#i'm not going to go into any of the reasons that people could not want to use the word queer

[comicaurora]

A bit of a strange question, but if there were any of your videos you were to "remake" today for any reason (ex: you feel like you misrepresented the original text or spread misinformation), which would it be and why? None of them is a perfectly valid answer

Again: bit of a strange question, but I've been thinking about my own creations and how I could have done so much better with some of them, but I also know that is a sign of my growth and constantly chasing "what if I did this instead" isn't always healthy for nurturing a creative mindset, and I was wondering what your opinion might be as a Creator of Things with a bit more experience than I

There's been a few trope talks where I've thought later of other angles I could've explored that might warrant sequels or part 2s, but I don't dislike any of the summaries enough to justify a rework.

I always find "I could've done this better if I made it now" to be a bit of a fallacy. I'm only better at making things now because I made all those earlier things. If I knew everything I'd learn from making a project before I started the project, it wouldn't come out the same.

I think when it comes to the "rework remake perfect" instinct, it helps to zero in on what the impulse is really grounded in. In my experience, more often than not, it's not actually about making the art better, except incidentally. It's usually about showing that you are better. It's demonstrating your competence and your higher standards and your skills, and more importantly it's overwriting the proof that you were once less than perfect. If people look at your old work and think that's all you're capable of, they'll be judging you poorly!

If that's the motivator, it's a very unhelpful one. You can't control for being harshly or incorrectly judged. It's a fruitless effort to stave off potentially upsetting outdated criticism, and it's not even going to work. Fear of critique is an unreliable and untrustworthy motivator.

If it really is about making the art itself better, perfecting your magnum opus with your newly leveled-up skills, that's a little more solid. But from where I'm standing, it's always better to use those skills to make something new instead of polishing something old. The older, unpolished work has already acquired its audience that finds it appealing for reasons that might never occur to you. Trying to bury or overwrite it just deprives that audience of the thing they like, and maybe makes them feel bad for having liked it in the first place. Also, usually when you look back on the older work, you'll conclude that the problem is everything and it'll need to be torn down and started from scratch. I know when I revisited the first three chapters of the comic, when I let my critic brain spin up, it wasn't shading or lineart I wanted to fix - it was panel composition, overall pacing, the entire structure of the chapters as a whole. I would've had to make them all over again to be happy with them, and they wouldn't be the same story by the end.

I've been thinking a lot about the Discworld through this lens lately. It ended up over 40 books long, but everyone agrees that the first two are not what you should start with, because they're the worst ones. They're entirely parodic, purely referential of at-the-time major fantasy series, and borderline mean-spirited in places. If you haven't read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Dragonriders of Pern, you're not gonna understand like a full 50% of The Colour Of Magic.

It's clear that when he started in on them, Pratchett was entirely focused on taking the piss out of a genre he found mostly shallow and unimpressive. But the Discworld wouldn't leave his head, and everything he made fun of he clearly eventually found himself overthinking. He'd make little one-off jokes in the early books about Dwarves having no women and a hundred words for gold, and then twenty books later he'd have a Dwarf gender revolution make waves across the Disc, and then he'd write Thud!, a book that delves deeper into the nuances of Dwarf societal structure than Tolkien ever did.

If you look for them, there are continuity errors everywhere in Discworld. In his introductory book, Carrot defused a dwarf bar full of rowdy brawlers by guilting them all into writing to their poor lonely mothers back home. Shortly thereafter, Carrot will be outraged at the mere concept of an openly female dwarf. Pratchett even eventually wrote Thief of Time, a book that loosely explains that the Disc makes no sense because history has been broken and put back together incorrectly twice, and therefore any continuity errors are because of that.

He's the writer. He could've gone back and fixed it, edited the reprints to be less disruptively discontinuous with the later books. Instead he continuously moved forward and allowed the world he made to grow without cutting it off from its roots. And because he didn't bury his older, far worse work, we have the privilege of following the Disc's evolution from the very start, and seeing how this shallow, stock fantasy world parody became something incredibly rich and complex without ever pretending like its early installments never happened.

Anyway, that's why I think it's better to move forward. You make more good stuff that way.

[starfieldcanvas]

reminds me of an argument i had in high school trying to explain that the expression was "play it by ear"—meaning "figure it out as it's happening, rather than plan ahead", like a musician listening to a song for the first time and playing an accompaniment spontaneously without sheet music—not "play it by year."

my best friend at the time insisted that it had to be "play it by year" because it was an expression about future plans and scheduling, not music, so "year" made more sense because it was a time measurement; she had some idea in her head about "let's keep our plans vague and figure it out later" matching well with a long-term time unit like "year", like, let's not figure out our schedule to the minute, let's take the long view and play it by year!

which, that is a very creative and interesting retroactive justification for a misheard expression ("it's a moo point—it's like a cow's opinion, it doesn't matter!") but what she thought was her strongest argument was that her mother said "year" instead of "ear," and her mother had gone to Yale, and did I really think someone who had studied English at Yale would be wrong about something like this?

i had to give up the point because another girl in our group was agreeing with her and this was before teenagers had smartphones so we couldn't just look it up on the quad. one of those silly things you remember for far too long because you know you're 100% right and nobody believes you.

---

longtime followers of mine may recall that i myself have a pet peeve misheard expression. this one is a real headache because the misheard version is far more popular than the original.

misheard version: "if you think [x], you've got another thing coming."

original version: "if you think [x], you've got another think coming."

because "coming" starts with a k sound, the k at the end of think blends into the c of coming and all you hear is the "iihnng" at the end of "think" that can be easily mistaken for "thing."

but the misheard "thing" version caught on decades and decades ago, to the point that you'll see it regularly in published media, and therefore never have any reason to question the "thing" version, even though it's much duller than the original.

"you've got another think coming" is an excellent folksy way to say "think again!" or, more specifically, "you'll be forced to think again because of what I'm going to do." even if you're only familiar with the "thing" version, you can recognize the logical progression of the original: the first think in the beginning of the phrase leads to another think in the second part.

"you've got another thing coming" seems to be interpreted by most people as a direct threat: the people I've asked tell me they imagine the "thing" in question is a fist or a beating (if they think it refers to anything at all—some people just interpret it as a meaningless filler word.) if you assume the "thing" is a direct threat, it narrows the utility of the expression quite a bit. after all, you can say "you've got another think coming" to mean "I'm going to prove your assumption wrong" in whatever way makes the most sense in context, while still benefitting from the repetition of "think x? think again!"

by contrast, while "thing" can technically be whatever you want it to be (e.g. "if he thinks he's going to win this game, he's got another thing [a defeat] coming", "if she thinks she's going to get away with fraud, she's got another thing [a lawsuit] coming") it still needs to be in the form of A Thing. So it wouldn't quite sound right in, for example, "if Great-Aunt Edna thinks I'm coming to visit, she's got another thing coming." You're not going to beat up your Great-Aunt Edna, and "me not coming to visit" isn't really a "thing" in the way the expression needs it to be to work. You could maybe say the thing Great-Aunt Edna has coming is "disappointment," but you'll be much better served by the original expression.

this has been a public service announcement to rescue "you've got another think coming" from the dustbin of history.

[kailoweenie]

Hyun-Ju/player 120 x Trans! Reader

A/N: can be read both as Transfem/woman reader or Transmasc/man reader. The reader is implied to have a physical appearance that points out they're not cis (e.g facial structures, hair, voice, etc but not specified!)

This is also very self indulgence because.....I'm a trans guy who really likes her so....T4T duo fr fr

Also the fact that there's barely any GIFs of her is crazy, I took this gif from an edit of her by @/slutcountry on TikTok LOL

You were here for a similar reason as she was. Whether it's to begin/continue HRT or start physically transitioning with surgery or even simply just needing the money to move to someplace more accepting

The first time you saw her was during the face scan at the very beginning of round 1. You just couldn't help but notice player 120 amongst the other players.

Your eyes widened as you realized that she could've been trans. Maybe it was a wild assumption at the moment but if you were right....then there was another player in the game who was just like you.

The first time you properly talked was during round 2 of the games.

With the other players reacting to you negatively for simply being or looking trans. You had no choice but to muster up the courage to approach the girl that you had been shyly keeping an eye on.

"hey..." You trailed off, voice quiet as you gently- yet slightly awkwardly- rest a hand on her arm. You glanced at the people around you before taking a breath, finally speaking up "can i...is it...okay if I joined you...?".

When she first turned to look at you, you almost stumbled a bit in surprise.

Unlike some other players, there didn't seem to be any fear or judgement in her eyes....she simply smiled and nodded, her voice deep and soothing "of course. We needed one more in our group either way". You gave back a small smile, nodding in acknowledgement to the other 3 players you were teamed up with.

You end up deciding to play the 4th game, the one with the spinning top. You of course stayed quiet when the others needed focus while also calming and cheering the others on if they end up panicking.

When it was your turn, there was still quite some time left. Though as you failed the first time, panic slowly started to creep in.

That is, until you feel a warm hand resting on your shoulder. Looking to the right, you listened intently as player 120 calmed you down. Taking a deep breath like she told you to do, you managed to get it to spin the next try.

The smile on your face was bright as everyone cheered in excitement but the only thing you could focus on was how proud she seemed to look as you succeed.

By the end of the game, you went back to the bed quarters. All 5 of you buzzing with gratefulness that you survived another round.

You sat next to player 120, too shy to sit too close yet still wanting to be close to her presence.

It was the old woman who spoke up first, curious about the both of you considering you both were...a bit obvious you weren't cis.

It was her who spoke up first, talking about her experience and how she wanted the money to move away. You sat there silently as you listened, almost every part of the things she said...you could unfortunately relate to. The need to go somewhere more... accepting.

"...I know how you feel" you suddenly spoke up, all four of them seemed to turn to you. Your confidence faltering a bit at the attention yet you kept going, your gaze flickering to player 120's face.

"The...desperation. The need to go somewhere that might be more accepting to people like me...to people like us." You sighed, idly playing with the hem of the jacket's sleeves "I'm in the same boat. I'm not exactly...." You trailed off, waving your hand up and down your body, hoping they'd take the hint.

Her gaze softened at your words, a small smile on her lips at the confession. The others didn't seem to mind either. You knew it was probably a...bad idea getting attached yet you can't help but care deeply for the other four already.

•It was player 007 who spoke up after a few seconds of silence. Deciding to introduce himself and his mom. That's when you learned each other's names. And that's when you learned her name.

"Cho Hyun-ju...you uh- you have a nice name" you muttered, loud enough for her to hear. The compliment seemed to surprise her a bit, clear in her face that she wasn't expecting it. You expected her not to say anything back yet when she did, your heart was practically buzzing in happiness

"...you have a nice name too." She paused, giving you a small smile "it's nice to meet you".

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 30/12✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

@pandorainabox ha chiesto: Hope this isn't a dumb question,but do you plan to/already are posting the bio parents ah anywhere where it can be viewed all in one piece? With the between posts in tumblr,it gets confusing and I still don't quite know how to navigate it so I was curious if I could binge read it anywhere all in one clean read? (I constantly want to re-read it lmao,it brings me so much joy,its so damn cute!!) Anyway apologies for the random question!! I love your work,you're doing so good and I hope you have an absolutely wonderful rest of your day/night! Thank you so much for taking your time to read and respond if you do so!! 💚💚���

i mean… I THINK the masterpost is the easiest way to read it for now (and once you read one chapter you press “NEXT” at the end of it.)

if I would put it, let’s say, on Webtoon (which I can’t) it kind of would be the same thing. A list if chapters, when you click on one it opens the chapter with the 10-20 panels and then you click the “next” to go to the next one.

i don’t think putting all chapters from one part would be nice since it would be a super duper long list of panels (and the page would take a lot to load with so many medias) and one Part of the comic contains multiple arcs.

i’m open to suggestions though!

@robinpika ha chiesto: I was just wondering why is wukong kaiju form unstable? What inspired you to go that route

it was an headcanon of my of why we never see it in the show, even though it is present in JTTW AND war forms are… well normal in LMK, so I figured he must have a reason why he didn’t use it, considering it could have spare them a lot of trouble giving its power.

@imafluffycupcakey ha chiesto: I can't find the option to ask anonymously oof— Enyway this is Tumblr and that's what I'm here for. Ever made a design for a Red son and MK kid? From your AU I mean (ignoring every nature law for a second). Also, where did you got that name for MK from? Is something from Jurney to the west? Mainly thanks to your AU I am going to try and read that book (has more them a 1000 pages :') )

we all subconsciously agreed that the spicynoodle lovechild is Kai from lego ninjago and MK real name is his name in the chinese dub.

@avencaeheng ha chiesto: Can you reccomend any websites to watch lmk? 🙏

You can find MOST of the episodes on youtube. BUT you need also the specials to understand the story. If I link you a site in 2 weeks it will be down. The best is that you join the Lego Monkie Kid Fanspace discord. They have links to see the show and they update them every once in a while.

@astro-lmk-enjoyer ha chiesto: Another silly headcanon <3 Since MK unlocked he’s monkey form he started teething like a baby monkey but… adult. I don’t know how baby monkey teethe but when dogs teethe they get a lot more bite-y and the bites hurt a lot more than before teething. I can imagineMK getting a lot more bitey with things, like chewing food longer then needed be and maybe when he’s play fighting with the baby monkeys he bites one and it chirps and Wukong is like: ! One of my children is in need! And he discovers MK is teething and does something idk yet. After having given my evidence… Do you think this would happen? Does MK have fangs in his human form like how some people draw him?

hi! I guess he did have a period in which he had a little teething.

no, his human form doesn’t have fangs, because his human form is just a kind of glamour/shapeshift. In the AU the monkey form became his normal form (since it always has been his original form to begin with)

toomanylegos ha chiesto: Hey, I just want to say I absolutely adore your ShadowPeach comic and the beautiful art with it. I went through nasal surgery on the 19th, and seeing an update from you really helped soothe my nerves about it, so thank you! I can't wait to see more updates throughout my recovery :D burry-penguin ha chiesto: As a spicynoodle shipper I love your work sm and what ur doing for this community KEEPING US FEED FOR DAYSSS!! 🔥🍜 🔥🍜 You’re so amazing and keep doing what you’re doing because you’re a damn good story teller and artist. You’ll go so far someday! You’ve helped put a smile on my face on my best and worst days just from seeing each new update and going absolutely fuckin feral over it and I thank you for that 🫶 imafluffycupcakey ha chiesto: Not really a ask. I would just like to say I inhaled your AU comic like a vacum cleaner in less them a day, also big fan of the art style. Anonimo ha chiesto: I'm recovering from a toxic relationship and the shadowpeach bio parents au is helping me think through everything ,, The love these monkies show me how relationships are supposed to make you feel good... thank u

turtlewearingclothes ha chiesto: Howdy! I just wanted to say thank you for making your amazing comic, and being the reason I got into Lego Monkie Kid. I've heard of the show, but I never watched it. Then I came across your comic like, 2-3 weeks ago? And after binging it, I decided to watch the show, and now I'm obsessed lol. Thank you!

AWWWW THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LOVE!!!♥️♥️♥️

@selfdestructivecat ha chiesto: Hey so I recently binged your LMK comic because I absolutely fell in love with your ISAT x COTL comic and knew anything you made would be amazing. I’ve never seen LMK though so I’m sure I lost some of the context (it was still so good though, I’m really rooting for everything to work out for the characters!) But I decided to give the actual series a try because of the comic! And here was where I planned on writing you a message after a few episodes to thank you for getting me into a new series, but… I’m on episode one. I only watched the intro. Dude. IM ABSOLUTELY HOOKED. THE ANIMATION! THE STYLE! THE CHARACTERS! I’m so so excited to watch more (which I’m gonna do now!) but thank you so much for bringing this series to my attention!!!

ahaha welcome to the club!, now you can enjoy both comics!

@therivergirl ha chiesto: I remember back in the beggining of eclipse arc you mentioned that Mac feels insecure about his body being part of the reason he's hesitant to take of his clothes even in front of Wukong and it being part of the reason (aside from basic decency) that Wukong looked away. And now in this part Mac appears butt-naked to help Wukong out, adding yet another layer of vulnerability...gah! (Maybe I should finally watch LMK because I feel I would be doubly obsessed with this comic then...)

For Mac being exposed was the last of his issues considering that what he was seeing was Wukong at his lowest and most naked. Now excuse me while I cry.

@astro-lmk-enjoyer ha chiesto: You probably know Chang’E’s story from LMK, but did you know there is a second version of her story that I like better? In the second version Chang’E and her husband(I forgot his name), are getting used to living as mortals after being kicked out of heaven. But someone hears of the immortal elixir they have and try to steel it while Chang’E’s husband is out hunting. After getting beat up a bit she decides to drink the elixir so the robber couldn’t get it. But she instead went to the moon so she could be closer to her lover. Her husband dies because he’s still mortal, and Chang’E is left be herself. I have silly little headcanon the day MK and the others went to the moon was her and her husband’s anniversary 🙃 Bye <3

AH. OK.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Do you think that wukong and macaque act like cats?

as in they would purr? I moslty think Wukong wants to cuddle and stroke his head on Mac neck like a cat, while Mac is that one cat that sometime is annoyed when people touch him but eventually let them do it.

Anonimo ha chiesto: ✨Hear me out :3✨ MK can hear the past. He heard the fight of of prentice and held his eye like he was getting hurt by Wukong and not Macaque. So now picture this: MK has a vision again, his this time it is about how the monk used the circlet on him :3

AHAH. NOW HE CAN’T SEE TANG THE SAME WAY AGAIN. FUCK.

Anonimo ha chiesto: When I first found your comic in your TikTok account, I thought it was something very silly... How very VERY wrong I was.(As I get shot 57 times.) I hope you are taking very good care of yourself because when I downloaded Tumblr to keep myself updated to your comics(which was somewhere around 13-16 December probably) there are a LOT of panels. I enjoyed the newest and most recent parts of the shadowpeach bio parent au and can't wait for the next!!! Don't work yourself to the bone too much! Remember to take mental and physical breaks.

AGHDMHSMFYS THANK YOU!!!

Anonimo ha chiesto: Are there others who flirt with MK ? He looks good, is very powerful and has a sunshine personality. I bet there are others who are interested in him

I guess there haven’t been any for NOW.

Anonimo ha chiesto: After reading the post about swk's circlet, I srsly want him to look at mk and say "oh, hey we're matching!" ... "OH SHIT WHY ARE WE'RE MATCHING?!"

NOOOOOO!!

@delightfulcupquakequeen ha chiesto: Hey there!!! Been awhile sincenI've written an ask, just wanted to send love and being greatful that you are doig this amazing AU!!!! Appreciating ever pannel you make and gosh dammit hitting me right in the korokoro!!!! Keep being your fabulous self!!! Until next time!

THANK YOUUUUU

@l1br4rycrypt1d ha chiesto: Feel free to ignore this if it's spoilers for the comic, but are we gonna get to see the Gold Star of Venus? Just curious, since you reblogged the meme post that mentioned him during the takeover

There will be a small space for them as well, yes.

@kaothedemon ha chiesto: Fun fact, while I doubt Pigsy has all of Zhu Bajie's powers, his ancestor did have a kaiju form, which he could use if he ate a fuckton I'm sure it's not gonna appear in the story, but the idea of Heaven having to deal with 3 Kaiju dads (+ theoretically a sworn uncle) is extremely funny to me (picture courtesy of OSP's latest JTTW episode cause even when I read the book there weren't any illustrations of this)

I SAW THAT!! Man now they must add it to the show. Yeah I don't think he has ALL of Zhu Bajie's powers (I don't think he would ever want to have them) but it would be interesting if it was a high stake situation

@roseltelle ha chiesto: I think Macaque would actually enjoy working/ volunteering at the playhouse specifically doing shadow plays. But he does regular plays as well. His favorite days are when classes of children come in for field trips. Wukong often paints the backdrops, scenery, and other items for plays. They both enjoy their hobbies.

Awwwww yeah I think Macaque would totally love that.

@lmk4ever ha chiesto: Can you imagine Wukong just being out of it after he distracted the celestials for too long in his war form?

I think that as soon as he sees Macaque again he immediately switch back and become behaved again.

@peach-fury ha chiesto: I think I know the answer but theoretically... Who's war form/kajiu is stronger Wukongs or Macaque's and how would it go? I don't know it started as a thought. Now I can't stop laughing.

Wukong's is stronger.

blbllblblblll ha chiesto: do you know the pronunciation of xiaotian? ive been stuck on how to say his name for so long 😭

I know that the "Qi" is pronunced "Chi" and I think "xiao" is pronunced the same as you would read it, while I THINK the "t" in "tian" is more of a mix between a t and a c/k? I aint chinese and the way I pronounce things or read them is probably different from u cause I'm italian.

eerieqloss ha chiesto: Okay question, is Wukong's war form bigger/taller than MK's?

it's taller.

@elliboom ha chiesto: I was wondering, will Erlang Shen ever appear in the Shadowpeach parent series? (And questa domanda la scrivo in italiano giusto per levarmi un’altra curiosità in futuro, preferisci che le domande vengono scritte solo in inglese o vanno bene anche in italiano? So che non ci sono molti italiani ad essere fan di LMK e JTTW, posso capire la scelta di scriverli solo in inglese per rispetto e far capire ai altri fan, e generalmente per scrivere le domande uso google translate, perché faccio pena con la grammatica inglese, mi scuso se in futuro farò domande con qualche errore 🥲🥲)

Si apparirà. Manda pure in italiano shalla ahah.

[brokeaesthetic]

Please yall Please 🙏🏾 retire the freaky fics for a day and put some serious thought towards a mini series. I can't take the freaky onshots anymoreeee Please feed me some real food. I can't take it anymore. Like I love what yall are doing, but when I go for my daily dose of fan fics i want a lil more yk( Not saying people aren't writing sfw and fluff they are, i just see that there's a lot more smut, Not saying I avoid smut or hate it but sometimes I just want more substance, Ive been feeling like fan fiction has been oversaturated with smut the past couple years but didn't want to say anything). I am so thankful for the 2 sevika series I'm reading rn. Forgot the titles, but one is about a zombie apocalypse, and the other is kind of a slow burn, but one of the readers' legs is kind of messed up. " Why don't you write some yourself?" If you scroll down, you'll see. I've said this before, but heres the updated reason.. I write like shit, I would probably drop it after like 3 chapters, and I learned the hard way that I'm more for reader than a writer. I'm sure if I locked in, I could really do something, but I'm in Uni😔 so im locking in on these classes. I'm just begging you all to hear me out real quick

Here are 2 ideas

• Vi isn't just looking for powder after she gets out of prison but reader/oc ( Either they were dating before she got arrested or They had a complicated relationship maybe with feelings they couldn't explain, but they were close, you know something along those lines.) There's so much you can do with that and make it a series and even continue it into the second season. ( The relationship is rocky at first because they're both super traumatized, but they still love each other to a certain extent, so they kinda make it work. Then because they're traumatized. They keep making mistakes, yk the typical stuff keeps working, then not working. But Caitlyn isn't completely discarded, they also have a complicated relationship it doesn't have to be romantic, but it's a little interesting. But reader isn't a big fan of their relationship at all because Caitlyn is an inforcer ( Let's say reader also lost her parents to enforcers.) So she's having a really hard time with Caitlyn and vi's relationship. But it's not giving she's playing both of them, or she's dating both of them. Basically, everything is so complicated. But you can tell the reader and vi are gonna end up together at the end.

• This one kind of takes from the story of my oc x sevika story ( but I don't really give a shit I'm not writing about it anytime soon) Basically before all that bs happened with sevika losing her arm she had a fwb/fling/situationship going on, and it was kind of getting a little serious between them. But all the stress of the enforcers coming down ( We all watched the same show there's no need to explain) While all that is happening, they begin to slowly distance themselves from each other because of stress or whatever but then sevika loses her arm, and reader is all like "omg bae your arm why didn't you let me know, You could have died and I would have never known." And sevika is all like " Why should I have told you? I don't need your pity or anything. I would have let you know if I felt like you needed to know." And reader is all like "wtf is with this attitude, You know, you should have told me. I would have been there for you. What's going on right now?" ( By the way, reader isn't just some push over, she's a little sassy ( I love sassy reader so much) So she usually doesn't let savika talk to her any type of way) the story's basically building up trust with any other exploring a relationship and going through the events of season one together, and maybe even season 2.

That's all the ideas I have for right now.But you can't tell me that wasn't fire. If you thought it was fire and you wanna see what you could do with it, Tag me or talk about it with me, I would love to expand on everything.

Just feed me something other than smut fics(ngl ive been eating them but im just tired of it and want something new💀), and please, if you could be let it be a series IM BEGGING 😔😢😢

Sorry for any grammar mistakes

[inbabylontheywept]

Hi. I had already written this whole thing but the app crashed and I don't have it in me to write it all again. Should've written it in another app and then copy/pasted here.

Anyway, I get the main part of the story, the conversation with your grandpa is beautiful and it's already making me look back with different eyes to experiences I've lived through as being mirrors, either the other person or my questioning them for their own sake. And it's always appreciated when literature can do that.

But! There are some coloquialisms or details in the story which are holes in my understanding. I've googled some but for others I'm going to take advantage of the fact I can actually straight up ASK the author for clarification and, who knows, maybe you even get some growth as a writer seeing where your international audience might struggle with stuff. So, if you'll allow me, I have three main questions.

1) Why were you lost?

From what I can gather from the story, a typical hunting day goes: drive up to somewhere new, park, register that location on the GPS, start walking without much care (maybe following tracks, I don't know), and then, and here's the bit that's confusing, rely ENTIRELY on the GPS to get back to the car? ???

Are there no landscape features, geographical accidents, a sense of direction, anything to make you go "hey we didn't come through here a couple of hours ago"??? You talk about a mountain but maybe this is one of those US states that's just a flat, featureless prairie and you DO need satellites to be able to find the same spot twice.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, that's not the intention, I'm just really confused. Shouldn't hunting involve knowing how to read your surroundings and get back?

2) Carrying a child. You say you had no option but walking, because there was no way your dad would carry you all the way. But he wanted to kill and carry an elk??? That's gotta be heavier than a tween. There must be something I'm missing here.

3) I got completely lost at the end. Too many coloquialisms in too short a space, and understanding their meaning through context clues gets hard when the context is also an unknown.

A doe tag is a license to kill only females of the animal, right? So your grandpa is straight up lying from the start. "We save (saveD? saW?) a five point" (is the expression correct?) means a buck, right? A "worth five points" male of the animal (what points? Aren't you hunting for meat? Do Mormons have competitive, ranked sport hunting?)

Then you dad smiles. Is he excited because he bought the lie? Is he on in the lie?

Then you "spin a yarn" which I always assumed meant telling a (truthful) story but maybe here it means you try to continue the lie on the spot?

Thanks for everything.

Why was I lost? The GPS was new, and we hadn't realized ways we could mess it up, so we just trusted it too much. Normally, we take in stuff like the direction we're walking, or landmarks, but we parked in a hard to see spot and we didn't keep any track of where we were because we had a magic GPS, and then we paid for it in sweat and tears. After that, we still used the GPS, but we paid attention and tried to keep in mind what would happen if it stopped working for whatever reason.

How much harder is it to carry an elk than a tween? A whole doe elk weighs around 500 lbs or 225 kg. When it's cleaned and stripped down to meat, the meat weighs about 150 lbs or 70 kg. We stayed within two hours walk of where we parked, so if we'd shot an elk right then we'd have only needed to carry 75 pounds apiece maybe 4 or 5 miles. And those 75 pounds can be carried however you want, it won't get uncomfy. 75 pounds of dead meat is much easier to haul than 75 pounds of living person.

Regarding the end: My grandpa lied about seeing a big buck elk because it's a great distraction. People love seeing them, and they love hearing stories about them, hence my dad's grin. Just being near an elk that big is kind of a mythic experience. Spinning a yarn in that context did mean that I jumped in with my grandpa and made up a story. We were hunting for meat. Doe elk are meat hunts. There IS a weird scoring system for buck elk that takes into account things like the weight of the horns and all that, but in that context the points are between 100-400. I personally never really used that system, so I don't know it too well. When someone says something like a two point, three point, four point, etc, they're talking about the number of tines on the elk's horns. A "one point", really just called a spike, looks like this:

Which is cool enough I guess, but a 6 point looks like this:

Which is incredible. It's hard to convey the size of the things. They're over 350 kg, and they can run over 70 km/hr on a 30 degree slope. And they'll do it damn near silent. Feels like it should be loud enough to shake the sky down, but the bird noise around will be louder than their steps.

I hadn't really considered how much of the hunting stuff might go past people, but yeah, I can see that now. I don't think even a lot of Americans hunt, and I imagine it's even rarer in places where the ratio is framed as people-per-gun instead of guns-per-person.

[cjlouwho]

hey cj, it's bisexualbrainrots again, and damn you've rotten my brain with kidnapped tommy so i made this. beware i listened to "only love can hurt like this" on loop while writing. big cw though, it's... quite something.

The air is wet, it's always wet down here.

It makes his nose tickle sometimes, and he has to fight every urge not to sneeze, otherwise he gets reprimanded, again and again.

He knows it's stupid to hope, it's been so long he can't even think what day it is. It feels like it's been years though.

But it's okay, nobody's looking for him anyway. 

Nobody is. 

And yet, he still holds onto his memories, at least for a while before the tears form for reasons other than the constant beating and burning of his skin. He can hold onto that, onto the drinks, the pick-up games, the karaoke trivia nights.

He can hold onto those blue eyes and that birthmark. 

He can hold onto someone's who's forgotten him by now. 

He stares into the line of light that comes out of the frames of the door, and thinks for one second that he could try and get up, that he could escape. 

Except he's so tired, he can barely squirm without shockwaves of pain flowing through his body, it doesn't help that he's barely fed throughout the day. But he's gotten used to that, to that hunger.

He still isn't used to the broken bones though.

Maybe his leg is finally going to heal, or has, he hasn't tried to put his weight on it yet. He's too scared. 

He's always been scared.

Maybe that's why he's sabotaged every good thing in his life, maybe… maybe that's why he'll die alone. 

Like he was always meant to. 

He thinks back to when this started, when he woke up, his hands tied and his body resting on a chair, a chair that soon would fall along with him. He used to scream so loudly, begging for somebody to listen, to find him. 

He lost that will a while ago. 

He frowns when he hears noises, it's not him though, he's learned to pick up the signs, this is… this is different. 

It gets louder and louder. Steps, people talking, they're approaching. 

And suddenly, the door breaks and at least five people get inside the room, he has to adjust himself, shutting his eyes from the light that's almost blinding him. It's not like there wasn't any light in here, there is a lamp above him, but it was always warm and low. 

This… this was too much. 

“Tommy… Tommy!” he feels a hand touch his shoulder, and as his eyes flutter open he sees her. 

Athena. 

“W-what…?” his jaw hurts, he's still recovering from the hit he took yesterday, and he remembers the sting when he had to chew that stale bread. He refocuses on the woman in front of him, the woman he hasn't seen in months.

Her brows are furrowed, but it doesn't look angry or confused she's… worried. 

And it hits something inside his chest. 

“You’re okay now, we’ve–we’ve found you Tommy” she looks at him fondly before she stands up, while the rest of the people search things around the room. 

One of the kneels, and asks if he can stand, offers him to lift him. But he just shakes his head to both questions, and tells them, in an extremely weak voice, that he just wants to rest. 

His hands are freed, and it's weird, not having those ropes on them anymore. 

The group tries to give him small talk, but he's still so tired, he just wants to sleep. 

All he wanted was to sleep. 

Until he heard him. 

“Tommy!”

It was gutural, like he was desperate. 

In less than a second he had those blue eyes way too close to his, and he didn't know what to think, or feel.

He lifted his hand, searching for his face, and smiled weakly when he got to touch his cheeks. His wet cheeks. 

“You’re not a dream…”

Evan chuckled “Of course I'm not a dream… God, Tommy” he felt his upper body being lifted and winced, hissing at the pain still very much alive “Shh s-sorry baby… I'm so sorry” 

He looked up. His head was resting in Evan's lap, and Evan was holding— clinging onto his shoulders, like he was about to disappear if his hands weren't touching him. 

He smiled at him “D-don’t be sorry… I’m okay now”

He blinked when he felt something wet hit his face, and when he looked well he say it.

Evan was crying, or well, sobbing, his speech were hard to understand too. But he could follow.

“S-something was wrong and I didn't know, I'm sorry Tommy I didn't know, I didn't know” 

There's nothing he wanted more than to lean in and kiss the tears away, but he was so comfortable right now, he was about to fall asleep. 

But he had to say something before. 

So he shakes his head, giving him a comforting smile “It-it’s okay… I never… expected anyone to look for me anyways”

And he gave in to his slumber. 

At least if he died he wasn't alone anymore.

Praying with everything I have that I don’t plagiarize when I eventually write my fic but this was too good to avoid reading 😭 😭 😭

[trulycertain]

I've seen this idea that during In Hushed Whispers, Dorian is showboating and saying whatever comes into his head, and nothing else. No, I really don't think so. There's a lot of principle and empathy under all that.

He's so damn crestfallen - "Once, [Alexius] was a man to whom I compared all others. Sad, isn't it?" Even if you opt for saying that back in the present, Alexius still might be reasoned with, Dorian's response is a quiet, "I suppose that's true" - not as if he believes you, but as if he wishes he could. (Back in Haven, one of the first things he says if you ask him about whether he's seen Alexius is that the man is to be judged soon, and perhaps we can show him mercy? Said like he knows it's a vain hope and he's leaving it in the Inquisitor's hands, but interesting to note. It matches very much with his later-game approvals and dialogue, where he's upset by loss of - non-Venatori or red templar - life and collateral damage in any form.)

He's also not fully confident in his abilities, trying not to promise too much, and honest about that; sure, he makes that half-joke about "I'm here. I'll protect you," but when Fiona expresses excitement about him maybe being able to get himself and the Inquisitor back in time, he points out gravely, "I said maybe."

He's also horrified by what's happened to the world, he's just trying to put it aside. (Look at his response to realising that red lyrium is growing out of people, for instance - or when he finally lets himself think about what's happened to Alexius and Felix, and has to pull himself back together a little; he's clearly not sure how much he can afford to let the Inquisitor see of his vulnerability, and sidesteps it, but it's there. Leliana correctly points out that he's just talking to fill the silence, which suggests he's nervous/disturbed as hell, offhand jokes about the Venatori's taste in draperies and light reading or not. The jokes and the questions to try and get his head around things are clearly how he deals with those nerves.)

There are also some lines that suggest Dorian is very, very wary of the Inquisition but wants very badly to believe in it (which, looking at his dad and Alexius, every time he's put his trust in an idealist/s it's ended badly). When you talk about recruiting the mages, he has a sharply pointed line about how Alexius chucked the mages into indentured servitude, but "the Inquisition will be different. …The Inquisition is different, yes?" And heck, even when he gets to Haven... note how he's found the quietest, most shadowed position where he can be less harassed, but keep an eye on comings and goings; he does the exact same at the Winter Palace. He's taking the Inquisition's measure.

He was trying to impress at first, so he was in a position to help and you wouldn't kill him. He's pretending to have foot-in-mouth with occasional genuine (rather than constant) slips into it... but he's principled, careful and scoping out the Inquisition for a trap as much as they're doing the same to him. And as he says himself: "[My people] care, deeply." I think anyone saying otherwise is getting distracted by the flashy stuff, precisely as he wants you to be.

[thydungeongal]

I feel like maybe I'm out of the loop on this, and you are one of the most well-versed people I've ever seen when it comes to ttrpgs, so I'm hoping you might be able to enlighten me on this. I've played a good few games in my time, but I've been running into people who seem to have an almost feral hate for any "Powered By the Apocalypse" game. Now I can't say for certain all of them I've played (at least 3), but is there something about the system that just enrages people?

I know that some people dislike PbtA games for reasons that boil down to matters of taste. One of my good friends, the lead writer of @anim-ttrpgs does dislike PbtA games, and in his case it boils down to a number of reasons: he feels the structure of these games is often a bit too restrictive and ends up with characters who are defined largely by their narrative tropes; and another reason he tends to dislike them is that the popularity of the framework has led to a lot of lazy PbtA games that don't really do anything interesting with the framework and are kind of just lazy and bad. That's a surface level read of his points and he's actually written a long post about it, but especially on that latter point I do agree with him: it's nowhere near as bad as the proliferation of lazy D&D 5e hacks, but on the indie RPG side there are a lot of cases where someone feels that a PbtA hack would be perfect for their first TTRPG. The thing is, it's very easy to make a PbtA game, but it's extremely hard to make a good PbtA game. Some of the best games I've seen using the framework are actually quite involved and have lots of interlocking parts, but a lot of the ones I've seen are simply kind of. Meh.

But there's another strain of PbtA haters out there that I know of and this group of people is best characterized as "people with a grudge against certain types of games doing the worst faith reading of those games to find 'flaws' in them." I think the most visceral hatred of PbtA games I've seen was on The Gaming Den, where a bunch of dudes convinced themselves that PbtA games are bad because on a roll of 6- a GM could just make bears happen out of nowhere. So, you know, it was a bunch of guys who did a surface level read of Apocalypse World but never read the MC principles, because if they had they would have realized that "Make a move that follows" is one of the MC principles.

All of which is to say, it's more or less the same that's going on with pretty much any RPG: some people will read a game and give it a shot and decide it's not for them, and often come away with a way to articulate why they disliked it. Other people will go in wanting to find a reason to dislike a thing and do the worst faith reading possible. And a lot of people will simply never read a game and simply accept that the previous group's reading of it is true.

So none of this is to say that none of the people who you've encountered have actually read a PbtA game and played it and actually formulated their opinions through experience. But knowing what nerds can be like it's probably at least some of them.

[l-in-the-light]

I'm just gonna leave it here lol. Come on, Zoro can be pretty dumb, that's the point of it. Always has been. You think Zoro even noticed he chomped down some razorblades? Ofc he didn't! It was just some crunchy food for him. And he's too airheaded to realize only his lunchbox had anything crunchy in it lol. There's a reason why Luffy and Zoro are besties, and that reason is: they're both kinda dumb. Personally, it only makes me like them more.

But if anyone wants to go serious route here, I think we should instead ask this question: what made Zoro this way? Is he so used to eat trash to survive that a bit of poison and inedible things don't affect him all that much anymore? When we look at Zoro's backstory we can realize that he was pretty much always alone. No family, always training. Like sure, he had the dojo, but he didn't think they're his family or at least we never see anyone treat Zoro this way or him addressing them as family. He called Kouzaburo just "some old guy". No one told him they're all probably relatives either (we know thanks to SBS that they, in fact, are somewhat related). Zoro lost his parents and was on his own ever since (his father died fighting against pirates, his mom was a bandit and died of illness). How did he find the dojo, what did he do to survive before they took him in? Let's not forget Zoro was always full of pride and very stubborn. I doubt descendants of samurais would just tell him "we need to take you in, otherwise you will starve". Maybe they told him instead that they will take him in only if he promises to train (because he has potential), so in exchange he tried to be good with swords, so he can somewhat repay them for their kindness and care. Like to show their efforts to train him didn't go to waste.

Anyway, my point is, Zoro at some point in childhood might have also learned how it's like to be starving what a coincidence, it's like with Sanji huh. Luffy also knows that feeling, when Garp left him in the jungle alone and told him he needs to survive by himself. He had to try out things to eat if he didn't want to die of hunger. We can laugh that Luffy is so stupid that he's eating any mushrooms he finds, but that's probably something he learned as a kid to do to survive. So I bet Zoro, who can eat any trash you give him, is also showing us he didn't have an easy time as a child.

Disclaimer of sorts: And before anyone protests that only Sanji is allowed to have a starvation as a theme in his backstory, otherwise it won't be unique anymore, I dunno, what about Nami (who lived in poverty and at times had to survive on tangerines alone), Usopp (what did he eat after his mom passed away? who took care of him?), Chopper (yeah, he kinda ate a devil fruit because he was hungry and somehow assumed that looks edible huh), Robin (lately it's been revealed how she had to eat from trash to survive) and outside Strawhats, what about Law? After he got out of Flevance and before he joined Donquixotes, he had to survive somehow. The only possible way he could have done that is by living on the streets and by eating trash or stealing. There's a lot of starving kids in One Piece, that theme is not exclusive to Sanji, but it also doesn't make it any less special. Sanji himself is what made it actually special; by vowing he will feed all the starving ones, no matter what troubles it will bring him, no matter if someone he feeds has bad intentions or might be a bad person. He's not letting anyone starve and nothing is ever gonna make him regret feeding people, even if they try to harm him instead of showing gratitude. That's what's truly special about Sanji's backstory, the starvation bit is just allowing him to relate to starving people more. You can say all you want about Germa, but Judge didn't starve his son, and ever since he left his family Sanji worked on the cruise ship and didn't really experience hunger either.

The Razor Blade scene: Character assassination, a joke, or something else?

I've been seeing people discuss two small scenes connected to each other post Fishman Island and in Punk Hazard, the first where the two are bickering and they say this:

And a scene in Punk Hazard where Sanji packed lunches for Luffy, Zoro, Robin, and Usopp and Zoro is making "crunching" noises in the panel, and Oda reveals in an SBS that Sanji did actually put razor blades and poison in Zoro's food:

I have seen claims of character assassination in this scene for Sanji, considering his position on food being something everyone has a right to and his refusal in Whole Cake Island to put poison in the cake they plan to give to Big Mom:

I understand that comparing the two scenes, it does look like Sanji is abandoning his ideals just to get back at Zoro in their fight. But we need to look at both what Oda is saying in the SBS and also Zoro and Sanji's relationship to understand this scene, and why I don't believe this breaks Sanji's character or his ideals.

In the SBS, Oda ends the answer with "The serious nature of their fight is what makes it interesting." Going back one panel and seeing what triggered this fight:

It was Zoro being a lil shit and calling Sanji "Nosebleed-kun." That's to say, this fight is no more serious than their usual bickering, and Oda is making fun of that. Ultimately, this scene and the lunchboxes is a running joke, so that is one thing to keep in mind is that the scene, and Sanji by extension, is not serious about this fight. Of course, jokes are not immune to committing mischaracterization, so we have to look at their relationship too to make sense of it fully.

So why did Sanji actually put poison and razor blades in Zoro's food if he believes that poison shouldn't be used in food? I think at the end of the day, we have to remember that Sanji would never hurt anyone through food, especially the ones he cares about. And he does care about Zoro, it is shown time and time again that they watch out for and care for each other, from Long Ring Long Land, to Thriller Bark and Saoboady, and in Wano. My point is that Sanji knows that Zoro is a freak of nature and wouldn't actually be hurt by the razor blades or the poison, and that he would finish the food.

Zoro actually eats the damn food and literally says nothing about it, Oda didn't even think people would catch this it was such a small detail, but it's one I really like. One because, honestly, it is a funny joke to me, but also it shows a level of trust and understanding of each other? Sanji knows that Zoro is such a brute that he can just fucking. Chomp on metal (which. you know he does on the regular anyways LMAO) and have a little bit of poison go through him and he's literally fine. This is no worse to me than Sanji kicking him. And Zoro just accepting what he's been given, literally no complaints, and he finishes the food and doesn't waste it, because he DOES respect what Sanji does for him and the crew on a daily basis.

Ultimately, the difference in this scene and in Whole Cake Island is that Sanji KNOWS that he isn't actually gonna hurt Zoro by pulling this on him, hes looking to call Zoro on his taunt and be an annoying brat back to him. Bege is seriously asking him to kill Big Mom through the food that he makes, something that's on a completely different level then him pulling a prank on Zoro. The razor blade joke no different in this scene as well in Wano:

I don't think this is out of character for Sanji, it is their usual pettiness on full display, but also serves as a nice small detail into how they understand and trust each other.

[scruckels]

Hi! I noticed you're accepting questions, so I'm reaching out with a few questions I've had for a while in my head — Would it be inappropriate to refer to him as "fish" or "fish guy"? He's got some fishy features, but what if someone wants to call him something like 'hey, cute fish', like in a friendly way (diminutive nickname)? Would that be okay? I don't understand the subtleties between non-humans and humans in the Arcane world. — Can he eat seafood? Like… I don't know :D

(Sorry for my English - it's not my first language.) Thanks for your research and interest!

I LOVE YOU, AND NO WORRIES! I'M GLAD PEOPLE LIKE READING MY YAP 😭🫶🩷

I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE BOTH OF THESE QUESTIONS, AND AFTER SOME THINKING, I'VE GOT AN ANSWER FOR BOTH OF THEM. ( evidence included because i'm a nerd )

SO HERE IT IS.

In Arcane, there really isn't any show of hate towards different species or races, both in Zaun and Piltover. Both the topside and undercity are very classist, but not racist. Maybe they are ignorant to some things about other species, but there typically isn't any ill intent or harmful action because of it.

Back to the first question.

IS IT OFFENSIVE TO CALL STEB A FISH OR "FISH GUY?"

( Or anything of that nature. )

My answer!!:

It's probably a little weird.

While there isn't much show of derogatory terms towards Vastaya or other species, it still seems rude for a number of reasons.

Steb isn't really a "fish." He seems to be an aquatic half-Vastayan. While his DNA may derive from some kind of fish, I don't think that's how he would be referred to as. It would be like walking up to a human and calling them an ape or a chimpanzee because of their appearance and DNA. Imagine a civilized, talking, otherworldly species coming up to you calling you a "cute chimpanzee." It just seems kind of odd.

But that's using our world logic. Could he be classified as a kind of fish in their world? Maybe...? Nobody in Piltover or Zaun really makes any comments about other species, so it's hard to say how he's typically classified. Maybe he's referred to as a fish Vastaya. But even then, just calling him a fish isn't very accurate.

That aside, do I think Steb would be offended, even if it is an odd thing to say? I doubt it. He probably wouldn't have much of a reaction. I can talk about this for a very long time, so I'll just leave it at that and make a whole separate post about how he is with people. In this situation, if you two are close and you frequently call him that, I'd say there's a good chance he'll find it a little funny. (Maybe even sweet?)

Before I go to the next question, I'd like to clarify that I DO NOT have enough information to be 100% confident in my answer. Maybe calling him a fish is okay!! Throwing cute in with it might even make it a pretty cool abnormal compliment! Maybe Steb had been called that before? Who knows!!!

But with all of this new information... my next point.

CAN STEB EAT SEAFOOD?

Probably.

There's this... butcher... cook... chef guy in Zaun...? (His name is Jericho.) But as you can tell, he appears to have aquatic orgins.

↑↑↑↑↑↑

And he certainly doesn't mind cutting up and serving some aquatic life. ( Or watching Vi smash the seafood in front of him )

While this is in Zaun, I'm assuming the same rule applies in Piltover. Since this guy isn't a fish, he can cut up and serve fish. Since Steb isn't a fish, he can probably eat fish.

Conclusion of the yap:

Fish Vastaya / Aquatic Vastaya = not animal

Fish / Aquatic life = animal

(Following human people logic)

SHOUT OUT STEB NATION!! 🗣🗣🗣🗣⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️💯💯💯💯💯❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊

[mantequillamcwhoremick]

Mysterion in Chaos Plan

Upon request I'm gonna translate my elaborations on this post on Mysterion's design in my fic :> I wish I could actually present you guys with a drawn design but i haven't had time to draw lately plus all my attempts to draw him until now haven't been satisfactory to me, but I still wanna rant about my choices.

[Anyways, first things first, IF anyone ever is tempted to draw any fanart (giggles and kicks feet uncontrollably) I want y'all to know there's no pressure to stay true to these ideas. The descriptions & details for Mysterion's getup in my fic are purely practical, because design is a visual element that isn't considered in questions of practicality and realism. If you have any ideas you like better for his design, or if you feel like any of this is hindering your creative freedom, by all means throw this in the trash and do what you want instead. I love seeing people's individual creative interpretations and I don't wanna hinder anyone's creativity.]

Anyways, with that out of the way, let's get to it.

(from chapter 2 of Chaos Plan)

I'm a SUCKER for Miles Morales' silhouette as Spiderman in the first movie, and because both Mysterion and Spiderman are both vigilante/heroes with working class roots I love to find similarities between the two of them. So I'll be referring to Miles a few times in this post >:)

I like the idea of Kenny using really old maybe counterfeit brand basketball shorts that he used to wear to sleep or something. I'm not yet settled on the specific patterns/lines that I want them to be adorned with, so just for reference you can imagine something like this:

As for colors; I like the idea that these shorts might be the brightest part of his outfit as a reference to Kenny's dumbass "underwear over pants" design in canon.

His canon design is also the main reason I don't wanna give him just normal long pants, and instead stick with the Miles-Morales-type shorts-over-thermal leggins idea.

I like to think that Kenny got thermal ski underwear (pants and undershirt) from Kyle or Stan at some point for when they went camping (bc ain't no way Kenny would go skiing), and he just forgot to return it aka they forgot to ask for it back, so that's what he uses underneath his hoodie & shorts to keep warm.

For colors, I like the idea that they're a dark color to contrast the light-colored shorts but have lines similar to these in a neon green color. Just to add a fun something

And well, then there's his hoodie. Just a regular ol' hoodie, a dark one of course to blend in better into the night (dramatic ass bitch), dark purple like Mysterion's cape in canon except he has no cape because. well. realistically, impractical. But yeah, I imagine it to look a little makeshift, which is why I have Kenny spray-paint the question mark in the front (and an unmentioned "M" on the back of his hoodie) to give it that tacky look. Again, like Miles does his Spiderman costume in the first movie.

(screenshot from chapter 6 of Chaos Plan)

As for his pouch/fanny pack; I was very inspired by the type of clothes people who do parkour wear, and that shit has to be very light for maximum mobility. A utility belt wouldn't be the best choice for hip mobility, so a fanny pack he can slap across his chest and back would be the way to go. It just needs to be big enough to store some fireworks, a gun (the one he stole from Harris lmao), cigarettes and other miscellaneous things like a lighter, lock picks, his small knife, maybe a chapstick idk he definitely should

Something like this but, again, creative freedom is welcome.

And well, then there's Kenny's gloves (crucial!! bc it's cold as balls plus he CANNOT LEAVE FINGERPRINTS ANYWHERE!!), his mask, and a bandana to hold back his hair. Here's a really old shitty sketch I did once gashagdha (yes he has long hair that he has to tie together. I haven't mentioned this in the fic because i'm an idiot)

And well, for warmth & anonymity reasons I often describe him wearing a thermal tube scarf, kinda something like what I often see in Princess Kenny fanart to cover his mouth. But I haven't yet found a way to make this look cool in combination with the mask so maybe this will only stay in written word...

As for his shoes, I'm not really attached to any specific type but I do find it significant that they look like they're being held together by hopes and prayers. Tongue, collar and lining sticking out upward as the shoelaces wrap tight around the ankle to ensure it doesn't slip. Maybe duck-taped together at the tip or something. Listen, it's hard to buy new shoes when you don't want any purchases to get traced back to your identity, okay. He's forced to raw-dog this shit and we respect that.

Anyways that's it!! someday i'm going to edit this monster fic and all these details will be much clearer from the text alone, but for now we're running on the first version of the story so bear with me. I might do a similar post for Chaos too if I don't manage to draw him first :)

[ladyofthebookcase]

i need to yap about cultural nudity in nine sols NOW. context for new followers is that i watched kill la kill this summer and really enjoyed it and the commentary it made on nudity and the desexualization of the naked body. not sure how i want to structure this so i'll just kind of block it out based on the three main characters that are relevant to this. also when i say "the text" i mean the game of nine sols as a piece of media, like how english majors would refer to the book or movie they're studying. im not an english major but i could be.

goumang: my initial reaction to seeing her was to be like "huh she's not wearing any pants that's weird", followed by "well that's probably normal for solarians, they're cat people after all so it's probably less of a big deal in their culture" and then i just didn't care about it for like the rest of the game until i replayed it and got to her again and went "oh that's right, no one else has their pussy out like that. i guess that's just a goumang thing?" and, while i think it IS probably just a goumang thing to some extent (see the post about her being pussy out because of furgonomics basically/it's comfortable for her bird legs), an interesting thing to note here is yi's complete lack of reaction to it. goumang doesn't interact with any other characters in this outfit (the jiangshi don't count cus they can say like 2 words ok), and it could be argued that yi simply has bigger priorities/is not into women, but i do think it's notable nonetheless that literally zero acknowledgement is made to the fact that goumang is just walking around pussy out. not even non-diagetic elements interact with that at all; she's never censored in her manga cutscenes or posed in a way that either hides or exposes her. what this means is that her nudity isn't really treated like nudity. the text completely ignores it! now, we also know from a dev comment that solarians are matriarchal, which i think definitely ties into the different treatment of goumang and jiequan in this regard (i.e. why he's censored and she's not, from an in-world perspective, probably is similar to the way "women's" chests are censored in our world, although non-diagetically we know why he's censored lmao.)

jiequan: ok hmm. i'm no jiegolar, so i'm open to input on this one, but the element here i find significant is that jiequan is seen interacting with another person (aside from yi) while being naked. the fact that ji is hidden behind a screen is most likely just to obscure their identity (specifically his tall form) from the viewer, since they don't seem to have a problem also going around essentially pussy out the entire game; this is to say, it's not because jiequan is naked. i will say that the jiequan naked scenes have quite a different Vibe than the goumang and lady e scenes (no seriouesly why is that one cutscene so sexually charged help) but i think it's reasonable to chalk that up to 1) jiequan is a freak and 2) he's obsessed with yi so that changes the overall vibe of their interactions as opposed to, say, goumang. yeah i don't really know what i'm saying on this topic i don't have enough jiequan brainrot experience for this really. it does kind of give the vibe of like an emperor chilling in the nude in his palace and he's allowed to do that because he's the emperor though.

hm. yeah let's move onto something i've thought a bit more about.

lady ethereal: now THIS is really interesting to me for a few reasons, the first of which being that yeah, she's hot, and the game treats her as such! and yet at the same time it doesn't oversexualise her, or portray her as attractive at the expense of her personality. in fact, once again yi makes zero acknowledgement of her nudity-- his focus is on her, and that something strange is happening to her. yi also shows no discomfort or shame about entering the hot spring-- there's no "wait, you want me to get naked?!?!?!" moment that some media might have had, and i think that's really good not only because im a sucker for different cultural and hypothetical-cultural interpretations of nonsexual nudity, but also because a moment like that would have been cheesy and annoying and made the scene less serious. the focus of that scene ISN'T that the hot lynx woman is hot, it's that there is something mentally wrong with the hot lynx woman. the fact that these scenes take place at a hot spring without the text ever interacting with the nudity of the characters is to me a really strong argument for the idea that nudity is fairly normal and definitely not inherently sexual for solarians. the idea that it is inherently sexual is a very historically recent and western thing anyway and maybe i just haven't consumed enough media where it's not portrayed that way but i found this portrayal really refreshing ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS WOMEN ok this isn't even in a gay way i literally don't care about bodies like that. i dont having sex. i just think it's really really refreshing and nice for women to be, like, able to have these kind of scenes and character moments without the text reducing the entire scene to "ohh look boobies lol". without them being censored or hypersexualised or made into a joke. rips off shirt to reveal a tattoo on my bare chest that says "I FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT AFAB BODIES BEING TREATED LIKE THEY'RE INHERENTLY SEXUAL AND THE STRONG EMOTION I FEEL ABOUT THIS IS THAT IT FUCKING SUCKS". thank you for reading my essay.

[asneakyfox]

and look, this is annoying because it's only the izcourse that makes this feel not obvious to people, and you cannot expect canon (or even semicanonical creator-written microblog fic) to be written in dialogue with dumb fan discourse.

fandom got obsessed with this dumbass debate over whether izzy was secretly already a good guy acting out of ultimately benevolent motives back in s1, and it got us into this weird position where people can only view any new information about izzy as weighing in on that debate, instead of depicting a character who changed over time.

this is bizarre! characters change a lot and people normally understand that! when aang hugs zuko and they call each other friends nobody got confused and thought it meant they were never enemies. but say anything about how ed remembers izzy and everyone - i mean people on both sides of the izzy divide, for better or worse - thinks it's a statement that's supposed to be true of their whole relationship and not something that ultimately became true of it by the end. one of the big themes of the show is change, and love as a force that both requires and enables change. button changed into a fucking seagull! it doesn't mean he was secretly a seagull the whole time!

izzy changed from the person he was in s1 into a guy who was able to grant ed one genuine moment of unconditional love, and then into a corpse, and now that he's dead he will never change again, he is frozen forever in his final act of grace. and that means when any even semicanonical version of this narrative remembers him from here on out it'll always be as the guy he was in the end, the one who says "just be ed" and means it. he wasn't always that guy. but the story's said all it needed to say about the guy he was before that point. we're not going to relitigate the namby-pamby scene, not because it doesn't matter but because as far as the show's concerned it's resolved. it was resolved when izzy stared directly into the camera and said that he was hurting ed knowingly and intentionally for selfish reasons and that he was doing it consistently for years before they ever met stede bonnet and that it was terrible of him and that he was genuinely sorry for it.

i'm saying this because some people seem to want some fuller reckoning with ed and izzy's earlier relationship and i love that in fic, i think we should all write more fic about it, but you should not expect it here or in any future canon, for good reasons. it's just outside the scope of the core narrative. the show already gave us the part of that reckoning that could fit into this story, on izzy's deathbed.

ok gonna post a quick version of something i already said on bsky, but

consider that the single most explicit thing we know about how djenks writes the ed-izzy relationship, the thing he's said over and over again with no ambiguity, is that ed sees izzy on a deep level as a father figure.

so let's say that you are a person who's had a long series of abusive father figures in your life. and the big unifying theme in your relationship with all those guys, the thing that tied them all together, was that whatever positive regard you got out of them was conditional on your performing masculinity in a particular way, being a version of yourself that you hated. "you're making my son soft" and "i serve blackbeard, not edward" and even "if you were ever good at anything, go and do that."

now imagine that one and only one of all those guys, in the end, finally took it all back and apologized for it and said "just be you" instead.

i think you would experience that as a moment of the exact kind of unconditional love you had always wanted and never ever gotten before from any of your evil dads. and i think you would come to see that brief moment as the most important thing about your relationship with that guy, because it's the thing that sets that relationship apart from all the others like it. and i think that moment would be so monumentally important to you that it would probably retroactively color all your memories of that relationship.

so what i'm saying is, yeah, for most of the years ed and izzy knew each other izzy's "love" for him was extremely conditional and that is, in fact, the main thing about it; but despite that there was one moment right at the end where it wasn't, and for ed, it makes sense that moment is the one that mattered.

[konnosaurus]

after all this time working on them, konno finally has humanisations!! just these guys for now but there will indeed be more to come. i've had so much fun with these so i hope that you guys like them :3 they Will be showing up alongside my engine stuff hehe!

i'm gonna stick some design notes under the cut in case anyone is interested!:

thomas:

actually the last of these i designed. as always, i find him Difficult, but i am happy with what i have done :3

the bracelet around his ankle was made by percy- james and percy also have them, just in different places. thomas doesn't like things around his wrists or arms in general (no tight sleeves, either!) so has his on his ankle!

originally the jacket was a non-zipped hoodie but it didn't feel Dynamic enough for him, so i decided to go for the open jacket look. it feels more active- perfect for the cheeky lad himself.

he does know how to tie his laces, he just Cannot Be Bothered.

edward:

this design came the most naturally. i didn't really have to do any second guessing or anything- edward is edward and he just felt like edward to me!

of these seven, he is the only one who wears glasses. he is NOT, however, the only one who needs glasses. gordon, james and emily should heed his advice and get some themselves (they will not.)

originally his trousers were going to be a much darker brown, but the lighter just felt a lot more old-man-comforting which i feel fits his pizazz better.

henry:

henry :3

henry is the sort of person to have a little bag that just contains like,, Anything that one could need in a situation. you require an item? henry has it!

the long skirt was initially alllll the way to the floor, but i wanted to show a bit of boot to make it just,, lightly more practical than a full floor-length one. it is a very swishy skirt.

henry has my favourite face/hair design of them all i just love how poofy the hair is and the little EXPRESSIONNNN!

gordon:

mr professionally dressed!

he wears old man shoes because i can't imagine gordon not wearing old man shoes even though he does not consider himself an old man. someone calls them old man shoes and he goes home and cries.

he's got some Muscle to him- beneath those sleeves he has got the p o w e r. also a bit of chink- not all that much, but he is noticably Wide as well as Tall.

james:

my favourite design for my favourite little lad!

i wanted him to be flashy but not Overly obnoxious- his vest is bright and his jewelry is dramatic but he also has some more muted colours. having a scheme is very important to him- the only thing that breaks it is the friendship bracelet from percy that he has on his wrist.

he has long boots because he would have long boots <3

the red strips in his hair are entirely just because he wants to be more red and more colour coordinated.

percy:

his trousers brush the floor because he is not the tallest and the ones he liked weren't quite the right lengths. so many people he knows could shorten them for him but he actually quite likes them like that.

percy gets freckles just because i wanted him to have them hehehe no other reasoning!

his green is a lot more yellowy and bright than henrys more dull and sappy greens, and his red is a lot deeper than henrys more pinky red.

his bag has his little friendship charm on the buckle. he doesn't wear it as a bracelet like thomas or james do- it stays on his bag because he loves his bag and is never without it.

emily:

despite her engine being a dark green, her main outfit piece (the dungarees) is a lighter green. this is Entirely just because i liked how it looked better.

her boots have detailing meant to be like her great race livery!

emily had one of the easiest outfits for me to design- she just feels like a dungaree sort of gal to me, and i just worked from there! the little gold patterns on her dungaree pocket are meant to reflect the big ol wheel pattern on the stirling single.

and there we have it!

[hermanoga]

Can't re-watch without overthinking, there are parallels with Xu Shanshan 's story?

this is ep 8, season 1 where Xu Shanshan comes as a customer in the time photo studio. Lu Guang asks her why didn't she ask Dong Yi herself afterwards if she cared so much?

Xu Shanshan answers : It's because I care so much, that's why I couldn't bring myself to ask. I'm so afraid that the answer is not going to be what I think it is.

Lu Guang stares for a while, our gaze is focused on Lu Guang and then he declares that they are gonna 'help'. Xu Shanshan came as a customer, Lu Guang after some consideration decided to 'help' without taking any money for exchange. After re-thinking a lot of other parallel stories, I can say this is one of those moments where Lu Guang feels the personal tug to help. It resonates with him.

Later Cheng Xiaoshi while diving in Xu Shanshan 's body converses with Dong Yi and when Dong Yi says

Dong Yi : I still have to choose to leave eventually.

Now we hear Cheng Xiaoshi saying, 'Leave?'

While watching this section, I could feel one thing, the original emotion may belong to Xu Shanshan but Cheng Xiaoshi really mixes it with his own subjectivity, it's not really Dong Yi directed anymore (actually it was never Dong Yi directed anyway, Cheng Xiaoshi was reluctant to dive because they were not getting paid for this). The song Cheng Xiaoshi sings...I am pasting the youtube link below.

I am mentioning a few lines from the lyrics

There are still endless words to say But the wind reminds us to go Only laughter and tears will be left behind Left behind in the summer of this year Regarding the future, there is too much doubt left unanswered About bread, about ideas There is also the ordinary and the mighty Just like that, we depart Goodbye ,to those of you who are in a hurry like me ... Time will give answer to growth ... River will give answer to wave Together we leap into the sea of people And be a surging wave

The melancholic yearning mixed with the concern of time and the ocean and wave imagery makes me think that this song goes more with Shiguang.

Let's just reminisce a few lines from OPs and EDs

Dive back in time

All the heartaches and the smiles never faded I know you'll be by my side when we make it

The Eye

I wish that I could tell you the truth

The Tides, Vortex, The Eye have multiple ocean/wave metaphor.

Also, there are some interesting shots that appear on the screen when Cheng Xiaoshi is about to begin singing

This seems to be Guidu's basketball court.

I don't think either Xu Shanshan or Dong Yi have anything to do with that scene. It's Cheng Xiaoshi's memories getting triggered by the word 'leave' and it also echoes the themes of the song 'Mao Buyi'. Now, after watching Yingdu episode 1, we know what basketball symbolism is in the context of Shiguang.

Lu Guang is really really moved. Look at his face, his expression screams that he very much understands that melancholy. And it is Cheng Xiaoshi singing so...I can't fathom (😭) what Lu Guang might be feeling at this moment.

Now.

There are a few lines Lu Guang notes from Dong Yi's speech to Xu Shanshan :

No matter how hard the future might be, I want to stay. Because leaving you, hurts more than anything else.

Either Yingdu episode 1 is making me hallucinate or this really is the reason Lu Guang stayed with Cheng Xiaoshi and promised he would never leave.

i have an exam on 3rd Jan and I am not liking, I crode.