#i just googled the name of two characters i plan on drawing-won’t say which in case anyone is avoiding any kind of spoilers-

[lafcadiosadventures]

No context count of Montecristo:

fly like a free bird alex

[legitimateluffy]

One Piece Animation Thesis: East Blue

If you would prefer to follow via the master Google Doc, [HERE] is the link! This will be updated as we go through the arcs and is currently planned to be updated weekly!

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Whew hey everyone!

So this is the beginning of a project that I have had in the back of my mind for quite some time and finally decided to start working on. A quick rundown of what this actually is, it’s a somewhat showcase of the animation found within the main One Piece anime (so, no movies/specials/filler arcs between canon arcs etc. although that may be something I will attempt to tackle one day if this does well). This will also include some insight into the anime industry and essentially give some insight on behind the scenes and why certain decisions are made as well as giving names of the hard working animators to their respective scenes. Hopefully this whole thing will continue to give a bit of insight into the One Piece anime as I believe that it is greatly under appreciated and while criticisms of it are valid, there definitely needs to be more of an understanding as to why the anime is the way it is. This will be a long journey ahead so please bear with me! Let’s get started!

The One Piece anime, including movies and specials, is animated by Toei Animation, and they are responsible for many other famous animated properties and adaptations, including Digimon, Dragon Ball/Z/GT/Super, Sailor Moon, Toriko, Gegege no Kitaro among many others. They animate many different series and have a big load to take on. This is something that will be touched on later, because it greatly affects the anime in later years. But for now, I’ll be going through the arcs, starting with the East Blue saga. The East Blue saga is made up of episodes 1-53 (including some filler) and consists of quite actually not that many noteworthy animated scenes, even though it covers many arcs (Shells Town, Orange Town, Syrup Village, Baratie, Arlong Park, LogueTown). Animation throughout this portion of the anime was quite limited, using minimal movement and taking appropriate shortcuts where necessary. Scenes are also quite hard to tell exactly who animated what due to the style consistency. There are a few noteworthy scenes though, but first I would like to introduce the rough structure of how the anime is made. An important part in animation is someone who is the character designer, someone who essentially designs the characters and in this case, attempts to replicate Oda’s style for it to be easily animated. During this part of the anime, the character designer is Noboru Kizumi who would continue to be the character designer for the anime for the next 10 or so years. These are the some of the sheets he made for the main characters:

This is something I’ll continue to showcase as we continue to go through each of the arcs, showcasing the strawhats as they pop up in the story. When the time comes, we will also compare the changes of style and why things have changed. But for now, I’ll just present the first designs.

One Piece at this stage was very cartoony and had quite a different style, especially compared to a lot of the current anime/manga at the time and it still continues to have a distinctive style to this day. Following these sheets allows for a good sense of continuity, which is very important with anime. If anyone out there attempts to draw something without looking at a reference, it’s not going to look quite as well as we want it to. So in using a reference, we can have a better grasp as to how the character looks from certain angles, heights compared to other characters, facial expressions and more.

In order to keep these characters looking somewhat similar so as to not disrupt the viewer’s experience by seeing jarring styles, someone works as a Chief Animation Director. They aim to ensure that characters remain consistent throughout the episode, and that they are on model. So, how is this achieved? Well, we’ll have a look at the process on how something is conceptualised and then put to screen. 

Initially, a script is conducted. Going through the manga, people take what is deemed necessary material and put it into script format. It is important to note that as the anime and manga continue to go on for years, the gap between the anime and manga release shortened significantly, resulting in pacing issues. Keep this in mind for later as this is something I plan to touch on. Then a storyboard is created, having very rough lines in order to convey what is to be created. Here is an example:

A good storyboard can make or break an episode, as it dictates angles, how long scenes linger on screen, etc. Once the storyboard has been decided on, the animating can begin. Scenes are appointed to animators, where they create something called Genga. This is done on paper, similar to how it’s done in other parts of the world. Here are some examples of older Genga:

Even though times have changed and anime has become digital, with some animators now exclusively animating digitally, the anime industry still uses Genga, using paper and pencil to create their scenes. Here are some examples of newer Genga:

Once the Genga has been created, the Chief Animation Director will go in and correct what is necessary to ensure that the style remains consistent. Others may also help participate in this process, such as an Animation Supervisor. Here is an example of a Genga being corrected to ensure that it remains consistent in style:

In doing something like this, some animators can animate great action and keep their lines rough to save time, and an Animation Supervisor can clean it up and make it look good. After this has been completed, the Genga is then made into what is called Animation Cels. This is not exclusive to Japan, as for decades this is a process that has been used. This is a transparent sheet that had the lines and colours painted on, and is then photographed over painted backgrounds. Yeah...A long and dubious process indeed. This is not common place anymore due to how time consuming it is, and with the rise of digital, creating colours, effects, filters and backgrounds are much faster and easier to accomplish. Here are some examples of One Piece animation cels:

I would have much preferred to share cels directly from the anime itself and not the movies but they are quite difficult to come across and have more than likely been sold off from Toei long ago. But they will suffice, as it gives a good idea as to what they look like.

But voila! Animation has been created! All that’s left is music, sound effects and voice over and you’ve got yourself an anime. Wonderful. Easy right? Yeah, not exactly. All of this takes time and patience. And this is something that needs to be remembered. Time. A very important keyword in the animation industry and a lot more important than the word budget that likes to get thrown around. Due to One Piece being a long running weekly series, the animators have a lot less time than, say, My Hero Academia or Demon Slayer, two very prominent seasonal anime. These series do not have more money shoved into them, more budget, than One Piece that results in higher quality and consistent animation, a problem the One Piece anime definitely faces further down the road. Here’s an example:

Michelangelo is one of the most famous artists of all time, due to his remarkable attention to detail in his works present in the High Renaissance period. One of his most famous works is the Statue of David, an incredible piece of work that was worked on for 3 years. However, if you were to tell him to replicate it but say, give him a month, he’s not going to get anywhere near the same results as the piece where he spent 3 years on. It would be quite rough around the edges, and quite rushed. No matter how much money you throw his way, he still won’t be able to get anywhere close to those results. And this is the same with any artist, including animation. This is a big misconception in the anime community, and that is that as long as you throw money at people, they’re going to end up creating incredible works, regardless of the poor time management. That is just not how it works.

This does seem like quite a ramble, and it’s already quite long prior to even reaching the main aspect of this whole project, in which I showcase animators, but this is important background information that needs to be understood prior to delving in. With that very long introduction, let’s now get to showcasing animators!

Some of the animators that were present on many early One Piece episodes include: 

Kazuya Hisada, Masahiro Shimanuki, Naoki Tate, Jin Inaba, Tadayoshi Yamamuro. Please note, there are many others involved animating wise, but these are some key names, and ones that will develop and evolve as the years go on.

Kazuya Hisada is someone who will pop up later and fulfil a more important role in the series, but in the early days he created some great scenes with some snappy timing, while using lines to help convey impact. He is found throughout early One Piece, however due to the limited animation and consistent style thanks to Noboru Kizumi, he can be difficult like most during this era to spot.

Hideaki Maniwa is more prominent in his animation, being more pronounced due to his camera movement on his characters. He uses subtle smears usually on impact to further enhance the idea that whoever is being hit, is being hit HARD. He also created the most animated piece of early One Piece in episode 23 where he creates seemingly natural movement of the background of the ship and water, making the sea feel powerful and heavy. 

So what have we learnt so far. 

Well, there is a lot of hard work that goes into the production of an anime series, and that is no different with One Piece. Early episodes for the most part had not too many interesting scenes animation wise, and the animators essentially got the work done in order to produce and release the series week to week. It will continue to be a bit of a slow start, with arcs like Alabasta and SkyPiea being similar in the regard of not many noteworthy scenes however, we can begin to see the cracks of emerging stars and evolving styles that will later become staples within the series. 

This is it to the first of what is hopefully a long and engaging project! So far it has been quite a read and very lengthy and I apologise for that. Hopefully from here on out we should be able to successfully get through more animators and styles become more distinct and animation continues to evolve. Next up I intend to cover Alabasta.

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A massive thank you to everyone who has participated and uploaded at Sakugabooru! Without it, I would not have been able to make nearly as much as I have without all the hard work in identifying and tagging animators’ work! Most of the footage used to showcase these animators has come from there! I simply just turned the videos into gifs for an easier showcase.

I would also like to issue a big thank you to Animators Corner! The staff listing really helped me in determining who worked on what episode to identify animators and their works!

[spooky-activity]

Just a little update on Cassandratopia 2: Electric Boogaloo (Or as it stands in my Google Docs folder rn, A Helping Hand). I’ll put it under the cut cuz it’s kinda long. 

I just wanted to say that I’m still planning on actually doing it, despite all evidence to the contrary lol 

I did Cassandratopia in a haze of graduating from college(where I was studying animation) and just having ended my first dnd campaign as a dungeon master (which went 3 years!). I was fishing around for internships, but since the pandemic had just kicked off I wasn’t having much luck. So I had a lot of creative energy that wasn’t getting channeled anywhere, and a lot of free time when I wasn’t applying to places. Which is how I did 4 pages a day several times per week. Which was insane. 

As it stands, I’m running 2 dnd campaigns(one meets weekly, the other every other week or so), and just scored a full-time internship at a video game company! The campaigns I’m running are a homebrew open world, which, for those of you who aren’t too familiar with dnd, is a metric fuckton of work to prep for each session because I have no idea what my insane friends and siblings are going to try and do every time we play. 

Anyways all this to say that my storytelling itch is kinda. Sufficiently getting scratched atm and I have a lot less free time. I’m still plucking away at the setting/refining the story of A Helping Hand, but it’s largely on the backburner. Cassandratopia was also, uh, like the first story I’ve ever told in any sort of format besides the give-and-take of dnd, so... I’m not used to having so much control over the narrative. Oddly. I’ve never thought of myself as much of a writer of stories; my main focus is character animation, so someone else is usually writing the stories I’m telling anyways, which is super cool with me. Honestly I’m surprising myself with how much I want to tell this story, which is why I’m still sure I’m doing it. Just. Slower. Than Cassandratopia got done. 

But I’ll share a bit of the lore I’ve been cooking up! Specifically about Zhan Tiri and The Drops. The story will be told in an extremely dnd type setting, because that’s the kind of narrative I’ve told before and am comfortable telling: hard magic rules, neat fights, scary monsters, a dash of eldritch horror, and huge emphasis being put on magical artifacts(kinda like in the show!). Here’s some stuff that’s basically locked-in. 

Zhan Tiri

Zhan Tiri is one of the many Demon Lords of the Abyss. She’s kind of a mashup of two of my favorite Demon Lords, Zuggtmoy, the Lady of Rot and Decay, and Pale Night, the Mother of Demons and Queen of the Night(with just a dash of Hannibal Lecter because who doesn’t like helpful, polite, manipulative-ass bitches lksjflkja;fj). Her domain sits almost exactly between the Sundrop and Moonstone, largely being the new growth that comes from death, and the endless cycle of life and death. Places where her influence is strongest includes the cracks in... Well anywhere really, from society to the planet’s shell, where metaphorical or physical rot could grow; musty, mostly ignored places where something could fester. Iconography related to her would include endless mazes, fungi, grasping skeletal hands, and rotting/blooming corpses. Her spores can animate corpses, which she likes to use as mindless minions when she doesn’t feel like sending one of her Acolytes. She shares a scrap of her power with those few mortals she likes. She appreciates ambition and the desire to Grow to be bigger than what you were to start with, as those are qualities she herself possesses. 

Incredibly intelligent and merciless to those she deems her enemies, her main thing is pulling the strings from the shadows and seeing just how far she can push people to act with as little prompting from her as possible. She does, however, have the power to kinda bulldoze her way through things if she needs to, but she doesn’t like to because where’s the fun in that? 

She first gained interest in the Material Plane when a Wizard with too much hubris from said Material Plane(Named Demanitus) contacted her trying to figure out more information about The Drops and how to control them. After indulging him for a bit, she started preparing to make a summer home on the Material Plane because it’s New and Fun here and Wow These Mortals are Really Fun to Mess With! And some of them she even genuinely liked! Demanitus then realized his mistake and locked her away in Pandemonium for what he hoped was forever, but turned out to be only around 1,000 years, due to the efforts of her followers. Her little stint in Pandemonium magnified the more... Chaotic aspects of her personality, so now she wants to cover the Material Plane in blooming mazes of fungal crops that she can break people with at her leisure. 

The Drops

The drops are two semi-sentient pieces of one original artifact, whose original purpose was to be a tool of creation for the gods. Which, through some great calamity(still deciding that one), got sundered and settled into the two basic aspects of creation: the nearly unlimited well of life-energy which organizes stardust into planets, cabbages, and kings, and the “you gotta crack a few eggs to get an omlette” destructive force which breaks down what the sundrop makes so that it can make more. 

The main goal of the drops is to reunite. I would want to as well if I was ripped in half! This manifests as a... General tug in the direction of the other drop. A desire in the host to Go That Way. It can be resisted, and even ignored for a bit, but it’s always there. Like being hungry if starving wasn’t a danger. Just a bit uncomfortable if you aren’t going That Way, but ignorable. 

Both drops generally try to be as helpful to their wielder as possible, as originally they were a tool of creation to the gods. They are innately obliging. They’re also REALLY UNSAFE FOR MORTALS TO BE MESSING WITH. The Sundrop is a little safer because the most it can do is kinda. Overcharge you into something distinctly not human but still alive, and King Fredrick was lucky he made the Sundrop into soup before giving it to Arianna. But King Edmund got his wholeass arm blasted off for touching the Moonstone. 

The Sundrop

Best I could whittle it down, the Sundrop has power over life energy, like the sun’s light. It also has power over the energy derived from geothermal activities, so deep sea creatures Are Not Immune To The Sundrop, which was a funny thought that crossed my mind that they could be, but that will likely never come up anyways salkdjf;ljsf It is, in its basest form, Growth and Progress. 

It’s a little sentient, but very much entrenches itself into whoever is holding it at the time. Like another mind looking through your eyes and seeing what you see/feeling what you feel while still retaining a bit of individuality from the host. It’s not... Parasitic because it’s in its nature to give, but it’s generally pretty firmly attached to whoever is holding it until they die( which isn’t usually for a WHILE. It ’infects’ a new host when one dies, usually a plant near their grave...) or until a solar eclipse. It wants what they want, but it’s very fussy so they have to ask it for power exactly correctly(like singing an incantation every time you want to heal someone, or doing a Ritual involving lots of very specific ingredients, Celestial Alignments, and Secret Words) or it won’t listen, like an orchid dying if the ph balance is off in the soil by a little bit. But it’s generally pretty intuitive to use, because it wants what you want and (as long as you ask right) is willing to help. 

Anyways basically under the influence of the Sundrop you get a few things: 

Basically limitless energy coursing through your body while you’re in a place with sunlight, which equates to rapid healing, mostly, because every cell in your body is being supercharged with free energy. Never getting exhausted in direct sunlight. (If Rapunzel lived in a place that was sunny 24/7 like near one of the poles she wouldn’t have to sleep like. until it started to get dark in the opposite half of the year. Then she’d have to sleep like a regular human being)

You stay at your prime, or if you are past it, revert to your prime. Someone who is holding the Sundrop, or who has regular access to the Sundrop’s magic can’t die of old age or illness. They have to be hurt beyond the Sundrop’s ability to heal or have it taken away from them. 

The ability to share this rapid healing with others (if you ask right)

The ability to freely draw on the raw, near-limitless energy of the sun to shape into things like cool-looking energy blasts (only if you ask right) 

The Moonstone

The moonstone has powers over varying levels of destruction: from destroying things by ripping them apart/ to Not Letting Things Be Destroyed(also known as protecting) by freezing them in indestructible rock. Like the moon, it can ‘reflect’ a bit of the sundrop’s power, so it can kinda provide energy, albeit a lot less than the sundrop can provide. It’s the inevitable march of The End of All Things, fertilizing the fields of time with the ashes of the old so the new can take root. 

The Moonstone is a bit more in the dark(pun intended hehe) when it comes to bonding with someone, it can only try to figure out what is going on based off the emotions of its wielder, and through anything directly touching the Black Rocks. Because of this it’s... Kinda dumb? It tries to do things to help(Like shooting red fear-rocks to try and scare away whatever must be scaring its wielder so badly) but often fails spectacularly at helping. 

Under the influence of the Moonstone you get: 

Mortals get Neat Body Armor that’s actually just you being turned into a rock! They are very fragile! They need to be protected! The best the Moonstone can do to try and preserve you is to Stop All Destruction by.. Pausing all bodily functions indefinitely. Rocks don’t need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and almost nothing can destroy you if you’re solid Black Rock. The weak reflection of the Sundrop’s energy keeps the host animated, but they’re not exactly alive anymore. Like cryostasis. Wounds (if any) acquired in this state won’t be a problem because they’re not messing anything up, because nothing is technically working in the first place, but they will be a problem when you’re not protected in this way anymore. It’s a cosmic ‘I’ll deal with that later’ button, essentially. 

Like the moon, the Moonstone can reflect the light of the sun. It uses its rock crystals to do so, which can even split the sun’s power into different shades, like a prism. Essentially, different colored rocks can mean new and exciting power sets. 

Blue Lightning! The Moonstone can reflect the Sundrop’s power, so it also has access to pure bursts of energy, even if it is weaker and colder. 

The Moonstone is very helpful, but usually has no idea what you want. ‘Asking’ the Moonstone for more control over its power in the same way you would Ask the Sundrop for more power reminds it of the perfect bond it used to share. The Moonstone’s incantation deepens the bond between wielder and Moonstone in such a way that it actually knows what you want from it, giving you near perfect control of its powers.

*This is kind of just a side note of the Drops: While the Moonstone is weaker than the Sundrop in an head-on fight, it could hold its own if it were on the defensive. Redirecting the power instead of trying to overpower and such.

** Cass made of rocks means I get to draw her skeleton :) not in every picture that would be fucking nuts and way too much work alskjdf;lkjs;fv

[stray-tori]

TPN S02E04 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

viewing + post-ep talk with my friends: Google Drive (sorry, youtube denied me again)

(i) Translations are in the English (USA) CC (including the english bits as well for those who struggle with the audio/language, etc.)

pls validate my efforts and watch it.

there’s some anime-only talk about the adaptation towards the end, I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, just mention it to my friends based on some things I’d heard and without spoiling them about what is different that I do know of specifically. But if you want to avoid that, feel free to!

I definitely said it a bit too in favor of the anime, and obviously my friends’ just got my simplified thoughts on it? Like when they said it makes sense for the anime to move on quicker, but that’s not really what’s different. 

So yeah, please forgive the dubious things in that segment, I really just didn’t think about my words a lot.

.

. Random thoughts

The fish bug scenes were delightful TvT Also the animation during them trying to grab them???

The OST during Isabella’s scenes???? take me

I think we also heard the OST sneak peak from a while ago during the cave confrontation with the army force human

Don is a useless nightwatch, goddamn it Don

Don is an epic chairman.

Loved the shot of Ray shooting at the big demon (why didn’t Emma get a cool shot? :THONK:), very dynamic, very epic.

Also them running together to push the man off the cliff was... something haha.

I’m losing my mind that we’re actually just ending on the way ep1 started. Same animation loops too, eh. to be expected, and obviously adjusted for different clothing and items but. still as someone who wants to praise for not re-using animation, rip.

EMMA HAVING SLEEPING CHILDREN AROUND HER AWWWW

Eyy Ray took a bath with the others too, yay

.

. The bunker

So, the twist was that there was really.... no twist at all. Minerva was a good guy, he tried his best, he got discovered and chased.

And yet, I don’t think the bunker was previously discovered by the farms, which would at least warrant a “scare” like that, effectively making it a trap. They may have been aware of a shelter’s existence, but I don’t think they’ve been there before.

You could probably assume that the Troup that attacked our characters may have also removed the previous escapees from the scene --- but if that was the case, why leave all of the letters and other things in place. Not getting there immediately is understandable, they seem to arrived by foot (what? do you plan to keep an eye on the children the whole like 5 day march back or however long it took?? dang). So that’s not it.

So: what caused the HELPs? the person writing in the book seems to have been abandoned or more likely, are the only survivor of their group (maybe the only person in the group at all). Now it’d be an option for them to have found this safe haven and decided to just spend their days there, slowly losing their minds and doing the things on the wall. But then the message in the book, on the other hand, seems traumatized and sad, but not as lost as the carvings on the wall.

So either, they calmed down after going crazy and then once they did, they decided to leave.

Or it’s from two different people (or multiple), the one after the “HELP” one probably leaving the uplifting message in the book nearby of the scribbles.

I’m not sure which I’d find more likely, but all in all, I’m not sure why they didn’t just have the demons already know of the place and just have the letter (they probably wouldn’t have searched everything in the place) not be as obviously placed and then boom, they could still have made all discoveries they needed and when they found the help wall, it would have been from children trapped in the room while the men searched the bunker, wanting help.

* Clearly that’s not what they were going for, since there’s also day-counting things, but even that you could have explained by saying, they missed a child and the other escapees convinced them that they died, somehow and so they were left behind, traumatized by their friends being taken back and giving up for a while. It still runs into the same “but how can it be the same person?” doubt that my friend brought up, but I think that it’d justify the shock value of the wall more. Still not really making the whole “HELP” thing add up though, since that just sounds like there’s an immediate threat, when there isn’t. The only other thing I can think of is that the entire wall wasn’t one instance, so the counting could be solitude, the HELPs acute danger and the names probably also solitude. The drawing on the right also makes me think it was probably a child as well, fairly young. Poor kid.

Unless there’s something more to it I feel like it makes a little more sense, but still not a lot (WHY’D YOU LEAVE YOUR SNACKS, BRO) but seeing as we’ve left, I don’t think we’ll get to know.

.

I’m assuming the way the farm knew now is either a) they were aware but didn’t see any reason to go there unless there were children there, b) they saw the coordinate carvings (thanks Ray) or c) the pursuers contacted the farms (which would make sense, and again, thanks Ray).

.

.. the farm has a military force???

I also find it kind of funny that the farms have a military force??? Because so far, we’ve never seen them use guns to do anything. Which makes me think they might not be farm-intern but from an outside force, maybe the humans who are more “on-level” with them?

Like, what do they do all day. They’re probably not part of the buff demon guards and.... idk man haha-

.

. Isabella

Ahh I was happy to see her! I was even happier to be like “hah, prison. Knew it.” and then later reacting to the offer, even though that wasn’t exactly what I called, but damn. the pride. my fucking expression too lol, i couldn’t hide it at all pff.

Her jump in motivation is a little weird, but I do see it as, someone who has basically accepted their fate, and when that gets challenged, the will to live takes over. 

I’m also not quite sure how she’s supposed to capture them if she can’t leave?

And then of course there’s whatever they promised her aside from “freedom” (which, if that just means being let outside, good luck ma’am there’s demons everywhere) - or is the transportation to the human world included? :D

Based on her clothing in the OP, I might have guessed it’d be “become a grandma” but that doesn’t really go well with the promise of freedom so.... I don’t know where that entire thing is going pff-

We don’t know a lot about what drives Isabella but one of the few things we do know is a) will to live and b) Leslie (????), hence the lullaby in “stressful” situations.

She already got the will to live with the baseline deal, so the only thing I can think of that would make her react more than freedom would be that Leslie’s alive and she can see him if she helps.

I’m not sure if she’s interested in anything else, like how the world works or what she can do for anyone, like.... hm. Of course it could totally be something that we just don’t know yet but yeah I guess that’s my guess.

They probably won’t give up Ray and seeing as she’s more concerned about his brain than anything, I don’t think even if they did allow her to take him with her, it probably wouldn’t mean a lot to her. Plus, why lose another high quality cattle.

I guess it could be, she did seem she wanted to be a proper mother figure, but idk something tells me it’s probably not something like that.

It would also be more “???” than “OHHH” of an reveal. Then again, Leslie is also an obvious choice so.

Maybe it’s something entirely new, we’ll see :D

.

. The possibily wrong date

So when Anna writes a journal thingy, we see this

And, well, their escape happened in January 2046, so... for that to be true, somewhere along the line, an entire year would have had to pass.

I’m assume this is a production error because

they didn’t get to harvest once

they wouldn’t wait a year to talk about the plan to go back

Ray wouldn’t need an ear patch for so long, he only has a cut

the montage only showed 22nd and 23rd, if an entire year had passed, we’d have been shown more varied dates, etc.

then it makes even less sense for why the army shows up one year later out of nowhere :D

...

Smh, CloverWorks, what can you even do right.

.

Yee, thanks for reading!

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Scaling Up Dragon Heist

Around April or May of 2019, I started to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one of the official WotC 5e hardcovers. I’m still not done with it, although that is largely the fault of COVID and my own extensions to the campaign. 

I think Dragon Heist is one of the better 5e modules by WotC. I think it’s got a strong playground for the characters, and Waterdeep has 30+ years of publication history to draw on. The release of the module also heralded in a HUGE amount of third party extension content, including the famous Alexandrian Remix. I hadn’t heard of this before I started running my campaign and having ideas about how to do it, so it didn’t influence me--although I’m sure we came to a lot of similar conclusions and ideas, based on common perceptions of what the actual flaws are of the module.

Still, despite those flaws, I think they help the module rather than hinder it. It gives the DM a shitload of room to improvise and draw in the margins, rather than some other 5e adventures which feel like they can’t be fucked with in the least.

Here’s the kicker: I started my adventure at level 4. We had a pre-existing party that I had run through the classic N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. (Fun fact: A map that I drew is the 3rd Google Images result for that. Woah.)

The party spent a few real-world weeks traveling across about 7 days of overland travel where I ran some drop in one shots; including Mike Krahulik’s Dusk (a Twilight parody) and a really fun 2 hour diversion where the players saw an ancient blue dragon take off the roof of a church during a wedding. Then they arrived in my city: Dawnharbour.

I don’t run the Forgotten Realms. I find it not to my taste. Most of the names suck. The lore is invariably boring or weird, and not the fun kind of weird. I was going to run Dragon Heist, and I was going to put it in my own city. I gave the players some justification previously for why they would want to go there: The cleric’s sister had been kidnapped by the Cult of the Reptile God and turned into a Yuanti; a snake person. The bard had stolen a golden statue of the Reptile God and wanted to melt it down and plate his violin with it. I told the cleric that they would need a high level magic user and someone in Dawnharbour could probably help them; ditto the bard needing a highly skilled magical blacksmith. The third player didn’t really care where they went since he was on the run from his home country. So, off to Dawnharbour. They reached level 4 when they got to the city.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my city or everything I changed for the campaign. Instead, I’ll talk up some hard and fast ways to make the adventure work for a higher level party. Most of them revolve around the encounters. I’m assuming the party will start around level 4 or 5.

Chapter 1

The book opens with the players in the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern with a big ass well to a megadungeon underneath. (More on this later.) They’re hanging out doing whatever when a troll and some stirges pop out of the well. The book says that the players get attacked by the stirges while the owner of the bar, a typical Forgotten Realms 15th level Fighter running a fucking bar for a living deals with the troll.

A troll is CR 5. They can handle a troll. If they can’t, you have a bigger problem.

Next up the book leads them to a Zhentarim warehouse. When they get there it’s abandoned and there are (ugh) 3 Kenku. Kenku are like tengu if they sucked. They’re bird people who can only speak in mimickry, like parrots. They can only repeat words they’ve heard before. This is stupid as fuck (especially when a player wants to be one) but more importantly, they are incredibly weak. I think the kenku are just hanging out or they got captured by the Zhentarim who left them there after they bail or something like that. Whatever.

I put the Zhentarim there instead. I put like 20 Zhentarim. I used the Spy statblock; they don’t have a lot of CR and at level 4 or 5, the players are real slice and dicey about killing them. They can basically carve through two of these dudes in a turn. It was *really* fun to just have the players mow down these mooks. They used the 2nd floor to their advantage, casting Grease on the stairs and creating a bottleneck and then picking them off with ranged attacks and spells. I think I might have given the Zhents 1hp and treated them as minions (see 4e). 

I think I had the police show up after they were all dead; someone heard the commotion and called the cops. I think I also put an NPC there; I shuffled around a bunch of the NPCs the module uses. (They got their quest to save Volo from Bigby in the Yawning Portal; instead of finding Volo here, I think they found my equivalent of Renaer Neverremember.) There was a day’s break between this and them going into the sewers in the next part.

The sewer introduces the Xanathar’s minions. I believe a Duergar is actually there and I took this as a sign--I made most of Xanathar’s mooks Duergar, and then decided--this dude is a Beholder and he has a Mindflayer for a lieutenant. The Xanathar’s forces should ALL be classic D&D dungeon monsters, like rust monsters and umber hulks and ropers. This gives you a wide variety of weird shit you can throw at your players at different CR levels, and the idea of a gangster Beholder who thinks hiring a bunch of umber hulks to go shake down a local deli is fucking hilarious. But, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Throw some umber hulks or something in this lair. Go nuts--the weirder, the better. Xanathar’s crew should have no qualm about hanging out with a gibbering mouther or a carrion crawler.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the least developed chapter in the book. It also revolved around a bunch of Forgotten Realms faction nonsense that I wanted nothing to do with. I used this time instead to formally introduce the Xanathar, the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle. After they foiled his plans to rig a goldfish competition (think a dog show but for fish), the Xanathar became convinced the players worked for the Zhentarim and invited them to have a sit down about their intentions; if they worked for the Zhents he wanted to formally declare war. The players hated the Zhents--they killed an NPC they liked back during N1, partially to set this all up. Xanny was cool with that.

The Cassalanters were a way to introduce a new player. They call up the Blackstaff to say, hey we have a magic item, can you send a guy here to deliver it? (Magic item possession is illegal on the streets in my setting, but if someone important hires you to transport it, then you can do it. This makes being a courier a very lucrative job; lots of people are just carrying around other people’s stuff for a living.) They almost immediately knock out the new player sent to pick up the item, and replace him with their dofflegagher. The idea was that the dofflegagher player would then infiltrate the Blackstaff’s organization.

Blackstaff is no dumbass and hired a random dude off the street--my new player. Then, Blackstaff hired the rest of the party to go rescue him--mostly as a ruse to snuff out the Cassalanters and get evidence that they were shitty.

When they encountered the Cassalanters, I used a Cambion; one of their servants turned into him. This guy slowly became a recurring lieutenant; he was basically the Goldar for the Cassalanter’s Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. At the time, I hadn’t read any lore for Cambions; I’m not particularly concerned with monster lore the way the guys who make the game write it. I literally thumbed through my deck of monsters, saw this winged devil horn dude, and said, “Right on, he looks like he’ll work.” A Cambion is CR5, more than suitable for the encounters the party will have with him over the next few levels. The Fiendish Charm ability is fun and can really fuck with the players; I ruled, of course, that anyone under its affect would obviously be free if the Cambion was killed. Even after it was killed, he just kept on coming back, because he’s from Hell and killing him on this plane doesn’t really do anything.

As the players continue to face the Cassalanters, a go-to seems to be spined devils. This is fine but not very powerful for a level 4, 5, 6 party. Therefore I suggest supplanting it with barbed devils. They’re CR5. Adding one or two of those to an encounter with spined devils can make this a real fun encounter that isn’t too horribly overwhelming, especially if at least one of your martial characters has a magic weapon (which they fucking should; they’re level 5!)

IMO you can also introduce Jarlaxle in this chapter; a fun way is through his Zardoz Zord persona. It could simply be that Jarlaxle knows Volo (or any other NPC the players know) and wants to invite them to a free meal to get to know them. In my game, Jarlaxle operates openly as himself (I found it would just complicate things if he was someone else) and invited the players to his yacht shortly after they met the Xanathar, to formally tell them all about the Vault of Dragons, the Stone, and how everyone they have met in the city is after it.

Chapter 3

I am not the biggest fan of this part of the module. I think nimblewrights and similar creatures are really dumb and don’t fit my D&D world. A lot of the stuff in this chapter is investigation stuff, and you can play that out however you like. It doesn’t drastically need scaling up, though you may have to account for something like Zone of Truth that they might not normally have access to. It also helps if you do the opposite of the book, and make the police a bunch of shitheads who don’t care about the city--this way the players are actually motivated to help. I’ve seen a LOT of posts that open with “the fireball happened and my players shrugged and said they would let the police handle it.” Horrible! The police should either be incompetent, apathetic, or (best case) both. They don’t care who did this and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to catch them. Now it’s completely on the players.

IMO it also helps if you do the leg work to make the NPC someone they actually care about. In the book it’s an NPC they’ve never met but they have a mutual acquaintance through--it would be nice if they get invited to a dinner with this NPC or something similar prior to this. Or, change it to be any NPC they like who you don’t mind killing. Hell, they’re level 5 or 6 at this point--if they got a cleric, they can even cast Revivify and wake the dude up. They could even cast Speak With Dead and immediately find out who blew him up or what he was doing here!

Moving on, there’s the Gralland Villa. I retooled the name to actually sound like a good name; sue me. 

The book has a bunch of Zhents hanging out here. A simple way to make this dramatic and hard is to pull the trigger and make the players fight their way in. The stone is right here at the villa and they need to steal it. Sounds simple enough.

Things got complicated for my party when a recurring NPC appeared. She was an ex girlfriend of the bard in our party; they were both Tieflings. She now worked for the Zhentarim and was basically their second in command. And she was here to steal the stone, come Hell or high water. The bard, still in love with her, was perfectly content to let her steal it and even cover her getaway. The rest of the players, not so much, but when the chaos was ensuing and she was literally running past them with the stone in hand, made the decision that it was smarter to try and help her escape and then figure out how to get the stone from her later, than try and get it from her now.

This led literally directly to chapter 4.

Chapter 4

By now it’s obvious: I used all 4 bad guys.

I ran through the chapter and picked the coolest maps and best encounter ideas, including the rooftop chase, the theater, the sewer and the courthouse. I weaved them together carefully, and all the changes I had made to the groups paid off when they entered the theater, chased by barbed devils and our Cambion friend, only to have an Umber Hulk with the Xanathar’s logo painted on his face crash through the stage, flanked by two Duergar. Add in some Drow gunslingers and it was a fucking party.

(the large hexagon is where somebody cast Darkness; the big scuffed circle is a grody spot on my grid tiles. I still need new ones...)

The courthouse had a great scene where the Cassalanter dofflegagher impersonated the chief of police, interrogating the players for the code word to activate the stone (I added one; who cares?) until the real chief of police showed up! The players had to do an entire encounter with this guy while handcuffed; thank god for verbal only spells, right? 

From here the stone ended up with the players, and then it ended up with Jarlaxle who they are working for. Jarlaxle attuned to it and told them the Vault of Dragons is inside Undermountain; 3, 5 levels deep? Who knows? And it requires 3 keys: The Crown of Asmodeus, the Ring of Winter, and the Robe of the Archmagi.

I gave these 3 magic items to the Cassalanters, the Xanathar and Manshoon. This is a pretty common hack and it means the lairs in the book actually get used. I made up one of the magic items (Crown of Asmodeus) and stole another from a module I don’t intend to run as written (the Ring of Winter is, I believe, in either Tomb of Annihilation or Storm King’s Thunder). They’re fun!

So the rest of the campaign has been the players bouncing between going deep into Undermountain, the megadungeon underneath the Yawning Portal, and going to the 3 different villain factions to steal their shit. 

The villain lairs are NOT statted for level 5 players AT ALL. The players have no hope of actually killing ANY of the villains at level 5; to fight the Xanathar is a pure TPK at level 5. But at level 8, like where my players are now? One of them died and then got Revivified; the others all survived or made their saves when they were hit by death or disintegration. (In the spirit of the Xanathar, I rolled every eye beam randomly, rerolling if I had used that ray in the last round.) That’s about the best you can hope for with a Beholder IMO! 

The rest of the lairs you can mostly run as-is. Any very low CR mooks, basically anything lower than 1 or 2 CR, I would probably replace with a higher CR variant. We’ve already discussed what you can replace them with above, and if you’ve made it this far into the module, you should have a pretty good sense of what your players can handle.

[ivory-sunflower]

Arty Art Things ✨

Hellooo!

I've decided to post some of the arty things I've done either recently or in the last few years, well the pieces I'm somewhat proud of at least. All my posts tend to be a lot more wordy than they need to be but hey it's what I do here!

Conchúr White

Anyone one who's been on this blog for a bit will have probably have seen me talk about this lovely Irish fella. The pencil drawing is actually a year old as of yesterday, I only know that because screenshots of me flipping out about Conchúr following me on twitter popped up in my memories yesterday. I think I'd sent it to him at about 3 in the morning (I was not in a good head space at that point in time), so probably not what he was expecting to see when he opened his phone in the morning aha

The biro version is much more recent: I got bored while sat at my desk and doing research about university courses, saw a biro, saw my old drawing of Conchúr, had an idea. I revisited my GCSE art techniques and here we are. Again, I put this up on Twitter and now (at the the time I'm writing this) when you google "Conchúr White" it's the third top image of him which is a bit mad really. I think I spent all of about 20 minutes on Conchúr but another 45 minutes on the words behind him. The words are the names of the songs on his EP 'Bikini Crops', he doesn't just really love the idea of Channing Tatum driving him around at night in a daisy print bikini... Well maybe he does but what he does in his spare time is none of my business...

TechDif

So I mentioned that the pencil drawing of Conchúr came from a rough patch in my mental health and this one is no different! In fact this one came from an even worse circumstance so we love to see it. I had a bad, bad time in July and this started as a way of distracting myself from what was going on in my head. Without it, I can't honestly say I'd still be here so even if the final product of this had been a terrible mess I would still love it for keeping me alive. However, it did not turn out to be a terrible mess!

Now that the origin of this is out the way, where do I start with TechDif? Unlike Conchúr, I haven't really talked about them on here (unless you count one brief post about Citation Needed) before so I guess I'll do it here. The Technical Difficulties are a wonderful group of 4 British fellas who have had their fair share of fun online and even before. They did a radio show at university together, which went on to become their Reverse Trivia Podcast, later moving on to a panel show called 'Citation Needed': and a game called 'Two of These People Are Lying'. All of which I would thoroughly reccomend, they're one of my go to things when I'm having a rough time. All 4 of them are excellent! Tom Scott (red top, blue jeans on the picture) has his own YouTube channel which does content aside from TechDif. If you're quite nerdy and like science, linguistics, computers, or any number of other things you may enjoy Tom's channel. He is probably best described as "The Moderator" of the group, much like a tired teacher he tries desperately to keep everyone on track with what they're meant to be doing, but usually it does not end well for him. Then we have Matt Gray (space top, holding an ice cream) who also has a channel away from TechDif stuff, he does techy electronic things and has a series called 'Will it Soft Serve?' where he puts all kinds of strange things through a soft serve machine. Matt brings a very specific energy to TechDif and I can't fully describe what that vibe is but I love it. Matt and Tom also share a YouTube channel where TOTPAL is posted and they had a series called 'The Park Bench'. Moving on to everybody's favourite Gary Brannan: Gary Brannan (SATIRE hoodie, glasses) and can I just say, what a fella he is! He's just excellent! He is the one that will argue and rip into Tom the most (not in a malicious way) and hilarity ensues. There are some episodes where he is absolutely on it, getting all the points and others where he very clearly has no idea and that's where some of his funniest quotes come from. Given how badly I was doing at the time I made this, his response to it on Twitter was so so lovely. I specifically remember one tweet where he said I'd made him happy and although it was probably a flippant comment, it just made feel alright for a bit. Yeah I might be feeling awful right now, but I've made someone else happy so that's a nice feeling. Then last but certainly not least, we have Chris Joel (buffalo check shirt, beard)! I would be lying if I said he isn’t my favourite... His sense of humor is the one I vibe with most, he can get rather dramatic in parts and can chat bollocks like a champion. He has absolutely no online presence away from TechDif and, like Rens from Temples, I fully believe he’s a cryptid and lives off in a tree somewhere. 

The picture took me about 4 days to complete, well 4 nights because I did most of it between the hours of 12 a.m. and 7a.m. - I remember watching the sun come through my window each morning. It’s made up of lots of little pieces, all cut out and stuck on; even the sky and hills are made of separate pieces of paper. Nothing was actually drawn on the piece of paper it’s all stuck on, it’s not how I usually do things but if I messed up one little but I could just redraw it rather than ruining the whole thing. The most tedious parts to make were Chris’ shirt because I had to draw each square individually and then join the as well, and cutting out the ban-hammer in the bottom right was surprisingly hard. Every single detail of the picture is a reference to the podcast/shows, I still have the plan sketch and reference list knocking about somewhere. I listened to a lot of true crime videos while making it to the point that certain parts remind me of different cases: the brandy now reminds me of Peter Tobin, and the big spiral thing reminds me of Tim McLean (very harrowing case) - sorry that fact is a bit morbid but interesting nonetheless. 

I did post this for a little bit back in July, but I received some rather awful messages so I took it down. Generally, Tom Scott/TechDif fans are lovely but there’s been a few that have taken a disliking to me for some reason so I’m hoping they don’t resurface again. I’m in a better head space now though, so even if they do I’m more equipped to deal with it this time.

Hozier

This was a quick sketch I did in April, I was getting bored with lockdown and decided to summon the bog man himself. There’s not really much more backstory than that, no poor mental health story, no fun twitter story - he’s just here. He’s vibing. I will say I’m particularly proud of his nose, I just think it’s one of the best noses I’ve ever drawn. His hand is okay, but I think that the hands on my Conchúr drawings are better. So there is the Hozi-Boi...

The Corpse Bry

I’ve talked about Bry on here before as well, I love him, he’s excellent, top lad. He is a living Tim Burton character, he’s 6′6, very skinny, and his legs are longer than my will to live. I was watching ‘The Corpse Bride’ a few weeks ago and suddenly had an idea and so ‘The Corpse Bry’ came to be. I gave him a little panda friend because the panda has always been his animal - he used to wear a panda beanie all the time and his album had a panda on the cover. Again, there’s not really a fun story behind this one, I guess it’s somewhat fun because it’s the first art I made after finishing my psychology exams in October so it was nice to actually have the time to draw.

James Bagshaw

Ginger talking about Temples for the third post in a row? it’s more likely than you think! I did this one last week, I’d had a bit of a wobbly day and had group therapy on Teams in the evening and I just couldn’t concentrate on what was going on and I ended up doodling Mr James E. Bagshaw, the glitter crying fraggle man himself. It’s a bare-bones drawing that I could definitely work into more but I’m happy with it as it is to be honest. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit and add the individual bits of fringe to his jacket, just thinking about doing that makes me tired. Maybe I’ll get around to drawing the whole band at some point...

Alice in “Wonderland”

This one is from about 5(?) years ago, it’s not my typical style and was a “study” based on another artists work (basically i just had to copy this fellas work). I’ll be honest, this one has a sketchy backstory that I won’t go in to because it’s not exactly a nice one, and because of that I also won’t say who the artist is that it’s based on. Despite this, I’m still really proud of this one and I’m so sad that I never got this piece back after I got taken out the class. I’ve considered trying this style again, I’ve even joked about doing another Conchúr drawing in this style as a nod to my progression through GCSE art, eventually leading to Conchúr drawn in ink on music manuscript and stained with neon paint and dyes - it would be quite the project!

So this has been quite a lengthy post so apologies about that but life goes on. Similar to the vinyl post, I’ll probably add to this as and when I make more art. Even if no one is reading these posts, I’m enjoying making them so that’s the main thing. It’s just nice to document things and the feelings that go with them. 💕

~ Love Ginger xx 

29/11/2020

[purplesurveys]

656

Where is the last place you had a kiss? My girlfriend’s couch. I normally wouldn’t kiss her inside her house but we were alone, so it just happened. What did you eat for breakfast yesterday? I skipped breakfast yesterday and went straight to having a macchiato, which was a horrible idea considering I had a badddd hangover. My body made me pay for it soon enough when my stomach started unusually heating up, so I bought a sandwich by around lunch to help it feel better. When was the last time you were at an amusement park? 2013. I don’t like amusement parks so when my friends make plans I don’t go along with them. Two weeks ago I was at a school fair which kinda has the same amenities as an amusement park, but I guess it’s not the real thing so it doesn’t count. When was the last time you cried out of physical pain? Last Wednesday. My friend Leigh was trying to demonstrate for me the concept of just-noticeable difference by pinching the skin on my hand. I don’t like feeling pain anywhere on my body, so when she started amping up her pinching I had to yell out. Have you ever done anything to Support the Troops? No. Can’t relate.

Do you donate blood? Nooooo no nope. I just said I didn’t like feeling discomfort on any part of my body hahaha and getting pricked is the worst sensation for me. I wouldn’t be able to donate blood even if I wanted to either – as far as I know you have to be of a certain weight to be qualified, and I’ve never met that requirement. Are you wearing two shirts? No. It’s never too cold to be wearing two shirts here. The only time I had to really do this in a local sense was in Sagada. That weather was b r u t a l. It was the first time my dad turned on the heater in our car and I didn’t even know Filipino cars came with heaters lmaaaaaaao. This was a very long way of saying no. Have you ever owned the socks with toes on them? Never have. What were you the last time you went trick or treating? I went as my best friend at the time, Sofie. I didn’t have time (and wasn’t as extroverted as I am now) to come up with a detailed costume, so I went as her – black dress, eyebags, winged eyeliner, and thick hair that was never combed. It had the least effort of all my friends’ costumes, but I got the most compliments on social media lol. What's your favorite morning activity? I am so not a morning person, and I just like sleeping/lying in whenever I can. Can you cook? I am hopeless in that department. Is there a lot of laundry in your hamper? No. My mom’s laundry day is Friday, so it’s basically empty the whole weekend. When do you think you'll have children? In a little less than a decade, honestly. I’m pretty firm in my decision to have kids; it’s my biggest dream if anything. I mean I’m also willing to wait until I’m in my 30s because god knows how expensive everything is rapidly getting these days, but I just know I’ll end up having kids one way or another. Can you point out constellations in the night sky? No. The only thing I can safely point out for you is Orion’s Belt, and that’s because it’s essentially a giveaway lmao. What was your favorite part about studying ancient Greeks and Romans? Nothing. It’s one of my least favorite topics. The only thing that got me to enjoy them for a brief period was the Percy Jackson series, but when I finished the books my interest in that world waned fast. Have you ever eaten a gyro? Nah, but close enough – I’ve had shawarma. What's your favorite flavor of Tootsie pops? Mmmm not really a fan of Tootsie Pops, or like candy in general. What's the last thing you bought at a mall? If I remember correctly, I got a toasted siopao in Coffee Bean. Where did your mom go to high school? She went to Colegio de Santa Rosa in Makati. What's a subject you would never major in? Philosophy. My college curriculum required me to take one Philosophy elective, and not only was it the worst experience ever, but I got my second-lowest mark in college from that class. Is there someone who you can turn to for money and not be ashamed? No. I hate asking for money, even from my parents. When's the last time you took a bubble bath? A little over a year ago, probs. I love bubble baths when I manage to get settled in one, but because I’m usually in a hurry when I take showers, the concept of staying and relaxing in a bathtub is a little weird to me so I never do it haha. Have you ever swam in a river? I have photos of me when I was 1, my mom, her sisters-in-law, and their kids (my cousins) swimming in some river.  Are there any dirty clothes underneathe your bed? No. I know I could be messy, but that’s just disgusting. What food do you love the smell of while it's cooking? Curry. What food do you hate the smell of uncooked? I just hate the smell of wasabi in general. Your #2--what's their occupation? Your #3--what color are their eyes? Your #1--what cartoon character would they be? Your #4--are they allergic to anything? All Myspace questions that I’m skipping, lmao. Has a bee ever stung you? No. That’s like one of my top 3 fears so I never allow myself to be near bees or wasps. If there’s any nearby I run the fuckkkkk away. Where did you last go camping? I have never been camping for real. In what month do you start Christmas shopping? Last year I had some stuff ordered by early November – but those were gifts for just my girlfriend. I bought everyone else’s gifts like a week before Christmas. Have you ever slept in a bed with someone with bad BO? I’m sure I have; I just don’t let it bother me because no one’s breath is supposed to smell great in the morning lmao. Do you have a favorite flavor at Baskin Robbins? I have never had Baskin Robbins and I dunno if I will, because it’s just so expensive. Philippine suppliers looove bringing foreign brands like Shake Shack and Baskin Robbins over here and slapping insanely high prices on them just so they’re seen as high-end lmao, it’s sad. Are there fast food wrappers/cups in your car? No not at the moment. If anything there are old receipts. Do you read the newspaper? Very seldom, but given that I’m a journalism student, I encounter newspapers a lot because they’re everywhere in the college. What search engine do you use? Google. Have you ever posted a question on Yahoo questions? Nope. But the website is useful and I just look for people asking the same question I have at the moment. Have you ever been on a dating website? I made a Tinder account a few years ago just to observe it and just for fun. I never needed it but I was curious, so I joined it but I used a fake name and a photo of a cat I saw in school as my profile picture so that no one knew who it was. Have you ever had a crush on a celebrity of the same sex? Save for CM Punk, I’ve only ever had crushes on female celebrities. What kind of flowers would you plant in your garden? I dunno, I’ve never felt interested in growing flowers...or a garden, in general. Would you rather have a flat tire or overheated car? Flat tire. As far as I know that can be fixed a little more easily than a completely overheated car. What's the safest form of transportation? Private car, lmao. That’s really your safest bet in this country. Do you believe that kids should be taught abstinence? They can be taught about it so they’re aware of what it means and asks of them, but kids should also be reminded that at the end of the day it’s an option that they can choose to take or not. When's the next time you'll go to the grocery store? I only ever go when my dad is home because he likes having us along, so maybe in a month or two. When's the last time you went to Chuck E. Cheese? Never. What's your favorite cheese or cheese flavored food? Mozzarella sticks. Do you like black licorice? It’s decent, at best. I won’t spit it out, but it’s not my first candy of choice either. Can you count to 100 in another language? Two, Filipino and Spanish. We use Spanish when referring to currency, so that’s why it’s easy to memorize. Like I’d say I have labing-limang (fifteen in Filipino) notebooks, but when I have to say fifteen pesos, we say it as kinse (fifteen in Spanish). Idk, it’s a weird quirk with Filipinos but yeah. What's the nearest thing to you that can bounce? I don’t think there is anything bouncy in the living room at the moment. Do you hate cleaning? If I have to do it I get lazy. But when I actually want to clean, it can be relaxing. Do you clear dishes in the garbage disposal or in the garbage can? My mom takes out the garbage. Do you watch anything on the E! network? I don’t think our cable comes with E! so the only times I get to encounter it is when we’re staying over at hotels. I like having Keeping Up With the Kardashians on when we do have that channel. Have you ever tried out or thought of trying out for American Idol? I loved the show during its peak days, but I never had the desire to join it. Where's your car keys? Upstairs, on my bedside drawer. Did you keep any momentos of high school dances? From my high school ball, yes. I still have my old gown, photos with Mike, the instrument he used to ask me to ball (a Starbucks cup with the proposal written on it by the barista), and my old corsage. I like keeping stuff like that around so that I don’t forget, not because I still like him lmao. My prom could fuck off, and I have nothing from that night. Do you still have clothes from your high school dances? I have no idea. My high school prom dress disappeared after a while, but I still have my ball gown. The last person you laid in bed with said... I don’t know what you’re referring to but our last conversation was her telling me to drive home safe. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? I can’t. Which celebrities would you want to hang out with at a bbq? The Friends cast. Do you think you could do better drawings than Napolean Dynamite? I have never seen the movie. What are you doing on Superbowl Sunday? Isn’t it over already? I saw my aunts and uncles post about it on Facebook so I’m pretty sure it’s over. Anyway, I don’t care for football. Ever been to the original 13 colonies? No. Have you ever been to a concert that got out of control? Not really. The most ‘rebellious’ thing that ever happened was at my One Direction concert. The organizers made the stupid decision of holding the show on FLAT concert grounds and not a stadium, for a concert that probably held 10,000-20,000 people. Can you imagine holding that on just the GROUND??? Anyway, my sister and I had the third best tickets which was supposed to bring us to the semi-front, but it turned out to be so far from the stage. Everyone from my section all the way to the back resorted to standing up on the monobloc chairs which really isn’t allowed, but duh it’s One Direction and we wanted to see them. Harry had to call us out and ask us to get down from the chairs and just stand on the ground for our safety, but we kept protesting until they just gave up and continued the show. What's the last thing you watched on tv? Titanic, but we watched it on Netflix. I haven’t seen cable TV in a whiiiiiiile.

Whose show should be cancelled? 13 Reasons Why. Do you like Lindsay Lohan as a blonde? It doesn’t bother me. When's the last time you ate fruit? Last Friday I tried some of Laurice’s green mango with bagoong. Can you jump rope double dutch? Nope. I know jump rope but I never went that far.

[ask-them-bois]

Hey man, I just want to say you're an awesome writer. I love your stories and the series' you do. I can't wait for the next one to start. Do you happen to have any good writing tips? I myself want to write more but it's such a struggle sometimes.

ljsfhsdfalfhafldhfklslsdhfs anon this was so sweet, thank you!! I’m just as excited as you guys, I love ya’ll’s reactions and feedback; i thrive off it, it gives me the motivation to write even more. I’m so giddy for 4/13. As for writing tips, yes! I do have some that are pretty useful for myself. I can’t speak for every writer, of course, but hopefully they’ll give you some place to start:

A protagonist has to have more going for them than just a tragic backstory, handsome looks, or power. All of those are fine, of course, but they need more than that. They need hobbies, interests, little ticks that make them whole. Otherwise they’re simply a shell for the reader to see the world through, like the character a player controls in a video game. They’ll feel less genuine, and all the moments you want to hit hard won’t hit right.

Don’t be afraid of starting sentences with ‘And’ or ‘But’. Fuck whatever Oxford says, if you can make it work, then do it!

Don’t underestimate the classic “And everything went black.” at the end of a chapter. Makes me go buck wild every time, and I bet plenty of other readers will agree.

Side characters need something going for them, too! They need their own stories within the story. Even simply mentioning that X has a brother will make them seem more rounded out, because then they have a connection to that world besides themselves.

Use as many drafts as you need. You know how many drafts my stuff goes through before I publish? A minimum of six. Never compare your first draft to a published work. That could be someone’s 1,000th draft!

Diversity is crucial. LGBT, POC, nerodivergent, age differences, religious differences, handicapped- all of these are critical in making your story more whole. And mix them up, too! Mush them together, because no one is one thing. Make a 90-year old, autistic, gay, black, nonbinary person! If it sounds like too much I promise it’s not! Anyone with even 2 of those features will feel represented and seen!

Make sure your villains know where they stand, and know where they draw the line. They’ll kill the protagonist by any means, but they won’t kick an abandoned puppy; stuff like that. Even a relentless murderer needs some kind of limit. Something that can make them falter. Not like a weakness- which, yes, they need those, too- but something that’ll show they have standards, or a code they stick to.

It’s okay if your world is incomplete when you start writing, or you don’t know how it will end. That’s perfectly okay, wonderful, in fact! Just start writing, and it’ll come to you eventually.

Don’t be afraid to step away if you get stuck. Snack and bathroom breaks, a jog around the block, all that. I know others will say to muscle through it, but sometimes you’ve gotta step away. To quote my 5th grade english teacher, “Don’t be a bird against a window.” A bird will throw itself at a window again and again, and wonder why it can’t go further. If you’re banging your head against the desk wondering why you can’t get your story to progress, walk away! Leave it for a day or two, if you need to!

Never underestimate music. I have a playlist I have perfectly tailored to the mood and energy of my writing. I’ve got a list for action scenes, romance scenes, serious moments- music can give you a jump and get you going, inspire you at just the right moment.

Write every day. This can be hard, but try. Even a sentence, even something that isn’t your main project. Write a quote you like in the notes on your phone. Anything little helps.

On that note, have more than one project going at a time! Currently, I myself have my book series, this blog, and 2-3 fanfictions I’m working on. If you don’t have the drive for one on a given day, maybe you’ve got the inspiration for another. Then look at that, you’re still writing, even if it’s not your main project!

Get people involved!! I can’t stress how important this one was to me, personally. I understand not wanting to spoil your story, but hey, the final draft is what they’ll read, not the work in progress. Whatever you tell them might not even get used, or will end up drastically changed. I’d ramble to my friends for forever and inspire myself in the middle of a sentence. They didn’t even have to listen, I just needed to talk it out with myself.

Don’t be afraid to skip parts. Let’s be real, transition scenes are a bitch. They are my personal demon. So write the first scene, skip the transition, and write the next important block. Go back later, and by then you’ll probably have some idea of how to connect them.

Google everything. Half my google history is “synonyms for ___”. If you make up a word, google it too, just in case! It could be something horrifically offensive in another language. Or it could be gobbledygook! In that same vein, baby name sites are your best friend.

Make sure every character has something that drives them. Some inspiration or aspiration they hope to achieve! Yes, even the characters you plan to kill off. Again, it makes the world that much richer. Even if it’s something simple like a teacher, who teaches because they just “love to teach”. And once it’s said, prove it! Show the teacher praising their students, or getting excited when their students understand!

Love interests are not vital. Trust me. The protagonist doesn’t need a lover to seem whole. If they do, that’s not a good protagonist. Try again.

Details, and lack there of. Be as specific as can be with physical objects and overpowering emotions. Synonym after simile after metaphor, pile them on! But when it comes to action, hold back! You don’t have to specify the way the character moves every joint. Leave a little to the imagination, and the reader will fill in the gaps.

Symbolism, intentional or not, is powerful as all hell. If it is intentional, though, don’t lay it on too thick. Same goes for foreshadowing, because then your reader might get bored because whoops, you just spelled out the ending before you even got there.

Tropes are your friend. There’s a reason they’re used so much: Because they work! Don’t overload the story, of course, but if you want to use it, and it fits that particular scene, then by god do it. No one can stop you.

Above all, your story is your own. There is no one else in the world who can tell it the way you can. Even if they’ve read it a thousand times, it’s not the same, I promise. They have it memorized? They’ve seen work like it? IT’S NOT THE SAME. You’re the only one who can tell it, so by all means, do so.

Wow okay that got long, but I think that’s most of ‘em! I hope they help, and good luck with your story!

[fyrapartnersearch]

Ally's Apocalyptic Ad (Tripple threat)

Well hi there honey ～

The Quarantine has compelled me to post another ad onto FYRA, since there isn’t much you can do other than spend your days inside, I figured I’ll use this as a perfect opportunity to reach out to those who are interested in a specific role-play with me! :)

The name’s Aaliyah or Ally for short, and I will cut right to the chase. I am looking for a mature role-player, preferably 21+ but will also accept 18+ (just to be sure that you are of legal age, otherwise it’ll be uncomfortable).

I recently turned 27, with 12 years of experience, and hope to meet someone who shares a passion for creative writing and formulating interesting plots and characters. In case you are curious about me as a person, I am a full-time student and a young writer who works at the gym on the side, but also enjoys other creative outlets such as drawing and photography.  But at the moment, as the pandemic is spreading, I am reduced to attending online courses, thus have loads of free time on my hands. Be sure that you’re able to uphold a stable Roleplay. And if I do not message you back right away, I hope you can forgive me. I will make sure to let you know if either my capacity is full, or if I am not able to respond right away due to technical issues (or other reasons). If you are hitting a hiatus, that is more than fair! A simple message to put things on hold will completely suffice, but I would like to keep in touch in case the story bears great potential. I very much enjoy video-games, tv-shows, comics, films, books, and the list goes on. Hopefully, I can attract some kindred spirits. I roleplay both Canon and Original! 
But currently, I am looking for something very specific, and that something is heavily focused on Supernatural / Gothic / Horror / Urban Fantasy genre. So if there’s no luck in finding a fitting Canon based story, we can always switch to original world-building. For fandoms, I have only picked out four very specifically that I am more than willing to do. I have a heavy craving for a role-play based around dark gritty plots, deeply well-written characters and a whole lot of sass. So if you’re in the mood for something spicy, hit me up.

What it comes down to:

What the Partnership should be: I strongly encourage an active roleplayer who is not afraid of sharing 50% of ideas, plotting, length, detail but most important of all, passion. A bird cannot fly with only one wing. Communication: I’m a chatterbox, so I love making new friends while brainstorming! Communication is the bedrock of it all. It strengthens our compatibility and the story. Should there be something that bothers you, or if you think your characters are not given any proper attention (be it a mistake on my part or if we’re both at fault here), don’t worry about it. Just tell me and we can figure things out. I have no issues with rewriting scenes for a better narrative, or, correct a mistake. We can always exchange and see what would benefit the story most. The Way of Writing: Not a fan of one-liners or text-talk. No half-assed replies. And certainly no ‘quality over quantity’ when you can have both. What I expect for you to have is a basic grasp of grammar. Not to say you need to write a perfectly articulated novel - obviously, a no brainer. I don’t either, but if I get the feeling of my partner wavering in their effort and not investing as much as I do, I have to give them the chop, unfortunately. Too often have I encountered partners who showed strong enthusiasm at first but as time progressed… they slacked and eventually only put an adequate amount of effort into their side whilst completely disregarding my characters.

How I write:

My writing: Third person perspective usually, although I have made some exceptions in my years of writing. My style is a wide spectrum and very flexible, which means that frequently, the word count can go up to 1000+ per reply - though it depends on the given situation and partner. And yes, I do double, preferably even, most likely in canon universes. However this again wholly depends on the type of story, partner, and the cast of characters. I am very open and willing to discuss. 
Rating: So you are writing with someone mature. I have 12 years of writing under my belt. There will be violence, there will be swearing, there will be gore. Intimate, uncomfortable topics such as drama, erotica and other topics close to that will always be included with me as a partner. I have few limits but I will respect the boundaries of my partner. And lastly, I won’t fade to black or skip out on the nitty-gritty, unless it doesn’t serve a particular purpose in forwarding the story, then I can make an exception. Characters: I write both canon and OC characters. Face claims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description should suffice. Characters ought to be written as opulent, flawed, unique, talented, heroic, villainous, spiteful, angry, and everything in-between, beings. Don’t be afraid of making them human. Romance: Openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I am more flexible with this one. If the chemistry of two characters compel me, I’m on board! When it comes to sexual situations and intimacy (intercourse, foreplay, all that funny business), I am not particularly squeamish about it. I encourage eroticism, but always in a tasteful, sensual manner (that goes for romance as well), though it is never the main focus of any of my stories, rather a tool for furthering the plot. Erotica is welcome but not the center of any of my roleplays, so I’d rather have it develop naturally and not rush it from one ‘sex-scene’ to the next. Content: Drama, violence, action, romance, pretty much everything's a-okay. I have no qualms with explicit subjects that may be uncomfortable for the general public. Roleplays are fictional stories and we best keep viewing them as such. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me, right? If there are things you are uncomfortable with, name them and I shall respect your boundaries. My roleplays imply and involve brutality such as psychological and physical trauma among other things. It may be difficult to read and write, but it is all part of the plan and a way of progressing the story. However, that’s not the end of it. I 100% endorse beauty, serenity and placid moments as well. It is all needed for our characters to grow and evolve. I love it when it all comes full circle… everyone- and everything has a beautiful and hideous side. This is for adults and I am not here to coddle, I am here for a challenge.


And finally, here are the things that I am looking for interest-wise! If your fields of interest are not listed here, I am sorry, but I won't be compelled to do anything but those things mentioned down below. Sorry :(

☞ Castlevania *** ☞ Devil May Cry **** ☞ Hellsing *** ☞ Hellboy ** ☞ Constantine *** ☞ AU / Where all universes clash into each other **** ☞ The Boys ** ☞ Bayonetta ** ☞ Buffy *

As for original plots, I am very keen on urban and gothic fantasy, but I am also inclined to do fantasy/alternative reality, mythology, etc. I have plenty of ideas up my sleeve, some of them fully fleshed out and some of them mere rough concepts still in progress. Either way, I would rather have these ideas introduced throughout email or whatever platform we choose to communicate on. I also have a strong penchant for world-building, especially worlds on a metaphysical plain or different planets, dimensions like the underworld, netherworld, purgatory, heaven, etc.

Original themes:

☞ Supernatural / Metaphysical (Demons, Angels, Spirits, Monsters, Hunters, Cosmic Horror,  etc.)
 ☞ Mystery
 ☞ Crime
 ☞ Action
 ☞ Horror
 ☞ Romance
 ☞ Thriller
 ☞ Monsters 



As a precaution, here are the things I am not interested in:

☞ Slice of life
 Topics that aren’t listed in my ad (although I am not against trying something new, I have had many messages that suggested we roleplay something completely out of my field.) 
 ☞ Anime cliches
 ☞ Solely smut focused plots

Aaaand should I hit a hiatus myself, I will notify asap!


Platforms I use are email and google-docs. I also have a Discord account in case we plot and chat outside of the RP. However, Google Hangouts has proven itself as a sufficient chat-medium for OOC-chat, so I rather stay on email (in case you also have a Gmail account).

If you message me, please use the referred codenames below so I know your specific interest. :)

♠ 𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖉 𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖊𝖉: Canon 


♥ 𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞 𝕶𝖎𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖘: Original 


Even though not mandatory, it is preferred. I would love to read a small description of yourself and your passions. Message me here: EMAIL: aylosreverie@gmail.com Excited to hear from you! Sincerely yours -Ally

[rayroute-clear-saeran-text-sound]

Hello! Could you possibly do a ship for me? I'm a bit of a disaster potato. I love writing, drawing and baking. I'm a a fairy witch and tend to give way too many chances. I'm that person in the friend group who always seems to be running into misfortune, but I get back up and keep going. I am a meme lord and one of my hobbies is collecting Ball Jointed Dolls. I used to cosplay in college but haven't in years because of confidence issues around my weight. I'm nonbinary and pansexual. They/them.

Thank you so much for putting in a lot of care and detail into your description! It helps me out a lot :)

I pair you with Seven!

Seven would love the fact that you are well-versed in meme culture, which is what I feel would first draw him to you. But, as he got to know you better, he could relate to how misfortune seems to follow you.

He admires your ability to keep pushing through whatever challenge is in your way. He probably wants to help you as much as possible, and even if you say you don’t need it, he’ll give you assistance as discreetly as he can, because he knows what it’s like to struggle on your own.

 Because of his interest in cosplaying, he would slowly try and reintroduce you to it, always encouraging you. Obviously he wouldn’t want to pressure you into doing anything you aren’t comfortable with, so if you told him that you didn’t want to cosplay again, he would let it alone; he tries to be as sensitive as possible with your insecurities. 

 It’s Seven’s secret fantasy to go to a convention with you in a couple’s cosplay that would give him the opportunity to cross-dress. He’ll cosplay your favorite characters when you’re sad, and take you out on a date while pretending to be that character to try to make you laugh.

 He honestly is so fascinated with your hobby of collecting Ball Jointed Dolls. He could sit there for hours while you explain it to him, and sometimes he would gift you one out of the blue. He probably comes up with all sorts of weird names for them, as well as strange backstories for each one.

 He knows that you’ve been taken for granted in the past, and about your tendency to forgive past the point of reason. He can’t help himself from getting prickly whenever you talk about those who had taken advantage of your many chances, and would be trying to press for information about them so he could give them a little “gift” through hacking. As for chances with him, he intends to only need one. He also tends to let you know when a person is past the stage of forgiveness, and tries to remind you that people don’t deserve an endless stream of chances. 

 This poor baby just really doesn’t want to see you hurt, because even if he couldn’t protect Saeran, he wants to protect you. Whether that be physical, emotional, or mental protection, he wants to give it all to you.

 You would try to get him to eat other things than just chips and soda by beginning to bake for him, a plan that ended up backfiring since he then became addicted to your treats. You finally put a ban on baking for him unless he would bake with you, which he reluctantly agreed to, and at first he pouted about it but soon found that he was enjoying your hobby too. It wasn’t necessarily the baking in itself he liked, it was more seeing you happy while doing something you love that attracted him to it.

 Let’s be honest, most of your baking sessions would turn into food fights because of the redheaded brat. Or, if you were making cookies, you’d turn your attention on something else for a moment, and the next thing you knew, half of your batter would be gone. The same thing would happen with the frosting for cakes and cupcakes. 

 You would draw a lot of his cosplays for him as gifts, and this cutie would have them all framed or hanging up by his desk where he works. Even if you insisted they were bad, he would vehemently protest that statement. He was putting every single one up damnit, so what if he had no more wall space, he would make it the fucking wallpaper in his room if he had to. Always sends every one of your drawings to the messenger, trying to flex on everyone with his SO’s amazing art. 

 Honestly anything you draw, whether it be animals, landscapes, anime characters, whatever, he would love and ask for. If you wanted to keep it he was okay with that, but he could never get enough of your art.

 You and him would start a habit of writing stories together, because once he found out that it was something you loved to do, he totally cashed in on it. He was always good at coming up with the wacky stories and plotlines, and you would bring the finesse. 

 Whenever he didn’t feel like working but wanted it to look like he was, he would start a Google Doc with you so you could write together. Vanderwood would catch him sometimes, and boy would there be hell to pay but to the hacker it was so worth it.

 Convinces you to write a novel with him, and once you two finish it he tries to get Jumin to publish it, but he won’t. He surprises you for a special day by hacking a publishing company, and gets one copy professionally made for you. Having a boyfriend who is rich and can hack with no sense of morality has its perks.

 Half of your communication over text would be through memes. Expect lots of cat memes, along with some cryptic ones, and an absolute overload of love memes from him. Memes are sent to you daily.

 Always tries to text you good morning and good night when he’s not on a mission, even if he hasn’t slept yet. Sometimes, you’ll receive a good night text in the middle of the afternoon, because when he hasn’t slept in a day or so he tends to lose all concept of time. 

Sends you the dumbest pickup lines to make you laugh, and if that doesn’t work he sends you love meme Tik Toks. He does this to the point where it becomes borderline obnoxious, but still knows when to stop before you get irritated for real.

 If he’s been staring at code and hacking for too long, he’ll text you his apologies for not being able to talk to you much, but half the time when this happens it’s in binary, not even on purpose, it’s just that he’s been typing it for probably 40-some hours straight.

"C’mon, Talyn.~” Seven called to you from his couch, where he was currently spawled out. “Please?” You rolled your eyes from the kitchen, disappointed but not surprised to find only chips and soda, although there were baking ingredients courtesy of yourself. 

“Not unless you get your ass up here and help, dipshit.” You couldn’t keep yourself from laughing as you already began to drag out ingredients for basic chocolate chip cookies, which Seven enjoyed. You heard your troublemaking boyfriend groan dramatically from his spot on the couch, but he got up nonetheless. 

“You know I don’t like to cook.” He muttered as he trudged to join you in the kitchen. 

“It’s not cooking, it’s baking. There’s a difference.” You tapped him lightly on the nose with a spoon. He began to help you pour the dry ingredients together into a large bowl, eyes flitting between his task and the bag of chocolate chips.

“Have you ever considered that I’m just not good at it?” He asked, fighting the smile that tugged at his lips.

“I thought God7 was good at everything.” You teased as you mixed the wet ingredients in with the dry. 

“Talyn, why must you wound me in this way?” He heaved a forceful sigh, and although his face looked melancholy, his eyes betrayed his true happiness in the moment with you. “I just want sugar now, baking takes forever.” You chuckled at his impatience. His ADHD was partially the cause of his reluctance to spend time on a task that isn’t exactly quick. 

“You’re fine.” You took note of his eyes meandering their way over to the chocolate chips once more. “Don’t you dare-”

“Modern problems require modern solutions.” He cackled in laughter as he grabbed the bag of chocolate chips before you could stop him, sprinting off to his room. “Catch me if you can!” He called over his shoulder, popping a handful of the sweet chocolate into his mouth. 

“No cookies for you!” You sighed as you heard the door to his room close, deciding what to do with the unfinished batter. 

[chancellorberrynewt]

The Note

By R.L. Lawrence

My response to the recent mass shootings, in the form of a fictional suicide note from a gunman.

---

Disclaimer: The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. The sad fact that this disclaimer is necessary is one of the reasons why this was written.

---

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, I’m dead, and by killing me you’ve played an important role in my plan. Thank you very much, and I hope you aimed for the head.

I’m writing this to provide context for what just happened here. By now the news media has already reported on a crazed gunman who went on a shooting spree, who was killed by the brave first responders called to the scene. I hope that they didn’t use my drivers license photo as my picture on the broadcast, I look terrible in that. Regardless, I apologize for the panic I caused, but I want you to know that nobody was ever in any real danger. All my guns were loaded with blanks, ordered online from a film prop supply store. Feel free to check my bank card history to back that up, just ignore the fact that I’m overdrawn right now.

So I guess this is where I get on with my manifesto, huh? I’ll bet you’re expecting a long diatribe about my grievances with the government, or with immigrants, or with socialists, or with whoever else you think I’m upset enough with to kill over. Tough luck there, this wasn’t meant to be a political act on my part. I mean, I suppose it could be broadly considered political, given that this is really directed at society as a whole, and politics and government are a major part of any society.

The reason I’ve done this is because it seemed to be the only way to get people’s attention, even if it’s only for a few days until the news cycle moves on to something else. Generally, our society only acknowledges one’s opinions as worth paying attention to if they are already famous for being wealthy (such as with business leaders), charismatic (such as with Hollywood celebrities), or both (most national politicians). I suppose you could say I fit the mold of a mass shooter: white, male, vaguely antisocial (though I prefer the term “uncharismatic”). Because of my lack of charisma and aforementioned lack of money, whenever I try to speak out against something I feel is wrong, it’s pretty much completely ignored. This is the case not only for me, but for the millions of people not already sitting at the top tier of society. Within the marketplace of ideas, my small voice is drowned out by pundits and ideologues in that top tier who are given a much more visible platform to speak from. I think regardless of beliefs, that’s what drives the majority of mass shooters to kill; it’s the feeling that they aren’t being listened to and they need to do something drastic to get their point across.

That’s not really an opinion though, that’s simply an evidence-based observation. Everyone knows who Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are, but I bet you’d be hard pressed to name a Columbine victim without a Google search. Same with Timothy McVeigh, Adam Lanza, Nikolas Cruz, etc., etc., etc… Media coverage makes these people famous, and every time it happens people already on the edge are effectively told “if you can’t be famous for something good, you can always be infamous.” Every commentator tries to decipher motives, some blaming divisive rhetoric by politicians, some blaming lax gun laws, some blaming video games, but it should be plainly obvious that anyone willing to go on a shooting spree isn’t 100% mentally healthy to begin with. You can hold strong opinions about any number of things without ever considering killing people over them. It takes a special type of crazy to do that.

So let’s go ahead and get to the meat of the matter here. Why did I do it? What message am I trying to convey that I felt wasn’t being listened to? What’s so important to me that I was willing to get shot over just to be heard?

Simple. Don’t be an asshole.

Well, it’s a little more complex than that, but that’s pretty much the gist of it. I’ve spent much of my life trying to share a message of kindness and acceptance. I haven’t always been correct about everything; I read, I learn, I reevaluate my ideas if they seem to be lacking, but I’ve always tried to do right by people and encourage others to do the same. From my point of view however, it appears that in a lot of ways, society is moving in the opposite direction. Our nation has become less kind, less compassionate, and less caring year after year. People can’t discuss differences of opinion without devolving into shouting matches and insults. Within my lifetime, our world has become more connected than ever, but at the same time, people are fortifying themselves within their ideological echo chambers and becoming more isolated than ever from ideas and people that differ from their close circle of like-minded friends. The dangerous us-vs-them mentality of tribalism and zero-sum competition that has driven wars and social division throughout human history has been cranked up to eleven. Recent resurgences of racism, nationalism, homophobia, misogyny, and every other form of bigotry have nearly eliminated decades of progress made in human and civil rights. Fear of “the other” having the same privileges as one’s own group has made cooperation between groups of people all but impossible. This isn’t a critique of one group either, this goes for all groups: religions, races, nations, governments, political parties, businesses, nonprofits, fraternal organizations. You name it, and the in-group/out-group mentality is rampant.

It’s partly because of this that humanity has largely conflated legality and morality. Instead of treating everyone with compassion and kindness, society has agreed that if someone is not a part of your group, it’s morally justified to inflict any sort of punishment you want on someone that breaks the rules of the group. It’s why brown people looking for a better life are put in concentration camps. It’s why a black person pulled over for a broken tail light can be murdered by police. Without even mentioning specifics here, there’s a huge portion of the population that will justify any atrocity committed in the name of “law and order”. What’s worse is that they don’t realize that they aren’t even a part of the in-group in these situations. When it comes to laws, the in-group is never those who the laws apply to, it’s always the people making and enforcing the laws. People with power and money create and advocate for laws that benefit them and their friends personally. It’s why there’s effectively two separate justice systems in our country, one for the rich and one for the rest. It’s why a black man selling loose cigarettes can be killed by police while bankers who ruin the economy and businessmen that destroy the planet get at worst a slap on the wrist.

This is also why nothing is ever done on a legislative basis to combat the types of mass shootings that I attempted to mimic in my actions. Politicians see no personal benefit to it; in fact it’s usually the opposite. They know that any substantial change will anger the lobbyists that line their pockets. For most legislators, funding their next campaign is far more important than the loss of human life.

I suppose my motive here is be that I am trying to draw attention to the sort of change I’d like to see.  I want to see less selfishness and more compassion. I want to see less competition and more cooperation. I want to see a world where people help each other, rather than just helping themselves, a world where we stop asking how something benefits us and start asking how it benefits others. Less discrimination and more acceptance, less vitriol and more consolation. I want a world in which people are judged based on their own merits, and not who they know or what group they belong to. I want to see a world where those who have a prominent public voice and platform stand up for those who don’t. I want to see a world where people who need help can get it without being looked down upon for their circumstances.

Overall, I just want to see less hate and more love. Maybe then there won’t be so many people willing to commit mass murder just to be listened to. Maybe then people like me wouldn't prefer death to living in this world as it is.

[natsspammityspamspamham]

There’s going to be spoilers for the video below (basically explaining what happened here).

Basic things to understand before going in:

Bob Marley is a reggae singer

These two are idiots

Hatanaka (Kaminari) and Masuda (Kirishima) host a show together called TSK because their first names are Tasuku and Toshiki 

A Kaminari noise is put in every time one of them does something dumb (mostly Hatanaka) which is why a good half of the video is random Kaminari sounds

I emphasize the fact that Hatanaka lives up to his character’s stupidity because of what happens in the video and evidence given beforehand. It isn’t character acting if you’re that stupid to begin with.

For this video, I’m going to be tagging: @fandoms-give-me-lyfe @akaskira @runnibkkt

What’s happening in this video? It might be a bit hard to follow, so here’s what happened (from my understanding):

People: Tasuku Hatanaka - Kaminari Daiki Yamashita - Deku Toshiki Masuda - Kirishima Kotaro Nishiyama - Happens To Be There (Also a Seiyuu)

Tasuku is trying to carry a cart up some stairs with great difficulty. He gets caught by Daiki and Kotaro. He tries to play it off and enlists the help of the two saying they need to help him carry it quietly. They proceed to not to do that because they are loud enough to have the whole world hear them.

After some questioning as to why everyone has appeared, Tasuku explains to both Daiki and Kotaro that they are there to plan a birthday surprise for Masuda. While explaining, Daiki falls asleep.

When they start filming with Masuda, Tasuku isn’t there. Daiki and Kotaro are invited as guests. The manager brings this up saying that he’s essential for the show saying something like, “Aren’t we forgetting an important person?” Masuda says, “Oh right, Tasuku.” (yeah, he uses his given name)

Tasuku comes out of the closet saying, “This is just awkward!”

Masuda then reveals in front of everyone that the plans of Tasuku’s surprised were sent to him in a LINE group chat. The person who sent it was like, “I GOT IT WRONG. / THIS ISN’T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!!! / DON’T READ IT!!! / PLEASE DONT!!! / DOOOOON’T!!!” which made it a little more obvious.

To “cheer” him up, Masuda says, “Thank you for coming Tasuku-kun!” then hands him the mic saying he’s the “mastermind” of all of this.

Tasuku asks Daiki and Kotaro whether they’d want to be guests on TSK for real since they were “roped into the whole thing” to which Tasuku is tricked YET AGAIN. They already discussed everything with Masuda (who received detailed plans of what was going to happen). Footage of them discussing the whole plan is then shown where they are introduced to the chief.

“THEN WHY AM I EVEN HERE!” - Tasuku

Masuda says that those two agreed immediately to come because they would do fun things like “shooting paper planes”. They ask for them to appear again since both of them are now there. 

Daiki and Kotaro leave so that Masuda can further explain just how bad this plan went. He explains more logistics and how the LINE chat exploded and how they tried to spam to cover it up.

Tasuku gives a present (that Masuda knows would be coming). Masuda tries to fake that he’s overwhelmed with joy. He doesn’t actually know what’s in the bag specifically, but he knows that he went to the shrine.

“What’s this? An umbilical cord?” - Masuda “Of course, that’s not it!!!” - Tasuku [Apparently, the box looks really similar]

Tasuku can’t remember what it’s called and says, “It’s not a dumbbell... *thinks* it’s a bangle!” 

“(in a weird tone) There’s something written there!” - Tasuku Both of them proceed to prove the fact that they can’t read English. But again, I can’t either. They tried really hard. Tasuku eventually manages to read it using his last brain cell, but when asked to translate it, he draws a blank. “Let’s Google it.” - Staff

It’s a quote by Bob Marley. “Love the life you live. Live the life you love.” Masuda hears this as Bob Mawari (Mawari = circumference). He asked, “What the heck is ‘Bob Circumference’?”

The staff revealed that Tasuku wrote something, but Masuda knows exactly what’s going on and says that it’s a letter.

“I won’t butt in, I know your handwriting’s a mess.” - Masuda His messy handwriting is shown. He talks about their preferred type of women. He says, “You prefer skinny women... yet you say you want to lose weight then proceed to eat carbs and meat. Stay the same as you are with that chivalrous aura but frolics like a 7-year-old.” Tasuku forgot what age Masuda was even turning and tried crossing it out. After Masuda read the letter, he commented on the terrible handwriting. Tasuku is also known for misspelling kanji. 

Masuda says that Tasuku usually sends letters to co-stars after recording a series. I will say that Tasuku is known for being a transparently genuine guy which is why he stopped using his personal Twitter. Tasuku asks whether this is declared this a success. Masuda said yes even though he expected more. Masuda leaves saying they’re all gonna go out to eat. Tasuku exasperatedly says, “HE FIGURED OUT EVERYTHING!”

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Weird theory that came to my mind after the raws of chap 177 were out

So in chapter 177 of Golden Kamuy we met a new character...

...a character from Kiro and Wilk’s past, Hasegawa Kōichi (長谷川 幸一), whom they met in Vladivostok.

He seems a harmless Japanese photographer around the same age as Wilk and Kiro residing in Russia and teaching to Wilk, Sofia and Kiro Japanese. I won’t get too deep into his background because translations aren’t out yet so I might mess up big time but from what I could make out Kiro said he went to Russia due to his father's work when he was ten and inherited the photograph studio in Vladivostok where he married a local woman.

He wears glasses and this is his only distinctive phisical feature.

When does this meeting took place?

Well, if I’m not messing things up (I’m working with the raw and google translate here, have mercy of me) it’s 10 years after the assassination of Alexander II (1881) so in 1991… and therefore not so many years before Asirpa’s birth.

Now… it seems this guy discovers how Kiro and Wilk were involved in the assassination. We see his face darkens as he does so, we don’t know though if it’s in fear of those two or because he plans to report them to the authorities.

Long story short it can entirely be that this man purely exists merely to let us know the backstory that lead to Sofia being arrested and Kiro and Wilk escaping in Hokkaido.

Yeah, it could be this… or… please, follow me in this insane theory making and remember... this is just theorizing. There are no proofs I’m up on something, all right?

Now… there was something in the character design of this guy though, which hit me as sort of ‘odd’.

Random characters we meet in Golden Kamuy have usually very different, peculiar features. Let’s look at the escape convicts for example, they’re drawn all VERY DIFFERENT one from the other so as to be easy to differentiate. It’s something I love in Golden Kamuy, how everyone is different like in the real world.

This guy instead… is very… ordinary looking.

He doesn’t have striking characteristics, apart if you want his glasses which can be removed.

So… let’s remove them.

And now let’s compare him to the other canon character which we learnt from Noda Sensei is the same age as Kiro.

All right, all right, Tsurumi has VERY DISTINCTIVE features but he didn’t start this way so… let’s look back at him when he didn’t have the facial scars (1905).

Well, the eyebrows might match…and he seems to have long lashes like Hasegawa but of course there are the sunken checks which… he actually didn’t have when he was much younger and went to drop a visit to Tsukishima while he was in jail (1896).

So at this point… let’s remove the facial hair and make him look as if he had short hair…

Well, the resemblance is a lot closer.

Of course it’s hard to say for sure by just comparing two draws. I checked tons of images of Tsurumi and things like his ears for example are drawn with slight differences from picture to picture. Lashes too in some cases seem longer and in some shorter...

Besides, you might wonder, why should this guy be Tsurumi?

Tsurumi is an intelligence officer… but in his past he might have worked as a spy. Long story short, back then he might have been under disguise. Being a photographer wouldn’t be a bad disguise as taking pictures for work would give him an excuse of taking pictures he could send to Japan.

It would also explain how he connected so quickly Kiroranke with the emperor’s murderer... and would give an interesting common past to the two of them.

Of course this is a theory.

I could be COMPLETELY OFF TRACK, maybe just reading the scanlations when they'll be out will prove me wrong but still… while everyone worries if Ogata will get redemption or death… wouldn’t it be interesting if we were to get Tsurumi’s past instead, especially considering how long he’d been missing from the manga?

And while we talk about interesting coincidences… we were also shown a toy in this chapter, which is speculated to be a tiger made by a Nanai person (the Nanai revered tigers) which makes a funny coincidence with Kiroranke’s original name, Yulbars, which means “tiger”… but also with Vladivostok which adopted a coat of arms, representing the Siberian tiger, in March 1883.

So there’s to wonder if the toy was just left there as a coincidence… or was meant to be a message for Kiro and that Nanai person was actually a partisan as well.

Okay, okay, that’s all for my insane theorizing, we’ll only see in the future if I was up on something.

[clevercatchphrase]

I notice you have a Patreon. I am considering getting one for my writing. However, all the Patreons I've seen are art-based. Do you have any tips on how a writing-based Patreon might work?

WHOO BOY! If anyone has any advice to add to this post, PLEASE DO because for the next several paragraphs, I’m going to be rambling straight out of my ass with well-meaning-but-probably-unhelpful advice.

First off, what kind of writing are you making? I know a few general catagories are; Poetry, Fan Fiction, Original Fiction, Analysis/Review/Critique. Each one is special and should be approached a little differently, and knowing what type of writing you’re making will help you determine your milestones and tier rewards.

Okay. so, milestones and tier rewards. These two… categories? Utilities??… are going to be the most important aspect for anyone making/running a patreon. 

For teirs, what are things you can feasibly and regularly offer to your patrons? For poets, they may offer their higher tier patrons a short poem on any topic their patron requests, for fiction writers, they may share cut scenes from their books that won’t make it to final print. For analysis writers they may offer a tier where they’ll review something a patron requests. Any of these things might intrest potential patrons, but you should ALWAYS keep in mind what you are willing to write about. Don’t be afraid to put limits on the topics. For example, you might be a fan fic writer and have a tier saying “I’ll write a short story about any pairing you want” but if you do, you may find yourself with a pair you don’t think has chemistry and may struggle to write something you thing is engaging. Also, don’t let your tiers get in the way of the main content you started your patreon for! For example, I know artists with patreons who offer a free sketch as a monthly reward for each of their patrons on top of the fully illustrated pictures they’re making. If they can handle that work load, good for them! I personally know I would never be able to draw that much and still make comic pages in a timely fashion, so I can’t and probably won’t ever be able to offer additional art for individual pledgers as a reward.

some rewards you could consider for writing are;

early access to rough drafts/finished works before public publishing

get your name in the aknowledgements

give me feedback on my writing

exclusive discord/streams/skype/google hangouts (if google hangout is even still a thing. Is it? Is google+ still a thing?)

Get the scripts/outlines as a “behind the scenes” after you’ve published a piece

Now for milestones, they should stay focused on your main content as much as possible. So, like, I personally don’t recomend a milestone that says “If we get to 200$ a month, every patron will get a personalized letter from me, or a character of their choosing”, because that’s probably not what patrons are coming to you in the first place. For me, I have a goal to increase the number of comic pages produced per week if I can make a certain amount of money, because that’s what my patrons are coming to me for, and that is something I can feasibly do if given the financial means. It’s like… a feedback loop but in a good way?? Basically “support me and I’ll give you more of what you want!” (but of course I plan to make content, pledges or not. I’m not gonna hold my content hostage just ‘cause I’m not being paid for it)

Here’s some ideas for milestones that may or may not be good for a writer;

reaching a certain milestone allows lower level, or all tiers to get early access to content 

reach a certain milestone and lower tiers can get access to discords, streams, skypes, etc.

reach a certain milestone and you’ll tackle that one analysis you wanted to do, but have been dreading because you know it’s gonna take a lot of reasearch and time

reach a certain milestone and let all tiers vote on which topic you’re gonna write about next (out of a predetermined list you’ve made)

Now, you can choose all these tiers/milestones if you want, or you could chose none! It’s up to you! It may even help to ask your followers what THEY want to see/get as a reward to help you figure out what to offer. Just be honest with yourself what you’re willing to keep up with. For example, I personally, not very much for conversation online with strangers. I might never make an exclusive discord for my comic because I fear I wouldn’t be active there, and people may feel cheated if they don’t get to talk to me. But if enough people wanted to watch me make the comic pages despite spoilers, I’ll have no problem setting up private streams for them to view as I draw~

Now, real talk? No matter what you do, starting a writing patreon is going to be hard, especially if you don’t have a pre-established following or fan based. Heck, this is true of ANY patreon that doesn’t have an already existing following. But the good thing is, you can’t “lose” at patreon. If you try and nothing really works, well, hey! You’re probably not doing any worse than you were before you started, so long as you haven’t quit any pre-existing job, expecting patreon to suddenly make you rich over night. (please don’t quit any pre-existing job you have by the way). In fact, even if you get just one patron, donating one dollar a month, that’s one more dollar you’ve made than without the patreon, isn’t it? 

Lastly, I wanna say, whatever you do, don’t undercharge for your work. Sadly, writing takes a fuck ton of time, from research to scripting, to revising and editing, and yet it can usually be consumed in a 10th of the time it takes to produce, and most consumers might think being charged a high amount for such “little” return is unfair. Fun Fact, it’s not. You should get paid enough to live off your writing if that’s what you’re doing as a profession. Writing has value, so never sell yourself short!

Edit: one last thing I forgot to mention; Depending on how fast you write, you may benefit from a "charge per update" model instead of a "charge each month" model, but that's entirely up to you!

[astupidblabberingmess]

It’s almost time for Queen and I just wanted to share the theories I have. This is going to be long, so I’ll divide it into paragraphs. I also have a somewhat wild theory about Annabel and the Unseelie King that I kind of hope is true, which is probably not the case (who knows though). 

Ash as Sebastian Morgenstern & the Seelie Queen's son

When the theory first came up, I was rolling my eyes because, really? ANOTHER Morgenstern? But with all the information we have at this point, what else would he be? I think the question we should ask ourselves is less “Is Ash a Morgenstern?” and more “Is he the weapon Clary and Jace were looking for and if so, why?” 

I think he is, but I doubt he’s evil. Not only would that be too predictable to have another evil Morgenstern, but he’s also introduced in a way that sets him up to be Dru’s love interest for TWP. I believe he’s either a total cinnamon roll (which would be so ironic and amazing) or a morally ambiguous character. 

But why could he be a weapon? Even if he were evil, that wouldn’t automatically make him a weapon. He could be one in the traditional sense that he can do something special. It’s not unlikely, considering he’s the son of one of the most powerful faeries alive and a demon-blooded Shadowhunter. But it could also be in the sense that as the Seelie Queen’s son, having him under your control means having power over her, which is probably why the Unseelie King has him.  

What I don’t see, however, is Clary and Jace trying to kidnap a child to have power over the Seelie Queen. But the mission came from the Clave and they would definitely do something like that and maybe Clary and Jace don’t know the true reason or they do and are trying to save Ash. Especially if he truly has special powers, they would want to prevent him from using them for evil. 

Also, one of my theories is that the Seelie Queen won’t survive or at least won’t stay a queen in QoAaD (more on that later), so I don’t think he’ll go back to her or maybe he does but not as a prince. I definitely don’t think he’ll stay in the Unseelie Court. But will he be with the Shadowhunters (as he could be trained as one, like Mark and Helen) or stay in Faerie? I have a lot of theories about Faerie (again, more on that later), so it’s difficult to guess what might happen. There are a lot of possible outcomes when it comes to Ash, he has the potential to be a villain, a love interest, a friend, an ally, or something in between.

The Unseelie Queen

I believe Annabel either is or will be the Unseelie Queen. This is the last book in a trilogy and yet the Unseelie Queen was never mentioned before, except for a drawing in the Shadowhunter Codex. Would Cassie introduce an important character in the last book of a series? I don’t think so. Also, I’ve read on here a while ago (but sadly don’t remember who made that post) that apparently Queen of Air and Darkness is another name for the Unseelie Queen in folklore, which I googled to check if it’s true and it did come up, though it doesn’t seem that common. And the Queen of Air and Darkness has, according to Cassie, already been introduced. Which makes it quite obvious to me that the Queen of Air and Darkness has to be Annabel, which should mean that Annabel has to be the Unseelie Queen.

And this is how we come to my somewhat wild theory: I think that maybe things are completely different than we think and Annabel has been evil all along and was always, even before her death, in league with the Unseelie King! 

I know, I know, but hear me out: Annabel could have met the Unseelie King through Malcolm, which means they could’ve fallen in love. Maybe they even got married, and the Unseelie Queen depicted in the Shadowhunter Codex is actually Annabel Blackthorn! Perhaps that’s why nobody has ever mentioned or seen the Unseelie Queen, at least not ever since Annabel’s death: because for centuries, she was dead.

How did I come up with that? There’s a scene in LoS that I can’t find a reasonable explanation for unless the Unseelie King loves Annabel: Annabel tells the Riders of Mannan that she knows the Unseelie King’s true name. Now, it could’ve been a bluff, but the Riders are ancient beings, so I doubt they’d be easy to trick. Which is why I think she wasn’t bluffing and they knew, maybe they recognised her and knew she was in league with the Unseelie King, so they left because they thought whatever she was doing was a ploy in favour of the fae. Besides, Cassie never reveals such things randomly. If a character says they know the Unseelie King’s name, it’s likely that they do and that we will eventually hear it too.

So how would Annabel, a Shadowhunter, know it? I assume the only people that ever knew the King’s true name would be close family members (maybe only his parents) or considering how deeply faeries love, someone he genuinely loves and trusts. I also assume that as soon as he feels like someone who knows his name is posing a threat, the King would make sure they’re killed. Which means the only way Annabel could know the Unseelie King’s name would be if someone told her. Who would tell her, she’s a random Shadowhunter! Unless the Unseelie King told her himself because he truly loves her.   

“But Malcolm and Annabel were in love!”, I hear you say. Well, we know Malcolm loved Annabel but who’s to say she truly loved him? She did kill him when he resurrected her and yes, it was explained by her being angry and mad and suffering all these years, so her love turned into hate, but even so it would’ve been a lot easier to kill him if she truly didn’t care for him at all. She could’ve pretended to be in love with him because the Unseelie King needed the Black Volume of the Dead and she needed Malcolm to steal it. 

“But why didn’t the Unseelie King save Annabel if he loved her?”, you may argue. If I understood correctly, Malcolm and Annabel weren’t held at the same place. I assume the Unseelie King either couldn’t find Annabel or his magic couldn’t save her. After all, Downworlders are often held and brought to different places because Shadowhunters don’t want to “taint” their special places with their “Downworlder filth”, which was likely even more the case in the 19th century. So, the Unseelie King saved Malcolm instead and tried to use him to find Annabel. I’m not sure when and how he found out about her death but if he loved her, he probably wanted her resurrected. But if he didn’t know how to raise Annabel from the dead or couldn’t do it himself, he would’ve needed someone he could trust to want her back as much as he does—Malcolm Fade.

And now you may say, “Okay, but wasn’t the Unseelie King after the Black Volume and not Annabel?” Hm, if the Unseelie King was after the Black Volume alone, he wouldn’t have needed Annabel and therefore why would he let Malcolm even attempt to resurrect her? Especially once he died and it fell in the water, he could’ve easily retrieved it. Why allow him to keep it and resurrect some random Shadowhunter? Unless said Shadowhunter was important to the Unseelie King too. Maybe he even used his magic to help Malcolm put himself together to complete the ritual. 

Now, I’m not sure what I believe Annabel’s motives were after being resurrected. Maybe she was still in love with the Unseelie King and everything she did was in partnership with him. Maybe she was genuinely mad at the King, so she hid the Black Volume not just from the Shadowhunters but also from him, hurt that he let her suffer for so long. Maybe she was angry with him at first but later started working with him, either before or after the mess that was the last scene of LoS. 

Possibility One: Annabel took the Black Volume and went right to the Unseelie King with it upon being resurrected. I find it interesting that she was communicating with faeries. Why would faeries talk to a Shadowhunter? Why would a former Shadowhunter talk to faeries? Would she not stay away from Shadowhunters, warlocks AND faeries considering they were the ones that caused her suffering? I couldn’t figure out whether piskies are Seelie or Unseelie but if they are both and especially if they are Unseelie, the interactions would make a lot of sense. And considering they sent Julian and Emma to a place where a demon was waiting for them, it makes you think about her/their true motives … Yes, later Annabel saved them from the Riders of Mannan and went along with them to Idris but perhaps they wanted to stop the Cohort or there was another ploy going on, possibly to do with the Blight or something we don’t know about yet, so she went along and it was the plan all along that she acted all mad. Or they planned to do something, but she went genuinely mad, triggered by the Cohort. It would explain how the Unseelie King knew Annabel was in Idris and saved her. 

Possibility Two: Annabel was furious with both Malcolm and the Shadowhunters AND the Unseelie King and wanted to hide from the world. When there was a chance of redemption, she, knowing the Unseelie King wouldn’t give up on her and everyone would keep hunting for her since she had the Black Volume, tried to get it to finally be left alone and be accepted back into Shadowhunter society and live out her life in peace. Her threats to the Unseelie King were genuine in that case and she genuinely went mad too. The Unseelie King spirited her away out of love in this scenario as well and I think they made amends after that. Or he’s now mad his Queen acted against him. 

Either way, Annabel ends up back with the Unseelie King as his Queen. If this admittedly wild theory is correct, I assume the first version of it is more likely and Annabel always acted in collaboration with the Unseelie King. Cassie also said there’s a reason Annabel’s runes aren’t on the cover and her finger isn’t missing. Maybe by wearing the Unseelie crown (again?), she changes physically? I mean, we don’t know much about faerie magic, but we do know objects often hold certain powers, like Gwyn’s cloak for example. 

Cassie described Annabel as a villain. Unless my theory is correct, she hasn’t been one so far. Sure, she killed Livvy, but that was because she went mad. It wasn’t really a villainous action. Besides, I’m certain she either is or will be the Unseelie Queen. And if she’s just mad, how will that happen? The King manipulating her? It’s not impossible but what would he have to gain with her as the Unseelie Queen? That would certainly give her power. Would he really give a mad Shadowhunter power? I don’t think so. Besides, I kind of like the idea of Annabel being in league with the Unseelie King, it would be an amazing plot twist and let everything shine in a new light while still making sense and making it even more plausible to have her be the Unseelie Queen aka Queen of Air and Darkness aka the ultimate villain. 

Ty, necromancy & why Kitty is doomed

I definitely think Ty is going to attempt to resurrect Livvy and I definitely think it’s going to somehow put him in a situation that by the end of Queen will separate him from Kit. Unless they truly start out as a couple in TWP (which would be awesome too, but Cassie is all about angst, so unlikely), they have to be separated somehow. It’s clear they’re attracted to each other, there’s no way over the course of three years they won’t start dating unless something happens in Queen that changes things. Maybe Ty has to go on the run from the Clave because of his attempted necromancy, maybe Kit has to go on the run because he’s still hunted for being the descendant of the First Heir, or maybe Kit tries to stop Ty and they end up fighting and separating that way. I worry about the latter coming true because we’ve seen snippets that hint at Kit sabotaging Ty’s attempts. If they loved each other but were physically separated, I could live with that more than a Kitty fallout. 

I don't think Livvy will be back completely, probably shortly as a ghost. So far, all necromancy in the books had horrible consequences and I think except for Jace, nobody stayed alive (Annabel still is but she surely won’t survive Queen). The books are basically teaching us that the dead should stay dead and if they don't, there's a price to pay. Cassie can't use the same Jace plot again with Livvy and I don't think she'll make her death even more painful by necromancy turning Livvy into a monster or zombie of some sort. I think it'll just be a way for the Blackthorns or just Ty to get closure and speak to Livvy one last time. Or maybe for Livvy to finish what she attempted to say when she died. Bringing her back completely would be way too easy and take away the pain her death caused. 

Off-topic, but the only thing I don't like about Cassie's books is all the necromancy and dead characters turning out to not be dead after all because it makes death less of a final thing. You never know if a bad or good character may end up returning a few chapters or books later and that's something I hate. Cassie has been using this kind of thing as a plot device way too often already. I love Livvy and her death broke my heart, but can’t she just stay dead? We know she does come back in some way, maybe temporarily, but ugh, it’s so boring at this point. Jace and Sebastian were actually dead and resurrected, Malcolm was sort of resurrected for a short while, Annabel was resurrected, Jesse might be resurrected in TLH, Shade is most likely a character we thought was dead (more on that later), several dead characters appeared as ghosts and one of them is still sort of around by guarding the London Institute. It’s a little too much dead characters coming back and if it’s just to have a bittersweet moment of goodbye. Challenge for Cassie in TWP: no necromancy, no character thought dead returns, no new ghosts appearing. Can she do it? I’m not getting my hopes up. 

Kierarktina aka Hot Faerie Threesome 

I wasn't convinced this would be a thing at first but re-reading the first scenes with all three of them in Lady Midnight there are hints already with Cristina feeling desire when she sees Kieran and Mark kiss. And that continues throughout LoS and the snippets we’ve been getting from Queen. With every other author I'd call it teasing but Cassie has never done things like that and always delivered when it comes to hints at representation, so I can't imagine her teasing a threeway relationship like that and not making it canon. I worry it may only last for a short while though and one of them dies, but I really hope not. I just have this feeling it’ll be canon and I really hope I’m right.

Shade as Ragnor Fell 

There are only two green warlocks that we know of and Cassie has confirmed we’ve already met Shade. The fact alone that he calls himself Shade makes it obvious to me that he isn't John Shade because how stupid would that be? It also makes no sense that he would appear and especially not that he'd help Shadowhunters because he fucking hated them. Ragnor, on the other hand, makes a lot of sense. 

I think it was in "Son of Dawn", where Ragnor is one of the warlocks Jem asks for information about the Lost Herondale, it links Ragnor to the current plot in TDA. I even came up with a theory as to how and why he could've faked his death without Magnus knowing (we know Magnus doesn’t know because he literally thinks and talks about his grief for Ragnor with Catarina). 

Remember how Jem was attacked in "A Deeper Love" by faeries for knowing too much? If Ragnor truly had information, it would make him a target too. Which is why I think, Ragnor may have been hiding in Idris and eventually the fey were too close and he knew he had to do something drastic. He probably didn't want to endanger his friends or asked only one of them to help him (Raphael?), so he made himself appear dead somehow, even to a warlock like Magnus. He made sure he could still get the information about the cure for Jocelyn out there, knowing one of his warlock friends would eventually check on him, so he passed the information on via enchanted message.  When the fey arrived, they found him already “dead” and left. Then Sebastian arrived, found him “dead” as well and claimed it was him (making it even easier for Ragnor to hide from the faeries because they would believe Sebastian had killed him). Why would Sebastian lie about it? Easy, he didn’t want to admit to his father or anyone that he’d been too late and Ragnor was already dead. Literally why wouldn't Sebastian lie? Or Sebastian was actually WITH the faeries that wanted Ragnor dead since they did have an alliance later on. In that case they would’ve collectively decided Sebastian would take the blame (or glory depending on who you ask), so they would not raise any suspicion to Jem. Though in this case I wonder who they suspected to be Ragnor’s actual killer. 

Parabatai bond resolved 

I think all bonds will break. What else could change the Shadow World forever? A law could always be changed back but we know if the parabatai bonds are broken, they’re going to stay broken. And it is a thing that makes Shadowhunters stronger, so it’s likely it’ll change the dynamics. 

After the snippet with Julian worrying about Emma’s marks, a lot of people are worried Emma will be stripped of her runes, but it was already said that she couldn’t live not being a Shadowhunter. So, unless she’s going to die, I don’t think it’ll happen and I have a feeling she won’t die. It’s also too obvious. I don’t think Cassie would’ve shared a snippet like that if Emma was going to be deruned. 

I think maybe it isn’t Julian but Emma who breaks the parabatai bonds (there’s a moment where she wonders if the bond could be evil, maybe she finds out that’s the case and decides to break all the bonds because of it) and maybe that’s the scene where Julian finds out. Though it does strike me as odd that he says “marks”. Maybe by breaking the parabatai bonds, something happens to runes in general or because Emma is the one, something happens to her? Or the scene has nothing to do with that and her marks change because of the curse that her loving Julian puts on them. 

Cristina as the Seelie Queen 

I’m leaning even more towards this after reading Cassie’s answer about the Seelie Queen narrating the epilogue. It’s the series finale, it’s not going to end in a cliff hanger, even if as Cassie has said not all fates are great, the story has to be complete. If we think of TMI, the ending was a true ending without any sort of cliff hanger, the main characters were all safe and okay. But there were still the fates of the TDA characters that weren’t great and hinted at more story to come (with Helen in exile, Mark in the Wild Hunt, Emma and Julian in love but on the path of becoming parabatai, etc.). Which is how I think TDA will end too. How does the epilogue being narrated by the Seelie Queen fit into that? 

And I’ve actually been thinking about Cristina as the Seelie Queen before because all her interest in and ties to faeries have to have a deeper meaning than her being in a love triangle with two faeries. Cristina hasn’t been in a significant plot outside of her love triangle so far but she’s a main character and she knows enough about Faerie to survive there. So what if she snatches the Queen’s crown and by default becomes the Seelie Queen? Makes me wonder how the faeries are going to react when a Shadowhunter seizes the position of their queen but do they have a choice but to follow her? As I said earlier, certain faerie objects tend to give people powers, so there might not be anything the fey could do but try and trick Cristina back. Or maybe they come to like and appreciate her as their queen because she doesn’t act like an entitled Shadowhunter but actually tries to live by their rules and their ways (without compromising her own morals of course). It could also mean the epilogue takes place in the Seelie Court and may be some celebration held by Cristina, maybe even her crowning ceremony (my friend suggested that btw). 

Kieran as the Unseelie King 

Now ever since that revelation about Kit being the descendant of the Unseelie King AND Seelie Queen, I’ve been doubting whether Kieran would actually end up as the Unseelie King but since Cassie said that Kit’s heritage will affect him more in TWP, I doubt he’s going to become the Unseelie King or King of all Faeries in QoAaD. That would mean he’d start out as a powerful King when TWP starts, which is an unlikely position for a protagonist. 

So either the Unseelie King simply stays in power or it’s Kieran who replaces him. We know how much he was liked in the Unseelie Court, so he probably would have enough support for it to work. And he has no place to go at the moment, so unless Cassie plans on killing him, which I still worry about, but I also assume she’ll make the hot faerie threesome canon, he pretty much has to become the Unseelie King. He can’t stay with the Shadowhunters, but he’d face execution in Faerie if the Unseelie King stayed in power. Well, I guess if Cristina becomes the Seelie Queen, Kieran would live with her in the Seelie Court and be safe there … 

Connecting this theory with Cristina being the Seelie Queen and Kierarktina being canon (or even just Kiertina), they might end up reuniting the Courts. There was a snippet in which it happens, so maybe it’s not Kieran and Cristina that are reuniting them, unless that snippet somehow is closer to the end of QoAaD. Either way, it would be cool having Kieran as the Unseelie King, Cristina as the Seelie Queen, Mark as, well, Mark—living together and loving each other and ruling over all of Faerie. It would also make them conveniently absent in TWP. But maybe this is would be too good to be true. 

Death predictions 

(Probably) Won't die: the TMI main characters, Jem and Tessa, and the confirmed TWP characters (if Cassie plans on killing main characters from other series, it’s going to happen in TWP, not TDA); Diana (she's the only trans character, Cassie won't kill her); Helen and Aline (she won’t kill them as they just came back and are the only f/f couple); Tavvy (he almost died in LM already, it would mean yet another Blackthorn dies and it would be Max 2.0, way too predictable), Emma (I genuinely don't think she'll die, it's a gut feeling) 

(Probably) Will die: Diego (I'm sure of this, he’s just the kind of character that is destined to die and after a certain snippet, I assume he’s the one that’s going to be executed); Annabel (I just don't see a version where she comes out of this alive)   

On the fence about it: Jia (because of the scene where Jace nominates Alec for Consul but maybe she just steps down voluntarily, after all, Cassie has killed so many Consuls already), Julian (I used to believe he would die, possibly executed for breaking the parabatai bonds but now I’m leaning more toward Emma breaking them and Diego being executed and it just seems more and more unlikely he’ll die but who knows); Mark, Cristina or Kieran (I do believe Kierarktina will be canon but it might be short lived and I really wouldn’t rule out that one of them dies but I’m certain at least two of them will live and I’m hoping they all survive); Cameron (he’s not very liked and since he was behind a plot point, it could lead to his death because that would mean he’s more involved than we thought he was); Zara or Horace (I think it’s likely only one of them dies, I’m leaning toward Zara because having a bigot as the Inquisitor for TWP would certainly make it harder for everyone, especially if he’s getting even worse out of grief and Zara could die because she’s just not that good of a Shadowhunter and way too horrible to continue doing what she does); Gwyn (I don’t really think Cassie will kill the love interest of the only trans character but she doesn’t reveal information that Gwyn’s power is in his cloak for no reason and it makes me believe that at the very least he won’t stay the leader of the Wild Hunt for much longer), the Seelie Queen and/or the Unseelie King (I feel like at least one of them will die if not both and if they both live, I think at least one of them will lose their position as monarch) 

And that’s it! Did anyone actually read this? I don’t even care, I just needed to write down my thoughts and after spending so much time doing it, I really felt like it would be a waste not to post them. 

[themildestofwriters]

Character Creation Tag

Tagged by the illustrious @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz and thought that it would probably best to get some kind of content out from my OCs. For this one, I plan on doing Josephine Williams because Babette Melwyn is a bit more complicated and divulges into territory that I do not wish to discuss when it comes to the creation of her character.

1) What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

Basic appearance and name. She was always a Josephine and she always had that general outline of appearance (Long curly brown hair; dark skin; that kind of stuff). The rest just developed over time and the more I considered Josephine critically.

2) Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind?

Yes. Josephine was thought up as someone who’d help begin Babette’s happy ending. I needed a character who’d bring out the best in Babette, who’d get her on track to healing whether through giving her the confidence to go through with therapy while also reconnecting her to humanity. I feel really bad for just creating a character who’s sole purpose is to be a love interest, but fortunately, I feel as if she’s much more than her original concept would have some think. There’s still much I need to develop around her, but the same can be true for other characters such as the two leads families and even the main character (Babette) herself.

3) How did you choose their name?

I always liked the name Josephine and I was inspired by the character of Josephine Montilyet from Dragon Age: Inquisition.

4) In developing their backstory, what elements of the world that they live in played the most influential parts?

She a lesbian woman of colour living in Australia, Earth (2016), there would be a lot influencing her. Her life isn’t abhorrent, but she does face issues that I’d rather not discuss here. What counts is that her family and friends love her and so do most the people she interacts with. This story won’t explore these themes as a main focus, because that’s not the point of the story, however they will be brought up and do effect her as a character.

5) Is there any significance behind their hair colour?

There’s nothing significant behind their hair colour. I like it, is all.

6) Is there any significance behind their eye colour?

Not really. I just thought the colour fit her character. Though, if you wanted to, you could just google “Green Eye Colour Meaning” and get a few links, one of which tells you that the symbolic meaning behind green eyes, but it won’t have much baring on the character aside from the fact they’re pretty.

7) Is there any significance behind their height?

Relationship Height Difference. One of my favourite tropes is where you’ve got a very tall character and a very small character dating because of all the cute things they can do. Originally, Josephine was something like… 5’5” or 5’6” but I changed it to 5’8” because a height difference, even if it is just 5” is adorable AF and I’m pleased I decided on this.

8) What (if anything) do you relate to within their character/story?

Well, aside from the fact that I’m quite literally giving her my High School life, not much else I’d say. Josephine’s quite a bit different then me and we’ve both had very different lives. She doesn’t live in a broken family, my brother still breaths (as far as I know), she doesn’t have any sisters, I’ve never had a relationship as successful as hers, she doesn’t have to worry about what her parents will think about her non-heterosexuality (she’s already out), I don’t really have a choice about my religious practices. About the closest things I could relate to about her is how I’ve written her dealing with people and noise and whatnot.

9) Are they based off of you, in some way?

*Looks up at the previous question* Nope, not really.

10) Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation? 

Due to her original concept being a companion for Babette, yes. I needed to create a character who’d not only be able to engage with Babette as a friend but also as a significant other. Josephine was always going to have a preference for women one way or another and it just seemed right to make her gay as well.

As monogamy vs polyamory, the choice was simply as not only is Babette monogamous (making a healthy poly relationship impossible) but I’m monogamous myself so the character trait was there from day one.

11) What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

Face claims. I could say the difficulties in finding how to write her character, but that can be worked on easily and I’ll be constantly improving my portrayal of this character. No, the real issue is that I can fecking find a good faceclaim that fits! Worse, I can’t do it for any of my characters!

12) How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

While I haven’t gone as far as mapping out before her birth and the preceding years after, I’ve gone far enough that I know when her story definitively ends and it’s incredibly heart-warming and cute and I can’t wait to write it! At some point, I might reach a point where I’ll decide to take a few days to just 100% full-dive into worldbuilding and fully flesh out these characters backstories in complete detail (events preceding conception to what grades they got in year 2 of Primary School) but until then, I know the basic outline of the events from their childhood to they’re old and greyed.

13) If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

Her personality certainly. Without her personality, her entire position in the story changes and it would also effect how healthy the relationship is between Babette and Josephine as well as the overall result. The second one, however, is her part in the story--not necessarily as a romantic interest for Babette, but for acting as an anchor to not only reality but also humanity for her godly girlfriend.

Dating or not, it doesn’t matter, but Babette wouldn’t reconnect with humanity on her own and without a character like Josephine existing, she would’ve flown off to Pluto or something and buried herself waiting for the heat-death of the universe to kill her.

14) What is something about your OC that can make you laugh?

The fact that I’m not sure if I should make her go full butch or femme or just stay somewhere alternating between. She’s fast enough to out run you at a marathon, strong enough to beat you at arm-wrestling, would absolutely rock certain short hairstyles and a leather jacket, but at the same time she’s leaving lipstick marks on Babette’s cheeks and rocking absolutely stunning dresses.

No heels, though. She hates heels.

15) What is something about your OC that can make you cry?

The fact that when she begins learning magic from Babette, one of her first thoughts goes straight to necromancy and the idea that she could possibly maybe resurrect her late older brother.

16) Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

Just as @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz said, I’ll tell you when I find it.

17) What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

The most recent thing I’ve discovered about Josephine… She’s was extremely hopeful for the Wonder Woman movie and absolutely adored it when she watched it in theatres. She saw some issues but overall, she loved it and not just because Gal Gadot was a thing.

18) What is your favourite fact about your OC?

Josephine is a massive, massive, greek mythology nerd. Literally, her computer wallpaper is probably some picture of Athens or the pantheon of greeks or something like that. When Babette gives her a pet raven, she names it Cerberus. When she and Babette adopt a kitten together she names it Sappho (I blame @sunlight-melodies). She really likes greek mythology which makes interesting parallels considering her favourite greek god is Persephone and her girlfriend has been known as the God of the Dead.

Tagged, in no particular order, is: @sleepy-and-anxious, @ariellaskylark @cometworks @focusdumbass @rose-writes-and-drinks-tea @truebisexualdragon @fallen-angel-nightshade @pyr0clast @i-tried-and-i-loose @sunlight-melodies

I’ve realised that i need to keep a list of writers I follow to tag in these things because I’m absolutely horrible at remembering them all...