#fun fact i still have like. three more sections to write
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Me: Gee I sure hope this fan fic is pretty long it feels like it should be a long one. Maybe 5 or 6k words Me: *checks the word count* The word count: *is 5,130* Me: Me: Hmm. Well. I'm gonna succeed at my goal at least
#listen i don't usually care about word counts#but i spent four straight hours daydreaming about this one#it's gonsta be pretty long#fun fact i still have like. three more sections to write#i have a lot of words about this okay#i didn't make a playlist for nothing#chenford#the rookie#2 weeks of chenford wips
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the roomies!!! i originally designed this ososan oc trio in full about a year ago to write on an rp blog. it's not really active rn, but i still want to talk and post about 'em, so here they are! just basic rundowns, but i'd be curious to hear which one (if any) is your fav of the three (feel free to leave it in the tags?? if u want!)
bonus transparent of them all together:
aaand some rambling under the cut about their designs
anzu:
i wanted to use orange as a character colour bc it's one that wasn't already used in the matsu rainbow, and i had a concept of a gyaru character named anzu kicking around in my head for a long time as well, so here we are. miwa from the mixer ep inspired the eyeshadow (orange rather than miwa's blue obv, to keep with her colour theme) and delinquent totoko's design inspired her ombre dyejob! i went with a blonde-to-orange look as a nod to anzu's namesake fruit (apricot).
the strands framing her face are split into 3 sections at the end (2/3 are grouped together and 1/3 flips in the other direction) which is a little nod to her being one of 3 siblings (eldest), as well as the "三" character used in her surname (mikado) meaning 3. the rest of her hairstyle is just because i thought it looked cute, though.
ososan's style is more simplified, but i wanted to convey makeup that was a little bold, but cute (long false lashes, eyeshadow, & and a soft pink or nude glossy lip). clothing-wise, she mixes and matches a few different substyles (agejo and onee are prominent, with some ane, tsuyome, and general old school gal influences as well?), with a particular fondness for animal prints, esp. tiger print. (that said, orange tiger print doesn't seem all that common in gyaru clothes, so in-universe i like to think that the top pictured above was originally a black-and-white zebra(?) stripe print she thrifted and dyed at home--close enough!)
her nails day to day are usually medium length since she has a lot of hobbies that involve her hands and anything longer makes those things a bit more cumbersome. sometimes they're decoden/bedazzled, sometimes they're just painted a cute colour/pattern, depends on the day! and i think she opts for press-ons over extensions for longer nails, since it's cheaper.
ran:
i'm just a bitch who loves purple, that's the reason for this one. i think the hime cut with shorter bangs is nice because you can showcase the eyebrows (i think eyebrows can really elevate a character design so i gave all 3 their own brow shape) without worrying about the lines for the eyebrows and bangs intersecting in an annoying way when you draw it. i like shorter, slightly sharp eyebrows like these because they're easy to draw, lol. i think they're usually furrowed like she's displeased with something, but that may just be her resting face. i also thought this blunter, sharper-looking cut (bold, standoffish) was a fun contrast to anzu's flippy half-updo (bright, bouncy) and yuzu's short, wavy hair (languid, relaxed).
5 piercings on each ear (2 spiked helix & 3 lobe) = 5 siblings including ran (4 older brothers). the other reason for this number of piercings was that her namesake flower (orchid) had--i thought--5 petals, but as it turns out i'm a fool, it's actually 3 petals (including the lip) and 3 sepals??? ah, well.
clothing-wise, influences from various punk/vkei styles alongside some rokku gyaru. (maybe anzu introduced her to this one?) this brash style is the total inverse of how she was expected to dress growing up. (when she and anzu first met, she was an OL with no piercings, undyed hair, and positively miserable, but that was a number of years ago now.) i'm really not reinventing the wheel with "small and angry", but y'know, we have fun here.
yuzu:
is teal distinct enough from blue to count as its own colour? i think so. for yuzu, i really loved the concept of a deadpan-looking character who is very much not the straightman, who in fact wants very badly to be the funnyman 99% of the time. that kind of straight-faced but silly comedic character is always really fun to me.
half-lidded/heavy-lidded eyes paired with thick brows are always a winner to me fsr, and i wanted to give her a more "handsome" looking face with a bit more of a defined jaw than you typically see on women in ososan. as a treat. i wanted her to look a bit like a mysterious prettyboy, but she's not actually mysterious, she's just a space cadet. (and very straightforward about her thoughts and feelings, saying them with little fuss or thought.) expectation vs reality, people deciding what you're like based on their own perception vs what you're actually like, etc. etc.
i don't have anything deep to say about her hairstyle, but maybe that's how yuzu would like it, what you see is what you get. (again, eyebrows vs hair... let that eyebrow scar that i gave her for no reason shine.) as for clothing, she prefers things that are easy to move around in, so her style is the most "matsuno"-like (t-shirts, hoodies, basketball shorts, sweats, etc.). in particular, she likes shirts with phrases, usually in english, that are funny or almost make sense but not quite ("for background visual gags" and "for the english speakers in the audience").
#ocmatsu#osomatsu san#osomatsu san oc#ososan oc#no clue what tag ppl use the most#fighting for my life to post this against my weird embarrassment abt showing my ocs outside of an rp blog#like yeah heres the little people i created in my head. yeah i made them to play pretend with. jesus christ#doing the equivalent of throwing this onto everyone's porch and then running away shielding my eyes#peach art#peach ocs#i had it in my head that anzu was a medabots fan as a kid which is where her fondness for robot characters comes from#wasn't even thinking about shake and ume LMAO i should draw that interaction tho#yuzu is THE hangyodon stan of all time btw. and that's half the reason she's so good at crane games. gotta win merch of the boy#ran liking ferrets im just like yeah i think she would like their little hands. childhood special interest perhaps#anzuranyuzu pj set perhaps i'll put her in a ferret kigurumi#anzu's would be a tiger and yuzu's idk....... pigeon? seal? up in the air#ran#anzu#yuzu#listed their age range instead of exact age because [gestures vaguely] ososan ages..... time...........#generally speaking i think yuzu is 1 year (maybe 2) younger than the matsus and ran and anzu are maybe 1-2 years older??? thereabouts
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a love letter to trans romance
because i can't be normal about media and i'm making it y'all's problems
hi hello and welcome to my mildly unhinged ramblings about love and gender. this post comes to you in three sections, enjoy <3
--
t4t romance novels made me believe in love again
the first romance book i ever read was The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver. TFOFIL is a t4t (trans for trans) romance that follows a teenage trans boy, Neil Kearney, and a figuring-out-their-gender teen, Wyatt Fowler, as they get themselves wrapped up in peak YA romcom shenaniganary and eventually fall in love. cute, right? just a fun little romcom, not much more to it?
yeah well that's what i thought going in, but coming out of that book i was in tears. tears because i'd never read a story about trans love before. tears because at that point in my life i'd never allowed myself to fully claim the word "trans." tears because Wyatt made me feel so seen and so real.
there's this one scene where Wyatt is talking to Neil and they describe themself as being the kind of person who sometimes wants to wear makeup and dresses, but other times they like their body hair and scruffy beard. and i just remember nodding along and then absolutely melting because Neil takes it in stride, he comforts Wyatt and let's them know that they don't need to have it figured out just yet. Neil makes it clear that he's there, and that Wyatt doesn't need to come out to anyone unless they're ready.
Mason Deaver has another t4t romance, Okay, Cupid. and that similarly had me in my feels because there is something so special about finding people who embrace you for all that you are.
every t4t romance I've read has one thing in common, the fact that the love interests do not love each despite the other's transness. their transness is not an obstacle to love or to attraction or to adoration, it is an object of it. their transness is something to be admired and to be loved and to be cared for. it is not something the other has to "get over."
reading The Feeling of Falling in Love was the first time i ever thought to myself "maybe, just maybe, i can call myself trans and still be loved." because up until that point i hadn't let myself accept that i was some flavor of trans. up until that point i'd said "not cis" without ever saying trans because i was so scared my being trans would make me unlovable. t4t romance books showed me how wrong i was. they showed me that my ability to be loved was not dependent on my girlhood.
ha you thought i could write something this long on tumblr and NOT mention good omens? think again bestie
i have held a trans reading of crowley since i read the book and the show only solidified it for me. crowley canonically plays with gender.
he's dressed femme during the crucifixion scene, his modern look is a mix of men's and women's pieces, his hair is a Whole Thing in and of itself. i could go on but i digress.
but it's not just the way he plays with gender that informs my trans reading of him. it's also how his character arc can very easily be read as an allegory for transness.
an angel who falls (a girl who isn't a girl anymore)
a fallen angel turned demon (a girl who is a boy now)
a demon who isn't really a demon anymore (a used to be girl, a thought to be boy, is now nonbinary)
girl = angel and boy = demon is entirely arbitrary in this please don't read into it
now, you may be thinking "A how in god's name does this apply to trans romance?" to which i say, aziraphale falls in love with every version of crowley. aziraphale beams heart eyes at angel!crowley before the beginning and loves crowley as a demon for millennia and is so deeply and unabashedly in love with crowley in his not-quite-demon form of s2.
aziraphale loves all the versions of crowley because crowley's angel or demon-ness (gender) is not the reason aziraphale loves crowley. aziraphale doesn't love crowley because he's a demon or because he used to be an angel, aziraphale loves crowley because it's crowley. crowley in whatever clothes he chooses to where, crowley with whatever hairstyle he's fancying at the moment, crowley as he inhabits the shades of grey just a little more.
to me, that is so easy to read as a trans love story. you could argue it's t4t depending on how you read aziraphale, but to me, it's at the very least a love story between a mostly-demon who gets down to some gender fuckery and an angel who loves him very much.
fuck it let's talk about fanfiction
i don't think i could make this post without mentioning @ineffabildaddy's fic I'm Beginning to See the Light.
i have a complicated relationship with my body. i don't plan to ever medically transition because i don't want to make any permanent changes to my body. but there are days where all i want is to have a flat chest and hips that are flush with the rest of my body but instead i'm stuck with tits and an hourglass figure cis people always seem to focus on.
i don't hate my body, but the idea that anyone could look at it and not just see A Woman is beyond me. i walk through life being perceived as a very feminine woman even on the days that i feel the most androgynous. the idea that a lover could look at my body and still see me for who i am feels like a dream that could never happen.
and IBTSTL slapped me (lovingly) across the face with the message that, actually, i can be loved as my whole self and that there are people out there who don't look at me and see A Woman and those people don't love me any less. IBTSTL made me feel safe in my trans body because it said "you are worthy of love and adoration because your transness is not something to get past it is something to admire. it is something to love."
--
i think the point i'm trying to make here is this: trans love stories are so special to me. they've been so vital in my own journey to love and accept myself. they're the reason i can imagine myself maybe having romantic love in the future.
representation matters, it can quite literally change your life.
#well wasn't that fun?#now excuse me while i go hide from the internet because my feelings are being perceived#anyway#trans love everything!#good omens#trans books#t4t romance#trans
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Outsider's Agere 'Master List'
Caregiver's, Flip's, & Regressor's
Rules, Punishments, & Rewards
Schedules for Each Little
The Little's By Themselves
Favorite Foods, Snacks, & Drinks
Favorite Activities (alone or with a caregiver)
Rules for Rumbles
Caregiver's Information
"Bubba" Darry Curtis (Caregiver Darry)
"Uncle" Two-Bit Mathews (Caregiver Two-Bit)
Caregiver Steve
Sick-canons of Darry
Sick-canons of Two-Bit
Sick-canons of Steve
Flip's Information
Dally as a Caregiver
Sodapop as a Caregiver
Dally's First Regression
Sodapop's First Regression
Little Soda and Little Dally Facts
Sick-canons of Dally (Little and Caregiver)
Sick-canons of Sodapop (Little and Caregiver)
Little Dally with Darry
Little Dally with Two-Bit
Little Dally with Steve
Little Dally with Sodapop
Little Sodapop with Darry
Little Sodapop with Two-Bit
Little Sodapop with Dally
Little Sodapop with Steve
Regressor's Information
Johnny's First Regression
Ponyboy's First Regression
Little Pony and Little Johnny Facts
Sick-canons of Little Johnny
Sick-canons of Little Pony
Little Johnny with Darry
Little Johnny with Two-Bit
Little Johnny with Dally
Little Johnny with Steve
Little Johnny with Sodapop
Little Ponyboy with Darry
Little Ponyboy with Two-Bit
Little Ponyboy with Dally
Little Ponyboy with Steve
Little Ponyboy with Sodapop
Canon "Re-Done"
Ponyboy's First Jumping Aftermath
Fountain + Windrixville
Hospital Scene
After the Events of The Outsiders Book
Christmas with the Littles
Asks & Answers
Thoughts on Selectively Mute Pony and Johnny - ❄️ Anon Ask
A Little More on Selectively Mute Pony and Johnny - ❄️ Anon Ask
Johnny looking after Regressed Pony thoughts - ❄️ Anon Ask
Regressor's Nicknames for Caregivers - 🦔 Anon Ask
'mom I frew up' Idea Scenario Discussion - ❄️ Anon Ask
Little Pony and his Pepsi (and the little's monitored drinks) - Anon Ask
Little Pony Around Just His Brothers (Sodapop edition) - 💚 Anon Ask
Little's Favorite Things to Eat and Play - 💚 Anon Ask
A Bit About Dally's Childhood - 🐹 Anon Ask
Johnny and Pony with Card Games - ❄️ Anon Ask
Panic Attacks (CGs and Littles) - 🐹 Anon Ask
Little Johnny and Communicating without Pony - 💚 Anon Ask
Little Soda Tripped Over Little Pony - Anon Ask
Little Soda Needs to Cuddle to Stay Still - 💚 Anon Ask
Baby Space Dally (After a fight) - 🐹 Anon Ask
Johnny Laying on Dally - ❄️ Anon Ask
Darry does regress? - 🐹 Anon Ask
Little Johnny doesn't like hospitals - ❄️ Anon Ask
Little Johnny swaddled on the porch - ❄️ Anon Ask
Little Johnny and Punishments - ❄️ Anon Ask
Littles Struggling to Sleep - ❄️ Anon Ask
Little Shepard Headcanons (I'm sorry) - Anon Ask
Little Two-Bit Headcanons - Anon Ask
Little Johnny After the Hospital - ❄️ Anon Ask
Pony and Johnny versus Soda and Dally being punished - ❄️ Anon Ask
Little Johnny with a Pacifier - 💚 Anon Ask
Darry w/ three Littles - 💚 Anon Ask
Darry 'wants' to regress (?) - Anon Ask
More Baby Dal Headcanons - 🐹 Anon Ask
Johnny home from the Hospital - 💚 Anon Ask
Johnny doesn't like Pony (specifically) carrying him - ❄️ Anon Ask
More Caregiver Soda - Anon Ask
Little Johnny sometimes Scares the Caregivers - 💚 Anon Ask
Little Pony, Little Johnny and some Trampoline Fun - 🦔 Anon Ask
Would I Ever Consider Writing More About Little Darry - Anon Ask (Little Darry Anon, perhaps?)
Baby Johnny and Baby Dal when they Cry - Anon Ask
Snippets
Ponyboy's First Regression
More of Ponyboy's First Regression
Fanfics
Tumblr story version link by Ao3 Anon (which will have a link to the Ao3 story)
Polls
Master List Release Poll
Soc's Agere Headcanons Section
#the outsiders#the outsiders headcanons#agere headcanons#the outsiders agere#dally winston#ponyboy curtis#darry curtis#sodapop curtis#steve randle#johnny cade#two bit mathews#sfw agere#age regression#age regressor#agere blog#sfw interaction only#sfw littlespace#sfw little blog#sfw only#sfw blog#age re safe space#age regression sfw#little space
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Here's August's offering for you! Hope you enjoy it - I had fun with writing it! We return to Starfall Springs!
Content: seemingly-grumpy, slightly older, scarred, Shire centaur meets peppy human female in a DIY store after his niece spills a lot of pink paint on the floor, and each is instantly attracted to the other. When the reader's truck breaks down a week later, it must be fate when the same centaur comes across her on the side of the road and offers to tow her truck to his mate's garage in Starfall Springs. One thing leads to another, and the two get better acquainted. Mention of alcohol, but no inebriation.
Nsfw: non-penetrative sex, messy intercrural sex, outdoor but not public sex, reader receives oral, cis female terminology used. Both parties also say 'fuck' a lot.
Wordcount: 9453
Preview:
Despite having moved to the foothills of the Glasspeak Mountains almost six months ago, you’d only been into the quaint little town of Starfall Springs a handful of times.
Now that you’d fixed most of the structural issues in your off-grid cabin — at least the estate agent had been very open with you about the modernisation needed on the property — you were turning your hand to making it prettier.
The urgency of the advancing year and the upcoming winter had driven you into a DIY frenzy over the summer months to get the place functional, and now that it was done, you never wanted to feel PTFE tape between your fingers, or see a wrench or a screwdriver again. You’d had drywall dust in places you never wanted drywall dust too. But, while the place was no longer letting water in from places it shouldn’t, or letting water out from places it shouldn’t, it did look very stark and very bare, with raw wooden surfaces and no colours or comforts.
Right on the edge of Starfall Springs was a small industrial park which somehow still managed to look leafy and quaint. The lot was made up of three large warehouses, one a rambling garden centre overflowing with verdant life, another a dealership for all sorts of motor-vehicles, from centaur-accessible vans to naga-accessible motorcycles, and the last was a DIY and home improvement centre, selling everything from plumbing supplies to lumber, and even offering bespoke kitchen and bathroom refurbishments. You’d saved yourself the cost of the latter by doing them yourself, but the staff there knew you like family for how many times you’d been back to ask where to find all the things you needed for the cabin.
You’d supported Dhurak’s small hardware store nearer the centre of Starfall Springs when you’d first moved there, thinking it would be better to support an independent business, but as it turned out, these stores weren’t franchises of larger chains, and were in fact also independent businesses. The parking in the centre of Starfall Springs also wasn’t great, especially since you drove a huge pickup truck, and this place had literally everything you could ever need. It even had a crafts section on the off-chance you decided to take up knitting for the winter months.
So it was that, halfway down the lighting aisle, you heard a high-pitched, whinnying whine coming from the next aisle over, followed by the stamp of small hooves and then a loud clatter. Someone inhaled sharply as if about to curse, and then a deep, resigned voice said in a rather clipped, northern burr, “I told you to let me get it down, Clara. Now we’ll have to pay for that as well.”
“I- I’m…” came a quavering response, and then the sound of a child crying in quick, ugly gulps.
You pushed your laden trolley around the corner and saw a huge, black-coated centaur’s muscular backside as the figure bent one foreleg and ‘bowed’ down at the front. To your surprise, he scooped up a much smaller centaur under her belly, like a fashionable lady grabbing a wayward handbag-dog, and lurched back up onto all four hooves. He stepped easily away from a slowly-spreading mess of spilled pink paint all over the tiled warehouse floor, still with the young centaur tucked under one arm.
Backing up a few paces on hooves that had to be as big as dinner plates, the figure set down the young child and said in a strained voice that was clearly trying very hard to be patient, “I’ll have to go and tell someone we made a mess. You need to stay here while I do that. Do not move, Clara, and do not touch anything else. You understand me.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Uncle Jack,” she sniffled as she got a hold of herself again, cuffing at her face with her sleeve.
Unlike him, she was tiny, but like him, her equine coat was jet black, and the skin of her upper, human torso was dark. To keep her equine body warm from the nippy, autumn wind outside, she wore a cosy-looking pink coat like a horse rug, and her human upper body was swathed in a voluminous, pink puffer jacket. Her hair was tied up in two high buns that looked like mouse ears and secured with pink scrunchies. With her dark eyes all watery and her mouth crumpled up into a pout, she looked adorable, and thoroughly miserable.
‘Uncle Jack’ did not look adorable. He looked… intimidating.
If Clara perhaps resembled a shaggy little Shetland pony, her uncle looked like a Shire centaur, with massive muscles in his bare equine body, and a shaggy, dark coat. To your surprise, he had a short and traditionally-docked tail, and his lovely, fluffy, white fetlocks were now spattered with pink paint. The pink didn’t lessen the impact of his presence at all. Your eyes travelled up his torso, swathed in a brown, waxed jacket, up to his weathered face, and you tried not to let your shock show when you found a set of four, huge, scars slashing across his rugged features. He looked like he’d been mauled by a bear at some point in his youth. His textured black hair was long and tied back in soft, fuzzy dreads at the nape of his neck, with flecks of grey streaking through it at the temples. His eyes though, were a startling, sapphire blue.
He turned carefully in the limited space that the aisle afforded him, and caught sight of you. You’d stopped in the dead centre of the aisle, and there was no way he could squeeze past you unless you tucked yourself right up against the side, so you hitched him a shy little smile and nudged your heavy, ungainly shopping cart over to one side so he could pass.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, ducking his head in a tight nod. “I’ll get this mess sorted out.”
“Don’t worry,” you smiled. “You want me to stay with her while you go find someone?”
He eyed you up and down with a frightening scowl on his scarred face, and then he scrubbed one rough-looking hand over his mouth, his short, dark beard rasping against what you could only assume were calluses on his hand to make that kind of noise. “Would you?”
You smiled. “Of course. I’ve had my fair share of paint related disasters in DIY stores, trust me.”
The centaur gave you an odd look at that, but he didn’t pry, and just nodded again and turned to look over his colossal shoulder, where the poor kid was standing and sniffling beside the widening tide of pale pink paint. “Clara, this kind human’s going to stay with you, ok? Don’t give her any trouble.”
Clara shook her head, giving you a wide-eyed look that told you she wasn’t entirely comfortable with being left with a stranger, and then mumbled, “Ok.”
“I’ll be two minutes,” he growled at you, and then stalked off to find a store attendant.
Read the whole 9.8k word story on my Patreon right now, plus gain access to my entire Patreon back catalogue. You'll also get access to any free stories a week early, and you can come hang out in our chilled Discord server too.
#centaur#taurgust#centaur x human#male centaur#male centaur x female reader#exophilia#monster romance#centaur monster romance#centaur romance#starfall springs
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THE LAST MINUTE RUSHED AS HELL CHRISTMAS EVENT
I'm writing this shit on Christmas Eve night, speedrun mode activate
Thanks to everyone who submitted and supported this rushed thing here. Hopefully next year if we last that long I'll be able to give you all something better. And hopefully none of this comes off as too half-baked.
Fun fact: Blazblue was not a two way, not a three way, but a FOUR WAY TIE, EVERYONE WANTED A DIFFERENT CHARCTER
To settle this dispute, I did it in the only appropriate way I knew how:
We will be revealing the winners for each fandom as voted for by the submissions and the prompts that have been chosen as we go along here.
Without further ado, enjoy the first ever seasonal event on the NKN0va blog. Hope you all have a jolly Christmas day.
(Spoilers mentioned for Persona 5 Tactica in that section, proceed with caution)
Helltaker: Judgment's S/O getting her to ice skate with them on Christmas
-You bring this idea up to Judgment on Christmas Day after breakfast, much to the fallen angel's confusion.
-She has heard of skating before, and knew that there was a kind of skating specifically for doing it on ice, but that sounded extremely dumb and quite dangerous, especially to regular ol' fragile mortals like yourself.
-It takes a while, but she eventually gives in, she doesn't have the heart to shut you down entirely. Of course it's under the guise of protecting you and making sure you don't get hurt.
-It's best that you don't go to a public skating rink with her lest you get unwelcome stares from everyone and scare the children, so you manage to find a frozen lake somewhere with ice thick enough. Despite being alone, Judgment is still very much tense.
-Judgment for her part when she does get on the ice falls over a few times. Balance isn't her thing, but she does get it eventually, watching anxiously as she keeps an eye on you as you start getting on the ice.
-If you cannot skate she'll have a few words for you, but since you're already here you might as well do it together. She'll put your arm around you shoulders as she tries to keep you both upright until she is certain you can go on your own. Depending on your own balance this will have varying results.
-Consider her pleasantly surprised if you know how to skate without falling over, she thought you'd be struggling a lot more. Expect her to make some kind of competition out of the ordeal and taking it way too seriously. By the end you're aching all over and she has to carry you home. 10/10 would do again.
~~~
Under Night In Birth: Surprising Wagner with a Christmas Gift
(Thank you Vivian for breaking the tie this was way easier than if I got the alternative on a coin flip and had to do the other option instead)
-Wagner is no stranger to gifts. Especially super extravagant ones around the holidays thanks to her family background. This put you in quite the conundrum.
-As long as you've known the Crimson Knight, she's always been very hard to please. That fact that you're a normal person with a normal income also does not help matters. Trying to go extravagant enough to impress her would only break your bank in the process so you had to had to get more creative.
-You'd have to appeal more to her sentiment, and eventually an idea came. The only thing you knew of that appealed to her sentimentally enough was, well, you.
-Your gift searching soon turned into a craft session, taking photos from your phone of you two, printing them out, and putting them in a memories book of sorts and decorating it to what you felt was her liking.
-When the big moment came and it was finally in Wagner's hands, she sits there holding it like she doesn't know what the hell it is. It's only when it's opened that it clicks.
-She'll smirk and call it quaint in a half condescending, half endearing way. Some people might be offended by it, but you know better. This is her way of hiding her true emotions. Deep down this will be treasured for the rest of her life, anyone that dares touch it other than you will be turned to roast beef.
~~~
Persona 5: Erina ending up under the mistletoe with her S/O
(AU where Erina doesn't disappear after the events of the story)
-It had been quite a while since any holiday was able to be celebrated, thanks to Marie. There was a special feeling about Christmas this year around, being able to finally celebrate it peacefully.
-Erina for one seemed to be the most excited. Due to her...origins she'd never celebrated it properly before, and was learning the ins and outs of the festivities and traditions for the first time, her eyes lighting up at every new thing she saw.
-The two of you were walking around the town plaza taking in all the sights, watching as the citizens put up decorations. Out of nowhere, right in front of a bakery in the plaza, she stopped you and pointed up towards a strange looking plant hung on up one of the support pillars.
-While you were already dating Erina, it hasn't been all that long into the relationship, thus you were still taking to intimacy. With a slight bit of nervousness, you filled her in on what this mistletoe thing was.
-Erina takes in what you say with a thoughtful look. Then, as straightforward as ever, pulls you by your collar and gives you a longer than normal peck on the lips, pulling away with a slight redness on her face but a satisfied smile. She mentions how this might end up becoming a favorite holiday tradition of hers before dragging you through the city once more as if nothing happened.
-In all fairness, you probably should've seen that one coming.
~~~
AND TO BREAK THE STAGGERING (but probably not unexpected in retrospect) FOUR WAY TIE, THE WHEEL HAS DECIDED ON...
I see the audience has a particular type...
Blazblue: Nine's Christmas Day Celebration with S/O (post Dark War)
-While Nine is typically a very busy woman, she is extremely family oriented above all else. She will take holiday time off, regardless of what anyone says. Not like they can stop her anyway.
-Definitely the type to go all out to spoil the people important to her. Over the top decorations, forcing the weather control system to make a light but not overbearing snowfall, and as many presents as she can humanly think of.
-This is probably the happiest you've ever seen her. With all the tragedy in her and everyone else's lives over the past decade there's so rarely been a time to truly let her guard down and celebrate a holiday like a normal, happy, healthy person.
-She wants to do every traditional (and perhaps cliche) tradition she can think of. Between having largely no parents growing up and spending most of her life during war time she's never had the chance to do any of it. Decorating a tree, giving out deliberately wrapped presents to you and everyone else important to her, going out to see the magical and technological lights hung up around Ishana, having a fireplace lit up and watching old movies.
-This is her way of healing from the long lasting trauma inflicted on her by circumstances outside her control. If the holiday season is about the people important to you, then she wants to take that time to cherish those people while she still has the chance, even if she can have a hard time expressing that.
-Also you're probably gonna have to stop her from bullying Terumi even now. If left to her own devices she is dressing him up in the most stupid holiday themed shit imaginable for her own amusement. I'm talking reindeer antler headbands and a Rudolph nose.
#christmas event#helltaker#helltaker x reader#judgment#persona 5#persona 5 x reader#erina#under night in birth#under night in birth x reader#erika wagner#blazblue x reader#nine the phantom
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Lily and Grey: An Intoxicating Encounter
*Authors Note: Slight emeto warning. Hey all, it’s been a long time since I posted, because I have been working on this long piece. I had a great time writing it as always, but I added a note to this one, unlike my others so allow me to explain: For those of us who actually engage with this kink in reality, blow outs from one end or another tend to happen at some point, especially to new Feedees. I want to designate the embarrassment of these happenings and show that they are chances for greater emotional connections with your partner. The one experiencing a blow out is liable to feel extremely vunerable, judged, and just overall icky. And while I am not particularly into emeto or scat, they are an inherent part of this kink if you want to engage with it. So note that this story has a very brief emeto section. I tried to keep it as non-graphic as I could, but if it’s not your thing or a trigger, that’s totally fun. For those of you that stay, enjoy this extra long story!*
It had been many months since Grey had fed Lily the equivalent of three dinners, sending her up to her room where she became a ticking time bomb of burps and cum. Lily remembered waking up the next day, belly still swollen and gurgling, and her whole body and a lot of her room glazed in cum. It took her the whole day to clean, and she was supremely embarassed. So embarrassed, in fact that she had rarely been leaving her room, in fear of having to confront Grey.
Grey was certainly sad about not seeing Lily as often. They lived in the same house, and yet they were worlds away. In the aftermath of that night, he had taken to leaving home cooked dinners outside of Lily’s door each night. A sort of peace offering that he hoped would tempt her out of her room. It did not work. It seemed Lily slipped out for classes each day after him, and only roamed the house in the dead of night.
While Grey was trying to figure out a way to break Lily’s reclusive streak, it seemed he was given a sign from the gods. In the trash, about a month after the incident, Grey discovered a bottle of estrogen, prescribed to Lily. It seemed that Lily had just taken her first steps towards womanhood. That night, Grey researched all the effects of estrogen on the body. Words like “fat deposits”, “increased sex drive”, and “sensitive nipples”, made his cock stir in his pants. During his research, he unzipped his fly and began touching himself to the thought of Lily. A softer Lily. A more submissive Lily. A Lily who would bend over to let him use her holes whenever he wanted. Just as he was about to cum, an idea formed in his head.
From what he had read online, for the best estrogen results, one needed a high calorie diet. This would cause fat to pool in the breasts, hips and thighs. Grey thought he could be of assistance there. Instead of only leaving Lily dinners, he was leaving her full course meals, three times each day. He figured this would at the very least help her start to fill out, and may even have the added side effect of making her so horny that she would come out just to beg him to fuck her.
Lily, in the meantime, was seeing the effects of all the meals, estrogen, and not leaving her room quite quickly. The first month, she had started staying in her room to avoid Grey. But as the days turned into weeks she was finding that she loved the feeling of just rotting in her bed. It was as if she could feel the fat piling onto her and not being burned away. And the hand service from Grey, though it was through a door, hit her gift giving and acts of service love languages hard. There were many nights when she would hurry Greys cooking into her room, and be so hard that she masturbated over the meal. She was so ashamed and turned on not only pretending it was Grey’s cum, but also that she was adding extra calories to the meal, that it was not uncommon that she would cum again when the last bite of the food passed her lips.
By the end of that first month, Grey already had her trained to have a full erection at the mere sound of his footfalls up the stairs. And then she found the strangest thing: It was as if Grey could read her mind, and began tripling her portions. Each day she would stuff her tummy beyond its capacity, determined never to let a bite of Grey’s delicious cooking go to waste. And each day she got a little softer, and a little rounder.
By the three month mark, the estrogen was not affecting her weight distribution, so all of the calorie dense meals that Grey was shoveling into her was being stored in her belly which was the size of a beach ball, even when completely empty. To her disappointment though, her weight only seemed to be sitting in her belly so far. The rest of her was still skinny. Even so, Lily had grown so accustomed to being waited on hand and foot, that she rarely left their house these days. She never wanted to miss one of Grey’s delicious meals. It wasn’t exactly agoraphobia, she wasn’t scared to go outside, the desire to eat was just stronger than the obligation to do anything else.
Grey was not sitting idly by these months though. He was researching anything and everything feedism related. Eventually, he came across something called an “intoxication kink.” He wondered if Lily would be interested in something like that. One night he decided to test it. He skipped Lily’s normal breakfast and lunch rotation. She said nothing, but as the evening came, he could hear Lily’s belly protesting even from downstairs. That night he left her only a bottle of vodka, and three 2 liters of soda, with a little note that said “drink up :).”
Lily in the meantime, had to fight back panic when she saw that her normal huge breakfast wasn’t there as usual. As morning turned to midday, and still no food, Lily’s rotund tummy began to protest and groan. She felt like her belly was getting ready to eat her spine if she didn’t satiate it soon. Just as Lilly was about to give up and leave her room to go get food, Grey’s footfalls began up the stairs. Her cock stood at attention right away, and suddenly it was clear to her: Grey had something planned. She was disappointed to only find drinks at her door, but was so ravenous that she quickly pulled them inside.
Grey sat just outside her door and pressed his ear to it so he could get an idea of what was going on. First he heard the unmistakable *piiiisssshhh* of a soda bottle being opened, followed quickly by the loud sound of deep gulps. After about 30 seconds, Grey heard Lily panting heavily. “Oh- *urp* oh fuck. *burp*. Ah, ah,” She whispered. Grey had to strain to hear, and it seemed she was trying extremely hard to muffle her burps. It took her about five minutes to finally quell the burps completely. It was only then, that Grey heard Lily tentatively open the top to the vodka, followed by another *piiiiissshhhh* of the second soda bottle. This time, Grey could not make anything out as Lily made her way through the vodka, besides the occasional small belch.
On the other side of the door, Lily’s head began to buzz from the alcohol, and her belly sloshed from all the liquid within. When she was about a fourth of the way through the vodka, she felt a strong yearning to see Grey. When half of the bottle was gone, she couldn’t walk straight, but her cock remained pointed directly at the sky with no stimulation. Her belly was tight from the soda, but all the alcohol was dulling the pain. At that point she knew what she wanted: Grey. She was drunk at this point, but not illogical. She looked down at her belly which was quickly swelling to the size of a large beach ball, and blushed hard. She blushed harder as she felt a slick liquid begin to build up on the bottom of her bloated belly, as her cock began to drool precum. She had to stop thinking about her belly, or she’d cum right then.
So she stood up and put on a big t-shirt she had for sleeping. It went down past her knees, and hid her belly perfectly. And since all of her weight had deposited there these past months, she looked the same. As an added bonus, since she was so hard, her cock pressed up against her belly so she didn’t need to tuck or adjust it. With her outfit on, she was ready to finally face Grey. To finally tell him… well she didn’t know what she was going to tell him. Her thoughts were all fuzzy and wobbly. But either way she was done avoiding him, and the alcohol had given her the confidence she needed.
As she waddled to the door, she found that she had to lean back slightly to account for the new weight of her mid section, and that with every step she took, her belly sloshed audibly. Her dick throbbed, and she stifled a moan as she tried not to cum on the spot. She stumbled her way to the door, and fumbled to open it. Grey had heard her stumbling towards the door and stood up quickly, leaning against the wall, acting nonchalant.
Lily wasn’t phased in the slightest. Being as drunk as she was, she saw nothing odd here. “Grey! Jush tha guy I wanned to shee.” She slurred out. Grey took a quick moment to look her up and down ravenously, but was disappointed to see that she had not really changed in these past few months. He was sure that his efforts would have packed at least twenty pounds on her by now. He tried not to let his disappointment show, and greeted her casually. “Hey, Lily, I haven’t seen you in months. How are you?” Lily giggled. “Sooooo good. I was really mishing you, an I thought we could talk.”
“I’d love that Lily.” Replied Grey, putting his hands in his pockets to discreetly hide his growing buldge. It was the first time he had seen her in months, and she was more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair was longer but still well kept. Her face was flushed from the alcohol, and her eyes were a more vibrant chocolate brown than he remembered. To his disdain, everything else was covered by her shirt.
“Come on in then.” Lily invited him jovially, before stepping back into her room. Grey swallowed nervously, then followed her in. They both sat on her bed, and sat in an awkward silence for a moment. Finally, Grey broke it, and asked, “So what did you want to talk about?” Lily smiled shyly, and said, “I jush wanted to say sorry for bein’ sho weird n thank you for all the cooking a presents you’ve been leavin’. Shpeaking of…” Lily leaned over and grabbed the soda and vodka from her bedside table along with a glass and prepared another drink.
When she did, Grey could hear her belly sloshing from where he sat. He hoped his cock wasn’t straining through his jeans, and he swallowed hard to keep his composure. To distract himself, he said, “You don’t have to apologize, Lily. I don’t think you are weird at all.” In between sips of her spiked soda Lily said, “Oh I’m shuper weird. Like a freak. You wouldn’t like me if you knew how weird I was.” Lily’s eyes began prickling with tears, causing Grey to quickly reach out and grab her free hand. “You are NOT a freak and I would never think you are weird.” He said with determination.
Lilly looked away from him, and replied, voice quavering, “You are jus’ sayin’ that. You wouldn’t think tha’ if you knew all the weird stuff about me or wha’ I do.”
“Lily look at me.” Said Grey in an authoritative tone. Lily blushed but immediately complied. “You are not weird. You are not a freak. Nothing you could ever do could make me think that. The only thing I think about you is that you are a beautiful girl, who I want to know much more intimately.” Lily’s eyes welled up again but this time for other reasons. “Are you sure?” She asked quietly.
“I’ll tell you what;” said Grey, “Let’s use tonight to get to know each other better. You keep drinking your drink, and tell me about these things you think will make me find you weird. And I promise that no matter what you say, I won’t find you weird.” Lily’s eyes began looked at him uncertainly. “You promish?” Grey held out his pinkie finger. “I promise.” Sealed with a pinkie swear, Lily took a deep breath and told Grey everything.
She told him how she had stole his underwear and used them to masturbate. How she had loved the feeling of all his delicious dinner disappearing into her belly the last night they hung out, and how she had orgasmed so much to the idea of him fucking her that she was coated head in her own cum. She laid everything out, and waited in terror for Grey’s response. But his response what not what she was expecting.
He told her that he was there that day she stole his underwear and had also masturbated. He told her that he had been secretly running tests to see what she was into, and set that night up to get her super full and see if anything would come of it. He told her how everytime he took a shower he masturbated to the thought of filling her ass to the point of overflowing with his cum. As they talked and giggled and confided, Lily finished off what was left of her drink, leaving on one fourth of the vodka and soda left in their respective bottles.
Emboldened by the alcohol and their mutual confessions, she said, “So, you like the idea of me eating a lot?” Grey nodded. “You like when I burp?” Grey nodded. Without another word, Lily grabbed the vodka and soda, tilted her head back, and poured what remained directly into her overblown belly. When the rest of the liquid had disappeared, she grabbed Grey’s hands, slid them under her oversized shirt and placed them on her swollen belly.
Grey was amazed. It was as if she had swallowed a watermelon whole, and he could feel it bubbling and tossing around the sea of cocktail inside. Still guided by Lily’s hands she gave her belly a firm shake with Grey’s hands. This caused a loud *slosh, slosh* to fill the room. Grey felt Lily belly bubble, and felt the ecstatic movement of air being displaced in her roiling guts. It was as if popcorn was being popped just below her skin. He felt it all gathering at the top of her belly and then a lot happened all at once:
BWWWWWWOOOOOOORRRRRRRPPPPPPPP
Lily released a burp that vibrated the walls of the room. The feeling of her swollen gut, Greys hands on her skin, the forbidden lust of burping in front of someone, and the emotional intimacy they had shared moment prior, led to Lily’s burp morphing into a moan, and she bucked her hips as she came all over Grey’s hands and arms that were still under her shirt. Her belly sloshed loudly and grumbled at the sudden disturbance, and Lily’s hands shot to her mouth as she felt another explosion coming. She shot up and waddled as fast as her gravid belly would allow her towards the bathroom.
Grey followed quickly behind her and caught her just as she was falling to the bathroom floor. Luckily she made it, and all the liquid sitting in her tummy spewed out like a fountain. Lily started to cry violently, mortified that Grey was seeing her like this. Her sobs were punctuated by wet heaves. Grey sat dutifully beside her and rubbed her back. He cooed to her and assured her everything was ok. Once her belly had started, it simply could not stop and Lily was stuck in the bathroom for almost half an hour, heaving as Grey held her hair and massaged her back.
When the ordeal was over, Grey made Lily brush her teeth, and he put one arm over his shoulder as he helped her stumble to bed. Lily was still crying and apologizing profusely. Once Grey got her into bed, he took Lily’s chin in his fingers and made her look at him. “I promised you I wouldn’t find you weird, and I still don’t. You are fine sweetie. That shake to your belly was just too much. We filled you way too full.”
“Y-you you you, p-promise?” She sniveled out. Grey leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Would you think I’m weird if I said I find you hotter now?” Lily smiled and let out a giggle in between sniffles. “Will you rub my head till I fall asleep?” She asked. With the vulnerability in her voice, how could he say no? Grey dutifully ran his fingers through her hair and scratched her scalp until she began snoring. Then he left her room, closed the door, and turned in himself. What a night
#feedee belly#feeding kink#breeding k1nk#fat belly#feedee piggy#stuffed feedee#bloated gut#burp kink#belly expansion#fat piggy#intox kink
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2024 Reads in Review # 3-10
@wordcubed wanted me to answer all of the questions for this ask game. Because it's all of the questions, and I am still working on it, this section is going to be questions 3-10 (I wanted to save overall best/worst for last).
I guess it's worth a reminder that my ebook TBR has only been cleared to about September, so a lot of the true gems I have been getting from events haven't come up yet.
3. DNF With Prejudice: Book(s) you didn't finish on purpose
I DNF a LOT of books (print books, probably hovering right around 50% and with ebooks probably more like 75-80%). I’ll stop basically the second I realize I’m bored. Most of them are wholly unmemorable, but I keep brief-but-detailed notes on why I DNFd if I get past the 25% mark in a book (mostly so I know if I should try something else by the author or not). These were my favorite DNF notes this year, lightly cleaned up for other humans to read.
The Bride of Lycaster by Perci Jay – DNF notes: ~75% No fucking?
Suck It Up by Emm Darcy and May Sage – DNF Notes: ~70% Everyone here sucks so bad
Knot My Type by Evie Mitchell – DNF Notes: ~30% insipid and unrealistic even for a romcom
ETA: Mercy by Ian Haramaki - DNF Notes: ~30% "What's with the boob window?"
4. DNF With Regrets: Book(s) you didn't finish but want to get back to
I can’t think of a single one. Even the books I DNF’d in November/December, I don’t think I cared enough to go back and try again. I did set a few aside to try again later but I don’t count stuff like that as a DNF.
5. Crowd Pleaser: Book you would recommend to almost anyone
Bombshell by Sarah MacLean (Historical Romance MF). I recommend Sarah MacLean to anyone who thinks they’re “just not into” Historicals/Regencies. The fact that most of her series exist in an interconnected world makes it that much more fun. She was inspired to write this series based on historical accounts of a girl gang. Bombshell would be a fantastic entry point into her books and into Historical Romance/Regencies in general.
Dragon Blood Series by Lindsay Buroker (Fantasy Romance MF). I’ve read the first three books and bought the next three. It’s got WWI-style airplane dogfights; it’s got someone using magic to give a guy jock itch; it’s got a steampunk society; it’s got romance subplots; it’s got a sword infused with the spirit of a horny woman. If you’d rather not read sex scenes it’s got shockingly few of those, too.
Playing the Game by M.Q. Barber (Contemporary Erotica MMF). This came highly recommended to me, and I can see why. It’s really sweet and well-written.
6. Dead Dove Do Not Eat: Book you would recommend to a select audience with a mountain of caveats
This one’s only really the caveat that it’s, you know, Phantom of the Opera, but Angel’s Mask by Jessica Mason (Historical Romance MF) was quite good. It’s just also, you know, Phantom of the Opera but hornier. If that’s a problem.
I also have been having a lot of fun so far with the Seven Omegas for Seven Alphas series by Vivian Murdoch (Historical Omegaverse Erotica MF), which starts with A Duke’s Christmas Rejection. But Vivian Murdoch is not playing around when she says a series is dark.
7. Wasted Potential: Great premise and/or characters but fell down on execution
House Isador series by Joely Sue Burkhart. The worldbuilding is fascinating and fun and there’s MMMMMF and it still manages to be shockingly unpleasant to read. I read the first 6 books in a sort of fugue state and remember saying “I am still reading this and I’m not even sure why” a few times.
8. Blorbo Of The Year: Perhaps not your favorite of the year, but contains The Character
This series could easily have been slotted into almost any other “not perfect but fun” category on this list, but The Wayward Sons series by L Eveland (Contemporary Serial Killer MM) has THE blorbos of 2024. Mind the trigger warnings, mind the continuity and timeline, mind fifty other things, but definitely my favorite of the suspiciously prolific “gay serial killer adopted brothers and the first one is a psychopath and the second one has OCD and the…” genre. I had a FANTASTIC time with them and read all 4 existing books this year and have been sending my loved ones screenshots of pages where my Blorbos are Blorbo-ing. I am not even much a person who ends up with Blorbos or Book Boyfriends and I’m deeply invested a few of these idiots. It’s a shame that they are such fun and interesting characters and that their boyfriends are all thoroughly mediocre by comparison.
9. Compels Me Though: Okay, maybe not all of it made sense, but you had a great time anyway
I’m not sure it’s quite as bad as the ask implies, but Merry Farmer’s MF historical romances that I’ve read are definitely proof that there’s value in books that aren’t an A+ read, too. Her stuff is fun and an easy read and a solid B+. She’s a prolific writer as well and has started getting into MM historicals and MM contemporary now as well.
I think On Thin Ice by Calliope Stewart (Contemporary Omegaverse Romance MMF) fits in this category as well. There’s a TON of stuff in the book that simply doesn’t work, but what does work really, really works.
10. Sleeper Hit: Not a book that you have to force into people's hands, but well-executed
Lord Holt Takes a Bride by Vivienne Lorret (Historical MF). It was silly, it was touching, and even people whose opinions I respect are completely unimpressed with her work for some reason I currently cannot fathom.
Come Undone by Madelynne Ellis (Contemporary Rocker Erotica MF). I’ve been a fan of hers for years and rarely hear anyone else talking about her, and the Black Halo universe is surprisingly complex for being marketed as an erotica. She’s currently doing a lot of promos for Reflex/Replay/Refrain/etc., since she just finished that series but Come Undone is the first in the overarching series and has a couple major plot points that come up later.
#word I hope this will tide you over while I finish the rest!#reads in review 2024#stop b think of the children
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Now that I can finally sit down and take 10 minutes to write this post--
Earlier today, we finally dived into the littlescourse that's starting up again. I fucking despite littles discourse, but it's so important to talk about, especially since there are a lot of common misconceptions. So, I'm going to get my thoughts out under a cut.
Firstly, it's important to acknowledge that child parts and littles are not the same thing. Child parts are parts who are stuck in that trauma; stuck in that moment. They often split when you're that age yourself, and they still feel that age entirely.
We only loosely have a child part, and we don't indicate which of our 14 alters is that part.
Then we have littles. Little is a term used by the community to denote... a lot of things, honestly -- it has a fairly loose definition from what I've seen! The way I use it for my system is "Part that identifies as a child in spirit." That is because none of my parts are literally children; all of them can acknowledge we are 26, going on 27, and can accurately remember things. Only one part gets fuzzy on that, and that would be said child part.
Our littles are adults. Because I am an adult.
Now, to address some of what was said in the post from earlier (which I will not be linking, as I genuinely don't want to bother OP with this, but it's all things I feel need said):
something I HATE about syscords is that they have sections specifically for littles. they are CHILDREN. Why are you letting them have a place online?
I hate littles channels in syscords too, because often, my littles who curse, discuss severe trauma, and like to vent about adult matters are stuck with child parts. If your post is discussing child parts, then... I can understand some of your reservations, honestly! But I can also say, to each system their own -- maybe that system knows something I don't about how safe their child parts can be. I know I can let my child part talk in syscords without it being harmful for her, though we do keep a close eye.
I'm sorry, but caretakers in your system are there for your littles.
None of my caretakers look after my littles because our system only has three caretakers -- and two of them are our littles. We have Sie and LED, who are our emotional caretakers. The other caretaker is... Sie, but grown up -- Sierra. By your logic, my littles should be caretaking themselves! Which. They do.
Which, skipping around a bit, leads me to this point you made:
The fact that you let your littles participate in adult actions and they are "mature enough" when littles are there to heal your inner child that you LOST due to trauma makes me SO disturbed.
...
My littles aren't here to "heal the inner child that I lose due to trauma."
Straight up, that is not their job.
Sie's job is to help us understand that we can still have fun as an adult. She's there to remind us that childhood is how we define it, not how our parents did. She isn't there to 'heal our inner child' -- she's there to heal our inner adults.
LED's job is to regulate our emotions. We struggle with our distress, our fear, our shame. When it gets too much, he helps us to see the positive light in the world again. His job is also to process trauma and come to terms with what we've gone through in a healthy manner; learning how to grow up is his job.
And Gazi, her job is specifically related to Curtis's. Yknow. The sexual alter we have who we split to deal with our internalized homophobia and transphobia. Gazi, who is there to help him process his feelings. To help us all process our feelings, as we start to integrate more. She's newer, so it's hard for us to understand her role, but nowhere there do I feel "healing our inner child" fits.
Your system is not applicable to everyone. For instance, my system does not have an "inner child" who needs healed in that way, and even if we consider our one child part to need healing -- it wouldn't be their job!
Our mum (an adult, like you.) is a system and one of her littles isn't allowed to consent or have adult actions, you know why? BECAUSE THAT LITTLE IS A CHILD!!
Cool! My littles aren't like that. That was my point in my post.
Every system is different and I won't judge you for what you do. But the fact you openly say this shit on the internet as a GROWN ADULT makes me lose faith in the future for everyone.
This sounds a hell of a lot like judging me for what I do.
For most systems the littles chat is there for a reason and that's to protect them, especially if that system is a minor. Which in syscords, is mostly minors.
Never said they're inherently bad; I just said I wish more syscords allowed people to choose for themselves if their littles need to isolate in those channels.
As I MINOR (let me say it again.) MINOR with littles, for some systems I get why littles can't stay in main chat in syscords, it's for safety.
Cool! I genuinely don't know why people in syscourse are so insistent on reminding everyone that they're minors. It's okay to be a kid. I didn't describe anything graphic in my post. I simply mentioned "mature acts."
Obviously, as a 16 year old... You shouldn't be doing those mature acts! But I would hope that, by 16, you can understand that... adults... do mature things sometimes? And can find positivity, joy, and yes, healing through those mature things. I had hope that you were mature enough, yourself, to be able to acknowledge that adults do things you don't do.
Your system will be different you're an ADULT. but us, we're a MINOR, there's still things that we don't even understand and we're still going through my own traumas. You're able to recognise basic things without being disturbed and out right saying your littles can do outrageous shit like this.
You being a minor once again does not negate the ability to understand "Huh, maybe that person's experiences will be okay once I'm older."
I can recognize you're a minor and going through your own traumas. I never once said you need to let your littles completely loose to do whatever they want -- in fact, I strongly advise against it, especially if you're still in an active trauma situation. But. Minors can recognize basic things "without being disturbed" as well. That's not something I gained from being an adult. I knew how to do that at age 15 at least.
The reason the post even exists is to state our opinion and talk into the void about issues that either we have or others do. Not for you to compare your system to everyone else's. Respectfully.
I will be honest, I don't feel very respected, with my actions which have been incredibly healing for my parts being called outrageous, disturbing, and something to lose faith over. I'm really sorry that your post -- publicly put into the DID tags with the word "thoughts?" at the end of the post -- wasn't looking for other system input. I'm also really sorry that you're going to get a LOT more people explaining their thoughts on this, when it seems like the conversation is unwanted.
The fact is, your experiences are not just not universal -- they are also fairly uncommon. Many, many, many systems have found healing through letting their littles grow up and be mature. Whatever that may look like for them.
And then this last bit...
(I'm not pressed about this, but the way you've replied makes me feel physically ill from someone who has been taken advantage of not only as a child, but also has had to see our littles go out of their way to not be around a caretaker because they wanna talk to people and then hurt, harassed and exposed to disgusting content online because people are CREEPS. For our system, we CANNOT let littles into online spaces. Especially around strangers. Our littles have the mindset of a 16 year old. so, oh so sorry to stay it's different for minors.)
You've made a lot of bold assumptions here, entirely based on your own experiences once again.
I am a system who was taken advantage of as a child. I've also had my littles -- back when they were more akin to child parts -- go out of their way to not be around a caretaker. I've had my littles get hurt in the past, exposed to disgusting content, and participate in acts they could not, at the time, consent to. We were severely hurt by these actions.
I also changed. They changed. And we grew.
There is hope for the future, you know that, right? Again, I know you're 16, but I really hope you know that there will come a time when those child parts of you may grow up, or become part of you in their own right. There may come a time in your future when you will need to navigate romance and intimacy and "mature things" in regards to your littles. I don't say this to scare you, but to help you understand that there can be growth and change.
You don't need to make that leap right now -- again, please fucking don't, you are a LITERAL MINOR -- but understand that healing can come in many ways.
I compared my system in your post to help you understand the perspective of others who might be healing in ways other than yours, or even just the perspective of others who aren't like you at all. Not to say all systems have to be like mine, or that you HAVE to let your littles do things like what mine do. I'm not sure how many times I could've added, "This definitely isn’t the case for every system" like I did in the post, but... Yeah. Apparently I didn't make that clear enough.
Things are different for minors, yet. Thankfully, you've only got two more years left before maybe, just maybe, it might be time to start thinking about what your life may be like as an adult, and what healing may come in your future one day.
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Thoughts, explanations, and all that shit i had while writing my latest oneshot
Stand up comedians do NOT make good kidnappers - Robin_The_Robiner - Batman - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]
SO first up the name. Where did it come from? God knows. I started this fic like ages ago, wrote Steph's first section, and then promptly forgot about it for three months only to come back and scribble the rest out. I dont remember how i came up with the name, but i still think its hilarious so,,
Who is Cassowary? This universes Robin, duh! Since Damian was the first, i thought he'd go for a more intimidating bird. These birds have really sharp claws, and leave wounds similar to those of a blade. Huh. Who do we know who is really good with a sword? Exactly 😎
Writing Steph was hard because I don't know her very well, so I may have projected onto her a little bit (hence the excessive death jokes 😅). I hope it came across that Steph is a detective, like Bruce, but that she's doesn't lazer-focus on that stuff like him. Thats why she focuses on describing Junior at first, not the room she's in or the fact she's chained up. She knows these things, but she only brings them up when relevant. What good is wallowing over being chained up when you could be making fun of your kidnapper, huh?
I'm a bit worried that i didn't make it obvious enough that there is time between Steph's and Bruce's sections. Thats why when we finish Steph's third bit, she's shitting on Junior for dressing like the Joker, but then in the final bit, she's aware that it's Tim. The parts aren't happening at the same time, or right after the other. I hope that was obvious, but im not sure.
BRUCE'S BIT!!! I saw a post once saying that Bruce separates his personas very hard, and i really liked that. When he's talking about Batman, it's only referred to as Batman. When he's having more emotional thoughts, it's Bruce. And, of course, when he's dealing with Crystal (who i don't know very well so probably wasn't well written MY BAD YALL), he's Brucie. The guilt is in all of them, though. Fun stuff!
A big part of Stephanie and Bruce's relationship in canon is, from what i can tell, tense because of the way he treated her when he first met her. BUT in this fic, it's a bit lessened because Steph chalks his shittyness to the fact that he recently lost a son. Also, i think in canon a big part of why Bruce refused to get close to Steph was because of how she reminded him of Jason, which obviously isn't a problem in this universe. Bruce and Steph are still tense, but this time she has the eldest kid on her side pretty easily, cuz Damian feels guilt over Tim LOL
The death!! It's not overly explained, but I do have Tim's death all planned out and shit. It's a mix of the Joker Junior scene from Batman Beyond : Return of The Joker, and then also a little bit of canon. Instead of Bruce being out of Gotham, like in the film, it's that they have an argument. Similar to Jason and Garzonas situation, in how Bruce is angry at the thought of his partner killing, but more so using the Boomerang arc from canon (Tim wanting to kill his Dad's murderer)
Junior's mental state is wild. I'm not writing him with any particular mental illness, mostly because I'm not at all knowledgeable enough to portray something correctly. Instead I'm basing him off of Joker Junior's intro scene, and also me during some of my darkest moments! It's not Pit Rage (i don't lie how much the fandom pushes that onto Jason, similar to the Tim-Doesn't-Sleep idea in which it wasn't canon but then it got popular and was made so, i think) and instead just a extremely traumatised 17 year old!
The teaparty scene was put in there because I wanted Tim to have a hobby that he could share with his mom (because god knows everyone hates Janet because they mess up her character and only look at fanon) and that also can be used to show his mental state. Hence, collecting figurines, and playing with them! Yippee! Thanks to my pal Leo over on discord for suggesting this hobby!! (it was originally stuffed animals but I thought Batburger toys would work better)
Damian and Duke both were the first kids, instead of Dick and Barbara. Instead of Batgirl, we have Batkid, and then instead of Oracle, we have Signal. Damian is Shrike, because that is the most common hero name I see for him and I couldn't think of another. I may go back and change it to Nightwing, because I like the meaning of the name, but it would come from Superboy (Jon) instead of Superman in this universe, so maybe it comes later on? Not sure. need to think on that!!
Drake Manor was, in canon, only bought after Jack woke up from the coma. But, i decided to take the fandom route in which the Drakes always lived there, simply because timeline wise it works better for me. Also in canon, Jack doesn't need the wheelchair by the end, but for my fic, he's not out of the coma long enough for that. I also added a fun basement which defo doesn't exist in canon, so just turn a blind eye to that!
If you saw the original post, you'd know that Bruce was supposed to find Steph through a series of taunting clues. I changed my mind though, because I'm not good at clues, mysteries, or cases. So, a gift with the address is sort of dissapointing, but who cares?
Steph's feelings about Tim are sort of iffy. A really popular headcanon is that Jason was Tim's robin, and thats not true. I'm pretty sure Tim just,, didn't care about Jason? Idk exactly how he felt, but whatever. Steph doesn't hate Tim, in this fic, she just sort of hates how he was as Cassowary. Bruce is full of guilt and won't say a bad word about him, but has plenty of criticism for Steph, which leads to a sort of resentment. He was Cassowary though, so there is also some adoration in her heart. Basically, she switches how she feels about him depending on the situation.
Jack and Robin. In this universe, Jack doesn't know Tim is a superhero. Tim does still take a break, but it's to spend time with his dad after he awakens, not because he's threatened. Dana also (unfortunately) isn't around in this fic, so Jack has more time to spend with Tim. It's sort of a win-lose situation though. More time with Tim so they get closer, but without Dana to calm him, Jack's little bouts of fury are stronger (remember how he fucking ripped out a TV??) so their relationship is more strained, which is why Tim does go back to being Cassowary, just for a bit, before his dad dies.
Hints are sprinkled in Steph's bits that tell on Tim's identity. Not many, because I'm really bad at hints and subtlety, but there are a few. Mentions of shock burns (the electrocution duh), Zesti instead of tea (which is Tim's canon favourite drink, not coffee!!), and his wish that Steph stops being a hero.
Tims motivations are a reverse of Jasons canon ones. Jason forgives Bruce for not saving him, but is mad he wasn't avenged. Tim forgives Bruce for not avenging him, but is mad he wasn't saved. Aint that fun? Thats why instead of beating her up, Tim kidnaps Steph for three days to resemble the three weeks he was held captive before he died. Yippee, allegories! (i think that word isn't right, but i can't think of the right one??!! english is HARD)
WOW i had a lot of thoughts and explanations and shit for that oneshot, huh? 🤭
#reverse robins au#reverse robins#cassowary#stephanie brown#tim drake#bruce wayne#jack drake#joker junior#thought process#how do i tag this#RAMBLES!! THOUGHTS!! AAAAH!!#dc universe#batman comics#batman fanfiction#batfamily fanfic
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Writing Advice: Lore Chapters
I’m sure we've all read them before, an entire chapter dedicated to just lore, they aren’t normally fun to get through and you might even skip them (don’t worry, I won’t tell). However, despite the hatred for these chapters, why are they common? I think these chapters are common because we writers tend to get stuck in our lore and we forget what's important, and what's made just for us.
You see when creating a new story, there’s gonna be a lot of lore. However, much of the lore which gets created isn’t needed for the reader and trying to figure that out is a bit challenging. This all depends on how much of a world-builder you are. If world-building comes naturally, then you could create everything from the flora to the weather system which will help determine what your islands look like.
If world-building isn’t something you enjoy, then the lore you create might just be enough for your story but that’s it, however, there’s still gonna be lore that’s not necessary even if world-building isn’t your forte.
You’ll need beta reader's help to determine which part of the lore feels necessary and which feels filler but let’s continue.
Lore chapters are most of the time created as an afterthought. When a writer forgets to add in some lore, and they go back to a spot where it’ll be prevalent, stick it in the book and move on. You can figure out when this happened because if you skip these chapters, you won’t miss much. If you, the writer forgot to mention some lore, and none of your beta readers are confused, you probably don’t need to add in the lore if no one else asked for it.
Lore chapters also aren’t what people tend to care about when reading your story. In fact, from my point of view, people only start to care about the lore at certain points. One, if there are blatant lore mistakes. While reading a story for the first time, the reader will get a basic understanding of the lore. Just enough to follow the story, but not so much where they’re an expert. If there’s an obvious plot hole within the lore, they’ll notice and care about the lore a bit more as even from their basic understanding, some parts of it aren’t making sense.
Two, when they’re invested in your story. If you have dedicated fans, who read each of your books, talk about your books, make fan-fiction, art, etc. Those fans will start paying more attention to your story's lore. These fans are great, but sadly, don't make up the majority of your reader's base. These fans might not mind the lore dump chapters as they’re already invested so if you want to write for them, go all for it. If you still want to keep your average reader engaged you might want to change a few things and I got a few things you could try.
Spreading out your lore: This will take practice because it’s also easy to figure out when the author adds a paragraph of lore that can be easily skipped through. However, having lore sprinkled throughout your story will do a better job of keeping your readers engaged with your world, instead of having it all in one chapter.
Try to avoid big paragraphs of text: If you have a paragraph that takes nearly half of the page if not more, a lot of readers, myself included will probably skip over it. I’m not dyslexic, but I need separations in my paragraphs. Reading a wall of text does tend to make me start to blend words together and I won’t absorb anything. While there’s no rule on how big a paragraph should be, I’d try not to make mine no more than four sentences long, keep in mind a sentence can be as short as three words, or twenty.
(Now for a wall of text after I said I try to avoid them).
Try and explain the lore over multiple chapters: If it’s important to know the history of your story, and world, don’t put all of that history in one chapter, spread it out, and even retell it a few times to make sure there’s a better chance your readers will know what’s going on. While it’s the reader's fault, if they skip over sections of your story and get confused. They won’t blame themselves for what they did as they’ll believe they were justified in skipping parts of your story. I’m not saying you need to change how you write to appease these readers, but try having the lore be told in a few chapters might help. The best thing about this method is even for readers who don’t skip over lore chapters and would've read the same lore a few times now. They can skip over a section they already know and won’t have to worry about missing anything important because they already know it. This kind of writing is a bit more advanced as you have to juggle between people who skip lore chapters and people who don’t. Beta readers are great at figuring out where to cut or add your lore.
Make those chapters interesting: This might seem a bit harsh, but lore is history, and not everyone likes history. When they read lore, they're reading history and not what’s going on in the story. It doesn’t matter what kind of lore you have, or how important it is, if it feels dry compared to every other aspect of your story, people will skip it. Not to mention if it feels like the plot of your story gets halted in these chapters, people will skip them because they want to continue with the story. Beta readers are a great way to figure out where the lull is coming from and tell you what they found exciting leading up to the lore dump. You can figure out where to go from there. What I normally do is have character growth in between those lore chapters. Have the characters discover something about themselves, have a relationship grow, or even have it break during these sections. Just add something in the background to keep the reader engaged, but make it where they can’t skip over the lore because if they do that, they might skip something else.
Try not to have lore chapters near the end of your story: If your story is building up to fighting the big evil, and there’s a lore chapter just slapped in the middle...yeah, that's not great. Even if it’s really important. If the readers are gearing up for a fight, or whatever the ending is and it gets paused...readers won't be happy with it. These lore chapters are normally important because it’s where the main character will discover something that’ll change the outcome of the climax of the story...but if it’s halting the buildup, it doesn’t matter how important it is, people will skip. Think of it like riding a roller coaster, if the coaster is slowly reaching its highest point, you don’t want it to stop just before it gets there and have it explain to you the history of said coaster.
Overall, there are multiple ways of dealing with lore-heavy chapters, and again, beta readers are your friends. If you’re unsure if the lore chapter you have is needed or not, send out different versions of your text, one without the lore-heavy chapter and one without and see what the reaction you get. If the people who didn’t have the lore-heavy chapter were able to follow along just fine, but those who did have the lore chapter said they skipped over it and were still able to follow along, unless you really want to keep the lore, you probably don’t need it.
#writing#writeblr#book#books#writers on tumblr#book writing#creative writing#writer#on writing#writer stuff#writing advice#writers of tumblr#writerscommunity#writers#author#write
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In light of what others have asked about the Banished, do you ever feel like the narrative writers (not all, but by-and-large) haven’t been interested in telling stories about morally complex aliens—writing them as people, in other words?
After years spent waiting for the post-war setting, for me the Kilo Five trilogy’s messaging signaled that 343 weren’t interested in telling that kind of story, especially after more years of alien terrorists who really want to kill humans again constantly being centered (while seemingly ignoring that the Great Schism was A Thing) and with the Swords of Sanghelios being deemphasized to the point where only a paragraph in the 2022 Encyclopedia’s “Splinter Factions” section was dedicated to them while the Banished got three dozen.
With some of the new story shards and Halo: Outcasts I feel like things are starting to turn around, but I do worry that they’ll shift back.
I don't know anything about anything for real but I think what's going on is this:
First and foremost, before it is anything else, Halo is an investment Microsoft is trying to make money on. The way it does this is primarily by selling purchases in a live services video game where you compete at running around shooting other players and (only recently) sometimes computers. They do make money on merch and things like books and such, but it's not remotely as much as they make on shootman video game.
They have a huge incentive to continue telling stories where running around shooting is the main action. Ergo, the stories Halo's writers tell need to create excuses to have this action and to make that part seem fun and enticing.
(The fact that Halo's pvp has never really had anything to do with events occurring in the lore doesn't really matter, once they have the campaign story excuse game for the multiplayer. "It's a training exercise for Spartan-IVs" was a very late addition, and oldschool Halo didn't bother framing it at all because nobody cared. Frankly, I think most people who play Halo PVP still don't really care.)
So, Halo's not interested in post-war and anything that amounts to recovery because it doesn't do a lot to contribute to Halo's core goal of making shootgame money that keeps convincing Microsoft that the people who make Halo should get the paychecks they need to afford to live indoors and eat food.
I do think there are people working on Halo who are interested in and curious about these ideas, and I really do think the Arbiter and the Swords of Sanghelios and the Sangheili in general are house favorites. (Why else would they be finding excuses to continue bringing the Sangheili into the games even if they can only fit them in as part of the Banished now, when the Sangheili are the species the Jiralhanae probably hate the most?)
Honestly, Halo isn't good at deep or complex characters of any species most of the time and when things are good it's because someone managed to give them some extra love somewhere. Halo has never needed a watertight, emotionally intelligent narrative. It just sometimes skates close on things like the Arbiter, and even though the Arbiter's arc is easily the strongest part of Halo 2's story the gamers hated it and that's why it was so curtailed in Halo 3.
They gotta make shootman games, and sell the shootman games, and that requires an acceptable enemy. For a while they were pivoting toward having Forerunner enemies, but now those are associated with an unpopular time in Halo (especially Halo 5). And Halo is at an age where it feels like every new thing about it is "trying to return to the roots" so... shooting familiar-looking aliens that people have nostalgia for.
Frankly, this is the biggest reason why I'm sighing and waiting for them to bring back the Flood again even though I'm really just not looking forward to that. It feels inevitable.
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Hiiii it’s meeee elsie
conflicted Elsie
Look, you know as well as I do that I love TAOCC to freaking death
but like
I may have to partially step away from it after the current arcs are over.
these goofy goobers took over my life for the last three-ish months, and while I’ve had an amazing time, it’s…caused me to neglect other parts of my life, and restrict myself more than I should when it comes to how I am on this site. I’ve stated my intention to try and branch out multiple times but I never go through with it because I just…I have things to write here! I can’t! And yeah it’s fun but sometimes I get hurt even if people don’t mean to, like, I’ve gotten legitimately ill from this once or twice.
But I feel like even trying to step away a bit is somehow abandoning all of you or betraying your trusts. I want to stay friends with you guys, but my actual life and Irlsie has to come first most of the time, because I am not JUST Elsie, if that makes any sense. Elsewhere is and was always meant to be a sona for some interaction, maybe some friendos, but nothing this…involved, because I can’t put all of my social effort onto the internet because no matter what I do, the internet is not a completely genuine place, and I’ve accepted that. There are some parts of my personality I just don’t use. You don’t really ever see calm Elsie or mental illness Elsie or sappy Elsie, maybe once or twice, and that’s intentional. This is Writing Elsie’s blog, lol, but there’s other Elsie that needs to be allowed to exist outside of the internet, and I can’t neglect her or my actual life for the sake of this.
I honestly don’t know what to do here. I love these characters on a very personal level, and have poured my heart into them, and I don’t want to straight up leave them. Even only partially separating myself seems kinda pointless because I know what happens when someone gets really behind on the lore and has to be caught up on even just a day’s events to explain why Character A looks like this now or Character B is referencing this event, etc. etc.
But there’s a point where it’s not healthy anymore. Where things reach a place where I have to admit that this can’t be my entire life anymore. And I’m not entirely sure what on earth I should do about it…
If I do somewhat step back, it’ll probably be right after the vacation arc ends. i’m gonna pour my fluff loving heart and soul into that thing, don’t you worry. But you shouldn’t expect another dungeon or something like that from me unless I have a VERY good reason and a well formulated plan. Yes, I’ll probably still engage in shippery and fluff, as well as analysis, but mostly within the bounds of characters and dynamics we’ve already established, and not much farther than that. My one exception to the “after the vacation arc” rule would probably be Yelena’s arc, because of how long things in that section tend to take, for various reasons. Yelena’s arc is barely started, and stuff takes possibly days to move even a few hours in-universe. Sooooo….yeah, I wanna finish that, I’ve put too much work into it already to just stop it.
…dang this was only supposed to be a paragraph…
…pls halp, I have no idea what to do lol.
Ok. I've read over this a couple times.
First off, I'm talking to you as L here, and not Star. I am very, very proud of you for acknowledging this and understanding that this is getting unhealthy. I think it's very smart that you dont want to neglect your yourself irl and the fact you're saying this, and saying exactly what you'll be doing, I'm really proud of it.
To give you a clear answer, if it's going to help you irl then I think stepping back is smart. Especially from the trauma and angst, because that stuff hurts a LOT and it can be really, really detrimental and negatively affect irl things. What I DONT think is that it's betraying anyone. You need to be able to put yourself and your needs first in order to be your best self, and everyone understands that you can't be on tumblr 24/7 because, well, that's really really really really unhealthy and not good. I'm really glad you're telling me about this though so I, and everyone else who sees this, knows.
TAOCC is really great but there's a LOT of heavy things on here and with everything going on, it can be super weighing and really affect people irl. I can speak from experience because honestly, I'm in a similar situation. I won't speak much about that though. It's definitely addictive and can get really really unhealthy if you let it, and honestly it's not hard to let it.
I want you to do whatever you feel is best for you, no matter what that entails. Fei and Tails and Xeya and Kumo and so many others and I love you so much and do NOT want you neglecting yourself and your life irl for this- it's meant to be entertainment, not a lifestyle.
I think it's smart to finish Yelena's Arc before partially stepping back. And I think it's even smarter to not want to do another dungeon, because that whole thing was a massive angst-fest and I think it negatively affected people more than they care to admit. Shippery and fluff and minor things is a good boundary.
I'll wrap this up now, but again, I'm in full support of this decision because I want you to be at your best. You're right, you're not just Elsie. And it's not fair for you to only be Elsie when you're so much more than that. If stepping away from tumblr will help you take care of the other parts of your life that we aren't involved in or aware of, then please do so because no part of you and your life should be sacrificed for the sake of entertainment.
Again, I'm really, really proud of you for admitting this.
Please know we'll always support you and you're super important to all of us, so don't ever feel bad for putting your needs first. Irl things should always come first.
But no matter what always remember:
WE LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH AND YOURE SUPER IMPORTANT AND WE WANT THE BEST FOR YOUUU ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Everything I said is applicable for everyone else reading this too. Taocc is fantastic and we love it but it shouldn't completely take over your life. It's okay to take a break or step back fully if it means the best for your health and irl life. Please remember to take care of yourselves- and everything that Elsie talked about here is FANTASTIC self care. It may be hard, but it's also the best decision she can make for herself and may be the best decision for others too.
Alright- I think I covered everything. Don't ever feel like you're betraying us Elsie- it's not betrayal, it's self care. We'll still be here for you, always. Never forget that ❤️❤️❤️
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[Review] Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3)
An embarrassment, frankly.
After playing Forces and actually liking it, I figured I'd give a chance to the franchise's biggest punching bag. Turns out that in this case, I agree with the popular consensus: Sonic 06 is broken and unfinished, with a messy story, bad controls, and crippling performance issues. I've heard it described as entertainingly bad, but I just can't go along that far; I had a miserable time with this game. Let's get into it, shall we?
Although I'm still not ready for my Sonic doctorate, I'm progressing well in my studies. I've played enough of Adventure to pick up that Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is trying to be Adventure 3 in all but name (and speaking of the name, this game is not to be confused with the Mega Drive game, or the Master System game, or any of the handhelds or animated shows or comics or movies of the same name... the title is the first of many stupid decisions in Sonic 06). A big group of playable characters, more open levels than what would come later, exploration of hub areas, and a heavy focus on story and cutscenes with interweaving plot threads. It's fine in theory, it's just that every individual piece breaks down in various ways. As opposed to previous Adventure games, there are just three main stories (Sonic, Shadow, and new character Silver who is basically just Dragonball's Trunks) with the other hangers-on popping up only temporarily within certain levels.
Sonic's story, such as it is, revolves around Elise, a filler character who is a gormless and feckless human princess and frequent damsel in distress; she gets kidnapped out of nowhere at least five times and dies in a plane crash once, necessitating time travel-based rescuing. Elise’s role in the story when she’s not being kidnapped is alternately mooning, pining, emotional outbursts, and having a tragic backstory. Also, on several occasions Sonic the Hedgehog literally tells her she should smile more. Textbook misogyny, WTF. On top of this is the uncomfortable subplot about a potential romantic connection between her and Sonic, which always fails to feel earned or appropriate. The one saving grace of the character is the mildly amusing idea that her design is loosely based on the chicken animal that you free from badniks in the early games.
I know it sounds harsh but Elise almost single-handedly drags down the whole "story" aspect of this game. After progressing Sonic's mode you unlock the others and theirs almost feel like real plots, centering around stopping Iblis—the mindless beast of fire who ruined Silver's future—and Mephiles—a scheming creature of shadow—before they reunite. Even these stories don't really hold together though with their disjointed plotting, time-hopping, and contrived interactions. Not to mention the utter humourlessness, and the sheer awkwardness of everything from writing to line-readings to mocapped movements. The fact that it's seemingly incompatible with Blaze's backstory in Rush was annoying to me personally, and ending the story with a closed time loop "it never happened" resolution is just the icing on the rotten cake.
I must also mention another decision made in Sonic 06: why game look like that? It falls into the trap of early HD striving-for-realism and falling far short, but it also feels unfitting for Sonic. After all, the hedgehog himself and his anthro friends are as cartoony as ever (almost expressionless faces notwithstanding), so putting them next to the human-looking humans really jars, especially the redesigned Eggman. And speaking of, his robot army is at its most militaristic and entirely whimsy-free... just another in a long line of missteps for ol' 06.
Now all this could be swallowed if the game was fun to play. You should be able to predict that indeed it isn't. Sonic's playstyle is the stinkiest of the lot, particularly the autoscrolling running sections that feel barely functional and were the biggest cause of lost lives (I did not appreciate starting over a ten-minute level due to these abominable segments). His moveset is simple, just a homing attack and not much else, and without a targeting reticle it's unpredictable. He has some sloppily implemented extra powers that are unlocked in a shop; hilariously they're supposed to drain your special bar but due to some error they just don't, so you can use them infinitely for what that's worth.
Shadow is similar, with a combo attack and ranged stunning bolts, but also has a lot of vehicle sections which while awkward are playable enough; meanwhile Silver plays like an entirely different game. His psychokinetic powers let him pick up and throw enemy projectiles and physics objects. It's janky but his slower-paced, almost puzzley levels felt ever so slightly less like the game was constantly falling apart at the seams. There's 9 playable characters in total and none of their abilities work very well; among the others Knuckles and Rouge were pretty fun with their gliding and climbing completely breaking level design, while Blaze (another big reason I wanted to try this game, an opportunity to play as my favourite character in 3D) has a fun moveset with a double jump and a homing attack that actually keeps momentum and flings you around. Like everything in the game it's slippery and totally jank but in a way that actually feels fun sometimes.
I even sprung for the "Team Attack Amigo" DLC (now only available on PS3!) which remixes the levels for play as Tails, Blaze, and Omega (aka projectile spam bot). I should say that each campaign takes you through the same nine levels, sometimes making them new, sometimes reusing whole segments which gets old. The lowest point of the low are the boss fights, another area where the phrase "barely functional" comes to mind. These are tedious to the extreme with a lot of waiting, and several of them recur in each campaign. The worst is fighting Silver, who can instantly grab you psychically and hold you for a long pause before throwing you, and then catch you again as you recover with no chance to make any input. Wonderful!
The elephant in the room for Sonic 06 is its performance. I guess being rushed to release in an unfinished state actually has its downsides, which take the form of horrendous slowdown throughout the entire game experience. Having seemingly almost any number of objects or any amount of level geometry on screen starts making the game chug, the action not dropping frames but rather slowing to a crawl as you agonisingly float mid-jump waiting for your next input to register. And this is despite having pretty severe pop-in not too far away from your character. For what's supposed to be a fast-paced action game it's frankly unforgivable. And speaking of things that you wish ran faster, the loading screens are interminable not just for their length but their frequency: deign to do a side mission and you'll sit through a long load both before and after a character gives a tiny snippet of dialogue until you're allowed to try it, and if you fail then get ready to do it all again! They really add up!
I could go on: the camera is atrocious, the music is forgettable, Elise is incredibly cringe-inducing—oh wait, I covered that already. To be fair there is one bright shining spot and it's from my new old friend Tomoya Ohtani: the main theme His World stands among my favourites from Forces, a strong melody that mixes rock and orchestral with even some rap and makes it work! Watching the credits four times may have been the most pleasant part and it's all thanks to this song. So that's my big takeaway from Sonic 06: the rumours are true, it sucks big time, don't play it unless you're a real loser like me who doesn't value their time, it's a monument to Sega's staggering incompetence, but hey this one song is really good, maybe give it a listen!
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Hot take!!! (Nuclear tbh)
People are way too shitty to the LW devs, especially Yumeno Rote.
This guy is responsible for every single piece of non-story card character art in the game, that includes units, costumes, alts, expressions, Music Video CGs, etc. Seeing as a new unit is released per week, along with 2/4 event costumes and 2/3 rebirth costumes at the end of the month, this guy is at MINIMUM drawing 8 fully detailed illustrations and backgrounds per month, for three and a half years straight.
The only other gacha to my knowledge that has one artist doing all the character art like this is Limbus Company, which even then has a significantly longer period between new art being added to the game. (I'm aware there are likely a lot more, but most to my knowledge have multiple artists)
So when I see a post criticising Lost Word, what do you think is being criticised 90% of the time?
Is it:
The fact it's a gacha game
Genuine criticism of the game itself and its mechanics or story
Hell, even criticism of the questionable work practice of having one guy do all the game's art
If you guessed 4, "near insignificant nitpick of Rote's art, AUs shown, or a VA (in a game where you can pick from 3 for every character) because it doesn't fit within their headcanon in a game about multiple different universes" you'd be correct!
Don't get me wrong, I have seen the first two plenty of times, but they're always either fair critiques or people who just don't want anything to do with gacha games and don't care which is understandable.
But for 4? The sheer amount of hatred and seething vitriol people express for details most people wouldn't think twice about is insane to me. It never seems to come from a sincere place of disappointment but rather fear to fit in, like "Oh this relates to me, I better lay in to it as much as possible since everyone else shits on it, wouldn't want to give people the impression I'm weird for liking it after all". It just seems depressing to me that people feel the need to act miserable out of peer pressure and not wanting to stray from the popular opinion.
As someone's who played the game since launch at this point I feel more than qualified to tell you it's FAR from perfect, hell I wouldn't even call it all that good. Gameplay fluctuates from playing the game for you to forcing you to have a full understanding of the meta, grinding is a chore, drop rates are far too low, the nature of the game forcing normally evil aligned characters to act more reasonably, and I unironically think the lack of representation and downright bad writing for Aya until now is singlehandedly responsible for making her drop by one place 3 years in a row in the THVote popularity poll.
So why do I still play it after all this time? Because I genuinely just want to see what they do next. I like seeing what new takes on characters they come up with, I like seeing where the story goes, what the next event will be and I love Rote's art and all the other art contributed by the JP community, I even think the Hifuu and RoM section of the story is genuinely good. It's nice to have a constant and reliable stream of Touhou media to read through in-between the wait for actual new games.
Somehow I don't feel that guy in the middle would want to come on livestreams 3 and a half years after launch if he didn't find it fun, same goes for all the artists and doujin circles that have contributed their art and music, especially those with more than one card or song.
If you want anyone to blame, blame GoodSmile for publishing this game and making this the complete extent they're willing to promote it and Touhou as a whole. (Last new character from them was a Reisen nendo from six years ago btw!)
In conclusion, I think LW has objectively done more good for the series than harm. You can not understate the fact that this game is responsible for introducing Touhou to so many new people and giving the spotlight to characters that are otherwise overlooked. Inaccurate character portrayals are rarely an issue when the series embraces differentiating itself from the source material, that's the nature of doujin culture. That and it seems silly to try and gatekeep people who got into the series through Lost Word, telling them they're experincing it wrong only serves to turn them away and I don't blame newcomers when official touhou media is still hard to come across in the west and the three most popular games in the series still don't have a digital release.
As a tangent, I used to have a problem with how Aya was depicted in a lot of fan media, even from people here, but a friend taught me I shouldn't let those alternate interpretations ruin my enjoyment of her and that I shouldn't fault them for seeing her that way. I feel others should be able to learn from that.
(I definitely forgot some stuff but this is ranty enough as is, I just wanted to get it out of my system)
#touhou#touhou project#touhou lost word#東方project#weird how I never see discourse like this surrounding arknights
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Timeloop for the wip game 👀 (I love me some time shenanigans)
me too!!! a timeloop story is the doomed hero trope on steroids and it's so good ❤❤
(*other timeloop ask for friends catching up)
besides the angst fun, what i'm most excited about for this WIP are the POV changes!! this fic is in three parts: Kim POV, Big POV, and Chay POV.
Kim POV: the angst. the fun. the drama. obviously because it's me, there's so much KimChay in this section, because Kim's awkwardly flirted with Chay before this and while he's telling himself all his hanging out with Chay means nothing, Chay's rolling out his big romance guns and Kim is being so swept off his feet. not only does he exhaust every reason to hang out with Chay, he also starts letting go of those excuses to hang out with Chay, because if everything resets come morning, it doesn't matter what he does with Chay now. except, of course it does, he is falling deep and his already weak excuses for why he certainly doesn't like Chay are crumbling under the weight of each loop. his days with Chay just get better and better until he has the perfect day with Chay. it wasn't even planned, things just fell naturally into a full day date where they played hooky and enjoyed their time together and a day full of spontaneity and genuine connection.
and it crushes Kim. that is a day he will never actually get back, not even in his memory, because Chay doesn't remember it. there's no point in even trying to recreate it, not only because a second time would ring hollow, but also Kim literally wouldn't be able to (i'm not explaining my timeloop physics in this post, but it's not groundhog day). Kim has the most perfect day with Chay and then gets absolutely run over realizing he has all these memories of and secrets from Chay that Chay will never be able to share with him again, and it rips him to shreds ❤
...okay, i didn't mean to just gush over the KimChay part of his POV like that, i'm just super pumped to write that angst. but actually tho, the first scene i wrote for this AU was the scene where Big gets a bullet in the head as the price for Kim's recklessness, because Kim's primary goal thru all of this is still to uncover Korn's secrets. in fact, this story had actually started shortly after i'd written like. two? lines of Kim & Big almost-friendship in my Silver for Truth fic draft, gone "hey, wait, omg" and then those musings bumped into my love for timeloop stories...some time shortly after that, and i just had. so many shenanigan ideas for these two in this context. then i immediately dived head first into the angst, but this was originally Kim & Big shenanigans.
i also did not realize i still have this many feelings to gush about Kim's POV alone tho so in the interest of trying to keep this post from getting too long, only teasers for the Big and Chay POVs because i'm evil:
Big POV: Big gets sucked into the timeloop sometime after Kim's mostly given up. Big is way too much of an overachiever to do nothing for eternity and decides he doesn't give a shit if Kim's being weird as shit, he's gonna damn well investigate this nonsense around Porsche himself because Kinn's fucking him already and Big does not want another fallout as bad as Tawan's, thank you very much. this eventually leads him to Chay, who is, much to Big's despair, not only the secret subject of Kim's affections (Big didn't even know Kim had those!), but also more insane than Porsche, Kim, and the entire timeloop combined. he also keeps making Big ponder the big questions like what he wants from life, Chay is just Big's personal handcrafted hell, someone save him.
Chay POV: Chay never enters the timeloop. writing his outside POV is so much fun 😈
[ WIP game ]
#kinnporsche#fic: fallout#im buzzing just thinking about Chay's POV but hmmm maybe i shouldn't spoil too much??#not that anyone will remember by the time i post but heheheheheheheheheee#WIP game
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