#but theres no way this is an original experience right?

[kurishiri]

my thoughts on the presence (or rather, lack thereof) of dub-con in alfons’ route in en

thank you for the ask anon! since it contains spoilers for al’s route, i will put under a cut. also it is a long post!

hi anon! i did notice this, yes! they also made changes to some other scenes as well for a similar purpose. as far as i heard, it is sort of a general trend for the en localization to water down scenes that may be considered dub- or non-con; apparently, they have done this with other ikémen series games like iképri.

in alfons’ case, though, i have some mixed feelings overall abt doing so in this route. i hope i can explain myself ok!

on one hand, i think making it more “soft” so to speak does make it feel more accessible for readers in the western fanbase, who in general seem more sensitive (?) to the presence of dub- or non-con, compared to japan. i would honestly love for many people to be able to read his route and not feel super uncomfy? while doing so. so in this respect, i can get behind this decision.

that said.

i feel like other aspects of the story have been sacrificed as a result of this. i believe that, in the original story, scenes play out the way they do for a reason. if there is dub-con, they probably arent putting it all in just for the teehee dubious consent teehees. for example, part of what made this story interesting to me in the japanese version was that against the so-called conventional notion, sex was not used as a means to bring characters closer together, but more so as a way to make them more distant. theres this sort of irony and a theme of isolation (ironically in part due to sex) that i felt was more apparent in japan, in part highlighted due to the dub-con. i feel like making kate want this beforehand is more safe, yes, but also it sort of waters down this irony a bit compared to japan imho.

another consequence is in kate’s character. i think its kind of a strange change that in some parts of the story surrounding those scenes, kate is pretty insistent on facing reality to the fullest, but then one ask from alfons and shes ready to indulge in a fantasy, away from reality, as she asked for it. but despite that, she tries to push him as far away as she can. it sort of makes me feel there’s a gap or blip in her character if that makes sense. part of what made these scenes dub-con maybe is how alfons wanted to give an escape to kate via sex, but kate didn’t want that escape bc she wants to face reality. it creates more conflict between them.

part of kates character development in alfons’ route, too, is going from being staunch in the start of the story, to learning, questioning, and deciding for herself what is considered right? and what is considered wrong? as the story progresses. but with the whole kate wanting it since the beginning, this flaw is sort of lost since the start, making her development feel a bit more static, as by her saying yes to alfons since the beginning, it already establishes her as someone who wants to see reality, but also knows to see the benefit in an escape or a fantasy, when this is sort of what she is meant to develop into by the end.

ftr im not saying these things r completely lost! just that they feel a bit watered down? a bit less engaging? if thats the word, as a kinda byproduct of softening up the dub-con scenes. so i feel the impact may be a bit less compared to japan. but, again, i do understand why they chose to make such changes as well to en.

overall, i dont hold very negative thoughts abt it. nor do i really fully like it either. maybe its bc i play on both servers, but i feel like en just… doesn’t get an experience you could get in japan, which kinda gives me mixed feelings in a way as well, i suppose. i kind of feel that en deserves to read what was dished out in japan, without it being chosen for the fanbase what should be hidden from them (had there not been fan translators translating stuff more “word for word.”)

[nonaonann]

Is it or is it not a normal and common experience to be so overwhelmed with emotion over another person---another human's work---because you know the passion, the hours, the love, the effort that went in to create something so beautiful and profound, even if it is mundane or niche, that it draws other people---people who may not share their's passion as deeply or have only started to dip their toes into the topic someone is presenting with their work---and makes them feel their own emotions, or see their own passion reflected back, or see how another person can feel so much about a topic they create something someone else can love so much, and learn from, and then create something of their own because of how moved they are?

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[lilac-set]

“You just haven’t met the right person yet” aplatonic-spec edition

‘there’s no platonic explanation for this’

buddy you wouldn’t believe what kind of platonic explanations im capable of

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

ASL brothers HAIKYUU!! AU!!!!!

Day one of Self Indulgent month for me! I love these three, i love haikyuu, i love killer whales!

(The Naval Academy is this au’s version of marines)

For those who dont know, in Haikyuu (and prob in real life too but in my experience its not as important as they make it in the anime) The "Ace" of the team is the person who primarily scores points via spiking. Theyre the Hard Hitter, basically.

Design talk👇

Originally, i was gonna make their school mascot just "The Pirates" but i couldnt figure out a clever pun with the school name so i scrapped it in favor of an animal mascot. I figured I would have a wider range of puns that way.

I landed on Orcas as the mascot because I think they really embody a pirate way of life. Theyre strong, hang out in groups of a mix of found family and their actual family, hate the rich, and theyre fun loving! And also im a bit biased because theyre my favorite animal, but hey, i said its self indulgent month, didnt I?

Their school name is a play on the word for Killer Whale (Shachi シャチ) and the word for 'knowledge' (Chishiki 知識), i just smashed the two words together. I'm very proud of myself for coming up with that given i dont speak japanese at all.

Anyway, with their designs, I was taking inspiration from orcas to match the design themes of haikyuu. Ace's hair is bleached on the underside to look like the underside of an orca's body, I made ace and sabo's eyes look more whale-like, the clip in sabo's hair is meant to resemble to spots behind orca's eyes, and I tried to make luffy's hair look more like it's round and spiking down more than i usually do.

Ace is wearing a ''way of the ace" shirt in the first picture, Luffy is wearing a shirt that just says "VOLLEY BALL" because i think it would be funny if he wore a bunch of those Zero-context-poorly-translated-random-english-words shirts that theres a bunch of in Asia. Sabo dyes his hair like delinquents do, but it doesnt much look delinquent~y because of how soft it looks. He means to do it to make him look like a delinquent though. Sabo still has his scars in this au, but he uses his hair, arm braces, and leg braces to cover them up. LUFFY AND ACE HAVE FUNKY SOCKS BECAUSE NO ONE CAN TELL THEM (or me) THEY CANT. Sabo wears athletic socks though because he's a debbie downer. He defends himself saying “It’s practical” and Ace and luffy call him “practically a Debbie Downer.”

Luffy is very good at receiving from growing up with Sabo and Ace practicing setting and spiking with eachother and assigning Luffy as Ball Boy. So he got the libero position from that cuz sabo and ace put in a good word for him. Nepotism.

I didn't feel like coming up with designs for them, but Zoro and Bepo are also on their team (theyre in the fifth image sitting on the right of the line of students). Koala and nami are student managers, Robin is the teacher manager, and Franky is the coach. all other straw hats/luffy friends, rev army comrades, and whitebeard brethren are in the stands. Im trying to keep the ages consistent with how they are in canon.

I didnt do a very in depth research, but i couldnt find what Japanese schools have as mascot costumes. and given no one wears any costumes in haikyuu for their team, i can kind of assume they dont use them over there. But unfortunately for them, I'm American. And part of the backbone of our schooling system, is Vaguely Unsettling Mascot Costumes. My sister says my design for it looks like its from Club Penguin, and i find that delightful. [moment of silence for my billions of fallen Puffles, taken from me in The Shutdown] Anyway.

I thought I was clever coming up with the equivalent of the Marines in this au being a Naval Academy. And their mascot being Seals, famously the animal that gets the absolute Worst Of It from orcas. Get shit onnnnn

I believe thats about it, thanks for coming to my ted talk :)

[arodrwho]

the best way to write is however ur little heart desires obviously but personally subjectively pettily i think that most of the time people would be better off just writing how they talk

[redactedrem]

You know what? Fuck you. *Ponifies Batman*

Guys I'm so excited to share my newest project of ponifying the Batfam, it started out small with the hypothetical "I wonder what Batman would be like in a mlp universe." And then the project kept getting bigger and bigger.

If anyones interested in my world building/ headcanons surrounding this project, you can see it under the cut. (I didn't want to make the post too long.)

Incase anybody couldn't read my bad handwriting, I gotchuuu.

-(First pic) Bruce Wayne: Bruce had got his cutiemark the night of his parents death, after the grief had broken his spirit and he realized that he never wanted anypony else to feel the same pain as he does. (He has a fake cutiemark to cover up his obvious destiny)

- The first pic is pretty self explanatory, but I want to make it clear that Bruce's destiny isn't "My parents are dead so now I dress up as a bat and beat up mentally ill folk". Because I've seen people on here give hot takes on cutiemarks that directly link them to a ponies destiny.

This goes for specifically in the mlp fandom but (for the sake of being on topic) I'll use the the example of that one post where someone gave the hot take that Jason would get his cutiemark in the warehouse right before he dies (or after he dies? smthing like that) because "It would be really fucked up to know that you were always destined to die." And listen, I can appreciate some good Jason Todd whump as the next guy but knowing that this would be based in a mlp universe . . . just doesn't sit right with me.

It sounds less magical that way. Its like saying that Rainbow Dash was always meant to be the fastest flyer, so theres no point in trying to compete with her. So uhm, trying to stay on topic here. My personal hot take is that a pony's cutiemark is symbol of something that they do/ a skill or talent that they have that makes them happy. And whats a more magical and fulfilling destiny than doing something that makes you happy for the rest of your life?

Looping back to Bruce, he didn't get his cutiemark the moment his parents died, but I like to think that he got it sometime later on in the night. After hours of being checked on by the police, getting looked at by the paramedics, and after Alfred took him home. Its 1:40ish in the morning and tiny foal-Bruce is just staring at his bedroom wall feeling numb and dissociated to hell. And sometime after processing everything that night- he just decides that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to him and that he will do anything to make sure that nopony will ever feel the same pain that he has felt. And then-- Ta da!! Cutiemark!! Too bad neither he or Alfred got to experience the excitement when they both saw it the next day :')

(Edit: I didn't know where to put this detail, but Bruce's fake cutiemark is based off of the "Make It Wayne" TV logo from this fanfic here )

-(Second pic) The Bat: This is heavily inspired by Flutterbat, I know theres canonically already a race of bat ponies made from Lunas stunt as Nightmare Moon. But I chose to go through with the Flutterbat route because batponies are a race, and have bat-like features 24/7. In comparison Fluttershy maintains her pegasus appearance by day and transforms into Flutterbat at night (ALSO with there being implications that there are "Triggers" for her transformations in the day too!!) Which adds the "Vampire." right in front of her batpony title.

I might do a lil comparison chart between vampire batponies and regular batponies in the future or something. But for now I'm focusing on my batpony Bruce Wayne headcanons so yea. My point is that I felt like making Bruce a "vampire" batpony would give him a more solid secret identity with also the bonus of a really metal origin story.

Now we all know that the canonical origin story of batman is that a few months after the tragedy of his parents death, Bruce had fallen into a cave? a well? a pit? of bats and triggered a fear of bats since then. Later on he decides to become Batman so he can invoke the fear of bats he once had into the criminals of Gotham. Yadda yadda yadda.

Now canonically, we don't know the exact science on how Fluttershy turned into Flutterbat. What we do know is that at the time, pony magic is not researched enough for Twilight to be aware that Fluttershys "Stare" is her own form of pony magic and that it would interfere with Twilights spell.

Do you see where I'm getting at here? Uhmm don't ask me what exactly happened in the cave, I'm doing this for fun and thinking about it too hard makes me spiral. But uhmm something something- Bruce looked at a bat in the eye and decided to embrace his biggest fear to fuel his cause, and his already traumatized and fucked up pony magic had transformed his body- something something. (Edit: I didn't think about this until now but maybe Fluttershys "Stare" and Bruces "Bat Glare" could be a usage of the same form of magic? Just a thought)

I'll probably come up with a more suitable explanation in the future, but like I said. All of this is just for fun.

[does-it-introject]

... is an account dedicated to introjects, fictives, factives, faitives, songtives, ... tives!

Here's the basic idea: Each post includes a source and a poll; if your system has someone from the source you go 'YES', if not you go 'NO'. If you're not plural you go 'RESULTS'.

Why? Because I think this is fun. Don't take it serious! Don't think too hard about it! You can even use it to find source mates if you want? All up to you!

"Oh but [NAME] what counts as "from the source"?" "Do fictionkin count?" "Does ... count?" YES. Everything counts, if you want. Don't think! Just press little buttons and clarify or don't clarify in your reblog if you want! I'm not gonna limit your button pressing experience!

Is there a DNI? No! It's a poll account. Who cares about who interacts. Just don't go around being an asshole and we're fine!

Requests are always open! Unless they're closed!

Yes, the profile is the fictive flag, but this account is for all of you tiny beings; I just really love this flag so... yea man!

Curious about the Queue: Check This Out!!!

Small, growing QNA below the cut!!

"Can you add a button for 'unsure' / 'used to' / 'maybe'?" - I appreciate the questions, but I'd prefer to keep the polls limited to these options! I get the frustration though. Just click whichever option feels right to you, and if neither feels right you can always click 'RESULTS'.

"How many requests can we send it?" - Go crazy! Go wild! Send 100 requests in one ask or 100 requests in 100 single asks! I don't mind either way!

"Are there any requesting rules?" - My only condition is: do NOT expect me to know what "TIAEOWNTDLOL" means as an acronym. Write the full name, I beg of you, my oh so dear requester. I had to delete three asks because I had no idea what the letters meant. Extra Note: I give you a cookie if you write (game / show / band) in your request.

"Are there any forbidden sources?" - No, where's the fun in that? Request whichever! Also, yes, factive sources are absolutely welcome and appreciated here as well!

"Do you respond to asks?" *- Not directly no! It's easier for me to keep track of which requests I have done and which not. Usually theres multiple folks sending in the same questions, so they'll be answer here; so make sure to check this regularly!

"Can I request a source you already made a poll about?" - Yes, if the original poll is atleast a month old!

"Can singlet fictionkin / IRLs / ... vote in the polls?" - Sure, if you want! You guys are just as cool as everyone else so go ahead and press that little button!

"Can you post more polls a day?" - People keep asking this, actually! So: I upped it, from 2 to 4. Please be patient with your requests! I do not want to spam the tags with polls that not everyone might want to see. 4 is the maximum posts a day. Okay? Yea!

[rini-rushed]

beloved pet.

☆ karasu x reader (gender not mentioned)

★ reader is pretty shitty all things considered | toxic couple dynamics | I DON'T CONDONE ANY OF THE (implied??) ACTIONS

notes: inspired by the songs beloved cat-> biz/LOLUET + my first time writing shitty people who're selfaware so please bare with me + ORIGINALLY was going to be kaiser but theres wine bottle hitting in the MV and i thought that i rather not write that

sypnosis -> during one night does karasu scale his surroundings like he does on the field, except now he uses it to learn more about the relationship he finds himself loving.

any normal person would leave right after you showed the signs, the signs that you weren't normal, you didn't think like a normal person, not normal about things, and sure as hell didn't do normal things.

but he wasn't exactly normal either, was he?

or maybe he was, and thats why he trapped himself in the cage of your love.

he didn't know how many hours had passed with this cold shackle grasping his neck, cold and barely heavy chains rolled off his shoulder and onto the bed, the curtains blocked the sky from giving him an idea of what time it was.

but all things considered, he knew he couldn't escape it.

he wouldn't.

even if the chain clasped around his neck and felt easy to break, Karasu knew better than to try and move against the impossible force, he knew his options were tied, but could you blame him?

you were just so cute and so eager to love him, and how could he refuse your affection? he'd be a fool to leave a ravishing figure like you, a fine little gal in a world of mindless fools.

oh but the pleasure of seeing you as a peer to a friend would be nothing compared to what the raven haired had felt a bit after the relationship was made official.

and what he found out after was nothing but a thrill to experience, it felt like with each day you spent together, the more transparent you became to him, more naked.

your silly antics like patting his hair, or whispering praises & cotton soft words, your soft caresses on his bed at night started to feel more calculated, oh he wasn't blind to any of that, you'd both be fools to assume that any of these things were to be gone unnoticed.

but he never minded any of it, especially if it meant you'd stay with him and kept lulling him to sleep with your soft charms, than his lips are sealed. whether he likes it or not.

karasu shifts in his spot in bed a bit more, feeling the shallow warmth over his body from his covers, it didn't even feel comfortable in his own bed anymore because of that fucking chain. it scales his senses to be chilly yet comforting, to remind him he's not alone.

it loops around his body, the most prominent one on his neck, that one was easy to feel, but there was soft weight rolling aournd his muscular torso, and even if the voices inside were whining and moaning to break the tiny metal vines, he ultimately ignored both the feeling and the voices.

it was easier to sit in this loving cage than trying to struggle to get out, even if the texture of the rusty chains would itch his skin like an annoying cat.

then came to the slightly more heavy metal bonds, cold snakes of silver could be felt entangled with his own legs, mocking the feeling of someone caring and cuddling with him as he slept.

as he drunk in his own observations of everything, he cracks open an eye, his surroundings confirmed himself to be on his bed, as for the chilly metal ropes he feels cuffing his limbs and neck..

his once vibrant purple eyes scale his physical surroundings, nothing out of the ordinary, just the way he had left it, he's about to lower his eyelids when a shiver seized him by the spine.

he tilts his head ever so slightly to see what was going on behind him, and thats when it hit him.

it was never chains or shackles or.. anything!

it was always you.

your legs in between his curled slightly around his thighs, your cheek resting on his nape buried deeper, your breaths pushing against his bare skin the intimate contact that wasn't even contact.

your arms around his torso only tightened ever so slightly, clinging onto him, bounding him to the bed, bounding himself to you.

like he was some pet, cuffed to their post, waiting for their owner to come home.

erm that was lowkey unorganized im sorry

#istilldontknowhowtoendthese...

@sharkissm cause you love ur man right...

tags:

@mininji @tofumiarchives @atlantic-sailor @the-lazyyy-artist

@rinitoshiplzdateme @fishii-writes @reapkusho

[majorasnightmare]

the tadpole/brain damage thing. its like. chekovs gun to me. obviously theres very little mechanical support ingame for having a disabling injury, aside from maybe an optional voluntary decision to drop the INT score, but similarly to choosing to write intention into the lack of dark urge Lore responses from the party, i just like to make mountains out of molehills and force game mechanics into In Universe Character Problems

like when dirge repeatedly mentions that he thinks the tadpole is doing something beneficial for him, that its helping him, it isnt JUST the power-hungry psionic ambition in him. its a parasite, that needs a host. it needs a LIVING host, or its own chances of survival plummet. and dirge gets tadpoled right after a life threatening injury to the tadpoles preferred habitat. neither of them want to die!! dirges body tries to recover, but cant in part BECAUSE of the tadpole (the netherese stasis magic rejecting outside influence and binding it to its host, having an unejectable foreign object in the injury site, etc), but its not like the tadpole WANTS its host to have a life altering injury

its not like its malicious (except when it comes to Hive Activity, and then it can be a right bastard), it just cant live any other way. it cant help what it is. halsin calls the illithid life cycle abberant and unnatural, but brood parasitism exists throughout the natural kingdom. is the wasp egg evil for having been laid in a caterpillar?

its first moments of life outside the brine pool, and its new home, its new life, its host, its caregiver, its food supply, is bleeding and dying and falling apart and trying to fix itself but cant and its trying to heal around you but it cant but if it doesnt do anything youll both die, so this larva, this tiny worm of psionic potential and instinct, does what it can. holds its host together with whatever force it can muster, soft gelatinous body (perfect for compreesing flat and squeezing through small orifice openings) keratinizing outside the acidic environment of the brine, its four oral tentacles (its only source of motion and movement when so young and soft, dragging itself along as best it can) made for interweaving with dense synapse clusters to passively absorb the psionic imprint of its host, now desperately intwined with bleeding meat just to try and hold it all together. driven by survival instict and a vessel of psychic potential, forced into passivity by the commands of the Elder, further forced by circumstance to leverage all its great gifts to keep its host standing long enough to eventually eat

my thought is that the reason why dirge still gets the cutscene of the emperor tadpoling him at the beginning of the game, is that the original tadpole orin forced on him is just so weakened and exhausted by months of effort trying to keep him alive through kressas experiments and meddling, that the emperor, currently in thrall to the absolute, feels the need to replace it with a fresher healthier specimen, which then cannibalizes and absorbs the previous one, and then just has to go back to doing the same shit as the last one.

i think that dirges tadpole isnt as twitchy or squirmy as the others because of it. that when omeluum gives him a psychic MRI, the tadpole is just burrowed down and its tendrils stretched like a dense net throughout dirges brain tissue, only moving or writhing occasionally but definitely not as mobile as usual, its web of tendrils especially twisted near dense scar tissue at the back of his head. this worm is already so fucking weird and the circumstances for this mind flayer MRI have already introduced a bajillion different variables that need accounting for, that i dont think omeluum immediately groks the specifics of whats going on but CAN peg the "you have brain damage and your worm is fucking Weird" situation fairly easily. but i dont think it gets enough time in dirges head to get a full understanding of what the tadpole is doing FOR him

cuz like. imo its definitely objectively helping. its a psychic information bank specifically designed to interface with a human brain. the reason why dirge isnt experiencing too many of the side effects of brain damage is because the parasite is doing its best to mitigate them. memory issues, brain fog, disorientation and balancing issues, theyd all be significantly worse without the parasite. when he brings up how he feels its helping him, objectively hes right and its not even the kickass psychic powers hes right about.

like it doesnt cure EVERYTHING, he has chronic migraines that are sensitive to light, and before he asks halsin to make medicine, he starts every morning puking his guts out when the morning sun makes him so nauseous he cant hold dinner down. even without the Urge Nightmares, he has insomnia and just cant meaningfully sleep. but keeping track of what day it is, remembering what happened a few hours ago or the other day, standing up from a sitting position and not immediately wobbling and/or collapsing, retaining his old muscle memory. all shit the parasite is helping with

which is why i cant help but fixate on those moments immediately after defeating the absolute. like oh thats juicy

[dedalvs]

ive done a lot of translating to high valyrian in my day and id like to think im pretty good at it sometimes (the way ive spent literal hours researching how just one piece of grammar works to change a noun to an adverb or something is maybe insane)

anyway all that to say i usually know what to look for and how to apply it, but i am struggling with this new bit im trying to translate. “i disdain all glittering gold.”

ive replaced disdain with hate cause there doesnt seem to be a word for disdain in valyrian and hate is the closest approximation. same with glittering — replaced that with shine, and had to manually transform that to an adjective (jehikagon -> jehikere? dunno if its right)

so what i have now is “nyke buqan unir jehikere aeksion”

(im not as concerned with getting the word order right as i am with the rest of the grammar)

ive learned from a previous answer “nyke” is potentially (probably) unnecessary here, so that leaves it as “buqan unir jehikere aeksion,” but the unir there in the middle kinda makes it feel off and im not sure if maybe that also needs to be part of a compound word like valar or how to make it one if so because idk what part of valar is all and what part is men and how to fit aeksion into that equation.

i lost track of what my question was originally meant to be but i guess im wondering if im on the right track and if theres some guidance you may have to get me all the way there.

thank you for your time 🙏

Uhhhhhh... Not to be that dude, but...maybe be more concerned with that...?

I'm not sure if you know about this site, but my wiki is exhaustively updated with respect to High Valyrian, specifically. There's a team of people that work on High Valyrian and it's massive. For example, you could go to the entry for jehikagon and see that jehikere is wrong: it should be jehikare. And, of course, it has to agree with āeksion (note the long ā), so it should be jehikarior. To get the sense of repetitiveness (with "glittering"), you might add ā- to the front, so ājehikarior.

Now for "all", why not use the collective? This is how you get "All men must die", so it should work for "I distain all glittering gold". That would be āeksior. Of course, it would need to be in the accusative, so altogether it would be ājehikarior āeksȳndi. By adding the repetitive you kind of get the aliteration, too, since they both begin with ā.

Finally you have "disdain", for which buqagon serves. Aside from sound a little more posh, the difference between "disdain" and "hate" in English seems to be one of duration. The words "disdain" and "loathe" seem to emphasize that this is a character trait rather than a reaction. If you disdain something, you've given it some thought, have experience with it, and may use this as a way of describing or characterizing yourself. You can do this with "hate" as well, but it's a much more common word, and so can be used in other more basic ways, whereas "disdain" and "loathe" tend to only have specalized uses. To try to approximate this, you could use the frequentative with buqagon to imply a lengthy duration. That would give you jobuqan "I disdain". In fact, you could even use the aorist if you really wanted to imply that it was a description of yourself, i.e. jobuqin.

Now that you have the pieces, though, I really hate to say it, but the words must be in the right order. I mean, you can change the order of the noun and adjective, if you'd like, but you simply cannot put the verb first and think you've created a Valyrian sentence. It's not just "kind of" wrong: it's completely wrong. It'd be like suggesting "I him saw" is close enough in English because the forms are correct. It's not. It's wrong. This is not a minor part of the grammar you can ignore. High Valyrian is aggressively verb-final. The verb must be at the end.

All in all, that gives you:

Ājehikarior āeksȳndi jobuqin.

Hope that helps!

[seeminglydark]

how much of his experiences with Caro does Johnny remember rn in SD? Is he getting them back at all?

Spoileryish stuff under the cut for his memories

TL;DR: Initially he remembered almost nothing about it. But now, he remembers that they were a cheerleader and they were friends and he had feelings for them. He remembers the supernatural things. He remembers Caros family was horrible and he wanted to help them, and that he couldnt. He doesnt remember finer details. kisses or hand holding or that they dated. he knows these things because hes been told but the memories arent his right now. but things are coming back.

Long story long RIGHT now at this moment in SD, it still vague for him but he is slowly getting things back. He remembers a cheerleader (he makes reference to a 'cute little cheerleader' in the Creaky chapter that Caro confirms was in fact them.) PTSD, Trauma and brain damage from both abuse and actually physically dying for a short period all contribute to Johnny having a lot of blank spots and fuzzy details in his memories of childhood/teenagehood. He remembers Caro was his neighbor after he puts together that Caro and Carrie are the same person (which takes a bit longer for him since they look and sound a little different these days and his memory of them is distorted, he has no pictures or anything to remind him. There is a scene in Mil-Liminal where Maddie shows him a yearbook photo and at least the part that he knows them QUITE WELL comes crashing back.) He does not remember they did have a chance to become 'official,' and actually dated, it happened so close to his major injuries/brush with death, but he does know it happened at this point, cuz Caro's told him. Things do come back to him, if he's reminded, for instance, Caro being trans now reminds him they told him about it once when they were kids, that it was something he knew about. Caro having their attack the night he hangs out with them reminds him they've ALWAYS experienced the supernatural. he falls into patterns with them that he did when he was younger, such as the way he sings to them or held them because of habit and familiarity even if he doesnt exactly remember. He's slowly putting the pieces back together as they are presented to him. i was asked while writing this reply if he has sense memory, and yes, caros scent, the feel of them, songs they liked together, if he ever gets into the Datsun again, all those things play into it. He does NOT remember the pendant Caro wears. Or that he gave it to them. Or that it was even his. When Caro speaks of him in the podcast, and he listens to it, he does not realize its him they are talking about. When they tell him it was about him, he actually still has a hard time believing that someone could speak about HIM in such a poetic and yearning way. Theres many things he remembers, and many things he knows because hes been told, but he does still have a hard time distinguishing which is which. I do want to note that there is inconsistencies in SD when it comes to these two, mostly because their relationship wasnt actually supposed to be canon, and Caro wasnt supposed to be in SD at all, its been a fun challenge to tie things back together with it, when i first started making the comic, I decided I'd leave room in my narratives for me to be creative and change up original concepts and even the way i draw if i wanted too as long as the Main Story was consistent, which helps keep things fun to create for me, especially for something ive been working on for 6 years! I'm actually touching on Johns memories in i think next months episode of SD, (it can be read early on Tapas's Early access with ink right now) so theres definitely more about it coming up <3

-RJ

[anthroposeen]

tmagp 18 relisten notes

as usual, tma and tmagp spoilers below cut! sorry this one is so late!

celia:

- she was unable to go into work because of a "childcare emergency" but when we see her perspective we know that georgie was watching jack. on top of that, we learn that celia lied about why she left the house- i think its safe to assume it was related to her teleporting/sleep walking and its becoming a more frequent issue

sam:

- hes uncomfortable being around lena even without directly interacting with her, and feels shes impersonal as his boss

- he asked lena about celia's whereabouts, when he could have texted her himself or she could've updated him, instead he chose to ask their boss about it

- the incident is narrated at his desk, and he draws comparison to the recent encounter alice had- both involving a dead woman recounting the strange way she died

- "she was trapped in her greatest fear, which then actually killed her", its interesting that he was able to clock that with the little context he has -> i wonder if this concept was touched on at his time at the magnus institute

- doubling on the previous observation, sam says he thinks something killed them both, as in a singular force is responsible for their very different deaths. i think that he's right, since this follows similar styles of story pacing/information reveals in the past, but my question lies in what this "something" is: an entity, the fear conglomerate? (fear being a whole force on its own, with the denominations being smaller aspects of it), or a reference to the dimensional rift in some way?

- he thinks gwen is kidding around when she says mr bonzo is an external (reasonably) but once she reacts strongly to him imitating the monster, he does seem to reexamine why she reacted that way. but it doesnt appear that he takes her seriously about mr bonzo, rather taking it as a sign of her deteriorating grip on reality

alice:

- she's attempting to pick up teddy's spirits and encourage him, offering to go out for drinks with him, sam, and celia

- she describes celia as "really weird but in a hot way", which can be taken at face value or as an attempt to joke with teddy (seeing as how she describes her brand as irritating yet faintly erotic)

- after her description of celia, she says that she can make teddy forget his obsession with sam, obviously a joke about teddy, but maybe a subconscious example of her own feelings?

- she's very adamant to sam that she wants nothing to do with the incident even if its similar, refusing to turn to curiosity and making fun of him for suggesting she get her red string out

- she seems actually unbothered by the idea that theres likely hundreds of thousands of entities in their world, and explains the likelihood of them being real/how many there are as if shes mulled this concept over before

- it sounds as if shes heard of others (past coworkers) that try to connect the dots between incidents that affected them and it went poorly, with the best case scenario being no more interaction with the encounter

- sam tells her off for ignoring both the incident and gwen's mental state, which she rebuffs by saying she can ignore it and she intends to continue doing so

gwen:

- after some pushing from sam and alice, she actually tries to open up about her issues, but she has a problem with explaining her experiences, making them not take her seriously

- originally, when she feels supported/encouraged, she tells them how she doesnt think the externals are humans, and takes the leap of faith of revealing mr bonzo is one of them

- once sam makes fun of the mr bonzo reveal, she tells him to shut up and curses, running from the office. this is the first time we as the audience really see her break

lena:

- she picks up on sam being unsettled in the break room, but is surprised that its because of her

- "why would i need to talk to you?/ consider my silence as a compliment"

teddy!:

- he was in the royal mint court area around dusk/whenever the OIAR shifts start, and he says he didn't recognize alice (i severely doubt this as she seems the sort of person to be aggressively noticeable even in the dark)

- he tells her that he was in the area for an interview (assuming the other interview he mentioned in a previous episode fell through)

- he seems to be going through a very rough patch financially and mentally, sounding very beat up and not really meeting alice's energy or jokes as he would in the past

georgina barker, the man the myth the legend:

- she's babysitting jack for celia, but it doesnt sound like they live together or like this is an average situation (celia apologizes for taking up georgie's time, and if georgie were the regular babysitter celia would likely have less issues relating to keeping a sitter

- "who keeps taking georgie's face?" im choosing to believe this is a poke at the fans and not a real foreshadowing of her fate. she survived one entire podcast against all odds i do not know if she can survive both

- shes pieced together that celia is lying about what happens and where she goes during these emergencies, insisting that celia tells her the truth (drawing some parallels between how tma!georgie interacted with jon and his lying)

- she asks celia if shes being spied on by the government, this is likely because celia has a civil service job and wtg probably touches on similar stories, but its very interesting that this is the first direction she goes in, rather than a paranormal one (its possible that tmagp! georgie doesnt believe in the paranormal, having never had an encounter with the End, but i find it unlikely shes a full skeptic

incident:

- our second incident to be narrated by augustus! (im not going to draw comparisons between his themes yet since we only have two to draw on)

- the incident follows the post mortem account of a dead woman named violet parker, taken from a medical examiners investigation into her death, related to a case from the london MET police

- her body was found clothed, dehydrated and malnourished, with an ankle injury and worn feet. and, most notably, dead.

- after the autopsy, violet's body began to speak, telling the story of her death.

- no one had come forward to claim her body, i think this furthers the theory that these speaking corpse's are from an alternate dimension (likely tma)

- violet talks about being trapped within a house that has multiple descriptors of tma fears. including mentions of spiders, loneliness, endless corridors, a person asking questions from an alleyway (similar to the angler fish)

- she describes the house as having too many rooms, passages designed to be confusing, so you have to walk endlessly and slowly starve (correlating to the state of her body). she talks about doing deeds and services for the people in her life out of fear they'll abandon her and she'll be alone.

- violet describes feeling like a lone cloud rolling among her peers as a child, and compares their laughter at her to poetry (drawing very clear parallels to martin's brand of loneliness in tma)

- she says that there was a fog that rolled through the house and disguised her and kept her trapped, but also makes reference to rusted nails, rotted wood, and signs of decay throughout its description, a tie to the corruption.

- the house shes referring to had been demolished in her childhood, but she describes it as a manifestation within her, where she wanders it in her mind. this is closely followed with a description of corridors that twist and confuse her, a common attribute of the spiral and the distortion specifically.

- violet says that someone had brought her to the house, calling them a solitary figure that asks questions from an alleyway. this draws similarities to the stranger and the angler fish, but it also reminded me of the archivist (in terms of asking questions and being responsible for bringing her to this nightmare)

- "it doesnt matter, because no one is here now. because i broke my promise." while this incident isn't narrated by chester, this line still hit me as a strong parallel to jon's final arc, and i wonder if it might be a clue as to his current state of being?

glitches/lies:

- "i'll get by", said by teddy to assure alice he's in a stable situation. poor guy

- "sure. maybe." also said by teddy in response to alice proposing they go for drinks if he gets the job. this cpuld mean he doesnt intend to go do that with her, or that he doesnt expect to get the job (or! he lied about being in the area for an interview)

- "ide ran out of baby food" said by celia, lying to georgie about why she left jack alone

- "im not!" said by celia, denying shes lying

[wuntrum]

do you have any tips for an artist who wants to start making one off comics? i really enjoy your artistic direction and style of story telling so i’m very interested in your thoughts on it

yes, definitely!!

-read lots of comics! and a variety of them, too--both ones in the sort of genre/style you'd like to make, but also ones in completely different genres, lengths, places of origin, traditionally/indie/digitally published, simple to experimental formatting, etc

-in relation to the last one, if a comic you read really speaks to you, take some time to study some page layouts from that comic! how do the panels vary from page to page? how much space is the text taking up? what sort of "shots" (to borrow from cinematic language lol) are they using? these shouldn't be fancy, just little thumbnails, but i find it really helps. here's a few i did from a guest in the house by emily carroll

-start smalllll. its really important to build up your stamina, just like with any new sort of skill. if you wanna make a graphic novel thats 200+ pages long, you should make some comics that are 1, 20, 50 pages long and see them through to the end before taking on a super big project.

-this is related to the last point, but i think keeping your cast of characters small at first can also help build up your comic stamina. signals was the first longer comic i made, so i specifically really wanted to focus on just jeanne (and occasionally her parents and peers when they showed up)

-character sheets are helpful, but i also think the easiest way to start getting your characters drawn consistently is through actually drawing the comic! there's also gonna be panels where they look "off" or whatever, and its literally fine, i promise

-through the smaller comics, experiment with how you go about writing your story! theres no right or wrong way to write/plan out a story so, it takes some trial and error to figure out what will work best with your work flow. for me, i've found success in making a timeline of events for the story -> loosely guessing how many pages i'll need/want per section of the story -> freewriting (trying not to edit too much, just dumping all the words out) -> thumbnailing/loose sketching/editing text (all sort of happens in the same step; i find i need the layouts in front of me to understand what i need/don't need from the text i wrote) -> tight sketching -> final . but, if that flow doesn't work for you, try something else! i know a lot of comics people find success in writing a script first, with indications of page and panel-by-panel breakdowns

-take shortcuts often and without guilt. its a lot of work to make a comic! theres just a lot of drawings involved, that most people aren't gonna look at for very long! i especially recommend for infrequent/difficult things, like buildings or crowds or cars or bookcases, using some sort of 3d asset/brush to make your life easier. if you can reuse a drawing and change the crop/expression, do it!

-use some sort of tracker to track your progress on how many pages you've sketched/inked/finished. even if you don't have an external deadline, i think it's still good to give yourself some sort of timeline to work on (i recommend setting "ideal" goals and "realistic" goals, especially if you're working/still in school/etc). for signals, i used google sheets, because you can set up columns to be attached to little circle charts, so as you check off your progress, you can really easily see how much you've done/how much you have left to do (as i type this i highkey forget how i did that before, with signals, so...you might need to do some sheets experimentation to actually do this lol. but there's probably other trackers you can use too)

-understanding comics and making comics by scott mccloud are both great books, highly recommend them (easy to get second hand/from your library/🏴‍☠️)

-lastly, haveee funnnnn

[shoezuki]

rambling bout divinity au in the wake of the new fic:

sampo Did in fact wipe gepards memory of that night. but at this point in the rough timeline i have in mind sampo has fucked w gepards memory So Much and hes... not really good at it like thats fuli's job. so gepards building up a resistance

sampo has a tendency to wipe geps memory a Lot and often for stupid shit. like mid chase sampo trips and eats shit? oo thats embarassing cant have gep remembering that.

(another fic idea is the first chase where gepard actually catches sampo and sampo is so flustered he causes a localized ecological disaster around em and accidentally grows plants n flowers around gepard and then wipes geps memory)

gepard 100% knows that sampo was the one who arrested elias/the dude who stabbed him. he knows that sampo somehow got around all of their guards and security. he knows sampo tried to mess with his memory somehow.

i dont want gepard to seem like an airhead in this. kind of hard to balance it because his obliviousness to aeonic influences is central to the whole au but at the point of this fic. he Knows theres something not 'right' w sampo

at this point gepard knows sampo isnt human or has some inhuman things going on. hes decided its not relevant to the records against him and refuses to mention it or allude to it.

serval was mentioned for exactly 1 line but i have a fic planned from her perspective. she knows sampo isnt human and does her own investigations against him which leads to her butting hands with natasha. pela also knows 'something' is up w sampo but moreso about how sampo feels bout gepard.

gepard shuts down all insistances that sampo is abnormal esp from serval and pela because he doesnt want anything to change for sampo. its sort of his own way of being protective

i cut out that segment where sampo goes to natasha before finding elias but my idea is that sampo goes to natasha for comfort very often. they have a strong mutual understanding and shes kinda like an older sister/maternal figure sometimes to him

(his 'childhood' was shit and he sees his own experiences in the underworld children. so hes envious of how nat treats them lovingly because he never had that and has never had any supportive older figure considering hes not human)

i loved writing the segment with lan because lan's origins as an aeon are interesting to me.

considering lan rose to aeonhood from a hatred for Yaoshi, how sampo felt when spiralling in his anger towards elias is how lan 'feels' all the time. Lan is an aeon but is a very... emotion based aeon.

thats why lan reached out to sampo but never aha. he could feel sampos anger and relate to it. (lan's message was almost a warning as well as a jab at sampo being 'weak')

sampo thinks gepard is an emanator of qlipoth but hes so wrong.

sampo considers making gepard his emanator. he wouldnt though. if he was aha? absolutely. but hes human now and knows doing something like that and altering gepard without his knowledge would be a betrayal. gepard isnt suited for elation anyways

people who know sampo isnt exactly human: gepard, natasha, serval

people who know sampo is so down bad for gep: pela, seele, natasha

i dont think anyone fully realizes hes an aeon though. because thats so unimagimable. nat is the closest though

[endo4endo]

learning to accept and support other plurals queers has been the best thing to ever happen to me !! genuinely, theres no right or wrong way 2 be a sys , and theres no right or wrong way 2 be queer :PP remember that ur valid no matter what origin ur sys is or how u experience being plural!!!