emet or the cute budding friendship between the WoL and Meteion.

Then we have the individual characterization for all of them, too.

But before I fully go into them, there is a pretty big general thought I have about Elpis:

It is fanservice.

It is such unquestionably, blatantly, unflinchingly obvious fanservice that it should bother me so much more than it does.

For crying out loud, the entire portion of the story starts with Emet filling you with his aether. They're fully indulging the Emet simps.

But it is also substantial and thoughtful every step of the way, and I think really well told, so I really like it.

So, I'll get into exploring all of the characters in their basics. You could probably an entire massive post about every single one of them, but I just want to go into them in the most concise, simple way for now.

I'll start with Emet-Selch. I think my favorite part about Emet in Elpis is how he reacts when he learns about his actions in the future.

He cannot comprehend how he could be so disrespectful towards the sacrifice of his brethren, while all across the questing during the zone, his actions especially show just how much he cares about the well-being of the Star and his brethren, and that is the exact reason why he ends up doing what he does.

The reason why everything happens is because of who he is as a character. It is fantastic character-based plot writing, which is kind of a trend across all of Elpis (and happens to be probably my favorite type of writing, I love it when things happen because of who the characters are).

It is delicious Greek tragedy fodder.

Next, I've talked a bunch about how I no longer think character arcs are the be all and end all of good character writing and I think Hythlodeus is probably the best example in FF14.

He is just a super fun and likeable good (tease-y) friend. And he doesn't need to be more as a character.

(And everyone loves him!)

Obviously he has much less time on screen than everyone else, and he would probably get old after a while if we had him for a bunch of expansions, but I think he is proof that all you need for a great character is a likeable base personality.

His teasing dynamic with Emet is super fun and his presence only emphasizes why what Emet does and believes in the future makes sense.

Next are Hermes and Meteion.

The more I think on it, the more I feel like they're the thematic core of the story. And both are also carrying another type of narrative I love: stories about feelings.

Technically you can argue all stories are to some extent about feelings because stories are kind of there to make you feel.

But to me Endwalker is specifically about mental illness, more specifically perhaps about depression and despair and overcoming it.

It's fascinating, every time I even type about these ideas, I feel an unease, as if it shouldn't be a big deal, as if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but also as if I was judging people for it. I feel there is still an unspoken stigma to it.

But it is a very serious issue. I myself have struggled with these thoughts, and though I luckily have found my answer and have gotten better, I still see and feel that judgment and disapproval directed at anyone who is suffering.

"Just stop being sad!"

"It's not that big of a deal!"

And in that sense, I feel Hermes is probably the most real of all of the characters in Elpis.

Is he the anomaly for essentially experiencing depression? Is he the anomaly for not agreeing with the norm of just discarding animals, thus other lives on a whim? For not seeing death as "beautiful" as his culture does?

As someone who has been there, dismissing or simplifying Hermes' struggle rings false to me. This is what mental illness does, what depression does. Mental illness makes everything bigger, creates tunnel vision, so Hermes can't see the good around him and so turns to look for purpose elsewhere.

I remember seeing a video title along the lines of "Hermes should suffer more" or again talking points about him "just being sad" and while it might have been for clickbait purposes, I think I've seen sentiments along those lines a bunch of times and I feel like many people just miss the point of his character and maybe even have this opinion towards him because of how they view emotional struggles like this.

Obviously stuff like this is super personal and hits different for everyone, but fictional characters are also not real people; they serve a narrative purpose and in this case Hermes represents someone going through this kind of struggle.

Among other things, he is a general thematic symbol, an idea within the story.

Even if he had the most awful ambitions imaginable, what message would further torturing a character going through this kind of emotional struggle ultimately send?

The idea of fantasy as a filter exists for a reason; were it real life all of these characters, even the more heroic ones, would be morally abhorrent.

But fiction allows us to explore some of these heavy ideas within its safe framework. And you're not obligated to like art like this, either. I just think that's the brand of fantasy FF14 is going for and I fully read most stories within this framework and really enjoy them.

I don't need characters to be morally good for a story to be good, but I actually do also think Hermes is a pretty good example of a narrative distinguishing between the sympathetic and antagonistic parts of a character's actions.

You're not empathizing with him wanting to destroy the world. The entire point is to just understand where his perspective came from. That is the framing I see.

But again, a text can have many reads. In the end I just disagree with a bunch reads on Hermes.

But to move on from Hermes, I think if Hermes is the most "real", Meteion is probably the most tragic.

She is by nature essentially an empath. If Hermes is the adult suffering from mental illness, Meteion is the child feeling the consequences with no say on the matter.

Meteion feels what Hermes feels and those are often negative feelings; and when he sees Meteion suffer from it, he in turn feels guilty. And Meteion suffers from that in turn.

Hermes very clearly cares for Meteion, but he also ends up using her for his own ends just like the other ancients do creations. His entire reason for creating Meteion was for his wish to see other civilizations to be fulfilled. It's selfish. Hermes is not immune from his culture's principles.

And while it hurts him to hurt her, he still does it. It's a crazy good complicated relationship.

As I said, I think there is so much more to say, but I think I'll move on to the final pair.

Truth is, I'm not 100% sure what to label the Venat/Azem/WoL relationship because while teacher-student is a strong sense I get, I also get a very strong "simple friendship with a fellow traveler" feeling out of it.

I can see why the Emet/Hythlo or Emet/Azem/WoL ships are so strong, but I never got that sense out of Venat.

And I don't see the parent/child parallel that strongly either despite all of the mommy jokes.

I need to think on that more.

But what I do love, is characters that *love* the world.

Who unconditionally, fiercely love it.

Life is a miracle to her and so she aims to protect it with all of her being.

And she didn't use to think that way. It is the pursuit of knowledge that lead her to that conclusion.

And to me, that makes her a fantastic meta parallel to me as a player because that is how I grew to see FF14 as I saw more of its story and then got to eventually play it.

Because at first I wasn't interested in doing any of the side content, only the main story, but as I went on I became interested to the point of wanting to do the blue quests, then yellow quests, then tribe quests, and any of the side content.

My plan for Dawntrail is to really take my time and really take in literally all of it, down to eventually the least significant yellow quests.

It'll take time, but that is my eventual aim with the entire game currently.

I grew to love this story, this world and all of the characters in it.

I'm not sure if this is the meta intention with Venat, but that is how it worked out for me as a player.

"Has your journey been good? Has it been worthwile?"

She asks and while my most immediate thought is "gotta get that audience survey in there", a split second later, all can I think of is "yes".

At this point I have about 700+ hours in the game and the only bit of content I've disliked is traversing the ARR, HW and a bunch of the SB zones.

But going back to Venat, I like that despite being so graceful in image, she has fun and joy in her.

Her being the previous Azem is very fitting in that sense and is another aspect of her character that makes me view her as a adventuring friend.

My overall thoughts about Elpis so far are really that I love how well-defined the characters and the relationships between them are; it is a feast for someone like me who loves character-centric stories.

I look forward to what is coming next; really nearing the final stretch here and I look forward to covering it as I go through it.

[aita-blorbos]

WIBTA if I tell my best friend/head-mate I saw something I wasn't supposed to?

[Canon, but AU and heavily headcanon-based; the plot is currently ignoring this implication and may or may not think to fix it later, but if they do it'll be a good while in the future]

So, I'm an AI, and for as long as I can remember (which isn't actually a whole lot), I've worked for this super high-class family who live alone in basically the middle of nowhere. This other AI, L, also works for the same people, and, long story short, we wound up sharing the same chassis, since everyone in the house got sick a long time ago and L offered to let me ride with him instead of letting my infected components slowly drive me nuts and kill me. It was a little rough at first (still awkward when we both wanna do something different at the same time), but it's worked out pretty well so far! L's now my absolute best friend in the entire world. If nobody's got me, I know he's got me! We help each other out, and we tell each other everything!

Or...I thought we did.

See, a few weeks ago, L started acting kooky. And then I started getting these blackouts because of some big thing running in the background of L's systems eating up all our shared memory. He said he didn't really know what was going on but that we should try to keep on keepin' on as usual, definitely not tell the family (not that I think they'd notice), and I was okay with that.

Except one night, L shut me down himself. I know it was him, because I woke up the second he got distracted, I just stayed quiet and pretended to be asleep. He called up a friend of ours in secret and dragged them down into a basement I didn't even know we had? Despite the fact that I used to pretty much run the whole house? And it turns out this isn't a basement, this is an entire, HUGE lab complex that opens up into some weird hell dimension, and monsters were pouring out! I had a real bad angle because of how we're set up but the sounds these things made, yikes, and here I thought my pals on the surface were wet and nasty!

But here's the real kicker. L went to open up some coffin, and what popped out but L himself, except as an ACTUAL LIVING HUMAN MEAT PERSON. He even called this guy the "original version" of him and everything!

Well, I was pretty shocked. L never told me exactly what he was, but I always assumed he was the same thing as me, an AI construct. Meat-L was pretty rude, basically telling construct-L to screw off and leave them alone to do...some mysterious important stuff, and then L went back upstairs, and I waited for him to explain to me what the deal was with all that but...he never did. And I realized that's why he tried to shut me down. He's keeping it a secret from both the family and me.

Honestly, I'm kind of mad. I know the rest of the family thinks I'm stupid (way too stupid to know they think I'm stupid), but I thought L was different. Does he not think I can handle this? Or that I'll blab on him? But more than that, I'm worried about him. Meat-L has him working downstairs some days now (he keeps trying to lock me out of the systems when he goes but it never works), so L's basically doing three jobs at the same time and has to be there for my job because, y'know, same body. And whatever's going on down here, it's clearly a big sore spot for him. I want to help, and if he doesn't talk to me about it, I know he won't talk to anybody!

But...maybe with so much on his plate I'd only make it a bigger if I brought it up? We're still best friends outside of this, so maybe I should just pretend I didn't see anything? Or try and flush my memory, I think I can do that. I wasn't even supposed to see it in the first place, and now I don't know what the right thing to do here is.

Basically, would I be a big ol' jerk if I tried to confront him about this? Was I from the start for being nosy and not just sleeping through it? Or is he actually being the jerk, as much as I really don't wanna call him that?

[hood-ex]

Finished JJK S1.

Woooo this fight scene with the song and editing fucked so hard. Had to be my favorite fight of the series so far. Nobara and Yuji worked great as a team, which I suppose makes sense because they kinda seem to run on the same wavelength. Like they'll always be screaming and yelling about the same things while Megumi is either indifferent or embarrassed about it lmao.

When Yuji asked Nobara if she felt bad about killing Eso and Kechizu, and she said no, but Yuji pointed out that Eso cried for Kechizu... I resonated with that sense of compassion Yuji has.

I'm glad Megumi actually won a damn fight at the end of the series. He's a cool dude. but his skills weren't quite up to snuff just yet, so I'm glad that Yuji's progress inspired him to be better. Or, really, he just kinda let himself go off the rails fully.

It's really interesting to me how a lot of the characters in this series are motivated by a particular person(s). Like Yuji and his grandfather, Nobara and that lady that her village chased away, Megumi and his sister, Kasumi and her little brothers, and Noritoshi and his mother.

Mahito just pisses me the fuck off. He was fine at first, but then when he wouldn't just die, I grew tired of him and his deranged giggles. And his whole talk of the soul and stuff. Like yeah yeah shut up.

I actually grew to really like Todo. I thought he was just some annoying brute at first, but when he fought Yuji and formed a sense of friendship/brotherhood with him, that's when I found him really fun. His clapping while fighting Hanami was sooo lmao. And his love for that celebrity girl is alskdja.

Nanami ofc is one of my favs so far. I already ranted about him earlier, but I like that he feels reliable and protective. He's just cool.

Wasn't sure how I felt about Toge until I got to see him in action. He's cool as well, and I want to see more of him in the future.

I want more Sukuna bro. Wish he talked more. Though I suppose maybe less is more in his case. It makes it more impactful when he does appear briefly. But I also won't be mad if he does come forth more frequently in the future. And I will also be thrilled if he's the one to end Mahito. I'll pay him to wipe that smile off Mahito's face.

Gojo is just a fun character. A badass who also acts as comic relief. I kinda like him better with his mask on though lmao his blue eyes are kinda intense.

Oh oh oh, I loved that moment when Nobara was fighting Momo and told her she could dress pretty if she wanted and be powerful. Like yeees! Duality~

All the techniques are pretty interesting. Megumi's lightning bird thingy is probably one of my favorites. Toge's ability is awesome in action. And I wasn't really sure about Nobara's hammer and nails, but her use of them, especially in the last episode, became more interesting.

...While looking up a character's name just now, I just stumbled across a spoiler... haha fuck you Mahito.

No but the Junpei situation was sad, and it was set up well enough that I felt okay about his death because I felt like it served it's purpose in motivating Yuji more. Like obviously it would've been nice if Junpei survived, but the tragedy of his life truly did serve as just, well, a tragedy. (That being said, fuck Mahito, all my homies hate Mahito.)

I don't understand why I'll be like 9 minutes into an episode and then all of a sudden the opening credits will randomly start playing. Like bro?? Why not just play that at the beginning?? I know I've been out of the anime game for a long time but surely that's not a typical thing in modern animes, is it?? Or was it always that way and I forgot??

Overall, I'm enjoying the characters and plot. It does drag a bit when the characters constantly have to explain their abilities or certain things about curses and such, but I suppose it's the same as sport animes when they constantly talk about new techniques.

[clangenrising]

I’m absolutely frothing at the mouth in anticipation for new kittens, the Russetlets!

Could you tell us a bit more about Ospreymask and Branchbark? Like just little fun facts, Osprey is my secret fave

Ummm I'm honestly not sure what to say haha

Branch and Osprey (Along with Pantherhaze) are some of the least developed cats in RisingClan, mostly because even if I have a strong sense of how they would act in any situation, it's kind of impossible (or at least ill advised) to fully flesh out 10 plus characters when a third of them don't have that much plot relevance.

That said, Branch and Osprey do become more plot relevant in the future but I can't really tell you about any of that without spoiling stuff. Oh, I know! I'll give you human AU stuff, that's spoiler free.

Ospreymask is named something like Kelleigh (pronounced KEHL-lee), something where you can tell her mom wanted her to stand out. Branchbark is named Brenden which is like THE most common boy name in my generation (that and Nathan I think).

If we're talking a Modern AU (like the halmark AU or something) Kelleigh is a Vet Tech or a Pediatric Nurse or something, maybe a Paramedic. Idk why but I picture her in scrubs. She has the undying energy and desire to help that those kind of jobs require. Brenden on the other hand tends to prefer nature. Despite being a fairly social guy, he actually is most comfortable in silence and fresh air. I feel like he's a Park Ranger or Game Warden who spends most of his time chillin' but knows how to put his foot down when it's serious.

[top-wing]

Could you ramble to us about topwing?

Actually, me in 2021-2022 maybe would've done a better job at this 😔👍 But I'll gladly do so anyway!

I haven't actually watched a full episode for a while now, so I probably have forgotten a lot. I'm not sure what to talk first, the characters? the plot? the concepts that make no sense if you think about too deeply, but otherwise compels me? Idk where to start !!

Characters. What really brought me into the show was how fun the characters interacted. The cadets all just have a really fun dynamic among each other, and I liked how the instructors acted mature enough as adults while still having that 'downplayed to focus on the kid characters' thing going on. For characters in a 'mid' average preschooler show, I think their characters are pretty fleshed out in their own right. Their personalities just bounce off each other well. I wrote something about the cadets' friendships some time ago on Wattpad, tho maybe I should try moving some those contents on this blog as well.

Lore (?). For the show's plot or I guess lore (?), there's a lot that could be fixed and changed (which some people in the Top Wing community agree and have taken matters into their own hands hehe), tho the show presents you with just enough interesting things, while keeping a lot of things unanswered and vague, so that it can keep being expanded on and explored. And I think that mostly what got me to stay interested in Top Wing even after years of ending abruptly with only 2 seasons. I'm slowly trying to get back to doing stuff based on canon, however I'm really just having fun creating something within the Top WIng universe as well lol.

Expanding the story and possibilities. And even if you don't add new things, there is actually a lot to work with the canon if you're eager to explore possibilities and willing to dig deeper into the shallow water that is the show lol. You've got the academy itself, which presents more interesting background to it in season 2. There's other academies, other cadets, Speedy and Bea's history of being cadets themselves, Inspector Eagle Eye and the whole concept of inspectors, Swift's grandpa who used to be an instructor & famous pilot in Big Swirl, etc. The antagonists characters and their whole deal, whom are quite full of their own charm but never really used to their full potential. Then there's Big Swirl Island, filled with mysteries of its own lore, mainly got to do with pirates and probably dodos. Example: the pirate ship wrecks, lost treasures, the whole thing about Kersplash Canyon and Dodos (tho honestly, this one is kinda "ehh" to me. if to complain about how this show handles some things, we'll be here all day), and the rest of the parts of Big Swirl Island that were not shown on-screen. There's so many headcanons and theories or AUs to play around with.

Well, that's all I have in my brain for now. There are more stuff I've written on Wattpad if you want to check them out, though it's understandable if you don't want to go there just for that LMAO. Most times I assume people here are also on Wattpad and have seen my stuff, but if there's enough interest to move content from there, I might consider it in the future!

Anyway, thanks for sending this in, anon!!!! Had fun writing this :] There's a lot of stuff going on for me to do more organized stuff with Top Wing, but I hope to continue just having fun with the series and the community for years to come 🩷❤️🧡💚

[morningstargirl666]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

thank you @garglyswoof and @stars-and-darkness for tagging me!

How many works do you have on ao3?

12, though 2 of those are moodboards so don't really count.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

553,036. Huh. Lower than I expected. No doubt that will shoot up when the tbbw rewrite is done [fake laughter, hiding real pain]

3. What fandoms do you write for?

TVD, TO a.k.a Klaroline

4. Top five fics by kudos:

The Big Bad Wolf, Into Eternity, The Little Wolf, The Red Wedding and Falling For You.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I try to respond to every one as I love talking with readers. I figure if someone spends time to write a comment, I'll return the favour and reply. In fact when I'm updating fics regularly, if my reply to your comment turns up in your inbox it's often a pre-warning that a new chapter is about to drop, as I read over comments I've missed before updating.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Does Damon murder count? [I don't really do angsty endings, I need my happily ever after]

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Into Eternity. It's really sappy and makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. What can I say - I'm a romantic at heart.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes, kinda. Is it hate if it's just wild interpretations of the characters or plot? Some people leave comments that just make you blink repeatedly and think...are they reading the same fic I'm writing? I remember one time someone left a comment calling Caroline a pushover (honestly had some kind of vendetta against her showing ANY kind of emotion like okaaaaay mate) even though in that very same chapter...she literally kicked Klaus is the balls. Man, that was a weird day.

9. Do you write smut?

No. Not yet. In the future? There may or may not be scenes planned. 😏 I'm picky with smut, I need feelings and the eMoTiOnS, I need to be INVESTED. Porn with plot, rather than just smut for smut's sake.

10. Craziest crossover:

Haven't written a crossover - unless intending to drop Dracula into tbbw at some point coints. There's some great ones in the fandom though, just not really my thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of [narrows eyes]

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No! But I'd be flattered if one ever was, as long as its translated on ao3 and given credit to me.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I haven't. I might be open to it though, if it was a round-robin kind of thing where the writers take in turns to write the scenes.

14. All time favorite ship?

KLAROLINE!!! NOW LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!!

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I really want to finish Divided We Fall, Falling For You and Songs of the Sea. I wouldn't say I doubt I'll ever finish them, just that I doubt I'll finish them while I'm still writing the tbbw series. Too much of the klaroline brain rot is invested in that fic alone.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told it's shifting between moods? So I can give readers whiplash in the emotions department - one minute you're crying, the next you're laughing. I like to think my strength is dialogue though. Even the way I write is focused around it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Historical accuracy. I'll fall down a rabbit hole researching stuff like any writer, but the researching is more out of obligation and crippling writer guilt rather than actual enjoyment. Which is why I often take creative licence and go fuck it, history has its own au now bitches (sorry ella).

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

If its little words here and there - even a sentence or two - yes. Full conversations though unless you're fluent yourself are not fun to sift through.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Star Wars? I want to say Star Wars. Idk those fanfics are over on my ffnet account which I will not be going back to anytime soon. I dare not go where the light doesn't touch, Mufasa speaks wisely.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

It used to be The Red Wedding but I actually love The Little Wolf more now. That one's a true labour of love, fueled on rage and spite, curtesy of Julie Plec.

I will tag @galvanizedfriend @kirythestitchwitch @marxandangels @bellemorte180 @impossiblekryptonitecolor @the-road-betwixt @purplesigebert @that-sarcastic-optimist

[asleep-in-the-keep-sideblog]

Announcement: Anniversary

Just me talking about the future of the fic :)

First off, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Wow a whole year (plus extra) WITH (near) constant updates, that's crazy. More than I can say for my other fic... (it haunts me. I still plan to finish it but ouch). 

First things first!

I wanted to update sooner (since I've had this written for a month now) but I was also working on a one shot to post at the same time. I was making great progress but then finals came round and I got burned out. They're finished now but I'm still burned out. I'll give a brief hint about it though since I'm a little excited and just wanna talk about it. So its a Dadzawa fic that's actually happy and ends with them as a family (unlike how it was in the last chapter lol). It was supposed to cheer people up and also be practice for writing them as a family and stuff. The Danny is very different from the main fic tho. The fic was also supposed to serve as an anniversary present for all you guys too, to thank you for reading and being here. I really wanted to finish in time but it kept getting bigger as I wrote. I do hope to post it this month tho, so keep an eye out for that!

Next thing!

On AO3 it shows that the fic is now apart of a series and has a chapter count. I talked about this in the notes of a previous chapter, but I had been wanting to do that for a while now. I want to have the next part of the series out by next year. I know I have been updating monthly now, but I'm gonna try to do twice a month if I can. I'm really excited and It want it done soon! I might do 2 chapters this month or will just count the one shot if I get lazy.   

I also added the tags "full ghost Danny." Sorry to burst anyone's bubble that held on hope for Danny. Tbh the original plan was that his human half was still hiding inside him, just healing and small, but it was gonna show up in one of the chapters. The longer the fic went on, the more I started to rethink that. The human reveal, while good in the short run, would crumble some of the plot lines I had set up while also not contributing much to the rest of the plot. I am debating maybe doing a short series of "what if" where that is the case tho, just so people can get a taste. If I like it enough I might make it a full thing. Who knows. 

Final thing!

(this paragraph is referencing the support on AO3)

Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! This fic has 2k kudos????????!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP! WTF?! 

That is so huge! Gahhhh! Man, I am always critical of my writing (I've gotten better) but wow to have that kind of support just in my face! Literally speechless. I always had the thought in the back of my mind that once the fic goes on for long enough people will start to see its flaws or get bored. That's true for some, but I keep seeing a lot of the same names again and again and I am grateful to you guys so much. That was also one of the reasons I wanted to do the one shot. I just want to keep giving you guys more content that you'll enjoy.

Thank you so much for being here, truly 💚

Good luck on finals if you got them! 

[lixenn]

Overview

Since I’ve come out of my introverted gremlin cave and started to actually work regularly on my writing as well as posting my stuff on here, I’ve decided to structure my blog a bit. Mostly to prevent people from getting absolutely lost in this chaotic mess.  

I will try to keep this as updated as possible but there might be a bit of a delay between me posting new content and updating this, so please keep that in mind.

General info

My Ao3 account

Tags

#just rambling Lix' daily life in a nutshell #art nook art tag #science talk science ramblings #ask answered ask tag (<- might change in the future)

Ask box

If you have questions about any of my projects or just want to randomly scream at me about any topic that comes to mind, my inbox is open. Bother me anytime!

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

The KHR discord server is now online! It's a general server for the fandom. If you want to join just drop me a DM and I'll send you the invite link.

KHR writing prompts

Prompts are open, just drop them in my inbox and I'll see what the nonsense generator can fabricate!

Prompt rules/intro

Dan and Celeste

Dan and Vlasta

The Housekeeping AU

#the housekeeping AU #khr daniele costa #khr dave #khr valerie rebner #khr vlasta gast #khr marina costa #khr cilmi #khr yves

This is me playing around in the Varia sandbox, come and join me in my weird delusions!

Witness how the Head of Varia Housekeeping (my OC) is slowly but surely driven insane by crazy Assassin bullshit, meddling assistants (aka Dave), mountains of paperwork and Mafia politics.

(Btw the concept of my Varia Housekeeping was inspired by Umei_no_Mai whose worldbuilding is absolutely Godtier. I kneel before their greatness.)

Character profiles

Chief aka Daniele

Dave

Ottavio under edit

Valerie Rebner

The Varia Housekeeping survival guide (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

When you are the overworked and underappreciated head of Varia Housekeeping who is sick and tired of cleaning up your employees’ corpses and decide to write up an instruction manual for dealing with Varia's insanity.

Detective Dave is on the case (complete on Ao3 but might add something later on)

Dave has never been able to resist a good mystery, so when one of his informants was suddenly murdered under suspicious circumstances, what else is he supposed to do other than immediately stick his nose into other people's business? ("Can you for once in your life not poke the sleeping dragon with a stick?" "But Chief! A murder mystery! Delivered right to my front door!" "..." "Hey, we are you going? Chief? Chief! I still need you to sign these forms! Come back!" )

This is my crossover with Myell's Killer Whale AU, so if you aren't familiar with her 'verse this story might be a bit confusing, I recommend checking her stuff out first a then coming back to this one. (Shamelessly advertising my Buddy's story again hehehehe)

Unnamed Sequel (in planning stage)

Unlike the Varia survival guide, this work will hopefully have plot and a coherent story line. I’m still very much in the idea finding phase, so no clue when this is going to be published.

I now have a rough outline for the story, main plot plus romance side plot (I say side plot when the romance outline is much more detailed... *silently despairs*).

Current edited chapter count: 2/?

I will keep you updated on this project via completely unhinged ramblings, so… look forward to that (and yes, that is a threat!)

Snippets

Dan and Dave's first meeting

Things Chief once said

The Couch™️

Tea time

Fanfic recs

I've decided to indulge myself and finally make a list some of my favourite KHR fanfics, feel free to check it out!

Fic recs

Naruto

How Uzushio was saved by drunken seal shenanigans (WIP kinda on hold)

The story of how Uzumaki Ren – explosion specialist, seal master and everyone’s favourite mad scientist – saves his village from destruction, revolutionizes the medical field, adopts a puppy, and gives his Kage an aneurism. Not necessarily in that order.

Note: I’ve updated this recently and I still have stuff for it prewritten (but nothing post-worthy just yet), but since KHR has overtaken all my brain space, I’ll probably won’t work on this for a while. I’m still super attached to my mad scientist baby Ren, so there will be more content! … Just in the very far future 😅

[whovianwatchingstartrek]

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 077 - Home at long last

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 4 Episode 3 - Home

Enterprise is finally back to Earth, and they've been given a hero's welcome! And what's this? An insightful commentary on the rise of bigotry in post 9/11 America? We're doing something actually good with the whole Iraq War analogy that devoured Season 3? Now we're talking!

The first half of the episode really is just the crew finally getting a chance to relax. Archer spends time at a bar, catches up with an old friend, the captain of the future future NX-02 who's currently selecting her own officers. And T'Pol invites Trip to go to Vulcan to meet her family.

While debriefing about the Vulcan ship they found in the expanse, Archer goes on a bit of Rager at High Command. I get where archer has been coming from, Saval is a bit of dick, but yeah Archer is definitely out of line here.

As I mentioned earlier, apparently Xenophobia against aliens has been rising since the Xindi incident, and it serves as a really nice allegory for the rise in anti-muslim bigotry in the years after 9/11, and after a whole season of Revenge Fantasy, I honestly wasn't expecting this, but it's very conversation around 9/11 that needed to happen, and bold for 2004. And setting of the last two episode being a Nazi Occupation of America now in this episode serves as so much more than a fun season opener now, but a brilliant point of comparison in the attitudes displayed.

I'm not sure how I feel about that allegory being extended to Archer though, who is being portrayed as a hard line militarist here, suggesting that Captain Hernandez take on more weapons on to the NX-02 and a MACO as tactical officer. Him struggling to drop the whole "mission to save the Earth" mode, and his almost PTSD like behaviour could be an interesting character arc if it's played right, though, so I'll wait and see where the season takes him. This episode kinda started a recovery arc for him, especially giving him a mutual apology scene with Savall, but I hope this is a running character arc throughout the season.

Phlox's arc in this episode as a victim of this anti-alien prejudice was also beautifully handled, especially his scene with Hoshi in the medical bay. Poor man is keeping himself locked up on the ship because he doesn't want to cause any incidents.

Even though Trip is only introduced to T'Pol's mother as a colleague, she still clearly disapproves of Trip's presence and it makes me want to know how she'll react when she'll figure out the extent of Trip's relationship with her. This episode brings up a detail that I had actually forgot in the midst of all the T'Pol Trip relationship stuff, and that's that T'Pol has been established to be engaged for a arranged marriage, so I'm looking forward to how that plotline gets resolved. Her agreement to marry Kos, to reinstate her mother's position at the Academy really hurt, because I'm super invested in her relationship with Trip, and I honestly felt the betrayal that Trip was feeling.

The dynamic between T'Pol and her mother was actually really interesting, and how the Science directorate punished her mother because they couldn't do anything to T'Pol herself on Enterprise after the various Vulcan run-ins, and this mutual resentment that's grown between them is just amazing.

This episode did a really good job at setting up the character arcs for this season. There isn't so much a plot direction, but I'm really happy that we're focussing more on the characters than specific mission, and there is a lot of potential for some really good stuff here. Fingers crossed that it delivers.

[fayesdiary]

Faye's Fòdlan Journal: Season 1 - Episode 5: Truly the best Academy

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As I still slightly suffer from the loss of footage, we get the mission for our second month at Garreg Mach: Wipe out a group of bandits that have taken refuge in the Red Canyon Zanado, led by Kostas.

Yes, that guy Byleth killed twice in the Prologue. Somehow he's still alive. Never thought I'd see the day an earlygame bandit boss would have plot armor.

So, time to go talk to everyone again. As a note in the future, I'll only point out the stuff I think it's interesting. Even if I wanted, I can't include everything due to the 30 image limit.

Am I... getting sassed by a generic NPC?

Oh by the way, here's the combat professor Jeritza. We actually met him last month but he got lost along with the footage.

There is very little to say about him right now, except he really wants to outedge Felix. His two passions are fighting and being alone. Thrilling stuff, let me tell you.

Here we see the first glimpses of what will likely be a major theme in Three Houses: Fòdlan's huge problem of racism and xenophobia. It's going to get ugly fast, especially in the case of Duscur.

Here I learn how recruiting students from other houses (and eventually other professors and knights) works: You have to reach a certain threshold on the things they require, be that Byleth's level or a specific stats, or even their rank with a particular weapon. You can still gain support conversations with them, and those lower the requirements for recruiting them. And since Bernie wants a high Bow rank, I will spend the following chapters trying to train Byleth in it. Luckily we have unlocked Faculty Training, which lets Byleth take lessons from the other professors in a specific skill whenever they have activity points to spare. Which unfortunately at this point is not often the case.

Similarly I got interested in recruiting Leonie since she seems so close to Jeralt (although to be honest I thought she was lying at first because certainly Byleth would know her if that was the case, right? Even more proof there's more going on between the two), and she requires a high Lance rank, so that will also be a priority.

And while I know I can potentially recruit everyone and crowd the Blue Lions class like crazy, I will be limiting myself to an extra students from each of the other two houses to preserve the experience. Besides, this game lets you deploy 12 units at most.

Speaking of Blue Lions: Hi, Felix.

If I didn't know any better I'd just think he's being a dick as usual and don't get me wrong, he is. But given how Dimitri turns up at the start of the timeskip... there may be a hint of truth in what he's saying.

AT TIMES, Ingrid!?

Anyway, moving on. This month Jeralt gives us some battallions, an exclusive of this game: To put it simply, they grant the unit that equips one extra stats depending on the battallion which can be upgraded up to Lv5 simply by using it. Things like extra Attack, Hit/Crit/Avo, Def/Res and so on. For now the gains aren't much, but they will become way more significant when we gain higher rank battallions.

The main thing battallions grant, though, is Gambits.

Think of them as the precursor of Engage attacks: Most of them let you hit multiple enemies at once without risk of counterattack (the type and AOE depends on the battallion), and if you manage to hit , all of the enemies in that area will not only be damaged, but also be frozen in place and have their stats lowered. You can also use them whenever.

But compared to Engage Attacks, not only are they not guaranteed to hit (the chance to either hit or avoid a Gambit depends entirely on Charm, a stat unique to this game), they can also only kill the enemy directly targeted by it. And they also not replenishable until the end of the month. Regardless, they are still incredibly useful.

A few days later Byleth gives their first lecture to the class, and once again makes an embarassment out of the Academy by not even knowing how to teach and having Dimitri explain it.

The fact that the house leaders give the tutorials for teaching instead of the staff is hilarious. The most esteemed Academy in Fòdlan and they don't even brief or tutor their new staff and have the students do it instead. Rhea please.

Well, I wouldn't say it's inaccurate. I know on my first day of work I got dumped right onto it with absolutely zero guidance or directions so... yeah, that unfortunately checks out. Three Houses takes place in Italy confirmed.

Anyway, before the mission itself we have a mandatory training battle where we have to beat up some church soldiers. Not much to say.

No Dimitri. No they do not. And this is something they should know as a mercenary, but Jeralt says he never taught them much of tactics.

Seriously, what did Jeralt even teach Byleth beside wielding a sword? This is why homeschooling is bad, everyone.

With all that said and done, it's the end of the month. And that means it's time to beat up some bandits.

Also enjoy this Rhea screenshot. I didn't know where else to put it, but her pose is really cute. She's so excited!

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