#im so bad at remembering the dnd classes

[orcelito]

My brain is. Goop. Running at about quarter speed right now. It's a little bit embarrassing, actually.

[transgaysex]

cannot sleep bc i am filled with a deep deep sadness

[comikbook]

Your moth and seaman

tell me more about them, they've piqued my interest and I want to hear you ramble about them please

the moth was my first ever dnd character i made !! their name is Tavi ! i never played them but they were my first step into making ocs again after many years of not having any !

its been a few years since i made them, and i never really came up with lore (im bad at that part) so they are just a reminder of a big step in my dnd hobby journey :) i do remember that they are a fairy rogue !

(they are also my shortest oc !)

next is ripley !! similarly he does not have any lore as of rn, but hes one of my favorite character designs ive done ! i really enjoy him :) hes a butch triton and based on a black tip shark ! im thinking fighter for class, and do plan on coming up with lore for him at some point bc i really wanna play him !

As with all of my oc’s they of course are both lesbians and i love them dearly ! i def need to draw these guys more

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Workshopping an idea below the cut, feel free to ignore, im mostly organizing thoughts for therapy lol.

Warnings for mentions of medical neglect, self deprecation, illness/COVID, and related stuff.

When I had COVID, it went bad. Not just because I was sick, although that was certainly part of it. High fevers and constant exhaustion are misery-inducing, let alone the amount of missed classwork I had to work on from my bedroom. But that’s not what I remember about having COVID. I remember going hungry.

COVID, until recently, was handled by my university differently than other illnesses. I think that’s rather stupid; I fully support masking and mandatory self-isolation time during illness, but I don’t think those should be COVID-exclusive policies. I should be guaranteed a rescheduled exam if I have strep or the flu, also. But, because of the ongoing pandemic, COVID was unique as far as enforced isolation policies. For five days after first symptoms (at the time I was infected), you were forbidden from attending class, and for the next five days, you had to mask. You’d get a doctor’s note from the clinic excusing you from all your classes for a few days, it was a whole thing.

I did not initially get diagnosed with COVID. I started showing symptoms on Saturday night, but on Sunday, my rapid test at home was negative. On Monday, my rapid test in the university clinic was negative, and I only got a doctor’s note for the day, with instructions to return if I got worse. That afternoon, my fever soared to 101 degrees, and I was so delirious that I forgot how to treat a fever. I had to cancel attending DND, even masked and socially distanced or online, because I was incoherent from exhaustion. The next morning, I was too ill to talk or drive, and had to use an AAC to ask my friend to drive me to the doctor.

Funnily enough, even in that state, I did not think to ask my roommates to drive me to the doctor.

Which is odd for a couple reasons, honestly. On Monday, I had been in the living room the whole afternoon, shivering under a blanket on the couch and staring at a wall for hours. My roommates both had schedules which had them passing me by several times. Neither interacted with me at all, until I went into the kitchen and used my AAC to try and talk to them. Even then, they often breezed past me or ignored me when I did use my AAC, and I left that conversation frustrated because I didn’t get enough time to type a sentence. I may as well have been a rock. A sweaty, shivering rock. But I had talked to them, and I had known I was going to need to go to the doctor, and they were right there. So why didn’t I ask them to help me?

I didn’t eat at all on Monday, as far as I recall. I know I woke up on Tuesday starving. I know the only thing I have evidence of me consuming is water and tea. I know I got stuck in the shower that night, laying in the tub, too weak to climb out. For a while, I couldn’t lift my head. I’m impressed I didn’t fall asleep there.

Tuesday came, and I was diagnosed with COVID after the third rapid test came back aggressively positive. There’s something to be said about not assuming a negative test means you’re not infected with COVID, but that’s a different discussion. To be safe, I was given a doctor’s note exempting me from class until Friday. I tried to be responsible, and so I told my friend, my roommates, and anyone I had been in contact with since Saturday. Most people said “oh, I’m so sorry you’re sick, feel better!” My friend mentioned they’d disinfect their car. My roommates told me not to leave my room. Don’t get them sick.

And that’s reasonable. I’d already planned on self isolating. We were all Honors students; because the university treated COVID differently, if they were considered infectious, they would also have to miss a week of class. But their concern had nothing to do with my health, or their health, or anyone else’s. Their only response was “don’t get us sick. We can’t afford to miss class. Don’t leave your room.”

And so I didn’t.

It’s funny, how not leaving your room gets very difficult after a while. For starters, I had to use the bathroom. That, I accepted, was a necessary quarantine breach. I couldn’t pee in my room. The landlords would kill me, but more practically, that’s just unsanitary and would make me getting sick more likely. I couldn’t hold it forever, either. At some point I was forced to leave. And that was fine, small dilemma resolved, I’d only go when I desperately had to use the bathroom. But what about leaving for other things?

I never thought to ask if I could leave to get my things from downstairs. That was frivolous, even if I wanted them. Or to go downstairs for my water, or snacks. Too risky. Common areas. My roommates had been very clear that any risk of them getting sick would be dire.

Which meant that when my sick body started having bodily needs, things quickly got very complicated.

That first day, after my appointment, I ordered chipotle. My mom had venmoed me some money when she heard I was sick, worrying that I hadn’t been eating. Which. I hadn’t. I asked my roommate to bring me my food, and after a while, she did. Perfect. The burrito would tide me over for a while, I thought. I’d be full for a long time.

Then thirst started to crawl up on me. I had juice at the doctor’s that morning (I was hyperventilating and they needed an accurate measure of my heart rate), but other than that, I’d had nothing. I needed water.

But I didn’t ask for any.

Instead, I waited until the dead of night, and then stole down the stairs, grabbed several waters, crept back upstairs, and chugged desperately while hoping my roommates didn’t catch me leaving my room.

Why did I do that?

Why didn’t I just ask for water?

Why did I feel ashamed, like I had broken some law?

The next day, I woke up starving. Which makes sense. I hadn’t eaten since noon the day before. I was sick. My body needed energy to heal and it didn’t have any. I complained to my friend that I was hungry and sick; they were very kind, and went to the grocery store for me, buying me popsicles and juice and Gatorade and other foods and medicine and such. Except, my roommates didn’t want any strangers in the house, so they delivered it on my doorstep. Which I couldn’t get to. One roommate collected the groceries, sent me a photo, and I was suddenly struck with guilt. Here I was, inviting a stranger to her to our home, inconveniencing her by forcing her to put away my groceries. But I was also very thirsty, so I asked for one of the Gatorades to be delivered to my room. She brought up the whole pack. Left it outside my doorstep. I waited until she was back downstairs. She didn’t bring up anything else; none of the medicine or food my friend had bought me. But in fairness, I didn’t ask her to.

The next 48 hours were marked by living off of that Gatorade.

I was thirsty, so I drank a Gatorade. And then I realized I felt less hungry afterwards, so I opened another one. Drank that one too. The fun thing is, I don’t actually like Gatorade? I asked for it because I was dehydrated and knew I needed electrolytes to replace the fever sweat. But usually, Gatorade is something I begrudgingly sip at.

I finished four bottles that day.

That night, I texted my roommates and asked if someone could microwave me some food. It was already precooked, I just needed it microwaved. I got back one roommate’s text: “I’m in class”.

Around an hour later, the other roommate stopped studying long enough to make dinner, and saw my text, and apparently felt kind enough to microwave precooked sausage for me. She didn’t really check it? It was still cold in the middle. Which. Was not great, given that I have major texture sensitivities surrounding cold food. But she had made it for me, and I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours since then, so I ate it. Slowly. Forcing myself to swallow. Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it, just *swallow*. You have no room to complain.

I was still hungry. So I had another Gatorade.

Thursday arrived, I was on my last day of quarantine, and I had a weekend of recovery to look forward to. I was egregiously sick of Gatorade. My teeth, in my phone’s camera, were pink from the red dye. The paper plate from last night sat on my floor, forgotten, still smelling of sausage. I caught up on schoolwork. One of my two labs had leftover recordings from 2020, so I could make that one up online, and I got an exemption for attending the other one. I was weak and shaking from low blood sugar and illness, but I had shit to do, so I did it. Was it my best work? No. Did it get done? Yes. I was too tired to care about scores.

My homework was done. It was 3:48 PM. I was starving.

I texted and asked for someone to make me a frozen meal from the freezer. Slightly more inconvenient than the microwave. It had to go in the oven. I winced typing it. My roommates were so busy. They didn’t have time to waste on me.

Return text: “I’m in band til 5:20”.

Coolcoolcool. I can wait. I’ll sip another Gatorade.

5:20 comes and goes. I hear the door downstairs open. Half an hour passes. No sounds of food making. Welp. She’s busy. Maybe she forgot, or class ran overtime and I misheard, or she just can’t do it.

I text: “Checking in on the food situation?”

Suddenly, in that moment, my roommates stopped caring if I got them sick by leaving my room. The third time I ate in four days was by dinner I cooked myself, sitting on the floor of the kitchen with a mask on, trying not to fall asleep and let it burn.

Honestly, I walked away from that situation feeling like I was in the wrong. Clearly I had misunderstood something. Every time I asked for something, there was a long pause, or I was told someone was too busy to help me. I was burdening my roommates with my needs, when they were trying to work on schoolwork. Maybe I should have known I could leave my room for water, or to cook, during the day. Nevermind that I was so tired that standing up made my legs shake. I could still walk. I could sit on the floor and wait for my food. I could have taken breaks on the stairs if I was tired. I’d been lazy and needy and presumptuous.

My friends had… a different opinion about that situation.

This week, I got sick. I knew I was likely going to get sick. I went to visit some close friends, knowing some of them weren’t feeling well, and that I was going to be staying in their house. It was a calculated risk for me. I wouldn’t be in contact with a lot of other people during the trip, and if I did get sick during the trip, I wouldn’t leave the house, and regardless of how I felt, I would wear a mask while outside the house. I knew I could easily self isolate when I got home from the trip, since my bedroom is across from the bathroom and right next to the kitchen. I thought that I could just sleep during the day and eat at night, and nobody would have to be bothered by me when I got sick. I love these friends very much, and for me, it was worth it.

Notably, I live in a new house now, and with new roommates.

I did get sick, like I predicted. During the trip, no less. The second half of my visit was mostly me sleeping on a couch, or trying very hard to stay awake on a couch. I was miserable a lot of the time. I cried several times over minor inconveniences. I felt lazy and needy and presumptuous; now my friends had to put up with me being sick and weepy. I wasn’t being helpful. I wasn’t being energetic and fun to be around.

The way they treated me was night and day, compared to my old roommates.

Every time someone passed me by, they asked if I was okay. Did I want tea? Did I want some Emergen-C? Could I be persuaded to eat something? Did I need ibuprofen, or perhaps some pseudoephedrine? We ran out of sparkling water, and my friend just. Went to the store and got me some more, and some chips I liked, and some candy as a treat to snack on. I misplaced a plushie, and started crying, and… someone got up and helped me find her. They also played video games and streamed it so I could watch it from my phone while resting. Someone made my favorite dinners. My sensory issues flared up halfway through eating toast, and suddenly I had multiple people helping me get food I could eat to take my meds with. When I needed to shower, I was given access to a shower chair. I was never more than a word away from help, even if it was just something I wanted and not something I needed to feel better.

And then I got home, and my new roommate did the same thing!

I went to self isolate in my room, fully expecting to be forgotten about for the rest of the day. But my roommate sat six feet away, through my doorway, just talking to me until I was laughing. They made me dinner, and then lunch the next day. They bought me groceries again. Told me I could leave my room whenever I needed to, and that I was allowed to get water and food, why was that even a question? Hey, come watch me play Baldur’s gate. Yeah you can sit in the living room; you have a mask on and we’ll be distanced enough.

And every time I said how nice someone was being, or tried to apologize for being needy or inconvenient, I got pushed back. No, we’re not “being so nice to you”, this is basic decency, Blue. This is normal. People are meant to take care of each other when they’re sick. Who would just abandon a sick person to starve? Why are you apologizing? Why do you keep asking if you’re “allowed” to take care of your basic needs?

I don’t know.

It’s easy to point to my COVID experience and say that’s what messed me up. But even when I was sick with COVID, I didn’t want to ask for help. The negative responses reinforced that I was being too needy, but that idea wasn’t new to me. I already didn’t want to ask. I didn’t ask for food multiple times a day. I didn’t ask for the food and medicine my friend had bought me. I didn’t ask for water; I stole it from my own minifridge in the dead of night. Why didn’t you just steal food too, Blue? Great question! I felt so guilty about getting the water that it outweighed my intense hunger.

And the whole time I recounted it to other people, I doubted my own experience of the events. My memory is notoriously shitty when I’m tired or sick. I lose chunks of time. It happens. Maybe I forgot when my roommates did help me. Maybe I was emotional and misremembered how they treated me. Maybe they did care, and did ask about me, and I was too feverish to remember it. But I do have text records of every conversation we had between that Tuesday and Thursday. Because I was in my room the whole time. And could not talk to people. I have timestamps for their responses, and I have what they said and what I said.

And from those brief texts, I can tell you that I was treated as needy. and lazy. and presumptuous. I can tell you that my needs weren’t met, and instead of being angry, I apologized. I can tell you that my roommates were quick to respond when I talked about the cat sitting in the bathroom sink, or where to find the pizza cutter, but when I asked for any help, it was radio silence or “I’m in class”. Any help I did receive in that time was delayed, with no verbal confirmation it was happening, and I was left in extended limbo wondering if anybody would help me or had even read my messages.

All that’s changed is, now I know it didn’t have to be that way.

These old roommates still call me their friend. I don’t really know that I want to be their friend anymore. My friends didn’t neglect me so much that I spent hours shivering on the couch ignored, or got stuck in a shower with no way to ask for help, or stole water in the dead of night.

[alicedoessurveys]

35 Get to Know Me Questions

What is your nickname?

Bong

When is your birthday?

11th June

What was your longest relationship?

a few months. ive never had a proper full on boyfriend. im asexual so as soon as they start wanting that im like ick

What is your favourite book?

i have a few; The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. The Heartstopper Series. Many more but i cant list them all

What is something you're insecure about?

myself. just pretty much everything about myself.

5 Male celebrity crushes:

Pedro Pascal, Oscar Isaac, David Thewliss, Taika Waititi, Ethan Hawke

5 Female celebrity crushes:

Kate McKinnon, specifically in Ghostbusters... i cant think of any others that i class as crushes

What is your dream job?

actress

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

standing centre stage in front of a theatre full of people and acting my ass off after being told id never be able to because of my anxiety

What is a fact about you that nobody would believe?

ive perfomed on stage with Take That

What were your highs and lows for this last month?

highs; rehearsing for the show im in at the moment, getting my hair done, spending time with family, dnd with friends, seeing Jonas Brothers live, my mom getting the all clear from cancer!

lows; multiple anxiety attacks, finding out im going to be homeless in the new year

Where is somewhere you'd like to visit?

Italy

How do you de-stress?

Play sims. Have a bath. Have a nap. Cuddle my bunny.

What are your favourite apps besides tumblr?

instagram

Describe yourself in one sentence.

a bit weird, a bit awkward, but a nice person

What do you think makes you attractive?

my hair

What is something you're really good at?

overthinking

What is something you're really bad at?

socialising

A time that you told a lie.

i honestly cant remember

What's a totally random and useless fact that you know?

in 2016 Mozart sold more CDs than Beyonce

Who knows you the best?

my cousin

What is your most prized possession?

a funko pop figure of my best friend rhys who died last year

What is your longest friendship?

rhys, we were friends since we were 3 and he was 28 when he died

When did you first feel like an adult?

probably driving a car on my own for the first time after passing my test

Do you/ Have you played any sports?

i dont play sports but i do dance and im looking at maybe joining a netball team in the new year

How are you feeling right now?

a bit anxious, health anxiety is kicking my butt

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

night owl

Do you believe in love at first sight?

for me personally no, i think i need to get to know someone well first

Favourite song lyrics right now?

"Maybe it's okay, if I'm not okay, cause the one who holds the world is holding on to me. Maybe it's alright, if I'm not alright, cause the one who holds the stars is holding my whole life."

What does self care look like for you?

allowing myself to have a lazy day. sitting on the sofa all day, watching films, playing video games, not doing housework

Describe yourself with 3 singers.

the singer whose songs i relate to the most is Cat Burns

What makes you nervous?

like, everything 🤣

What’s a pet peeve you have?

people being unkind

What will always make you cry?

so much, especially since my bestie died. im an emotional wreck.

What kind of first impression do you think you make on people?

im usually pretty shy and quiet at first so most people see me like that

[realcowboysdrinkjuice]

hello Alexander i hope this message reaches you in good health. in the tags of a recent post you described being able to find roleplay partners when you wanted to even with social anxiety. pray tell how did you do this. thank you for your assistance. warmly, anon y mouse

Hi!!!! first off disclaimer- i haven’t done any roleplay in agessss so hopefully all of this still applies in this age of the internet!

but when i was a lot younger i first started out by roleplaying a ton on my own minecraft server (my dad works with computers so he set one up for me and my sister in like 2011/2012) and i played with a lot of people from school from me or my sisters classes which was nice because we both had a degree of control over it since it was Our server and it was a small group of people. to be fair i was also a child so even though i wasn’t medicated yet i probably had a lot less learned anxiety at the time even if i still had the shit i was born with lmao cause there’s definitely some things i struggle with now that i didn’t as a young kid since i just didn’t think about them as much then.

after that a ton of people moved to skype and we roleplayed a TON there and that was when i was a bit older so it was fandoms and things i was actually interested in whereas in minecraft it was random stuff or our own storylines or someone’s cousin was really into assassins creed and i didn’t (and still don’t) know a single thing about the game but really wanted to roleplay anyway lmao.

honestly after skype i didn’t really roleplay very much after that even though i did it daily as a kid/early teen BUT i was still finding some ways to make friends which can be transferable to this if they also like roleplay :)!! i don’t have many friends currently idk if covid fucked me up that bad or if i’ve just gotten worse at it over time so this feels a slight bit hypocritical since i’m not following my own advice super well at the moment lol but discord is HUGE. obviously you have to be super careful but ive made a lot of online friends by joining discords servers. even when i had to lurk for a day or two before i got comfortable (and i had people encouraging me when i admitted to that) even though i would still be an anxious wreck for a while if i met online folks irl they are still so so important to me and helped me so much, especially since i have an easier time talking online. smaller discords can be good if large groups of people are intimidating but bigger ones are good if you’re worried about being singled out and want to hide in the crowd. irl i feel like the ideal group of people is three cause if i stop talking it’s not awkward since there’s still two other people, but online i don’t really mind how many people there are since it’s a lot easier of a disconnect since im just looking at words on a screen. discord is also where i played dnd for the first time! i was 15 and i barely knew anyone there but i was obsessed w the adventure zone in early high school and really wanted to try it so i pushed through that anxiety. tbh now i think i might prefer just watching (definitely cause of the social anxiety but oh well i think that’s still a valid as hell way to enjoy the game) but im so glad i found an environment where i felt safe enough to try it even though tbh i barely remember the experience so i must have been so nervous holy shit.

i’ve never used them so i can’t attest to how great they are but tons of people roleplay on online forums! i used to use a website called chicken smoothie where you collect pets and trade and shit but they had a HUUUUGGGEEE forum where tons of people were roleplaying there, and since it’s a forum it feels like it would be slower paced even though i was personally a bit nervous about the formality of the ones i saw.

honestly just tl;dr it’s still so scary but i promise you there’s people out there who are also nervous and i think creating a story with real people is just so much rewarding then anything character ai sites can do. and i think making online friends is an invaluable resource for stuff like that, especially since it’s a lot easier to hit the bricks if you get scared, especially since for me personally im selectively mute and that’s not really an issue over text so that’s one less worry i have to deal with. but i really hope you can find those people because i have so many find memories of roleplaying with my friends growing up since that was most of my social experiences (not sure how to phrase that) came from since i was so anxious at school and literally didn’t talk to barely anyone like kids in my class straight up learned to talk to teachers for me cause they knew i wasn’t going to do it so hanging out with people online was so important.

hopefully at least some of this is helpful- i don’t have a ton of experience since im still only 21 and i also spent all the covid years being stagnant so honestly i don’t even feel 21 so i definitely don’t have all the answers but that’s what i found worked for me growing up. a lot of it is just pretending you aren’t as scared as you are and just being honest with people because in my experience they’re usually really understanding about you being nervous cause everyone has been there even if it’s not to the same degree. ALSO second disclaimer- im not in therapy (tried several times but i’ve never been able to talk to the therapist which is kind of an important part of therapy) so take all of this with a grain of salt because i have no clue if any of my coping mechanisms are healthy but i haven’t died yet so i guess im doing something right?

sorry this is so long lmao and i have no clue how helpful it is

[0v3rachi3v3r]

sometimes i think abt the (ex)friend i had from middle/high school all thru college

(it was intended to be story time but it ended up pretty high key Vent)

tbh i more or less dissociated from my ms/hs years so i didn’t even realise we’d been friends that long

i introduced her to my (then) Good Friend - he and i met bc we were paired in class (alphabetically close last name) and that was it, but we hit it off. he introduced her to his roommate and they had a dnd group or whatever.

fast forward a few years, height of covid, roommate graduated and was dating my friend for a year or two now, they have their apartment and whatever. bc i was kinda stuck in the dorms doing my masters online, they invited me to their apartment until covid was over and/or school was out.

i remember how they had a fight over me staying too long, financial stuff and all, after I stayed for about 2 weeks (“spring break” week included, since that’s when school was out and never came back)

but the other thing i remember was her, reminiscing about “the old days” how we were depressed n all that, how we were always putting aside our own sadness to take care of the other… but how that was over, “we made it,” she said with so much confidence… but i couldn’t be happy because i hadn’t made it, i was still there (mostly bc of my bpd/emotional disregulation which was rly bad bc my then-bf had just broken up with me a month or so prior) but i really just couldn’t feel like “we made it” and i remember feeling like she was doing that to low-key/backhandedly spite me. obvs i knew she wasn’t trying to, so i went along with it with a little “haha yea can you believe it” type thing…

i asked my family to pay for a plane ticket so i could leave so my friends wouldn’t be burdened by me, asked said friends for a ride to the airport. they insisted they won’t take any money bc i already helped with groceries by pitching in $100 or so, but I insisted and paypal’d them ~$200 anyways for letting me stay for so long (after I spent $300 for their dexacom and alcohol wipes that were sold out everywhere)

that summer i was down in the dumps like half my hs posting was in 2013-2015. by this time i’d known that living with family made me feel awful, but I had to bc financially i had no where else to go. due to my moods, i just didn’t have the energy to reply to friend when she learned abt me taking ASL as one of my courses online. she, as a CODA, was interested as well and wanted to help me practice signing. i went 3? weeks without talking to her because i felt like shit. when i finally had the energy to talk to her again, she’d blocked me. and i couldn’t message her back with the “sorry i didn’t get back to you, i was depressed af”

i tried talking to mutual friends - college bestie and his roommate - but nothing from roommate. college “bestie” told me about how i was a self centered brat (did not elaborate) and blocked me as well.

that “friendship decay” thing hit me really hard when it was going around a few days ago bc some people really do have friendship decay. if it was just her then that woulda been fine but she took most of my college friends with her. that, im not fine about.

i know you won’t see but an old mutual may so let me just say:

talk to both sides before you deem someone to be irredeemable and block them bc your friend said so. if $600 in 2 weeks is “selfish” then you don’t have the whole story.

i know it isn’t the case but it really feels like my only friends are from elementary or from my grad school years, and i absolutely hate it.

emotional permanence please don’t fail me

[th3-third-duffel-bag]

ANALYZING EVIL DEAD RISE VS STRANGER THINGS 5 PREDICTIONS BC THE WRITERS SAID SO.

im sorry.

*****ok do NOT read any further if you haven't seen evil dead rise yet. you have been warned.*****

ok this is gonna be a long one I think.

my friend @3leven1 and I came up with 4 main predictions about what the fuck this means. here we go class.

UNO: POSSESION.

obviously in evil dead rise (I'm just gonna abbreviate it to edr) there is an ongoing theme of possession. this could mean multiple things. when people got Vecna'd it was often refereed to as "possession". vecna might be back to Vecna more people in the gang to break them up and do a great number of damage in their attempts to defeat him. in season two (which was also confirmed to be related to s5) will was possessed. could this mean will will -haha will will- get possessed again?? or will someone else...? this brings me to my next theory.

DOS: THE WHEELERS.

by now I bet a ton of you have seen that in the posters for season four, we had one for Karen wheeler. now why the hell would she have one?? its not like she's a main character, she never has been. but maybe its implying that she will be. Ellie (the mother) in edr was possessed and went rogue killing her children and others. in s4 Vecna picked random teens to kill. or.... not so random. every one of his four victims had some sort of trauma or conflict eating away at them. its been implied that Karen is unhappy in her marriage with ted. I mean come on, in seasons 2 and 3 she was getting ready to go fuck billy like twice. so is vecna gonna go after Karen??

hold up in not done the the wheeler fam just yet. in edr, Ellies sister, lily, pulled that badass card out of the deck and killed Ellie. a good deal of that situation, she had a gun. now, class, who knows how to handle a gun in the wheeler fam? Nancy. Nancy is going to kill her possessed mother, defending her family. hey! y'all remember towns the end of edr when the bodies of them possessed people formed one big monster??? sort or reminds me of something...

TRES: THESSALHYDRA AND SEASON THREE.

first in line: season three. the mall monster was made up of melted down people.... and rats. if the people and rats could turn into a monster, then I have no doubt that other monsters themselves can. but. could this abomination of other melted monsters be the thessalhydra????

NEEEXT!!!: the thessalhydra. if you are in any way acquainted with dnd, you know the thessalhydra. if you aren't its okay! that was the monster the gang was fighting in wills painting. in season four, when robin, Steve, Eddie, and Nancy were walking through the woods in the upside down, there was another earthquake. during that earthquake, in the subtitles, it said something along the lines of "creature bellows in distance". I don't thing any of the monsters we've already been acquainted with 'bellow'. could this be the second big bad of s5 and the "creature with a gaping mouth' (possibly melted down monsters????) Nancy saw in her visions? probably.

CUATRO: ELEVEN GETS VECNA'D

hold on don't freak out!! its just a theory. but I do have some solid goddamn evidence so maybe you should freak out just a little bit.

around the middle of edr, lily finds Bridget eating glass to "kill the buggies in her tummy" creepy ass bitch. but before that, she is appalled to find that blood is literally POURING out of her nose. I really don't think I should have to explain that one. that's not all though. seconds after, she finds blood running out of her eyes too. Vecna kills him victims by sucking there eyes into their heads. when this happens, blood runs out their eyes too. so, class, lets put together these puzzle pieces regarding eleven.

nosebleed (el) + blood running out eyes = eleven gets vecnad.

but maybe she'll be ok. before we figured out one was Vecna, he tried to Vecna eleven when she was young. but she did get out of it by exploding him into the upside down.

uhm. yeah im sorry for that last one. if you read this before watching edr, I did warn you, back off. ANYWAY. yeah that's all I got. tell me what you think!

[theood]

OK d&d movie review- it was really fun !! it had a bunch of references for people who are huge d&d nerds, but it's pretty newbie-friendly. story-wise, it's a heist film, which is all i want to give away because the story is GENUINELY very fun. the names can be a little hard to remember, because this is a fantasy movie and if at least one person doesn't have a name you have to write down, it'd be a failure on the genre, but most of them are easy enough to get.

it doesn't go meta, and while i'd very much classify it as a comedy, it doesn't go overboard with slapping joke after joke onto you. in fact, the jokes don't feel forced at all!

setting-wise, it's in the forgotten realms, which is kind of the "main" d&d setting. that does mean that i was looking for barovia (where the campaign i'm in takes place) and didn't find it whenever a map came up :( however, setting it in that established world really helped it not fall into the trap of 'throw it in' settings that a lot of bad fantasy movies have. the world felt majestic and grand without trying to oversell the bit.

i'm fairly sure there were some practical effects, but there was a lot of CGI- which, in a twist, i really didn't mind! the costuming and makeup and sets were beautiful, and the CGI for the monsters and magic did a good, only mildly cheesy job of bringing the world to life.

also, there's a cute semi-himbo paladin in one part. i'm in love. i think i might f/o him.

speaking of paladin- only some characters have their class stated! (and one character is referred to by the wrong class lol). otherwise, it's up to the viewer to put things together and figure out the classes. the classes are only stated when they can double as descriptors, which is a good touch, because you don't typically walk up to someone and go "HI IM A WIZARD" overall, the movie was fun and i think you'd like it! it's a very good ride and manages to tell an epic, but grounded enough for you to care, story in its 2 hour and 14 minute run time.

pumpkin out

also also also also the monsters were all SO CUTE this might just be my inner "everything is a cat" but i just. i want to pet the mimic

---

Ohh okay this is!!! A very good review actually. Maybe I judged the trailers too harshly. It sounds a lot like it's gonna get more people into dnd which is great 8). I always want that. Explore TTRPG games ^__^

It sounds very cool you're left to explore and figure out the classes. Fun for more experienced dnd enjoyers AND for new people

If a friend offers, maybe I'll check it out with them ^_^

[blurred-pride]

Im glad the trips went well :D

:0 tag us if you post the Dino

Those sound like great ideas for gender system(s) I think some rly cool things could come from that >:D

Yeah same I’m slowly began fronting the most and-

>:) now I rly wanna make the coining blog

Have any name/url ideas?

It probably could be super “fancy” yk how made are like sunflower themed or lovecore etc I don’t think we could keep up with fancy tags and keeping the blog looking fancy but we could maybe keep up a space theme

Oh yea- gotta take care of the body /Silly/Cj (cope joke)

We’ll go enjoy that tea and time with partners (I need more info on the dnd story line lmao what’s going on, how did he get to the bar, why does he need to conceal his identity?!/Silly/Nf)

Dino post is coming up in a moment, I need to do the dishes real quick and take a picture of him!!! (And make an image description for said picture so that may take a small bit because I am Bad at those- /lh) Thank you!!

I don't front the most but I have a tendency to get stuck in front quite a bit when I do front, and I have to readjust to needing actual things like food instead of just needing that as more of a "this is a thing I do not because I need to because I'm a metaphysical human thing/snake but because it feels more normal and 'human-ish' to do so than to go without". (/source and headspace) I also end up having to remember I can't just shapeshift, and so I end up changing shape in the innerworld and then having phantom limbs or sensations in the outerword. I think our most frequent fronters at the moment are Remus (he/they/it/any neos), and Virgil (he/they/it/scary neos), but I don't know for sure because I don't really manage that part of keeping track of the system. /tangent

Make the blog!!! It'd be great!!! (/nf) I don't remember if our blog has a theme other than "queer mogai"? And then space because space is a long term hyperfixation of ours, and bat-cat from CRK because someone decided they liked him and used him for a barcode icon thing. /lh

Some name/URL ideas: Spacequeers, Coining-in-Space, and heyyyycoining !!

I will!!! And of course!! So basically our character is a bright blue and pink tiefling named Aribis, he uses he/him pronouns, and occasionally they/them alongside he/him, and he grew up in a temple so he's been really sheltered from everything as a kid, and never really got that whole socializing with people thing down as a kid, it was just a bunch of stuffy adults so he didn't really get the chance. One day he was out in town, just doing some stuff, when a deer lady named Mylico (pronounced my-lih-ko) came up and asked if he wanted to go on a quest. Aribis said yes, and he joined the party to find an ancient lost city. One of the first few days he threatened another player character named Ace (he/him), and Ace threatened him back until they made a truce. Eventually, the party split up, and he and Ace got paired together to go down a different path and explore. The two met an evil old lady, who fed Aribis a poison cookie that knocked him out for a while. Ace defeated the old lady and carried Aribis back to the rest of the party. Aribis remained passed out for a while, if I remember right someone healed him?? And then Aribis was awake for about all of thirty minutes, since the cookie had more effects and knocked him out again. Dude kinda went into a coma for four days (We had left town and couldn't play, so they just knocked him out again with our permission.) , and during that coma the party found the lost city, and Ace is carrying Aribis the entire time, except the city wasn't actually lost. In the world this is in, elves aren't liked or trusted at all, and tieflings are very much the rich and extremely upper class. Aribis is not trusted in this city at all, and it would go into lockdown if everyone knew he was a tiefling. So, the rest of the party raided a scarecrow and stole its clothing, which included fancy boots (Aribis had boots, but they replaced them anyways for some reason??), a flannel, and a comically large hat. Ace provided some gardening gloves and boom! Disguise for a passed-out Aribis!! The party then plans to stage a revolution to help make everyone realize that elves are not horrible, and to take down the tiefling government. (Aribis is chill with this btw, he does not like most tieflings because they tend to be snobby and rude from wealth and such.) The party plans said revolution at an EXTREMELY fancy restaurant, and brings Aribis along for some reason. They order him a fruit salad, and kinda just slump him over into a chair, still disguised as a gardener-cowboy. (I joked that he faceplanted into the salad and nobody noticed) Other things that happened while he was passed out, in no particular order: the party caught an owl for the goddess of winter and gave her proposal advice to help her propose to her girlfriend (Ironic because our last DND character, Finley (they/them), attempted to catch a blood hawk in a backpack and failed, thus exposing that their backpack wasn't sentient, but instead had a very small octopus shaped god in it, and Aribis missed the opportunity to catch a bird.), had Christmas and new years (days are different in this world), Ace and another character, Hermes (he/him), made a bet with a god, Ace gambled against said god, and now Hermes has this god who owes him unlimited favors forever, and some other things I don't remember. The session that we had today included Aribis waking up after four days, still dressed up, and getting a run-down of all that happened, another threatening match between Ace and Aribis (Aribis threatened to both bite and cry at him), and bonding time over laser tag. Aribis also at some point acquired a pet rat named Pi-Rat in the woods. I probably forgot a lot of stuff since I am not the one who played the last few sessions, but that's all I know right now. :)

-Janus (he/she, masc/neutral terms)

[wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj]

finally remembered this existed. hello. lol.

Are you named after anyone? real name is from a tv show character, malloy is from dumbledore mispronouncing malfoy in avpm so yeah x2

When was the last time you cried? sunday :D life is very beautiful

Do you have kids? :o <- is child themselves

Do you use sarcasm a lot? hmmmmm i wonder /s (yeag)

What’s the first thing you notice about people? in such a ruthless environment as high school, clothes and hair are all you need to know about anyone

What’s your eye colour? brown eye supremacy

Scary movies or happy ending? as established i'm in my hopeful endings era so i tend to like happy endings. also i genuinely cannot sleep properly after horror movies, like watching them in the moment is ok but the night after is bad.

Any special talents? i can do a really good speech/presentation. also writing. anything you'd do in an english class. media analysis sometimes.

Where were you born? quezon city 😌

What are your hobbies? i write fic, i sometimes also write original stuff, make characters, whole thing. i draw but i don't consider myself a traditional artist. i read occasionally. oh and listening to music. ouag

wait forgot about dnd. thats something i do a lot too

Do you have any pets? nope. we had fish when i was really young but that didn't end well and our house is too small anyways

What sports do you play/have you played? i used to play volleyball? oh my god i block that out of my mind i don't really like it anymore. my favourite sport is cricket tho. i want to play cricket.

How tall are you? actually 5'2". maybe and a half. idk. the specifics are between me, my doctor, and god

Favourite subject at school? ~english language arts~

Dream job? author i suppose. and stuff related to like art and design but in like the technology sort of way, ie. photography, film, graphic design, coding. something along those lines. i would also slay as an english teacher. maybe.

this is a weird ass game because im about to tag 15 people who'd hypothetically have to tag 15 more people yet there's a significant enough overlap of some of the friend groups here so. idk. @hoodies-and-broadway @sopheadraws @graciecreates @oh-no-my-ear @kentucky-fried-thea @gussie-carnegies-husband @flowers-and-literature @combeauferre @eathernitty-2 @dimesheep @the-woild-will-erster @to-taste-all-this-dawn @hear-its-whiskering-there-again @you-are-constance @the-butter-churner man that was exhausting.

15 Questions | 15 People

Rules: Answer these 15 Questions, then Tag 15 People

thanks for tagging me @whywcd !

Are you named after anyone? I think my mom’s great grandmother? someone on my grandfathers side at least, really all my middle names are family names

When was the last time you cried? christmas day probably lol

Do you have kids? …no. 

Do you use sarcasm a lot? yeah pretty often

What’s the first thing you notice about people? hard to say but probably their hair or their voice

What’s your eye colour? hazel

Scary movies or happy ending? happy endings

Any special talents? Im pretty arts and craftsy, my hot glue gun is like a brother to me. i can also tap dance

Where were you born? canada

What are your hobbies? i read a lot, the aforementioned arts and crafts, when its not -30C out like swimming and hiking/walks

Do you have any pets? I did until semi-recently, but we’re thinking of getting more cats sometime soon

What sports do you play/have you played? When i was really really young i did soccer but that did not last lol, a bit last year i was on the school badminton team and thats really it

How tall are you? 5′ ..i wanna saw 2″ but that might be wishful thinking

Favourite subject at school? my favourite this year was graphics but i also like english, a lot of it depends on the teacher tho

Dream job? i think the most sure about that question ive ever felt is when, for three years, i told everyone i wanted to be a paleontologist cuz i wanted to impress a kid at daycare who loved dinosaurs, but for know i think id like to do something in design, but whether that be clothes or houses or something else im not sure

not sure whos already done anything so feel free to ignore but tagging: @wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj @curious-georg @i-am-a-whimsy-boy @trouvailleamor @obsidianfire25 @twentysevensummers @mossterious @ alice i know ur seeing this, and this is definitely cheating but i do not know other people lol so open tag <3

[batarangsoundsdumb]

thoughts on:

bruce is a paladin bc he fights for an oath, and protects his children with both healing and sword.

dick is a ranger? idk it seemed cool and i think dick would wanna be robin hood ha

jason is a bard bc he wants to kill people with words, and viscous mockery can be a cantrip and it is hella funny to say "perish" and have someone die bc of it.

babs is a wizard? bc like, learns magic thru books and studying and she kinda does that as oracle and batgirl? im not 100% sure of this tho

tim is 100% a rogue but only bc he desperatley wants to be cool.

steph is a monk, i read the description about monks giving up their previous structured calm lives to become adventurors and idk i think it kinda fits steph really well after everything she went thru? also the dnd website picture for a monk has flowing hair like i imagine stephs lol

damian is a druid bc he wants to beastshift and also throw people with vines. either that or he lost or a rock paper scissors with tim over being the rogue.

cass could be a cleric? bc she wants to take care of everyone she loves and its cool to do that with radiant power and blast every bad thing with guiding bolt.

duke as a sorcerer bc he got his powers thru a bloodline lol.

idk thoughts? kinda want to draw the gang as dnd characters now

!!!

[comicaurora]

Im sorry if this is getting repetitive, but how would Dainix play Warhammer and DND, and which class would he choose? I really like how you bring these characters to live in this snippets, but if you want to stop doing it its fine by me.

Warhammer wouldn't really be his thing, but Dainix would play a Ranger! He'd be doing near-nonstop out-of-character commentary and reactions to stuff regardless of whether his character was even in the scene, and wouldn't really distinguish between being out of character and in character. Kind of a distractible player - probably pays more attention to the snacks than the DM most of the time, but no matter how inattentive he is, whenever it's his turn in combat he pulls out some well-balanced and highly advantageous tactical maneuver and totally changes the playing field. (It's like waiting in line for a restaurant - it's good manners to figure out your order before you reach the front of the line.) Doesn't really get the RP side of things, so most of his characters are very similar to him to keep things simple. He's almost frustrating to DM for because he doesn't take plothook bait or go off on solo adventures without telling the others, and his backstories tend to be calm, uneventful affairs without much dramatic potential. He's not bad at yes-and-ing, though, so if someone drops some RP on him he might improvise a fun response. Because of Falst's highly improvisational playstyle, they sometimes end up spiraling off in completely unplanned RP moments where they're both fully making up their own backstories as they go. Doesn't take notes, but sometimes remembers weirdly specific things.

[addoration]

like. not quite a month ago i had made plans to end my life and was so close to doing it, too. but today i'm attening a life drawing class in the evening and im spending the day learning to code. yesterday i had some friends come over to my acnh island, and i video called another friend. on friday my stepdad took me to the driving range to learn a bit of golf. this coming weekend im meeting a friend who's also the dm for my dnd group.

its like...... life isnt fucking easy but you rlly are the one in control of giving urself enrichment. idk how to word this properly but doing stuff.... getting out the house..... engaging with friends and with strangers in whatever capacity..... it's literally life changing. am i cured of the mental illness? ofc not! i still feel like shit a lot of the time. but its certainly easier to handle, and i haven't felt suicidal since about a month ago, and i truly believe its all down to the fact that im just doing stuff now. and i dont mean sitting at home watching tv or playing a game for hours on end, though those are worthy activities too! but youve gotta like. get out of the house. do other things too. push yourself to try something new because it can be exciting and really worth it.

and like the other thing is that i have got to remember that things come in waves. a bad time is followed by a better time, hopefully even a great time!! but sometimes, instead of waiting for the bad time to pass by itself, you can help it along by trying a new activity etc. just a thought.

[good-omens-classic]

Been thinking about the modernization of the narrative of Good Omens from the novel to the TV series prompted by those last posts.  DISCLAIMER: its actually been a while since i either watched the TV show or read the book so i might be misremembering stuff 😅

If i remember correctly, in the early stages of production of the TV show Neil Gaiman stated the aesthetics of Heaven and Hell were being updated to be less like countries at war, as they were in the novel, and more like factions of a corporation, with Heaven being the top office and Hell being the basement.  And he said this was to representing the shifting social anxieties of the time - the novel was written on the heels of the Cold War, and so has a lot of spy and soldier aesthetic to it, whereas nowadays we are all looking with a skeptical eye at Disney and Nestle as large corporations do whatever the hell they want without consequences.

I think this modernization is an effective one, but one that changes the flavor of the narrative slightly, and in a way that makes it less appealing to some people and more appealing to others.  One is not necessarily better than the other, and given one is a new TV show and one is an old novel so it’s hardly accurate to compare the size of fanbases, I can’t even say one is necessarily more or less appealing/popular than the other.  I think that the TV show was well-made, but there were a few small key changes in the writing that move the narrative away from the reasons why I got absolutely obsessed with the novel.  I think that David Tennant and Michael Sheen did a pretty good job acting the directions and script they were given, my main things I don’t like are kind of with the writing decisions (and tbh the costuming still but that’s petty 🙄)

I think it’s probably part of my upbringing, which was fundamentalist Protestant and honestly, obsessed with violence, that I don’t want to engage with a story where Hell is bad because it’s the dirty basement of an office building.  That’s a legit way to depict Hell, and one that has interesting thematical implications, but I personally want to read stories where Hell is fire and brimstone so that I can watch the protagonists defeat that.  I don’t fantasize about breaking free from an office job, or co-workers caught up in office petty politics, stories about finding softness and love amidst an actual war where violence is expected are what appeal to me.  The demons in the TV series are violent, but it’s just because they’re mean people, not because there’s a system put in place that forces them to be....which is honestly kind of part of why I liked the universe of the novel so much, because I liked to see Aziraphale and Crowley fight a system that tries to force them to be violent and fight and stuff?

The depiction of a narrative’s bad guy, even with subtle changes, can have some pretty significant impacts on how the audience feels about the narrative if what they’re looking for in the story is catharsis and wish-fulfillment.  For example, I often see people gripe about their DMs including homophobia and transphobia in their world-building in DnD, as though the ideal setting would be free from those things (and indeed, that’s the ideal setting for someone who wants escapism), but if you want to roleplay a character who struggles and overcomes those social issues, because they affect you in real life and you find it cathartic, constructing a world where those issues are very mild is not going to provide the same outlet that being victorious in a truly grimdark world is going to.  It’s not for everyone, but due to the novel’s vagueness about certain things, it allowed the fandom some level of flexibility in interpreting their version of the supernatural in whatever way they wanted (the only other angel we see “on screen” other than Aziraphale is Metatron, for like 3 pages, so it was really whatever your imagination cooked up to fill in those gaps), whereas the TV show fandom is working with more concrete building blocks.

This leads me to another gripe I have--making God female.  I understand this appealed hugely to a lot of people because they love the progressive implications of God not being male, and how it upsets religious bigots, but I honestly did not think this was super revolutionary or groundbreaking for the reason that Good Omens is a work of satire--it is criticizing God, and honestly?  I don’t think God is super kind and loving in either version of the story, Heaven is harsh and filled with asshole angels, Crowley was thrown out for just asking questions, and God plays games with his/her servants.  Not everyone sees it this way but I honestly feel like God in the GOmens universe is borderline abusive and gas-lighty, as a proxy criticism of the Christian Church, and the church has historically also been extremely misogynistic, so I think that aspect of it kind of falls apart when God is suddenly female.

That line about dinosaur bones being a joke that God played on humans hits differently when child-you went to a school that taught creationism in science class and thought you were going to hell if you didn’t believe what they told you.

But getting back to my main point, the TV show had the narrative updated for the times much more significantly than the radio play that came out in 2015--for that one, it was mostly cosmetic changes, such as tossing in a mention of X-boxes, whereas the TV show updated the basic narrative structure to reflect changing culture.  I think it was an effective change, but one that made the narrative less appealing to me personally.  A lot of people who were in the fandom before the TV show came out, or who just read the novel after watching the show to compare, seem to agree that the worldbuilding and the characterizations have subtle differences between the two incarnations, which to a casual consumer is not really that noticeable, but if you like one or the other because it hits a very specific sweet spot it might make a difference.  For me I liked it mostly because it provided a blank canvas with some very good building blocks for, like, my imagination to run off with, and the TV show closed a lot of those avenues by filling them in with something more concrete.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing and I can see myself experiencing this from the opposite side when I go into fandoms having just consumed the newest incarnation of a thing and quite liked it, only to find the fandom has people who liked it before that adaptation and hate it a lot!  That’s just the nature of the beast and an inevitable side effect of obsessing over something way more than you’re meant to, but it’s also why I’m not really interested in reading or writing fanfiction set in the TV ‘verse.  Anyway Im kind of rambling now but this is just kinda my thoughts and my onion so if anyone has any other thoughts on it feel free to share your onion with me too :)

[axemetaphor]

Hey, I'm that guy from ao3. I was wondering, do you have a specific place you get inspo for monsters in Auckland? I'm making a DnD campain in the J&D world, aaand I kinda need help haha. Yours are like perfect <3 (Also, if you wanna join us, you can, we haven't even had our zero session and we're not playing actual DnD, I don't know how to play that, so it's ok if you don't know that, it's super easy and fun i swear, you can get a link to our discord, love you)

:0 oh shit hi !! a jdate DnD game sounds cool as fuck! im really bad at games like that tho so im gonna politely pass on that one but wish y'all the best of luck!!! 

as for making monsters my inspo is Kind Of Weird? i mean i look at a lotta horror art for sure (my favourite artist atm is Trevor Henderson aka slimyswampghost on most medias, u may know him as That Guy Who Made Sirenhead but he has a lot of other fantastic art as well!), but since i dont wanna feel like im rippin other people off i actually Dont often use that as inspo! aaaand heres where its gonna get a bit weird

aside from the times i pluck a creature from my nightmares (and boy, do i have a lotta material to work with there), i usually either look into folklore (bein mindful of closed cultures like, i believe most Native American monsters are off-limits for non-Natives to write; im white as hell so i try to stick to british/irish/more recent american shit) or... i look to this one game i played Obsessively when i was in elementary/middle school: Spore (which you can find on Steam i think or their hilariously hasn't-been-updated-in-a-WHILE website). I literally played it so much I can just kind of... imagine the whole creature-creator process. I think it’s a curse. I think Todd Howard cursed me for the crime of Having No Friends.

Now, if you dont wanna download a probably-poorly-aged EA game from 2007 (i dont even know if it’d run anymore if you Just Now bought it, i remember the security measures that thing had damn near broke the game before i could even play it, thanks EA) and play through the first two stages (theyre Long) to unlock the creature creator and all the Bits for it, you can either watch people play that shit on YouTube (Monster Factory is a favourite of mine, they did I Think a 3-video run of Spore) or, 

You can also do somethin that I once did as an assignment for Character Design class: go to a random animal generator, let it spit out 2-3 animals (or as many as you like, i guess, but i find 2-3 to be a Manageable number) and mash those motherfuckers together! Hell, you can even start to mix in stuff like objects/minerals/whatever the fuck too. Make something that’s a dog, hammerhead shark, and the concept of entropy. Go nuts! Here’s an example, some shit I made for that class (which mayyyyyy appear in Auckland...... perhaps. if i feel like it) :

They can range from “cute” to “nightmarish” as you please! Fun fact, that spider/shark/scorpion is meant to be the size of a house. I honestly come up with a lot of messed up shit by just asking myself "What's the worst thing I can think of right now?" and then I just Go For It with whatever my brain's thrown at me. I did that with Nightmare E.T. and the fucked-up ostriches. 'Scary' is often a sort of personal thing for people, like phobias and shit, you know? Lookin inward can be pretty helpful there. Not like you have to make something of your phobias, just maybe run with something that disturbs you a little. If you press yourself for why it bothers you sometimes you can find something deeper and maybe more universal in it. I'm not talking about unearthing trauma or anything tho that likely Wouldn't Be Healthy just like... if you think spiders are creepy, ask yourself Why: is it the eyes? the legs? the venom? the way they just kinda creep up on you, like, you dont notice em til you see them? etc.

As for the monsters in Auckland while most of them aren’t gonna be references (maybe a few more in future chapters...) I will admit the “morning wood monster” is a reference to the Pokémon Trevenant; the "most fucked-up dog [Dave had] ever seen" was a creature from The Moomins just described as horribly as possible--I can't find it on the wiki anymore??? it was from the 2d animated one, though; the Shitsucker is a regular ol’ Wraith (following a specific mythos where they aren’t just Random Ghosts but beings that feed off negative emotional energy, I can't re-find which one I'm sorry lmao); and the haunted ship thing at the beginning is a vague reference to the Buzzfeed Unsolved episode on that big ass boat. Isn't directly tied to it (obviously, 'cause Buzzfeed Unsolved never has much Actual Ghost Activity, let alone one Throwin Shit At Em jhgfds), more just inspired by it.

Maybe when the thing is done, I’ll sort them all into one of three categories--references to stuff/folklore, things i had nightmares about, and things i just kind of thought up. Make a post on here about it, idk

wow! this was fuckin long. i hope at least some of that is helpful!! also im adding this here cause i just remembered some people use Spore to sculpt like?? beautiful monsters and shit?? like i Know i watched a “speedrun” of someone creating a beautiful ass dragon in it. there’s probably a whole community of people out there making epic and/or fucked up shit and you could watch them build it or just scroll through thumbnails for inspo, but i do feel like Building Stuff Yourself is best, cause it just kind of Feels Nice to make something yourself and go “hey man, look how fucked up this is ! scary, right?” and get that Success Feeling when the other guy recoils and goes "yeah man what the fuck though"