#i can expand on specific elements of this but if i wrote it in one post we wld be here all day

[transmutationisms]

could you talk more about catholicism vs protestantism in succession? I think roman accidentally buying the protestant football team instead of logan’s catholic team is super interesting

yeah the hearts/hibs mixup is a great detail. so in general i think this is a really funny level of the show. like, if you're making fun of american or british billionaires the obvious choice is to make them protestant. it's like, demographically likely, and in the american context in particular protestants have all these overt ways of reconciling their faith with capitalism and the desire to accumulate wealth. like, making money is configured as a signifier of bourgeois masculinity; it means you're productive (often implying and signified thru bodily fitness specifically, even though capitalists are ofc not the ones actually performing whatever labour is generating surplus value). catholicism is more uncomfortable generally with the open pursuit of worldly wealth, which is NOT to say catholics are never wealthy or that the church lacks wealth (it emphatically does not) but just to point out that this is a contradiction in ideals that catholics often just kind of uncomfortably ignore.

this is an undercurrent with the roys generally. they're ultrawealthy but rarely seem to enjoy their wealth all that much---like, they're comfortable and cosseted but they all have weird relationships with their bodies, food, sex, etc; also, their ways of signalling wealth are chronically uncool (their clothes) or else nouveau riche tacky (logan trying to host wine tastings or whatever that pierce make fun of him for). this also plays into how america has a relatively recent history of overt anti-catholic sentiment (like, see how people talked about jfk lmao) and combined with logan's canadian-scottish identity and lack of generational wealth, it gives him that persecution complex he retained even when he was literally one of the most powerful people in the world.

more to the point, logan has, like, the absolute worst and funniest case ever of catholic man who is uncomfortable with bodies disorder. it's tolerable if you're using your body to assert dominance in some way (pissing on kendall's floor, how logan wanted roman to say he was harassing gerri with the dick pics) but yuckydisgusting if you just like, have a body that is vulnerable or god forbid perceived by others (logan's attitude toward his illness, his disgust when it becomes clear roman was actually engaged in some kind of sexual affair with gerri---who is old and a woman and therefore also has a body). this is why it breaks logan's brain to think about shiv having affairs, and why, even though he is a misogynist, including to her, he does NOT talk about her body. it's also why he's so invested in getting roman "straightened out" and why he uses accusations of homosexuality to convey how much of a flop loser he thinks kendall is. his whole deal with masculinity is that Men Do Not Have Bodies. bodies are gross and physical, what are you, some kind of sissy? like, entire essays you could write on how each of the kids fits into this schema.

anyway, the obvious points of comparison here are the pierces (east coast blue-blood protestants), tom (germanic midwestern social striver protestant), connor's mother (american, lowbrow, implied/assumed protestant), caroline (protestant english aristocrat), and mencken (implied catholic convert, which is a whole other level). again you could write essays about this on any one of these characters, but in general the protestantism on the show is funny bc it's contrasting with logan's disgust at his body yet simultaneous desire for it to be Strong And Masc (NOT GAY!). caroline and the pierces bring out his persecution complex and insecurity about being boorish; tom is able to be "striving and parochial" partly bc he doesn't have the baggage of the roys, who are like, tormented by being wealthy in a gauche way ("how to control us news media in a god honouring way").

this is all like, peripheral obviously, but it's deeply funny also. and i do genuinely think the roys make more psychological sense when you understand that they have chart-busting levels of catholic martyr syndrome (kendall), guilt (roman), and repression (logan, shiv). even connor's "i'm like if napoleon was a us president" type beat is funnier through this lens (remember that napoleon very famously restored state relations with the catholic church after the revolutionaries had severed them and tried to found a secular 'republican religion').

with the three younger sibs in particular, this is one of the ways in which they fail to understand logan; they're aware on some level that he's catholic and were probably raised with some degree of religious practice, but it's heavily implied caroline interfered with this and the kids grew up less catholic than logan wanted, which was kinda the tradeoff for him having basically sought out an aristocratic pedigree for them. so, a misunderstanding like hearts vs hibs is a throwaway joke, but also hints at this much deeper level on which logan's kids don't get him or his priorities, and are never going to be able to respond adequately to his internally contradictory, repressed and repressive catholic-military-bourgeois standards for how they should relate to their bodies and how that affects his political worldview.

[redstarwriting]

happy birthday

miles morales x reader

request?: yes

request: “I LOVEDDD THE HC’S OMG OMG WORK OF ART!!! i was wondering if you would write something expanding on getting miles’ doodles tatted as an adult!! i would love to read more abt it, it’s so cutee”

requested by: anon​

word count: 2.2k

genre: fluff

Warnings: language, tattoos, mentions of tattoos and needles, Miles is so sweet it's sick

A/N: GLADLY!! i've been itching to get a new tattoo since the minute i got my first like three years ago and writing this just made me want to get another one so bad LMAO. i hope you enjoy!

also in case you were wondering what hcs anon is talking about, it's my pda/general affection hcs i wrote for hobie and miles! you can check it out here if you haven't already and feel compelled to :)

───────────────────────────────────

“Miles! Baby, can you give me a tattoo?” you ask, and he smiles. This has become a common practice in your relationship. From the time y’all were kids in love to now, you would always ask him for a tattoo. Of course, he didn’t actually give you tattoos, he just drew on your arm. He’s mentioned you, and even urged you, to get a tattoo every now and again. Especially when he offered to design them, but you always say his temporary ones are more special than any other tattoo you could get. He isn’t upset about it. He genuinely loves drawing on you. “Of course, babe. Come here,” he says, motioning you over to him as he grabs his markers he has specifically for your “tattoos.” You go over to him, sitting between his legs and extending your arm. “Can you draw it right next to the uh… elbow pit?” you say, and he laughs. “Elbow pit?”

“Yeah, like the inside of my arm and not on the bicep part or the elbow pit part, but the forearm part by the elbow pit,” you explain, pointing to the area you’re talking about. He chuckles. “Elbow pit.”

“Well, what else would it be called?” you ask, smiling, and he grins, starting to doodle on your arm. “I’ll text and ask my mom what the scientific name for it is after I’m done here,” he says, and you lean your head back against his shoulder. “Oh, god, please don’t tell her I called it an elbow pit.”

“Oh, I’m totally telling her you called it that,” he teases, placing a quick peck on your lips before returning his attention to your arm. He draws a spiderweb, of course, but in the shape of a heart. He adds his Miles touch to it by making it look like the web was spraypainted, and having it pop with black and red. You don’t even look at the tattoo as he draws it, you just stare at his face. You love watching him when he does his art. You assume it’s similar to the way his face looks when he’s swinging around the city as Spider-Man. He’s in his element, laser-focused and yet has an ease about him that mesmerizes you. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he says, smirking and turning his attention to you. You feel your face heat up but roll your eyes. “Can’t, arm’s a bit preoccupied.”

“You can get creative; I have an idea. Maybe use the one I’m not drawing on?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, and he shakes his head. “What do you think, amor?” he asks, and you look. You smile. “I love it, Miles. Thank you,” you say, kissing him on the cheek. He grins, wrapping his arms around your waist as you admire his art. “What time is it?” you ask, and he glances at his phone. “11:15. Why?” 

“Ganke and I are gonna go get some lunch today.”

“Should I be worried?” Miles jokes. “No, dummy. We’re just talking about… something happening soon,” you say, and a sly smile spreads across Miles’ face. “How soon?”

“I’ve said too much,” you say, trying to get up. Unfortunately for you, your boyfriend is Spider-Man and can easily hold you in place. “Nuh uh, how soon is this something happening?” he looks at you with a shit-eating grin, and you roll your eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know, spider boy?”

“I would. Is it, and this is just a wild guess… something happening tomorrow? A special something happening on a very special day?” he guesses, and you sigh. “Don’t tell Ganke you found out…”

“I knew it!”

“We’re supposed to be planning your birthday party, yes. For tomorrow. On your birthday. Are you happy you spoiled it for yourself now?” you feign annoyance, and he laughs. “I am, actually. Now I know to look good for you tomorrow.” You roll your eyes. “You always look nice, Miles.”

“Only for you,” he grins at you, turning your face to look at him. The two of you share a kiss before it’s interrupted by his police scanner going off. He frowns slightly. “It’s okay, Miles. I gotta go soon anyways,” you give him a quick peck for squeezing out of his arms. He sighs. “Fine, fine. Guess I’ll go save the city. Be the best thing that ever happened to New York and all that.”

“My hero,” you joke, and he grins. “You know it,” he says, slipping his mask on and sliding his everyday clothes off. “I’ll see you later, Miles. Stay safe. Love you.”

“You stay safe, too. Love you more.” He leaps out of the window, and you make sure he’s gone before you call Ganke. “Yo, what’s up?”

“You gotta plan Miles’ birthday party tomorrow.”

“Woah, what?” You sigh. “I already have the roof of our building booked out for it, I ordered the cake already and will pick it up tomorrow and have all the decorations. You just need to invite everyone, okay?”

“You mean I have to reach out to people in different dimensions, tell them to clear their schedules for tomorrow, and hope for the best?” Ganke asks, and you hum into the phone. “Yep! Thanks, Ganke! Also, if Miles asks, we went and got lunch, okay?”

“And where are you really going?”

“I’m getting a tattoo to surprise him for his birthday tomorrow,” you say, grabbing your keys and putting some money in your pocket. You put Ganke on speaker, sending a quick text to Hobie. “You need to stop using me as a cover-up, (Y/n).”

“Who else am I supposed to use? Gwen?” you say, and Ganke sighs. “I mean, yeah, you know she would be down to help you with something like this.”

“Ganke she is so bad at keeping secrets like that, and you know it,” you say, admiring the art on your arm again. “Then use Hobie.”

“Wait that’s actually a good idea,” you say, “Especially since he’s the one giving me the tattoo.”

“AND YOU STILL USED ME?!”

“I PANICKED! He was asking questions! Just, listen, invite as many people as you can think of, alright? Please, and thank you.”

“Fine. Go get inked or whatever they say,” Ganke says. The two of you give some quick goodbyes before hanging up. You receive a reply from Hobie, and a portal opens in Miles and your bedroom. You step through it and find yourself in Hobie’s flat. “Can I just say it’s about damn time you got one of ‘is works tattooed onto ya,” Hobie says, motioning to his couch. You sit and he gets his whole get-up ready, all the cleaning wipes and gloves and the tattoo gun all ready to go. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m getting it now and that’s what matters,” you say, and he clicks his tongue. “I can guarantee ya this is just gonna be the beginning. Kinda becomes an addiction,” he says, sitting next to you, and fiddling with his gun. “Then I guess I’ll just need to have Miles draw on me even more.” He chuckles. “Lemme see it.”

You show him the drawing, and Hobie shakes his head. “Your man is corny,” he says, and you shrug. “I like it.”

“I know,” he dips his gun in ink, and looks at you, “Ya ready?” You nod, and he begins tattooing Miles’ art onto your skin. The two of you talk the whole time, really, and you let him know about the party tomorrow. He, of course, agrees to come, and can’t wait to see Miles’ reaction. It takes a few hours, but eventually he finishes up and it looks exactly like Miles just drew it on your skin. Hobie places fake skin over it and gives you the rundown of how to take care of it. He turns away from you to put something away, and you quickly slip $100 under a pillow on the couch. You know he won’t accept any money from you because he’s ‘not a capitalist pig,’ so you have to be sneaky with it. “Thank you so much, Hobie,” you say, and he winks at you. “Anythin’ for my mate’s better ‘alf.”

He opens the portal again, and you two say bye until tomorrow. You’re back home, literally, in no time, and you quickly throw one of the hoodies Miles left lying around on. This way he won’t see the tattoo, and you can play it off like you missed him. Especially since you did kind of miss him and it is sort of a staple in your relationship that you wear his clothes when you do. That’ll make him melt and he’ll forget all about the art on your arm. And you were absolutely right. 

It ended up being a late night for Spider-Man, and when he got home, he saw you curled up on the couch, sleeping with his hoodie on, and all he could think about was that you missed him. He carefully picked you up and carried you to your shared bed. You started to wake up as soon as he was getting in bed after taking a shower and cleaning up, and he began desperately trying to get you to go back to sleep. “What time is it?” you groggily ask. “It’s like 3am, (Y/n/n), I’m here now, we can go to sleep, okay?” he says, slipping into bed next to you and pulling you on top of his chest. “Happy birthday!” you sleepily say, burying your face into his chest. He smiles. “Thank you, amor. Let’s get back to sleep now, yeah?” You make a muffled mmhmm sound and are out like a light almost immediately. Miles smiles to himself, wondering how he got this lucky.

You can imagine his disappointment when he wakes up the next day and you’re not snug against his chest, but he feels better the minute he sees a little note on his chest that explains you’ll be home, you just had to go do something for him. He gets up and decided he can do his Spider-Man duties until you text him and let him know he needs to come home. It may be his birthday, but the city still needs it’s defender. So that’s exactly what he does. He cannot explain how grateful he is that none of the big bads were trying to start anything today, because if he didn’t get to see you and eat a slice of cake, he was going to scream. The day went slower than he wanted but also sped by when eventually he got a text from you saying to come home. He immediately obliges, swinging in through the window and putting on some of his nicest clothes. He walks out of your room and sees you chilling on the couch. “Miss me?” he asks, walking over and bending down to kiss your lips. You giggle. “Obviously. Hey, before we go up to the roof where there totally isn’t a party waiting for you, I wanna show you something, okay?”

“Okay,” he grins, and you grin back. “Cover your eyes.” He does as instructed, and hears you shift slightly. “Okay… open them.” He opens his eyes, and immediately sees his “tattoo” on your arm. Only it was covered in a clear wrap. And it’s real. His eyes get big, and he looks at your face. You give a small smile. “You always encouraged me to get a real tattoo, so… happy birthday.”

“Yo! It looks so good, hold up,” he gently grabs your arm and softly traces it through the saniderm. “When did you get this?”

“Yesterday.”

“You weren’t actually with Ganke, were you?”

“No, I was with Hobie,” you say, and he shakes his head. “I got a little liar on my hands, huh?”

“It wasn’t lying it was covering my ass because you ask too many damn questions,” you say, and he laughs. “I love it, (Y/n/n).” You smile and the two of you share a kiss. “We should probably get up there. Some people are waiting. Oh, and pretend like you haven’t seen it yet. Hobie wants to see your reaction.” Miles laughs. “Alright. Well, I hope he knows I’m not gonna stop drawing on you. And that he fully traced my art,” Miles says, and you shake your head. “I’m sure he knows, Miles. You really like it?”

“Like it? Baby, I told you I love it. I love you; I love this tattoo; I love that this is a birthday present from you… everything about this? I love it. I don’t even need to go up there to make the day better because all I need is you,” he says, and you smile. “Hobie was right. You’re so corny.”

“Nah, hold on, he said that? Forget everything I just said it’ll be a perfect day when I punch him.” You laugh as the two of you make your way up to the party. But the whole time, Miles keeps finding his eyes drifting to your tattoo. Something about having his art on you permanently makes his heart swell with pride and happiness. And he and Hobie were both right.

It’s not the only “tattoo” that will become real.

───────────────────────────────────

[xadianglyphs]

Seventh Source: The Dark Magic Symbol

In honor of Book Seven: Dark, I want to revisit and expand on analysis of the dark magic symbol, itself—something I'm always low-key thinking about, but now I'm going to make you think about it, too.

We are lucky enough to have a fascinating window into the design process for all the primal source symbols (both individually and as a set) through the portfolio of Samuel Thompson, the designer. This includes the dark magic symbol:

I've scaled up the secondary, "also-ran" designs so they're all the same size, because I do want to talk about some of them. There are several paths of development visible, and each one reveals something that was seriously considered as a possibility for representing dark magic as a whole.

It's in the Blood

So to start out, we know on some level that, during story development, what became dark magic was originally blood magic. Two years ago, when I first looked at the concept art for the symbols, the filename used for the dark magic symbol image was "blood." That was corrected at some point when the designer uploaded new images with better presentation (as one does when maintaining a portfolio), but it happened.

There's also more than enough association between dark magic and blood developed over the course of the series that it seems pretty clear that the name changed on a surface level but the underlying concept remained.

It's even visible in the designs that not only was a blood droplet considered as the entire symbol, but it was incorporated into variations of multiple design directions.

Dragons in the Dark

There's a bit of a problem when you go from "blood" to "dark," which is "how do you represent darkness in icon form?" The primal sources are ultimately elemental—you can see in their design process that a lot of it was about creating a balanced set where the symbols are both individually distinct and yet related enough to fit together as a group. Earth has the usual "do we do rocks or plants?" decision-making, but otherwise it's just... the sun is the sun, water is water, etc. But what the hell is the iconic form of darkness?

Well, apparently it's dragons, because pretty much all of the rest of the designs are a clear evolution of what began as a dragon symbol. It gets stylized into a set of wings that is then further stylized, and in combination with other influences discussed in the next section, we eventually start getting something like the final symbol.

There's one other direction kind of explored here, which is the ouroboros dragon(s). I actually wrote out a whole thing about the ouroboros as a symbol historically vs. through the lens of modern Christian-influenced western culture to use here, but really none of that is the point. The most likely scenario is that they told the designer, "let's explore some possible directions dragons" and the ouroboros designs are just something you do in that situation. Obviously you don't want to actually choose it for the final direction, because then you'll never escape the specter of Fullmetal Alchemist.

But like... why dragons? I mean, this is not an accident. The designer dragon-ed the fuck out of this shit, and the only reason to do that is "that's what he was specifically told to do." So at some point during development, there was apparently a consensus that dark magic should be represented by something related to dragons.

Now, this could be as simple as "dark magic uses the essence of magical creatures, and a dragon is pretty much the epitome of a magical creature," or something like "dark magic elevates humans to being equal with dragons." After s6, however, I feel like there are enough weird little things connecting the Celestial Order, the archdragons, Aaravos, Laurelion, the Staff of Ziard, and various other stuff that it could be... something else. Something we're not yet able to see in its entirety.

But that's something we'll have to wait to find out.

The Staff of Hermes Ziard Hermes

Now to return to reality: the influence of the caduceus on the dark magic symbol is a done deal. It has literally been said. Even if it hadn't, it's also just... kind of obvious.

Like yeah, that sure is a set of wings with a little knob between them and a twisty stem, just like the the final dark magic symbol and all the designs that most resemble it.

I'm not going to go over the caduceus in depth because I did that once already. You can tell I was naught but a wee, innocent babe by the way I use the words "wiki" and "confirmed" in the same sentence. In that post, I spent a lot of time digging into the associations of the caduceus and Hermes/Mercury as if that was a window that would tell us something about dark magic. It was a fun post but largely irrelevant, now—this time, we're going to come at it from another direction.

Setting aside the more distinguishing features of the caduceus like the wings and snakes, what is it? It's a staff. (Or a rod, depending on your interpretation of the distinction between the two.)

Well, interestingly enough, we happen to have another staff to bring to the table for consideration. One that's important within the setting, inextricably linked with dark magic, and with an iconic design.

Now bear with me, because here's my argument: the dark magic symbol is based on the caduceus, but in relationship with the Staff of Ziard, with either the staff influencing the design of the symbol or vice versa.

To see what I'm talking about, we can take a look at the staff from a few different angles. Personally, when seen closed and from the front, I think it already looks plenty like wings.

But if we put it in profile I can do a little overlay to show what I'm talking about more easily:

It's not strictly the most anatomically accurate setup, but stylized in a way that's interestingly similar to the stylization of the "wings" in several of the symbol designs. This could be related to the the "dragons" stage of the designs, assuming that there is some connection with the dragons, or it could just be visual influence from the caduceus itself.

We should also consider the shape of the staff from the front when it's extended (unfolded?):

The rounded rhomboid/oval shape, the diamond in the center? Come on, work with me—it could conceivably resemble the symbol, right? Though yes, I do know what you're thinking. A professional would call that "yonic" and definitely not giggle about it.

As for the twisty bit—what would be the coiling snakes in the caduceus—there's a certain iconic spell associated with the Staff of Ziard:

Maybe a stretch. But you don't get much twistier than a tornado.

Contexts and Meaning within the Setting

Now that I've chewed on my tinfoil had enough that I'll never get the taste out of my mouth, I also want to just touch brief(-ish)ly on the actual use of the symbol within the context of the series setting. Like the primal source symbols, the dark magic symbol doesn't actually show up very often. The two biggies are Claudia's spellbook and the Key of Aaravos in Callum's dream:

I'm going to ignore Callum's dream because the use of the dark magic symbol there says more about Callum's psychology than it says about actual dark magic, while Claudia's spellbook is a use that its author presumably intended to be meaningful for other dark mages.

Ignoring the garbage symbols in the corners, the central hexagonal symbol is reminiscent of the geometric tree of life diagram, which you may be familiar with if you are into either one of several varieties of religious mysticism... or anime. Let's be real, it's probably anime.

I'm not going to explain it in detail because honestly I don't know a lot about it and it's (intentionally, as with most mysticism) pretty complicated. Extremely summarized baby version which suffices for my purpose here is: the hexagonal tree of life diagram is a hierarchical arrangement of nodes and connections between them, with each node representing a distinct facet through which we are meant to recognize a single greater truth or divinity. On the cover of the spellbook, we have the dark magic symbol surrounded by smaller symbols for each primal source. This is a clearer arrangement that could be conveying the same concept—each of the primal sources is only a facet of a truer, deeper magic, which we are to take as being dark magic.

None of that is particularly important, I just think it's neat. Anyway, what I want to do now is propose that there is, as of season six, one additional appearance of the dark magic symbol within the setting context. This one:

Like... rhomboid shape, little diamond in the center, twisty stem? This isn't something unique to the Hearts of Cinder spell, it's an early or ritualistically stylized version of the dark magic symbol.

To contextualize this further, allow me to draw attention to this image from Tales of Xadia, part of a larger graphic showing a scroll that illustrates significant events in the history of dark magic:

We have a sacrificed creature, from which dark magic flows. On it appears to be carved some symbol composed of straight lines, which because of the size and angle we can't really see clearly. I spitballed a while back that it could be a straight-lines version of the Star primal symbol. We also have use of the actual dark magic symbol, which I'll spare you my analysis of since really it's just more of the same.

It's still a little bit fuzzy how dark magic spells get the magic resources from reagents, but generally a living reagent (used in its entirety) is killed and non-living reagents (harvested from a larger source) have some destructive act performed on them, like crushing. We have a spell that uses a living(?) human heart, which is apparently distinct from a human life in some way, even though the latter is not going to be getting very far without the former. For casting such a spell, unless you're currently holding someone else's still-beating heart in your hand, you probably want to be at least a little specific about exactly which heart in the vicinity is gonna get consumed. I'm putting forward that there's a way to mark a reagent such that it connects properly with the spell in cases where squishing it in your fist or whatever is impractical.

Like with a symbol, right? And what better symbol than the one for all of dark magic, the staff that may or may not be behind everything?

With that, thanks for coming to this long-ass TED Talk that was entirely an excuse to say "the symbol Viren carves over his heart to mark it for sacrifice is an ancient or stylized version of the dark magic symbol, which itself likely on some level derives its shape from the Staff of Ziard, which he is literally holding in his hands." I've wanted to say it since s6 released. I cannot be stopped.

[survivalove]

debunking lies zutara shippers say about the atla creators & writers

disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement or defense of bryke or anyone mentioned. literally just debunking false statements i see spread throughout and outside the fandom as it pertains to kataang

1. that bryke made kataang endgame because the nice guy should get the girl

this is something I see often usually linked with this video of a man ⬇️ who they claim to be bryan/mike echoing this sentiment.

this man is in fact john o’bryan, one of the three known zk shippers in the writers’ room (we’ll expand on this in point 5) talking about how he saw aang. not the creators. so of course it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he doesn’t even like kataang in the first place.

2. that bryke made kataang endgame last minute and zutara was the original pairing

bryan and mike (notice how i’m using both of their names separately. this too will be important in the next point) have talked about how kataang was planned since they originally wrote the show.

they have also talked ad nauseam in a video (which I will not share here cuz it made a lot of ppl angry) about why they do not like zutara and its shippers, so this entire point is bogus.

++ the reason why they say zk was the original pairing is because of one of the zk writers (joshua hamilton) wrote this in the atla fun facts that used to run on tv. (we’ll get into him later) those atla fun facts contain a lot of inaccurate/non canon “facts” which you can check and verify on avatar wiki if you know what i’m talking about.

3. that aang is bryke’s self insert (specifically mike)

yeah, here’s where the separation becomes important. bryan (L) and mike (R) are two different men. mike has never said that aang was his self-insert, nor has he directly talked about relating to aang. bryan, however, constantly talks about how much he relates to zuko. even, going as far to say he tries to think like zuko when he writes characters and shows.

the only time mike has come close to saying he relates to aang is when dante said he thinks mike is more like aang while bryan is more like zuko, and they, mostly bryan, agreed. (mike has actually said he relates to korra more than aang but hey) bryan also is the one who drew mike’s beard on adult aang because he considered it a nice reference to his friend. this is the main reason why shippers ran with that self-insert narrative because half the time, they think bryke is actually one person ☠️

++ in fact, aang’s original character design is based off the mixed black-chinese son of sifu kisu

4. that atla was supposed to have a season 4 where katara and zuko got together

this is mostly something that has come out of a fabricated interview by the head writer, aaron ehasz. he was allegedly asked what he would have liked to do if given the chance to write a fourth season of the show and talked about an azula redemption arc among other things. zutaras then made up a whole fake interview including that he wanted to make the two characters endgame.

ehasz then came out to say that most of these “interviews” were faked and that he has never talked about having a preference for any ship. if you go on his twitter, you will see him talking about an azula redemption arc tho.

as for atla having a 4th season at all, it was never intended. the creators, the music composers have all said at various points in time, the show was written and pitched as three seasons, three elements.

5. that most of the other writers shipped zutara and bryke’s authoritarianism shut it down

as I said above, only three writers on the original show have come out to say they preferred zk at some point. atla has had a total of 21 staff writers. 3 out of 21 is not most if you ask me.

as for bryke (yes now i’m using the shorthand cuz i proved my point earlier) being authoritarians, no writer or staff that has worked with them on the show has said this so…? idk where that came from but i’m not here to back them up just mention facts.

6. that all the women who worked on the franchise shipped zutara while only men shipped kataang

atla has very few female staff as it is:

5 writers (elizabeth welch: zk; others: unknown)

1 director (unknown)

5 storyboard/character artists (lauren montgomery: ka; elsa garagarza: ka; angela song mueller: zk; others: unknown)

1 comic writer (faith erin hicks: ka)

2 comic artists (gurihiru: ka)

++ mae whitman (katara’s voice actress) has expressed her like for both ships throughout the years.

so i’m not sure what defines all and only for some ppl but those definitions are not in my dictionary. disclaimer: i’m not declaring anyone here as a shipper in any official sense. this is just based off statements they have made that you can google!

7. that katara is written poorly in post-atla content because of kataang/bryke

I mean the first part isn’t really a lie, more of an opinion which I can agree with to an extent.

why I mention this here is because zks will not only go on a tangent and link the misogyny in the writing to a m/f ship and say the other m/f ship would have been more feminist…

but they also refuse to hold all the men involved accountable. like I said, 3 known atla writers shipped zk and 2 of them (joshua & john) were men (who would’ve thought men could like a ship and it could still be considered feminist 😃). they were also 2 out of only 4 atla writers that came back for legend of korra, outside of the creators. (19 to 4 ☠️ no comment). these shippers very well know this and instead of holding these men accountable for the misogynistic writing, they instead brag about them shipping it and ask them about zk whenever they have the chance.

another example is gene luen yang, a comic writer who again shipped zk (another man GASPPPPP) responsible for the first 5 comic books. everyone knows his comics suck in terms of characterization, particularly katara’s. in fact zutaras have made multiple threads on how poor the writing is. funnily enough, they always fail to mention that gly was the script writer or acknowledge his part in this mischaracterization, while bragging about him shipping zk in other posts. ironic.

meanwhile, bryke have never offered writers’ commentary on any of gly’s comics besides the search - mike (because they were mostly writing legend of korra during his run.)

basically these shippers don’t care about misogyny or holding male writers accountable if they ship zk which is funny because I thought it was… for the female gaze? why are you hyping men shipping it anyway? confusion.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Dreams in the House of Tom Bombadil (and the Four Elements of Trauma)

Now that we've gotten to the point where the hobbits spend the night in Tom Bombadil's house, I'd like to expand on this bullet point from my chapter review:

Much apologies to my girlies on the server who headcanon the hobbits with phobias corresponding to the four elements; sadly, Tolkien is not on the same page as us this time.

For context, I present to you these screenshots of messages sent on the Fig Tree Discord Server back in January:

This started as a half-joke, but it's since evolved into something of a shared headcanon for some of us. Pippin has a Thing about fire, because of the Pyre of Denethor. Frodo has a Thing about water, because his parents drowned. Bri has since told me that she headcanons Merry has a Thing about air, specifically cold air, after his encounters with the Black Breath. And that leaves Earth to Sam.

The good news is that this is a really fun headcanon; and when you look at LotR through this lens, it's actually kind of staggering how well it fits with the events of the book.

The bad news is that Tolkien did not write LotR with this idea in mind; and the whole thing with Old Man Willow, and the subsequent nightmares that the hobbits have in Tom Bombadil's house, make that abundantly clear.

After all, what does Old Man Willow do to Frodo? Lulls him to sleep and then tips him face-first into the water. He almost drowns. He almost drowns. Sam finds him face-down in the water, unconscious, held down by a root and not struggling; there's water in his nose and his mouth and his eyes and ears and he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he nearly goes out the same way his parents did, in a river that connects to the one where they died. If Tolkien was writing Frodo with hydrophobia, this probably would've gotten a bit more attention than it did. But no; in Tom's house, Frodo dreams of Gandalf and Black Riders, because he's the protagonist and Tolkien needed an efficient way to foreshadow things a bit.

What does Old Man Willow do to Merry? Closes its roots over him, so that only his legs are sticking out; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the tree, Merry screams, and begs them to put it out. "He'll squeeze me in two, if you don't. He says so!" He could feel the roots of the tree clamping like a vice under his ribs, squeezing, crushing, bruising; he could hear the voice of the tree in his head, demanding he communicate the ransom message. And as our beloved former anon, Meg, pointed out: Could he breathe in there? Was it dry and stuffy and stifling inside the tree? How much air could he even draw in, when his lungs were being crushed and had no space to expand? He screams with what little breath he has left, but can they hear him? He's going to die. He can't breathe. He's going to die.

But, ironically, he's the one who dreams about nearly drowning, and his dream-brain convinces him he's lying in a "soft slimy bog" before he wakes up and finds himself in Tom's house again. He's not the one who got tipped into the water, but go off Tolkien I guess.

What does Old Man Willow do to Pippin? Closes its roots over him completely, with a click like a lock snapping into place; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the bark, and Old Man Willow gets angry, they can hear Pippin's "muffled yell" from deep inside the tree. Fire. Smoke and ash and anger. Could Pippin smell the burning wood around him? Could he feel any heat or sting? Did he hear Old Man Willow's voice, the same way Merry did, cursing the flames and threatening to smother him if it wasn't put out?

His nightmare, out of the three of them, is the only one that makes sense to me; he dreams that he is again inside the willow, hearing the wood creak as it sways in the breeze over him, and hearing the voice of the tree laughing at him again. But, sadly, no mention of fire.

All of that to say, if I wrote Lord of the Rings—which I realize is a terribly presumptuous thing to say given that I am, unlike Tolkien, Not A Genius, but hear me out—I definitely would have Frodo's nightmare be about drowning, Merry's be about suffocation, and Pippin's be about burning alive. This would then be foreshadowing for the later horrific stuff they're going to encounter concerning water, air, and fire respectively.

I dunno. It just seems like a missed opportunity is all. Which is probably why, despite how much I adore the “nightmares revealing inner turmoil and then characters waking up in safety and comfort” trope, I never really liked this sequence in the book all that much.

Sam, meanwhile, is welcome to continue sleeping “in deep content, if logs are contented". Good for him. 10/10, no notes.

[legacygirlingreen]

Topic: Sebastian and Solomon Sallow HCs

TW: mild discussion of abuse

It’s been almost a year in the fandom and I love seeing people continue to expand on the headcanon and lore surrounding these characters. The discussion of Solomon and his abusive tendencies comes up a lot towards his nephew. Beyond just the verbal - which we get a mild glance at paired with the elements told by Sebastian - one might can infer there’s more to the story.

Some people have proposed Sebastian possibly living in that shack (I can’t remember who exactly plus please feel free to tag and I’ll add them). Discussions of how physical the abuse is have happened in many locations.

As for why I love the HC of Solomon (forcibly) cutting Sebastian’s hair stems from the importance of hair in the time the game exists. Hair was an important aspect of home making - specifically with mothers to their children and fathers teaching their sons how to groom. Lack of parental figures that care can lead to those who seek to harm - thus why it makes sense in my brain for Solomon to do this.

Hair also played an important role between lovers - with things like hair locks being gifted by both genders to the other and rising to the use of lockets to hold locks of hair in a way to always keep that person close to your heart.

Sebastian frequently is shown in cut scenes scratching the back of his neck nervously, and while some people have the nervous tick of biting their nails this often one we see for him.

Solomon forcing unwanted appearances onto his nephew truly seems within the realm of possibility in my mind, especially when you consider the time period, the fact it truly looks so uneven in the game and he stays at a baseline upset with Solomon.

On the flip side Solomon could be seeing this as a means to help with comfortability during hot summers despite not enjoying the task. As far as Victorian standards go it was a task usually reserved for the woman of the house until a certain age. We don’t get any clues on if he had children of his own and suddenly going from a bachelor auror to having to take care of your brother’s children likely wasn’t a light adjustment. His frustration at the situation at times might’ve come out towards those kids, putting stops to things he might’ve found difficult to watch his brother allow when the Sallow’s were alive.

I could speak at length about this topic of how their relationship might’ve grown more and more strained with time but I digress.

Almost one year ago I wrote a fic expressing a possible way in which Solomon might’ve pushed that boundary of abusive behavior with his nephew is in aggressively cutting his hair . This lead me down a rabbit hole of jumping back in fandom. those who have stuck around since March of 2023 for the ride with over 250k words of Sebastian content across my main fic, mini fic and one shots : thank you💚

In the spirit of this I would LOVE to hear any further ideas on this head cannon so if you have some please feel free to comment, dm or put it in my ask box! I love hearing your theories! Especially when it comes to the interesting relationship between Solomon and Sebastian.

Since then it’s been wonderful to watch this head canon grow:

@writing-intheundercroft has furthered it by suggesting that the reason it looks so terrible is sheep shears - which utterly cracks me up in ways I cannot express !

@mrsbrookemunson also wrote a one shot tackling the same concepts and you can find it here:

And if you’re interested in my work it’s here:

Anywho, this is a simple reminder that we can all share a lot of the same ideas and also expand on them in ways that bring us together as a collective and not divide. I’ve seen so much hate, accusatory behavior in the HL fandom the last few months and it’s growing tiresome. I love seeing how we can all share our thoughts and bring new and developing ideas to the same characters, creating our own lore which expands beyond the canon.

Again, I look forward to hearing others chime off on their thoughts on the matter. I know a lot of people have opinions of Solomon so please let me know 🤣

[windvexer]

This is kind of a large question so I apologize but I guess I'm curious on how you're able to get such specific or like. unique (i mean this in a good way) answers from tarot? Like your "what magic should i learn next" stuff or how to pick up what a spirit can do through tarot. like idk how to translate these cards into what the spirit is trying to say

Hi!

There's no easy answer to this question, partially because I've now been reading tarot for almost exactly 16 years. This isn't at all to say that it's just the passage of time, but that in that amount of time I've done tons and tons of different things to expand my understanding of, and usage, of tarot.

Tarot didn't come to me very easily, and part of that journey was doing a lot of experimentation in an effort to figure it all out. My reading practice is still very much typified by a huge amount of experimentation and custom reading methods.

It hasn't been a linear process at all. I go through periods of months (or more!) where tarot just doesn't click for me, at all. So just because I picked up my first tarot deck 16 years ago doesn't mean that I've kept a consistent practice (I'm just now getting back into it after just such a fallow period ^-^)

My feelings on experimentation is that it gives me new ways to think about not only the cards, but also spreads, methodologies, and readings as a whole.

In addition, my experiments with other forms of divination (most especially casting lots, energy readings, and playing card readings) have heavily influenced my tarot readings.

Here is a post I wrote that I think expresses my feelings on experimenting within tarot.

Here are some examples of tarot experiments I've performed, and/or methodologies I've explored. It's these sorts of things that have been building blocks in my abilities in tarot. But no single one of them was a "key."

Elemental dignities: The elements of the cards dictates how they interact with each other. Air + fire can mean a supercharged firestorm, but water + fire can mean a controlled fire under a stewpot, or blocked progress of the fire. This experiment helps with understanding how cards can link together, and how energy can flow within a spread.

Elemental landscapes: Spreads are laid down in lines or grids and each card represents one aspect of the landscape. You must brainstorm and choose your own meanings. E.g., 8/wands is an exploding volcano. Queen/Cups is a lake inhabited by mermaids. Read the flow of weather patterns and energies through the spread as an answer to the question. This experiment helps with intuitive reading and working with a spread as a whole, instead of focusing on individual cards.

Elemental portents: Assign an element to your question. Draw a card. If the element on the card agrees with the element of your question, the portent is good; if it disagrees, the portent is bad. This experiment helps with learning how to phrase questions and how the question themselves can influence the balance of the deck.

Astral landscapes: This was an elaborate system I built around the Wooden Tarot. I worked with each card to assign it a mystical association that could occur in an astral landscape. The major arcana were spirits who could travel across the landscape. Each spread was like a playing board of a generated landscape and the spirits that interacted inside of it. This experiment was fun for considering the metaphysical ramifications of the energies of the cards themselves.

Numerical virtues: The number value of the card indicates its power and magnitude in the spread. 2 and 3 value cards are always of smaller power and significance. 10 and court cards are always of higher value. Aces may be high or low. This experiment gave me a new way of thinking about importance of each card, and how to blend magnitudes of significance.

Infinite directional wheel: I wrote a post on this actually, but basically you can keep placing cards forever in the cross-quarter positions. It's a meditation on the concept of elements and directions within witchcraft. Also, an extremely useful spread. This was a vital experiment for me in understanding spreadwork, flow of information, and linking cards.

Card doubling and tripling: Place two (or 3) cards together and determine the meaning as if it's one single card; there is no border, and the images combine with each other. The pictures and meanings of each combine into a single card.

Card doubling and tripling, but in spreads: For each position in the spread, place two cards (or three cards!) in place of one. Read the dyads or triads as if they are a single card. It isn't beginning/middle/end; it's a single triple-complex card! These doubling experiments helped me with the concept of card linking and blending meanings into unique interpretations.

Custom meaning sets: Basically, swap out all the default meanings with your own. Extremely useful IMO in learning how sets of meanings work together, and how to balance sets of meanings. I wrote a post on it here. These experiments have perhaps been the most vital for me in developing new interpretations. I believe that the magical skills readings you referenced were the result of custom meaning sets.

No meaning sets: Instead of using any card meanings, all spreads are resolved using a combination of elemental portents and numerical virtues. I.e., the element and number of a card in relation to other cards in the spread determines the reading. Here, the experimentation is allowing the cards to have strict, defined roles within a spread that can't be overwritten by personal intuition.

As a final note, I highly, highly recommend recording every reading you do and every card you draw. For the first couple years of my practice I recorded all readings, and it was a huge boost to my learning.

[thewrothode-if]

hi! you totally don't have to answer this if you're not comfortable, but can i ask how you made the map graphic for your zombie apocalypse wip? it genuinely looks so cool and i was wondering if there were any tools you used to make it look so realistic? love your IF btw and i'm looking forward to the post-apocalyptic concept if you ever decide to expand on it! 💕

Thank you for the support, you're so sweet. 🥹 And I can definitely answer this, I am NOT a gatekeeper.

I actually used Canva for the whole thing. For the map itself, I just screenshot the part I needed on google maps because I wanted specific locations and all that.

Canva is a really great place for these things. If you click on "elements" and scroll down to "frames," you can see so many different textures you can add to your picture. There are many rip effects you can add and many others, but simply searching "map fold" did the job for me.

Insert your picture and boom, but since my game is set in a zombie apocalypse, I wanted it to look dirty. However, I completely forgot what I searched for to find that perfect dirty effect, so I'm sorry. 😭 But! I do remember searching either "grunge" or "dirt" and looking for hours on end for the perfect one.

Most of it is premium, but you can find so many good ones for free if you search far enough (I never pay for premium so you know I'm spending my weekend just searching for good free graphics). You can also search online for these effects and add them to Canva.

Finally, for the extra details, I went to "draw" and just added the things I needed. I used free fonts for the words, wrote them in Pages (I never use Word for some reason) and inserted it by taking a screenshot. And since Choice of Games has this off-white color, I just made it the background so the shadows translated better.

Now here is me just yapping:

When I started with creating a map, I tried so many different ways to make it look realistic. In the beginning, I tried to add folds by searching for them in the graphics tab and even if it looked cool to me, I wanted it to look like a map and not a piece of fabric.

I managed to find the perfect map fold and used that, even though I really liked the rips, the one above worked better for me.

So that's all! I hope this isn't too boring and it helps anyone who wants to try it out.

[callipraxia]

I was just asked to share a favorite writing tip, and as I wrote, it sort of organically expanded from the realm of writing tips I have received and into the realm of writing tips I’ve worked out for myself. I cut most of that from the original response because it wasn’t really what was being asked, but for anyone who might find it helpful - here are six notes on writing from someone who’s been doing it for twenty-something years and has no Agenda, financial or academic, to steer me much astray from confession of my actual practices:

Tip #1: my favorite writing tip I ever got from an outside source is (paraphrasing) “if you want to write like Tolkien, the key isn’t to stick a bunch of dwarves and elves in a low-medieval setting. The key is to write about subjects that you love as much as Professor Tolkien loved Northern European languages and mythology and the pre-Industrial English countryside and Catholic theology and etc.” It isn’t the details of what creatures you have in there that gives something that particular engaging quality that will carry it through and overrule a lot of its inevitable flaws - it is, instead, a subtle, difficult-to-define sort of energy the work will have that, as far as I can tell (and I’ve tried, many times, with concepts and projects that just didn’t work out), cannot be faked.

Tip #2: Based on my own experience as it applies to Tip #1, start trying to figure out what your interests are as early as possible and never stop looking even once you think you’ve found them. There’s a plethora of low-to-no-cost, low-to-no-commitment ways to pick up at least the basics of topics you know nothing about***, so give something a try every now and then, you might surprise yourself. For another personal anecdote, I grew up with the firm belief that physics was something I would a) find really boring and b) not be smart enough to get even the vaguest grasp on no matter how hard I worked, and that even trying was therefore probably a waste of time. I still can’t do the math and would probably flunk any real exams, but physics writing, obtained from the public library’s New Arrivals section, has ended up being one of the richest sources for my writing that I’ve ever encountered.

Tip #3: if you truly can’t find a subject in the world you find yourself especially interested in, that’s probably either the depression or the after effects of bad educational experiences talking. Or both - both is always an option. Start addressing that stuff and the world will most likely become a much more interesting place and you will most likely become a much more interesting writer.

Tip #4: if you find yourself with a sort of author crush, with someone (including other fan authors!) whose work you really, really admire, and you desperately want to be like them when you grow up - find out what they read and read it, too. This doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it is often a productive exercise; the reason I tend to include so many footnotes in my fics is because I’ve benefited so much from other people who left footnotes with reading recommendations or trivia explanations on their fics.

Tip #5, the Big One: Combine multiple things you are geeking out about into one story. The best writing I probably ever did began with how certain characters were represented in three different fanfics in two different fandoms. The presentation of Character A from Franchise 1 in two fics reminded me, in ways she normally wouldn’t, of the presentation of Character B from one fic from Franchise 2. I also just really liked Character C and thought it might be fun to introduce some elements of Character D to him and then see what happened, so I isolated some of the things I liked about those characterizations and combined a character trait or two from each in order to form two ‘new’ basic characters who would form the ‘center’ of the story. I then ran them both through additional filters: the first filter was some specific other interests (ornithology and tea culture) I happened to have, and then the second was the general impressions I’d gotten of family lives and dynamics from reading a couple of blogs for several years****. And then I topped this concoction off by dusting it lightly with references to and elements from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and an old Cage the Elephant song. Yeah. Other sources of musical inspiration have included, but are far, far from limited to, songs from Breaking Benjamin, Foster the People, Hozier, Lana del Rey, The Mountain Goats, The Offspring, and The Smashing Pumpkins. Even I kind of roll my eyes at that list, but hey, if it works, it works.

Tip #6: Don’t get the wrong idea from Tip #5 - I don’t recommend approaching stories or subjects with the aim of finding something to combine with something else in mind. The example I gave coalesced in my head over the course of several years before I ever put any of it into writing. The ideas will form in their own time, and I think the best thing to do is to just absorb as much enjoyable media and neat information as you can and then let your brain gradually do its own thing in its own time. It’s frustrating, but trying to think of things to jam together for a story or character idea on purpose doesn’t work nearly as well in my experience - maybe it can be pulled off for a one-off, preferably one that is a direct homage to or parody of the original, but when it comes to longer-term and more nuanced stuff, it’s rare for a deliberately sought out mash-up to ever quite get that Certain Something that I talked about back in Tip #1.

*** I can only really speak for the U.S. here, but with that caveat - I cannot overstate the utility of public library resources like inter-library loan and Friends of the Library bag sales, along with the contents of the library itself and particularly the New Arrivals sections if one is fortunate enough to be within reasonable driving distance of an even moderately well-stocked public library. If they’ve got a subscription to something like JSTOR or another academic database, so much the better, though you can find a surprising amount of information just through free articles and excerpts on JSTOR at least. The website and app Coursera also has a modest but useful collection of free courses, some of which are designed to be completed in as little as two days, and the similar website/app edX has quite a few classes where you can access the materials freely enough and just won’t get credit toward any professional certificates unless you pay them. I’ve done some studies also through Modern States, which is completely free as far as I remember and aimed at preparing people for exams that could, in theory, allow someone to test out of their freshman year of college or university. I have the very vague impression that Khan Academy sometimes gets mixed reviews, but I’ve found it a useful resource before. I’m sure this list also only just scratches the surface of what’s out there, too, since these are just resources I’ve personally used.

**** One of these was a LiveJournal, to give you some idea of how long ago this was…The other, in the category of “less obvious places to look,” was a collection of tea-tasting logs from a website called steepster; some users use/at least used to use their logs as a sort of journal/social media as well as a place to review teas, and some of those people are really good writers. Haven’t been to steepster in a while, though, should probably peek in sometime to see if it and/or any of my favorite loggers are still around….

[mdhwrites]

I really like the blog you wrote about trauma, Amphibia and The Owl House, specifically this one: https://www.tumblr.com/mdhwrites/728309819289845760/thank-you-for-defending-amphibia-s3a-you-dont

Your whole discussion on the 'pendulum' of trauma reaction was fascinating to me, and as an aspiring writer, it's something I'll be keeping in mind when I explore trauma in my own works. With that said, you've already talked at lengths at how differently Amphibia and The Owl House handle trauma, but do you have any other examples that stuck out to you as good/bad ways to explore trauma/angst?

First: It means a lot to me that you feel like I've genuinely taught you something. That is a genuine goal for me, even if I've gotten sidetracked from it at times, so it always feels good when someone says I succeeded.

And I have two examples from the same source not so much about dealing with trauma immediately after the fact but different ways of how to use trauma as backstory. How it can actually help form a character's worldview and the like. I have also then failed to get my brain to not becoming a hissing ball of hate (at me) trying to write this up a couple times now because I still struggle to do Star Rail blogs for some reason. sigh

I can't go much into it but luckily, I think Star Rail's 2.1 and 2.2 patches, with the characters Aventurine and Sunday, actually does a lot of it for me if you've played it. In short though, and trying to avoid spoilers: Aventurine uses his trauma backstory to inform personality. We get to see why he keeps people at a distance, where his gambling habit comes from, what it actually means to him, etc. like that. It entirely flipped the character (helped that it also saw a MARKED improvement in his writing from 2.0) for me into someone I could genuinely enjoy and sympathize with. It also didn't try to excuse why he manipulates people and keeps secrets but helped expand on why as a character he sees this as what gives him the best odds, even if sometimes it's not actually out of intelligence. (I keep wanting to do a blog about how they do this and how while it worked for me, it's a gamble the writers themselves pulled that won't pay out for everyone.)

Sunday meanwhile helps us understand his motivation and worldview from the trauma he has experienced in the past. It's even a well thought out enough backstory that it can be played as a core moral quandary: If presented with this evidence, what would you do? And that literally happens in game as a way to help shift the trauma from just being "UwU, sad boy," to "No, this is genuinely important and as it galvanized me, I hope it galvanizes you." It's a backstory with DEEP thematic and narrative importance while also allowing for great character work.

I really wish I could get my brain to go deeper, I could easily expand on both of these characters and their scenes connected to these elements, including how they're structured, but right this moment I can't. I've had this problem with Star Rail for a while honestly that when I want to talk about it, I often really struggle to unless it's IMMEDIATELY after I experience something. It's a lot of what triggered me recently to talk about how I struggle to be motivated by joy.

But that's off topic and my own problem. Sorry I couldn't do more of a lesson with this but I did want to give a response. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[imasloid]

SHINY COLORS FASHION ANALYSIS - ILLUMINATION STARS (PART ONE)

This is a project analyzing and taking a look at the fashion design and application in the multimedia series, The IDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors. This section is about the classic idol star and sky-themed unit of the series, illumination STARS! If you want to jump to a specific section, go here!

(This is a reprint of my thread on Twitter. I put it on Tumblr for easier reading and for archiving purposes. Enjoy!)

UNIT PROFILE

Members from left to right: Mano Sakuragi (櫻木真乃), Hiori Kazano (風野灯織), Meguru Hachimiya (八宮めぐる)

Official Description: A new generation idol unit formed by three girls carrying a small light. Although their radiance is still faint at the moment, while sometimes clashing and supporting each other, they will continue to journey towards the first-class star!

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UNIT COSTUME ANALYSIS

Foreword: This is the first thread I wrote, so it’s going to be a bit all over the place, but the later sections are much more organized and consistent… Nevertheless, thanks for reading!

The poster unit of Shiny Colors, illumination STARS is comprised of the red, blue, and yellow representatives of the branch. Like the other iM@S “traffic light” units, their costumes have of simple but classic idol elements as well as symbology representing their branch.

Using their costume “Sparkle Illumination,” I’ve shown some examples of classic idol elements and Shiny Colors symbology that are present in illumination STARS’s unit ensembles. These themes will be expanded on in their other costumes’ analyses later!

The third theme, “Individuality in Unity,” describes how their costumes, though similar in design, have minute changes in detail to show off the members’ unique personalities. As the members are the red/blue/yellow reps of Shiny, this theme is central to their dynamic as a unit.

Here their costumes “Siriusly Crown” and “Planetes Series” are showcasing the theme “Individuality in Unity.” The variation in details can be seen in many idol costumes, but it’s very prevalent in iS’s costumes to symbolize their typical “red/blue/yellow” traits.

This isn’t to say that iS is a basic “red/blue/yellow” unit though. The members’ personalities deviate from the typical “red/blue/yellow” traits: Mano (introverted and shy), Hiori (self-conscious and emotionally charged), and Meguru (lonely and sensitive). But more on that later!

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UNIT COSTUME #1 - Sparkle Illumination (スパークルイルミネーション)

“Sparkle Illumination” is iS’s main unit costume, and is the most representative of the unit, their core themes, and aestethic. The name references the branch name, Shiny Colors, as well as their unit name, illumination STARS.

Speaking of symbology, this costume shares a lot in common with the branch-wide main costume, “Beyond the Blue Sky.” Their shared elements (seen in picture) and them both being the first costumes you ever see in the game symbolize the first flight into the sky with the player.

Though the costume is mostly the same across all members, there are some minute differences in detail that show the individuality and personality of Mano, Hiori, and Meguru. As seen in the graphic, it is mainly in the sleeves and bottoms.

Bringing back this image from earlier, the classic idol elements, sky/space motifs, and color scheme of “Sparkle Illumination” represent their newness to the idol world as well as their (seemingly typical) desire to “illuminate” the idol world with their own unique color.

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UNIT COSTUME #2 - Siriusly Crown (シリウスリークラウン)

“Siriusly Crown” is iS’s second unit costume, the first part of the name being a play on Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, & the word “seriously.” The costume represents Mano, Hiori, & Meguru earnestly chasing their dreams of becoming the brightest idols in the world.

As hinted by the name, this costume has a very heavy star motif. Their bottoms feature a pastel starry galaxy and gold stars adorn their bodies in their bows, armbands, and chains. The frills, bows, preppy tops, and soft pastels give the costume a softer edge.

Compared to “Sparkle Illumination” which focused more on classic idol elements & the “wing/sky” motif, Siriusly Crown leans in more into the “space” theming of their unit and shows more variation between their respective costumes. Both costumes have the same star armbands.

Though “Siriusly Crown” has the same color scheme throughout all the costumes, there are many detail variations that emphasize the individuality of each member. Mano’s is pure and fairytale-like, Hiori’s is classy and chic, and Meguru’s is sporty and bright.

This picture elaborates more on the variation in costume between Mano, Hiori, and Meguru and how it showcases their charm and unique personalities. For Siriusly Crown, the most difference is in their top and bottom styles which tells the viewer more about them visually.

Siriusly Crown’s design heavily references Mano as the center, leader, & the glue that holds the unit together. The majority of the costume is light pinks and lilacs (colors that Mano wears in later costumes), while dark blue and gold are accents, giving dimension to the costume.

Along with the color scheme, the symmetric detailing signals to the viewer that Mano is the center/leader of iS and is the unit’s core. Hiori/Meguru’s details having similar but opposite placements denotes their supporting of Mano, being an irreplaceable part of the team.

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UNIT COSTUME #3: Twinkly Cheerful (トゥインクリーチアフル)

“Twinkly Cheerful” is illumination STARS’ third unit costume. “Twinkly” obviously refers to their unit name, & just like with Siriusly Crown, a very heavy star motif. This costume’s theme is joy in unity, holding hands to transform into idols magical-girl style, hence “cheerful.”

This costume shares many elements with past costumes “Sparkle Illumination” and “Siriusly Crown,” as seen in the graphic. It combines the classic idol costume feel of Sparkle Illumination with the heavy sky/space symbolism of Siriusly Crown with a “popstar” aesthetic.

Because the concept of this costume is “unity,” the costumes are mostly similar with small differences in the tops and the sleeves. Even their hairstyles are similar high ponytails. Mano is still identifiable as the center, but the costumes look much more unified.

Twinkly Cheerful leans heavy into the western “popstar” look with the starwing insignia, polkadot sheer fabric, furs, dual-color headbands, cropped top, & in-ear mic, reminiscent of a poppy girl group. In a way, they’ve transformed (see animation) into the idols of their dreams.

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UNIT COSTUME #4: Planetes Series | Stella / Luna / Sol (プラテネスシリーズ | ステラ・ルーナ・ソール)

“Planetes Series” is illumination STARS’ fourth set of unit costumes and features the idols as angelic guardians of a city lost to time. These outfit mark a new direction these & later costumes take the “sky/space” theme, presenting the girls as higher powers or cosmic forces.

“Planetes Series” is the only illumination STARS unit costume that has separate names for each variation. Planetes Sol (Meguru) represents the sun/day, Planetes Luna (Hiori) represents the moon/night, & Planetes Stella (Mano) represents shooting stars/dawn.

Compared to all of the costumes we’ve seen so far, “Planetes Series” has the most variation in costume between the idols with different color schemes, fabrics, and textures. However, shared core elements and explicit theming assist in connecting them together.

In the Planetes Series, each idol represents a form of illumination in the sky, a “star” type, as well as a period in the diurnal cycle. True to their unit name, each idol illuminates a distinct time of day using their own “star” (sun/stars/shooting stars).

Mano’s position as leader/center is reinforced in these costumes as she represents dawn/dusk, the liminal states between day (Meguru) & night (Hiori). Unlike the sun or moon that are seen only at day/night, shooting stars are seen at the cusp between night and day.

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GO HERE FOR PART TWO (i hit picture limit)

[blazehedgehog]

Do you have any idea why Tim Follin got stuck working on games that are almost all considered to be bad (except for possibly Plok! and Ecco)? I thought it would have been something about the British games industry, but Grant Kirkhope got to work on games that are considered at least flawed classics.

Because at the time the games didn't seem to be bad.

Like that's the thing to always keep in mind with old games that seem bad. It was the wild west. Nobody knew anything. When you're trying to establish what the idea of "fun" is, well, what is fun?

You can clone another game wholesale because you already know that game is fun, but why is it fun? What elements about it make it fun? When you slice away all the characters, all the graphics, all the music and presentation, what is the core gameplay heart that generates the fun?

Nowadays you have endless hours of video essays and entire books written on individual games. But back then? None of that existed. If you were lucky and rich enough maybe there was a BBS you could connect to that would let you chat with a few other garage developers, or maybe you'd meet up for drinks with some industry folks at a convention or whatever, but it's nothing like it is today. The resources and knowledge base were extremely small.

So you made a guess, and made a game around that guess, put that out into the world and observed what happened. If it sold well, you made more.

But sales have never been an indicator of quality. They're just sales. Maybe people buy it because they think the character looks funny, maybe the marketing hit really well, maybe you've got a license people have prior interest in, etc.

Which naturally leads to the next problem, which is trying to understand what you did right and how to expand and evolve on what you did right. And if you don't actually know what you're doing right, it could lead you in some very strange directions. With each game you stray, and stray, and stray...

And the public doesn't know either! Both the developer and the people buying the game could be completely wrong, but at this specific time, this specific place, with the standards and understanding of the era, nobody knows better. In the moment, it seems fun! It's not until 10, 15, 25+ years later that anyone realizes "Wow, this was actually awful."

Sometimes it wasn't awful! Sometimes one of those games got it right and the bar got raised a little bit. But it was a different time and standards were nothing like they are today.

And with Tim Follin specifically, he also notes that he wrote a lot of his music before the game itself had even been made. From Wikipedia:

"Particularly in the earlier days of his career, Follin often composed game soundtracks while the games themselves were still in the writing stages, meaning that there was usually no frame of reference or genre objective in mind."

So in a lot of cases he was just making whatever he thought sounded nice, and as long as he got paid for his work, nothing else really mattered.

Honestly? There's not much more you could ask for in life.

[thecolourpurple123]

Which re:zero character do you like to write about the most and why? Are you comfortable writing a character you absolutely loathe or don't understand?

it's really really hard to choose just one character I like writing about tbh. I like the variety of flexibility to do a bunch of different characters, or at the very least different interpretations of the same characters in different fics. I like working with a variety of writers too, so that I can learn from them how to handle their favorite characters, and then mix and mash everything I've learned going forward. Many such cases: Ram and Ros from Bob, Ana camp from Pidgie, etc.

Furthermore, what stage of writing I'm doing of course factors in. Outlining, prose, editing---all pov vibes come with different challenges. Shaula is more fun to write the oh so jolly prose of, while it was difficult for me to capture Eridna without being too verbose. Meanwhile, I love to outline Sloth IF stuff, but charting out stuff with Subaru specifically (any version) has gotten a little dull from overuse. And then sometimes I like being challenged and sometimes I want to relax and do something that comes more naturally.

I suppose I have a special fondness for the characters I've had to learn from the ground-up myself. Namely Sloth IF family and Fourier. But more than anything, my favs to write depend on my mood and what I'm working on in any given moment.

As for the second question, I will try to never write a character I don't understand. I've done that before and I always come to regret it. I want to embark upon writing a character only when I have a solid grasp of what they're about, and if I don't then there's no reason to have them in the plot. Everyone in my stories must be fully-realized people, after all. Sometimes, like with Eridna, I have to figure it out as I go, and I'm content with that. But I'll never publish a fic unless I'm confident in my interpretation of every character involved, whether by my own research or the beta reading of someone who knows them in and out.

Regarding characters I loathe... there are very few of those that exist in re zero for me. I love or at least like almost all characters in this series, which is why I'm so obsessed with it. I find some characters boring, like several of the Shudraks from arc 7, and would not write them. But that doesn't really count as loathing. Similarly, I really don't care for most of the Witches of Sin as characters on their own. At most, they're contextual elements of worldbuilding to me.

I guess this leaves only the likes of Arakiya and Theresia to consider. Both were highly disappointing characters to me, with elements I wanted to see expanded on/handled better. Characters I felt active frustration with reading about and constantly ranted about my dislike of. I wrote a short Arakiya drabble already, and I could probably write something similar for Theresia. But it would be different in nature compared to most of my writing. I consider my fics to be celebrations of re zero, whereas anything I create of these two would be corrections. I would be rewriting elements I disliked rather than expanding on what I already loved. So yeah, I'd still write characters I loathe, but it would be a lot more work and is far from a priority since the people who like those characters like them for the reasons I loathe them. I would be fundamentally changing them in my writing, preserving and enhancing only what I find interesting.

[storytellerwhims]

Introduction:

This is the official page for The Storyteller Whims Legacy Challenge! This is a story based legacy challenge with a storyline and color/style you follow each generation. This challenge does include most of the packs and does require a few mods. So, if you're on console sadly you won’t be able to play this version! But I am planning on writing up a un modded version later on that console players will be able to follow! I hope you enjoy the challenge if you do, please share with your friends!

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Rules:

-Must play on Normal Lifespan

-You can’t use money cheats unless specifically stated by the rules for story purposes.

-You can use MCcommand Center for change outfit and certain things. (Setting age span, pregnancy span etc. just no cheating skills or career)

-You must complete all the goals for each generation.

-Dress your sims in the color/style stated for each generation.

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Notes:

Note it’s okay if something in gameplay doesn’t play out exactly as the storyline. But try to stick to the storyline as much as you can.

Also if you don’t know what a style of clothes looks like I recommend looking up the type of style In google for examples. Or there are also style tags in cas that will tag certain outfits as a certain style.

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Mod Requirements:

-Family and Pregnancy Overhaul (Woohoo Wellness)

-Basemental Drugs/Gangs

https://basementalcc.com/adult_mods/basemental-drugs/

https://basementalcc.com/adult_mods/basemental-gangs/

-Kiarasims Trait Mods

-MCcommand/MC Woohoo (You will need this mod to have teen pregnancy in Gen Three!)

MC Command Center (deaderpool-mccc.com)

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Before You Play:

This challenge has real life and fiction elements that may trigger or be uncomfortable for some people! This challenge is intended for people ages sixteen and older! So please be aware of that remember this challenge is for fun not to stress you out! Hope you enjoy my challenge!!!

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~The Generations~

Gen.1 Hopeless Romantic Writer Who Finds Love Unexpectedly

Storyline:

You just moved out of your parents house after learning that they were divorcing. You struggled your whole life listening to your parents fight! As a teen you wanted to have love but all you had was teenage angst. You had a few relationships but they were toxic or the person wasn’t a good fit. You always dreamed of having a love unlike your parents one that is wholesome and beautiful. But now you are hopeless that you will find that so you write love novels. About what your dream love life would be as well as write poems, about those horrible teen relationships you had. As you work your way up in the journalist career you unexpectedly meet someone. You hangout with them they become your best friend then you both start to see there’s more between you than friendship. You both decide to take things to the next level and date, you end up getting married having kids. Now you have the dream love life you always dreamed and wrote about!

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Starting Out:

-Start our living in a rundown apartment that you make look better as you get money. Start out with 0$ but you can the essentials that come with the apartment.

-Be a Young Adult

-Have the traits Romantic, Author and Free Spirit.

-Have the Soulmate Aspiration

-Be in the Journalist Career

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Traits: Romantic, Author and Free Spirit

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Journalist

Color/Style: Orange and Boho

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Goals:

-Reach Level Eight of the Journalist Career.

-Max the Writing and Charisma Skills

-Meet the Love of Your Life Become Best Friends to Lovers.

-Have at-least Two Kids

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Gen.2 Doctor Who Loses Their Partner to an Illness

Storyline:

You grew up a sweet nerdy kid who loved being around their family and friends. Your parents always supported you at science fairs etc whatever you did in school. They were by your side supportive of you as years went by it felt like the best thing in the world is your family and friends. So as a teen you decided you wanted to be a doctor. You started working harder in school and achieved good grades in high school. And graduated one of the top students in your class. After high school you say goodbye to your childhood home and family. To go to college to try and get a degree to become a doctor. A couple semesters in you get overwhelmed and drop out. All your dreams seem hopeless till you see a position open online. For a front desk person you go for the interview and you get the job. It gets boring but soon one of the doctors approaches you. They saw all your achievements on your resume. They happily offer you the chance to work with them and learn about being a doctor. You think can I do that without a degree but you take the offer and learn all you can. Soon you have become one of the best doctors around helping people like you always dreamed. Soon you get a round of new interns coming in one of them catches your eye. Their cute but should you be going for a intern you try to ignore temptation. But you end up asking them out and dating them. A bit goes by you two marry and have kids. Your career is going great everything seems perfect. Till your partner gets sick and you worry you’ll not only lose your partner. But your family will fall apart. So you search for a cure for your partners Illness but there is none. So you sadly lose your partner to the Illness. After the funeral you are mad at yourself feeling like a failure and fraud. As a doctor for not curing your partners Illness. You become gloomy and try to refocus your attention on on your kids. Trying to teach them to become hard workers and responsible to have a successful life family. Because deep down you feel dissatisfied with your life after your partner passed. You hope that maybe at least your kids and grandkids will live a more achieved life then you.

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Traits: Genius, Family Oriented and Ambitious (Change ambitious to gloomy after partner passes.)

Aspiration: Nerd Brain (Change to successful lineage aspiration after partner passes.)

Career: Doctor

Color/Style: Blue and Polished

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Goals:

-Go to University and Drop Out

-Become a Doctor Reach Level Five In the Career.

-Max Logic and Research and Debate Skills

-Fall in Love with a Coworker, Get Married to Them and Have at least Two Kids.

-Lose Partner to Incurable Illness

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Gen.3 Goody Goody to Drug Dealer

Storyline:

You lived in a fake perfect family since your parent died of a tragic illness. Your other parent wasn’t the same you saw it but they and your siblings didn’t. You tried as a kid to fit into your parents vision of a perfect family. Tried in school but your grades weren’t good so your parent got you tutoring, but you didn’t pay attention. This imperfection was a lot to bare with your parent wanting everything flawless. So as a teen you quit wearing nice clothes, trying to fit in your parents neat and tidy box. You start enjoying art in a different way you skipped school. Went to the city with new bad influence friends graffitied walls, drinking and smoking. Pretty soon your parent got tired of your misbehaving you get into a big fight. You pack your stuff and leave that night you crash at one of your friends house. You and him get pretty close and comfortable then it leads to more. The next morning you leave with what clothes and money you have. You walk and find an old RV it could be your new home. Till you see a man coming back to the RV you try to hide but he saw you. He see’s your in need he offers you a job as a drug runner delivering drugs for him. So you take the offer, run errands for him. As payment he pays you not only with cash but also with woohoo. Soon you start to feel nauseous and you find an old box of pregnancy tests in the trash. You use one and find out your pregnant but who’s the father?! It doesn’t matter to you steal some of the drug dealers adult candy. While he’s asleep one night and make a run for it and stay in an abandoned trailer. You start selling weed for some cash and decide to keep the baby. You spend the next several years selling drugs, being a top drug dealer and being an ok parent. But you regret not giving your kid everything your parent gave you. But you know you did your best to love them, and not make them feel they had to be anything but themself. 

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Traits: Kleptomaniac, Clubber and Romantic 

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief 

Career: Drug Dealer (Sell drugs with basemental drugs mod) 

Color/Style: Black and Grunge

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Goals:

-Max the Weed Dealing and Mischief Skills

-Run Away from Home as a Teen

-Be Homeless (Till your sim gets pregnant)

-Make Money as a Drug Dealer

-Hook Up with a Friend and a Drug Dealer Then End Up Pregnant. 

-Live In a Abandon Trailer That You Build Yourself and Raise the Baby.

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Gen.4 Hardworking Cop Falls for a Psychopath

Storyline:

You grew up in poverty with your parent barely being home. Because they were out somewhere dealing drugs, as a kid you knew what they did was wrong. But you tried to love them anyway but somehow you couldn’t fully. As a kid you did good deeds at school trying to help your friends out when they needed it. As a teen you volunteered and did all you could for people even your parent. Your parent was happy that they managed to have and raise a child, who has a better character than them. Soon as your a young adult you move out into a nice neighborhood. Unlike the one you grew up in you have no idea what you want to do with your life now. But all you know is you want to help people you go out one day and see policemen. Working hard to keep the neighborhood safe that’s when you decide to become a cop. You work hard, start out doing coffee runs for the sheriff but end up becoming lead officer. One day while you're out patrolling you meet a person who catches your eye. But you refuse to be distracted while on duty so you ignore them. A bit goes by you run into them everywhere you talk to them for awhile end up dating. As you work your way up in your career you and your lover decide to elope. You didn’t even think twice about it for the first time you think with your heart. Soon you/or your partner are pregnant and have the  baby/babies. Your a big happy family it’s peaceful for once since you didn’t grow up in a nice environment. But you go to work one day and see your partners name on the most wanted list. They are wanted for murdering several people you are shocked, but immediately you tell the sheriff and they arrest them. Now you are alone and have custody of your kids but you don’t want to give up on love. So you write letters to your partner in prison, even if it’s a bad idea you still love them somehow. They don’t write back for a while till finally they say they want a divorce. It breaks your heart to the point you focus harder on yourself, family and career. Till one day when your an elder you end up dating and marrying one of the other cops. Life is happy your kids are grown up, and you and your new love celebrate all your life achievements. By watching the sunrise and sunset in rocking chairs with your dog/cat. You may have fallen for a psycho, but you were an amazing cop. 

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Traits: Ambitious,Paranoid and Family Oriented

Aspiration: Big Happy Family 

Career: Detective 

Color/Style: Yellow and 90’s Style

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Goals:

-Reach Level Ten in the Detective Career

-Reach Level Seven in the Research and Debate and Parenting Skills.

-Fall for Elope and Have Kids with a Psychopath.

-Write Love Letters to your Physcopath Partner in Prison.

-Get Divorced by the Psychopath 

-Marry your Friend/Fellow Cop as a Elder

-Have a Cat/Dog as a Elder. (you can before this but must have one as a elder) 

-Have a Nice Home (That’s atleast 20K) 

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Gen.5 Loner that's a Super Parent

Storyline:

You were raised in a drama zone family, your dad/mom was a Psychopath. You worry that you may be one too. Even if you're not you are scared of the chance of ending up with someone bad as your parent. You never thought having a relationship was all that cracked up to be anyway. You grew up a child who always stuck to yourself playing video games or watching simtube. Your parent encouraged you doing whatever you enjoyed. But they were still worried about you being antisocial, so they took you to the playground to try to meet kids. But you sit on the swing by yourself, so your parent just let you be. As a teen you're a good student but struggle being around a lot of people at school. You have a couple friends who understand you and stick by your side. But after high school all except one get married and have kids. But you barely speak to them, you become a loner and you start to feel like something is missing. So, you get the job you always wanted working as a Tech Guru that fulfills you but not enough. You still see people all around happy with kids. Without a doubt in your mind, you feel kids are what you are missing in your life. You go to the doctor and ask them about your chance of having a baby. They tell you that your chances are good, so you go through with artificial insemination/or having a Surrogate. As soon as the baby is born your life is filled with so much joy. Which gives you the motivation to work harder at your job, and you are able to make the house look nicer. Because having a baby the way you did was so expensive you only have one. But you are the best parent to them and you two have a close bond. The rest of your days you do everything you can for your child. Watch it grow and leave one day to go off and have a life of its own. You may have been single, but you weren’t alone.

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Traits: Loner, Loves Children and Geek

Aspiration: Super Parent

Career: Tech Guru 

Color/Style: Red and Casual

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Goals:

-Reach Level Seven in the Tech Guru Career

-Max the Parenting and Logic Skills

-Be Alone Your Whole Life 

-Have a Baby Through Artificial Insemination or Having a Surrogate. 

-Take Your Child on At Least Two Vacations

-Teach Your Child To Say Please and Thank You.

-Have Your Child End Up With At Least One Good Character Value.

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Gen.6 Baker Who Decides They Hate Baking and Becomes a Food Critic

Storyline:

You grew up extremely loved by your single parent. Who helped you to go for whatever you wanted to do in life with clubs, activities etc. They even supported you messing up the kitchen with your new recipes you thought of as a child. They even tried those recipes that seemed absurd and nasty after all you were their world. Seeing your parent grow up alone but happy made you motivated to focus on your goals. As a child you and your parent baked and cooked together all the time. Whether it was making homemade sweets or full course meals. You enjoyed spending that time with your parent and you looked up to them. As a teen you continued that love for cooking working as a barista after school. Serving Coffee but also helping to make baked goods to sell made you overjoyed. After you graduated high school, you decided you wanted to become a baker, and own your own bakery. You didn’t have much money to buy it so your parent, dug into what was your college fund to help pay for it. With their help you renovated the place made it look nice and cozy. People came in searching for the yummiest treats that you provided but one day. A health inspector came and found rats in the back of your bakery and shut you down. After that you felt crushed and couldn’t look at cooking or baking the same again. You stayed in your house for days not sure what to do now with your life. Till you saw a show about food criticism, and you decided why not try and be a food critic. You become a well-known food critic people get nervous when you come to their restaurant. Then one day while you're doing your job at a restaurant you meet someone. Who is the owner of that restaurant, and you instantly feel a spark between you two. So, you write them a good review and they ask you out on a date, soon you two start dating. You two take things to the next level move in together and they propose/or you do to them. You get married and have a kid/kids as you cook for your spouse and kids. You start to develop a love for baking again and open up a small bakery. While still having your job as a food critic because it’s what brought you to your partner. You may have grown up up with a single parent but love surrounds you. Even down to the little sweet treats you sell at your family-owned bakery. 

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Traits: Sweet Tooth, Family Oriented and Self Assured

Aspiration: Master Chef 

Career: (Food) Critic 

Color/Style: Pink and Minimalist 

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Goals:

-Open Your Own Bakery with the Money Your Parent Gives You. (Which is 20K) 

-Quit Being a Baker and Become a Food Critic.

-Reach Level Seven of the Critic Career

-Max the Baking and Cooking Skills

-Meet Your Partner at Their Restaurant You are Criticizing. Go On a Date With Them and Start Dating Them. 

-Marry and Have at least One Kid With Your Partner.

-End Up Owning a Family-Owned Bakery You Run with Your Partner and Kid/Kids.

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Gen.7 A Hippie Who Wants to Change the World and Becomes a Politician

Storyline:

You grew up around a loving family you were taught that love and happiness is everything. As a child you started a small garden in the backyard with the help of your parents. You enjoyed being outdoors you loved caring for the planet and everything around you. You spent hours outside on the playground after school with your family. You were an okay student in school but enjoyed recess more than anything. As a teen you started to dress hipster and seventies vibes people would make fun of you. So you ran to the bathroom and smoked weed how could people be so mean. You thought to yourself soon as you graduated you moved out of your parents house. To evergreen harbor you live in a trailer that is cozy but also is surrounded by greenery. With lots of colorful beautiful repurposed items you decorate with, your happy to be out of school. But you miss your family so you visit them as much as you can. Soon every time there’s voting on neighborhood action plans you go vote. Hoping evergreen will become a beautiful green place, you also recycle trash you find to help the town change. You keep some of what you find to sell or to decorate your trailer with. The town works towards change but it’s not enough so you decide to become a politician. People laugh at you belittle you say you can’t be a hippie and a politician. You prove them wrong you research work hard campaigning and you change the world. Along the way you and your friend from school who stood up for you. Even if you didn’t know it because you were hiding in the bathroom. They support you which rallies other people too you and them start dating. But marrying isn’t really your thing your too focused on changing the world. So when they get down on one knee and propose you say no. You never wanted a conventional life you want a chilled life single flowing in the wind. Have a hookup here or there but mainly focus on making your home green. Become the best politician the world has ever seen, you work hard in your career and make evergreen green again. You feel achieved to celebrate you go out, drink and smoke a lot and have a drunken hookup. You end up pregnant/or that person gets pregnant, You weren’t sure you wanted kids. But you keep the baby raise it/your hookup partner didn’t want the baby so you raise it. (Whichever storyline you go with depends on your Gen seven heir) You aren’t the best parent but you love your kid and you teach them to be carefree. But to care deeply about taking care of the planet, but not let what other people say hurt them.

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Traits: Green Fiend, Non-Committal and Activist 

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Career: Political 

Color/Style: Rainbow and 70’s/Hipster

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Goals:

-Live in a Trailer in Evergreen Harbor 

-Vote On the Neighborhood Action Plans As Much as You Can. 

-Make the Towns Eco-Footprint Turn Green. 

-Dig Through the Dumpsters to Find Things to Sell and Decorate Your Trailer With.

-Become a Politician Reach Level Seven of the Career. 

-Visit Your Family Often (At least a couple times a sim week) 

-Date and Reject Engagement From Your Friend Growing Up.

-Have a Drunken Hookup and Either End Up Pregnant/Or Your Hookup Partner Gets Pregnant. 

-Raise the Baby/Babies Be an Ok Parent 

-Max the Gardening and Charisma Skills

-Have at least Two Tattoos 

-Never Get Married 

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Gen.8 Bully Moves Into a Haunted House and Becomes a Paranormal Investigator

Storyline:

As a kid you grew up with an ok relationship with your parent. They taught you to not take crap from anyone which led you to be protective of yourself. You grew a bully when being scared or nervous because of what your parent taught you. They never told you that you don’t have to be mean to be protective. So you spent a lot of time in detention in school your parent wasn’t mad at you. But they also didn’t like having to leave work to pick you up from school after you getting into a fight. As a teen you started boxing and going to the gym to get out your anger. It helped but still when you went to school people made you angry so you bullied them. It got so bad your grades started slipping and you didn’t graduate high school. Your parent was disappointed in you but we’re trying not to have problems with you. Because they want to have a good relationship with you like they had with their parents. Now as a young adult you want to move out live on your own out of a old weed smelling trailer. You decide to move into a small New Orleans home in Willow Creek. The realtor said it belonged to a nice old woman who passed on. But it was cheap even for a small home in that neighborhood but you don’t question it. You take it and it came with the furniture all nice and quaint. But It isn’t your taste you can always get new furniture though. It gets to be nighttime and you start hearing sounds through the house. You wake up and notice there’s a big glowing orb and you start to think is this place haunted. You go online and research about it and you learn about how to get rid of ghosts. As you clear your home of evil ghosts you start to realize this could be your calling. You become a paranormal investigator and in the process get your anger problems out. You become pretty close with the grim reaper giving him souls to keep for eternity. You fall for him and end up woohooing but it doesn’t lead to much grim can’t be tied down. You start to feel that the only people you’ll be surrounded by are dead. But online you meet somebody who shares your interest in paranormal. You two end up dating and never getting married but having two or more kids. You feel your life is complete even if the one thing that calmed you was busting ghosts. 

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Traits: Hot Headed, Active and Bro

Aspiration: Body Builder  

Career: Paranormal Investigator

Color/Style: Purple and Retro

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Goals:

-Start Out Living in a Haunted House in Willow Creek.

-Become a Paranormal Investigator and Reach Level Five of the Career.

-Max the Median and Active Skills 

-Free Your House of Evil Ghosts and Make Your House Not Be Haunted Anymore. 

-Have a Hookup with the Grim Reaper

-Date But Not Marry Another Paranormal Fanatic and Have At least Two Kids.

-Collect at least Four Gifts from Ghosts.

-Have a Good Relationship with Guidry.

-Collect All The Different Ghost Types.

-Have Bonheilda as Your Maid.

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⚠️CW: This Generation may have themes that are uncomfortable or triggering!!

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Gen.9 Evil Scientist Who Helps Bring On the Apocalypse in Strangerville

Storyline:

You were raised in a home with parents who enjoyed the supernatural. They were barely around they always had paranormal duties to attend to. You started to take interest in the paranormal yourself, but never looked at it the way your parents did. You saw the science part of it and it seemed after reading books as a child about it. It seemed stupid and like your parents are crazy but while studying you found your passion science. You barely had any friends growing up because you always scared them away. Whether it was a science project that gone wrong or a silly prank, you loved seeing people in fear. Your teachers in school met with your parents about you devious tendencies. But your parents didn’t know what to say to them about you. Your parents didn’t have much to say about you, because they know how it is to be considered odd. As a teen you had a couple of high school flings with the computer club but didn’t mean anything. You were mostly focused on your maniacal studies in the process of it, you found out about a lab. A high-tech lab in Strangerville that is doing studies on alien plants and more. That budded your interest, so you worked hard graduated high school early. Then move out of your parents' house to Strangerville. Into a small house when you got their things seemed pleasant and calm. A nice place to live, but you wanted to change that you had devious plans up your sleeve. You become a scientist and you work right in the heart of the lab. Soon something goes wrong with one of the experiments in the lab thanks to you. But you run off before anyone can catch you, and you start to see alien plants sprouting up everywhere. Your plans worked the apocalypse is starting, people everywhere are like zombies. Infected by those plants you know the people at the lab will get rid of you. As soon as they find out that you helped cause the apocalypse, so you go get artificially inseminated. To have someone carry on your evil doings when your no longer around. You hide out in a bunker underneath your house that you built. Till you give birth then you come out of the bunker and the military personal caught you. They arrest you and take you away and a military officer takes the baby/babies. You may have been caught but your evil doings will go down in Strangerville history. 

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Traits: Evil, Erratic and Genius 

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Scientist

Color/Style: Brown and Dark Academia

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Goals:

-Move to Strangerville as a Young Adult.

-Become a Scientist and Reach Level Eight of the Career.

-Max the Logic and Mischief Skills

-Build a Bunker Underneath Your House.

-Have an Atrocious Reputation.

-Have a Garden Where You Grow Alien Plants

-Give Five People Alien Plants as Gifts

-Never Marry 

-Get Artificially Inseminated to Carry on the Legacy. (Requires the family and pregnancy mod by Lumpinou) 

-Have the baby/babies and Have It/Them Be Adopted By a Military Officer.

-(Be Executed) Die From Electrocution. 

(After Gen.9 dies you play as the military officer and raise the baby/babies)

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⚠️CW: This Generation may have themes that are uncomfortable or triggering!

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Gen.10 Kid of a Evil Scientist the Town and Becomes a Hero/Fate of a Town and a Hero

Storyline:

You were raised in Strangerville an apocalyptic town where people walked around like zombies. Where alien plants grew, and people were scared to come out of their homes. But you were taken care of by a loving adopted mom who was tough on rules but was sweet. She did all she could to keep you from the harsh reality that your mom was executed. She took you on trips to the military base where she had to work. But she made it a fun adventure her fellow military personal became like family. She homeschooled you because schools were shut down because of hard times in Strangerville. But you never had to feel that because she helped you not have too. Till you became a teen, and she told you everything. That your mom was evil she was partly responsible for the apocalypse. That she was executed, and she doesn’t know who your dad is. You take this hard, and you hide out in your room awhile, texting your friends you met because their parents are in the military. You’ve been shielded from the harsh reality of Strangerville and your real mom. To make you strong so that you could have a happy childhood. You go for a walk that night and it’s dark scary zombie looking people could be lurking. But in the darkness, you meet someone with green skin and dark eyes. You get scared and nervous, but they make you feel something. You hadn’t felt ever because being raised so sheltered. You talk for a bit and then share a kiss and you feel like it’s wrong. So, you run off back to the house and they feel insecure and leave on their alien ship. You go looking for them every night after that, but you don’t see them. You graduate high school and become a young adult. You decide to join the military like your adopted mom and try to save Strangerville. 

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Story Path One-You Save The Town and Marry Your Alien Lover

After saving the town from the evil mother plant all that sneaking around. Digging for the truth and defeating the mother plant to save the town. Made you want to have a normal life well as normal as it can be in your family. Your Alien lover returns to earth to see you they are a good alien. They are so grateful you defeated the evil mother plant and cleared aliens bad reputation. You both start dating then one day get married and have two or more kids. You moved away from Strangerville but you moved somewhere just as warm. You moved to Oasis Springs where you and your partner raise your kids. Teach them about being strong and being good people. While their other parent teaches them about alien life and space. You are a happy family after all the drama and apocalyptic chaos your happy. But that’s not the end of the legacy just this generation.

Since you saved the town from the Mother Plant you get to move on and play the The Storyteller Whims Legacy Challenge Extended Edition!!!

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Story Path Two-You Don’t Save The Town and Die Trying to Defeat The Mother Plant

You do your best to uncover the mystery of the town and why the town is infected. You finally put all the pieces together and you find what the secret lab was hiding. You get a team together to try to defeat the evil mother plant. You don’t know how this will end so before you go to the deep dark depths of the secret lab. Your alien lover returns to earth to see you before your attempt to save the town. You two go on a quick little date, and share a kiss that could be goodbye. Then you and your team of heroic people, gather your courage and go inside the secret lab. You see the mother plant and she is fierce you and your team fight her. But ultimately you fail and lose your life in the process and now the town is in despair. Your adopted mom and everyone who knew you will remember your courage trying to save the town.

Since you didn't save the town the legacy challenge ends here and you don't get to move on and play the Extended Edition!

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Traits: Ambitious, Adventurous and Romantic

Aspiration: Strangerville Mystery 

Career: Military 

Color/Style: Green and Country/Western

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Goals:

-Reach Level Ten of The Military Career

- Max The Fitness and Programing Skills

-Meet and Fall For An Alien as a Teen

-Buy At least Three Items From The Curio Shop.

-Become Best Friends With Erwin Pries

-Complete The Badges Collection From The Military Career. 

-Save the Strangerville Town (If you don’t complete this one the legacy challenge is over)

Goals to complete if you save the town:

-Keep The Dead Mother Plant Statue In Your House.

-Date and Marry Your Alien Lover Then Have At least Two Kids. (Your Gen Eleven Heir Must Be An Alien) 

-Live In A Family Home In Oasis Springs.

-Raise Your Kids To Be Good People Have Them Obtain At least One Positive Character Value. 

(Now You Can Move onto The Storyteller Whims Legacy Challenge Extended Edition with Your Gen Eleven Heir.) 

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Thank you for playing my legacy challenge I hope you enjoyed it!! If you saved Strangerville congrats you get to play the Extended Edition!!💜

[orchideae]

salt meme *cracks knuckles*: ☠ What does someone have to do for an instant unfollow from you? ☼ How long do you stay mad? ☢ What fads/trends are you so over (What is a fad)? ♨ Have you ever made a public call out post? ❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you? ❣ How salty are you feeling right now (Please give a comparison beginning of writing the answer to this and after you wrote it, for science purposes)?

— @delusionaid // Prompt: The salty AF meme

❣ How salty are you feeling right now? (1) I can't believe Youtube is playing a song called 'Do or Die' as I'm typing this up. Youtube wants me to go hard, but I dunno how much I can live up to that. But currently, salt levels are around 7/10.

☠ What does someone have to do for an instant unfollow from you? Show a genuine lack of respect across the board. This plays into numerous elements of social interaction, but more so than anything, it plays into the element of taking away someone's autonomy to how they run their blog. See, this is actually also something that more so makes it that I'll never follow you in the first place, but I guess that'll also work as salt too, right? Right, autonomy, I hate that we live in 2024, and people have been all about "it's your blog, you have the freedom to do what you want!" Yeah, except, ding, ding, 'do what you want' doesn't quite mean what we all think it does. You know, that little thing called its official definition? Yeah, not a thing. Have your liberty, however, you can't write with this person or that muse because they're problematic (correction: this person 'feels' that they're problematic) or have done some questionably morally grey things in their lifetime, you can't write a character with any of these 375 faceclaims that you're supposed to keep track of and agree with, if you write a villain then you should obviously ignore all of these villainous traits that make them villains because why would you ever write a villain who does bad things? (Unless he's hot or said villain is a female character, of course), on that note, please ignore this and this bit of canon because it makes me (personally) very uncomfortable. And to expand on the last two in specific, obviously you can't ever write or acknowledge these (dark) things any way, because if you write a character who even did something less bad, like spoke rudely to anyone, you obviously do the same thing in life outside of Tumblr.com and so I will write a callout about you. But apart from all of that and more things that are coincidentally hidden behind a little 'etc.', you can do whatever you want! Have fun!!

❣ How salty are you feeling right now? (2) About... 9/10.

☼ How long do you stay mad? Unless it's something really trivial, I'll usually sleep and my brain will process it back into non-existence the next day or the one after. But I do however, hold a grudge like none other. Granted, getting to that point is rather difficult to do, but if you do genuinely wrong me in some capacity, then I will remember that. Now, I believe in second chances, but those can't apply everywhere, for I do firmly believe that there are lines that truly shouldn't ever be crossed. Overall however, I'm not an angry person and to anger me in the first place is quite difficult. And you know, you especially do like to say that even when I'm angry, I'm smiling and laughing and 'don't really sound any different', so how mad/angry am I really? I think I really am just the 'No talk me I angy' cat meme in the flesh.

☢ What fads/trends are you so over? I still hate the concept of 'censorship'. I'm sorry, but if I dislike a character, a culture, a character trait, a show, book, an adaptation, I have every right to say so and I can even talk about it on my blog for hours if I so choose to do so, just like others are allowed to do the exact opposite. It is a two-way street. I shouldn't have to adhere to some system of social politics of, well, you're allowed to complain or talk about how this and this is bad, but if you want to touch on that, well no, we can't quite let you do that one! That's not exactly fitting in the current social political climate. Because here's my thing with it in general, if anyone for example told me that they disliked Yelan, I think that it would be a shame, if someone told me that, for example, they disapprove of my take of her sleeping around (again: not done in promiscuity); that's perfectly fine, tell me why and we can have a friendly talk about it. Because last I checked, discussion is incredibly healthy for our mental development. I want to know why people think differently, and I love the challenge of even possibly changing their perspective on the matter. But if everything is censored from the get-go, then there's no discussion, no potential for growth or understanding. I'm sad that this mere concept is still as prevalent in all fandoms as it seems to be.

♨ Have you ever made a public call out post? Can salt posts like this entire ask response be considered as a public call out post of bad behavior across the board? Yes? Okay great, then yes, I absolutely have. I reblog a salt meme like this at least once every 2/3 months when my activity isn't entirely shot into the depths of hell itself

❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you? Meh, I don't care much about FCs, at least not like I used to when I actively used them, nor did I ever really feel like any FC was ever 'ruined' for me. I just get very tired of people overusing specific characters or roles, but I'm very easily affected by overexposure or over-hype in general, so this isn't surprising.

❣ How salty are you feeling right now? (3). 6/10 or so, I'd say.

[sickgraymeat]

Ooooh!!! 20 for the ask game :D

part of canon you found tedious or boring

I wrote most of this several hours ago and just barely edited it lol so hope it makes sense! Added some spaces which probably doesn’t help a whole lot lol it’s… very long. Thanks for asking!!!! You don’t have to read it all hshbdnnrns

This one is actually probably p nonviolent bc I don’t think this is a very controversial take round these parts! But definitely all of Finn’s romantic plot lines. I can sort of make an argument abt how they reflect the part of his character that’s really invested in the fairytale idea of being a hero which implies being the romantic lead

(I lean toward hcing him as aroace but don’t feel super strongly abt it, but that or gay or otherwise not into women also adds a comphet element— regardless it’s an interesting parallel with lots of characters but in particular Bonnie, who very clearly has lived her life according to rules she gathered and interpreted about who and what a princess is AND what a girl is. Very gendered so for Finn there’s a bit of toxic masculinity involved in his romantic pursuits and also his inclination toward violence in the earlier seasons. Plus the whole overarching theme of rebuilding society post-post-apocalypse and most of the characters kind of forcing themselves into a mold using what they know and don’t know about past societies combined with how their own has interacted w them.

Comphet also obviously parallel with Bonnie continuing to call Mr. CP her boyfriend etc etc etc, but also maybe more relevant— I hc Marceline as bi so I dont think being attracted to men is compulsory for her but still think heteronormativity is very relevant to her story & I think the same would be true for Finn regardless of orientation. Actually very similar for both of them subconsciously recreating heteronormative relationships which are so reflective of their own specific family structures— Marcy drawn to the Hunson in Ash and dare I say the Simon and the Betty AND the Elise in Bonnie? + Finn drawn to both the Minerva and the Margaret in Bonnie and FP and, to an extent, HW too. Caregivers who are also leaders and answer to no one. HW is a little less officially this but I’d argue that as a female character heavily associated with both nature and protection she is inherently at least a little bit mom-adjacent-coded or something idk what I’m saying but yeah that! Digression lol.)

BUT way overdone even if that was the intention. A lot of that time could’ve been spent on him and Jake and BMO doing silly shit or like expanding on his relationships with Jermaine and Margaret and Joshua and Fern and the humans etc etc. and/or more depth for the love interests themselves. Ofc I always want more Bonnie and there’s a lot more to dig into with FP (and the two of them together for that matter!) & also HW has such a cool design and she’s interesting but I feel like I don’t know much about her and had she and Finn had a different relationship there may have been more room for her to develop. It feels like fan service though I’m guessing now it’s not actually in service of most ppl who are still really big fans. Maybe more so network service lol.

Also sad that some of those songs (all gummed up slaps too hard) and episodes are really good/funny imo I wish they were about something else 😭 (too young is extremely important to me I refuse to discount it but I obvs understand why a lot of ppl want to it’s super frustrating/disappointing.)

Anyway!!!! Thank you for asking and thank you everyone who reads this!!