#i should have included this in the original post but oh well. a little late for that now

[mongoosefangs]

it's how you know he's toxic

(blacklight version; daylight version is here)

[thelordfool]

HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!

Long story short: I'm unemployed and will not, unlike what I originally thought, qualify for unemployment benefits.

Please read the readmore for additional context on why I'm unemployed. This post is basically a continuation/update/redo of this post. I'm suffering a sickness with no medicine the past week, applied for almost 100 jobs the last two weeks, am disabled/queer/nonbinary/tired of ebegging. I'm also in the negatives in my bank account because my car payment came out, so I need to get that covered.

pp/vm/ca

$250/$1151.51

i need at least $511.51 of this by the first. please spread if you're financially unable to help, every person this reaches helps! here's the breakdown of the costs: $640 - car payment + late fees $380 - rent $131.51 - negative amount in bank currently

Oh hey thanks for stopping by to read this annoying tale of woe and being angry at capitalism. Prepare for wall of text.

I once had two jobs. The first job, at a chain restaurant, was a bit of a clique-y experience where I was working my damndest to be the best bartender they ever had. I still have all the cocktails memorized. However, I continually faced discrimination in the form of severe misgendering, no matter how often I corrected them. I was also set up for failure. Usually, when someone gets hired for a position, there's some amount of training to be done, no matter how experienced they are, right? I was going in nearly entirely inexperienced into the role. I knew how to make cocktails, sure, and was and still am very good with people and selling. But I was trained for two days. Two. Then, on my first night alone (a Friday), I was watched by one of the bigwigs at corporate who saw every little flub and failure. This caused a demotion-ish. I was demoted to barback but was allowed the same privileges. Until their next visit. That upset the hell out of me - I was well trained by that point and could do it all, with one hand tied behind my back. I digress. It was about 2 months following my demotion when i finally walked out. A new bartender had been hired and she thought I was being a total creep by looking at a ticket that had just come in. She stormed off to report me to the manager who, even after hearing my side where I had asked her if there was anything on the ticket that I could grab, said that I "needed to communicate better," and "you should be learning from her," and "you're a grown man, you should know better." I don't think I need to explain why that was so upsetting.

But I didn't report them, because I just wanted to be done with it. I was also working another bartending job, and everythign was literally perfect other than the hours, honestly. I loved the product the distillery made, I loved the people I worked with, and most of all: I had my own regulars. Last month, they hired a new hospitality director, who announced there would be some restructuring, including getting rid of servers while also making a full dinner menu to serve alongside drinks. I said nothing of it, despite my disagreements, and she assured us all that no one would lose their jobs, but just moved into different roles. We all kinda grumbled about it, and I told her that under no circumstances would I work back of house. Easy peasy. Till it wasn't, and I came home to a voicemail while on break with my partner that I'd been let go due to the restructuring. So much for no one losing their jobs, right? I hadn't been the only victim of this. I have my suspicions as to why the new hospitality director did these things, but I've no energy to throw around conspiracies. All I know is that I was shafted by both of these places and I'm tired of being broke. I'm applying, still going to fight, and... sigh.

tl;dr (why did you click the readmore?): i left a job due to discrimination and lost another due to company restructuring and i'm tired and sad and aaaaa.

[bryce-bucher]

500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ Post #12

Dialogue!!!11:

The main thing I did over the past week or so was put together this dialogue system. The system itself was fairly easily to implement, and I think the only interesting part of the process to share is how I went about making the UI. As per usual, I wanted to have a cool mechanical feeling ui, but at the same time a friend of mine suggested an AOL instant messenger inspired chat window. I loved both of these ideas so I decided to combine them into a screen that pops up and contains the aim-like window. The modeling process for the screen was similar to how I went about making the other two bits of ui that are on screen in the above photos, but I decided to include a VGA port.

VGA PORT:

I didn't originally plan to include a VGA port, but I was in the middle of researching monitors and accidentally left a window open on my computer that just had a big photo of one and I went "wait a minute.". With my final two braincells I suddenly decided to slap together a model for the port which I ended up being proud enough of to, for some reason, make an entire section for it.

Sorry if any of the above sentences read horribly. I am going to need a third braincell if you want this stuff to be coherent. Anyway, Blender is so cool. Using the array modifier to make all these lil squares for the holes in the port is just such a satisfying process. I've come to really like makin pre-rendered assets like this.

New Movez:

This is actually a pretty big inclusion, and I probably should've ranked it in my mind above the VGA port. I added some new movement options to the game!

Firstly, I added this melee move where you swing the back of the sniper forwards to propel yourself a bit. It is mainly useful as a bunnyhop that allows you to conserve momentum.

Next up I added this kick that happens if you melee while in the air. It's basically just the one from mario64. It lets you gain a little bit more height and distance. It also becomes way more effective if you have a lot of momentum. A good tool for correcting jumps and reaching new heights.

Finally, we have the big schmovement slide. This slide gives you a huge burst of speed that you can jump out of in order to send your self flyin. Surprisingly, it didn't really break any of the level design and ended up being a really fun addition imo. In order to perform it, you have to do a ground pound and then melee as you hit the ground. Also, I feel like I basically stole this from pseudoregalia. Played through that recently and it has been a good source of inspiration.

Nova!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

This is a cameo skin I've been really excited to finally make myself put in the game. Anodyne 2 is a really important game to me, and I love it much. I'm really happy tha folks at analgesic let me put her in here, and I'm p happy with how her model came together. If you haven't peeped the Anodyne games I highly recommend them. The first one was a major inspiration for parts of Fatum Betula.

Conclusion:

Lately I've been playing this game way too much. It has made it impossible for me to tell if it is fun or well designed. Some problems cropped up during playtesting that ima need to address, and I hope that it all comes together into something that one could say is "fun and cool". I think takin this weekend off is gonna do my brain good. Oh yeah also I feel like I should advertise that I'm still doing commissions if anyone is interested. Anyway, have a good 1 and enjoy urself.

[theamityelf]

For my last ask I think it would be funny if it was all the different soulmate ways so makoto is going through a bunch of stuff and is also maybe trying to hide it and if you include Izuru it could be something he finds interesting about makoto as maybe no else has had so many soulmates

(previous post re:Makoto and his class)

(original Makoto soulmates post)

Oh my gosh, then I definitely think Makoto would be shy about showing skin.

He walks into Hope's Peak discreetly checking the timer on the back of his hand, which is now down to less than three hours until he meets one of his soulmates. On the back of the opposite arm, there's a sentence he's had memorized for years now: "So, we arrived at the same time!" It's hidden by his sleeve. He has the image of a microphone on the back of his neck, hidden by his hood. The image of a Yoshi (or Galaga sprite) on his bicep, hidden by his sleeve. The image of a half-peeled orange right beneath his collarbone– or maybe there used to be a half-peeled orange there, but now it's just an oddly-shaped scar. That change happened within the last year.

He can't see colors (and he's been told his shoes don't match his hoodie?). Last night, he had a dream that he was a girl named Kyoko, meeting her dad for the first time. This morning, he saw through Junko's eyes while she was getting dressed, and he's barely stopped blushing about it.

He's trying to live in the moment and appreciate the amazing place and all the amazing people, but in truth, he's pretty stressed about how he's going to explain his situation to anyone. Based on his timer and the glimpses he's seen of Junko's letter, he's going to meet at least two of his soulmates here. He's never heard of anyone having as many soulmates as he apparently has. When someone turns out to have two or three soulmates, it's considered unusual and potentially problematic, but usually they meet at different points in life. One in youth, one in old age. Something like that. But two at the same school?

"So, we arrived at the same time!"

Three?!

Makoto turns to see the person who just reached the gymnasium door at the same time as him.

"Nice to see someone else who appreciates the value of punctuality," the tidy young man commends.

Makoto clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. I guess I was just...worried about being late."

And the young man's expression changes to one of astonishment, because as expected, he has Makoto's first words to him on his arm, too. The timer on his other wrist still says a little over two hours, and he can suddenly feel Junko looking through his eyes.

Makoto levels with his new...friend. "Listen, I'm really glad to meet you, and we should definitely have a conversation about this, but maybe not...right now? Can we talk at lunch, maybe?"

The guy remains astonished for a second before he recovers with an affirming, "Of course! School comes first. If we're in the same class, might it be prudent to introduce ourselves?"

And Makoto smiles. "Yeah. I'd like that."

His first in-person soulmate is Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Taka.

As more of their classmates start arriving, Makoto feels more and more of a complicated mix of excitement and anxiety. He introduces himself to a well-dressed, bespectacled guy named Byakuya, and the second they make eye contact, Makoto can suddenly see in color. Byakuya's expression of snobby disinterest drops into one of ill-disguised shock, and Makoto hasn't explained the situation to Taka yet, his timer says he has like an hour and a half until he meets another soulmate, Junko isn't even here yet, and now he has to get used to colors!

And wow, his shoes really don't match his hoodie.

He definitely needs to explain things to Taka and Byakuya before Junko gets here, because despite never having met her in person, he knows that she's a lot. And he'd hate for anyone to learn that he has multiple soulmates from anyone but him.

"Well?" Byakuya says, having returned to snobby disinterest. "Tell me your name already so we can be done with these ridiculous introductions."

Okay, rude. But that's fine. "I'm Makoto Naegi. I'm the Ultimate Lucky Student, and...I hate to tell you this bluntly, but I think I kind of need to hurry, so..." He draws in a breath. "I have multiple soulmates...here. Kind of...a few...here."

Byakuya loses his facade of indifference, looking at Makoto again with narrowed eyes. "Excuse me?"

"I know, we should definitely discuss this, but I need to tell Taka, too, before he finds out in a worse way."

And Makoto runs off and explains the situation to Taka (WHOA! Taka's eye color! He is going to have to get used to eye colors.), who is surprised and maybe (almost definitely) disappointed, but he's very polite about it. Makoto promises that they'll talk again at lunch.

He checks his timer again. An hour and twenty minutes.

"Hey."

He pulls his sleeve down to cover the timer, looking up to see who's addressed him, and Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Kyoko?! From his dreams?!

"Makoto, right?"

"Y-Yeah. Kyoko?"

She doesn't say yes or nod or anything. "How many?"

"Huh?"

"How many do you have? I saw the timer on your wrist, and your reaction to Togami. Ishimaru keeps glancing at you. How many do you have?" At least she doesn't seem upset. Though she has completely busted him.

"I don't...know, for sure. I have a few soulmate marks, I just saw color for the first time, I share dreams with you and see through someone else's eyes occasionally, Taka's first words to me are on my arm..."

"Is that your talent? Are you some kind of soulmate anomaly?"

"Oh, no. I'm here as the Ultimate Lucky Student."

"I don't know that I would consider your situation here a lucky one. If breaking things to Togami and Ishimaru has you this nervous–"

He sees a flash of the school from outside and knows that Junko is here.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," he says, with forced optimism. "I mean, once I explain the situation to everyone, I'm sure we can all get past how weird this is. I'm glad to finally meet you, Kyoko."

"Hm. Don't worry; I'm not here to socialize anyway."

She slips away before he can say anything else, and then he hears the door open, and Junko's here!

[midnight-proxi]

.:Ŧħɇ ⱣłȺǥᵾɇ:.

.:Infected Doctor Strange x Gn!Reader:.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I been having brain rot of Marvel Zombies lately as I bought a book called The Hunger: A Marvel Zombies Novel and I always see it at my local bookstores and I never bother to get it until now. I only read the short preview pages of the book on google to have a sense of plot that is going on but I'll be making up as I go with this. However, I did read the original story run of Marvel Zombies (2005), Marvel Zombies: Resurrection, Zombies Assemble and bits of Marvel Zombies: Black, White and Blood. Anyway, I'll be trying to connect the story plot from Original run of Marvel Zombies (2005) and try to link them to Marvel's What If: Season 1 Episode 5. Hope you enjoy it! If you guys want me to make a full series, let me know and I'll try to make it happen. As mention, it's a bit of 18+ as I'm writing this as a really short story than a full length version. I might even rework on the Yandere Strange Supreme x Reader fic as well as that need a renew and repolish.

Yes, there are some errors here as I'm slowly trying to correct them as I was half asleep writing this and posted it xD

Warning: foul language, mention of gore, blood, and of course, zombies eating the uninfected. For now, this will be 17+ as I'll be describing graphic details somewhere! You all have been warn and enjoy...

Summary: A flash of purple light bursting upon the skies of New York when a strange being descended down to Earth. Little did they know when their world will soon crumble. It was no surprise when the reader’s day off turned into a nightmare straight out from a horror movie. The person who may know the incident is their partner, Doctor Strange. But little did they know something felt off about him…

Word count: 2,724

Oh god. Oh god! Oh God!

It was all you could think in your mind; you were not preparing for this. Nobody is. The sounds of screams echo through the streets of New York, civilians running and trampling away from the horde of superheroes who turned into zombies. Nobody knew where the virus came upon or where it originated from as little info from the news saying patient zero: Sentry was the cause of this horrific event causing the heroes to go on rampage eating and shredding the civilians into pieces. This plague. This virus. This hunger consumes anything that comes in contact.

In panic scrambling to reach for your phone from your jean pocket, you try to contact your friends and loved ones through text or calling if they are all right or at least in a safe haven. 'Shit no signal' you thought to yourself running, trying to push anyone to make your way towards the Sanctum Sanctorum. Praying to Vishanti, the others are okay and even your partner, Stephen. Pushing the doors open to the Sanctum and quickly shut it and lock them. Trying to catch your breath against the door, still hearing the cars crashing and screams from outside; however, the Sanctum felt a bit anonymous but more eerie than it should be.

"Hello? Is anyone here" you called out from the main entrance near the grand staircase. No answer. "Wong?”

“Stephen?” Still no answer. The silence eerie creeped over the Sanctum, taking a deep breath as you quickly walked over the kitchen hoping someone is occupied. Taking a quick peek at the entrance towards the kitchen, scanning the room looked a bit normal except for some cut vegetables on the cutting board and unsupervised pot boiling over the stove top. Without a second though you quickly turn off the knob, what puzzled you was unusual for Wong to leave anything on even if he did use magic. Moving your way out from the kitchen walking towards the stairs to the upper floor without taking a moment over the other side of the stove was a trail of blood on the floor, on the wall formed a bloody handprint left behind by someone unknown.

Searching each room on the upper floor including the main bedroom where you and Stephen shared but nothing seemed out of place. Closing the door behind you as you quickly walked down the long hallway towards the other staircase led to grant room where all the artifacts were displayed and where the big window of Vishanti’s protection spelled is found. Taking a few steps into the room when you spotted some of the glass cases shedder with some of the artifacts scattered or destroyed, taking much further in to grab the artifacts and place them back into their display cases when you notice blood covered in one of the staff. Leaning closer to the spot as it was freshly printed, did a struggle occur here before you arrived? Did someone or something attack Stephen and Wong? So many questions clouded your mind when you hear a noise of a soft groan echo from around the room snapped you out from your trans, not knowing where the sound was coming from as you looked around the room. Still gripping on the staff in your hand as you make your way to the noise, keeping on your guard in case something comes out and jumps at you.

Another few steps when another groan echoed in the room with the groan got a bit louder, but a new sound came into the mix. A loud squish noise if someone pour out the last few drops of ketchup onto a plate as you walk a bit closer to it. Whatever it was might be a stray, or an extraterrestrial stray just crashed into the Sanctorum. “Please be a stray. Please be a stray” you repeated yourself quietly as you try to steady your breathing.

Nearly slipping through your verses looking down on your feet noticing more blood trail before your feet, unsteadying your breath as shadow flies toward gripping below your waist nearly knocking you off balance almost slip from the blood trail. Slowly looking below your waist was a red fabric clinching on to you, knowing who it is. It was Cloak gripping you tightly as they tried to pull you into your feet. “Cloak! I’m so glad to see you” you said excitedly. “Do you know where Ste- “

Before you finish your sentence, Cloak tries to pull you away, preventing you from going any further. You gently tugged them away from your waist, pulling them to the side but it quickly grabs your left arm. “Cloak, I know you want to leave this place but right now, I need to find Wong and Stephen. They might know what’s going outside” you said tried not to raise your tone.

Poor Cloak desperately tries to pull you away as your curiosity prevents you from seeing whatever the sound and broken displays cases prevent the mess in the room. A couple of steps further in the room, a whiff of an unpleasant odor struck your nostrils, covering with one of your hands when you spotted a figure about 10 feet away from you, hunched down on eating something off the floor, could be animal its eating. Taking a few more steps when you saw something that made your eyes widen a bit, it looks more human than animal as a ray of purple lightning flashes through the window to brighten up the room with the humanoid quickly dashed away. In your horror your eyes widen even more seeing your friend Wong on the floor with his lower half eating away with his guts oozing out from his stomach with blood surrounding the falling hero. You quickly rushed towards him as Cloak lets go of your arm to his aid, knowing he was beyond responding with no pulse, falling to your knees not caring about his blood soak on your jeans. Gently caressing his cheek as of you falling friend as tears slowly form from your eyes, what kind of sick creature killed him this way. Cloak floats towards you as it wraps itself around your shoulder comforting you expressing its sorrow of his friend.

The sound of heavy boots erupts fills the empty room as it stops midway towards you. “Y/n?” the faint voice called out.

 You quickly stood up from the familiar voice with Cloak on edge trying to pull away from the figure, you tried to calm it by gently brushing the fabric, but Cloak didn’t like the idea for you to take a closer towards the figure. “Stephen?” you said quietly trying to make out the figure in front of you.

The figure didn’t say anything but nodded to its name as it slowly extended their arms out for you as invite you to embrace them but the little voice in your head says otherwise. Telling you to step away from the being and leave, you called its name once more. “It is really you Stephen?” you said once more gripping on the staff.

The figure took a closer step to the light for a better light, it was indeed him! Your partner, Stephen Strange! His robe looked a bit damaged and ripped with his front side covered bits of blood and some scratch marks in his hands and face; however, he looked in bad shape after a battle, but something was a bit off as your conscience keeps telling you. You quickly rushed towards him dropping the staff on the ground with Cloak still hanging on your shoulders giving him a big hug as a sigh of relief to see your partner. “Stephen, I’m glad you’re okay! I tried to find you all over the sanctum, as something wrong with the heroes as they’re eating the civilians, and I couldn’t find you and Wong...” you said as tears started to fall from your cheeks. “Oh Wong... I don’t know what happened to him as something killed or….”

Stephen didn’t say anything as he wipes some of your tears from his bloody hands, placing your hand over his feeling his present welcome but something felt off about him but not sure if it’s the aura or the felt of blood from his hands felt unnormal. You scan over Stephen notice a hole in his right arm that looks like a bite mark, a human bite mark deepen into his skin. Your eyes widened to realization as you quickly pointed it the bloody mark. “Stephen, your arm! Did something bite you? We have to get you clean up!” you said in a panic, but Stephen dismissed it as it just a demonic creature bite him during a battle earlier.

 He moved one his hand to caress your soft hair wrapped around his fingers, your skin looked so divine, casting from the light it shine and how sweet you must taste, Cloak sense something was off with the Doctor as it quickly yanks you away from him nearly fell backwards almost falling on top of them. “Cloak! What are you doing?” you yelled at the floating cape.

Cloak flaps with their ends signaling to you something wrong, very wrong with Stephen, he’s not his usual self. “What do you mean he’s not normal, Cloak?”

 “How rude for Cloak to interrupt our sweet reunion but, I have to take you away from here to a safer place” Stephen said trying not to alarm you. “We better gear up in case they come. We must hurry before the others come and find us.”

Stephen turns his back at you, signaling Cloak to return to him, but they didn’t budge as they were clinging on your shoulder. You quickly grab the staff you had in your hand earlier as you concentrate with little magic you learn from Stephen as the end of the staff quickly turns into a blade. “Stephen, did you get bitten?” you asked pointed the blade at your partner. “Answer me!”

Stephen didn’t want to face you covering his wound in his right arm taking a small breath. “Before the chaos started, I went out to investigate after I sense something awful is going to happen in the middle of New York after we both saw a flash erupting at the sky. I told Wong to stay on guard at the sanctum once I returned. I quickly flied to investigate from a far when I saw the Avengers beat me to it but notice something was off when Sentry started to attack them, biting them, and scratching their flesh only to my horror when they attack the civilians and eating them.”

“I tried to hurry back to the sanctum, but I got sidetracked to save some of the civilians from the Avengers when out of nowhere, Venom came by to attack me on the roof tops. I tried casting spells on this maniac who attacked me but none of my magic won’t turn him back to normal. He quickly use his symbotic web to attach me against the wall, just as I before I could cast my spells; he…. He…”

Before he could finish his story unexpectedly, he quickly laughed, a wicked laugh made you jump a bit as you’re not used to it yet alone from Stephen. He quickly turns to face you with a wicked smile on his face like he’s ready to strike you, play with you until you’re off guard, you taken a few steps back from him, but Stephen follows you with every step. “Oh Y/N. My sweet Y/N. I wish you didn’t find out this way, I could of spare your life at least unlike Wong, he was exceedingly difficult to purse him” Stephen said with wicked grin. “At least he died with dignity.”

“You ate him! You ate Wong, you fucking psychopath!” you yelled at him with tears streaming down once more.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. This hunger, I couldn’t control myself when I ate him. He screamed in agony! Telling me to stop…. Oh god...” The feeling of guilt took over as he suddenly fell down onto his knees, distracting himself of him eating his friend, you quickly ran away from him running to the halls away from your sick partner. Turning to the halls with so many doors but you didn’t have time to stop and decide as you quickly open a door closest to you and quickly went inside closing the door behind you. A cold breeze blows through your body with Cloak trying to cover you; you looked around a frozen winter wonderland as you quickly ran through the plane hoping to find a door to get out of this place. You curse at yourself for not grabbing a sling ring to open portals like Wong told you few months ago to keep. Out of nowhere, a portal slowly opens as you dash away from the portal at least to get a far distance away from him. Stephen jumps out from the portal seeing you making your getaway, he chuckles as he open another portal to your location trying to grab you but in a nick of time, Cloak pulls you away and quickly flies away from his formal master.

Stephen casts a spell to capture you, but Cloak tries to dodge it to get to the door before Stephen cast another spell. Quickly open the entrance as you make your way to another door in the far left as you open the door; you saw a room filled with bones. Piles of Bones with skeleton walking among the skulls but you quickly shut the door before hearing Stephen’s voice calling out to you and run to the end of the hallway. “Y/N, you can’t hide away from me for too long, my dear” he called out.

Searching for any kind of room to catch your breath until you randomly open a door and quickly close behind you, you cast a small light only to see some boxes piling on one side, another was some bookshelves, and another side were some old antique furniture. You quickly hide squeezing your way between a bookshelf and an old display counter, you cast a small disguise spell to blend in with environment. Letting go of your weapon next to you as you steady your breath, wrapping your legs close to your chest with Cloak wrapping you tightly, praying someone could come and rescue you away from this nightmare. You pray this entire incident is just a nightmare and you’ll wake up in your shared bedroom with Stephen. Your normal Stephen. You heard sizzling from a portal opening, hearing those heavy boots you knew he’s here and he’s hungry…

“Y/N, come on out. I know you’re here; I can still smell the stench of Wong’s blood on your clothes,” said Stephen scanning the room. “I won’t eat you; I promise. I’ll lock you somewhere safe away from me until I find a cure for this virus…”

Hearing his voice made you shake to the core, covering your mouth trying not to make a sound feeling him getting closer to your hiding spot. Tears started to form again praying to Vishanti he won't find you and let him leave, he couldn’t be able to find you as quickly opens the door and leaves the room. You felt a sigh of relief that he didn’t find you; letting go of your hiding spot to check if the coast is clear. Cloak unhooked themselves from your shoulder to search the room before you could leave the room, another sigh of relief as you quickly got up from your spot with to be safe. Oh, how wrong you felt when a pair of arms quickly wraps you covering your mouth before screaming for Cloak to come back. Stephen hushed as you tried to wiggle yourself free from his grasp, but he quickly held you still, licking your skin with more tears started to come out. “Hush now my love, there’s no need to shed any more tears as this will be over soon enough. I’ll make sure to end this quickly and soon enough, you’ll understand this plaque. This beautiful gospel. This hunger…”

Before you know it, everything turned black as the sound of your muffle screams echo through the Sanctum Sanctorum…..

A/N: It's been awhile since I done a post anything in this account. Thank you all for sticking around even though I don't post anything here since my last fanfic/incorrect quotes. I know I'm slowly getting back into fanfic as I'm busy doing drawings for my main account and trying to finish up my school as I'll be graduating in Spring 2026! I wanted to create something of a horror Marvel fic for awhile back in October. Yes I know Halloween is over but I'm mentally there and I don't care if I put up my Halloween decorations; if people can put their Christmas stuff up until February, so can I! Anyway, I been going back and forth with my fandoms lately and I'm getting back to Marvel once again. I know shocker! That's what I get for being a multi-fandom and getting back into a fandom until something happens. Just like I did with Marvel's What If? All I could say it wasn't as good at the first season and bits of season 2.

[zarla-s]

Man it's been a long time since I've done an ask cluster! Let's see if I can get some down...

He's an extremely fun character to write for and play with! So in that sense I'm fond of him, haha. He's such a huge disaster of a person, there's always something fun to do with him. Well "fun" in a relative sense.

I don't have anything to forgive him for, he didn't hurt me. |D He hurt the brothers!

I do have an idea for a cute feature inspired by Six-Eared Macaque! I should really sit down and do that already... and finish the one I half started but never finished...

I don't think my opinion on any of them changed! I love them all, haha. Which ones I drew comics about just depends on which ones I get ideas for really. Sometimes I get Alphys ideas and sometimes I get Goatparents ideas! Inspiration is fickle!

I don't have any solid plans or anything. :B Just gonna keep chugging along with silly comics and art! Work on Defrag and such. I'd like to finish a Ladyverse comic I've had lying around forever, and I had vague plans for doing a doujin for them too I could work on... and also seeing if I could format Handplates into a book format... I've always got a bunch of projects, haha.

It works on that level! It wasn't intentional though. |D

I do enjoy speculation! I don't really have much of my own though, I didn't predict anything in chapter 2 so now I'm assuming I can't predict anything in the future chapters either, haha.

Emesis Blue is great! Some really beautiful visuals in there, very striking! Love the mood of it too and a lot of the surreal imagery. I think it helped spur me back into TF2 again, haha. Medic and Scout's relationship was so cute.

I have thought about this! It has its share of challenges though... I outlined them more in this post. A pdf would be more doable though... could even include some extra stuff as well! Hmm...

I can see that! He'd probably spend as much time out in the rain as he could just doing whatever to stay outside.

It was pretty much always going to end like that. I always wanted it to end on a hopeful note! Which might seem weird with how dark it is at the beginning. I DID for a brief period at the very beginning of Handplates think about stopping with the Pacifist run, but that was only because I thought going where I wanted to go would take too long and already the project seemed so dauntingly huge at the time, haha. But it was always going to end in a positive way!

Gaster talks about what he originally intended to create here, and he explains a bit about the physical experiments he runs on the brothers here. They aren't really a solution in and of themselves so much as tools to try and find a way to break the barrier. Really though, Gaster got stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy lol.

I don't really have opinions about what canon Gaster would be like. |D Handplates Gaster is his own thing really. Canon Gaster, who knows! Deltarune Gaster, who knows! I will say I hope Gaster stays a mystery in Deltarune and never actually shows up but I think the odds of that are really low at this point.

I thought about doing a script along those lines! I did a few rough drafts of one, but it never really went anywhere... it'd end up dead-ending or kind of meandering off. I might see if I can get an actual script down for a side-comic or something in the future... it might be better suited for a fic.

I was just thinking about this lately! I was picturing Gaster totally forgetting about that until he sees Papyrus squinting and is like OH GOD YOUR EYES THAT'S RIGHT D: and goes to get him looked at lol.

I couldn't come up with a good idea for Flowey which is a shame, I do like him, haha. If one comes to me though I might make a little side comic about it!

Gaster's LV is complicated... his stats in-game are ludicrous if I recall correctly. Did he carry the damage from his murders into the void, even if those murders weren't his in the new timeline? Deep thoughts.

He fed them anything he could find, haha. Which is why sometimes they just ended up with chocolate bars (which he intended as dinner for himself). He probably fed them more often than he fed himself lol. He did feed them fairly regularly though.

Not about skeletons, probably. |D

Man I know I had an explanation for this but it was so long ago... it's hard for me to remember. It could be that the Riverperson is just weird and has weird insight into elements of things, had a prophetic dream... I don't know! It bugs me now that I can't remember this, haha.

[didididraws]

my tablet is currently halfway across the country for repairs (my brother's the most tech-savvy in my family and asking him to take a look at it was cheaper than taking it to a shop) so i haven't been able to draw lately. i've made a bunch of traditional sketches in the meantime, but none of them are presentable enough to post here, so i decided to take a trip down memory lane and fill out one of foxorian's influence maps!

below the cut are the names of the artists featured here, as well as a little bit of director's commentary on how they've influenced me :]

yugo limbo (website, tumblr, twitter) - some time last year, i realized something profoundly unnerving: i actually... don't like the art in smile for me's original release all that much? that's not to say it's bad, just that there isn't a whole lot about it outside of maybe its architecture that stands out to me. which is REALLY WEIRD, considering i wrote a whole retrospective about how much this game means to me. art-wise, however, it was only after smile for me's release that yugo limbo's art evolved in a way that really resonated with me; i love how textured everything is, i love the way they simplify clothing folds and the way that skin wrinkles around the joints, i love their love for puppets; all of those things ended up worming their way into my art style and tastes one way or another, and i couldn't be happier!! it didn't feel right to leave smile for me out of the equation entirely, though, so i chose a piece that was both related to that game and that i felt reflected a lot of what i love about yugo's more recent art.

echobsilly (twitter, tumblr) - oh god, speaking of yugo limbo - god. i fucking love echo's art so much i have no idea how to even do it justice in writing. like many people i first found him through his smile for me/limbolane fanart and animations - and those are some of his best work, don't get me wrong, but i really wanted to include one of his original designs to make a point that he's just fuckin great at art in general. character design, facial expressions, body language, composition, LIGHTING... he makes it all just. so so so gorgeous. i always liked "painterly" art styles for lack of a better word, but i think his art is what first pushed me to embrace that more in my digital art. i also like how he talks about dr. habit like he's his dead wife. i'm very proud to call him a friend these days :]

japhers (tumblr, twitter, instagram) - i first found japhers' art in high school and he very quickly became a HUUUUUGE influence on my taste in character and costume design. one of the big reasons i never fully bought into the idea that men's fashion is inherently harder to design is bc so much of his art is already dedicated to exploring fashion Without the restrictions of a gender binary in place which is to say that he's really good at drawing buff dudes in frilly outfits. i also think he gave me more confidence to draw more intricate costumes without having to worry about super dainty and clean lineart, bc a lot of his art looks like it's kinda been carved/rendered out of sketches, and it is Gorgeous.

moe suppe (website, tumblr, cohost) - another artist i found in high school, albeit originally from a long-gone instagram account. his art is what kickstarted my desire to have some Roughness in my art, some Texture. it may not have stuck to my lineart, but it Definitely stuck to my rendering. it helped that i was going through a pretty big angel/demon phase at the time, which meant i was pretty immediately drawn in by his delightfully weird worldbuilding. i should probably read fear not now that it's an actual serial...

val wise (website, itch.io, twitter, instagram) - a more recent influence, but a pretty significant one nonetheless. i featured the cover of délicatesse here because it was the first thing from him that i had ever read, but in general his grasp on the human body really blows me away given how deceptively simple his style looks at first glance, especially his faces. the way fat and hair sits on her bodies, and how much it varies from character to character... it's beautiful without being So glamorous that it feels untouchable. his costume design is also great. i recommend his comics for low fantasy/ursula k. le guin fans who are Dying to see more fat characters in leading roles. i also just found out that i am of two hearts is free on itch.io, so i'll be treating myself to that over spring break.

partycoffin (tumblr, twitter) - if you have known me for any amount of time at all then this should not come as a surprise to you. i actually wasn't going to include partycoffin in this map at first, because while welcome home has inspired me in Many creative pursuits, i didn't think visual art was one of them? i definitely picked up some of clown's love for dramatic lighting and thinner lines with just a smidge of well-placed hatching subconsciously, though.

ryoko kui - probably the most recent artist featured here? anyways i have a confession to make: i have yet to read dungeon meshi. i just know that when i saw a post compiling a bunch of ryoko kui's sketches from her daydream hour series, i was so overwhelmed with this feeling of, like… "oh, yeah, these capture almost everything i love about women as flesh and blood people. when i draw women this is the kind of beauty that i want people to see in them." of course, ryoko kui is a great character designer in general, but something about her women specifically really speak to me. the earthier color palettes and rendering also do a lot to endear her art to me.

shuzo oshimi - specifically his art in blood on the tracks. something that really stood out to me in that series was whenever the shadows would get really intense, and you'd get these big blocks of black with just the faintest bit of hatching to soften out some of their edges. it was always very effective in creating this sense of claustrophobia. i really want to keep incorporating that in my more intense pieces!

person918x (tumblr, instagram) - i don't work with 3d art often and i don't see myself doing so any time soon, but the composition of person918x's pieces is something i take a lot of inspiration of. i also love his sequential art, as someone who does a lot of dream journaling it's sick to see the exact Vibe of a dream be put to (digital) canvas. i also firmly believe that he's one of the only people out there who knows what he's doing when it comes to using generative AI in art.

oops i made this list too long so now i have to put the last two artists in a new block.

10. meatgiri (twitter, instagram) - definitely the artist i've known about the longest out of this selection. i think i've been following her since…. oh god. since i was in middle school. way before she was meatgiri, even. i think her influence probably shows up the least in my art, but there are definitely some characteristics that stuck with me for a very long time (the lil block of black accompanied by one or two lines for shading on the neck, the looser lineart making it really easy to incorporate soft curves and sharp edges, the Eyes, etc etc.) i chose this drawing of her oc juniper bc i thought it was both reflective of her current art And a good embodiment of a lot of things i wanted to emulate from her art as a young'un.

11. dragan bibin (website, instagram) - specifically his 'deimos' series. much like with person918x, it's his compositions that really stand out to me the most, and you probably know by now that i'm a sucker for high contrast. i find it interesting though that he uses high contrast to obscure more than he does to highlight... helps a lot with giving the deimos paintings that air of Quiet Unease. another thing i want to incorporate in my horror-adjacent art! manmade environments gone wrong!

[we-keep-odd-hours]

tagged back by @hex6rcist! Thank you!

under a cut since I also rambled.

1. How are you!? I hope your day is going well.

ehhhh. I'm working not a great job, but its from home and if everyone is going to be insufferable, every single second i get of downtime I'm going to be on tumblr to stay sane.

2. What are you currently working on? Any little projects of any kind you’re excited to share?

I have an original novel in the works, I'm in the brutal final stages of tying off the loose ends of the rough draft (while this advice is some that I struggle to accept, to all writers I'd like to share this: the only thing that a first draft has to be is done.), I have two on-going fics (an Aliens one that's posted anonymously but tbh you could probably find it easily) and one of Diamondback's origin story.

Her origin story is more or less done (posting new chapters as I edit) except for a few plot points I'll make my decision on as I get to them in editing. There's details from my next project, a full follow up to the movie, that I kind of want to include in an epilogue to her story, since they're scenes/plot threads tied on her character arc.

3. What have you been watching lately? I just finished Righteous Gemstones and I need a new show lol.

I'm halfway through my rewatch of Hannibal right now, and I SHOULD rewatch West World next so I can finally watch the last season, but I've been itching to rewatch X-Files for a year now....the only problem being that X-Files is nine seasons, a mini series, two seasons of Millennium (IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND), and one season of Lone Gunmen (ALSO IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND). I never technically finished Millennium either, because they [spoiler] and it made me so angry at Chris Carter that I rage quit.

4. (A Near Dark one because how can I not) what’s your favorite small detail in the movie that other people might overlook?

When they first walk into the bar, Jesse kind of surveys the layout, but Diamondback immediately looks over to her right--at the bartender and the waitress, she then smiles, holds onto Jesse's arm and sets her head on his shoulder--and looks over the waitress again. Between that and her grin when the woman walked over, that whole weird thing seemed like some continuation of whatever game they were playing when she kissed the hitchhiker, which....guys, get a room. Homer and Mae are right there.

There are others, but this is the first one that came to mind.

5. What blog should I follow right now?

I'm bad at this; most people I've followed on here for literal years, or else picked up along the way when we had the same media obsession of the day.

6. Best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I said it above already, but THE FIRST DRAFT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE GOOD, IT JUST HAS TO BE DONE.

7. If you could add one fantastical element to the real world and have it be a commonly accepted and known about thing what would it be? (Ie make Santa real)

This is asking for trouble: I believed in fairies at an age that was much, much too old to do so. I think it would be fun, or at least interesting if the fair folk were commonly known to exist. Dangerous, unwise, but fun.

8. What’s the last book you didn’t just read, you DEVOURED?

In the Valley of Sun by Andy Davidson. It was nasty, infuriating, full of characters I didn't like for but occasionally felt bad for, and it's about a wandering killer turned vampire living in an old RV just outside of Waco, TX in the 1980s. Yeah, that's what I thought too.

It was a break-neck paced mystery, not exactly of ''who'' did it, but of what happened, how did they do it, and are they going to get caught?

9. What are you most passionate about?

Art, literature, zoology. The order of those items changes frequently.

10. What do you think is your best quality?

oh I hate this question. Passion, I guess? It's not easy to get interested in something, but when I am, I can learn fast, pick up on details, and make weird connections. I'm literal minded and frequently get over-detailed on things, but I can think on multiple tracks at once and have caught things that even our Risk department at work didn't notice because they disrupted something.

[eznvb8]

[Week 3: Feminism on Tumblr? r/laughable]

Does the #bodypositivity trend still active? Or does society has deemed it toxic and no longer elaborate? Let's find out.

Throughout the history of online social media, one of the significant trend rises for women is the #bodypositivity trend, with the intention of promoting self-love, authenticity and confidence in expressing themselves in any type of body, races, nationalities,... unregards to the traditional "beauty standard" of how a female's body should be.

Started at the late 2010s (Tonic, 2019), the trend attracted countless of teens, women, female, LGBTQ+ to participate, displaying their selves without fear of judgement.

Tumblr, naturally with its guidelines and platform vernacular, quickly became a place for this trend to thrive! (McKelle, 2015).

But of course, challenges appeared

As shown in the experimental article:

“Love the Skin You‘re In” (Reif et al., 2022)

The characteristics of this trend include females uploading their selfies on the social platforms, more often with revealing lots of skins and body parts that considered 'unfit' for the beauty standard in that time, and hoped for appreciations, fame and so on (Reif et al., 2022).

These characteristics were later marked as NSFW content and was taken down by Tumblr due to the platforms guidelines and rules adjustment in 2018. This change of Tumblr severely affect the trend, and many users no longer view Tumblr as a "safe place" to be active, thus lead to many frustration and disappointment from the users' side (Ashley, 2018)

The Downside of #bodypositivity

Apart from being challenged by social media platforms' rules and guidelines about which content can be post and view, many of the female's pictures posted with the hashtag #bodypositivity are still visibly trying as best as they can to fit the "beauty standard" by multiple edits and posing before uploading, inevitably ignored the original purpose of the trend, turning the trend into a "race for popularity" and "appeal to the male's gaze", as shown in the experimental article above.

Moreover, many female users have been "slut-shame" and "ridiculed" by the male community, further discourage new users to participate in the trend as well as the old users, contemplating whether or not they should continue to speak up.

What Happened After?

With all that fuss building up, people have started to mock the trend, specifically the users and Tumblr, and preferred the participants as "Tumblr Feminists" and completely mixed up and doxing people into believing that "Feminism" is corrupted while having little to none knowledge of what the word actually means (Keller, 2021).

"Oh, you're a Feminist? People like you are the cause of equal gender rights!"

Moreover, on the commercial side, many unethical organizations took advantage of this trend and its drama to advertise "Unlicensed Supplements" that helped to achieved a "Dream Body", and bribing celebrities and influencers to promote these product disregarding the harm it actually does to our Bodies, all about the money!

"If this celebrity use this, then I shall too cause' they're my idol and I'll do anything my idol said"

It quickly became a social threat, for the effects of these drugs do to the body are very harmful and many ignorant users have suffered (FDA, 2024). People then associate this public threat as a byproduct of the #bodypositivity trend and the celebrities within it, thus viewed it as "Toxic" and "Inappropriate" and must be shut down (Swami, 2022).

So, Did The Trend Die Out Completely?

Surprisingly, no.

Throughout the decade, people have started to have online precautions (yay), and suitable regulations have been implemented in an effort to allow people to do anything they want within the range of acceptability and safety, thus steering the trend to a more positive and mindful path!

Then, How Can You Effectively Join The Trend?

Be mindful and respectful towards any content, or specifically any body type, when surfing the internet, only participate in an online argument when you have gathered all the insights from every side of the story.

Related to the #bodypositivity trend directly, one of the ways to help you to feel confidence and appreciate your body more is to listen to music! Especially the self-love, self-appreciation songs, since base on research, music affects human's mental greatly, and positive influence can be achieved easily with the right song~ (Coyne et al., 2020)

Also, join hands to create a friendly community and a safe place for this trend to resurface again is also a great idea that require minimal efforts!

In Conclusion, This Is What You Should Do:

Have some basic mindset when using social media

Be respectful to everyone and mindful of anything

Create a safe and appropriate online environment

Be your most authentic self

Thank you for reading this, have a nice day~

[merrock]

HUMP DAY ACTIVITY REMINDERS

Good morning, Merrockites! Rather than cram all of this into June's mod post, I thought with 48 hours to go before our next check, I would make a separate post to go over some activity reminders. (Bonus: I've included some advice/tips for those struggling a bit under the cut, as well.)

We will be having a big activity check on Friday that will check for the following things:

each character has made at least two in-character interactions in one week's time (must be two different threads).

each character is interacting with two different writers in the group in the span of a two week period.

every writer has replied to at least one open starter in a month's time (should be applicable this month -- we have some new ones if you haven't yet!).

I would like to go into June fresh, which means we are going to drop all existing strikes and give everyone a clean slate -- but that also means moving forward, we will reach out to you if we notice a lot of strikes accumulating, just to see how we can help you out. As always, the check schedule can be found here.

A moment of full transparency: I set up checks on Thursdays, most of the time. It's my "work day" on main, anyway, and allows me to take my time to double check blogs and see where people are with activity, and then double check Friday and remove those who logged in during that last little bit. If you wake up Friday morning with a notification that you are on check but your blog is not on check, there's a very good chance you were on the original draft of check and were active in that last 24 hour period, and Tumblr is just glitching. You are only on check if your blog is listed, promise.

I've stressed a lot lately about how groups are only successful if everyone does their part, and that they only really work if we keep in mind that we all rely on one another to keep activity up and things going. This is true! But I wanted to maybe try and offer some advice / tips / things that help me out with activity, for anyone who has asked lately, or might be struggling.

trackers are a handy tool! you can set one up in a google doc, in notepad, on a literal notepad, whatever you want. it helps you keep track of what threads you have, who owes who, what writers you're writing with, etc. for me, it's a fabulous way to keep a visual of whether or not i am able to meet all of my activity goals re: writers and two threads per week. but remember: trackers are for you and your eyes, they don't need to be someone else's responsibility!

working in order is helpful for you & your writing partners. i know, i know, muse is stronger for some threads (and that's okay, as long as all of your stuff is being worked on regularly alongside them), but -- either you or your partner are going to lose muse for other threads that are sitting for longer periods of time while you're working on the same ones repeatedly, you know? try to work on things oldest to newest when you can, to avoid that. use time stamps! say "oh, i need to get to all these threads from last week / three days ago / yesterday!" to keep 'em going.

if you play multiple characters, keep them equally active. whether it's setting a goal of doing five replies on each of them at a time, doing a certain time's worth, whatever works for you! it's important to remember that all of your kiddos should be treated equally, and try to balance activity across all of them, so they're all an equal part of merrock. it's like... you know, they're your babies. they all get the same portion of macaroni and cheese at the dinner table.

i one hundred thousand million percent would rather see you just be active and having fun and cementing a sort of presence for yourself in the group, participating in events and enjoying your time in merrock than watch anyone stress out about being "caught up" on replies. it is way less important to me that you are 100% caught up, done, everything replied to than seeing that you are replying to new starters regularly, making an effort to reach out to others ooc, trying your best to maintain steady activity. promise.

The reason that I say all of these things, and try to offer advice and help and encourage people to be more cognizant with activity is simple: people rely on you in a group setting. Pushing off a reply for another week, only doing replies on certain characters, dropping threads, even sitting on finished threads that someone's waiting on all could be the difference between someone ending up on check or not -- that one reply could mean that they don't have a second writer for the two week period, or they were desperately waiting for your response to even meet the one week goal.

Some of these things might help you. Some of them might not! People work in different ways, and that's more than okay! But since I've had some people ask for help, or mention struggling lately, I thought that heading into the summer, it would be a good day to offer advice and try. xx

[vihattu-thethoroughbredofsin]

Did you hear about the Transformers Earthspark's Production book being leaked?! I couldn't help but look into it, and…honestly it doesn't have as much spoilers as I thought. It just have a lot of information containing to season one only. So heads up if you start seeing posts on here spoiling it…even when there's already a few posts talking about certain bits of it already. I will say that the way the show's story has been run, from the other posts here complaining about it not being consistent and feeling rushed…yeah that had no executive meddling or anything like that…unfortunately.

Hello! Oh, yes, I read this, interesting stuff, in principle, they didn't change much in the process of creating the animated series, so most likely, all that we saw, good and bad, are the original ideas of the authors. About haste and inconsistency. It seems to me there are 2 other reasons, since Hasbro's intervention is not one of them:

The current trend of studios for seasonal approval. That is, studios and streaming services now do not give guarantees and permits for long-running series and animated series, focusing on the ratings of the first seasons. For this reason, the authors are forced to make every season, especially the first, a complete story, and at the same time put in there all the interesting things that should interest the viewer, since there is no guarantee that the authors will have time to show it all later. I think it affects the pace of the narrative. Therefore, we do not see spoilers for the second season in these materials, because, as it seems to me, there were no special ideas for the second season. Yes, we know that the second season was approved even before the cartoon began to be shown, but given that animated series are not produced quickly, the second season was approved already during the creation of the first season, which is quite late to include at least some ideas about it in these materials.

If I'm not mistaken, some of the creators worked on the Cyberverse. And despite the fact that this series was not bad, there were very serious problems with the pace of narration, with the stretching of those events that were not worth it, and too quick solution of those plots that needed time to develop. The authors obviously learned something after that, but not to the end.

About the rest of the information. As I said, they haven't changed much from the original concepts, but something has changed.

Robby is shown not as a leader as planned, in the final animated series, little attention is focused on this, respectively, the relationship with Twitch has become a little different, she is much more a leader than he is.

Some details about Meridian, however, maybe in the third part of the first season they will still have time to tell about it.

Some of the designs in the concept arts were better.

I like that the Hashtag has an unusual purple color for one of the main positive characters in transformers, but it was worth diluting this color with other shades and accents, as it was on the original art.

Well, Nightshade could be a gargoyle. I have nothing against owls, but a gargoyle… I would really like to look at such an alternative mode. In addition, the physique on the concept art reflects much better the idea of the character that the authors wanted to introduce than the resulting close to a lean, masculine, too human-like physique. However, the shape of the head eventually came out better already in the cartoon, as well as the overall color. But, probably, everything depended on what design Hasbro could make a toy from, which is the determining factor.

In general, it was an interesting look at the working materials and how it all changed.

[autumnslance]

A thought occurs, given the recent WoLverse post(s)... Has Aeryn bumped into a Shard on the First or Thirteenth that could be her brother's? And if so... how well/badly did that go? :3

On the First, I headcanoned a sister for Ardbert, who would have been Zaine's shard. They also initially planned to go adventuring together, but she had a lover on their little island, ended up pregnant, and so Ardbert went off into the world on his own.

(This was also part of my initial "silly meta" given I was just using the base Meteor and Lady Midlander CGI models, with color tweaks, for Aeryn and Zaine, and we had Ardbert in the HW patches and knew vaguely, when I wrote "Bonded", only that we were going to see the Champions of the First again in the newly-announced Shadowbringers, and little else of the expac at the time. It was supposed to just be a ha-ha-funny coincidence. I should have known better.)

After defeating Mitron and Lohgrif and realizing "oh no!" Ardbert returned home...to find his sister and her child both dead to an accident, and his brother-in-law lost in a bottle over it. Ardbert, having already sacrificed his best friends, said one last goodbye at his sister's grave as Elidibus walked up, waiting on Ardbert to finish himself to ferry the fallen champions to the Source.

That was part of a story about the cycles of rebirth between Zaine, Ardbert's unnamed sister OC, and my Ancient OC Icarus. Ao3 link, as that version was heavily revised from the original prompt.

So Aeryn never got to meet Zaine's First shard, though she and Ardbert talked a lot about their late siblings during those long evenings in the Pendants.

As for the Thirteenth...either Durante or Rubicante would fit the bill, and I lean on Durante.

With the sibling soulmates the way things normally happen is Icarus's soul falls first, leaving Pandora's to carry onward. Icarus was with Venat in Elpis and met Aeryn. The tiniest sliver of Icarus's soul/aether/whatever is extant in her--and if our favorite pair of soulseers would have seen Zaine, they'd see the teeniest sliver of Pandora in him. Icarus did not join the party in Ktisis Hyperboreia, so retained his memories. As ever, he was desperate to help his sibling--even a reincarnation of her, who was herself Icarus's friend. Bolstered by the idea of that tiny sliver, he performed a risky magic to tie his and Azem's souls together (I really need to get last year's FF14 Write up on Ao3). But his own prophetic ability also showed him his reincarnations would always die before hers. That when Aeryn spoke of her brother in the past tense, it was because that was Icarus's modern reincarnation--who didn't make it out of Louisoix's spell (because he offered his strength to Hydaelyn).

Part of the problem with the Thirteenth is that the cycle is disrupted and then broken. Golbez (who I personally think was the WoL/Azem shard) was corrupted and Durante forced to Memoria him. Which then led to Durante breaking down and taking up Golbez's identity so the world would know their "true hero." It's all choices made of despair that I can see Zaine making, especially given the lengths his precursor was willing to go to, to stay with his heroic sibling and help her across millennia.

However, neither modern Golbez nor Aeryn have realized that connection, and no one they travel with currently has the necessary gifts to see it. So it doesn't come up during the story, nor matter at all before, during, or after. He's his own person, and has made his own choices--including, now, to hope again.

--

(I tend to think Zero is actually Zenos's shard, given the resonance of their aether to make her his avatar, and it makes for some interesting parallels about their potentials and how their natures and lives led them. And canon-Durante is another extraordinary hero the same way our Scion pals are. But overall I also don't worry about that all too much; those characters are themselves in the end. And all is subject to revision based on future canon revelations/changes.)

[residentsweatgoblin]

I'm only coming from the perspective of Ireland and Spain (Just Cataluña really) but "golliwogs" (the racist dolls mentioned above) havent been a thing since the 80s (still recent enough to merit discussion but not something ive ever seen in my living lifetime) and while the dutch are definitely very weirdly defensive about their "Minstrel Shows" (the festive blackface) I cant say I'm familiar with any other european yuletide traditions that are still practiced today that are particularly racist/offensive (I am open and encouraging folks to challenge me on this with citation btw). Anway, let me share with you some actually good european winter solsticetime traditions. In Ireland we sit around and drink from dawn til dusk around a warm fire with friends and family because its too fucking cold out and most everyone has work off, and we watch prince of egypt / ben hur / high school musical. Theres not really a name for it, thats just what christmas day/stevens day is about. As for a more localised tradition, remember that bit where I said its too fucking cold out? Yea well aparently all the leaded fuel really did a number on us Dubliners because come christmas day, without fail you'll see folks congregate at docksides, launches and beaches all around Dublin for a 'Christmas Swim'. Now, diving into briny water in late december at the same lattitude as Hudson Bay (thats in Canada), should probably be a death sentence, but Irish waters are fed into by a series of warm atlantic currents, so while still being pretty cold, its actually not terrible to swim in. And yea, people just go do it, on christmas day, because there wasnt shit else to do on christmas day back in the day. I dont know if this tradition extends to other coastal areas of the country but it probably does, maybe not up north cus its fuckass cold up there.

Now in Cataluña, *smacks lips* oh theyve got the best shit ever.

First of all, the nativity scene, the iconic centrepiece of christmas, such a pristine diorama, youve got the iconic trio joseph, mary and joseph, the donkey that worked so hard to get them here, some gentle well kempt shepherds, angels, cherubs, a divine star, theres even three kings that happened to be passing through town...but arent you forgetting someone? Arent you forgetting the most important figure in the nativity? Arent you forgetting...

EL CAGANER

Or to roughly translate: the shiterrrrrrrrrrrr

This guys a little figurine included in the nativity scene, typically placed outside the stable (the guy has a sense of decency he just had to go is all) its a predominantly Catalan tradition, but its common down the mediteranean coast and even Portugal and Naples.

Traditionally its just a little peasant guy wearing a red catalan beretina but theres shops around Barcelona where you can get celebrity Caganers.

this shit is better than funkopops in literally every conceivable way

But you know whats also a classic scatalogical festive season tradition in Cataluña?

Tió de Nadal

Look at this jolly little guy! Originally he didnt have the face or the legs and wasnt so small, once upon a time he was just a big log that you dragged into the house and assigned some personhood to for the hollywood season. Starting from the feast of the immaculate conception, every night before bedtime you give the tio a little bite to eat, and is covered in a red blanket to stay warm, then on chirstmas day or christmas eve, the kids beat the tio with sticks while singing songs, usually with lyrics ordering tio to defecate. After all the song and dance is done, you lift the blanket up and low and behold, tio has shit you out a beautiful pile of presents! Typically comprised of nuts, torons, candies, dried fruits and small toys, what a swell guy! Anyway, to get back to the topic of the post, im not trying to detract from the broad points, but for real it was kinda making it sound like every European country is the Netherlands and we're all out here cheering on blackface on christmas day. Again, if anyone knows of any other sickeningly offensive european holiday season festivities let me know, Im open to education and not just making shit up about other peoples of the world.

my only advice is to BE CAREFUL posting about holiday traditions around europeans. you'll post something casual like "anyone else watch the old Grinch movie every year? what a classic" and a european will appear as if summoned and say some shit like "funny how USAmericans always CONVENIENTLY forget that Not Everyone On Earth is from The USA…….. no of COURSE we dont watch 'the grunch' or whatever the fuck that is…. our tradition is to attend a community showing of Glummdorf the Racial Stereotype"

[fandomgirlz01]

📽 Fic: Don’t Leave Me Pt. 1 Ask: Faith and Nat! Questions: What inspired it? Were there more/scenes you wanted but didn't fit and if so what? And lastly, why would you leave us on such a cliffhanger!?!?!?! (jkjk i love it) Send you both hugs!💚

Blooper Friday Week One

Answered: Sat 23rd 2023 ✔️

My sweet sweet Kaylee, thank you so much for participating in Blooper Friday. It means the world to both of us. I'll probably have more to say then Nat will about most of these, but I will definitely include her on here. Also we are so sorry this is getting posted late. I {Faith} who does most of the posting worked very late on Friday night and was unable to post this for you until now. 

{Faith} What inspired it? With that being said to be completely honest with you I don't fully remember what actually inspired this one, but I will say that when I first got the idea it was after I had been reading a lot of Marcus fics plus I was also like on my fifth rewatch of The Mentalist so it was a little bit of probably both. Honestly this one was just an original idea that I got just out of the blue and a lot of my Marcus ones will be ideas I just got out of the blue. Also Marcus is one of my many guilty pressure men 😂 and he happens to be in a lot of my daydreams, and I daydream a LOT 😂 so it's really just my brain conjuring things up lol.

{Faith} Were there more/scenes you wanted but didn't fit and if so what? For part one there weren't really any scenes we cut, because it just flowed really. I mean there was definitely some dialog changed around to make it work better, but other than that part one really just wrote itself in a sense. Part two however definitely already has a scene I cut only because it didn't really fit as well as it just didn't flow with the attitude or "narrative" of the story. However, I will not be sharing that cut scene just yet, because well... It'll give a little bit of part 2 away and I wouldn't want to give much away for this one.

{Faith} And lastly, why would you leave us on such a cliffhanger!?!?!?! Honestly, it wasn't much of Nat's choice. I normally write and she just reads as she edits. So she gets just the same amount of shock as you guys do when she reads though and edits 😂. She always is leaving comments of her shock on the docs and it is just sometimes the absolute funniest thing ever (it's definitely a plus to have your best friend be your editor really). Also I love leaving people on the edge of their seats so a LOT of our fics you'll find cliffhangers. When we started this page we made a hard stopping point as well. We said each fic we wrote (or that I wrote...) we'd only write up to 5,000 to 6,000 words, only because I knew if I didn't have a hard stopping point I would write and write with no end in sight. So when I write I tend to write up to the 5,000 then me and Nat will discuss if we should keep it going in one part or separate it into different parts, more often or not they normally become more parts then one.

{Nat} As Faith said, I was just as surprised as you are to find a cliffhanger and I was just as upset 😂 But being editor has its perks as I usually get a sneak peek at the next part of the story. Cliffhangers are a fun little way for us to mess with the readers and keep them hooked. Also as Faith mentioned, sometimes we have to split up a story into multiple parts and don't have much choice but to end it in the middle of an intense scene. Trust me it'll be worth the wait.

Oh its always a good wait with me, I love to add in shock and awe factors to every story I write. I do love me so good angst 😂. Anyway, Thank you very much for being our very first Blooper Friday Kaylee, Lots of Love to you. Also 🤫 you didn't hear this from me, but I {Faith} will be posting pt. 5 to love uncovered very very soon so be on the look out guys 👀. If anyone else is interested in joining in on the next blooper Friday (this upcoming week) you can find a list of questions as well as our rules for this fun activity here. Or you can simply ask us a question from our A-Z here. Or even just ask us one of our many prompt get to know us questions here. We Look forward to hearing from you guys 🥰

[soltana-studios]

State of the Soltana Address - 2023-08-30 - Unpacking and Catching Up

Well, hey there internet.

I’ll try and go through this as painless as possible, but I know that with me gone for a bit, there’s a lot I need to address, including my absence in the digital world. Also, I’m posting this on Tumblr as oppose to the bird site, mainly cause this is kind of a mixed site between LJ and Twit for me. An unholy union. That said, let’s begin.

Where have you been?

So, right off the bat, I have been a little away from things for some time. Primarily due to some things in my life outside of the screen. This involves getting my work in order, finding a new job and getting married.

Sorry, Married?

Oh, right, yes, me and my wife (always feel like I sound like Borat when I say it) got married in June after being engaged for some time (longer due to COVID). I had to direct a lot of my energy and time into this as we both are anxious people and I hate planning things for large functions. Wedding itself was fun, lots of love and laughs. Great beautiful day and now I spend the rest of my life with my partner in crime. She’s stuck with me now, despite her knowing my insanity.

What Else?

Outside of the normal day to day stuff, we have been looking into adoption, due to some personal issues we both have. Won’t get into the nitty gritty of it, but it is due to health. Wife is telling me I would be a great dad and, honestly, I think that makes sense. I am at the point in my life where dad jokes do put a smile on my face rather than make me shudder. Then there’s just the upkeep of having a house, balancing work, and all the while, squeezing in moments for myself.

Seems Like You’ve Had a Busy Summer:

For the most part, it has been longer than a summer, but I will say yes. The problem is I’m finding smaller amounts of time to write and relax, and the time that I do have, I just want to decompress. As of late, my life is boring while at the same time being busy and crazy.

So, What is the “State of the Soltana Boss / Studio”?

Well, I’ll break it down as such:

I am currently working a personal omnibus for myself, in which I am about 90% complete. The details are basically a bunch of notes, original copies of all the stories I have done and references / guides that I managed to reorganize into a PDF.

I have been off and on with TFSU. As I said previously, Book 1 is fully fleshed out and I should be writing it, while the other books are in developmental stages. I’ll try and keep an updated log of this, but, for now, things haven’t moved

I have a couple of new projects I want to start, however, all I have now are concept ideas. They need a little bit of time in the oven before I can being the work on it.

I do have some stories of the Bing that I want to do, however, I’m treating them as low priority, due to, I don’t want to fall into familiar patterns.

What do you mean Familiar Patterns?

Lately, I have been stuck in the past. I didn’t realize that I was until I saw a story online that made me reflect on what I was doing. I was keeping the Bing on some ungodly life support, because I wanted to have the feeling that I had before of writing in a forum and talking with people or RPing in said forums. I was trying to recapture that feeling again, the joy that I had.

But unfortunately, I couldn’t. As dark as this sounds, we can’t go back.

That’s what I feel that the Bing was, a lifeline to try and pull me back into the past. I want to do new things with writing and not rely on characters that I know everything about and that every story about them has been practically done. I want to move forward with myself and write new experiences and characters.

What about TFSU?

TFSU is sort of a mixed bag. While it has a lot of Iris’s characters that I have worked on for a while, I see it as two things. One, an homage to a friend’s creativity and talent and two a new experience to write a different setting and bring in some new plots. I’m actually looking at TFSU as the first step in breaking out of these patterns and it is exciting.

Okay, so what’s stopping you?

Outside of the above? Well, I also managed to get myself a new Steam Deck. It’s the first next gen console that I have had in a while and I found I am actually playing some games. Speaking of games, I’ve also been sucked in to playing Gloomhaven a lot with my wife.

Gloomhaven?

Look it up, it’s a video game and a board game. Short of it, it’s DnD in a board / card game.

Anything Else?

Caught up on Geats , now I am taken a sabbatical, like I normally do, until next year to watch Gotchard

How was Geats?

[Inhales] Definitely not perfect, but it has been one of the best Reiwa Riders that I have seen. Ace reminds me of Tendou so much it hurts. I did feel that the last act kind of meandered, but overall it was a good season. I felt like I was enjoying it for what it was all the way through, unlike Revice’s second half where it kind of nosedived a bit. Some people might call me crazy, but, I put Geats in second place right now, as I think Zero-One still has that crown, in my opinion, as best Reiwa Season.

Also Geats IX? Best final form in the Reiwa era to date. I will fight anyone on this hill!

We good?

We good. I’ll try and post more online, but I might make more of these, just cause I find writing this easier than anything else.

Stay Classy Internet

- Soltana Boss

[blueisquitetired]

When you got time, do you have any tips on writing Ingo and Emmets dialogue? I really like how you write them but I can't seem to get their speech down. It's mainly Ingos which is annoying since he canonical has more dialogue than Emmet.

Oh thank you!! I’m glad you enjoy- writing these boys dialogue is one of my favorite parts of writing and has made me seriously consider how I write speech for every character I do. It’s been great practice!

Okay, actual advice time lol.

HOW TO WRITE INGO AND EMMET

(According to me, Blue)

(Now, keep in mind that there isn’t one true way to write the boys, and this is just how I personally write them. Take this with a grain of salt)

When you’re first starting out writing the boys I recommend writing dialogue in your own voice and then submasifying it.

For example, let’s take this dialogue and transform it:

“Sorry I’m late for work! My dog chewed through my nice pants so I had to find some new ones! It’s been a bit of a rough day today, not gonna lie.”

So starting with Ingo-

Ingo talks extremely formally and is super long winded. When writing dialogue for him, try to imagine a fancy British butler who uses long words and long sentences. Replace normal words with more “fancy” ones and use more words then you really need to. (A thesaurus can be extremely useful for this)

“My sincerest apologies for my tardy arrival!”

Then, pepper in train terms as much as possible. If he goes three sentences without saying something train related, find a way to stick one in. If you’re stuck, look up a list of train words and take inspiration (I’ll include a list of train expressions I commonly pull from at the bottom of the post) (Make sure to use “Bravo!” and “All aboard!” whenever applicable as well)

“I awoke to the unpleasant surprise of joltik holes in my trousers this morning- which delayed my cab significantly as I was forced to find an undamaged pair!”

I personally strive to use consonants (stuff like I’d, we’ll, don’t) as little as possible with the boys. For Emmet it’s to add to the choppiness of his dialogue and for Ingo it’s because that man would rather use fifty words when one will do. (It also makes them sound more professional!)

“Honestly, after a morning like this one, I pray that the remainder of today’s tracks prove to be much smoother.”

Another thing to keep in mind is that Ingo is extremely polite while Emmet is a bit more blunt. Try to use titles like “sir” and “miss” when writing Ingo- and then just don’t bother with Emmet.

Next up is Emmet, who I personally find much harder then Ingo! Unlike Ingo who’s dialogue you need to add words to, Emmet you need to subtract and simplify! This is the post I originally read to kinda get the jive of things, but here’s my pointers!

First off, figure out what concepts the are being expressed in your sentence, and split those apart.

“Sorry I’m late for work!” has two parts- an apology and an acknowledgment that the person is late. For Emmet we would want to split this single sentence into two.

“I am Emmet! I am late! Sorry!”

Next is vocal ticks! Emmet has several, and they should ideally be sprinkled in sparingly through his dialogue. (You can see that I used ‘I am Emmet’ in the previous section)

‘I am Emmet’ should be used when he is joining a conversation or when he’s about to say something about himself. It CAN be used more then once in a single conversation- but try not to overdo it.

‘Verrrrrrrry’ is another one! Other submas authors have him roll the r on other words as well, but I stick with verrrrrry. This one is easy to use- just extend the word very with extra Rs and use very whenever naturally applicable.

‘Yup’ is one as well- and one I admittedly don’t use often. It rarely jives with the way I write Emmet so I usually don’t bother- but you should definitely keep it in mind!

And of course, train terms! Less often then Ingo of course (since he says less words in general) but if you can find a way to fit it in, go for it.

“The joltiks chewed holes in my pants! Verrrrry naughty. Had to find new pants. Holey pants do not pass safety checks! Yup!”

Finally, the man likes his patterns! When writing Emmet it’s a good idea to have his Blubapedia page open nearby so you can just steal chunks of his script from that. (You can, and should do this for Ingo too!)

“Bad morning. Oh well. Follow the schedule! Everybody smile! All aboard!”

Of course, the man is perfectly capable of speaking longer sentences- but when and where he does so is up to the author.

All that being said, it’s important to remember that you’ll likely have to attempt their dialogue a few times before getting a sentence to flow right. Even for these examples I had to do a couple takes until I found one that really worked!

Here’s a couple of other notes for writing Pokémon characters in general:

Watch out for expressions and words that use animals. (like beeline or ‘in the dog house’) Try to replace those words with their Pokémon counterparts- (such as combeeline [which I’ve typed so many times I’ve started using internally in my day to day life]) or something that sounds close enough (like if your censoring f***, ducklett doesn’t work nearly as good as duck. So try muk instead!)

Do your best to replace religious swears with Pokémon religion! Instead of heavens, or the big G word, use words like, ‘Dragons!’ Or ‘Sweet Swords of Justice!’ (Of course, these are Unovan swears. For Hisui you should be using things like ‘Sinnoh’ and ‘great Time!’. Other regions have their own legendaries as well)

And finally, my list of train terms I pull from regularly!

Cab (or car): To refer to one’s body

“I am afraid my cab is in need of repairs.”

Tracks: A plan or intended route

“Very well! I will follow the tracks you have set!”

Destination: The goal or like, the actual destination

“Bravo! Your talent has brought you to the destination called victory!”

Station (or terminal): A location

“Very well! Let us set our tracks to the Pearl Clan’s station!”

Two Car Train (or three or four or whatever number you need): Friends or a team

“Emmet and I are a two car train!”

Couple (opposite being uncoupled): To join together

“I must ask that you couple your car to mine as we make our way through here. It can get quite dangerous!”

Engine: Another term for your body, but more specifically in regards to energy or drive

“I’m afraid I must rest my engine.”

Refuel: Eat.

“It is getting quite late- let us take a break to refuel.”

Conducting: Guiding

“I look forward to conducting you on this endeavor!”

Derailment (or collision, wreck, trainwreck): Something that has gone wrong.

“Apologies. It appears I have been derailed.”

Unscheduled (opposite being scheduled): Something unexpected

“Ah! A cave in! It appears we must make an unscheduled stop.”

Passenger: Person (or Pokémon)

“It appears we have picked up some unexpected passengers!”

Conductor: Ingo sometimes uses this to refer to himself (works especially well in Hisui)

“Passenger, please refrain from stabbing the conductor”

Delay: Something happening later then scheduled

“Apologies for the delay! Let us begin!”

Sidetracked: put off course

“Ah, but now I have sidetracked us with this talk.”

All aboard!: Good conversation ender 💙

“ALL ABOARD!!!”