#everyone talks about the tactics and how you can do a bunch of stuff and someone spent 100 hrs in act 1

[manicpanicpixienightmare]

I gotta be honest, I’m not interested in Baldur’s Gate. While I know that I’m being a petty little butthead, having everyone who knows I play DND (under duress, mostly) and Dragon Age recommend it makes me not want to engage with it out of spite. A couple of friends have assumed I am playing it for sursies and that has really steamed my beans.

I’d probably enjoy it! (Except for the puzzles. I don’t want puzzles) I’m just irrationally irritated because the only new gaming experience I want is wiping my memory to play Origins again.

I am hissing and spitting like a small feral kitten.

[lenacosse]

HEEYYY, thankyou so much i saw ur post. so basically reader and twins work together on occasion and she gets on really well w them and is basically another version of tan but when tan and reader get a long they are like partners in crime but on this mission they need an extra person so this new girl is constantly flirting with tan the whole misiion and reader is like really jealous and lemon his just having a wonderful time observing this play out and laughing his arse off asking reader if shes alright and stuff. tan is just completely oblivious and finds the new girl kind of annoying. Hope you can write this :))

stake out

(im so glad you saw the post! i hope this is okay, it didn’t really pan out as I thought it would but you can be the judge of that)

pairing: tangerine x reader (sort of)

cw: strong language and violence

word count: 3,991

————————————————————————

You phone rang, Tangerine and Lemon were outside waiting for you. Dragging your suitcase with you, you locked your house and made your way to the car. You took a minute to admire the car, Tangerine had a thing for sport cars. Usually you didn’t care much for them but you had to admit this one was nice. Lemon got out and put your suitcase into the boot.

“Thank you Lemon, what a gentleman you are.” You smile and get into the car. “Nice car.”

“All my cars are nice.” Tangerine replies. “I forgot to tell you, we needed a fourth member for this task. So we’re on our way to pick up Stacey.”

“Stacey? Who the fuck is Stacey,” you queried.

“Our fourth member,” remarked Tangerine . In his usual flat tone.

“I had no idea.” You roll your eyes and settle into your seat.

The car pulled up to Stacey’s place, it was a fancy apartment complex Tangerine blared the horn practically making you jump out of your seat. A few minutes later you see a gorgeous blonde woman walk out of the apartment complex with a bunch of luggage, you watch her walk towards the car, her hips swaying as she walked. You and Lemon shared a glance through the mirror and once again he got out of the car, putting her luggage into the boot.

The car door opens and you’re hit with an overwhelmingly sweet perfume, you clear your throat and look over at her. She looks you up and down then gasps when she sees Tangerine.

“Oh my goddess!” Her shrill voice squeaks.

“What?” Tangerine turns around to look at her, you sit there flicking your eyes back and fourth between them watching the painful encounter.

“Oh nothing,�� she winks. You involuntarily pulled a face of absolutely disgust, you didn’t have to look at Tangerine to know how unimpressed he was by this.

Lemon gets back into the car and Tangerine starts talking about the mission, telling everyone his tactics and game plan. Stacey nods along to everything he says whilst twirling her hair in her fingers, you watch her absolutely baffled at the idea of her being in this career field. How the fuck was she supposed to kill someone?

“You didn’t introduce us.” Lemon says to Tangerine.

Tangerine sighs. “You do it then, fuck sake,”

Lemon turns to Stacey and you in the backseat. “Im Lemon, this is Tangerine you already know that and this is (Y/N).”

“Cute name.” Stacey smiles.

“Thank you! It’s-” she cuts you off.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“…right.” You scoff and look out the window, for the entirety of the journey you listen to her flirting with Tangerine. However you can’t tell if he’s not picking up on it or it’s just that he doesn’t care, regardless it was doing your head in and taking everything in you not to stick a knife in her neck.

You arrive at the hotel and check in, you are almost taken back by how fancy it was, you felt extremely out of place in your clothes. So you made Lemon come with you to buy fancier clothes.

“How did you forget to tell me to bring pristine shit?” You laugh whilst looking through a rack of dresses for your size.

“I told Tangerine to sort everything.” Lemon shows you a dress, you screw your face up at it.

“Wayyyy too many ruffles fucking hell.” You find the dress in your size and put it into your basket. “He didn’t forget to tell Stacey did he?” You scoff.

Lemon squints his eyes at you. “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?! Me? Jealous?! What?! Absolutely not! Fuck me youre on something.” For the rest of the shopping trip you go on about how there’s absolutely no way you’re jealous and that Lemon is crazy. He thinks it’s the funniest thing ever, you however are not so pleased.

———————————————————————

“Hey (Y/N)? Is Tan single?” Stacey asks batting her eyelashes at you. You two were in your shared hotel room, Tangerine and Lemon were staying in the room next to you.

“Why?” You question. For some reason your stomach drops as she asks. Especially now that she was saying the nickname you always call him. But no. You weren’t jealous, absolutely not.

“Can you not see the chemistry we have? I mean god I’m already picking out our children’s names. I’m thinking Beatrice for a girl and Christopher for a boy.”

You give her a strange look. “Tangerine would not like those names.”

She walks up to you, hand on her hip and tries to assert the power in the situation, you cross your arms and look at her.

“You are a real bitch. You’re just jealous of me and Tangerine. I’m telling you by the end of this mission he’ll want me.”

“I don’t care at all.” You scoff and grab your clothes. You get changed into your new dress, it’s a classic black dress that compliments your figure perfectly.

You, Tangerine, Lemon and Stacey head down to dinner and sign in with your fake names. You sit opposite Tangerine and next to Lemon.

“I was thinking we need to solidify our cover stories,” you say taking a sip of your drink.

“What were you thinking?” Tangerine asks, one thing you appreciated about him was the way he didn’t diminish your intelligence like most men did who work this job. They find it wild that a woman could be smart enough to pull off an elaborated plan, but that was ballsy considering you thought you were pretty good.

“We’re here celebrating an engagement between two of us-“

“Me and Tangerines engagement!” Stacey cuts you off. You pinch the bridge of your nose and Lemon starts laughing beside you, you kick his ankle under the table and Stacey looks confused. “What?”

“Yeah. What? You two are children and if you don’t stop you’ll get us sussed out.” Tangerine tuts as he finishes off his drink.

“(Y/N) is just being-“ Lemon starts.

You elbow him so hard in the ribs that he flinches. “Shut the fuck up.” The food comes and you guys start eating, as you’re eating you notice a group of men bunch together and head towards the kitchen. Luckily your seat gives you a clear view of them and you watch them walk into the kitchen.

“Tangerine. Play along with this.” You say, he agrees, you pull a hair from your head and set it on your plate then and you stand up acting disgusted. “Filthy! Absolutely disgusting.”

Soon a waitress comes over, worried at your behaviour. “Im sorry is everything okay over here?”

“No everything is not okay. My fiancée has a hair in her food, this is ridiculous.” Tangerine stands up, you can’t help the smug look that falls onto your face watching Stacey look offended. You hear Lemon snickering beside you, you glare intensely at him then you smile sweetly at Stacey and turn to the waitress.

“I want to speak to your chef.” You demand. And so the waitress leads the way, Tangerine walks with you. His hand resting on your lower back. You felt your stomach doing flips as he placed his hand there.

In the kitchen Tangerine talks with the Chef as you scan your eyes around the kitchen looking for where these men could have gone. That’s until you see a man fully suited walk out of the stock room. Tangerine and you walk out of the kitchen after clearing everything up.

“Fiancée huh?” You tease.

“Improvisation,” Tan replies, a smirk apparent on his face.

“Stacey won’t be happy.” You playfully tut.

“What do you mean?” Tangerine furrows his brows.

You laugh until you realise he’s being serious. “My god you’re blind.”

You reach your table as you said that. “No tell me what do you mean?” He asks.

“Tell you what?” Stacey interferes.

“None of your business Tracey.” You suck your teeth.

“My name is-“

“Jesus christ! No one cares.” You snare.

Lemon can’t hide his laugh and you turn to him, shaking your head. “Seriously what is up with you today?” You ask.

“I think you have to ask yourself that question (Y/N).” Lemon replies

“You know what I think? I think you’re all being fucking weird today.” Tangerine grumbled.

You all finish your food. However you feel your stomach churning as Stacey starts sliding her hand up Tangerines arm, she whispers something in his ear and he doesn’t seem fazed by it at all. You didn’t realise you were gripping your glass until it shatters in your hand.

“Fuck.” You gasp, you look at your hand. You had glass shards stuck in your hand as the blood dripped onto the white table cloth.

“Tan you and Stacey sort the bill, we’ll go sort (Y/N)’s hand.” Lemon suggests. You all agree and you follow Lemon back to his and Tangerines room.

Upon walking in your hit with the familiar scent of Tangerines cologne, a scent you found yourself drawn to. You didn’t quite understand why, but anytime you smelt something similar your heart would skip a beat. But you didn’t care about him like that.

“What is up with you?” Lemon asks as he removes the glass from your palm, you hiss in pain.

“Nothing.” You grunt.

“Im not stupid. I’ve know you for three years now and never have I ever seen you so jealous.”

“Im not jealous!” You practically shout, the pain from your hand didn’t help the matter. This time Lemon didn’t laugh, he just sighed as he cleaned your hand.

“You know if you have feelings for Tangerine that’s okay. I don’t know why you’re so reluctant to admit that.”

“Okay maybe I find him attractive but I don’t have feelings.” You mumble.

“There we go one step closer to the truth. If we’re speaking truth I’ll admit these next few days are going to be the most entertaining days ever. I can’t wait.”

“Oh yeah this is so entertaining.” You scoff, “you’ve no idea how fucking annoying she is, and to make things worse I share room with her.”

“I do know because Tangerine was pissed off earlier because she wouldn’t shut up the entire car ride.”

You find yourself smiling once Lemon said that, you felt a little bit more relaxed. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Lemon finishes fixing your hand, he stitched it and bandaged it up. He told you he was used to doing this, especially considering Tangerine is usually always fighting with someone. That was the polar difference between the two men, Lemon was calm but Tangerine was not, once that man gets pissed off he just goes off on a rampage. You’ve witnessed this multiple times, however it didn’t scare you. You secretly found it hot. But that fact you would carry to your grave.

Soon after Tangerine and Stacey come back and you guys sit to come up with a game plan for the next day. You agreed to spilt into pairs of two, you and Tangerine, Lemon and Stacey. Poor Lemon was all you could think. Anyways, you all would go to breakfast, but you would leave the table to go to the bathroom. But really you’d try get into the Casino area. If you got in successfully you were to look for whatever you could find that would identify the men you needed to assassinate. You’ll then come back, after breakfast Tangerine and Lemon would go inquire about said Casino, Lemon said there was a code name for the Casino and that was how you’d get in. And at dinner time Stacey and Lemon would go there, play a game of poker or whatever. Whilst you and Tangerine get dinner. Then once Lemon and Stacey had identified the men you would go in and kill them. Then on the third day you guys can use the spa.

———————————————————————

You get up from the breakfast table and head towards the bathroom. Since the restaurant at the hotel is a separate part there’s bathrooms there for customers. And thankfully they were opposite the kitchen, you walk up the hall and slowly open the kitchen door. You peep your head in to see only one man in there who’s back is to the door, you take your time sneaking in and walk into the stock room. At first you think you’re wrong until you look around and realise the back wall is fake, you find the hatch and walk in. And just as you thought there is the casino, you were actually surprised to see it as a legitimate full blown casino. Using the flash of your phone you look around. Quickly you come across what you assume to be guest book, it had ten names of it, three of which matched up to the names you were given by the man who hired you. He had said there were eight members to assassin and three members whose identities he knew. You take a picture and sneak back out again.

You sit at the table with a smug smirk on your face. “Well ask me how it went!”

“How did it go, love?” Tangerine chuckled. Your cheeks flushed as he said that, it wasn’t a new thing to hear. Tangerine called all women love, but for some reason it had you internally screaming.

“Amazing. I found a guestbook with ten names on it.”

“It’s not like you had much to do.” Stacey scoffed. “Tangerine here..” she squeezes his arm “found the room in the first place.”

“No, (Y/N) did. It was her that got us into the kitchen and it was her that spotted the room.”

Stacey let go of his arm and finished her food silently. You glare at her with a smug look on your face and crossed your arms. She looked pissed off, but you weren’t bothered or intimidated in the slightest. And of course Lemon was laughing into his hands.

After breakfast the four of you go to you and Stacey’s hotel room. That was after Tangerine and Lemon had gotten access cards to the Casino, everything was going smoothly. You and Tangerine were debating whether or not killing these men would be hard, you said it wouldn’t, Tangerine said it would considering we’re massively outnumbered. It was all lighthearted until Stacey buts in.

“It won’t be hard Tan don’t worry darling. I know you’ll protect me.” You hide your hands in your face to control the unbearable second hand embarrassment you just got. You peak over at Lemon through your fingers, hes laughing into his hand and Tangerine just awkwardly laughs to what she has to say. This makes her get confident and sit beside him leaning into him to the point there wasn’t even a slither between them.

You felt your blood boil as you bit your lip. She was seriously getting on your nerves. But there was nothing you could do about it, she was important to the mission and therefore you had no choice but to suck it up. The next few hours until dinner were complete utter hell. Genuinely awful. Stacey seems to be getting worse by the minute, anytime Tan just tolerated her god awful flirting it encouraged her to get more and more into it. You had to leave the room once she playfully punched his arm.

You lean against the wall feeling nothing but pure envy. You weren’t envious that Tangerine didn’t care to flirt back, but you were envious that she had the courage. Admitting you’re jealous in turn made you aware that you did in fact feel something for Tan. It wasn’t simple, and you knew loving someone like him wouldn’t be straightforward. It’s not like he’s the most loving man to walk the planet, so you wouldn’t even be guaranteed commitment, and you also acknowledged that you couldnt watch him leave for work and not worry sick. But that wasn’t the point. The point was you had been too proud and now some brainless fuck is there all over him, all over your Tan.

“Everything okay?” Lemons voice pulls you from your thoughts.

“Yeah, just can’t sit through that. It’s painfully embarrassing.”

Lemon laughs in agreement, he also looked as traumatised as you. You couldn’t understand how Tangerine couldn’t see right through it, it surprised you how such a smart man could be so fucking blind. On that thought the door opens and Tangerine walks out.

“What are you two doing. Planning some fucking dance party?”

“Exactly what we’re doing.” You respond. Tangerine shakes his head.

“Seriously though what are you doing?”

“Talking about your girlfriend.” You respond.

“My girlfriend?” Tangerine pulls a puzzled expression. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Fuck me you’re so stupid.” You put a hand to your forehead. “Do you not see how badly she wants to fuck you?”

“Jealous?” Tangerine raises his brows.

“…no.”

“She’s a proper diesel.” Lemon adds.

“What did I fucking tell you? Hm?” Tangerine sighs, Lemon shrugs in response. “No fucking Thomas talk for fuck sake.” Tangerine throws his arms up in exasperation. You and Lemon share a side glance, someone wasn’t happy.

———————————————————————

You strap you knife to your thigh as you readjust your skirt. You fix your outfit and reapply your lipstick, just as you do that you get a knock on the door. You open the door to see Tangerine, you smile and step aside to let him in. He walks in and sits on the foot of your bed.

“Just let me get my shoes on.” You say, you slip your shoes on and grab your bag.

“You brush up well.” Tangerine teases.

“Can’t say the same for you,” you taunt him as you both walk out the door.

You walk down to dinner together, you arms linked. You couldn’t help but smile the entire way there, it felt stupid to be so into him but at this point there was no denying it you just thanked your lucky stars that you weren’t around Stacey. Poor Lemon you thought, you wondered what they would even be talking out. You two arrive at the restaurant and like a true gentleman Tangerine pulls your chair out for you, you can’t help but laugh and he even cracks a smile.

“Aren’t you a joy.” You tease.

“Only the best for my fiancée.”

“Everything but a ring,” you tut, he rolls his eyes at you and you get halfway through your meal when Lemon sends you the code.

“Come on. Lemon wants us,” you both gather your things and walk towards the kitchen.

Getting in this time is much easier considering Tangerine knows the code, the chef is more than happy to welcome you two to the casino. The smell of cigars and whiskey hit you like a brick, not pleasant at all. You hold onto Tangerines arm and you walk to the Poker table. You sit across from Lemon and Stacey, on your right are two guys and on Tan’s left is another pair of men. You start to play a game and you’re surprised to see Tangerine is good at this, or at least that’s what you thought considering you’d never played poker before and had absolutely no idea what to do. So you let him do it all. Tangerine gives the indication and all four of you stand and go behind a guy. You lean down and whisper into his ear.

“What’s your name?” Your breath cool against the warmth his skin radiates. He tells you his name, and hum contently in response then slice his jugular. Killing him instantly. You wipe the blood that you got onto your hand on his suit jacket. The other three also killed their men, and without drawing attention to anyone else in the room. There were another five guys.

“(Y/N) go to those two, show them your tits or something.” Tangerine says, pointing to the men sitting at the jackpot slots.

“Oh how charming are you.” You scoff and make your way over to the men. You sit in between them and like the creeps they were they seemed not to mind at all. You leaned into the guy on your left, “what’s your name?” Another one on the list, “and yours?” You ask the guy on your right. Again on the list. “Great!” You smile.

You listen to them mansplain the odds of winning and how gambolling was a thrill. You nodded along, batting your eyes at them. That was until you killed them both. You walk to Tangerine, he killed the seventh guy. Only one left on the list, but you had to kill the other man there of course. You hear some struggling and look over your shoulder to see Stacey being choked up against the wall. You sigh and go over there, you floor the man who had her up against the wall. Straddle his chest and slit his throat.

Lemon takes care of the remaining man and you all walk out untouched. You liked jobs like that, easy and non-problematic plus you were getting paid a fuck ton for this. The four of you went back to the men’s room with a celebratory bottle of champagne.

“Wait.. how won’t we get caught?” Stacey asks, you sigh as you’ve explained this four times already. Apparently two glasses of champagne has her incoherent.

“For the fifth and final time. Our names were not on the guest book. Only one man’s name was. Of fucking course he’s going to be blamed for this.” You snap. This made her cry. She tried to get reassurance off of Tangerine but he didn’t even respond to her wails. Ten minutes into her diva meltdown she walks out of the room and into her own. You could cry in relief.

“Thank fuck.” Tangerine remarks. You look at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Thought she wasn’t so bad?”

“Changed my mind, she’s a fucking nightmare.”

“A true diesel.”

“Whatever makes you happy.” You reply to Lemon.

The three of you finish the bottle and spend the next hour talking, mainly ripping into Stacey but not just. Eventually you left their room and went to bed, Stacey was already asleep.

———————————————————————

Tangerines car pulls up outside your place and you get out of the car. This time instead of Lemon helping you with your stuff Tan does. He gets your stuff out of the boot and walks you to your door.

“Thank you Tan.” You smile as you unlock the door.

“I’ll set your stuff inside.” He walks in with you and sets your suitcase on the marble floor.

“So Stacey..?”

“Stacey what?”

“Are you following up with it or?”

“…are you having a fucking laugh?”

You roll your eyes in response, a grin cracking at your lips. “She’s not really your type anyways.”

“Yeah? What’s my type love.” Tan smirks.

“You need someone like yourself, someone who’s not over the top and annoying.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm.” You look down at the ground as you bite back a smile.

Tangerines hand lifts your chin then all of a sudden he’s grabbing your hips and then his lips are on yours, passionately kissing you. You slide a hand into his hair as you open your mouth, his tongue enters your mouth, fighting your own for dominance. You tug on his hair causing him to bite your lip, you groan as he pulls you closer. The sound of the car horn blaring startles you and you pull back. You let out an airy laugh as his hands release your waist.

“You should go.”

“Yeah, Lemon must be pissed.”

“Alright. Bye Tan.”

“Bye love.”

He walks out the door and you take a moment to stand there and process what just happened. You weren’t sure what this meant for you both but you could only hope it would turn into something, and your hoping came true.

[anim-ttrpgs]

An absolutely incredible review of the beta version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by review Willy Muffin on youtube, complete with visuals and actual analysis!

I'm going to also add to this post a comment that I left on the video, offering further insight into the design intentions of the game, though the comment might not make as much sense if you haven't watched the video yet.

Hey, lead writer of Eureka here, first of all I wanna say how good and professional this review is, it’s almost indescribable how it feels to see our project taken so seriously and given real analysis, complete with visuals and everything! We would be super impressed and happy with it even if you didn’t like the game—but luckily it sounds like you loved it hahaha

I’d also like to address a few things throughout the video, not as arguments or rebuttals, just further developer insight for everyone

Re: “Urban Fantasy.” “Urban Fantasy” is basically just another term for “modern fantasy”, just a fantasy story that takes place in the 20th or 21st century and deals with the intersection of contemporary life with the supernatural, and it might be an Americanism, or even a Southern-ism, since it has a lot of connections and origins in the living folklore of New Orleans, so I shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t a term everyone is familiar with. Just think of it as the kind of genre where instead of the vampire living in a secluded scary castle, his name is Phil and he’s your roommate haha. What We Do in the Shadows, Shadowrun, and the World of Darkness games are all some other good examples of “urban fantasy.”

Re: Scooby-Doo. Oh we would LOVE for you to run a Scooby-Doo-like wacky mystery with Eureka. Even though the main tone is dark and gritty and noir, we did intentionally build it so that it could run more lighthearted stuff as well! There’s even a few Scooby-Doo references to be found throughout the text, and if we hit a certain stretch goal on the Kickstarter, we’re going to be adding a bunch of Scooby-gang-inspired traits, including the option to play a Talking Dog!

Re: Combat being the largest section, even larger than Investigation. First of all, that’s kind of an illusion that is the result of the game being unfinished. I have a tendency when I write rules to use really long sentences, overexplain things, repeat myself, etc, and that dramatically bloats the rules text and page count, but that’s why we have an editor! She goes through after the fact and trims most of the fat off my bloated writing style to make it flow smoother and read faster, and take up less space. The PDF that was read for this review has had the Investigation chapter copy-edited (and cut down in size by about 25%!), but the editor hasn’t gotten to the combat chapters yet, so they still have a hugely inflated page count. When she’s done with them, you can expect each combat chapter to also be cut down in size by about 25%, so they won’t be nearly so large a chunk of the book.

Secondly, I’ll explain our reasoning for why the combat chapters and advanced combat rules are such a big chunk of the rules text, it’s intentional design which I will now explain. If anyone still doesn’t agree with that design, that’s fair, and that’s why we made the Basic Combat Rules an option.

The reason that the advanced combat rules are the default, and the reason they exist at all, is because it incentivizes and rewards Investigation. If combat is super deadly, it makes Investigation, snooping, and spying more appealing than kicking down the door and getting your head blown off. But of combat is super deadly, it also needs to be very deep and tactical, because if it’s deadly but shallow, then there’s no player agency. “Combat starts, roll some dice, okay your guy is dead.” That’s no fun. So by adding rules and modifiers for cover/elevation, distance, the difference between a pistol and an assault rifle, etc. we make it so that not only is combat its own high-stakes puzzle, but make it so that when the PCs HAVE to engage in combat, all their investigation can really pay off and save their lives. Spying on a building to find out the number of goons stationed there and how they are armed helps you plan and assess risk, stealing the blueprints to the building helps you know how to get the drop on the goons, and know the best places to attack from so that they are stuck out in the open and you are not, etc. and having rules for those things means that all the PCs’ snooping and planning makes a real mechanical difference in whether they live or die.

That’s just my opinion though, and one of the biggest reasons WHY we decided to write the combat with as much depth as we did.

Anyway, thank you again for this review and analysis of our project, our Kickstarter jumped up by about ten more backers in the evening when this video went up after several days of no new backers, and we have to assume we have this video, and all of you watching and reading this, to thank. You’re really making our dreams come true. :)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[bubba-draws]

Hello, could I ask you for some Radiant Vessel Hollow AU stuff? What's the general lore behind that, how did those two end up as they did and just general brainrot on the idea?

Anon this is the best birthday present ever bc i've been thinking about this au for a while now AND I WANNA TALK ABOUT IT AAAA

SO pretty much the au was born from the idea of "Wouldn't it be fucked up if Hollow ended up joining Radi?" partial inspiration comes from this song as well!

(There's a bunch of subtitles in different languages but I'm going with the english one)

To summarize, after years of fighting Radi inside their mind prison, Radi changes tactics and attempts to make Hollow join her, she promises to give them all that was taken from them, the life they deserved

Hollow doesn't fall right away of course, they try to ignore her, fight her, but after years of the same dance and song they start getting tired, no matter how hard they try Radi is never fully gone when they fight, their void not strong enough to rip her apart, and being the only one with them (The dreamers are also in Hollow's mind prison, but they're not anywhere nearby these two) they can't help but lean on her company

The closest thing I could get to describe their relationship at this point is an odd sense of solidarity, in a way both of them were done wrong by the same guy, and while it does take a lot for Hollow to understand this, deep down they knew there was a bit of resentment towards PK, one that grows in intensity the more these two spend together, and it erupts when they succumb to Radi and she turns them into a vessel for her

It's kinda like what Grimm and the Nightmare heart has going on (or at least the general HC most people got) Hollow made a deal with Radi, she will lend her powers and energy to Hollow for them to call anytime they want, to go back so she can see the world through their eyes (disclaimer: not all the time btw ASHFJKAS just when its necessary/Hollow calls her) there's no cycle of rebirth or anything here though, she's also no longer limited to Hollow's mind, she can see the whole Dream Realm now

So yeah, once Hollow is used to their new powers (and body, they got some changes in appearance) they take down the dreamers, escape the black egg, their presence making the infection spread like a wildfire and take down PK :3 (WL escaped, the knights... yeah they dont make it)

There's still some ideas I gotta clean up after this point, but I talked about this with some people and got the idea that yeah, Hollow does take over Hallownest and its people, everyone is infected to some degree? makes them more agreeable to what's going on but its not enough to make them feral anymore, some of the bugs that got modifications through the infection stay like that and while still a bit volatile, they can think enough to understand things

As for their relationship??? It's odd as fuck KJHSDFJKAH there's nothing romantic, that's for sure, it is definetely more similat to a Lord and their subordinate, but theyre like??? very close?? almost familial, when there's no job to do or Hollow needs reassurance Radi becomes the closest thing to a motherly figure they could get (Even if WL loved them there was no way she couldve shown them that) but its not enough for them to call each other family

as for the game events it would completely change, Ghost would arrive to a completely different Hallownest, where everyone is happy and nice, but the more u progress the game u realize shit's fucked up, Hornet is there as well and she came back to Hallownest to seek revenge for her mother

As to what happens to the abyss and pile of dead siblings, i'm still a bit unsure, part of me thinks Hollow wouldnt want to get rid of it but part of me knows Radi wouldnt let them have it open or even go in there, while still void the light she bestowed upon them would present a threat for the shades living there

and that's most of what I got! I still need to think of other things, but if u guys got other questions or ideas I would love love LOVE to hear them!! :D

have a quick doodle of them :3

[mezzy-1]

A Bunch of WHOLESOME Valorant Headcanons

Damn I shoulda posted these a week ago but here goes. Also thank you to @eviethelesbian for coming up with the prompt. Gotta give credit yknow.

Neon

Is always challenging people to race her or beat her in some way.  Competitive as hell but just likes the thrill of it

Misses her old home, but brought a lot of her mementos along and has a story behind every one of them in her room

She’s worried about her powers acting up, but Sage and Reyna helping her out has given her a little more confidence.  She’s grateful to both of them

Sleeps like a rock after a hard day, to the point where it's usually impossible to wake her and not get shocked in the process

Has big sister energy with most of the other young agents and lightly teases them if they lose to her.  Always lets people rechallenge her and may or may not let them win 

Complete menace to the fridge because of the calories she burns running so fast, but shares the food she preps.  

Gets excited when she meets dogs and will absolutely lose her mind if someone lets her pet their dog

Brimstone

Despite being the leader and ex-military he’s not really harsh on any of the younger agents

They still hate him for the PT he makes them do, especially because he knows how to bring out the best of them.  

Usually it's reminding them about not letting someone close to them down, but other times it’s about proving themself

A lot of personal records have been set thanks to Brimstone, but the aches and pains from intense exercise are the price of hard work

He is always there for agents when they have self doubt or regret.  A hand on their shoulder, giving them some time to themselves, or a quick story from his ‘younger days’ that manages to provide some guidance

Him and KAYO sometimes take a few extra minutes after a briefing to go over ‘potential strategies’ or ‘advanced tactics’ but everyone knows it's for them to talk about something pleasant before getting back to work.  

When agents return from a successful mission and are unharmed, the look on his face is of pure relief

Killjoy

A lot of her ideas come from something someone says or suggests, she’s always listening to people intently because of this

The chicken design on the turret was in reference to a chicken she kept after her school did one of those agriculture/biology programs.  She named it ‘Gelbie’ and the turret shares the name.

She may build her gadgets, but she prefers to have people weigh in on the colors (hence Raze helping her out a lot).  She lets people pick out some of the colors of things

She’s the tech support for a lot of people and likes using it as an excuse to get to know people.  Also has left notes for people who don’t understand tech as well, signed with little doodles 

Can and will outdrink other agents, and loves dragging people to go clubbing.  If whoever she brings isn’t the most social, she’ll keep close if they need it and encourage them to try dancing with someone

Huge nerd for everything and somehow part of every fandom.  Will definitely rewatch or replay things with fellow agents.  Enjoys talking about the nerdiest stuff with anyone 

While working for Kingdom, she’d hack the coffee machines and vending machines to spit out free drinks for her favorite coworkers.

Absolutely loves her jacket, and it was a gift from one of her friends back in Germany and she does her best to keep it in the best condition she can, despite the firefights

If an agent is a little shaken from the last fight, she’ll lay her jacket on them if they need it or if they’re sleeping.  She sees it as extending a bit of good luck.

Blushed a lot when Raze joined the VP and stayed up late to help her with any kind of work.  She’d make excuses for it too and try to avoid letting people see how red her face was.  It made it even more obvious

Deadlock

Didn’t realize how serious she seemed at first and used to scare some of the younger agents, much to the amusement of Viper.  Apologized a lot after she realized it

Has moments where she drops her formality and everyone kinda stops what they’re doing.  When she isn’t restraining herself to monotone or quiet it’s really noticeable

Nobody knew she could laugh at first but it came out once.  It’s one of those really loud and tearful ones that she can barely breathe through.  Borderline snorting laugh

On occasion she’ll tell people how they remind her of her ‘sisters’ 

Will sit in with the other agents while they watch dramas and whatever else, despite her obvious confusion.  

Is blunt, but tells people what they need to hear to get things done.  Never leaves any room for miscommunication or anxiety at all

Understanding and observant with the other agents, and is often able to bring an element of calm to tense situations

Kept the tags of her Staljaeger unit and has them in a locked box in her room, along with a group photo

Enjoys doing her weapon maintenance because she can sort of lose herself in the work, but doesn’t mind doing it with others

Wears a ton of sweaters, like absolutely lives in those ultra-comfortable ones that are constantly warm

Gekko (+ Wingman)

Wingman will grab people’s hands and try to lead them to things.  It’s always the fridge cause he isn’t tall enough to reach the handles

Wingy will bring things to his favorite people, and most of the time its things from Chamber’s room cause of how shiny they are

Neon loves that Wingman steals from Chamber and lets him into Chamber’s room for the hell of it

If asked to grab things by anyone other than Gekko, he brings the wrong item most of the time.  Cypher once asked for a soldering iron and Wingman brought back a minifridge that let cans and food everywhere

Dizzy passively floats in Gekko’s room like a helium balloon and is usually found on the ceiling.  All curled up and sleeping like a cat.

Thrash will follow a laser pointer around and yes there’s a video of it 

Gekko may not have a lot of battlefield experience but he’s always ready to charge in to save someone.  

He also gets along great with everyone by keeping things light and throwing compliments around.  Phoenix and him brighten up a room, and behave like brothers

Loves having dinner with the protocol, it feels like the dinners his familia would have 

Will attempt to do challenges from the internet with other agents.  Most of the duelists are usually game but getting Brimstone to try something makes his day

Discussed working with the protocol with his mom before leaving, and sends her little postcards from the places he’s visited.  The radivores sign them with paw prints

Will help people dye their hair no questions asked and knows all the places to get tattoos and dye in LA.  Loves showing his home to the agents.

Loves getting together with people and hitting up food trucks, doesn’t matter what kind of food either

Protocol Wide Headcanon

One time someone (Neon or Jett take ur pick) put a Jalapeno in someone’s (Harbor’s) food as a prank.  When he ate it no problem, that’s when some other agents chimed in saying that Jalapenos aren’t spicy.

This began a debate as to what is and isn’t considered spicy, and to test their theories more chiles, peppers, and habaneros were eaten.

This led to almost the entire protocol having a contest to see who could eat the spiciest food.  A lot of people were either trying to prove a point or show how tough they were

It got so heated that Brimstone stepped in, and decided to make a point as to who knows spicy food the best

He made a chili the next night that had people turning red, downing milk and chewing ice, and generally rolling around in pain

Undiluted spice hell

Brim said he used a family recipe and that nobody would ever be able to handle the chili his grandpa came up with

Viper had poured straight capsaicin into the chili the night before, she just wanted to stop the contest and since capsaicin is a neurotoxin she had a ton of it lying around

Brim still thinks it was his cooking

Now from time to time, small contests of spice tolerance break out over dinner but not enough to get the attention of the higher ups, fear of the chili haunts them

[anxresi]

Brace yourselves, folks… We’re about to enter the dark, dreary and sometimes disturbing world which is Thomas Astruc on Twitter. 😧

Those possessed of a weak disposition, prone to nausea or an complete intolerance to utter bullshit may want to turn back now. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (but still leave me a ‘like’, if you’re feeling generous 🙏)

Anyway, what ‘delights’ has this stand-up guy, this pioneer of mediocre cartooning, this dude on the cusp of arguing with little kids on Twitter been sharing with us, the great unwashed, at this present time? Let’s run through a brief checklist of the ‘highlights’, shall we?

*Telling people the upcoming Miraculous movie is what the fans ‘want’ but the show is what we ‘need’ (whatever THAT means, typically modest reaction from the epitome of humbleness himself).

*Saying that anyone who DARES criticise the show should ‘keep it to themselves’ or they’ll be ‘blocked for spreading negativity about the artists’ (dude thinks he can police Twitter… good luck with that!)

*Informing fanfiction writers that their work is ‘pointless’ and the only people who know what they’re doing are him and his team (If you mean ‘How To Destroy A Franchise In Five Easy Seasons… I guess he’s right)

But his favorite topic (seriously, check out his replies… we’re talking more than 50% here) concerns a fictional teenage girl he constantly decries but can’t seem to get enough of moaning about. It is of course… oh let’s face it. You know the answer to that one already. ROLL THE TWEETS!!

Yep, you guessed it. Apart from the OP being uncommonly accurate in their opinion, now apparently ‘Chloe’ has become The Not-So-Great Bearded One’s new insult of choice for anyone who dislikes what’s been done to the show. Poor ‘Karen’ never stood a chance… 😢

What a mature, grown-up type chap he is! I have no idea why he’s no longer referred to as ‘Hawk Daddy’ in polite circles, and instead called ‘Man Baby’. Just look at him, REALLY giving it a bunch of teens on Twitter who DARE imply his show is nothing but da best! You go, Thomas! Go change your dirty diaper, that is. 🤢

So, abandoning all her subtleties and nuance , reducing her to a shrieking monster and choosing to actively give characters who have arguably done FAR WORSE throughout the series much better endings means they ‘wrote it well’? Gosh, maybe getting an F in English stands for ‘Fabulous’ after all!

Guess in Thomas’s somewhat warped worldview, everyone who doesn’t like 💯 of his show from top to bottom should be placed on a plane with their main abuser to be forcibly deported and probably tortured for the rest of their sorry lives. That’ll teach them!

And who cares about stupid stuff like ‘build-up’ or ‘character-development’ if they genuinely were preparing Chloe for… what was that thing he described it as again… a ‘damnation’ arc? Let’s just flip a switch at the end of S3 to turn her into a pathetic caricature of her worst excesses without explanation, then introduce a ‘perfect’ sister out of nowhere to throw all those undesirable traits into sharp relief! And that’s not even getting into that detestable retconning flashback episode… What an absolutely fantastic idea to make everyone hate her as much as Thomas does!

No-one will notice the sudden incongruity here… after all, the average age of their audience is 5-8 so if they just throw excrement like crazed baboons about Chloe at the young audience time and time again caveman-style CHLOE: BAD. EVERYONE ELSE: GOOD the kids will chow it up like cheap chocolate ice cream! The older ones that do kick up a fuss? Who gives a ****. They don’t buy the merchandise, and where would all those hard-working producers if it wasn’t for all that cheap plastic crap?

With considerably less cars, swimming pools and exotic holidays to hard-to-pronounce destinations, that’s where! Let’s keep that bandwagon of shit a-rollin’… 🤑

Ah, now I believe this is that classic tactic otherwise known as ‘gaslighting’. When you say something as a fact over and over again, when the opposite is clearly true. Those of lesser willpower may start to accept it as reality while others (mostly those with functioning eyes, ears and brains)… won’t.

You know who was also good at that gaslighting thing, don’t you? A few clues… A Former (thank God) President? Very orange? Initials DT? Yep, that guy.

…And coincidentally, someone Thomas has been known to compare Chloe (14 year old girl, let’s not forget) to regularly. I mean, with THAT kind of accolade hanging over her head from the guy who created her, how could she ever fail?

See? What a great influence he is on the young too! Now he’s got his own handpicked gang of sycophants out of the street labelling anyone with the slightest complaint from a)pointing out the animation was slightly better last season or b)saying they miss the old transformation sequences as a ‘Chloe’. I think we’ve found his new favorite insult, and it’s the worst word he can possibly think of. Figures.

I bet he’s putting together a petition as we speak, for an official entry into the dictionary. Fortunately, there’s already one for ‘Thomas’, as in ‘Doubting Thomas’… someone who talks so much nonsense you should disbelieve anything they say. Or Thomas The Tank Engine, because whenever you mention a certain Blonde’s name in his presence, he tends to blow steam, look very heated and… you get the picture. 😆

On top of everything else, now he’s issuing threats. I have to hand it to him though… that’s a pretty good one. NO PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY MY LIFE I’LL EVEN GIVE YOU A FOOT RUB A BACK RUB AND LEARN TO LOVE ZOE ANYTHING BUT THAT NNNNNNOOOOOO….

Seriously guys, we need an immediate intervention. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. I’m about to book an emergency flight to France, to barricade him in his office until he promises to never again even entertain the notion of… this. Who’s with me?

(And incidentally while I’m there, does anyone want me to pick them a souvenir? A beret? Frog legs soup? One of those miniature replicas of the Eiffel Tower? Let me know by tomorrow at the latest, and I’ll see what I can do) 😊🇫🇷

[putschki1969]

hey puts, the captain of kalafina fandom XD i came across this instagram post which i think its talking about backstage stuff about wakana circulating in 2-chan. this is the post https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvy3CuchT-D/ can you share your thoughts about it ? or maybe you can help us what are they actually talking about since we can only use google translate.

Hello there, anon!

Ugh, you are throwing me a curve-ball here, I did not expect to get a question like this. Already feeling exhausted just thinking about writing my reply T_T

That Instagram post is from spring 2019, a - what I consider to be - particularly dark period in the Kalafina fandom. Wakana was in the midst of preparing for her first grand-scale solo tour after her official solo debut and Space Craft finally put their act together by releasing an official statement regarding Kalafina's state of limbo. In an attempt to put an end to a lot of uncertainty/speculation and to create a clear distinction between Kalafina and Wakana's solo activities, they declared a definitive disbandment. As you can imagine, everyone and their mother had something to say about that. Even Yuki Kajiura, Hikaru and Keiko made statements in response. All of this caused a lot of backlash against Space Craft and particularly towards Wakana herself. The fact that Wakana was still with Space Craft and dared to not address the announcement of Kalafina's disbandment with a statement of her own made many so-called fans very angry and disappointed - totally unwarranted of course.

Suddenly, there was an influx of certain internet trolls who got a real kick out of blaming and villainising Wakana, they made her into the bad guy and came up with a bunch of wild theories that mainly served the purpose of dragging Wakana's name and image through the mud. Needless to say, none of those claims were in any way, shape or form substantiated but as is the case with all negative content on the internet, it drew quite a bit of attention and some people even started buying into that bullshit. The Instagram user you linked to in your ask is a textbook example of one such troll. At that time, a handful of sock puppet accounts were created to feed into the smear campaign against Wakana. Those accounts regularly left nasty comments under Wakana's Instagram posts, pretending to be devastated fans and referring to all sorts of horrible things that Wakana had allegedly done. Most of those posts and accounts got rightfully flagged and suspended but some apparently managed to stay around for a while. They tried to continue their toxic behaviour but once they realised that Wakana's loyal fans would not stand for such horrible defamation tactics, most of them just disappeared again.

As for the information supposedly circulating on 2chan, I honestly give little to no credence to anything that is being said on anonymous text-boards like 2chan or its successor 5chan. As much as the Japanese are known for being overly polite and reserved, they can be incredibly nasty when they are allowed to act anonymously. I reckon about 10% of users who frequently post on these types of text-boards are actually decent human beings. 60% of them are either mentally handicapped, bored out of their minds or simply frustrated with their lives. The remaining 30% are scum of the earth sociopaths as far as I am concerned.

In order to do some research for this post, I went through a few old threads about Wakana containing hundreds upon hundreds of messages. I literally felt my brain cells dying with every new message I read. No idea how others manage to subject themselves to this level of stupidity but I really struggle to tolerate it. Out of curiosity, I would have liked to find a "source" for the specific accusations in that Instagram post but alas, I wasn't able to. There's just no way I can go through everything, sorry. Also, I will not dignify any of these messages or that Instagram post with a proper translation.

Believe me when I say that there is no incriminating material on Wakana out there, these people have zero authentic evidence (photo or otherwise) of her being a "stuck-up bitch", of her "mistreating staff members", of her "bashing Hi/Kei" etc. It's all just a ton of made-up gossip and rubbish. Everyone, please do yourself a favour and just ignore content like this when you come across it. Knowing what those people have to say does not add any value to your life, quite the contrary, it will only poison your brain.

That's honestly all I have to say about this topic.

[nebulacollege]

hello!! I love yalls twst stuff and I'm rlly excited to see/learn more about these ocs!! would you be able to give maybe a rundown on which characters are in which house and why? or maybe a general explanation on how the houses work in this college :0

Thank you very much for liking our twst stuff and for your interest in these boys! <3 And thank you very much for reading the info post about them! Fighting with tumblr to make it work was exhausting, and it’s still not going to work in the app after all orz I’ll add some of these facts to the info page later, but for this reply I can write much more than what I’m going to say there.

Now to your question. Each of the characters are were made to “represent” their corresponding house, to somewhat be the embodiment of the animal, so they go like this:

Niall is in the Unicorn house;

Ned is in the Dragon house;

Edmund is in the Raven house,

Liam is in the Snake house.

The houses group boys based on their personal qualities, but, ofc, there are no strict rules as which factors will definitely put you in one of the houses.

The Unicorn house is known for its dazzling, charismatic students with a strong tendency for leadership. They are determined, strong-willed, and often arrogant to an extent. They’re good at dealing with social issues, people in general, and can manipulate both people and the information they have as well. Still, despite being natural leaders, they have to have a sense of community and know how to form alliances.

They have good manners, good style, and overall have a high-society aura around them. Members of the royal families usually end up in this house. Because of that, it is considered the most prestigious (and rich lol) of the houses.

The Dragon house is the next in line in terms of being prestigious. Students there are loud, impulsive, have a very big “presence” whenever they’re around, while still being surprisingly responsible and well-behaved. They’re good and strategy and tactics, and have the best results in sports out of the bunch because of their good organizing abilities and discipline. They have their own order inside the house and dormitory, so they tend to work on the “survival of the fittest” principle. Just like Unicorn students, they are very proud, so they’re not ready to listen to just everyone, so they sometimes have conflicts inside their house in spite of their strong sense of unity. You have to deserve their respect to be... well, respected. On the negative side, they are quite greedy, loud, as I’ve said, and slow.

The Raven house is both the opposite of the Unicorn house, yet at the same time they’re the ones they cooperate with the most. Students of the Raven house are quiet and just don’t seem all that remarkable. They’re the first to react to different events, but the most “useless” in terms of solving things. The least ambitious of the bunch, they are rather perceptive, know a lot of rumors and information, good at making suggestions and predicting future outcomes, but at the same time secretive and not very talkative with other houses. Nobody really knows what they think, so they’re the creepy ones and the “freaks”, although not in such a harsh manner as one might think. They’re here to just do their job silently, or to complain a lot and still do their job lol If the Unicorn house can be considered the facade of the society, these students are the underground part of it. Metaphorically, that is.

The Snake students are also quiet, but their presence is much more prominent than that of the Raven students. They’re perfect on the surface level, but are ready to take any means necessary to achieve their goals without being caught. They seem perfect from the outside, but students from this house have the strongest sense of individuality. They’re cautious and ready to give way to others just to be safe and sure, they’re not the ones to rush anywhere without thinking. They’re careful, and a little bit slow in order to process events around them accordingly and to take the best possible route.

Phew, I think so far that’s enough lol

[letstalkwhump]

Let's Talk Whump! No. 18

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host today. 

Today I’m talking whump with the amazing @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! 

Great to have you here, @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! Before we begin, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m Ruin, I’m a graphic designer and I love horror, drawing, and playing video games!

Alrighty, let’s get started! What does whump mean to you? 

Whump is the juicy bits of a story! It’s the conflict, the agony, the struggle! The good stuff that we’re all here for.

How did you find the whump community?

I found it because I was poking around for more hurt/comfort things to read! @friendlylocalwhumper and @sweetwhumpandhellacomf were actually the first blogs I followed! Lux and the Hunter, and Valerie and Eos were what inspired me to make my own blog. 

Do you feel like your view on whump has  changed since you joined?

Ohhh man all that’s super changed is that I’ve found more tropes that I like! I knew fevers and environmental and self-sacrifice whump were favs, like who doesn’t love a good sickfic or someone taking a bullet for their loved one, but I also really really discovered my love of gore and lab whump, which are just amazing. 

Everyone’s favourite topic: whump tropes! Which are your favourites?

Oh man, so many right now! I love a good drowning, and bouts of hypothermia are fantastic. Those tend to go hand-in-hand though so I usually feel blessed when I find stuff with those. I also love a good fever, “Stay with me”, kidnapping, and self-sacrifice though I’m not as big a fan of death, so this usually also includes intensive caretaking and probably a lot of worry from the other characters which is also amazing.

And your favourite piece you've written?

Oh this is hard, I have a few favorites! 

If I can cheat a little bit and name two, the first is MO-1620, which is my current fav OC Mariano’s prison psych transcript! It was super experimental for me, and I had a blast getting to explore his feelings about his imprisonment and how he sees himself versus the reality of his actions and behavior and circumstances. And the second is my first BTHB 2023 fill, for Possession ! I’d gotten House of Leaves for Christmas one year and the formatting just really grabbed me, so I wanted to try playing with that! Plus I love a good human AU, and my OC Will was too perfect for this prompt.

I love the style and formatting of MO-1620! That’s such a unique idea! Do you have a writing routine?

I usually write during the night! I usually have some flavored water, probably a little snack, and I definitely write best if I can just get a big chunk out at once. I try to write regularly while not putting pressure on myself, so it winds up being every few days at least, unless I’m just super grabbed by something and it won’t let go of my brain.

Is there an easy thing for you to write or anything you struggle with?

Oh I love writing horror. If I can incorporate horror into something, or explore what I think is scary about a situation, then it flows SUPER well. Or if I’m getting to do something with a lot of dialogue. Or lately, smut, because consensual NSFW writing has really been going well too.

I also tend to struggle with delving more into environmental, in-depth descriptions. Or diving hardcore into tactics with my military whump stuff because I…am not a clever man sometimes.  Also patiently staying on a linear timeline is the worst. I can never do it. Which sucks, because it puts me in a situation like now, where I KNOW how a bunch of characters WILL be and I want to write about it publicly NOW but first I have to REINTRODUCE them AND get them through the initial “I want to kill you here and now” conflict. 

Is there anything you're working on at the moment?

I’m working on so much right now! I do written roleplays, my drafts are 15 posts deep, and that’s not even counting my random google docs. Uh I’m working on introducing Mariano’s war buddies again, a bunch of smut, I have a grim reaper fighting a losing battle against a demon, a prompt game request for a friend, a response piece for my co writer, more therapy vignettes for said war buddies, and– you get the picture!

Sounds like you’re pretty swamped! Do you have any advice you’d like to share?

Write what makes you excited! If you don’t want to read what you’re writing, change it! Make it self indulgent! Make more OCs that are specifically catered to you and what you love and want to see! That’s more fun to read anyway, honestly, I love seeing passion!

Shout out to your favourite writing/whump blogs, bffs or people who've inspired you. We're hyping everyone up here!!!

YEAH HERE WE GO! I’ll shout out my co writer @brinkofdiscovery, my bestie @friendlylocalwhumper, my accomplices @comfy-whumpee , @that-one-thespian, and @painful-pooch, uh god there are so many more people. So many people are so sweet! @actress4him, and @inscrutable-shadow, and like everyone in the various servers I’m in, I can’t name everyone or this post would get so obscenely long so quickly… 

Anything you'd like to add?

Thank you for this!! It’s super fun to see this happening, and I like getting to see everyone talking about stuff.

Thanks so much for joining us today!

And to all you folks at home, have a whumpder-ful day!

[boreal-sea]

www.tumblr.com/femsolid/701727431780859904

This you?

Am I Femsolid? No. Do you mean to say my posts look like some of the ones in the screenshots? Also no. Like, laughably untrue.

TL;DR - the link is a list of screenshots, many of which are discussing radfem and terf red flags, others of which are people accusing other folks of being terfs.

Some of the red flags pointed out are very valid; in other cases, the person making the accusation is clearly in the wrong. It is a mixed bag of things that are true in certain contexts but none of which can be said to definitively mean much of anything.

---

I've actually made a whole post talking about how people shouldn't bend so far backwards in their attempt to spot radfems and terfs that they start spouting shit that's actually anti-feminist and in some cases downright misogyny.

Those screenshots are a mix of people being right and people being wrong.

One thing I will say straight up:

It is a tactic of TERFs to call trans people and trans allies "TERF" any time that person says anything even vaguely feminist because they are trying to confuse people into thinking there are a bunch of unhinged anti-feminist trans people out there.

They also do this because sometimes, if a trans ally is called "terf", and if they think it's trans people doing it, they may end up switching sides and becoming transphobic, so terfs are actively trying to recruit people through this method of harassment.

I'm not saying ALL of these posts are cases of cryptoterfs. But some of them feel pretty troll-like to me.

---

First two to three screenshots: talking about sex-based oppression does not make you a terf. Sex-based oppression is real. Everyone knows this. My guess is that the people who made those posts are in fact TERFs themselves.

---

"Raise boys and girls the same" is not terf rhetoric, that's basic feminism.

---

"Women arent even oppressed" post - OP is a child. Their opinion is irrelevant.

---

I dislike framing women as a "victim class" - I prefer to just call them marginalized as a class? And not all women are equally marginalized and some women DO have privilege over men. I don't agree with their phrasing here necessarily but they bring up good points.

---

Saying someone can "feel like a woman" is not sexist.

---

The next one calling out "afabs" in quotes talking about privilege is, overall, true.

The fact that this particular post uses "afab" instead of "cis women" though, is a red flag to me.

Some anti-transmasc people will use "AFAB" instead of "cis women" to lump trans afab people in with cis women and claim all afab people are on the same level of privilege/marginalization. This is not actually true, and cis women have more privilege than trans men.

---

TERFs and radfems regularly throw trans men under the bus during abortion talks. This is just fucking true.

---

Posts that tend to focus entirely on how all men are oppressors, posts that regularly refer to cis women as "females", and that try to claim that being a woman is an identity based on shared suffering...

That stuff can indeed be a red flag that the post is by a terf or radfem.

---

Unfortunately, middle-aged white women in American tend to be conservatives. They overwhelmingly voted for Trump. They are very likely to be transphobic. I don't personally advise people to stereotype like that, but it does make me do more research and look through that person's posts to see what they're saying about trans people. Like the OP of that post, I have rarely been wrong.

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Anyone who self-identifies as a misandrist is unsafe for trans people, and it is a HUGE red flag that the person is both transphobic and a radfem.

Also, anyone can suffer from misogyny.

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Again, unfortunately, a lot of pro-feminist symbols and phrases are used by radfems and terfs, and they tend to use those phrases more openly than normal feminists do, so those are indeed red flags.

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On Tumblr, seeing "anti makeup" on someone's profile is a red flag.

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The body hair post: this reads like a terf's parody of what they THINK trans men say and it's honestly hilarious.

All the trans men I know are huge feminists who believe anyone of any gender or sex should have the right to do whatever they want with their body.

---

Yeah uh that's transphobic as hell. WTF Lady Gaga? You're usually very trans-inclusive.

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Nah I'm gonna keep saying "sexism".

---

Yeah, talking about the trauma of girlhood is unfortunately often a terf dogwhistle. Not always, but it's a red flag and you have to go double check. I sure wish transphobia wasn't so rampant among radfems and I wish this wasn't necessary, but it is.

---

"There's no wrong way to be a woman/girl" has very specifically been used against me, a trans man, as a way to misgender me and tell me I'm harming little girls by being trans. I completely understand other transmascs feeling like this phrase is a red flag.

---

The last screenshot is the weirdest thing I've ever tried to understand and if I'm reading it correctly, they're claiming that trans rights are more important that women's rights?? Fucking bonkers.

Women's rights are human rights, too.

You cannot try to places human rights into a hierarchy. They are all equally important. Women's rights, trans rights, racial equality, etc - all of these are spokes on a wheel AND individuals may exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.

[x-cl-br]

I'm back to talk about ttrpg stuff!!!

soooooo a while back (before last semester's classes devoured all my free time) i was doing weekly posts about my custom ttrpg system, and i REALLY want to start doing that again...

so here's a lil refresher on what i made and why i did that!

so whats the system

basically, the group i play with is super into immersive roleplay and not too fond of the whole turn-based tactics battle system that dnd has. just, too much math and way too many options... just a big time sink because everyone's more interested in building a narrative together through rp

so, i slapped together a new system based on a fork of a fork of Call of Cthulhu, and then i heavily modified it to strip down everything to be as simple as possible.

"Something In The Dark" <- new name!!!!

yes, official name now!!! suggested by one of my players, he was spot on because it so perfectly describes the vibe of the game.

basically, you're looking at 6 basic stats, called traits:

Physique, Motorics, Stealth, Mind, Rhetoric, Shivers

these line up pretty intuitively with the usual Strength, Dex, Stealth, and Intelligence stats, but the last ones get a bit weird.

Rhetoric is focused on giving you guidance on how to reach an interpersonal goal, like getting someone to calm down or trust you (as well as detecting lying and all that). that way, players can still roleplay- no rolling for deception, they actually have to lie- but they get a bit of guidance when they roll Rhetoric. like, reading people's tells, basically.

Shivers is so obviously inspired by Disco Elysium, and is the catch all for intuition, vibes, and also spooky ghosts luring you to dark rooms. it's really flexible with flavoring, i've used it for muscle memory, fortune telling, and when players want to have gut feelings about stuff. basically, when players want to get info that there's no way they could logically get, it's a shivers roll.

theming

obviously all the stat names are changed (except for stealth, i couldnt figure out a good alternate name for that one), but i hope the names evoke a kind of clinical, detached vibe, like an autopsy report.

in fact, i tried to make all the names, descriptions, and theming feel a little off and too sterile in order to build an uncomfortable vibe. the goal is to make players think of their characters

and as you can probably tell already, its heavily influenced by disco elysium and the way that game makes your stats feel so alien and weird, and the player's guide i made basically looks like the text interface from that game

i really want to share the player's guide on here, and i will at some point, but i'm constantly editing it and playtesting new stuff so that might be a ways off.

anyways, yeah! thats a refresher on what the system's deal is, i want to go and do more in depth analysis of it and talk about more mechanics, but for this week i just want to get back into the swing of posting on here with some simple overview stuff

in general, i'm gonna post a bunch more on here now that my hardest college semester is in the rearview mirror, but theres for sure gonna be a lot of ttrpg design stuff!!!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Here’s something that bothers me in comedy shows, and I genuinely don’t know whether I’m right to find this annoying. It’s also not just comedians who talk about it, you get thinkpieces and stuff about this too, and those also annoy me. But lately I’ve happened to hear a lot of comedians bring it up.

It’s when people talk about the “liberal bubble”. The way leftists are driving people away from their cause by being so nitpicky, so extreme in their views, refusing to accept anyone who steps out of line even a little bit. Most of the time, this claim comes from left-wing people, who just think we as leftists need to talk about being more accepting of differing views.

I watched Daniel Sloss’ new-ish special Socio last week, and there’s a bunch in there about it. He says he’s left-wing, but sometimes he wishes he weren’t, because it’s so annoying that you have to be perfect or the leftists won’t accept you. Like if you’re not every single thing they want you to be, they’ll call you a fascist. They’ll ask, are you pro-LGBTQ people? Yes? Okay, then are you anti-racist? Yes? Then are you anti-sexist? Yes? Then are you a vegan? No? Then fuck you!

It's always veganism, isn’t it? It’s always veganism that’s used as the example of left-wing people taking it too far, imposing their views on everyone else. And I think that’s because it’s just about the only left-wing view that actually isn’t a reasonable thing to want to impose on everyone else. I mean, Daniel Sloss’ routine would not work nearly so well if he swapped veganism for anything else. “Are you pro-LGBTQ people? Yes? Okay, then are you anti-racist? Yes? Then are you a vegan? Yes? Then are you anti-sexist? No? Then fuck you!” Do the routine that way, and the answer is… well, yes. Yes, leftists are correct to say that misogynists can fuck off even if they’re cool in other ways. It’s actually fair to expect people to not be bigoted against any vulnerable section of society, that’s not too many things to ask.

If someone is going around calling someone a fascist or a murderer for not being vegan, then that is shitty behaviour. And maybe it happens more often than I think it does. But I have never, in real life, heard anyone say that there’s anything wrong with not being a vegan. I haven’t met many vegans at all, but the ones I’ve met have never been dicks about it. On the internet, I have very occasionally come across vegans suggesting that meat-eaters are murderers. But I haven’t come across that nearly as often as I’ve come across people complaining about how vegans think meat-eaters are murderers.

I used Daniel Sloss as the example because I happened to have watched him do it recently, but I’ve heard other comedians do this, and often use vegans as their example, I think for the same reason Daniel Sloss did. It’s the only one that it’s okay to pick on. In Alun Cochrane’s “why I’ve decided to go right-wing” 2021 special, he talked a lot about feeling that his views and beliefs are not accepted by the leftist bubble of his comedy friends, but he rarely goes into detail about what those beliefs are. A common tactic used by the “outraged about cancel culture” crowd, because it’s easier to say “accept my beliefs” than “accept my belief that [then actually say what shitty thing they believe]”. The one “belief” for which he claims to have been persecuted and he does discuss in detail is eating meat. He tells a story about another comedian calling him a murderer for not being a vegan, and then says this is a sign of how rigid and un-accepting leftists have become.

Again, that story wouldn’t work as well with just about anything else. “Another comedian told me to stop saying hateful things about Muslims, how could they be so mean as to not accept my beliefs?” doesn’t sound as good. But yeah, if another comedian did, in fact, call Alun Cochrane a murderer for eating meat, then that comedian was being a dick and should not have said that. But also, I’m quite sure he was full of shit when claiming that all his comedian friends, due to comedy being such a “liberal bubble”, now consider him a fascist just for eating meat.

In fact, I can be completely sure of that, because I know who his comedian friends are. If he’d just talked about his friends in general, then I’d say, okay, I guess it’s technically possible that he’s befriended a group of radical hardline vegans somewhere. But he specifically talked a lot about the comedy community being a liberal bubble full of radical vegans, and I do know what comedians he hangs out with (or used to hang out with, at least), and they’re not. One of his comedian friends has material about how much he loves pork despite being Jewish, and another has material about how he doesn’t eat meat but hates that it might make people uncomfortable when he tells them that, as he has no problem with other people who make different choices. Some comedians might be radical vegans, but card-carrying Chocolate Milk Gang member Alun Cochrane definitely knows at least a few who aren’t.

Also, one of Alun Cochrane’s comedian friends was telling a story in his stand-up around 2017 about how he’d recently stopped eating meat, even though his friend Alun had tried to talk him out of that choice by saying humans are meant to be meat-eaters. So maybe it’s not only the vegans who try to impose their dietary choices on other people.

It is true, I have noticed, that a lot of British comedians are vegan or vegetarian. Definitely a disproportionate percentage of them, compared to the general population. And I assume that is related to the fact that comedians tend to veer leftward, more than the general population does. I don’t know any vegans in real life at the moment, have only come across a few throughout my life, but the folder of stand-up comedy on my hard drive is absolutely full of vegans. And I have never heard a single one of them suggest that there’s anything wrong with eating meat.

(...Wait, sorry, I finished writing this post, and then came back here to say I’ve just remembered the extremely weird movie called Carnage that Simon Amstell made. So it’s not technically true to say that none of the comedians on my hard drive have said there’s something wrong with eating meat. One out of the large number of them has definitely said that, and he got Mawaan Rizwan to act it out, it was weird. Okay, fair enough, Alun, if you happen to have spent a lot of time with Simon Amstell, then I can believe another comedian has repeatedly called you a murderer for eating meat. Just stop hanging out with Simon Amstell then. It’s not that big a deal.)

I do know that the vegans are right, by the way. I’m not a vegan for the same reason why I sometimes order things from Amazon: sometimes I pick nice things, like 2-day delivery or the taste of steak, over making the most ethical choice. But I know it’s much better to not eat meat, for a huge number of reasons. I’ve noticed that a lot of comedians are vegan just because every time one of them mentions being a vegan, it sticks in my mind a little as a reminder that some people make more ethical choices than I do, and then I feel vaguely guilty about it. But that’s fine. They’re not trying to make me feel guilty. It’s good that people feel vaguely guilty about not making the ethical choice. I feel that way when I order stuff on Amazon as well, and sometimes I feel it enough to actually not order the thing. So, you know, guilt can have benefits.

It’s not just about veganism, people criticize the “liberal bubble” for all kinds of things. For arguing about the use of words more than the actions behind them, getting bogged down in discourse and in moral purity in ways that are detrimental to the cause and hurt innocent people. For demanding perfection from its members. For refusing to accept even slightly differing points of view. And some of those criticisms are technically fair.

Daniel Sloss talked about it, like I said. Tim Minchin had some stuff about that in his 2022 tour Back. He talked a lot about leftists who demand semantic purity specifically, and I can understand why that issue seems like a big one to him. He used the word “faggot” in his recent-ish autobiographical song Talked Too Much and Stayed Too Long (an awesome song, by the way). I haven’t seen people get mad about that song, but I’m sure it happened. I assume if you’re Tim Minchin, and therefore hear every complaint that gets submitted about Tim Minchin saying faggot in a song, then it's going to seem like a huge number of people got incredibly angry about that song. Even if it was only a small percentage of people who heard it.

Personally, I think it’s fine that Tim Minchin said faggot. Obviously context matters – if he actually called someone that, even as a joke, I wouldn’t think that was okay. In this case, the context was Tim Minchin listing things that other people have called him throughout his career. “I’ve been a bigot and a faggot, I’ve been smug and ugly.” The politics of slur reclamation are complicated, but as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve been called a word, you should be allowed to tell people you were called that word. I also think context and intention are more important than the use of a word itself. Repeating something someone else said to point out that saying this is bad is not the same as using a word as a weapon yourself. Though even within that rule, exceptions exist (the big one being: don’t use the N word if you’re not black, hard and fast rule with no exceptions regardless of context and intention, and if you don’t think it’s fair that that one slur works that way and others are more flexible, then take it up with the people who perpetrated hundreds of years of slavery – having said that, there are comedians I like who’ve said that word in the past, and I disagree with their choice to say that word in any context, but I can still forgive that enough to like them anyway if I think the context was reasonable and it was long enough ago and I don’t think they’d say it now).

I realize there’s even some debate about whether I, as a female gay person, should be allowed to use a word that describes the male ones. But I would direct you to the man who shouted “faggot” at us while I held hands with my then-girlfriend on the sidewalk in 2012, because his mother had clearly never taught him the word dyke. Like I said, if a word’s been aimed at you, you should get to use it. When my girlfriend and I arrived at our destination and met up with our friends, we at least deserved to be allowed to tell those friends what slur we’d been called.

Those are my views, and a reasonable and progressive person could have different ones. I think it’s reasonable if a different gay person has a problem with Tim Minchin saying faggot, and I think a reasonable debate can be had about when it is and isn’t okay. I can also believe that some people may have been unreasonable about it, saying terrible things like suggesting a comedy musician should die because he used a certain word. That is bad, and it’s fair enough if Tim Minchin wants to say so, and wants to talk about the toxicity created by things like that.

So I do see where he was coming from, but it still felt disproportionate. Just like it felt disproportionate when Daniel Sloss went on about all those people who are so leftist that they’ll hate you for having a single less-than-progressive view, and when Alun Cochrane claimed that all comedians were persecuting him for eating meat. Maybe one or two people did say something unreasonable, but are there really enough of them to constitute a mob? Is this really big enough to be a problem in society?

Because I don’t see it. When I hear people talk about the “liberal bubble”, I think the same way that I do when people say it’s great that this female action hero is also really feminine, because it shows girls that they can be strong and kick ass while still liking makeup! What movies are you all watching that are full of butch female action heroes, to the point where it’s unusual and revolutionary representation to show that strong female characters can wear dresses too? Similarly, what world are you all living in where everyone is so progressive that your big problem is everyone being too progressive? Seriously, what world is it? Where is this liberal bubble? It sounds great! I wish I could live there!

Obviously, my view on this is coloured by my own experience. The main “bubble” I live in is my sports community; most people involved with this sport mainly know other people who are also involved with this sport, it’s such an all-consuming thing that it’s hard to have a lot of connections outside it. So it definitely qualifies as a bubble, and it is not a liberal one. In 2020, one of the most famous American athletes in our sport accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump. This news did not shock me, because I’ve never liked that guy anyway. What did bother me were the comments under an article about it. So many people saying how great it is that President Donald Trump supports our noble sport. One comment said that of course Obama would never give this medal to anyone from our sport, because it’s a sport mostly done by conservatives, so the liberal elites hate it. My immediate instinct was to say “fuck you, how fucking dare you speak for our entire community that way”, but then I thought about my Facebook feed, mainly people from this sport and also full of COVID conspiracy theories, and I realized, I think they’re right. I’m the one in the minority here.

My actual friends are decent people, obviously. My close friends within our sports community were not the ones posting about Plandemics. But we’re all in the minority within the wider sports community. Honestly, when I listened to Alun Cochrane’s comedy special about having gone right-wing and feeling out of place among leftie comedians, I actually understood that a bit. I mean, fuck him, fuck his beliefs, fuck anyone who tries to tell me that leftists should not be allowed to say “fuck you” to shitty beliefs, I am not trying to defend Alun Cochrane. But all the people saying we should try to find “common ground with the other side” will be pleased to know that I did find a bit of common ground with Alun Cochrane in that special. I related to a bit of what he said about feeling like you’re in the minority, belief-wise, in your own social community. So it’s similar, but not equivalent, because, you know, my beliefs are objectively better than his. They’re not objectively better than everyone’s, lots of people are smarter than me, and there is lots of room for reasonable debate. But they’re objectively better than Alun Cochrane’s. Alun Cochrane made a “blue hair and pronouns” joke in 2021, and then went on Comedy Unleashed and said the government shouldn’t pay to feed low-income children at Christmas. Seriously, I’m not looking to have a lot of common ground with him.

So it makes sense that I haven’t experienced this liberal bubble everyone talks about. But also, there are reasons why I would have seen it if it were that big an issue. I live right downtown in a city of a million people, in one of the most progressive places in Canada. I live next to a neighbourhood that people joke about for being full of hippies and hipsters. When I go into that neighbourhood, I see the rainbow flags and the vegan cafes and the transgender bookstore (that’s not a joke or anything, there actually is one, it’s basically Portlandia and it’s pretty cool), and they make me happy. I go there to buy groceries, and never once has anyone yelled at me for purchasing meat. I’m a fairly gender non-conforming mostly gay woman – I wouldn’t be able to have friends who went against a few things on Daniel Sloss’ List of Things That Leftists Are Unreasonable For Demanding Everyone Follow. Also, I hang out on Tumblr, which is basically Leftist Bubble: The Website.

Despite all this, I have never seen a bubble where I thought it being too leftist was a significant problem, anywhere near on the level of what happens on the other side. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all. I’m sure they do exist, and I’m sure they are, in a few rare cases, a genuine problem. But are they really as big a problem as they’re often made out to be? I’ve heard people complain about this stuff so much more often than I’ve actually seen it happening.

Do you know what I’m dealing with in day-to-day life right now? On my team, we’ve been having problems all year with the male athletes becoming increasingly sexist toward the female athletes and even the female coaches, and repeating some attitudes that we know they’re getting directly from the Joe-Rogan-to-Andrew-Tate pipeline. We recently found out that one of our co-coaches, one of my oldest friends whom I first met when he was my high school teammate back in 2006, has been encouraging that. Specifically told a few of the athletes, at one point, that Andrew Tate has said some good stuff. Has been working, behind the scenes, to encourage some of the male athletes who want separate practices from the female athletes, and telling them that they’re right to not want to work with girls. It’s been going on for a while but I had no idea about it until recently. We’re struggling to work out how to deal with it, whether to confront the guy about it, how to mitigate the damage he’s done. I’m also struggling with feeling incredibly betrayed on a personal level; I’ve known this guy for so long, and I’ve been through so much with him over all these years, and I thought I knew him better than that. (So you can maybe scratch what I said earlier about all my personal friends being all right when it comes to this.)

Basically, I wrote this entire post because I watched that Daniel Sloss special while dealing with this other problem, and it just made me say, “Come on, even if there is a bit of a problem with some leftists being too rigid in their thinking, does it fucking matter?” Because not to play Oppression Olympics or anything, but my problem is bigger than yours. My problem is big enough to make me think yours doesn’t matter at all by comparison. And my problem is so far from being the biggest one – there are so many victims of the right-wing takeover of culture who have it much, much worse than I do. Who cares if some leftists didn’t like Tim Minchin using a word? Honestly, who cares if one guy was a dick to Alun Cochrane about being vegan once? It’s not that big a deal. The world is burning because people think regulating carbon emissions is too woke, and in light of that, radical vegans are not that big a deal. At least those people are trying to do the right thing.

Just after watching the Daniel Sloss special, I watched Tom Ballard’s 2022 special, Enough. I really really enjoyed that one, and I recommend it highly. He also had some material about the “liberal bubble”, but had a take on it that I found refreshingly different. He said he knows he lives in a liberal bubble, and he likes it there, it’s great. He had a whole routine about how people say leftists need to “listen to the other side”, but it’s not like the other side will listen to us, and he’ll hear out Joe Rogan the day Joe Rogan starts reading progressive thinkpieces on Medium.com (it was something like that, it’s been a few days since I saw it and I’m butchering his material, it was really funny and people should watch the special). He also made some jokes that used the same basic premise as that one Chris Rock joke (that we can trade roles in society if white people want to say the black people slur so badly, “you shout [slur that I won’t write down] and I’ll raise interest rates”): the leftist bubble might control the arts, but the right-wingers get to control the governments and corporations and actually run society, and if they’re going to complain about the arts being too much of a liberal bubble, then we’d be happy to trade. I agreed the fuck out of that. I laughed because it was funny and I agreed the fuck out of it – see, Stewart, it’s okay, sometimes it can be both.

The other comedian I can immediately think of who’s done stuff like this is Michael Legge, who started one of his shows by saying he’s a left-wing man, but it may be hard to tell that because he is not currently arguing with someone he basically agrees with about one tiny point of divergence. I like that joke, because that is something I have seen. Leftists arguing over tiny differences, often semantic ones. We do that all the time, we love that shit. But most of the time, I’ve seen that happen among people who were friends before and after that discussion, and are just arguing as a hobby.

The toxic rigid no-room-for-deviation liberal bubble thing – I’m sure it exists, but it just can’t be as big a problem as people think. And if someone’s really struggling that much with it, then I have a sport they can join where they’ll never have the problem of being surrounded by too many progressives again. Seriously... if you’re in a liberal bubble and sick of it, please join us. We really need more people from liberal bubbles to balance out the rampant antivaxxers and straight-up misogynists.

[morimakesfanart]

Is your house big enough for 10 people 🫠 I can feel myself melting away thinking about the problems you will face 😮‍💨 but having anime people in your house how cool is that 😎

We can make it work. Due to financial and legal reason, my sibling and I have been unable to move out of our parents' home. Here's a preview from what I have written so far that explains how all of them will fit:

When I was 4 1/2 years old, we had to move because my mom's job changed locations. At that same time she was pregnant with my younger sibling, so we also moved into a bigger home. My parents were sold a house they couldn't afford the upkeep on, but they wouldn't understand that for several years. And because of the crashing housing bubble, job markets, and person taste, my parents out right denied the idea of selling the house to get a smaller place we could actually properly take care of. Our roof has poorly patch, holes, and our siding is rotting -to name some of the growing problems. However, it did have a few more rooms than the average house. Both of my parents were hoarders and 7 years after my mom's death, we were still clearing out her things, and fighting my father from adding to the problem. Luckily, in the past few years we had managed to mostly clear out the 2 rooms that had once been a dining room(now "the back room"), and home office (now "the den"). It would be cramped, but we would be able to fit all 9 of them. Both the living room and the den each have a sofa with a pullout queen mattress, and since my dad was a literal hoarder that wouldn't let us throw things out, we have another old queen mattress in our basement, and a king mattress blocking the coat closet. The two old mattresses could be laid on the floor in the back room next to the den. All 4 of those would be enough to fit 9 people ....even with Hina being a giant. I decided to leave the end decisions for who would sleep where to our guests. If they could run a country, they could figure out who was going to sleep where on their own.

Since I was little, my parents pulled out of their pensions and 401Ks multiple times to keep us afloat, so we wouldn't have to move :( We've only been surviving since my mom died, because of me working, and my mom leaving a bunch in savings that my dad uses to pay utilities and most of the food bill. My dad can't work, so I have been the one paying the mortgage, insurance, and taxes for the house too. There are still a few more years left before it will be payed off. Since the house is falling apart it's an eyesore, so we are being charged higher taxes then our neighbors. (This is a common tactic to kick out "problem" families instead of helping them.) Once the house is paid off, I can start putting money aside to be able to try fixing the house, and hopefully get our taxes lowered.

In the fanfic, I plan to have Sin and the Generals work enough to help us, so it won't focus on our struggles. I am planning on having one chapter as set up, and then any other requests for things to happen in the reverse isekai AU will be chapters after that. :D

Me and my younger sibling, Lyly, have discussed reverse isekai for a ton of series before, so we already have some plans for how it could work, and what we would do. Since I started working on this in June of '22, I have talked to my family about what we would do, and how we might make it work. The excerpt I put above is something I talked to them about earlier today, actually XD We talked for over an hour about the different characters and how they might be able to help us too. My whole household knows Magi because I live here and they can't get me to shut up about it XD They've both seen the full anime for Magi and Adventures; Lyly has read a bit of both manga but didn't finish. Everyone in this house agrees that Ja'far is a lot like Lyly, so my dad said he'd be comfortable with Ja'far helping him with paperwork stuff. He also wants to know more about Hina after learning that he's also a widower and over 50 y/o. So it's going to be fun writing how all of them help us get out of the red :3

For all the people that have dm'd me asking if Lyly will ever isekai into Sindria's Prophet after reading my diary comic, "Mori the Webcomic," the answer is: probably not because I don't want to ever misrepresent them. I will write some one shots where it happens for fun, and they will be in this reverse iskekai AU. Lyly is taking a semi active roll with the writing for any chapter that they appear in.

[bakugous-forehead]

I think there are a lot of questions about your tactics here, and that's why there are so many messages about it. For example, if someone is a brand new blog, how long do you wait before blocking them for not adding an age or not reblogging fics? Do you give them a few days or is it on sight, because what if they haven't had the chance to do so yet? And for users that have set up a blog, how far back on their pages are you going? Some people reblog a bunch of stuff a day and their recs could be hidden in a few pages. How much time are you spending making sure they don't "support" creators?

A lot of people come at you in their anger and are very unkind which isn't okay, but I think it's difficult to hear you and other creators call these "lurkers" worthless and useless to the fandom as a whole. It's very aggressively derogatory, I guess. Not everyone has the time to devote a large portion of their day to keeping up an aesthetic fanfic blog. Not everyone is on tumblr every day. Some people just come on to read when they have the chance, and yes, it would be nice for them to show their support, but it's difficult to want to when you're called useless for not interacting in the specific way you're calling for. Some people like stuff to reblog later. How do you approach that situation?

Not meant to be a hate message, just offering some thoughts as an outsider. And maybe a chance for clarity between everyone.

Honestly? I spend more fucking time than I should doing this shit. Time that if you add it up could’ve probably written an entire multichap in, and yet I still do it.

I’ll typically block every few days because I’m lazy and it’s now become my worst part of tumblr so it just annoys me when I do it. I’d say a few days is a good amount for a new user to reblog at least one piece of fanart or one fic/drabble. Especially when the blank blogs I’m blocking have page after page of fics in their likes.

When it’s a blog that doesn’t reblog fics I’ve literally gone back months and found nothing. You can also use the little search symbol at the top of their page to double check that they haven’t reblogged fics which is way easier, but I like to scroll because it gives that actual time indication on whether they’ve reblogged something or not.

I know it hurts to hear that you’re worthless to tumblr if you’re a lurker, but it’s true? It’s so so true. Because if no one even knows that you’re here, because you’re not using the site as intended, and you’re not supporting creators that probably make your day/night, that’s exactly what you are?

I have a ridiculous amount of followers on that blog, more than anyone needs on tumblr, and over 90% of them don’t reblog or comment on fics. If you had that many followers wouldn’t you want to cut it down too? To make your space more comfortable? The way you’re talking is that 40,000 followers are too busy to reblog a single fic. One fic. Let’s assume that 39,000 of those followers are old/inactive. You still have a thousand people too “busy” to reblog fic, but they can reblog a thousand posts about vanilla extract, porn links and ugly white men.

People that like stuff to reblog later will have fics on their page, the people I’m blocking have none. If you’re one of the people supporting writers you have nothing to worry about, Anon. But I’m assuming that you’re a lurker.

I can so easily unblock people, the same way they can easily reblog a fic. If this is what it takes to make people understand when writers are literally begging for for interaction then I don’t mind being the one to get all this shit slung at me if it means that someone’s day is made by one single reblog on their fic.

Anyway— please post a comment this long on your favourite fic on tumblr? Cause I bet you’ve never bothered.

[transwrongs]

anyways. after scrolling thru like ten or twenty “gender criticaI” blogs i’ve realised that a lot of transphobic people who claim to be “criticaI” of gender are like…? extremely not that? like i’m scrolling and scrolling reading post after post waiting to find some profoundly transphobic argument that idk i hadn’t seen before ? or was articulated in a way that i actually found worthy deconstructing but… no you see a bunch of people kinda whining about trans women(they’ve shifted to a vague ‘certain demographic’ or ‘gender ideology’ as the enemy but it’s the same thing) and fear mongering (lying) about trans women. they all make the same generalised, very uncritical assessments of society at large.

certain transphobic people on tumblr will say the craziest fucking things about women and men and expect everyone to just believe them. “no woman would choose to shave herself if it weren’t for the beauty industry” how can you possibly know that? i mean normal people know that’s not true but why do YOU think that’s true???? or like,

generally uncritical wrt intersectionality. because misogyny is enemy number one, stuff like racism and ableism takes a backseat to “all women normal all men evil”. to them, it matters a lot that women are seen as the only victims that Matter. the discrimination/marginalisation you feel outside of that is secondary.

so, Black men? sorry but you’re still men so White Women’s role in your subjugation/fetishisation doesn’t matter, don’t talk about it or else you’re a sexist who’s hiding behind “white women” to espouse your misogyny. *seriously i haven’t seen any posts discussing race and it’s intersection with gender except to criticise its use in analysing gender. that is fundamentally an uncritical take.

you’re not allowed to criticise women (~4 billion people) and their objective role in perpetuating and maintaining patriarchy/misogyny. or well, i shouldn’t say ‘not allowed’; women are criticised constantly by people who claim to be vehemently against it. women who “bow down” to “gender ideology”, women who wear makeup, women who love men, women who shave, women who generally do not Woman the Right way. but that’s their way is only way you’re allowed to criticise women. because, you see, they have the Right opinions about women and what’s good for them. critiques of the beauty and porn industry are extremely valid and holding women accountable for their roles in both are fundamental to feminism. but that’s not what these people are doing,,, they aren’t critical of women as perpetrators of a larger system (like men are) they are critical of women as if they are traitors…. as if they are betrayers or victims who don’t know what’s good for them and not, ya know, women making conscious and unconscious choices inspired by myriad of lived experiences (like we all are (including men))

if you believe female separatism is a real viable tactic for female liberation you are extremely uncritical of the world around you (and falling for fascist rhetoric). if you unironically think that you can split a line down the middle of the entire human population and make a clean break between man and woman, not only are you extremely uncritical of the world around you, you are also an idiot (and falling for fascist rhetoric).

ultimately i don’t think there is a single definition of feminism that can include all woman and exclude all men without being bad feminism. you cannot force women to live the way you want them to (like… i know you know how bad it is to tell women what to do?? you claim to be very critical of industries under capitalism that specifically exploit women and are designed to exploit women……?) whether you like it or not women have men in their lives who love them and who they love back. wanting to take that from them isn’t feminism, sorry. no amount of you pretending this isn’t the case is going to do anything except confuse/hurt you and women everywhere.

[a-kaash-me-outside]

Gurl …… !

that was so gross and disrespectful on Atsumu’s part?? The way that he chooses to speak to y/n over what was clearly not meant to be a jab at him. if he’d used his brain for 2 seconds he would’ve figured out it was y/n’s insecurities coming out in the form of what was kind of a tasteless joke. Ahhh If i were her I wouldn’t have stuck around to witness the fuckery of someone so spiteful and immature. Also the way that he treats other women is such a red flag wtf! Just because the other women aren’t the one you have a crush on doesn’t mean you can treat them like disposable tissues omgg. The fact that all it takes is a misunderstanding and he’s ready and willing to use a woman as a prop to make another woman upset says a lot about him! And to do it during intimacy when women generally feel more vulnerable!!! I doubt the girl he brought back gave consent to be listened in on and used as a revenge tactic!! Who knows maybe she would’ve been chill with it if he’d asked but judging by her reaction he evidently didn’t so we’ll never know hahahahahah

And like yea sure y/n technically shouldn’t be upset because they aren’t TECHNICALLY boyfriend and girlfriend but.. why would you wanna be with someone who justifies their shitty behaviour on a technicality lol

I was all for mr tsumu but now I’m looking at the way that maki reacts when he’s jealous and the way Atsumu reacts and it’s clear who is the more mature man!! Oof. I’m scared of what Oikawa and the guys are gonna do when they find out how much of an asshole Atsumu is!!

Once again, thank you for the brilliant chapter! This one got me riled up and I’ll be waiting in anticipation for next week!!

SEE OKAY. this, in comparison to the ask RIGHT BEFORE? incredible. i absolutely love the different thoughts and perspectives and how people FEEL ABOUT THE END OF THE CHAPTER UGH.

(bunch more thoughts under the cut, but like... it's so long i made it a read more LMAO)

the thought of yn staying around (which i mentioned in a previous ask) because i thought abt yn leaving and going to maki's or calling maki or something was literally just yn stuck in processing feelings, almost shock and disbelief causing her to see if she really has a need to process really difficult feelings

I'VE ALSO kinda thought a lot about like oh is he just using all of these people to have sex w and the answer is like yea ok sure yes, but also, that's kinda just sex culture. truthfully, i wrote him having a lot of sex as like not really a bad thing? him having a lot of sex with people who kinda just want the same thing as him, just yknow, sex no feelings, isn't uncommon and i don't think makes him an asshole. doubly because i don't write anything about him talking shit about the people he has sex with or looking down on them for doing what he does because he doesn't or like leading them on or anything? he's really straight forward with these things. which i've kinda written about in little bits?

HOWEVER yea no the other points you made are super valid. i'm not trying to excuse this time (the end of ch6) because no, yeah, uncalled for and absolutely gross and very bad, BUT YEA. kinda background on how i felt about other stuff with it :)

i do think that the whole "it's just a technicality" thing goes a bit deeper than that. like it is just a technicality sure yes, but it goes both ways. she clearly doesn't want to be something more with him despite the times that he's tried to push it into that? but she still flirts with him and acts like a couple with him so it's a weird line to thread. AND can we also just all remember that she literally almost had sex with maki, ABSOLUTELY WOULDVE just a few short weeks ago. just a thOGUHT. ( but yea no maki's mvp always has been love that guy )

and YKNOW i did say that the angst was coming I WARNED EVERYONE ABOUT THIS hehe. excited to hear your thoughts about how everything wraps up !!!