#but this is really very on point for my digging up stuff for characters and things for rare pair hell

[augment-techs]

Go Go Power Rangers #32 Social Variant Cover, by Johanna The Mad~

@lordkingsmith @skyland2703

I feel like you'll appreciate the three main people that liked and reblogged, followed by two in particular that commented :)

[pukefactory]

I was reading through your ENA writings, and I was wondering: Would you do headcanons or stories for a more angsty prompt? I was wondering how ENA might navigate the downs of a relationship. 'Cause like, ENA literally has a part of herself called her "meanie side". She'd definitely say something she regrets at some point. Doesn't help that she probably hasn't had very many relationships of this type.

Could you write some headcanons for what happens if ENA's meanie side says something... well, really mean, and how she navigates the aftermath of driving her partner to tears?

It's fine if not! That definitely seems to be a little outside the general vibe with these. Plus, I even have some ideas of my own for this, too!

(For example, maybe her partner gains a bit of a phobia of her meanie side's voice, so she forcefully tries to change it into her more friendly-sounding salesperson voice, but that's really hard because it seems like her meanie side talks when she's distressed in general, like her PTSD-like response to the vending machine refusing to sell her stuff, or when Froggy calls her when she arrives at the Purge event.)

Sorry, you're making my own creative gears whirl, lol! All that to say, it's cool if you'd rather do more wholesome stuff.

•☽────✧˖°˖ I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOVE ˖°˖✧────☾•

★ Summary: A Compilation of Headcanons Featuring Salesperson Ena Trying To Make Up To The Reader After Saying Something Hurtful

★ Character(s): Salesperson Ena (Ena: Dream BBQ)

★ Genre: Headcanons, SFW

★ Warning(s): None - Completely Safe!

★ Image Credits: @JoelG

☆ The words are out before she even processes them. Ena’s Meanie side, fueled by frustration, sharpens her tongue like a blade, and the moment your face crumples, her geometric form glitches. “Oh… Oh, WAIT.” The red side is already scrambling to take control, but the damage is done. A hard swallow, a glitchy stammer, and her face flickers between a grimace and a forced salesman’s grin. “A-alright, that was a limited-time offer of cruelty—uh, poorly advertised, terrible customer service. I’d like to issue an immediate recall—”

☆ The realization sends her into a spiral. She grips her hat, her polygons jagged, her expression contorting between stiff remorse and an agonized smirk. “No-no-no-no-no, I-I, um—LOOK OVER THERE!” (There’s nothing there.) “Uh, NO NEED TO CRY, HAH, IT WAS A JOKE! …A bad one, really bad, I mean, did you get it? No? Not funny? Oh. Ohhh, geez.” Her hands wave wildly, like trying to physically catch her mistake midair, but all she’s doing is digging the hole deeper.

☆ The Salesperson side desperately tries to salvage the situation, slipping into her usual corporate babble as if she can sell her way out of emotional devastation. “I have an INCREDIBLE deal for you today! A fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime, super-duper-special ‘I’m Sorry’ package! It comes with—uh—regret! Profound self-loathing! A, uh, complete reimbursement of all emotional damages! Act now and receive bonus guilt!” She grips her hat. “That… that didn’t help, did it.”

☆ The Meanie side hunches forward, knees drawn to her chest, voice quieter now, almost trembling. “I—I didn’t mean it like that…” The weight of the moment presses down on her, cracks spiderwebbing along her skin. “I say stupid things. Mean things. I-I don’t even think before I—” She hiccups, trying to contain the mess of static in her chest. “I just wanted to be heard. Not… not this.”

☆ The second you leave, the performance is over. No business chatter, no outbursts—just silence. Ena folds in on herself, static fizzing at her edges. Her polygons warp and distort, a physical manifestation of regret. She hugs herself, claws digging into her polygonal sleeves, whispering, “That was so, so stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” The word repeats until it’s nothing but glitchy noise.

☆ Ena isn’t great at this. She tries every trick in her book—witty remarks, elaborate business metaphors, even writing an entire jingle about how sorry she is (it’s terrible). But when all else fails, she just slumps forward, hands clasped, voice trembling between glitchy laughter and something achingly real. “I really don’t want to lose you. Not over my dumb mouth. Not over me.”

☆ She leaves gifts that make zero sense—a business card that just says “SORRY” in bold letters, a rock painted like a sad face, an actual coupon that reads, “Redeem this for one (1) unfiltered Ena sincerity session.” Eventually, she just shows up, staring, fingers twitching. “So, uh… did you use the coupon yet?” A pause. “I-It’s refundable.”

☆ Eventually, she cracks. Underneath the layers of glitchy bravado, underneath the business-talk deflections, she’s just… scared. “I don’t… I don’t know how to do this right,” she admits, voice warping between pitches. “I don’t know how to be—uh—soft. Or gentle. Or—consistently good. I just—” She wrings her hands. “I never meant to hurt you. But I did. And that—it—it sucks. And I suck. And I wanna—fix it. If—if you let me.”

☆ The Meanie side knows she’s the problem. Always the one who pushes too hard, who says the wrong thing. What if this is the time she can’t fix it? What if she just… loses you? That thought alone is enough to crack her voice into something unsteady, her edges blurred with static. “You… you don’t have to forgive me,” she murmurs. “But I—I really hope you do.”

☆ When you finally—finally—lean into her, still sniffling but not leaving, Ena’s entire form stabilizes. No more warping polygons, no more distortion. Just a deep, shaky exhale. “Okay,” she whispers, almost afraid to move. “Okay. This is still a disaster. But, uh… I think I can work with ‘disaster’ better than ‘gone.’” A small, wobbly grin. “Let’s… let’s fix this together, yeah?”

[superectojazzmage]

Just back from Alien Romulus and hoooo boy oh boy. Review/analysis.

Easily the best Alien movie since the first two, which isn't saying much, yeah, but it is legit a really cool and well-made movie, competing with Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs, and Cuckoo for title of my favorite horror movie this year.

In a lot of ways it's about harvesting the few good ideas from the post-2 movies that were squandered and doing them right, plus getting the series back to it's healthier roots, kinda the movie equivalent of someone doing physical therapy to get back in the saddle after an injury. This means it's not quite brand new ground like some may hope for and I've heard some people feel it gets a little derivative at points because of it. I can kinda agree and certainly understand that criticism, but I feel it does what it's aiming for really well and sets things up for future works to go in even crazier directions. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to try and weld together the disparate post-2 movies in a way that brings the series back to a little coherency.

The atmosphere is really intense and cool, swinging between lovecraftian dread and build-up and high-energy chaos. The aesthetics and special effects are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the progress that technology has made since 2 plus really digging in to the used cassette future vibe of the older films. The characters are likable and actually intelligent (or at least understandable) in behavior like in the first two movies, so you care about what's happening to them instead of just waiting for them to get munched. The action and kills were really cool and creative, the cinematography in general was off-kilter in an awesome way - there's a definite attempt to make the movie feel claustrophobic and intimate. Fede Alvarez did a fantastic job in general, I'd love to see him do more with the series.

It REALLY cranks up the series' psychosexual, freudian, and sexual assault subtext, arguably to a point where it's just plain text. So if you're sensitive to stuff like that or if this is your first go at Alien, be warned for that.

More specific notes go under the header for spoilers. Highly recommend you go in as blind as you can.

Andy and Rain were wonderful leads, their dynamic was fantastic and Calie Spaeny and David Jonsson both turned in great performances. I direly hope they join the first two films' casts as "major" characters for the series going forward.

The effects to make Daniel Betts look like Ian Holms were quite possibly the one and only time the special effects failed. It looks very wonky, which is sad because Betts does a really good job copying Holms' mannerisms for Ash while still making Rook feel like a distinct character.

In addition to the usual themes of sexual unease, genetics, and parenthood, this movie adds in some really interesting themes of familial legacy, the rise of new generations, foundations, etc.. Andy and Rain are like Romulus and Remus of myth, orphaned and left to fend for themselves but growing into founders of a new age - both in-story with their carrying the XX121 substance and evidence of Weyland-Yutani's misdeeds to Yvaga and out-of-story with them being the protagonists of a new era for Alien. Likewise, the Offspring is the first example of an entirely new species, neither human nor alien but taking from the lineages of both through Kay and Big Chap, a Romulus-like founder of it's breed that will later bear fruit in Resurrection with the Ripley clone and Newborn.

I'm really not kidding when I say above that the psychosexual undercurrents are taken to the extreme here. This movie basically sees the ways the original film subtly pin-pricked at those themes, says "fuck that", and deliberately rubs it in your face in a way designed to make sure you can't ignore it. It wants you to be grossed out and to squirm in your chair and it knows exactly how to make it happen.

Alvarez noted in the lead-up to release that he took a lot of influence from Isolation and you can definitely see that in how he depicts the Xenomorphs and the general aura of the film. He further described it as a kind of halfway point between the first and second movies and you can also see that; it has the Lovecraft-style tension and horror of the first, balanced with the energy and action of the second, and it does a really good job finding a middle ground between Ridley Scott and James Cameron's styles while also doing it's own dance.

I mentioned way back at the start how the movie basically harvests the good ideas from 3, Resurrection, Prometheus, and Covenant and gives them the room they deserve while dumping the bad. It does that in both terms of themes/style and continuity/lore. Concepts that those movies bungled like xeno-human hybridism, the black goo, genetic engineering as a focus, and so on are done here more creatively and competently. Themes that those films tried and failed to tackle are handled with significantly more grace. It has the atmosphere and characterization of 3 but none of it's baggage and needlessly depressive tone. It has the body horror and weirdness of Resurrection without taking it to the zany, embarrassing areas that movie went. The effects and creativity of Prometheus and Covenant without any of their awful writing and clumsy messages. Alvarez takes on kind of an Al Ewing-esque "repairman" writing style here.

The Xenomorphs are absolutely deranged in behavior compared to most portrayals, attacking like either cruel sadists or raging chimps and rarely bothering to take hosts. I'm not sure if such a reading was intended, but I got the vibe that the idea is Xenos raised without a queen or hive grow to be basically sociopathic like how real world predatory animals grown without parental figures become feral and dysfunctional. Which would also explain a lot about how the Xeno in the original movie, Big Chap, acts there.

The Offspring's design is fucking wicked and I love it.

One of my few major criticisms is that Big Chap died off-screen instead of getting more to do. What was the point of having him be alive at the start if he wasn't gonna be used beyond a backstory point to set up the main story?

All in all, a very impressive effort and a great return to form for the series that I recommend highly.

[absolutebl]

This Week(s) in BL - yes yes I KNOW

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Dec 2024 Week 1 & 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Your Sky (Sun iQIYI) ep 3-4 of 12 - Them on the rooftop together (and cooking) learning how to flirt and be comfortable in each other’s space was so damn darling. Fah is so gentle and so enamored. its just endlessly soft. I love the nickname negotiation. And then next we got an illegally cute date!!!!! Yes this is slow but I don't care.

Love Sick 2024 (Sun iQIYI) ep 12-13 of 15 - I like we get more Phun/Dad conflict backstory in this new version. I'm chronicling my experience with 2024 as compared to 2014 here. (hasn't been updated, I'm struggling here)

Caged Again (Fri Gaga) ep 5-6 of 10 - Family (elder gays) to the rescue is a wonderful trope to see! So rare.

Also a v well done first kiss. 

Not gonna lie, I found the second episode overly weird and rather slow and drawn out. Did not need all the cartoon stuff. Also not really into the penguin outfit thing either. Not cute.

ThamePo Heart that Skips a Beat (Fri YT) ep 1 of 12 - Oh I absolutely adore it but...... it’s slow. But I don’t care because everyone’s so pretty. Po is a bit too much of a pushover for me and his sister (or whatever) is a bit too much of a sasang. So I don’t like that part. Hopefully these flaws will get rectified. But my oh my are they PRETTY.

Did I mention the pretty?

Fourever You (Thurs YT) ep 10-11 of 16 - These episodes were a bit better and I am warming Johan (if not to North). I think my issue with this story arc is I never love a tsundere seme. North's hair was epically bad, like 2008 Japan level terrible.

Hill & Ter’s make out and discovery scene was truly spectacular and very tense.

In ep 11 I got very confused because I thought we already saw the rescue from rape in the street scene? Or am I hallucinating? Anygay, most awkward kabedon ever in a BL.

Good kiss though.

And now we are in a very working girl a relationship. Cool if that's your thing, I guess.

The Heart Killers (Weds Gaga) ep 3 of 12 - I like the Khun Mehhh Boss lady character. I cannot stand the music in this show! Fake metal, fake tattoos, I'm getting Hollyoaks flashbacks. Lap sitting was cute and kink was a nice touch. Not sure about the dance tho. Fight scene was much better. Lots of action this ep. ALL the action really.  

Episode 4, however, I inexplicably couldn’t find. I clearly have to use my old-fashioned VPN work-around. And I don’t have access to that computer right now.

Perfect 10 Liners (Sun YT?) ep 6 of 24 - I did really enjoy the twist that the uke character (who is not in love) was more into having sex than seme character (who is in love). That was fun. And quite modern.

I do love them casually just walking around campus in waffle robes. For those who don’t know this is another dig at a BL trope. Frankly, now that there’s a lot more communication (and intentions have been made clear) between the two of them, I’m enjoying their relationship more. I still don't LIKE it. Also the ever present language play is making me happy. For those of you who missed it, the nuance of that krap from a prior perennially rude Arc is basically the equivalent of a semi-sarcastic but also kind of sweet “yes, dear.”

Meanwhile, Sea just popping up out of nowhere made me entirely too happy. I hooted with laughter, it was so ridiculous. Episode 7 I didn't pay much attention because the sound effects were particularly egregious - or was it just me? 

Spare Me Your Mercy (Thurs iQIYI) ep 2-4 of 8 - I went on a journey with this one this week. Ready?

2 - Ooo its very good. I like it a lot. The doc is soooo awkward it's almost believable and yet still sus. Such a great actor. I do keep wondering if they’ve already slept together at some point though. Like they once had a one night stand in college or something.  3 - I did not call the pharmacist and the hospital head kink. Nice twist. I do enjoy how very adult the relationship is between these leads, but I don't get a ton of chemistry. 4 - Well this show turned into something I was not expecting. I thought it was gonna be a sort of mystery but it’s not. It’s more crime thriller is he a serial killer thing. sorry all, but this is too dark for me rn. So I’m giving it a pass until it’s over and others have deemed it safe. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Our Youth AKA Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu (Japan Tues Gaga) ep 5-6 of 11 - Oh it’s the classic flip halfway through so we get the other perspective. I forgot that was coming. Silly me. Anther one for the 2024 sniff test list list. Oh they gave such an achingly sweet sex scene Triggers are rough with this one. We are in for a world of pain. Why am I still watching?

See Your Love (Taiwan Weds Gaga) ep 8 of 13 - gosh they are so sweet. The Daddy/idiot-brat side pairing is epic. Wish they got more screen time.

Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YT) ep 11 of ? - finally stuff happened. 

Love in the Air: Koi no Yokan (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 6-7 of 10 - ugh, they kept the violation of the journal reading bit in the JBL version. It’s really hard to watch no matter what. I actually think the Thai version of that scene was better acted. But ho boy how do I ever like that character?

Love is Like a Poison AKA Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru (Japan Tues ????) 11-12 end - Went pretty dark. Both psychologically, emotionally, and physically. I still like how the leads remained loyal and connected to each other though. Nice to see battle husbands again after so long. We don’t get them very often in BL these days. it’s just us against the world is always fun to watch. All that said  there’s quite a bit of chin stroking dialogue that was v on the nose and twee for JBL. Pleasure to see Haruto fight like a man who can actually fight, like the actor had some training or something (no idea if this is true). The final ep was satisfying and all in all, an enjoyable show.

A fun little JBL about a repressed lawyer who partners with (and then falls for) a beautiful street-savvy conman. Charmingly, they both come out the better and stronger for the relationship. The return of battle husbands, this time in the courtroom. Thank you, Japan, we appreciate a look in on an oft forgotten trope. 8/10

Be Moon - Falling for my enemy's son (China YT) movie from HBD Studio airing in short bits - this is another series of shorts that popped up on YouTube. It’s very pulp I not wild about it. Although I do like a lot of the tropes. 

Eyes on You (Hong Kong YT) - trailer, oh it’s mostly incomprehensible and really not good. I'd tell you what it’s about but I have no idea. There seems to be some sort of mystery and some violence and people fighting and a pair of lovers at the center of it who are being reunited. Or something.

It's airing but......

Winter Is Not The Death of Summer (Thai Weds YT) ?? eps - Criminals who meet in prison fall in love. I did find it on YouTube, initially un-subbed, then subs happened by which time I got distracted. The first episode seems to be only six minutes long. It is very pulp. But it is intriguing. For now it's to the wayside until someone tells me it landed safely. Occasionally Thai pulps want to be edgy and it's not a good look on them.

Secret Love (? YT?) 13-?? of 81 eps - I don't know what's going on either.

0.5D (Japan ????) 10 eps - Supposedly started 12/4 I couldn't find it though I'd like to watch. "Sales ace, Sada, has a secret that only his junior, Daiki, knows. He has pretended to have a gf for years, resulting in him being a virgin. But now Sada has fallen in love. Confused, Sada seeks advice from his junior." I sense another queer Cyrano De Bergerac. Info here.

Bad to Bed (Taiwan Sat YT) 10 eps - This is a little too low production value even for me + just very very odd. DNF

It Ended But?

Blue Canvas of Youthful Days (China Sun Viki) paused at eps 9-10 of 12 - I have been told the ending is OK if not great. I’m gonna hold off for a bit.

Bad Guy My Boss (Thai Sun Gaga) 10 eps - I DNF'd at ep 7, did anyone stick with this until the end? Thoughts?

Next Week Looks Like This:

No cal for you. Mine is borked. LIFE. Interfering with my BL. Again.

End of year drops:

12/14 & 12/21 The Renovation (Thai mini One31) 2 eps - Writer turns his blossoming romance with holiday resort owner into a novel.

12/20 Eternal Butler (Taiwan Viki?) 12 eps - When Ever 4, a sophisticated AI robot, becomes the personal butler to Luo Bu Shi, a spoiled yet lonely young heir, an unexpected love story unfolds. (Spin off from the first season, new cast.)

12/29 Sangmin Dinneaw (Thai ????) ??eps - trailer Childhood friends (Thai & Korean) reunite after being apart for ten years. As the boys reconnect, their bond matures and feelings of romance begin to develop, in Thai.

Impression of Youth (Taiwan ????) ??eps - rummors are thsi is supposed to start this month.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Peak humor. Very good.

STRAIGHT = wrong word

(All Perfect 10)

LOOK AT THAT FACE> GAH. (Fourever)

(2 weeks ago)

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Don't complain you're lucky I got this done at all!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

End Game 1

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, stalking, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Your gaming buddy asks to meet up but it doesn't go exactly as planned.

Characters: Andy Barber

Note: get ready for the hate.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The tunnel lights up ahead of you, revealing the cubic rock walls as you plant torches in your stead. The eerie soundtrack of night time and the ominous groan of zombies looming somewhere in the cave have you uptight. Silently, you press on, digging and mining mindlessly, fingers mashing the buttons on your controller. 

“Hey, where are you?” Jacob’s voice startles you. 

You nearly forgot you’re playing co-op. You sniff and shake your head, cursing aloud as your shock has you succumbing to the arrow of a sneaky skeleton. You sigh as your possessions scatter and you spawn back in your bed. 

“Back home,” you say glumly, “just ate it.” 

“Ah, damn,” his deep voice rolls in your noise-cancelling headset, “sorry, hope that wasn’t me.” 

“No, I wasn’t paying attention,” you hum and sigh.  

“Ah,” he accepts and lets silence linger before he clicks his tongue, “what’s going on? Everything alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” you put the controller down, your avatar sitting on the geometric bed, “I just...” you stretch your neck and massage your scalp around the thick band of the headset, “got a lot on my mind.” 

“Right. I thought you were all done exams,” he says. 

“I am, but... packing. Going home. I called my old boss and turns out I’m not gonna have a job this summer. Gotta start over,” you yawn and rub your eyes, “what about you? Final exam tomorrow?” 

“Uh... yeah,” he hesitates as if he forgot. You do wonder why he isn’t cramming right now. You could never play minecraft all night the day before a final. “Easy stuff. I’m not worried.” 

You scoff. You wish you could say the same. All you’ve done is worry those last two weeks. Exams, getting home, getting a job. Your grandmother won’t very happy to find out you’ll be slumming it for a while. At least you tucked away some money through the semester. 

“Hey, if you need a few bucks...” Jacob offers. 

“What? Are you crazy? No way,” you exclaim, “really, no, I couldn’t. I’ll be fine. I just... I hate looking for jobs. You know how it is. Friggin awkward.” 

“It’s not a big deal. My dad sent me my birthday money so...” 

“Uh uh,” you deny him again, “that’s way too much. I couldn’t-- we haven’t even met.” 

“Mm, yeah, about that,” he exhales into his microphone, “I, uh, got an extra ticket to this Con. I figured out that’s it like the midway point between us so...” 

“A con? Oh, wow--” 

“Yeah, but I get that it would be expensive so maybe I could pay for your trip?” 

“Jacob,” you wiggle the controller restlessly, “I can't accept that. It’s so nice but... it’s a lot.” 

“I wouldn’t offer it was too much,” his voice is soft, meek, and defeated. You feel bad but you would feel worse taking advantage of his kindness. “We’ve been talking all year. I just figured it would be a good chance to meet up. It would be in public and something we both like so...” 

You scratch your neck as it speckles with heat. You don’t know what’s more insulting; yes or no. 

“Can I think about it?” You ask thinly. 

The line is quiet. You look at the screen and it goes dim from your idling. You hit the analog stick and fix your headphones. 

“Jacob?” You murmur. 

“Sure, think about it,” he says, his voice raspy and rocky. It’s strange. You’ve seen him in pictures and his voice doesn’t really match his appearance. He sounds a lot older than he looks. “It’s next month so lots of time.” 

“I’m sorry,” you cringe. “I just wouldn’t want to waste your money.” 

“Trust me, it wouldn’t be a waste,” he insists, “this last year has sucked. So much. You got me through it all.” His microphone scuffs, “studying, exams, all that stuff. It’s tough making new friends. Seems like everyone here knows each other from high school.” 

“Yeah, totally,” you agree.  

You’re not exactly the most popular person. You have people you know in each class but not too many friends you hang out with outside the lecture hall or library. So far, not too many people want to spend hours mining digital gold or racing cartoon characters around a rainbow track. 

“Well, you should probably get some sleep,” you yawn, “you got your big exam and... I gotta keep packing. Gotta catch the greyhound tomorrow night.” 

“Sure, uh, yeah, right,” his disappointment is potent, “hey, will you text me when you get home? Just so I know you made it.” He snorts, “god, I sound like my dad right now.” 

“Oh, of course,” you chirp back, “I’ll try to remember. Might be late.” 

“That’s fine. Just as long as you let me know.” 

“Don’t worry about me,” you assure him, “not ‘til I have to face my grandma. Ha.” 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he says, “well... er...” 

“Good night,” you finish for him, “let me know how the exam goes too.” 

“Will do,” his timbre gets even lower, “night.” 

You sign off and shut down the console. Another yawn flows through you and waters in your eyes. You should sleep, you got a long day waiting for you, but you know it won’t be easy. Not with so much on your mind, not least of all, Jacob’s invitation. 

🎮

You text Jacob as you get on the bus, to make sure he doesn’t worry. It’s so sweet that he does, even some of your girlfriends don’t bother that much. Not that you mind the ‘hey, bitch’ Janet sends you every now and again to make sure you’re still alive. 

You fall asleep on the bus. You’ve never been one to sleep while travelling but you’re exhausted from a night of anxious tossing and turning. After spending all day packing up the last of your things and scouring your dorm room, you’re beat to hell. 

It’s midnight as you get to your grandmother’s house. She’s up reading another Stephen King classic in her rocking chair. She’s always been a night owl and a voracious book hound. She grumbles at you but doesn’t bother to ask how your trip was. 

“Hey, grandma,” you hike up your bag and smile.  

She growls again, eyes not leaving the page. You should know better by now not to interrupt her. You shoulder on and head down to the spare room where you spent most of your high-school career. You shut the door gently as the old hardwood floors creak with your weight and you drop your bag on the squeaky bed. 

You fish out your phone and plug it in as the battery flashes red with only two percent left. You leave it on the night table and stretch out, not bothering to change out of your hoodie and jeans. It’s not long before you descend back into the same dreams that marked your journey home. 

You wake up to buzzing. Your phone shakes the nightstand, rattling it against the bed frame. You groan and roll onto your side, reaching blindly for offending object. You hit the side button to dismiss the call.  

You blink away the bleariness and focus on the screen. Along with the missed call are several text messages. You squint as you expand the notifications. Jacob! You forgot to message. 

‘Hey, you home?’ 

‘Checking in. Must be busy getting settled in. Just let me know when you’re safe.’ 

‘Not meaning to be weird but everything okay?’ 

‘Please answer me. I’m worried.’ 

You drag your thumb around the keyboard, letting it predict your words; ‘sorry! I was so tired. Home now and safe 😊' 

Three dots pop up then swoop away. You frown as the same thing happens several times before a response appears. 

‘Was really worried. Thanks for finally answering. Been up all night.’ 

You’re stunned by the terse response. Yeah, you forgot to answer but he doesn’t need to worry that much. You frown and shift onto your side. 

‘Srry again. Tired. Talk in morning. Night.’ 

You turn your phone on silent and plug it back into the cord. You do feel bad but you’re too exhausted to let it keep you up. Besides, you need your sleep. You have lots of job hunting to do in the morning. Not to mention, your grandmother to face. 

🎮

You let Jacob cool down after your return home. Rather, he doesn’t text and you’re too distracted to do the same. As much as you’d like to sit around and game, your grandmother was as disappointed as you expected with your employment status, even when you gave her the money you had left in your emergency fund. 

After a week, you finally get a bite. It’s nothing special. There’s a seasonal ice cream shop in a booth shaped like a vanilla cone that needs a cashier on weeknights. It’s less than full time hours but it’s better than nothing. It will be strange working with high school juniors but you can’t afford to be picky. 

‘Game tonight?’ The text interrupts your first shift. You don’t have a chance to answer as a family approaches the window to order. 

You get them the soft serve and take their payment, bidding them a good evening with their vanilla points already drooping in the summer heat. You glance around at the mostly empty picnic tables. Soccer practice will end soon and you’ll be overloaded with eight-year-olds. 

‘Srry. New job. 1st shift. Maybe tmrw.’ 

‘New job? Congrats. Why didn’t you tell me?’ 

You sigh.  

‘Time got ahead of me.’ 

‘Same. Catch up tomorrow then. Minecraft?’ 

‘Sure. Tmrw.’ 

You slip your phone away. A mother and daughter approach and ask for a sundae and a banana split. As much as you love ice cream, working with it hasn’t tested your cravings very much. In fact, you might be falling out of love with it. The smell of vanilla and overly sweetened strawberries is kind of gross when it’s all you breathe. 

As you watch the happy customers walk away, you smile. Maybe it will be good to get some mining done. It will take your mind off of everything else. Hell, it might even make you feel like you’re doing something useful. 

🎮

“Shit, oh, sorry,” Jacob corrects himself. You always think it's kind of funny how he doesn’t like to swear. “My diamond armor.” 

“Oh no,” you utter, “where are you? I’ll grab your stuff.” 

He gives his coordinates and you turn around, leaping over the green blocks to make your way there. Despite your reticence at the beginning, you’re feeling better about the session. He wasn’t as tense as he seemed in his texts. 

“So, uh, did you think about the con?” Jacob asks. 

“The con? I almost forgot. When is it?” 

He gives the dates and you hum. Your chest flutters at the thought still. You’re not stupid. Meeting people IRL is not like online, no matter how many hours you’ve mined together. As much as you enjoy chatting with Jacob, you don’t know about meeting up. 

“I get it if you can’t get the time off but my offer still stands to cover the trip. If you wanna stay the night, I’ll even get an airBnB.” 

“Oh, wow, that’s a lot. I’m working now. I could put in,” you offer.  

“Is that a yes?” He asks hopefully. 

“I don’t know... I mean, I’ll have to look into it,” you say evasively. “Talk to my boss and grandma and all that.” 

“Right, right,” he tries to sound unbothered, “makes sense. Of course, no pressure. How about I send you the ticket either way? Haven’t got anyone else to bite.” 

“Oh, well, hold off, I wouldn’t want to take it and not use it,” you collect his weapons and armor from the ground in the game. 

It’s silent as you focus on getting every little thing. 

“Sorry, did I freak you out?” He asks, “I’m really not trying to pressure you, just got excited thinking about it.” 

“I know, Jacob, it’s not that, it’s just... a lot.” 

“Totally get it,” he intones, “let me know whenever you got an answer. Uh, where are you? I’m tryna find you.” 

“Just stay there, I'll come back to the house,” you assure him, happy to focus on the game instead. 

Still, you can’t entirely lose yourself in it. You’re sure he’s a nice guy. From pictures, he’s less than scary, and he’s never been anything but friendly. It’s not like the other dudes you meet online who jump to asking about your bra size and all that. It just isn’t smart. 

Well, maybe if you don’t show up alone. You know what con he’s talking about and Kara lives near there. You could probably convince her to meet up. Hm, that might work. 

Just like you told him, you’ll have to think about it. 

[meanbossart]

DU DROW LORE ASK COMPILATION: COMPANIONS, ASTARION'S READING HABITS, AND HIS LONG-INQUIRED OPINIONS ABOUT BODILY WASTE REVEALED.

I don't think "discussed" is the right word, more so mocked her for her blind faith and got into brief spats. It was precisely Shadowheart's water-off-a-duck's-back attitude towards his remarks that kind ingratiated her to him - DU drow spoke his mind, she took it in stride and remained firm in her beliefs without arguing or trying to push it on him. That, alongside the fact that they are surprisingly similar people is what brought them together as friends.

Even long after the events of the game he's still opposed to her hopping from Shar to Selune, also. Shadowheart's attachment to religion is simply something they agree to disagree about.

Can I answer your question with one of my own?

Am I the only idiot that killed her in their first run LOL

BUT YES, he killed Lae'zel when she tried to murder suicide the camp and I went through the whole game without her. I didn't go to the creche either!

I have since had other runs and she's actually one of my favorite characters, I just haven't had the chance to draw her yet.

ACTUALLY - scratch that. I've drawn her once-

Somewhat! But not really. He genuinely just likes jewelry, and rings are the only kind that suit his life-style (necklaces and earrings are a hazard during fighting) this is a reference to his bhaalist days when he used to be completely covered in the stuff day and night.

Hence why he finds them comforting to have on in some way or another. They change around because he gets bored of/misplaces runs out of fingers to wear the new rings that he loots constantly.

The great link in question

I don't know if it's been made clear enough, but DU drow's love for Astarion is borderline pathological, LOL. He's got a good humor about things and Astarion is definitely no stranger to having little quips and jokes made at his expense (a few references to him being Pointy And Long here and there, for sure), but the guy overwhelmingly adores him and thinks he's always the prettiest girl at the ball, even when he gets in his face and his nose looks huge.

I'll be honest, Astarion strikes me as the kind of guy that has like, 3 really weird books he really enjoys and reads them again and again very slowly over the course of years. Otherwise, not really a reader, but I digress -

DU drow was probably never a big reader himself, I would say he got started on a couple of books back in the day but likely never finished any. He's fairly intelligent, but most of his downtime was spent managing the cult and parsing through relevant documentation.

I definitely don't think he'd have the attention-span for fiction (which I picture as being said books that Astarion enjoys) but he does like to snuggle up with his beau to watch him read - every once in a while he catches a particularly scandalous line or description and they bicker about it. He makes a remark, Astarion feels obligated to explain the context, it devolves into some playful kind of argument that ends with Astarion telling him to go dig a hole and die in it while playing with his hair - The usual LOL.

Oh man I have a few more in-dept descriptions of how that went, both lore-wise and just for me as the player - but in summary, DU drow was pretty mean to everyone earlier on in the game and he did catch onto Astarion's very obvious and obnoxious seduction attempts very clearly. He doesn't like being so desperately pursued and they actually got off on the extremely wrong foot because of it, LOL.

After being unpromptedly rejected at the tiefling party he was a little more enticed by him, basically the "no" was his "go". I like to think of it like Astarion catching onto the fact that his initial strategy wasn't working and that this man in particular needed him to play hard to get - from that point on, DU drow started playing along. DU knew this was still a game, but now they were playing it on even ground so he was fine with it.

First of all - he inexplicably got butt-ass naked for the event.

All in all he liked it a whole lot and it was his re-introduction to the concept of pain being dished out as a form of love and his deep enjoyment of it.

Thank you so much, glad to hear you get some joy out of my work!

Dang it I had a pretty good write-up about his thoughts on Wyll from a long time ago, but I can't find it 😭

In summary, Wyll was a frustrating person for him to be around because of what he viewed to be a deeply ingrained naivete about the world. He shockingly didn't hate him (Wyll is kind of difficult to hate) but he never really saw him as an equal either, and definitely not as a friend. Du drow just desperately wanted him to express something that he would perceive as a genuine emotion; some kind of outburst or show of anger or frustration, but all he ever saw was someone trying to put on an act of performative heroism that he didn't buy at all.

At the same time, Wyll was far too young for him to be too mad. He might have held his father more accountable for making the guy into what he was than Wyll himself, really.

Can a man be scared of being scared? Because if so, it's that.

He also doesn't like shit a normal amount. (piss is fine depending on whose it is.)

[thechekhov]

Hey Chekhov! How do you start converting an AU idea from character sheets and mini comics into a plot outline for a full, continuous comic? Especially if the series you're basing it on isn't complete?

I've been following your white diamond Steven comics for years, and frankly, I love how it builds and continues the scaffolding canon laid to be something that is thematically still the same but also very unique. And I never thought I'll ever say this, but now I'm working on a canon-divergent AU with someone that's I think aiming to do something similar(continue the themes of canon but different). So I'll just like some advice, I suppose!

You might've answered something like this before, honestly, but I tried to dig a little and couldn't really find it.

Thanks, if you do answer this! I just want take the opportunity as well to say also that your comic and blog accompanied me through parts of my late teens, and I'm very grateful for you being a stabilizing influence during that time.

Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that, and I appreciate you respecting me enough to ask for advice.

As for your question...

Well, to be frank, I don't START with character sheets and mini-comics. In fact, for WD!AU, I didn't have any character sheets until I started season 2.

Think of your story as an aquarium. Your characters are fish.

Yes, they're important, but having a whole bunch of fish without any substrate, tanks, feed and WATER..... will not really make for a memorable aquarium experience.

The reality is that all stories should start with an end.

That's my personal approach, anyway.

What I mean is - you need to know the general idea for your story before you begin to write or plan it.

Let's try this:

1.Tell me about your story in THREE sentences!

Just three. Not long ones, just regular ones.

For my AU, @ask-whitepearl-and-steven, it would be:

"A young orphan runs away from home with a mysterious lady who seems more cryptid than human. He realizes that he's not human either - he used to be the ruler of an alien planet! He and the other aliens he meets decide to (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (REDACTED) and he (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (READACTED) (READ ANDCTED) (READ AND FIND OUT)."

YOU should know how YOUR story ends too! Even vaguely.

It helps if you know at what point you plan to lay down the pencil. Because if you DO know, you are always going to know which direction to walk in, even if the end is so far away it's beyond your line of sight.

It's true that when I began WDAU, I didn't have much information about White Diamond and white Pearl, because they had literally ONLY been introduced. I had to guess a lot of the details (like WP being Pink's originally) and what White would be capable of. And thankfully, my original intent for the story's end fit pretty well with what was later revealed!

But don't forget - you could also just fuck around with stuff! It's your story, after all.

And don't forget... to also look back!

2.Tell me WHY the story is happening in the first place.

There's a reason that the beginning of your story happens when it does. If there is no reason to start somewhere, then find a different place to start.

You should be able to tell me "We're picking up the story here because something significant has happened... and that significant thing happened BECAUSE...."

That 'because' is your main background information that should be revealed slowly throughout the story. In WDAU's case, we only have a few pieces of the puzzle. We know Greg's side. He know Earl's side. But there are still little bits and pieces missing! And they're all important for finding out WHY Steven ended up an orphan and WHY he is being followed by White Pearl (Earl) at the very start of the comic!

3.Tell me what the coolest and most interesting things to happen would be....and then write them!

I think this may be something that's rarely said out loud, but I will speak on the behalf of the people...

We should write the scenes we want to read. If you don't want to read the scene you're writing, then DON'T write it!

If you feel like you "have to" do a page and a half of 'lore' because you think it's traditional to have that 'explanation' about the location of your story, or the history of the species or whatever, you're simply wrong. There are other ways to reveal information aside from just forced paragraphs upon paragraphs of information that would make an SAT Reading Section sweat.

Instead, I recommend that you find the most exciting or hilarious way for the characters to discover the most important bits of info. Find a dramatic twist. Shove it into the narrative. Then, figure out what needs to happen to get there.

Ultimately, though, remember this: When you're taking advice from me or from others, don't forget to take advice from yourself, too! It's your story, after all. You know it best, and only YOU can figure out how to get it written.

I hope that helps at least a little bit! Writing it never easy, but it should still be enjoyable!

[jesncin]

Okay, I'll bite, what are your feelings on the trans conner pitch?

Oh boy! Thank you for tossing me this bone because I have a lot of mixed feelings!

I notice that people online are very hot and cold about the Trans Superboy Pitch, they either love it or hate it and that doesn't leave a lot of room for nuance + discussion. So to be respectful to a fellow trans peer in the industry, I want to do a fair review/analysis of Skyrocket: the trans Conner Kent pitch by Magdalene Visaggio.

My general takeaway from the pitch is that I like the premise, but the details fumble the execution for me. I can really feel from reading the pitch that Visaggio cares about Superboy. She understands that he's a very weird legacy character who has struggled to find proper footing in the DC Universe after all these years. An effective legacy character is one who is able to spin off and expand upon the themes of the character whose mantle they carry. But the cheesy whatever-goes 90's-ness of Superboy's original run didn't give future writers a lot to work with in terms of a Superman Legacy Character.

It's why I genuinely believe the later retcon reveal that -part of Conner's DNA is from Lex Luthor- is a fantastic addition to his character. It takes a character who was just kind of screwing off to gentrify Hawaii back into the center of Superman's good vs evil conflict. But now Conner's problem is that his story is too tied to his origin and Superman's shadow. Placing Conner with the Kents in Smallville afterwards made him narratively redundant. What's next for him?

So let's dig into the pitch!

I like what's at the heart of this pitch. It's a very season-3-ATLA-Zuko "honor wasn't all it's cracked up to be" arc and I think that suits Conner's character really well! It's the details I have gripes with:

"Conner has been largely relegated to the Jason Todd of the Superfamily" oof, haha that's not a particularly fair characterization.

The constant comparing of Superman to Christian imagery. He's described as basically "Jesus goddamn Christ" in the pitch. The Tyrannical Kryptonians are named Saint, Shepherd and Savior. No surprise I don't like seeing a character who allegorically represented Jewish immigrants to be constantly compared to Christian imagery and deified.

It's inevitable with pitching to the company, but the pitch is bogged down by a lot of convoluted plot points. I get that it's necessary to pitch event tie-ins and universe hopping shenanigans, but it's a lot.

Leland feels like a plot device in this. I'm sure there were plans to flesh out the brotherly clone relationship between him and Conner so that he can feel like his own character, but from the summary he just kind of revolves around Conner the way the pitch describes Conner revolving around Superman. Oops!

Conner's relation to Luthor and Superman works as a story about legacy, bloodlines and the things parents pass down to their kids. It's best when handled thematically and not literally because it's easy to get into essentialist "good genes" vs "evil genes" near-eugenics talking points. Unfortunately this pitch has a lot of that vibe. Leland has more Lex genes so he's super smart. Conner and Leland are able to start a schism in the Future Tyrannical Kryptonian House by "proving their truer genetic link to the original Superman, unsullied by thousands of years of tinkering" thereby gaining allies. Not great!

The part where Conner wants to find "his own Metropolis" by moving to Dripping Springs, Texas. That's Jinny Hex's field of operations, so is it really his own space? I would've just given Conner a new town so he can better stand on his own and build out a unique cast system.

Okay let's talk about the trans stuff!

I get that it makes for an Iconic Visual Superhero Moment, but I really don't like the part where Conner steps through a magical crystal and pops out the other side as a trans woman. It robs her of having that discovery on her own. The pitch says "I believe that this is as natural a move as Iceman's coming out". And just?? Man, remember when Jean Grey read Iceman Bobby Drake's mind and robbed him of his agency by outing him through that invasion of privacy? For a pitch all about Conner's journey of defining herself, it weirdly robbed her of that moment.

The pitch does such a good job talking about how Conner feels like her whole life revolves around Superman and how pointless wanting to be Superman feels now that Jon Kent has taken the mantle. She has Clark's genes, goes to Clark's hometown school, is raised by Clark's parents and all that. So then why is she eventually named after the women in Clark's life? Constance "Connie" Lara Kent. Clark's Kryptonian mom and human grandma? Was the world so small that she could not name herself after anyone else or come up with a new name? Connie doesn't even get to name herself, her new name is one Martha Kent bestows her with. It's hypocritical, and doesn't have the same impact that Superman giving Superboy a Kryptonian name does.

Speaking of which, this right here is my biggest gripe. It's not in the pitch itself but?? Wait- why go on about how Conner deserves a name that's not given to her and then turn around and make Martha name her? Sure, Connie comes up with the superhero name "Skyrocket" herself but surely she also deserves to name herself considering the thesis the pitch built up about self discovery and agency right?

Also with all due respect, this is the whitest queer take on Conner's identity. I wish white trans people could understand that you can have multiple true names that reflect different parts of you.

When Clark gives Superboy the name "Kon-El" it matters that it's given. It ties so well to the idea of familial acceptance into a nearly-extinct culture. You wouldn't know how to reclaim that part of your identity when that culture's been wiped out, so of course it's an honor to be trusted with a name that preserves Krypton's culture. This is a common practice with diaspora reclaiming cultural names from closed cultures, they are gifted their names by someone more culturally connected. I think the pitch having Martha name Connie is trying to echo this, but it doesn't hit the same without that cultural context. It also undercuts the genuine joy Conner felt from finally having a name he truly identifies with. Conner was only ever referred to as Superboy before then. When Clark gives him the name Kon El, Conner cries out that Kon El is his "real name". It's one of his defining moments, and to have that be diminished by saying "It's still a name someone else gave him" is so disappointing.

Then there's the design.

This is gonna lean more into preference, but I'm not the biggest fan of this design! I get what it's going for but it has too much going on everywhere. It also doesn't have that proto-punk look original Conner had, so it ends up not feeling like him. It's too superhero, and not enough casual-wear-on-a-supersuit that Conner sports really well. I see how it fits in with the everyone-in-Superfam-is-wearing-jackets-era, but I also think those new designs don't look good either. Especially Supergirl's. I feel like Conner should be more punk post transition. No respectability beam for her!

Also the name Skyrocket? It's giving knock off-brand toy vibes to me I'm sorry D: People on twidder suggested Supernova and that sounds way better! Even Visaggio stated she prefers that name so you can't be mad at me for this.

Overall big conclusion feelings!

I've been following Visaggio's work for a while because it's awesome seeing trans people getting picked up in comics. While there are some things about her writing I like, for the most part I've felt like her work isn't my cup of tea. I tried reading up a bunch of interviews she's in to try to understand why her writing wasn't clicking with me, and what I discovered is that we have fundamentally different approaches to queer storytelling.

From Paste Magazine. I get where she's coming from, trans characters deserve to have multi-faceted narratives that don't overly center how they're othered at the expense of further characterization. But also? I just actually find the interior lives of queer people and identity interesting. I like writing the kind of escapism and joy that's informed by surviving and inheriting hardships rather than erasing those things or skipping past it. I think this is why Connie is robbed of her trans discovery in the pitch. Why we don't get to watch her grapple with gender identity in a political way. Queer stories about queer struggles are considered archaic and unnecessary nowadays. It's part of the escapism Visaggio values in her work; to give a place of respite for trans readers from the cruelty they experience in reality, but I don't connect to stories like that personally. Whenever I try to share queer Indonesian art and writing with my peers, I'm often told it's too painful to look at. That our pain doesn't fit the modern expectation for happy, empowering queer stories. "trans people get enough hardships in real life, they don't need that in their fiction" Visaggio still talks about her newest projects like this btw.

I'd love to see a take on Conner that more holistically continues the political immigrant themes of Superman. The white parts of fandom love interpreting Conner's identity crisis as primarily a queer struggle, but it's also one of a person grappling with his mixed heritage. He's a diaspora kid separated by a generation away from Krypton. He has yet to make peace with the Luthor side of his identity, one borne of generational trauma and resentment for one's roots. Instead of a take where his queerness separates him from the pressures of legacy, I want to see a Conner take that has themes that are intersectional about his mixed diaspora and queer identity. I want his superficial punk aesthetic to graduate into actual punk ideals. The anti-establishment and radical love philosophies of punk culture would make such a cool extension of Superman themes and it would make so much sense that someone facing so many intersections of marginalization would be radicalized from their experience. I want a queer Conner who isn't just empowering and idealistic, I want one that also gives space for queer readers to feel like their pain is seen too. Conner isn't "Truth, Justice and the American Way" he's famously "Truth, Justice, My Way".

There's a tendency in media criticism to treat marginalized talent as infallible, and I don't think that fair to creatives like Visaggio. Being able to look at their ideas with nuance instead of essentializing it as being Good or Trash is the best way to respect diverse creativity. And my nuanced feelings are that a white queer person who looks at Conner's story and just sees the queer part and dismisses the diaspora mixed heritage side of him,,, is not going to give me the Conner story I want to see.

[novantinuum]

Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

~

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too! 

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

__

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

__

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here? 

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text. 

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

__

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15) 

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.) 

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.  

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

__

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

[olderthannetfic]

oh MAN, im genuinely at the edge of a mental breakdown whenever the femslash numbers discourse resurfaces, like at this point it just elevates my blood pressure, i dig my nails into my thigh, and i go to one of my trusty fandom friends to complain about other people's complaints. i ship pretty much across the board without preference for gender combo, altho by virtue of my favourite character archetype niches being occupied by men, i end up with comparatively mostly m/m and m/f with only the occasional f/f. almost all of these end up being rarepairs with at least one supporting or minor character that are eclipsed by whatever juggernaut ship the fandom prefers but never compels me. im used to looking into a ship tag and come up with less than 100 works, most of the times it's less than 50. does this annoy me on the odd occasion, be it because i think X/Y is so much more cooler than uh, A/B that the fandom is obsessed with? sure, but i see no reason to rain on people's parade - i just mute tags and mentions and seethe in silence or private DMs. i write for my unpopular rarepairs, i reblog stuff posted in tags and cheer in my own tags, i chat with people who are also into it, and get overjoyed whenever there's a new fic in the AO3 tag (or elsewhere) that I can read. to me, the femslash situation feels very similar - you like the ship between two blorbos, there's enough fan made stuff for them to fit in the shell of a hazelnut, and 80% of the fandom will swoon over the two people who you personally couldn't give two fucks about even if someone paid you. and shoutout to the people who DO make the fan stuff, the art, the fic, the meta, the discord servers, who request and put up prompts in fic exchanges to inspire others... but by god, if the whiners aren't the ones who dominate the conversation, which i wouldn't mind as much if they'd do ANYTHING besides whine. no, they will scream and shout about how the "yaoi empire" needs to be taken down (how about you just move to FFN? Wattpad?), but then it's either obnoxious nitpicky fucks who haven't posted a single fic in their entire miserable life, or it's m/m shippers who are Not Like The Other Fujoshis and got, uh, i dont fuckin know, 30 works for hockey RPF and 10 for two guys from The Terror who canonically interacted like two times under their belt while they mostly blog about the guys from Interview with the Vampire. they want God, everyone's mother and all the slash shippers on Hedy Lamarr's world wide web to prioritise femslash but don't practise as they fucking preach, tear the work of the people who DO indulgently write about gay women, and think they're oppressed because no one will write exactly what they want. the code for AO3 is for free - unionise along with your fellow femslash enthusiasts, beat the drums really loud, open those google docs, and get some shit started! granted, you're unpleasant cunts and will probably go "actually, no boys allowed in here! get your boy cooties away from this forever!!!! if you like men fucking, go back to ao3!" which will inevitably drive people who like f/f as well as m/m away, so you might be doomed to fail but in the words of that adorable little kitten poster: hang in there!

--

[luminnara]

Feyd Rautha headcanons plsss

Like what was his upbringing and training like? How did he become what he is?

Okay I think about this A LOT and I just wanna say that I know people argue a ton about the original Dune book(s) vs the older adaptations vs the new DV movies, and these are just my thoughts! Frank Herbert was a great writer and he gave us complex characters with tons of subtext, but the original Dune was also published in the 60s and the other best known older adaptation is from the 80s, and both have some definitely outdated and not great stuff was used to show how bad a character was (like the Baron having an affinity for uh young boys who look like Paul 😬). I think that DV made some really smart changes to these characters that are more in line with contemporary thinking, while also remaining true to what Frank Herbert was trying to tell us about them—like the Baron is a Bad Man and Feyd is angry and impatient and definitely wants to kill him. ANYWAYS leggo, this is long and my thoughts jump around a lot but I hope you enjoy!

WARNING for some talk of SA! Also mentions of violence and murder and cannibalism, the usual stuff

The more serious ideas that are backed up by text and movie evidence:

Feyd-Rautha was taken from Lankiveil, a Harkonnen planet ruled by his birth father Abulurd (Vladimir’s younger half brother) by his uncle, Baron Vladimir. Feyd definitely knows this, and knows that Glossu Rabban is his older brother…so imagine all of the conflicting thoughts he must have surrounding his own position and future. On the one hand, he was taken and raised by his uncle so that he could inherit the title of Baron. On the other hand, he was taken as a punishment to his father. There must be resentment there, towards both his father and his uncle, and even his older brother. Even though Feyd was essentially chosen to become something more than Rabban, he grew up away from most of his immediate family. Even though he was raised to become Harkonnen royalty, imagine how he might have turned out if he had remained with his father, who had renounced the Harkonnen name.

He was brought up in a cruel and harsh environment. He was made into a killing machine, partly because of Harkonnen customs, partly because Vladimir enjoyed the carnage, and partly because it was the only thing a young Feyd ever knew. As a young man, he loves killing and shredding because it feels natural and is second nature to him, but does he ever wish he had known what it was like growing up in a softer environment? Food for thought.

He hates his uncle. In the book, he attempts an assassination. In DV’s part two, he mentions to the Baron that he should kill him, and the Baron laughs. Vladimir finds it amusing that Feyd would say something like that, because he knows he’s got Feyd under his thumb. Perhaps Feyd is even scared of him.

The Baron is, and was, cruel to him. In the book, after the failed assassination attempt, Vladimir tells his nephew that if he agrees to stop trying to kill him (lol), he’ll step down and let Feyd have his position. BUT he kills his darlings as a punishment (who in the book are female slaves, who act as his lovers)

I already have a ton of headcanons about his darlings in the DV movies, and I really think that Feyd cared for them. So imagine that your own uncle WHO YOU WANT TO KILL takes away the only things you care about?? That’s fucked up man

The Baron abused Feyd to some degree, very possibly sexually—I’ve seen a lot of people pointing out how heavily this is implied by the subtext in both the book and part two. Feyd is actually a complex character, but neither Frank Herbert nor DV really spelled that out, and you have to dig a little and think about it. While I obviously don’t want ANYBODY, even fictional characters, to experience something like SA, I think it does add to the depth of his character and gives more fuel to his rage. It also shows us just how terrible Vladimir really is. I’ve seen it suggested that this is part of what Margot Fenring means when she says that Feyd is sexually vulnerable, but I take that comment to more mean that he opens himself up to the possibility of harm a LOT in bed and that’s when he’s most emotionally vulnerable. BUT I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive

NOW THE MORE FUN IDEAS THAT I ENJOY (fun is a subjective term here lol)

Feyd-Rautha has a vulnerable side, and it’s very, very guarded. It’s buried so deep he may not even be aware of it.

He really does care for his darlings, and that’s the closest thing he feels to love. It’s a possessive, ownership kind of love that we would consider toxic irl, but they’re the only things besides his weapons and power that he cares about.

He doesn’t revere his weapons, but he respects them. They’re not personified, but he appreciates a good killing tool, and likes to take care of his knives.

He views lives as very black and white. There are people who can be killed (slaves, servants, rivals, his uncle), and people who ABSOLUTELY cannot be (his darlings, an SO, his hypothetical children)

He views everyone else as weaker than him, and it’s partially because his uncle would never LET someone as important to his plans as Feyd be harmed, so Feyd rarely feels that his life is actually in danger. Almost everyone he fights in the arena is drugged, and it isn’t like his trainer would fight without shields. He’d be confused and intrigued by someone who could actually defeat him, and he’s so into the art of war and battle that he would respect it (but also be upsetti)

He spends a lot of time watching and calculating in silence. While he’s impatient and has a short temper, he likes to learn about things that interest him.

He’s up to date on Giedi Prime beauty trends and sets a lot of the standards himself. He gets massages and spa treatments regularly and has been known to undergo more serious procedures.

While he doesn’t partake as regularly as his darlings, he occasionally consumes human flesh and blood and doesn’t think it’s weird, because he views almost everyone as lesser than him, so eating them is akin to eating livestock. Alternatively, I could see him going down the “I feel so overwhelmingly deeply about you that I must consume you body and soul” road about someone special but I really don’t think he’s got that brand of romance in him lol

Like lady fenring said, he is, in fact, sexually vulnerable. In the bedroom, he can let out his emotions, and sometimes they’re ugly and sometimes he needs to not be in charge for the night. He leaves himself open to manipulation and harm. Man just really needs a good hug tbh

Canonically hypersexual as a result of trauma

Is harsh as a result of a harsh upbringing, one that looked comfortable from the outside but was anything BUT for him. Beneath the surface, he’s messy.

Aggressive because he’s always had to be to survive. His uncle probably wouldn’t have killed him because he was always integral to Vladimir’s plans, but did a young Feyd know that?? NO

is NOT well traveled. He’s lived on Giedi Prime his whole life, has probably seen Lankiveil, which is cold and watery, and has been on Arrakis, but I think he would NOT know what to do if he was on a lush green planet. All he knows is harsh, extreme environments. If you plop him down in a meadow, he will have NO clue what to do

As a child, he watched his uncle kill anyone who inconvenienced him. This definitely warped Feyd’s concepts of kindness and the value of life.

His childhood was just unbelievably strict and harsh and at the same time he was spoiled in certain ways, and that has led to him growing into a pampered yet still caged man

He would LOVE to slaughter his uncle and feed him to his darlings

In an arranged marriage, something about his spouse would have to suddenly intrigue him, and then he would be HOOKED. He would sink his teeth in and refuse to let go. Opening up to someone who isn’t one of his darlings would be strange and difficult for him

Remember how I said he isn’t used to fighting sober opponents? I think that once he gets a taste for fair fights, he becomes a little addicted to the thrill of it and the power that those victories bring him, and he loses interested in drugged fights. After a lifetime of living under this uncle’s thumb, the control he has over someone’s life and PROVING that he’s better and stronger and meaner than them is the most validating feeling he knows.

He never shows mercy, because no one has ever showed it to him.

[wallys-left-eyeball]

ok after two (edit: 3.5) hours i am finally done viewing what i THINK is the whole update. my thoughts and a few significant things i noticed!!!!! (spoilers obviously)

disclaimer: i’m a crazy welcome home fan but my memory is literally so bad, so please point out if i’m digging deep into some detail that’s been there since last update or however long ago 💀 eddie’s my fav for a reason bless (this mess)

🍎 they publicly executed wally in the town square :( no but seriously what. so far he is removed from the main page’s opening graphic, main page’s bottom banner, and welcome home page’s top drawing (which has been renamed to “_and_barnaby”

🍎 on that note, on the neighborhood page, wally’s canvas is gone and he is no longer looking at us. on top of that, the button to leave says “go back” and his “that’s the most!” audio was replaced with a freaky distorted phone ringing.

🍎 this could be something i just hadn’t noticed before, but remember when the old stickers page had that one gif that, when you opened it, would rotate between the characters’ eyes faster and faster until it would linger on wally’s eyes? that gif is completely normal now. it still lingers on wally’s eyes, but the gif doesn’t become distorted or move quicker anymore. once again seems like wally getting his main character energy wiped

• i just realized i’ve been essentially listing things abt this update but that’s not what i’m here to do!!!! go look at it for yourself!!!!!

🍎 but yeah. i’m very deeply worried about him. did anyone else notice that in this update he sounds kind of dead? except in the radio, where he sounded like…. as alive and cheerful as ever? weird….

🍎 edit 2: creds to @/citrineaura for leading me to /ringring... oh my god wally :( i feel SO bad for him AAAUGHHH... i still can't tell if he is talking to us as the viewers or talking to W

🍎 edit 2: stole this from @/citrineaura as well but i 100% see how it could entirely be the whrp silencing wally and even being behind playfellow. why would the staff do that to him if they didn't have some kind of sinister plan????

🏠 oh but on the note of wally being slowly scrubbed from the website, home is cleaned up too. the black goop is replaced with a paint splatter, and the black spiral behind home is replaced with a cutesy little scribble. makes me wonder if home is behind all this

🏠 edit 2: i no longer believe home is behind this just because of /ringring. wally seemed too friendly with home lolz

🏠 home’s gif on the neighborhood page is now called “seeyoutogether”

🦋 way less deep of a detail but frank’s got lil eyelashes now :3 my non-binary king

🌸 the cards on floriography all have different flowers on them. i’m not a flower nerd and i’m too lazy to deal with flower language but i’m sure some nerd is gonna post “🤓☝️erm well this flower means frank is gonna die” or something so. lmk when that happens!!

🌸 edit: thank you to @/capribornio for giving me da links to the deep stuff 🙏 but WOW that was. wow i was really tearing up there. so moving and so so sad and so relatable </3 i don’t even know what she’s yapping about but whatever it is is incredibly relatable

🌸 edit: to me it sounds like. julie’s switching between a human and a puppet consciousness???? i don’t really know how to describe it, but it doesn’t really seem like she’d just be masking with a super strenuous voice like that, like that takes WORK. idk!!!!!

🌸 i kind of interpreted that as if she was grieving someone. maybe feeling guilty for someone’s lost life? but it could also be not that deep, and maybe something terrible will happen to her if she doesn’t make all the flowers bloom

🌿 jonesy joyful green cool version of red guy dhmis

🌼 god frank and julie were my fav duo before but NOWWWW. literally wlw and mlm solidarity i love them SO MUCH……. my fav icons ever

💻 the logo(s) have less mold than before on them… still mold there!! but idk it looks like it healed a little bit

💻 i’m genuinely SO BAD at args but there doesn’t seem to be any outright hidden links/websites this time around? spoil it for me in the comments if there is but idk…. even awayfrompryingeyes is down which makes me think maybe W (the curator of it) got caught? or something happened to them?

💻 edit 3: clown posted that awayfrompryingeyes was back up so i had 2 hop on.... tbh i have nothing to say about it other than that i think wally could be the one sending all this info to W and also oh my god did they actually drink the bottle of joy. jesus

• edit 3: to end this on a stupid note: this is so niche but when i saw the bottle of joy i immediately thought of we happy few because the game also has bottles of joy LMFAO

i think that’s all i wanted to talk about (other than some sillies i’m posting separately)!! obviously i didn’t cover all of it, these r just some thoughts i had while going through it all :D ugh such a STUNNING update as always!!! frank and julie’s vas COOOOOKED with this one….. literally so adorable and expressive UGH fantastic update as always <333

edit 4: i posted a couple resources: brightened toybox photo / hidden frank photo (with my theories)

[temporalhiccup]

In an effort to ease out of burn out and try to feel real and human again I'm digging around old games and seeing what would be fun to tinker with. For most of my games they get to at least an Alpha Build/Playtestable stage, but Never Break The Chain is one of the few that didn't quite manage to get that far (though it honestly wouldn't take that much more I think!)

Never Break The Chain mechanically and emotionally is a response to The Eventide Club, which was @jdragsky's response to Apocalypse Keys.

It's clear that this game is partly a love letter to jay dragon's design and how it makes me feel, and I wrote this during a time when I was insecure about my design. I was reeling from the idea that my games were too emotional to be enjoyable, that strangers were never going to like the games I create. (Typical Capricorn, even the way I work through my shit has to be productive in some way)

Every player character is made up of two components: a Musician Playbook and a God Playbook. It's my take on the very popular idea of fallen gods feeding off divine worship as musicians. I wanted to create a really fun and emotionally intense game (inspired by how famously messy Fleetwood Mac and other bands can be, definitely The Wicked + The Divine too).

It's been three years since I took a look at this stuff and it's fun remembering the mechanical shenanigans I was up to: tightening chains, breaking them, creating halos, shattering them, etc. I'll tinker a bit with these mechanics and see what comes of it.

The more complex of the playbooks are the Musician ones. What remains of the divine is raw and simple, ever fading and barely there. In comparison, the Musician playbooks are a chance for me to explore some truly messy human stuff.

Here's the Musician playbook, The Mask, it's mostly intact from the last time I touched it years ago. I just tightened a few options here and there.

I'll spell out the inspiration for this playbook: David Bowie, specifically the maddened Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 1975.

Bowie was famous for his different personas, and you can see some of them represented in the masks below: Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Halloween Jack, the Goblin King, and the Minotaur.

This playbook is an exploration of what it could have been like for Bowie exploring these different personas, based on various events written about or talked about in later years, offering points of tension and intensity (deconstructed and awaiting creative input, like always) and hopefully creating explosive moments of playable drama.

I do think this playbook leans most into Bowie's contentious phase as the Thin White Duke. This was a man who was clearly breaking apart on stage, underneath the thinnest veneer of a persona that was holding itself together with a white-knuckled grip. Other personas were haunting him, discarded or never worn. Station to Station is my favorite Bowie album on most days, and his live performances of its music are almost painful to watch (while impossible to look away from).

I think, if we ever get this to playtest, I'll probably leave this playbook mostly as is (barring some mechanical tweaks that will be applied to all playbooks maybe) and just see where things go.

The Mask

You understand better than anyone that music is a story, and that performance is a mask well worn. You have created several Masks and stories over the years, and the Masks have recreated you. But as you seek fame and fortune, will the Mask become more real than you ever could be? One day you'll wake up and there won't be anything of you left, just a blank face both empty and signifying nothing.

Your Name

(Choose 1): A completely made up name that is never questioned, an appropriately dramatic name, a single initial that no one pronounces properly, I change my name every few months, a series of letters and numbers that only makes sense to my fans, a name that is as enigmatic as it is beautiful.

Your Look

(Choose 3-4): A painfully sharp and pale business suit with splatters of paint and blood on it, shades that almost no one has ever seen me take off, hair dyed into every imaginable color, the cruelest smile, the kindest eyes, an intoxicating scent, small and delicate tattoos that tell all my secrets, the body language of a predator, an unexpected scar, something else that betrays my mortality and weakness.

Your Role in the Band:

(Choose 1-3): Lead vocalist, lead guitar, muse, song writer, fuck buddy, everybody's ex, the face of the band, I'm here to look pretty baby

Choose the Mask you currently wear, one Mask you discarded, and one Mask that threatens to consume you.

I am an alien from a dying planet and harbinger of an inescapable apocalypse, my music is wild and haunting

I am royalty from a fictional past and deride the love I desperately need, my music is rhythmic and romantic

I am a rebel leader from a dark future and I shall orchestrate a dystopia of our own making, my music is hypnotic and delirious

I am the fae king who grants ill-cast wishes and offers dark bargains, my music is ethereal and manipulative

I am a serial killer who turns willing victims into impossible art pieces, my music is violent and eerie

I am a fallen angel, on the run from divine hunters and mortal lovers and only you can save me, my music is soft and beautiful

I am a broken doll mimicking life, perfect and made to fulfill your every desire, my music is naive and inviting

I am a warrior from another time and place, only you can heal my wounds and recreate my fate, my music is loud and lustful

As The Mask I gain 2-4 tokens when I:

Hide my true feelings behind a Mask

Ask someone to wear one of my Masks, for now

Give a part of myself to a Mask

When you gain your fifth token:

The divine music swells within you and seeks release. You cannot gain new tokens until you choose one:

Go to another band member and take off your Mask, reveal something vulnerable and raw about yourself. If they reach out to touch your real face, they break a chain. If they do anything else, break one of your chains.

Reflect on the god you once where, and create a new Mask to contain that memory. Your power wanes, crack one halo.

The Mask's Chains:

A whisper that comes from my mouth but doesn't sound like me at all

An embrace that promises more than it should

A kiss that comes dangerously close to unmasking me

One of my Masks on someone else's face

A song I wrote that will weaken a single Mask

A Mask I created that takes a life of its own

A Mask someone else creates to imprison me

Someone I love wearing my true face

The Mask's Move:

When you put on one of your Masks to tell its story, describe how you embody it and how you draw others into your spell. Spend tokens and roll.

On an 8-10 You are in control of the Mask, choose one:

A part of your Mask becomes more real than real, create a new Chain that reflects this.

A part of your true self gives way to the Mask, one Halo becomes whole again.

Someone is inexplicably drawn to you, you have them wrapped around your finger, for now. Say who they are and place a chain on them. If they're a band member, they place a chain on you as well.

On an 11+ The Mask begins to consume you, and you cannot tell the difference between art and reality. Choose one:

Another band member must become a part of your story, both of you place a chain on the other. For now, you are obsessed with crafting a Mask for them to match your own.

One of your fans is convinced the Mask is your true self, you cannot outrun them. For the rest of the scene you are at your fan's mercy. Describe how their obsession for you draws out something painful and real from you. When you return in a future scene gain the chain: an obsessed and dangerous fan

On a 7- your sense of self shatters and the Mask bleeds through. Until you regain your sense of self and remember you are not your Mask, you cannot perform. The Audience will tell you what happens next.

At the start of every session:

Spend a moment with your Masks and consider who they are and what story they have to tell. Choose one:

Put down the Mask you're currently wearing and pick up another, why does this one call out to you?

Change something essential about one of your Masks, what part of you refuses to bend or break?

Create a new Mask, based on someone you're obsessed with and yearn for. What does it feel like when you pretend to be them?

[lucabyte]

What's your favorite way to characterize your ocs? (if u want a challenge try not to answer with any homestuck related category)

mine is how many siblings they have!

Ok so this is a genuinely interesting question bc i had to actually like... Think about how to word this in a way that isn't complete nothing?

So. My favourite way to characterise my ocs is via their interests. (... something i think homestuck does very well via making sure every character has a grab bag of cool & uncool, intense & wayside interests instead of just a bunch of cool stuff they like equally, but i digress)

That said, it's not so simple as just giving them a likes and dislikes list. in fact i fucking hate likes and dislikes lists cant stand them, they always feel really flat to me. I know they have their uses but I usually can't flatten characters down that way. Likes are ephemeral-- Likes can be shit like 'warm days' which. Duh.

Something i'm a little mean about related to this is what i call "Likes: Friends Dislikes: Bullies" which is something you see on character likes and dislikes in one form or another a LOTTTT. This is because like... Yeah? That can be assumed of everyone? It tells me nothing about the character. Telling me your character likes Pleasant Weather or dislikes Gross Food is like. Uh Huh?

It's not specific! It tells me nothing! But that's the secret.

Specificity and Contradiction are where it's at. Now a character who hates pleasant weather and likes gross food? Now that's a weirdo. Or maybe even that they dislike 'gross food'-- But by their definition that's like... Anything that's not literally raw? Now that's characterisation! Now you get to ask why the fuck are they like that.

And this is how I like to approach things. I like to dig into a character's interests on the surface level by assigning them some, sure. But the fun comes from digging in and making them specific and contradictory. (And usually if a character is unfinished, to me, it's because they're still on that surface level of Just Having Some Interests) (Also, it goes without saying, one of the best places to find these interests for characters in the first place is by joking and riffing for as long as humanly possible. A core joke will carry you farrrrr)

so my actual favourite way to characterise characters? Giving them really specific dislikes, in relation to their interests.

So, for example, (because they are always the example...) Ali is a stagehand and decent actor, and loves plays. In fact, they love plays so much they are outright dismissive of other art forms. They don't play games, they don't really watch TV, their main intakes of media are books, screenplays, poetry and filmed productions or bootlegs. (and hey, bringing up bootlegs: that probably means they participate in the weird bootleg-trading-ring people have going on online. Look at that! A weird niche activity I can give them!)

But, they HATE musicals. Think they "lower" the art form-- Despite (or perhaps because) they're the most popular type of play to put on, especially in the local productions they help out on. They value the scary intimacy of a theatre production, being in a near silent room physically with the performers, they think it elevates it. Makes it unique. They don't like that musicals are like... fun and loud.

But let's go even more specific. Do they have any exceptions? Any begrudging respect?

Well, I think they'd respect musicals like Cats. Things that are pure spectacle, where the music and intefacing with the audience in a chaotic manner are the point. They like that Cats "Doesn't even pretend to have a story. It's not actually trying to compete with plays, it's doing its own thing. It's practically Theatre of Cruelty."

And furthermore, they also enjoy animated or movie-original musicals. Because, well, film is a medium they don't care about as much. It's okay if it lowers itself by being silly. Plus!! Animation is like, fake, for children, and has a heightented requirement for suspension of disbelief! It's perfect for musicals! They're nothing but spectacle! In fact, that's what makes them the perfect medium for them!

^ You may notice that the above is like, while logical, is very dismissive of other mediums! It's a little bit anti-art in places!

And thatt's the other thing. I like to make characters who don't hold the exact same opinions I do.

While there's parts of my actual opinions in there-- I do believe animated is a great medium for musicals due to the whole suspension of disbelief & fun thing-- Um. I would hope it's obvious that as an animation graduate I don't think animation is for children or inherently less serious of a medium.

But Ali is a weird little snob who will hopefully get some slightly more nuanced opinons when they're not literally only 19. So it makes sense that they're being elitist about things. They're insecure, and hanging a lot of their self-esteem on being "an artist with good and refined taste". Of couuuurse they've got a stick up their ass about musicals (something I myself am not a superfan of, but usually enjoy when I watch them. I think Ali is missing out!)

But yeah, that's just from digging in and getting specific about one interest: Theatre.

By digging into the contradiction of "Likes Theatre and Dislikes Musicals" I can find a reason for why. And I can avoid making characters just Mouthpieces For My Own Opinions by giving them opinions i disagree with.

I follow this logic a lot, though not always so straightforwardly.

Chrome is a musician who doesn't really like music, and thinks all artists are just vapidly doing it for attention. (Which should immediately clue you in to what's wrong with him.) It's a more selfish version of the same kind of reasoning Ali has, but one Ali would find ghoulish.

Ess, meanwhile, is a Pedologist. A soil scientist-- A very specific thing you usually get to via being like... A geologist, or chemist, or something more general-- But I've said he was basically on that shit immediately-- Which is a funny concept to me. He didn't go on a journey of scientific discovery to find a niche area of study-- He just loved that niche ever since he was a kid.

So, you'd expect that I'd maybe make Ess dislike other sciences then? Nah, I think he's more nuanced than that. Because, following his very polite and politically aware demeanor, I think it would make more sense for him to be very respectful of all sciences, even if he has no real interest in them outside of how they relate to his field. Instead, he is conciously trying very hard not to form a grudge with more 'popular' sciences-- He knows why they're more popular, and he knows it's not the fault of the people who love the field that they get a lot more funding than him. It's not their fault, it's just a result of science having to be so capitalistic.....

See! Polite little man, very nuanced. That's because most of his contradictions come instead from being a terrified and anxious soul who is doing illegal shit right now while being very scared because they know it's for the greater good. (see! politically aware again. He knows trespassing is illegal, but his morality does not line up with legality. He's exposing governmental malpractice, ffs. But! Not a cool punk! In fact a very scared guy!)

Ess there does get to be a bit of a mouthpiece for me, since obviously I also believe you should trespass to go get evidence of the government knowingly dumping biohazards into the fucking water supply for cost cutting reasons. But he gets to balance it out because every time I have to do research into soil science my fucking head hurts.

Pulling back away from Ess and back to Ali and Chrome again I think I have one last really good example of letting characters have opinions that are different to mine, that's about something that isn't an interest, per se, but hits on the reason I like to do this so much.

It is so fucking fun to make characters argue.

In an earlier purrgatorio that im not going to re-look-at because its early enough the writing quality might make me dry heave, i let ali and chrome have a bit of an argument (with tabitha as a weird mediator who has the closest to my real opinions LOL.)

So. Chrome has what i can describe as "Basically my opinions, but worded in the most bad faith way possible." If I saw someone arguing my point like this i'd want to either smack them or disagree with them on principle.

Whereas Ali has "The opposite to my opinion, but worded with all of the arguments for that point of view that I genuinely respect." They're the talking points I've observed that I genuinely find to be decent reasoning, and I would be hard pressed to disagree with in polite conversation.

They're arguing about religion. Ali is religious, following a small gnostic sect that's basically only practiced by their immediate family. Chrome is bluntly atheistic, but coming at it from a conception of religion that only has room for (a pastiche of) american big-box puritan protestantism, and is assuming every religion to be the same way.

I am an atheist myself, but cannot fucking stand the culturally-christian reddit atheist talking points. So I gave that kind of thing to Chrome (part of this irony being, Chrome is far more spiritual than he thinks-- having internalised a LOT of protestant work ethic), and Ali is from a small cultural religion that couldn't be further from it-- And is also a modern-day internet user with a bitchy streak-- So of course they've memorised every rational and reasonable counter-argument to this kind of thing.

(The full on irony being, that they are fictional and thus Ali is acutally in a sense... Right that there is a demiurge. Lol.)

Even if I do ultimately take the side that uh. Idk dude i dont think god is real. Giving that opinion to the guy who's being a shithead about it makes it more interesting to write?

I treat a lot of things like this. Chrome has a bad anti-art anti-intellectual streak that I follow the logic of, but think is dangerous and flawed. Markus loves scientific knowledge and biology, but is too naive to really know how to chase it-- or when to stop. Miao has a lack of academic smarts, and deeply undervalues her other skills because she's internalised that they don't matter in comparison. Lupus believes there's good in everyone, and can't comprehend the logic of cruelty-- Leading her to equivicate legality with morality in a very childish manner.

Everyone gets an ideology. I should be able to follow the logic of everyone's ideology even if I don't agree with it. And interests are both an extension of ideology, and a window into it.

Chrome's anti-art anti-intellectualism leads him to barely partake in media-- But also undersell his own academic smarts because his skills in physiology are "just dumb meathead shit about how to stay jacked". Lupus' disagreements with Mafioso over criminals being 'cool' betray her inflexibility in categorising actions as 'good' or 'bad', because she wants no-one to suffer-- And assuming an unjust police absolutely turns that to dust.

It's all about putting characters together like a big jigsaw to make them have unique worldviews-- To then be able to look at a real world thing and go "who of my characters would like that/act like that/think that?"

(Now. Uh. I can't say I'm like. The Bestest At This-- That would be a touch egotistical given my lack of Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is And Writing A Big Story For Everyone To Look At. But um. We'll get there? I hope lol.)

But yeah, TL;DR:

My favourite ways to characterise characters are:

Give them specific, contradictory and ironic interests

Interrogate their reasonings and how it informs their self-perception

Give them opinions that don't always align with mine

Interrogate whether they are actually coherent when discussing these opinions

[otakween]

Digimon World: Dusk (AKA Digimon Story Moonlight) - Final Thoughts

Another Digimon game done and dusted, woohoo! I finally played the game that JaidenAnimations made a video about (kinda). I definitely enjoyed it more than her, but I get her frustrations at the same time. Navigation was pretty ridiculous and most of the game was dumb side quests. Even though it expanded on the first Digimon Story game a bit, I definitely preferred Digimon World DS for its simplicity. I did really dig the aesthetics of this one though (pink and purple ftw!)

While a lot of the gameplay was tedious, all of the stuff I appreciated from the first game are still here. Great pixel art, fun digivolving mechanics, cool bosses, and a colorful world to explore. Overall, I thought it was a good time. Maybe it helped that I went in fully knowing what to expect and already understanding how to play?

Notes:

For a series called Digimon "Story" the story is always the weakest part. Like...what even was this story? It seemed like all of the usual nonsense to me. Every single digimon villain wants to rewrite the world and awaken the ultimate digimon yadda yadda yadda. The annoying thing in this one were all the weird inscrutable words they used. Of course I didn't write these down, but I remember at some point they wanted me to find the "D WORD" and I had no idea wtf a d word was nor did they ever explain it. Also, they suddenly called me a "real being" at the end which felt weird cuz it was the first time they used that phrase. The villain also mentioned "digi entelecheia" once or twice and I had completely forgotten what that was (okay maybe that one's my bad lol). Also, the city is always called "CITY" (in all caps) for no apparent reason. Just weird quirky stuff that had me confused for the majority of the game.

I didn't connect to a single character and completely forgot about Phascomon's existence until he popped up at the end. (I literally thought, "Who is that, this game's mascot or something?") The dialogue was kind of funny because the characters were constantly saying "we could try to solve this problem ourselves, but [player character] is so much better than us at everything, let's just let her do it" lol. Thanks guys...

Due to translation error, one dude kept misgendering me lol (called me "he" every time he spoke).

The animation of the main character going "aww shucks" whenever people gassed her up was really cute and I looked forward to it every time.

This game is actually HUGE. Kind of annoyingly so. There were all those random dark areas that I never really explored because I wasn't sure what the point of them was. I think there was also some kind of coliseum (maybe?) but I skipped that as well. There are also wifi connection features which are required for completionists which is kinda shitty nowadays.

Plenty of new digimon designs for me to enjoy. Really enjoyed Lunamon's digivolution line (hell yeah, Dianamon!). It was fun having a "dark" party for once. All of the giant bosses looked amazing too.

Although navigating this game was harder than it was in Digimon World DS, the game felt easier battle-wise. It's probably just due to all the built in grinding, but I beat the final bosses very easily. Of course, it helps that it's easy to become very rich and buy 99 of every item you need. I don't think I lost a single battle once.

This game introduced jogress digivolution but I simply never used it. I don't like just randomly combining digimon when I don't need to. If I was to 100% the game I may have experimented though.

One thing I missed from the first game was that you couldn't regress to the lowest digivolution for the best results anymore, you could only go back one digivolution at a time. I found this less satisfying, but I could see others seeing it as a plus.

The end credits that have you and your digimon parading by were very cute. That's always a nice touch. It was funny seeing my wimpy farm digimon that I never used included in the bunch.

Maybe I missed something but I wish the game had more equipment? Once you get to level 40 the options seemed pretty limited for some digimon types.

The interruptions of the farm report and digimon always getting new attacks got kind of annoying after awhile. I guess you wouldn't want to miss out on better attacks, but I wish the option to manage them was tucked away in a menu that you can pull up later instead of popping up after a battle. (Oh and getting a pop up to rename your digimon every time you digivolve...)

I missed being rewarded with tamer levels just for progressing through the story. I actually ended this game as a "normal tamer." I believe getting higher than that involves more fetch quests....I'm good for now.

I was pretty proud that I had a decent amount of mega-level digis at the end there. You can form some really badass parties in this game.

Wish I could teleport to 2007 and play this game with a friend who had Dawn so we could trade 🥺

Despite my gripes, I think this game has a lot going for it for the more hardcore Digimon fans that are willing to put up with some tedium. The eye candy alone made it worth it. I give it a 6 out of 10.

[petercapaldi-press]

INTERVIEW

10 January 2024

Adrian Lobb

Peter Capaldi: 'There are a lot of big problems – there's no point burying our head in the sand'

Peter Capaldi reveals how new Apple TV+ police drama Criminal Record is tackling police failings head on – and why he's not missing Doctor Who

[transcript under the cut]

Peter Capaldi is looking as sharp as ever. Great shirt, even better shoes. “It’s all my stylist’s work,” he deadpans. We are in Claridge’s in Central London. A very expensive hotel suite, full of very expensive camera equipment recording our every move. “This is just the team we roll with,” Capaldi adds with a grin. “I’ve usually got some dry ice as well.”

We are here to talk about Criminal Record, which could just be your new TV police drama obsession. Capaldi stars alongside Cush Jumbo in a classy thriller in which two detectives go head-to-head – one in fearless pursuit of justice, the other to try to save their reputation and career. The title may be horribly generic, but this is a special show. And both actors have been involved from an early stage.

“Well, my wife’s the executive producer. First dibs? Well, yeah!” says Capaldi. “Both Cush and I were involved in the development, which was really exciting, because I’ve never been in something where the writers all knew from the start who was playing those parts. So they wrote specifically for us, they were picturing us as they worked on the scripts. It also meant we could respond to their ideas at quite an early stage. So that was lovely.

“Elaine [Collins, Capaldi’s wife] brought Vera and Shetland to the screen. She’s incredibly well read. People walk into our house, see all these books and say to me, ‘Have you read all these?’ I say, No, I haven’t but my wife has. I’ve read the Doctor Who annuals!”

Capaldi outlines how Collins was developing a project about policing in a recognisable, modern London. “I said, that detective part sounds quite interesting. And I haven’t played a detective before. So I became involved then.”

Capaldi and Jumbo had worked together before. “I met her on Torchwood when she seemed like a teenager to me,” he says of his co-star. “She was great. Then I directed her in a comedy called Getting On, with Jo Brand. And Elaine cast her in Vera as well. Cush also wrote a wonderful play about Josephine Baker, a one-woman show she did. So it’s just great to see her really blossoming – and we’d always said it could be nice to do something together. And this was ideal.”

The first meeting between their characters is one the finest scenes in recent television history. A beautiful dance of power as Capaldi’s DCI Hegarty pushes back against Jumbo’s DS Lenker as she attempts to reopen a case he led and ‘solved’ many years ago. A recent anonymous tip-off suggests they got the wrong guy. Suspicion is parried with veiled threat, all taking place beneath a thin veneer of politeness and police procedure. The result is electric. Line of Duty, eat your heart out.

“I know Cush is such a great actress and I didn’t want to anticipate what she would do,” says Capaldi. “I wanted to respond to it as it happened in front of me and vice versa. So we just went at it. We decided not to rehearse that scene so we could just shoot what came to us.

“Hegarty is a seasoned detective, probably at the end of his career and has been around the block. He’s been quite bruised, seen the worst and the best of people, and doesn’t welcome someone digging into his past. He doesn’t take someone casting aspersions on his integrity lightly. He’s not going to have it!

“I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong impression and think that’s all the show is – because there are car chases, action scenes, all that kind of stuff. But there are also these long, heavy scenes where you really get into the zone. So I’m glad you liked that one. It was crucial that we set them up in that way. And there are other ones later that we really go for!”

GOING DEEP

Despite his character appearing to be a little dodgy, maybe even properly bent, Capaldi relates to him. To a point.

“There is a great thing when you’re involved with a character from early on. They put a lot of you into it,” he says. “You know, I’m very proudly Scottish. But I’ve lived most of my life in London. I’ve lived here for over 40 years. I love it and Iknow a lot about it, historically. If you come here and choose to live here and survive here, you become part of the place.

“When the Blitz came and bombs landed in the city, they found these Roman villas that no one had known were there. All these mosaic floors, a whole part of the city that no one remembered. London’s like that. It builds up layer upon layer upon layer. And I think Hegarty is like that. He’s come here, and layer upon layer upon layer, the city’s had an effect on him and he’s experienced things and done things – good and bad – that have made him who he is. Bad things have happened to him as well as him doing bad things. So he’s a great character. Lots to play with!”

The London depicted in Criminal Record is one Londoners will recognise. Filmed on the street, it has a real energy to it. “It’s noisy, buses go past, but that gives it a vigour and a life, which is what we wanted to put on the screen,” says Capaldi. But to look at policing properly in modern-day London is to tackle important issues. And Criminal Record pulls no punches. There are big themes woven into this compelling tale. “It has to be done. Clearly there are a lot of big problems and there’s no point in us burying our head in the sand and not addressing them or not reflecting upon them or trying to draw attention to them,” says Capaldi.

“Responding to some of Cush’s input, we wanted to put in some every-day racism and misogyny. Not big dramatic moments, but the slow daily cuts of unpleasantness that people of colour and women feel and go through.

“It’s an incredibly difficult job, being in the police and trying to deal with all the terrible things they have to deal with. But, also, there’s not enough funding. For all its talk, the government isn’t behind them. They don’t put enough money in, they don’t recruit enough good people, they don’t pay them enough and they don’t look after them enough. But Hegarty is a leader of a team of old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool male cops who have a syntaz and a humour of their own, which is not always welcome. That’s the world he lives in. It’s also generational. I was born in the 1950s. That’s another planet. So the world I was brought up in is a world away – and Hegarty is not quite equipped to be on this planet.”

Whereas you’ve evolved.

“We can try. Because we’re lucky enough to be in the arts, which is constantly examining issues and trying to move forward with ideas and move with hope into the future. So I think we’re able to examine ourselves and say, how can we fit in and contribute to this new world?”

Talking of new world, Capaldi continues to revel in his return to the Doctor Who fandom. “I have to say it’s a relief not to be in the middle of that storm,” he says. “The role has a lot of other demands beyond just acting in it. It’s a kind of circus that you have to do for days on end. But it’s lovely to see ruseell T Davies at it again.

“And Ncuti Gatwa is lovely. I met him and his mum at the Scottish Baftas last year. It was lovely, because there’s still very few of us who have played that part, so it’s nice to be able to compare notes about it. He was texting me on the train back to London – and we realised he was in the next carriage, so we got together. He’s going to be wonderful.”

Heading into 2024, Capaldi has just completed season two of The Devil’s Hour for Amazon, with filming on the third season already slated for February. But he’s also got a whole new role closer to home. “I’ve just had a new grandson arrive,” he grins. “So our house is a bit chaotic and full of babies at the moment.”

And his big hopes for the year?

“I want peace for everybody. I want everyone to stop sniping at each other from these polarised positions and to take more time to consider other people and opinions. It’s just out of control, this polarisation everywhere. And politically it’s very useful because it’s just dividing us all. And we all have way more in common. So we have to change things. Because we’re really in a bad way.

“Peace, love and light,” he concludes. “That’s what we should all say. Now, who used to say that? Was it Spike Milligan or Ringo Starr?”

[Interview partly available online at bigissue.com]