#it’s so hard to describe his character without context

[picckl]

i hope its okay to ask but is there anything you can tell us about saffron or his story? all of the art you make of him is so wonderfully made and im interested in learning more about them :)

Yes! I cant go into his backstory bc it hasn’t been revealed to the party yet, but I can give you a little overview of his character-

Hes a feylost warlock, serving under the archfey Titania (who is also his ex girlfriend). He does not remember anything outside of being a member of the summer court, and he doesn’t know how he got there.

The campaign plot started about a month and a half after he escaped the feywild, and he was introduced as a little bit of a stuck-up asshole to the rest of the party. Warmed up to Klaus, the Owlin who also spoke sylvan, pretty quickly, and when he was downed in our first big fight Saffron kinda snapped and got his first example of his full power- usually hes. Not very good attack wise but whenever he has enough emotion to bring Titania out it becomes pretty much a slaughter, he ended up ripping the attacker apart and turning him into stone which was the official start to his character arc. His dynamics with the other members are all very different, I made a chart a while back to help explain it

There is a Lot of plot that I’m working on making a kinda wiki for, but to simplify things hes warmed up a lot to the party and is currently trying to keep Titania from killing them by promising her he’ll go behind their backs to get info on their skills. Almost all of his previous rudeness is gone and he’s become a bit desperate, as his magic is extremely unstable and he’s terrified of it (ripped out a guys heart 2 fights ago and he ended up completely shutting down for like an hour). He’s also got below average hp for his level, which makes him pretty tricky to maneuver in fights. I really really want to find a way to share the story we have going on bc of how much I care about it, but theres so much involved it’s very hard to fully explain hdhfh

Basically he’s just a very desperate man who doesn’t really know who he is and cares far too much about his teammates, but is also extremely flawed and a bit of a coward. Love him tho he is so much fun to play

[david-talks-sw]

"The Acolyte" wasn't 'woke' propaganda.

I had my issues with the show (you can check out my other posts to see what they were) but there's this notion that The Acolyte was created to spread The Message™ of "woke propaganda"... and I think there's a bit of a mix-up going on, there.

Because that's simplifying things a lot.

When you're a minority, you're not "being woke" when you're just being yourself! Conversely, you're not "writing to be woke" when you're a minority drawing inspiration from your personal experiences to tell a story.

I talked before about how George Lucas implemented elements of his personal life in his own films. In his own words:

"There's no way to write without writing from yourself. Y'know, the stuff gets made out of things that you care about… whether you've actually lived them or not. There are emotional issues that you deal with, and I think that's always a major factor with any writer. I don’t think— it's hard to write without having some kind of emotional connection to the material. I've never seen any reason not to. It’s easy to write that way. It's hard to write in the abstract. So when I write a scene, I write a scene that moves me or I care about, or is something that is personal to me." - George Lucas, Q&A with Lynne Hale, 1994 (StarWars.com)

Any piece of writing worth some salt needs to come from a personal place to some degree because that's where the heart of the story, the truth, lies. That's what an audience will relate to.

Example: The six original Star Wars films are purely George Lucas. As in, everything in those films, from the characters, to the cinematography, to the editing style, etc are all a reflection of who George is as a person and what he stands for:

anti-Vietnam / "fight the corporate & imperial machine"

60s-70s white kid from Modesto, California

single father of three

who defines himself as Methodist-Buddhist,

has an anthropology major and

a passion for Kurosawa,

cinema vérité,

cinema history in general

art and visuals and

car racing.

You see all that in those films.

Same thing with The Acolyte.

Leslye Headland drew from her personal experiences.

Among other things, Leslye is gay. So that's what she uses as inspiration to, for instance, craft Qimir's character motivation.

"I was on the treadmill being like, “What is [Qimir] gonna say?!” And my wife, who is a huge part of my creative process, finally she said, “What do you wanna say? Stop thinking of it like you have to somehow tap into a different guy.” [...] I was like, “I wanna say that people don't want me to exist as a gay woman, as a woman in this particular space, working in this wild sandbox.” There was a whole crew of people who believed in me, but deep down, I felt like, “I am unaccepted for who I am because of what I believe in and wanting to wield my power the way I'd like without having to answer to the legion of people that just exist out there.”" - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

She took this specific life experience of hers, and then made it more universal, so that a bigger audience could relate to it.

"By the way, I think everybody feels this way. I think that's why it resonates when you're honest about yourself, and you get personal about it. When [Qimir] says, “I want freedom,” that's what I want. I just want freedom. I want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist I want to be without having to answer to anybody." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Same goes with Osha and Sol's relationship, or how she defines the Jedi Order. It derives from her own relationship with her father and how she felt being raised straight, in a Christian household.

If you have the time, listen to this audio clip where she describes that.

In the context of the whole interview, her voice goes down a few octaves and starts to crack a bit. This is a vulnerable moment, when she's talking about it... and it's this experience that she turned into fuel for her writing of Sol and Osha's father/daughter bond.

"There's this thing that's called benign sexism, and part of it is this paternal protectionism — it seems like this good thing, but like you said, there's this, “I have to protect you from everything. I have to make sure you're okay. I have to tell you what track to get on, and then once you're on that track, I need to support you.” Ultimately, what happens is — again, this is a father-daughter relationship — as women evolve in their lives and develop their own personalities separate from their fathers, at some point, they have to reject that protectionism. [...] She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, “I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.” She has to do that." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Now... if we're talking consistency with the themes in Lucas' Star Wars, then yeah, The Acolyte misses the mark.

The Jedi Order isn't the patriarchy or the Catholic Church. They're more like Buddhist monks, George has stated so multiple times.

The Jedi teachings aren't narratively meant to be the same traits found in toxic masculinity or benign sexism.

When a Jedi tells you to be mindful of your emotions, it's not meant in the "boys don't cry" sense.

When they talk about letting go of attachments, it's not meant in a stoic "don't get emotionally involved" sense.

Anakin too, the whole point is that he's wrong, the narrative frames his fall to the Dark Side as his own fault, it's not meant to be perceived as a failure in upbringing.

But she's not the only one who does it. Filoni does it too, a majority of fans have this take on the Jedi.

And because of her experiences, I can see why her takeaway would be that. Same goes for Filoni, they're products of their generation, upbringing and experiences.

My point is:

Leslye Headland is writing from a personal place, when she's writing The Acolyte. It's partially informed by her politics because - like she quotes, "personal is political" - but when it comes to the writing of the show, it's personal first and foremost.

What this was, was a Star Wars fan (arguably the nerdiest one we've had so far, in terms of creators) putting all of herself in the creation of a show that perfectly reflects who she is and what she stands for, resulting in:

a story about growing past your father's paternal control and accepting that our guides aren't infallible,

where her wife holds a role and gets to wield a lightsaber,

a show about taking corrupt religious institutions to task

about the Sith and the Dark Side

and questioning the unquestionable

and exploring whether the good are really so good and if the bad are really so bad.

This was a project written from the heart, and regardless of whether the resulting art found its mark, I think it's important to note that it wasn't written to spread a propaganda message in some "pro-woke holy war" or whatever the hell the YouTubers are peddling.

[unboundprompts]

Hello! I’ve never really used this ask thing before— so I’m sorry if I do this wrong. I love your prompts and other works and was wondering if you could help me figure out how to write and describe accents? My characters have very specific accents (Australian accents, British accents, etc.) and I’m having trouble figuring out how to show that. This is a fantasy setting so I couldn’t just describe their accents as an Australian accent and such y’know? I’m so sorry if this doesn’t make sense. Would you be able to help?

How to Write a Character with an Accent

-> How to Write Character Accents

-> How to Convey Accents in Fiction Writing

Make sure your character’s speech isn’t distracting

When writing dialect or a particular accent, it can be tempting to write a character’s dialogue using phonetic spellings. However, this use of dialect can distract your reader. If your character is French and is constantly saying “ze” instead of “the,” the reader will be focusing more on decoding the line of dialogue than they will on plot or character development. When writing fiction, your reader’s attention should always be on the story, and anything that distracts from that probably isn’t worth including.

Slang and Colloquialisms

Incorporate regional slang, colloquialisms, or idioms that reflect the accent. Each accent has its own unique phrases that can suggest the character's background.

Include Snippets of their Native Language

 If you’re writing a character who speaks a foreign language, one way to communicate their accent is to simply include snippets of their native tongue in their lines of dialogue. This will demonstrate the character’s native language and implied accent without resorting to the distracting eyesore of phonetic spelling.

Don't Stereotype

Writing different dialects indelicately can make you appear condescending towards non-native English speakers or people who use the English language differently than you do. One of the most common offenders is the use of “eye dialect,” which refers to using misspellings or nonstandard spellings in order to depict a character’s accent (for instance, writing “fixin’” with an apostrophe instead of “fixing” in order to demonstrate Appalachian or Southern accents). By focusing on the “otherness” of regional dialects and non-native speakers, a writer may give the impression that they are making fun of the way people speak. When writing different accents, keep eye dialect to a minimum.

Rhythm and Intonation

Accents often have distinctive rhythms and intonations. Pay attention to how the accent changes the flow of speech. For instance, British accents might have a more clipped and precise quality, while Australian accents can sound more relaxed and drawn out.

You might describe this in your narrative, saying something like, "Her words rolled out with a casual lilt, the vowels stretching like lazy waves."

Character Reactions and Context

Show how other characters react to the accent. If a character speaks in a heavy accent, others might lean in to listen, nod in confusion, or make a comment. This helps highlight the uniqueness of the speech.

Physical Description

Consider linking the accent to physical traits or background details. Describe the character’s upbringing or location, giving hints about their accent through their surroundings or lifestyle.

Example: “Raised in the bustling markets of Evermere, his accent was a musical blend of the old tongue, softening the hard edges of his words.”

Subtlety in Dialogue Tags

Instead of writing out the accent in every piece of dialogue, you can subtly hint at it through the dialogue tags. For example, “he said, his voice dripping with the easy lilt of the southern coast” can convey the accent without explicit phonetic spelling.

[dulc3vida]

you.

rafe cameron x bunny!reader

part 1. this is my au so don't think too much about canon lore. characters, times, events, ect... might not match but PLEASE JUST ENJOY THE STORY PLEASE JUST GIVE IT A CHANCE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASe

warning: 18+ read at your own risk. this is a dark fic loosely inspired by the tv show you. dubious content lies ahead, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

UNC Chapel Hill: September, Sophomore Year

there was nothing rafe cameron hated more than being tutored. it made him feel stupid, needing someone to explain and break down concepts that others understood easily. ward used to lose his mind trying to find rafe new tutors because in all honesty, when rafe felt cornered or helpless, he got nasty. saying the rudest things that made these well-paid, private tutors basically discard a paycheck, was one of the first times rafe ever felt true power. the first time he ever came close to knowing what his dad felt like, even though his dad had a much better reputation than rafe ever would.

rafe especially hated english. the books were boring and he could never be bothered to sumbit more than a half baked essay regarding the text. that's how he ended up in the study room in the library sitting across from you. he remembered you from class, the TA. you always sat besides prof. callahans desk and you looked younger than any TA he had ever had, probably even his age. your face was familiar but rafe couldn't put his finger on it. you were clean, you smelled good, and your nails were done which meant you had the time and money to take care of that kind of thing when most college students forget to feed themselves. you occasionally looked up from the signup sheet as the minutes ticked 5 past 3pm, where only rafe's name was signed.

"i guess we can start now." you mumbled, flipping your notebook open. "this weeks quiz is going to cover part 1 of crime and punishment. have you... started the reading?"

rafe's hard gaze bored into yours and he shook his head without another word. he was thinking about how cute and neurotic the way you had your notes organized was and how soft you spoke to him. were you scared of him? rafe was intrigued.

"okay, no biggie. we can just start there. did you check out a copy of the book?" you asked, pulling out your own copy that was bursting at the seam with sticky notes and colored tabs. again, rafe wordlessly shook his head. "good thing we're in the library. come on, let's go see if they have any left."

rafe followed close behind you, you could practically feel him breathing down your neck as you walked through rows of books before finding the one you were looking for. you showed rafe how to check a book out before returning to the study room. "okay. let's start."

you began dissecting the book from the very beginning, soft voice describing the historical context of the book. rafe was surprised at how well he was keeping up. it didn't hurt that you were cute, nose all blushed and button, scrunching up whenever you couldn't read your own handwriting in your notes. a pair of clear framed glasses sat on the bridge of your nose which you constantly adjusted due to your eyelashes hitting the glass. you had a habit of licking and biting your lips, applying lipgloss on every "brain break" as you called it. maybe all this time, all he needed was a cute tutor that he could stand looking at.

in between writing notes and flipping through the book, he caught glimpses of a "j" necklace dangling in your cleavage. did your name start with a j?

"what's your name?" rafe asked once the two of you began packing your things up. it was now 7:30 with the sun beginning to set. you told him and he repeated it under his breath.

"my friends call me bunny though." if you're bunny, who is j? you tossed your bag over your shoulder and let your hair down from the claw clip that was holding it up. it billowed over your shoulders and you tucked a few stray strands behind your ears after taking your glasses off. you weren't the shy good girl he met at the beginning of the session, no, you were different. good girl in front of everyone but he knew there was another energy in you that he wanted- no he needed to see. rafe watched you leave, staying a few steps behind, where he could comfortably watch you and before he knew it, you were jumping into the passenger side of a beat up old brown van that pulled up, and leaning over to give whoever was driving a kiss.

rafe felt a familiar, red hot anger wash over him. the first time he felt that anger was when sarah was born and ward wouldn't stop fawning over her. ward basically forgot he had a son when sarah was born which made rafe incredibly insecure. that insecurity built a home inside rafe's heart, where any little inconvenience could turn it into an ugly monster with sharp teeth and a desire to tear everything in sight into fucking pieces. this time, the monster was awakened at the reality of you having a boyfriend.

against his better judgement, rafe ran to his truck the second you took off, speeding down the road he saw you drive down. it took him a minute, but he managed to find the shitbox on wheels you were riding around in. he made sure to stay far enough away to where it didn't seem suspicious, but close enough to where he wouldn't lose you again.

he wouldn't lose you again.

he repeated that phrase to himself as he drove into jacksonville and while he parked his car a few spaces from the van in a place where your little group was fully visible. you came to the beach. there was 3 guys, 1 girl, and you. gone were your leggings, tank top, and cardigan. instead, you donned a pair of cutoff jean shorts, a bikini top, and a huge smile on your face as you settled yourself in the blonde boys lap.

rafe thought he recognized the group you were with, but he was hoping his eyes were just playing tricks. of course, it could never be that simple because rafe did know them. the pogues. what were they doing on the mainland? he hadn't seen them in a while and was getting used to not having to see or smell them other than when he went home for holidays.

jj, he knew worked in the cafeteria ever since he graduated earlier in the spring, which is probably how he met you. rafe had never been fond of jj, in fact, rafe lived to antagonize jj back on the island (if he cared for the cafeteria food, he would probably be in there a lot more to mess with him) so him having you felt like poorly timed karma. to be completely honest, rafe hadn't expected such a dramatic shift of power dynamics when coming to college because now there was at least 10 other rafe's who were dating the girls he should have been dating. he did just fine at parties, more than fine, but he was starting to get tired of drunk girls who just lied there all limp and sweaty or threw up on his dick (happened twice freshman year and he didn't enjoy it like he thought he would). the first decent, eligible girl he meets is getting her pussy dug out by jj maybank of all people and it felt like someone, somewhere was laughing at his misfortune. it almost made him want to give up on you.

almost.

he would never let jj maybank win at anything, let alone your heart. there was just something about you that he couldn't let go. the only thing he couldn't figure out was why everyone else was here too? none of them had a chance of getting into chapel hill. you either had to have perfect grades, be incredibly wealthy, or be a legacy student. thankfully, rafe managed to be 2/3 of those things.

rafe sat back in his seat and just observed you. he cracked his windows open and tried to listen to your conversation but he was too far to hear anything other than laughter and unintelligible voices. he pulled his phone out and typed your name into instagram, easily finding your very public page.

rafe decided to do some digging. he would start at the bottom. scrolling all the way back through a very curated feed (rafe could tell you pick and choose which of your old posts get to stay up and which ones ruin the feed) rafe felt his heart sink.

he knew you.

OBX: Summer 2018

"come on, bunny, i don't wanna go without you." your friend, esther, pleaded. she had been invited to rafe camerons party, a coveted event where anything and everything happened. esther was dating rafe's friend kelce, who invited her to the party.

"you're not even gonna talk to me so what's the point in going." you responded, filing your nails while you laid in bed.

"honestly, when's the last time you really went out? you only ever go to the country club and don't say your parents make you because last time you weren't even with your parents."

"well, the old men buy me drinks if i talk to them and make them laugh. sometimes they give me money. one of them gave me this tiffany bracelet." you stuck your wrist out to show off the silver bracelet with the heart tag which was branded with the company's insignia.

"that's kinda gross." esther scrunched her nose. you only shrugged your shoulders.

"so is going to a party at rafe camerons house. jungle juice is probably roofied" rafe had been the stereotypical jock douchebag who only hung out with other jocks, cheerleaders, or other impossibly gorgeous girls. you saw right through him which is why you never caved. not when he invited you to his lunch table, not when he asked you out, not when he tried to grind against you on the dancefloor at junior prom and called you a bitch when you pushed him away. at some point, rafe stopped trying trying with you and turned his attention and "where my hug at?" energy towards other girls who were much more susceptible.

"so we'll pregame. just please don't make me go alone." in a flash, esther sat on top of you and pinned your arms down while a string of "please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top!" tumbled out of her mouth.

"OKAY!" you had enough, but were still giggling. "i'll go, just get off of me so i can change."

"yay!" esther rolled off of you. "wear the black one, the one that makes you look slutty."

"aren't we supposed to be getting you laid?" you asked, looking through your closet that was practically overflowing with expensive name brands.

esther looked down at her hands. "me and kelce already..."

"no way. really?" she nodded and you squealed rushing over to hug her. "babe i'm so proud of you! wait- why do you need me there then?"

"its the first time i'm meeting his friends and i'm nervous." she explained, now looking through your clothes with you. "i need a buffer, yknow, a cute friend who can keep my boyfriends friends occupied."

you blinked. "so basically, you're whoring me out?"

"you just told me that you talk to old men for money and gifts."

"yeah and they don't even get to see me in my little black dress."

when you arrived at the party, it was in full swing. rafe caneron's parties had a reputation. booze flowed, drugs were shared, and there were enough rooms in the house for every couple to get busy in. it was the perfect haven for teen delinquency.

you were unimpressed, as per usual, with rafe's antics. he had been in the pool when you arrived, a girl on either side of him while he smoked a joint.

"how long do i have to stay?"

"until you start enjoying yourself."

you went to the bar. grabbing a red solo cup, you mixed yourself a drink of cherry vodka and coke. you chugged it, always having the attitude that when it came to alcohol you had to get right to the point. when you finished it, you made yourself another one.

"excuse me." a hand gently placed itself on the small of your back which made you jump. "my bad, didn't mean to scare ya- hey you're esthers friend right?" it was topper. "i just saw her with kelce. i'm topper." he stuck his hand out.

"bunny." you took it.

"whatcha got there?"

"chery vodka and coke."

"nah nah nah- you like the cherry vodka?" you nodded and he took your cup from you. "let me make you a drink."

"okay." you watched his every move as he fixed cherry vodka, cranberry juice, and lime in a brand new cup. "thank you. what is this?"

"it's called a cherry bounce. cheers to you, bunny. hopefully this isn't the last time i see you."

you only smiled at him, tight lipped and gently tapped your cup against his before taking a drink. "topper, this is really good. make me another?"

"you're not even done with that one yet." with that, you drank the rest of your cup. "okay, party girl." he took your cup back and fixed you another. "you wanna dance?"

you hated to admit it, but you actually were having a good time with topper. he was funny, kind, nice to look at, and he was a good dancer. the night was going so good, until esther invited you and topper to sesh with her, kelce, and rafe as the party died down.

it wasn't the sesh that was bad, no, you even managed to be polite and sociable with rafe. it was after the sesh when your drinks had caught up with you and you needed to pee. "esther can you show me where the bathroom is?" you asked but it fell on deaf ears as esther and kelce were mouth fucking.

"c'mon. i'll show you." rafe got up and began walking inside the house without another word. you quickly followed, only wanting to relieve your bladder and be alone for a few minutes to gather yourself and your thoughts that were racing on account of the sativa blunt you had just smoked.

rafe walked up the stairs, basically torturing your bladder with every step until he got into his room. "just use this one."

you were too desperate to argue about whatever his intentions were bringing you here so you went in and almost tripped over yourself getting to the toilet. you made it through, no accidents happening and feeling a lot more gone than when you walked up the stairs.

you stepped back into rafes room and he was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for you. "you okay? you were in there for a while."

"yeah." you stumbled over to sit next to him but he got up and went to his window. "just a little dizzy."

"everyone fell asleep." rafe watched his friends make themselves comfortable on the outside couch on this hot summer night. you climbed over his bed and looked out the window at the sight of your friend asleep on her boyfriend's chest and topper asleep, hugging a pillow.

"do i get a prize?" he cocked his head at you. "for being the last one awake at a rafe cameron party?"

"what do you want?" rafe asked you seriously and you sighed, lying back against his navy blue sheets.

"for you to not be such an asshole." you murmured and stared at the ceiling. "i mean, you're really cute but you ruin it by being... you."

"i knew you had a thing for me." rafe must have only heard half of what you were saying because he was taking his place back next to you on his bed. "c'mere." he patted his lap and it didn't take much more coaxing than that to get you crawling into his lap. he positioned himself the way he wanted you, straddling him with your crotch right on top of his. "been waiting for you to finally come around." he trailed his hands up and down from your waist to your ass. "y'gonna let me inside that pretty pussy babe?" rafe whispered in your ear, sending all your intoxicated arousal straight to your core.

if you had been in a clearer state of mind, you would have never even been in rafe's room, but here you were letting him guide your hips to grind against you through the thin layer of your black lacy panties. your short dress had already ridden up your thighs, exposing you even more than you already were.

unexpectedly, rafe tugged the top of your dress down and leaned down to take a nipple into his mouth. when he grazed his teeth against your sensitive, hardened peak, you gasped and jolted against him. "rafe." you whispered, trying to get his attention because your head was spinning. instead, his hand found a place between your legs and pushed your panties to the side, dragging his fingers through your folds and spreading your wetness. he used it to rub your clit in circles, encouraged by your whimpers in his ear. "oh rafe..." you felt your orgasm building quickly due to your drunken state, but you also felt a pit building in your stomach. this felt wrong.

you blinked and you were on your back. your dress had found a place across your stomach and your panties were torn off of you without your knowledge. you closed your eyes, hoping if he thought you were asleep that he would just stop.

of course, things would not be that simple.

while your eyes were closed, rafe got undressed and slipped a condom over his cock. he grabbed a pillow and placed it under your hips to prop your pussy up for him at the perfect angle. he took his cock and tapped it against your clit. "wake up, sleepy girl." you only whined and tried to close your legs but he forced himself between them so you couldn't.

your eyes snapped open when you felt the intrusion of his cock. "uhhh..." you let out a mixture of a moan and a whine. the stretch burned because no matter how wet you were, rafe was objectively big, especially the mushroom tip of it. you didn't know if it was the liquor, the weed, or what, but you could basically picture what it looked like based on the way it felt inside you.

rafe gave you no time to adjust and set a punishing pace off the bat. he had one of his large hands splayed over your stomach, pushing down and making you let out a short, loud moan. "let me hear you. wanna hear how good i fuck this pussy." rafe grunted while thrusting in and out.

you, in your state, were incredibly embarrassed no matter how good he hit your spots so you were barely letting any noise escape your mouth.

"always playing hard to get... you're gushing around my cock... and making a mess on my sheets... but you still act all stuck up..." rafe spat at you through his teeth and you let out another high pitched whine. he punctuated each word with a hard thrust, his balls now slapping your ass with vigor. "gotta put you in your place, huh?"

he flipped you over and pulled you onto all fours. his hand splayed across your back this time and pushed your chest into the bed, creating a beautiful arch to your back. "so fuckin pretty." he moaned when the slid back into your tight warmth. the change of position did nothing to help you hold onto the little composure you had as he was now deeper than before, mushroom tip generously rubbing against your g-spot and his balls now smacking your clit. you were too far gone to care how you looked throwing your hips back against his. "fucking slut." he grunted, grabbing a handful of your hair. "y'wanted this huh? yeah, yeah, you been needing this huh?"

you could only moan as he painfully gripped your hair and pushed himself balls deep, rolling his hips against yours. "you like the way i fuck you baby?"

"mhm..." you had your eyes closed as you focused on the tension building in your stomach. a heavy hand landed a smack against your ass.

"use your words. you like my cock?"

"i love it..." you desperately moaned out.

"good girl." rafe pushed your head back into the bed and drilled his cock into you brutally. you were struggling to hold your hips up, but rafe held you up with one arm. "fuck... m'gonna cum. y'gonna let me cum in this pussy?" rafe grunted and pulled out, sliding the condom off before thrusting back into you. "there we go." he spoke through gritted teeth. "thatagirl, pussy feels like heaven."

you felt the difference and opened your mouth to protest but all that came out was unintelligible pants and moans.

then you saw white.

your orgasm washed over you, making your pussy clench and flutter and cream around rafes cock. you felt rafes hips stutter against yours and then you felt hot ropes of cum paint your insides. you couldn't stop moaning because rafe was still inside you, slowly thrusting and rubbing your clit. "so fucking tight..." he commented as he watched the way your pussy suctioned his cock and pulled out.

against your knowledge, rafe had been recording since he got you in doggy and was still recording. "shit..." he groaned as he focused the camera on your glistening pussy. a drop of his cum came dribbling out and he pushed it back in, earning a soft "ahhh..." from you. he played with your sensitive cunt until you came again for the camera and passed out.

when you woke up, you were alone. for a brief moment, you hadn't remembered what happened and were just confused as to where you were. you peered around the room and saw your dress and torn panties and it all came rushing back. the drinks, the sesh, having sex with rafe cameron. he must have changed you because you didn't remember putting on one of his shirts or sweats.

you checked your phone and your parents had been blowing you up since 8am. it was noon. you had missed calls from esther and a series of texts that said she couldn't find you in the morning and hopes you made it home safe. "shit." you groaned and got out of bed, legs sore from the sex you could only remember flashes of. you tidied the room up and changed back into your clothes before walking downstairs with your heels in hand. you slowed as you reached the foyer, hearing voices from the parlor.

"i don't know dude, doesn't feel right to watch this."

"she was totally cool with it, c'mon."

"you're gonna wanna see this."

you recognized the voices as topper, rafe, and kelce. then a video began playing and at first it just sounded like porn, then you realized it was your moans streaming through rafes phone.

"you like the way i fuck you?"

"mhm..."

"use your words. you like my cock?"

"i love it..."

"good girl."

you felt sick to your stomach as you heard the boys commenting on the video. how could you be so stupid? of course rafe would record you without permission while you were off your ass last night. you only blamed yourself as you walked home from tannyhill.

the video followed you around over the summer and you only managed to escape it when you went off to college.

rafe never thought twice about you after that.

JACKSONVILLE: Present.

rafe stared at your instagram feed in utter disbelief. he hadn't thought about you or the video since that summer. he honestly forgot it even happened. he wasn't a douchebag, he was a handsome young man who took all the opportunities presented to him (as he told himself). was sending the video around immature and stupid? probably. he was a kid though. everyone makes mistakes, or at least that's what he tried to tell himself as he looked through old pictures of you. did you remember him? you must have. you looked different from the last time he saw you but he looked the same. you definitely knew who he was the second he came into the study room and he didn't know how to feel about that. it made his job easier and harder. he already had a connection with you, but he would have to go through a grueling apology process that he really didn't care for. he just needed to have you.

as he scrolled into the more recent stuff, he couldn't help but notice that you didn't post jj on here at all. the page was a monument to you, all the better, and you were gorgeous on here. 2k followers with 1k likes on every post you made and comments that varied from "you're so gorgeous" to "just give me one chance." you had a highlight titled "my <3" and there was only one picture of you holding jj's hand with the song "melting" by kali uchis which was posted only a month ago.

he left your profile and went into his camera roll, into the hidden folder and scrolled back to 2018. he found the video and pressed play, his cock getting hard immediately and straining against his pants. soon enough, he had his phone pressed to his ear and his hand down his pants as he watched you and kie gathering firewood. soon enough, he was cumming in his hand to the sound of you saying that you loved his cock.

rafe managed to clean up a little and continued to watch you, well into the night as you and your friends built a bonfire and smoked a joint. it was midnight when you all had decided to leave. he followed the dirty old van back to campus and learned where your dorm was, watching you and jj head in.

rafe made it back to his dorm at around 3:30am. the more he learned, the more questions he had. rafe fell asleep with only one thing on his mind.

you.

[devine-fem]

Hi! I saw that a little bit ago you said you might write an essay on jondami and if that's something you're still interested in doing I'd love to see your thoughts compiled in that way. No pressure though, I know it's a lot of work!

Okay, took me a bit but here it is: the long awaited essay on Damijon, get a snack and something nice to drink because this is going to be unapologetically long.

Misconceptions. Firstly, I don't know how else to explain that I personally don't exactly see Damian and Jon as children. I mean that they are older to me, and I feel this because with comic books when a character is a child that is their time for development and growing. With Robins they always have this inability to be allowed to grow up due to DC personally wanting Batman to always have a Robin in his arsenal. The thing with Damian and Jon is that they are made to reach a finish line. That finish line being Superman and Batman, which they cannot be before developing and growing into those mantles (if the writer is good and has common sense of course) first. We see that in DCeased, WW23 and other Damian books in the past that becoming Batman and Superman is an important topic for these characters, they have a long way to go. Admittedly, I do enjoy content as to where they are younger because that is where their dynamic peaked to me, I also think it's a very simple serotonin boost and if it's innocent then I really have no issue with indulging. But to me... that's not Damijon. Damijon is about friendship, Damijon is about always being able to seek and find in a certain person and I don't particularly care if this is platonic or romantic. It's important to remember that in canon, they are nothing but friends and I enjoy that all the same, but I also find it interesting to explore their dynamic if it was in a romantic context and that is what Damijon is all about to me. It's just "what would these two characters would do if they developed a different kind of affection towards the other." In my head, with as Damian is now, I doubt he'd be able to hold an intimate relationship without training wheels first and a very understanding partner. He's emotionally distant and he has this great fear of being abandoned which I think would suffocate the relationship. Children are confused and lost people who haven't found themselves yet and while Damian and Jon are both children... I don't exactly think there will be enough room for Jon's problems and Damian's problems as well. I also kind of struggle with wanted to rid them of their age gap, their age gap is just big enough to make it as if Damian has some authority over Jon. It makes it so eventually as Damian and Jon grew that Damian would be somewhat out of reach for Jon and perhaps, he could feel like he'd have to chase after Damian a bit when it comes to milestones and development. It makes them just a little bit more interesting and as I said, I don't exactly want to erase that.

A lot of people bring up the topic of maturity between these two but that would mean that Damian is more mature than Jon and you would know that this is not the case in the comics. The person who slings around insults is Damian, the person who acts brashly is Damian, the person or initiates fights is Damian. The immature one is Damian, he may act like he knows everything but he is a child, he’s incredibly immature and we should remember that.

Damian. It's particularly hard to describe both Jon and Damian separately for me at this point. To me they are something that should had never been separated. Something that comes as a set. Like one of them is missing the other when alone. The thing about Damian Wayne is that he spent his childhood years training to be a natural born winner. He never had a moment in Robin or Damian Al Ghul that let his life be truly his own. The thing about his relationship with both Talia and Bruce is that he feels as though he needs to earn affection and love, similar to how some children may feel this too after going through psychological abuse and neglect - this coming from both Bruce and Talia at times.

It should be noted that the comic that contains this panel is not a good representation of Talia and Damian's relationship but overall, this line is somewhat accurate and holds weight to their dynamic. Damian is someone who feels the need to earn his keep, it's instilled in his brain that basic things that others may get will not be given to him without him having to earn it first. Damian feels like he doesn't belong, like he's stuck between two worlds. He's burdened by constantly having a destiny, a path already carved into the ground for him. Jon. Jon is quite simple. His whole narrative revolves around similar themes as Damian to where Jon feels like he's not truly like his father but also not entirely like his mother. He wants to live up to being like his dad, but a lot of his own individualism gets lost in the process. He has this need to prove himself and make others proud. His upbring was simple and homey. Lois Lane and Clark thought that it'd be best to hide the fact that Clark is Superman and Jon is half kryptonian in order to provide him a mundane foundation as a person. There's not much to say about Jon alone because unfortunately his characterization was cut quite short. Let me talk about the age-up situation. Some people don't understand why this is such a bad thing for Jon's character, but I strongly believe that people of this opinion simply do not care about the character since this is character assassination in the most basic form. Jon's childhood was a very important part of his character as it is for literally all characters. That's where all his personality quirks and traits come in, that's where he can resonate with the audience the most, that's where his bonds with other characters are established. As Jon is now, he's being thrown into the finish line with no prior characterization. Jon's personality is going to be lost when writers pick him up, at times he even seems emotionless and purposeless. He is entirely unrecognizable to me. The only thing that has been established for him is his sexuality and his boyfriend and his solo revolved entirely around said boyfriend. The least they could do is make them good representation, but they aren't even that, sorry, it's jarringly obvious. And it's not just that its "getting in the way of my ship" because I don't want Jon and Damian to be canon, not really, not when this is how they treat a canonically queer character... look at what happened to Jon. I imagine that if they were to be canon then I'd find myself complaining about how DC can't do Jon and Damian's dynamic properly constantly. I don't have that much faith in them. It's disheartening that as a fan of him that I don't have as many good things of him that I do bad. The ship also suffers from this because it's literally about growing up beside someone and that childhood friends to lovers appeal.

Damian & Jon. A lot of time in Damian's stories because of his abrasiveness and offputting/distant personality, he finds it hard to make friends and sometimes it's not entirely the other person's fault. The thing about when he met Jon is that became a past time for him, he was someone who just wanted to be around - who actually went out of his way to be around him as well as they have a wholesome foundation for a friendship. Jon feels deeply for Damian as Damian feels deeply for him. Over and over again, Jon's life is threatened in some way which forces Damian to pull down his emotional walls and show that he does care for Jon.

It's established repeatably that Damian cares a lot for Jon because when he's in danger, he visually starts to panic. Even going as far as calling Jon by his first name which is rare for him because Damian calls everyone by their last name because he speaks very formally but when Jon gets hurt, Damian slips up to suddenly call him by his first name.

Damian was so shaken up that he accidentally calls Jon his friend afterwards, which is important to note because he has always refused to acknowledge their friendship for stubborn reasons. Also to note Damian's stubbornness I'd also like to mention the time where Damian refused to acknowledge Jon could join the teen titans, every time Jon proposed the idea, Damian shut him down till it came the time to vote on whether or not Jon does join the titans and Damian was literally the only person who raised his hand.

This was one of the moments I was most frustrated with Damian because all that arguing with Jon was truly just to annoy him and nothing more, he secretly believed Jon could join the titans the entire time but when it came down to it-

He only made himself and Jon look stupid and proceeds to brush off their friendship once again. I have to admit it is slightly interesting even when frustrating. As for Jon, yes, they bumped heads at first and Jon found himself getting extremely frustrated with Damian's attitude, but it was mostly because Damian is someone, he knows he's going to have to spend a lot of time working besides and he only wanted to be his friend while Damian seemed uninterested.

The thing about these two is that whether they like it or not, they will have to spend their entire lives beside each other. This is something no other dynamic in DC can really replicate. We know Jon feels deeply for Damian, it wasn't able to be verbalized often unfortunately but he has mentioned how highly he thinks of Damian, calling him "the strongest person I know" - stronger than him by far. He's one of the few characters that want to see Damian as he is and doesn't want anything from him, he just likes being around Damian.

And for Damian one of the few ways he knows to provide to Jon is taking him away and going on missions with him, it's kind of sad to think about how this is one of the few ways he knows how to express that he wants to be around Jon. He's gotten up in the middle of the night, went across the city and met up with Jon to hang out with him.

It's sad, yes, but also really sweet. A lot of characters assume the worst for Damian and think that he's bound to end up being the worst version of himself or think he's like a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment.

But instead, Jon refuses to acknowledge that Damian can be evil at all, denying entire alternate realities where Damian is slowly becoming the worst version of himself because he deeply believes that in Damian's heart, he could never be anything less than great. Their mantles. Not to talk about DCeased but yes, I will be talking about DCeased because that is the perfect example of how these characters function to me.

This comic showed his the long, excruciating, and lonely years these two would have to face in disaster. The trauma of losing everything, your family and your world and moving mantles to stop it but it being something they had to do together. Like a grave already buried in the ground for them but they laid in it together as kids and adults. If you truly want to understand this ship I deeply think you should turn on your brain and read DCeased.

How they contrast. Jon and Damian's are distinctly different, their personalities are different, their upbringing is different, and what they deeply identify with is different. This is why at times they may argue but at the end of the day, they have to share their life with the other.

How they compare.

At times where they may think they are alone or have no one to talk to then they will always have each other, they're supposed to, that's what their relationship is built on. Understand that in the most basic sense that these two are platonic soulmates. They will be there for each other at the beginning.

And at the end.

They share this great burden together, they share similar paths, fears, worries and goals. They will always be together even when one of them might not want to be because the worst thing you can be when all of these things are happening to you; is alone. Their lives tell the same story just in different places and perspectives, sometimes their most defining moments directly mirror each other.

They both feel like they don’t belong and like they’re stuck between two worlds as well. For Jon, it’s Krypton and Earth, for Damian, its Batman and Al Ghul.

Their mantles supply this destiny they share. It’s what will bring them together and pull them apart.

I feel the need to mention that Jon is one of two characters that sees Damian beyond the son of batman, Damian has said “Well, If I am almost Batman.” and Jon said “You’re so much more than that.”

Damian said “Do you have a better offer?” and Jon said “Well, I have you.”

… I have to love them.

Their relationship with one another platonically. They have the friendship to end all friendships. It quite literally transcends space and time. Regardless of if you like Jon and Damian being friends in the first place or not, you cannot deny that what Jon has done for Damian is not important.

Like I said with Damian, he feels as though the love that he receives has to be earned but when he met Jon, he was introduced to the idea that someone wanted to simply be around him, that someone wanted to be his friend and love him unconditionally. You cannot deny that this friendship helped develop these two in very good directions, not only are these two entertaining but they help each other progress by simply being around the other.

They give to each other what other people can’t. Dick Grayson even admits that Jon sees something in Damian that other people like to ignore. This is very important. Now Jon’s relationship to Damian could help him as well, knowing Damian could grant him an extra layer of empathy and understanding, it already does and he can use what he’s learned from Damian in the future.

Damian teaches Jon what it means to be a hero, Jon teaches Damian what it means to be a kid. Damian shows Jon what love has been and Jon shows Damian what love can be. It’s very compelling. These are two lost people who make each other feel accepted and normal.

The potential of their relationship romantically.

Imagining what it would be like if DC was capable of allowing these two to engage in a romantic relationship with the other is compelling. Firstly, I highly doubt that DC will ever properly portray these two’s relationship with the other if they did pull the trigger.

But in the fantasy world where everything is perfect, I think it’d be nice for these characters to have a relationship free of their narratives. To be allowed to be confused about their feelings and even reject them; to have us as an audience be able to watch these two slowly navigate it over time and especially with them both being same sex, I feel like DC just showing that they’re not afraid to portray that type of relationship between character directly under one of their biggest names is certainly heartwarming.

Jon coming to terms with liking boys and having a crush on someone the same gender as him while also struggling to have that perfect american life that his father’s narrative values so much and that confusing him.

Damian struggling with his feelings and allowing himself to not feel like he’s doing something wrong by falling in love with another person.

And perhaps this love being catalyst for them to want to grow up to be distinctly different from their fathers, to carve a path for themselves because they realize that they are their own person and can’t be entirely perfect for everyone else but just perfect enough for each other.

The wasted potential of the characters overall. Super Sons was a very important comic book, it supplied things for Damian fans that was starved of us. If you look at the internet before Super Sons you will see people complaining about how Damian's stories do not contain a certain element to it which was entirely fixed by Super Sons being created, Super Sons left much to be desired. I still think that series was meant to go on for way longer than it did and contain a lot of meaningful stories for the both of them so it's a real shame that it was cut short.

Unfortunately, even though some writers want to separate Jon and Damian, they’ll never fully be able to because of how engraved Damian is into Jon’s character. Damian is one of Jon’s core personality traits because overall, he is greatly lacking so they’ll never be able to be truly separated. It’s safe to say that his character is ruined and the only way for you to like it is to have bad taste in media.

Why I personally think it’s so good. All of these things I mentioned are not really given to you with other ships like Timkon, Superbat, etc. Nothing speaks to me like this and if you really understood it then you'd know that all of these things are entirely different. Damijon in canon is literally what people think Superbat is, the way that people want Clark to provide release and catharsis to Bruce is literally done for Damijon in canon. Between Superbat, Timkon and Damijon, Damijon evidently has the strongest bond/is allowed to have the strongest bond, these characters distinctly have an effect on the other that cannot be replicated with the others. Not to put these two ships down but it's evident, I've always been against the idea that Timkon and Superbat are similar to Damijon because they just aren't literally at all.

I truly believe that if Jon and Damian weren’t Superman and Batman’s sons then I’d still ship them anyway, I also think with unfortunately the way that DC is dealing with Jon’s character that if Damian was allowed to have a relationship akin to his with Jon’s something almost exactly mirroring Jon and Damian then I’d drop Damijon instantly… but… till that day.

Damian and Jon make each other happy in the purest way possible and till that stops I think I’m shipping that.

What to check out if you’re interested in it. I made a reading list for these two a while back.

[possiblyawesometmblr]

If you had to pick one song for each of your characters from their official playlist (if they have one, if not songs in general) to describe them, what songs would they be?

ooooooh oh this is a hard one. almost every song i throw onto a playlist is there for a reason but i'm gonna DO MY BEST here we go:

arisanna: home (beetlejuice cast recording) - i swear to god every day i am surprised i didn't write her specifically after this song. i like this one even better than dead mom for her overall because dead mom feels more angry, whereas this one feels like desperation and defeat that turns into acceptance. love the arc of this song and thinking about it in an ari context makes me want to cry so hard.

sylph: i love it (icona pop) - not ONLY does this one have sylph vibes in terms of lyrics, but it's funky 2010s dubstep pop. that's so them it hurts. sylph only listens to the most insane pop music of 2010-2014 i truly believe that in my heart

owen: waving through a window (dear evan hansen cast recording) - another win for the broadway bitches. perfect for him both in life and in death, honestly. i particularly love the "did I even make a sound? it's like I never made a sound, will I ever make a sound?" for him because of the idea that his life ended so fast he never got to do anything with it. also, similar to ari, this is a song with so much desperation in it.

rowan: pink pony club (chappell roan) - i actually can't get too much into this one without spoiling things, but know that this song is her to the core. rowan is in fact a chappell roan girly

mal: r.i.p. 2 my youth (the neighborhood) - so this guy doesn't have a playlist yet but something about this song really speaks to me for him. he's gone through some SHIT and i can't wait to get into it in future campaign sessions :D

[demonslayedher]

Nerdy cultural details about the Hashira

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. Here's a handful for fun:

Breath names:

The "Mushi" (蟲) of "Mushibashira" (蟲柱) does not necessarily mean "insect." It's also not the more commonly used "mushi" kanji (虫). Kanji is often formed with many components compounding together to make new meanings, and 蟲 is a crowd of three 虫. While it might be tempting to simply say that this is a whole bunch of 虫, I've also heard this described as 蟲 being the more abstract idea of the concrete 虫, or that 蟲 went through a resurgence in popularity shortly before the Taisho Period. 虫 is preferred nowadays for its simplicity.

In either case, it's not necessarily "insects." Rather than being limited to six-legged creatures, "mushi" is a catch-all term for many kinds of creepy-crawlies that simply do not fit in other categories of animals, so spiders and centipedes and worms are all part of it. Actually, the term was originally used for snakes!

Next, what are picturing when you hear "Stone Hashira"? Something in your hands that you can throw? A big stone to lay on for warmth after training in a waterfall?

You could think even bigger than that, because the "stone" kanji used is "iwa" 岩. This is usually something at least as big as the boulders Himejima pushes around to train with, but it could just as well be a whole cliff.

So then how about that issue raised about how you can never refer to "Flame Breath" as "Fire Breath"? This might be a review since it gets brought up a lot, but it's worth restating because it makes a lot of sense in context.

First, we have two kanji to work with: 炎 for flames, and 火 for fire. To make a long linguistic history short, Japan adopted written pictographic characters from China, smashed and smooshed them around to fit the spoken Japanese language, and eventually many kanji wound up with multiple pronunciations. Case in point, 炎 is "hono'o" in the context of Flame Breathing (Hono'o no Kokyuu), and "en" in the context of "Flame Hashira" (En-bashira).

火 likewise has multiple pronunciations, but a common one is "hi." Another simple kanji that can be read "hi" is 日, the sun.

Therefore, even if they are written differently, "Sun Breathing" and "Fire Breathing" would sound the same, as "Hi no Kokyuu." This also makes it easy for "Hinokami" to be construed as "Fire God" instead of "Sun God." But why stop there, really? If you want to get into older Japanese, sometimes phonetic "hi" was used in simple reference to the power of gods.

Symbolism:

This is still somewhat linguistic rather than symbolic, but you know how Sound Breath is derived from Thunder Breath?

It's worth pointing out that "Kaminari" (雷) in "Kaminari no Kokyuu" is in reference to the sound, as opposed to something like "Ikazuchi no Kokyuu" for "Lightning Breath" in reference to the sight. We can get really, really nerdy about Japanese words for thunder and lightning and how they relate to Kimetsu no Yaiba, so I already did that here.

What's more interesting to me in regard to Sound Breath is that it takes the "sound" concept of thunder and pushes it--this time with a bit of a firework motif, again in a way that would stress the sound instead of the dazzling light. Both Uzui and Zenitsu have exceptional hearing and are exceptional users of their Breath techniques, so this is either curious that a discerning sense of hearing might help, or ironic that they use such loud styles with their sensitive ears.

Moving on to snakes! There's really no shortage of serpent symbolism, so we'll just focus on a handful of examples. I have already written extensively about the positive associations snakes have with riches, especially white snakes. This is ironic, given Iguro's distasteful paste driven by riches.

Some of the other positive associations with snakes are that they are a water element animal on the geomancy system borrowed from China. Makes sense that this Breath would be derived from Water Breathing! There are many shrines dedicated to snakes and their gifts of rain and clean water, however, water can also be dangerous. A common interpretation of a major legend about an eight-headed giant serpent, the Yamata-no-Orochi, is that it symbolizes the destructive power of a flooded river. But hey, at least snakes are often equated to dragons for having the same water association, so that's pretty cool.

Setting aside the water association, the serpent itself can likewise be considered in negative lights. In the centuries leading up to the Taisho Period, it became commonplace in Buddhist teachings and entertainment to compare jealous women to snakes. This association with woman also adds another layer of cruel irony to Iguro's past.

On a happier note, let's move on to cherry blossoms!

Well, not always happy, seeing as they are known to scatter tragically soon (I am shaking my fist at you, Gotouge). Cherry blossoms are also heavy with all the directions you can go in with symbolism, and I don't have any particular take on why they are part of the overall motif of the Love Hashira (see here for a little commentary on why it is "Koi" 恋 and not "Ai" 愛).

However! I do want to point out something very clever Gotouge did!

You know how Mitsuri's hand guard looks like four hearts that all meet at their pointy ends? This is actually a traditional cherry blossom motif!! Not a very common one, which is why I find it so sly.

Personal Names:

Bear with me, this section will get slightly more speculative, as names are always up to interpretation. I should know, I've done a lot of that for this series.

Remember how kanji can be read in multiple ways? Here's something simple you'd see right away in Japanese but that gets lost in translation to most other languages. Both Sanemi and Genya have 弥 as the second character in their personal name (as "mi" or "ya"). This was not the case for all their siblings, but it's cute that the two of them share it anyway.

So what does it mean? In modern kanji dictionaries, it's pretty bland: "increasingly." However, this kanji has more interesting use and associations that that. It was originally 彌, which carries more of an image of a stretched bow, or how something might go wide and disperse. As a child's name, this might include some hope that they might grow big and tall and go to great places. It is also commonly used in expressing the names of Buddhist deities in Japanese, but it is used only for the "mi" sound instead of the meaning in these cases. (Still, 弥 is one of the "Namu Amida Butsu" characters all over Himejima's haori, which also adds a little cuteness to his associations with Genya.)

So how about someone else with a name that closely matches his brother's? We get a pretty good explanation of Yuichiro (有一郎) and Muichiro (無一郎), with 有 and 無 being opposites (to exist/to not exist). While 有 might be more straightforward in wishing for Yuichiro to have all his needs met, the "mu" in "muichiro" is for "limitless/infinity/etc, etc."

But also!!

It bares distinct resemblance to a common Zen phrase, "Honraimuichimotsu" (本来無一物), with "muichimotsu" meaning "nothing exists" (and therefore, you have nothing to worry about, just be happy).

Speaking of resemblances, "Tomioka Giyuu" has two kanji in common with the name of the mangaka of Hunter x Hunter and I sometimes wonder if he was named in homage. But that is neither here nor there, and I'll just finish today by focusing on "Giyuu" (義勇).

This is pretty basic and straightforward: "loyalty/justice" and "bravery/courage." Pretty lofty. Put them back together and it's basically a set term for "heroism."

However, put it together with other terms for squads or armies, and this is the now the word for "volunteer soldier" or "volunteer army." Historically, it would continue to be used a few decades after Kimetsu no Yaiba takes place, but the decades prior, there were "Giyuutai" organized volunteer troops as well. Perhaps Giyuu had ancestors who fought as volunteer soldiers? Who knows.

[crymzin-gutz]

Paranormal Investigators Club members interactions with Tobi. -Headcanons-

Tobi belongs to @heartfullofleeches . Go check out their blog, I can't not recommend their stuff. Their characters are amazing and I absolutely love them!

'Ello. This is my first time using Tumblr to post anything, so apologies if the formatting or anything is off. I don't really know what I'm doing. ^^; Anyways- heartfullofleeches' OC, Tobi, has been infecting my brain for the longest of time. Especially the thought of them interacting with my own group of ghost hunter OCs; Alice, Maxwell, Charlie, and Albert. So, with their permission, Imma be posting some headcanons I've come up for them. I might also post a short fanfic or two about this concept as well, but first I'd have to come up with what it'd be about. So that might be a thing, might not. Anyways- headcanons are below. ^^

-The Paranormal Investigator Club (P.I.C) members probably first meet Tobi one of two ways- either Charlie 'forces' Tobi to join their club when seeing this man, who looked as if they were lost, wandering the halls. Or, Tobi kinda just...materializes within the P.I club room one day. And Maxwell and Charlie just assume he's meant to be there. Congregates Tobs, you're apart of P.I.C now.

-Unlike Charlie, and -somewhat- Maxwell, Alice and Albert are both a bit more wary of the unexpected new member. Especially since Alice and Albert can tell that Tobi isn't human. :|

-Alice and Albert are both Unrested Souls. -(Technically, Alice -and possibly Albert?- is classified as a Sleepwalking Soul and not as an Unrested Soul. But for convince, and not having to drop a bunch of lore and world stuff that you guys didn't ask for onto you guys, we'll just be classifying them both as Unrested Souls for this.) Because of this, the two are able to sense that Tobi isn't human. Tobi is probably able to tell that Alice and Albert aren't 'human' either. Or atleast, that they aren't living humans.

-Alice and Albert both have the same unnerved, fight-or-flight response to Tobi, at first. The type of being that Tobi is, is defiantly a predator to both of them. With them -Tobi- eating ghosts for lunch and all.

-Tobi's secret about not being human doesn't stay a secret for long. Maybe, at most, a month or two. As stated prior, Alice and Albert immediately know that something is off, and it doesn't take them long to figure out that they aren't human. And, while it may take Max and Charlie a bit longer -if Tobi insists that Alice doesn't tell them-, once the two accidentally come across him eating a ghost....yeah...it's fine though. They got pretty accustomed to paranormal beings being real pretty quickly after meeting Alice.

-Charlie constantly asks Tobi to describe what ghost's, or whatever type of Unrested Soul he ate, tastes like. They -Tobi- gets a full on questionnaire after he eats. Sobs.

-There has been a few times that Charlie has started asking Tobi questions about how they taste, while he was in the middle of eating. Like full on, he'd be mid-bite and Charlie will just plop down next to him and be like, "How would you describe your meal tonight?"

-Max is hard of hearing. And wears a hearing-aid to help him hear. However- there are times that he either can't wear them -they died or he lost them-, or he simply wants a break from them. Because of this, his friends have come up with a list of other ways for them to communicate with Max without having to verbally speak. I'm bringing this up because, I imagine that as soon as it is noticed that Tobi can't, or just doesn't want to (because of the whole human's cant hear them speak without passing out), Charlie just shows him the list. And asks them what will work the best for him.

-If Tobi wants to learn sign langue, Maxwell would more than happy to teach them and help him learn.

-I don't know if Tobi has a place of his own. But if he doesn't, and at-least in this context, I can see him moving in with Albert and Max in their shared apartment. The three have such strong roommate vibes in my head. I don't know. They just do. (They defiantly also have strong bromance chemistry. Jk jk....unless...)

-Frenemies dynamic between Tobi and Albert. One-sided or not, these two freaks -(/pos)- have the gayest frenemies dynamic known to man. The type to want to kill each other, but also wanting the other one to be alive so that they can see them achieve their dreams and what not.

-They, Tobi and Albert, have gotten drunk -(can Tobi get drunk???)- and ended up waking up the next morning sharing the couch. They make a deal as to not speak about it. Whatever happened -it was nothing, they just were both too drunk to make it to their individual beds- will be token to their graves.

-Albert and Tobi fight over the title of 'cameraman'. They either end up sharing the role, or they have split custody like a couple of divorced parents.

Albert: It's my turn with our child.

Tobi: *'Stares' at Albert before turning their back to him. Still holding the camera in his hands.*

Albert: ??? What do you mean no, dude?! Gimme the fucking camera!

Tobi: *Holding his hand out of Albert's reach. Using his other hand to push Albert back, his hand pushing against Albert's forehead.* >:|

Albert: Don't make me get Max!

Tobi: *Reluctantly, and clearly not wanting to, gives Albert the camera.* >:(

-They probably don't mean to, but Tobi causes disturbances to Max's hearing-aid. Low buzzing, or painful high pitched beeping if Tobi is loosing control of himself.

-Max gets the worse of Tobi's effects on humans; headaches, nosebleeds, getting dizzy and almost blacking out, ect.

-Alice occasionally lets Tobi tag along with them on their jobs. If she is especially drained from non-stop work, or just can't be bothered to properly exercise an Unrested Soul she just lets Tobi eat it. It's like a lil' treat for him. :3 And it's less work that Alice has to do. So it's a win-win.

-Charlie is very big on physical contact. It's a major love langue of theirs. So, Tobi is gonna have to adapt to it. Charlie will respect his boundaries...to an extent. But she is also the type to try and push his friends boundaries if she thinks it won't necessarily bring any harm to them. So they may be slightly less affectionate with Tobi, she will try to get him to be more comfortable with her.

-Once, and if, Tobi gets more comfortable with Charlie, they are climbing them like a tree. That or pulling them down to her height with a side-arm hug around their shoulders. Charlie gives out bear hugs. And sadly, she doesn't know how not to rough house a bit while giving affection.

-Charlie tried taking Tobi’s hat once. They woke up a bit later from a nap they don’t remember taking. Alice informs them of how uncomfortable he had made Tobi, and immediately Charlie felt bad about it. They apologize as soon as they see him the next day.

-They all have movie nights once a month. Tobi is put in charge of choosing the film...that was until he had them watch a cursed movie -forgetting that Max and Charlie are still affected by curses-. Tobi was put in time-out while Alice took care of the ghost. Tobi is now in charge of making sure the couch is comfy enough. -He's not trusted with preparing the snacks either.-

[syndrossi]

resonant ch30 dvd commentary

Favorite line(s):

A walk through the yard proved fruitless. The hatchlings abandoned him briefly to greet Caraxes, and Daemon trotted away in the moment of their distraction, unheeding of the strange looks it garnered, to duck back into the holdfast. But they hunted him down within a minute, gleeful in their success, as though it had been a delightful game instead. “I hope Jon and Rhaegar are enjoying themselves as much as you,” Daemon said, unable to maintain his sour mood.

A few people mentioned this part in the chapter comments, which is my own personal favorite, though pretty much all of Daemon's attempts to dodge the hatchlings made me crack up writing them.

The runner-up is some tonal whiplash after the hatchling cuteness:

My sons should not be without their dragons. The dread that had lodged in his stomach surged, fear gripping his heart at the thought. They must not be without their dragons.

Look, my favorite thing to write other than hatchlings apparently is Daemon being repeatedly haunted by the candle and its visions, sucker punch after sucker punch, without even the awareness to curl into the blow.

Favorite detail(s):

Lys coinage! GRRM has described the currencies of all (I think?) of the Free Cities, but only a few of them are actually named. Ironically, the coinage of Braavos, aka the home of the Iron Bank itself, hasn't had its currency named by GRRM yet!

Lys coinage is depicted as a naked woman in an oval coin, believed to be the goddess of love. Given its famed pleasure houses and the woman on the coin, I decided to call the Lys currency "favors." It felt like it matched well with Volantis's honors, while having a uniquely Lysene flair. What do you ask of a woman or the goddess of love? Her favor. (Or wink wink favors, perhaps.)

The other one is the name of Mysaria's establishment, the Ebon Plume. Who has been rising to power in Lys? None other than the Black Swan. You can take Mysaria naming her place the Ebon Plume as some sort of reference to the Black Swan; whether that's because she admires a woman who can rise from being taken as a pleasure slave to practically ruling all of Lys, or because she owes some allegiance still to her home, who can say?

Favorite dynamic:

Oof, having to choose is hard here, because there are some fun ones! Hatchlings vs Mysaria and hatchlings + Daemon are near and dear to my heart, but Mysaria and Daemon are the ones with the history and conversation, so we'll go with them.

As with Rhaenys, I enjoyed getting into Mysaria's head to figure out what makes her tick. My Mysaria is much more heavily show-inspired than a lot of the Resonant characters, in part because F&B is quite sparse on the details for her. And the thing that is so striking about show!Mysaria is how much of an opportunist she is, and how skilled she is at manipulating people. She's very good at listening, and being comforting (she does this a lot with both Daemon in S1 and Rhaenyra in S2), and becoming what someone needs her to be.

Daemon can be charming, and he's certainly very useful, so it's in Mysaria's interests to re-establish some kind of relationship with him if she can, even in a more business-like context, ideally with a level of trust. He's even more of a rising power these days, which does make her deal with Otto a tiny bit awkward unless she's careful about playing both sides. Daemon's importance is in his relevance to the most powerful men of the realm: Viserys and Otto.

I also interpret her as having a prideful streak of her own, not unlike Daemon's, though she's better at hiding it. I didn't call it out as one of my favorite lines, but her defiant "I raised my own head high" was a moment that resonated when I wrote it.

She's an ambitious woman, and she holds a lot of power right now because Daemon needs her, with Reyne being useless and Daemon in desperate need of answers.

(How will Viserys feel about this development? Uh...stay tuned.)

Quick hitters:

The original chapter title was going to be "Dangerous Paths" but then I realized I have a chapter called "Dangerous Games" and I didn't want the repetition. So "Spiderweb" it was, for the many ways it can be applied to the chapter.

Ser Steffon was also the Kingsguard who was accompanying Rhaegar back in chapter 21, when he went into Rhaella's old/future room to sob on her bed. So he definitely has a history of being hands-off with children in his care.

The Forked Spears stuff continues to be incredibly frustrating to work in without leaning too far into a more modern detective novel vibe. It's probably the stuff I rewrite/edit the most.

Originally, I had considered a more action-oriented plot for Daemon's first meeting, with either an attack that causes Caraxes to dramatically fly to his aid. (Also exposing to Viserys that he was most definitely in Flea Bottom.) Or one that required him to slip out through a secret stairway when the Forked Spears came calling on Mysaria. But it didn't feel like the right time for it, especially so recently after the candle business.

Alas, Daemon's first non-platonic kiss goes to Mysaria. She was angling for more, to re-establish their relationship in hopes of better access.

I've complained about it before, but establishing currency values for things like ransoms/rewards is such a pain, even before exchange rates between different nations' currencies (honors vs dragons vs favors) comes into play...

Ask me sometime about my own spider trauma. (Tbh, I am both Rhaegar and Jon. Spider in my hair = a thousand nos, but I'll try to peacefully relocate spiders outside unless it's a black widow.)

Aegon and Aemond successfully negotiate some Daemon time! It goes without saying that if Viserys catches wind of the supper arrangement, he will almost certainly want to crash it.

[mirai-e-jump]

TV Guide Dan Vol.51, April 2024 Issue ft. Sakai Taisei x Higuchi Kouhei Interview (translations below)

Publication: April 5, 2024

UNIQUE

"Could you please introduce the role the other plays in the V-Cinext films King-Ohger VS Donbrothers and King-Ohger VS Kyoryuger?"

Higuchi: Gira Husty, played by Taisei, is a character that has the right characteristics of being a so called main character, and I thought he was a completely different Red from the one in Donbrothers. The atmosphere Gira created was one you couldn't find in Donbrothers.

Sakai: Gira and Higuchi-kun's role of Momoi Tarou are the exact opposite in terms of character design. Tarou is an absolute ruler who brings everyone together, which is different from King-Ohger, where everyone has their own individuality but are still able to keep up with each other. In a way, I also feel "jealous."

Higuchi: Still, I think all Super Sentai members feel "jealous." The Producers and Scriptwriters give other Sentai "colors" we don't have, so it's only natural for us to think, "I like those colors."

Sakai: That's why the history of Super Sentai continues, and the fans enjoy it every year. I definitely wanted a "color" I don't have. That's why I'm happy to have the opportunity to be involved with other Super Sentai members like this!

"What were your impressions of each other before you met? Did your impressions change after meeting?"

Sakai: At first, I thought he was a cool guy, but on set, all the two of us would do was talk!

Higuchi: I felt the same way, and thought Taisei was a quiet guy (laughs). Actually, that wasn't the case at all, as I was surprised and happy to find that we were compatible when we talked in the dressing room. During this shoot, even though I had my own dressing room, I would go to Taisei's dressing room instead.

Sakai: I thought Kouhei was cool and manly, and my impression of his manliness is probably the same as it was before we met. We're similar in that we both get carried away.

"How would you describe your relationship?"

Higuchi: This is just my opinion, but in the context of our relationship in Super Sentai, I'm his senior Red, but in terms of our age, I'm his junior. In my case, regardless of age, as long as there's mutual respect, I want our relationship to be that we're like friends. That's why I unconsciously treated Taisei like he was already my friend. I'm sorry!

Sakai: It was also easier to say things like, "Let's go out to eat." I'm the same as Kouhei, I think it's easier that way. It makes me happier if you come to me without hesitation, rather than be cautious because I'm older than you, I think it makes it easier to talk about the performance and acting.

"Have you seen each other's shows, King-Ohger and Donbrothers? Please tell us about any episodes that were most memorable for you."

Higuchi: I remember very well when the first episode of King-Ohger aired while we were performing at Theatre G-Rosso. We saw it on the TV backstage at G-Rosso, and everyone was envious of it, saying, "It's really cool!" (laughs). I still love the first episode.

Sakai: For me it has to be the final episode, I thought it was really great that it ended with the very memorable, "We've formed a bond." I thought it was nice that it started and ended with those words. It's also easy to use at things like events! It's hard to find a place to say, "I'm going to rule the world!" (laughs). I like the fact that the first episode established the bond, and while the ending came, it was also a beginning.

"Were there any challenging or fun parts during filming?"

Higuchi: Speaking of challenges, the filming location was at the King-Ohger's studio, and it was my first time using a green screen that covered all sides. So, on my first day in the studio, I was surprised and thought to myself, "How do we do this?!" Once you get a feel for it though, you get used to it.

Sakai: Donbrothers was shot entirely on location. On the other hand, we had the pleasure of filming on a set. As for difficult scenes, Kouhei seemed to have a hard time in the scene where Gira choked on some mochi. It's because he had to put his hand firmly in my mouth (laughs).

Higuchi: It was harder for Taisei, wasn't it?! Wouldn't it have been easier to simply put it in? If it were the other way around, I think I would've felt awkward afterwards (laughs).

"What did you feel after watching each other's performance?"

Higuchi: I thought Taisei always took his acting seriously. Also, his eyes are incredibly pretty and distinct. I think he's got alot of strong points.

Sakai: I thought Kouhei was a stoic person in his performance. He spent alot of time thinking on his own, doing things like sorting out his emotions abit before the cameras started rolling. Even after he was given the OK, he studied things from the side the moment after and thought, "I could've done this better," so I respect that stoicism.

"Please tell us some of the highlights this time."

Sakai: They're both Super Sentai with tons of personality that rival each other for first and second place of this generation, so I think it'll be a highlight to see how they'll unite and how the story will progress. Also, this time, both Reds are characters that laugh out loud. Within the battle scene is a scene where the two of us are laughing loudly, and it was pretty difficult to film, so I want you to see it. It was a long scene, about 30 seconds, and we were laughing the whole time (laughs).

Higuchi: It's as if two Super Sentai were combined to form a new Sentai, and I think this is a movie where each member has their own highlights. Also, the King-Ohger's costumes are really cool, so it's worth seeing. Among us, Jiro, the Noto, and Inuzuka's costumes might be as good as the Kings. The other four are in ordinary clothing (laughs).

"You both have experience playing soccer, and you kicked a ball around during the photoshoot, so what are your thoughts on each other's skills?"

Sakai: I think this is probably common in soccer clubs, but I can tell just from the ball rolling alittle bit if someone is "good."

Higuchi: I get that! The moment someone kicks a ball and stops it with their foot, an experienced player can tell that, "This guy's good." However, I'm sure this is a feeling that baseball and basketball teams also have.

"Did you talk about soccer during filming?"

Higuchi: If I'm remembering right, after filming finished for Donbrothers and King-Ohger was about to start, Taisei said to me, "You used to play soccer, didn't you? Let's play futsal!"

Sakai: Right, I just thought since you had experience playing soccer. Futsal is fun, so I'd love to do it again!

"This issue also features Iuchi Haruhi-kun and Hayama Yuki-kun from the currently airing Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger. As their seniors in the Super Sentai series, please give them a message."

Higuchi: The quality of Super Sentai is really different each generation, but I think the one thing they all have in common is that they're "very challenging." That's why, when it comes to acting, I can never say, "It's better like this." The only thing I can think of to say is, "Please have fun in Oizumigakuen, where the filming studio is located." I enjoyed it tremendously (laughs).

Sakai: Right! Depending on whether or not you have fun in Oizumigakuen and at the filming studio, the story could change. The more favorite places and stores you have, the better, and you can go out to eat with ease. As Kouhei said, it's challenging to film every day, so I think it's good to find a place you can "rely on." It'd be nice if after enjoying Oizumigakuen, you go to a different site for another job and end up thinking, "I want to come back here someday."

"And finally, when speaking of Donbrothers, oden may come to mind, so please tell us what both of your favorite ingredients are."

Higuchi: Chikuwa!

Sakai: I love eggs, and I also love daikon radishes!

Higuchi: In the end, which one's the very best?! (laughs).

[budd-ie]

Desperately need to break down two people and one cup of water because I have like 10 drafts about xianle trio that I Can't Post because they all feed off of conclusions from each of their answers, except we haven't established what those conclusions are yet. So this is where that starts.

I once had a wake up in a cold sweat realization (the first of many) that the three of them represent three different paths in their respective answers, and how these answers give us so much insight into who they really are and how they typically act. And I realize this is probably a very basic and prevalent thing (especially come book 3) but I haven't seen it broken down recently, so I'd like to. But mostly I need it as my context and support for my other future claims or else they might not make any sense haha. So I’ll be relating these answers directly to events in book 3. Let's get into it.

“Two walked the desert, about to die from thirst, and there was only one cup of water. The one who drinks lives, the one who doesn’t dies. If you were a god, who would you give that cup of water to— don’t speak yet, I’ll ask the other two and see how they answer.”

Mu Qing's answer:

“May I ask who those two people are, what their natures are like, and of their merits? A decision can only be made once all the details are known.”

Feng Xin's answer:

“I don’t know! Don’t ask me—tell them to decide amongst themselves!”

Xie Lian's answer:

“Give them another cup."

TLDR:

When faced with a choice such as this...

Xie Lian will try to save both parties at all costs, even if that cost is himself. His sense of justice is the strongest above all and believes that innocent people should never have to suffer.

Feng Xin will put someone else in charge of the choice and act on their behalf. He isn't as good at making decisions, and feels most comfortable standing behind someone else he trusts.

Mu Qing will choose whatever option brings the best/most desirable outcome that is within his control without sacrificing himself. He is a logical thinker above all else and is used to making moral sacrifices to find the optimal yet most realistic outcome of a situation.

(Book 3 and some book 6 spoilers ahead)

We know that Xie Lian's desire to expand the resource is beautiful but impossible, and we know that giving equal amounts of half the cup of water to both people will still leave them both as dead as not giving it at all. We also know that he learned his lesson the hard way and doesn't stop learning it even 800 years later. We know how Xianle fell and we know that it was doomed from the beginning; there was no saving it, but even if there was, he would have to choose between Xianle and Yong'an. Finally, we know that when he has nothing left to give, he will give himself up for the outcome he desires. We spend so much time with Xie Lian that I won't focus on trying to prove what's already been proven. Instead, I'll focus on the other two.

Mu Qing's answer is unpalatable to most people, because it sounds like he accepts being put in charge of answering the question "who deserves to live and who deserves to die?" It's easy to judge him for his willingness to make these kinds of sacrifices, but this is the exact nature of the question, and the exact situation they find themselves in so often. By both this answer and patterns within his actions, I think Mu Qing can best be described as an extremely logical thinker who will choose whatever option brings the best/most desirable outcome without sacrificing himself too far. That doesn't mean he'll never push his luck, but this is the algorithmic way we most often see him thinking.

By the terms of the riddle, the most logical option is that one person gets water and one person doesn’t, and the giver will decide who gets it to avoid conflict. And Mu Qing doesn’t choose randomly, either; he wants to choose based on their characters, their backgrounds, their merits, etc. So the other two may be treating everyone equally, but sometimes that’s just not within your control. Mu Qing is an incredibly logical person, so to optimize the good that can come from this action, he will make the choice. It’s not easy, and could end either way, but at least someone is guaranteed to live. In fact, this is the only outcome in which someone is guaranteed to live. I'll summarize some other examples of his thought process in the future, but I'll focus on the most relevant example for now.

In book 3, Mu Qing is the first one to suggest cursing Yong’an with human face disease in order to save Xianle. A "despicable" choice as they conclude, but Xie Lian, I will add, does thoroughly consider his suggestions before declining, and while the persuasion is ineffective, it isn't 100% ineffective. In the end though, Xie Lian is weighing the option of “people in the capital probably live and the people of Yong’an as well as the dead suffer for it” and he isn’t willing to make this bargain in the end. He doesn’t know if it could backfire and isn’t satisfied with the amount of bad that could come from it. Mu Qing, on the other hand, is adamant about this decision and gets frustrated that Xie Lian won’t make it. He's even excited about his answer, not because he wants people to die, but because he found themselves a viable way out. It feels so easy to him, because he’s weighing the net good of “we fucking live” and “we fucking die.” Turns out living is a lot more appealing than dying, especially for a character who canonically loves his life and is terrified of death. Isn’t this the same mindset as the rest of the common people?

I've established before that Xie Lian is not the common people. Growing up poor though, Mu Qing is like, common people extraordinaire. Unlike Xie Lian, he’s long since accepted that not everybody can be saved, not everybody can be placated, some people are good and nice and some people suck and are not. Mu Qing is used to making sacrifices for the greater good, ignoring morality to a digestible extent, because it’s something that common people have to do to get by. This situation reminds me of this quote from when the townsfolk are getting admonished for mutilating themselves to get rid of human face disease:

“Your Highness is invincible, so of course you'd call us foolish. But aren’t our conditions so desperate that we had no choice but to try foolish methods?!”

And maybe we fixate a lot on “not everybody can be saved” but I think what matters to Mu Qing is more that some people can be saved. Why are we dawdling doing good because it’s not enough good? Don’t we learn from this that just one person enough? Mu Qing understands that in order to have a chance at saving themselves a decision must be made, and he tries to make his point clear when he says the following:

“Before they reach their bad end, we will have already perished! You don’t have a third path and there is no second cup of water. Wake up, Your Highness! You’re running out of time.”

The amount of suffering the common people have endured until now allows the average person to surpass the moral debacle and choose life above all else. Why did Xie Lian try to steal during his first banishment? Because he was so desperate to save himself and his family that morality became the lesser merit. When faced with the threat of human face disease and the solution of killing just one person to save themselves, the people who stab Xie Lian live, and the one who refuses the decision dies a horrible death. Does Mu Qing make a little more sense now? He saw not only a way to survive, but the expected solution to the problem, and he jumped at it. We as the audience can fixate on the moral implications of his decisions because we aren’t the ones making the decisions, nor are we affected by either outcome.

Speaking of a person not making decisions, this is where Feng Xin becomes relevant. His answer is to make no decision at all, leave it up to them to decide who drinks and who doesn't. While he's absolved from the moral quandary, this path doesn't really solve anything. There might be a chance where they choose peacefully who should drink, but it's much more realistic to expect them to slaughter each other over the resource before either of them have the chance to drink it.

So when faced with a major decision like this, what is Feng Xin most likely to do?

Entrust it to someone else, like Xie Lian.

As much as I love him, our poor boy's arrows are a bit sharper than he is. What’s he doing while Xie Lian and Mu Qing talk about curses?

At first, Feng Xin had listened to their argument glumly, and because he couldn’t contribute any better ideas, he didn’t join in.

Not a whole lot. Actually, he stands silently until Mu Qing insults Xie Lian. After that, he shoves Mu Qing back and suddenly starts going off on him, saying things like

“With an apathetic person like him, you don’t usually see any sign that he actually cares about the Kingdom of Xianle. But now suddenly he’s anxious?”

and especially:

“You really think I can’t tell that you think His Highness is a fool? I can tolerate your sarcasm and those rolling eyes, I can tolerate you always standing where you shouldn’t in the Upper Court. You like to show off and it’s hardly the first time you’ve pulled this shit, so fine, go show off, you’re not good enough to wow the heavens anyway. His Highness doesn’t mind, so I don’t give a shit either. But since you’re gonna cross the line, I’m not gonna hold back. Listen up! I’m not surprised you’d leap at the chance to use despicable means, but His Highness is His Highness—no matter what he decides, you better respect it. Don’t you dare be so critical, and don’t forget who the fuck you are!”

This is only an excerpt of the rant because the first part isn't as relevant but this whole scene is so crazy. Crazy because it's so raw (that last line is so jaw dropping to me like actually. If someone said all that to me I’d go rogue) and also because it tells us so much about them.

First, "despicable" is actually a word Xie Lian used earlier when he said the following:

“Absolutely not! Don’t forget what we called them when they attacked the innocent civilians of the capital: despicable. If we do the same thing, won’t we become just as despicable? How would we be any different?”

Which means this isn't completely Feng Xin's own judgment. Right now, he's just using Xie Lian's opinion as an in to justify his own personal rage. Xie Lian isn't even calling Mu Qing despicable; he fully believes in Mu Qing, understands how he came to his conclusion, and doesn't blame him for having a temper (he already knows he's sensitive and prone to it, he defends him saying he’s “just anxious over the current situation”). While we do know it definitely reflects Feng Xin's moral opinion on attacking innocents (“If it really was them, then I’ll lose respect for them. Fight honestly on the battlefield if you have the ability; don’t use shady tricks to harm innocent civilians!”), it's less reflective of his intentions in this specific instance.

Second, this whole rant is fueled by nothing but pent up rage that was sparked by Mu Qing insulting Xie Lian, giving him a hard time, and going against his decision. Feng Xin judges him hard for his "despicable" choice, but Feng Xin doesn't even have any other opinions on how to solve the actual problem at hand. His opinion is whatever Xie Lian decides, for his highness is so smart and virtuous, clearly that must be the right one, especially when compared to that of a humble servant.

But what would Feng Xin do if Xie Lian decided Mu Qing was right? What if Xie Lian decided that they desperately needed to curse all Yong'an citizens to die so Xianle might be able to live? Would this still be a despicable decision to Feng Xin if Xie Lian decided it wasn't so bad? I have reason to believe that his sense of morality, though great, may be slightly lesser than his sense of loyalty (assuming the person he is loyal to is virtuous and acceptable to him, such is Xie Lian). This is supported by how in the revised book 6 scene, Feng Xin doesn’t leave because he’s questioning Xie Lian’s morality, he leaves because Xie Lian relieves him of his duty and he obeys the order. He’s surprised when this happens and seems hesitant, despite it all. While we don’t really have any specific instance testing this hypothetical, my hypothesis is that any moral complications he could have would come after acting on his highness's word, and if Xie Lian said this was the right choice, he would rationalize it (I also think there’s a graph with an intersection between his morality and loyalty after which morality will start surpassing loyalty when the situation is pushed far enough to warrant it). In any case, the consequences of their actions will not fall on Feng Xin's shoulders, so he doesn't think too hard about the implications of the actions, he just excels at following orders from the boss; that's why its so easy for him to make these judgments.

I also think this explains the way he acts during book 1 where he always looks like he has something to say and never chooses to, always looking just a little lost at what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s given a choice of talk to Xie Lian or not talk to him, but he genuinely doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do and can’t figure it out on his own, so he chooses the safe option of doing nothing. He’s always looked towards Xie Lian to make decisions, but he doesn’t have that anymore. We actually see him start getting more confident in decision making as the book goes on, like when he congratulated him for his 3000 lanterns (I like how he doesn’t question where they came from though!).

Anyways, I forgot how important book 3 was for characterization of these three because everything they do can be drawn back here. The number one reason I like this story is the way every single character is so individual and has very specific motivations and personalities that can and will clash in very specific ways with other characters, which is how a lot of the conflicts arise in the first place (instead of throwing people at a plot and hoping they can carry it). It makes it so interesting when you know why they act the way they do. Also, this isn't a complete character summary by any means, there’s obviously more to these fellas that I didn’t talk about. I can think of other instances that support these conclusions, but because this is already such a long post maybe I'll make a masterlist or something and link them when I finish them (thanks!)

[dallasgallant]

As I re-read the novel I find myself appreciative and disappointed. As it’s really damn close a lot of the time, some parts are word for word and there’s little details here and there but then it’ll loose these pretty important moments. The biggest for me being how cut down the drive in scene is. Not only because there are some funny quippy parts to it but also so much world building and character work.

The whole reason Marcia cracks her “you just burry him no sweat.” joke is because Greaser fighting is wildly complicated! It’s fascinating to how two bit explains it.

To a greaser violence becomes almost like another form of communication, blowing off steam, solving an argument- getting the anger out of the way now so there’s less grudge holding and more solidarity. They have self made rules and honor that holds them to their system of fairness. You back up your friends when they ask you but sometimes it’s their fight alone— Dally’s getting what’s coming to him for slashing those tires, they ain’t cheap and it’s a poor community. Tim will whip him and they’re back to buddies by the end of the night. Big fights, real fights - rumbles- are organized with rules and this weird sense of civility.

There’s this weird mix of “Boys will be boys” roughhouse with “got to be tough to survive” raised in violence survivalism.

Meanwhile,the Soc’s are a lot less warm with their approach to fighting its “cold and impersonal” like they handle all things. Though honestly I’d argue it’s a lot more personal— not fighting for communication but because one can or to exert power. They don’t fight fair, they hold those grudges and there’s no solidarity to that. Ponyboy describes them best as “a snarling pack”. Their violence is rooted in the same systems and misfortunes Greasers face - in that what perpetuates violence is a bit universal. The difference is a greaser will help a guy up and maybe get him an ice pack where as a Soc will just leave you in the street for the sake of appearance or dominance, it’s not enough that they beat you. Nothing is ever enough, like Cherry mentions they can never be satisfied.

“It’s not the money it’s feeling— you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.”

I’ll keep mentioning that quote until I’m blue in the face honestly, it goes right alongside “things are rough all over” Differences stem especially from their reactions and behaviors in response to what’s rough. Some hardships are universal but don’t mishear me as a good portion of it is also class issues because the Reason a Soc might drink himself into oblivion is way different from why a Greaser might.

Beyond Two-bits explaination I’m sad we loose more of the talk between Cherry and Pony on emotions and money. How people are people and they’re all a lot more similar than one might think (despite the contrasting I’ve been doing in this post it’s very true). And talking about his brothers. In the movie it’s a little weird as he only brought up Soda once but she “feels like she knows him” and he brings up sunsets to her later in the movie and they never mentioned it here! Unless they’re trying to imply they had more of a convo on the short walk to the parking lot but I’m not buying that.

Ponyboy being resentful (not that he’s wrong for it) because how hard everyone he knows has it compared to Soc’s. How he has to learn though the novel that “things are rough all over” isn’t that everyone has the same troubles/level of trouble. As they’re certainly worse off; it’s about empathy and everyone being human. That some might be better off but that doesn’t mean they’re entirely without problems. That not everyone is out for a fight all the time.

It’s just a shame as this scene adds so much context to the world, social circles and the moral of the literal freaking novel. The compare/contrast with their lives is pretty important… I digress.

[utilitycaster]

The thing I've realized, in the broader Actual Play space, is that a lot of creators are trying to turn Actual Play shows into TV shows.

You mentioned Kollok in your tags, and the creator of that has mentioned creating Kollok in a way to try to appeal to the Netflix audience.

And I'm all for experimentation, but tbh if I wanted to watch a TV show, I would go watch a TV show. That's not what I'm looking for in an Actual Play and over editing and gimmicks actively turn me off from it.

Folks creating Actual Play seem to put a lot of weight on it, but I don't know if it's that important from an audience perspective.

Hey anon,

Huge same - I've been thinking about this for a while, especially in regards to choices I didn't like (notably on D20, though the Candela split screen in chapter 3, while relatively minor, felt like part of the same trend and I'm really interested in seeing whether they keep it). I actually did mean to write more about this not in the tags of a reblog, so thanks for this ask because it gives me that motivation to do it!

Earlier this year I was at an event and someone who to be totally honest I found kind of annoying was talking about Dimension 20, and I decided to keep quiet and listen to what other people had to say, and another person (whom I respect and specifically know to be like, left-leaning and inclusive and not gatekeeper dudebro type, which is relevant to the next statement) who is solidly in Gen X and has been playing D&D since at least 2e mentioned that he doesn't like Actual Play at all because he is from the era where D&D was frequently played in third person and is somewhat of a purist in that sense. Ie, this guy would say "Gawain pulls out his sword and smites the dragon, with a 24 to hit", rather than "I'm going to pull out my sword and smite the dragon." He described his idea of D&D as being very much collaborative storytelling in the sense of a bunch of third person narrators who happen to be the storytellers for one specific character, not a first-person acted scene.

I happen to like both forms of narration and am not a purist either way, and indeed use both third person and first person myself as a player (as do many actual players; you see this on CR and D20 all the time). But I think this does show just how broad this spectrum is. You have people all the way on the "I am narrating an improvised story, I am the storyteller puppeting my character and I am not trying to be immersed" side and then you have shows that are trying to push this into full immersion...but so long as you have dice rolls, you'll never achieve it.

I prefer something in between: I do love watching people act, but I really like the gears and wires! I love mechanics! I think people who say "I love actual play D&D but I don't really care for combat, only RP" don't actually like actual play D&D! This is a specific format and I do not want people to hide the fact that they are using the rules of a game and are at a table, because they are and we know it.

This came up when I and others talked about the Legend of Vox Machina adaptation: they're probably going to have to find a way to convey the same tragedy and gravity of Scanlan's ninth level counterspell that doesn't require viewers to know the mechanics, because if you watch that scene as actual play the meaning of Sam saying "Nine" is immediately apparent. It hits hard with that one single word, but that won't be the case in an animated adaptation where no one is rolling a D20. Mechanics are in intrinsic part of actual play. You can enjoy actual play without that knowledge, but a solid grounding in those mechanics will only enhance that enjoyment (well, unless you're one of those rules-lawyery weirdos who gets bitter about any GM rule of cool/homebrew that they couldn't predict from the rulebooks but those people will never be happy).

The more general context of "being in a game", not just mechanics, is also in my opinion valuable. Brennan, on a Worlds Beyond Number fireside chat, referred to certain NPCs like Caramelinda as "furious that they are in a D&D game" and it's a funny and true statement. I feel like trying to push actual play into the realm of scripted shows is that: it feels like you're trying to hide the origins, and I think the quality of the show will ultimately suffer when you do that. It feels almost ashamed of what it is, and I don't think you can make something that transforms a medium/genre/thing in between the two without having a profound love and respect for the original, even if you also find it flawed. (This is also, tbh, how I feel about a lot of attempts to divorce D&D from the fact that it is ultimately a game influenced heavily by sword-and-sorcery fantasy, or about attempts to turn high or heroic fantasy into something that neatly affirms all of one's 2024 real world political beliefs, but that's another post).

I also think that the out-of-character element of actual play is a big draw. I have been open about having complicated feelings about the parasocial and projection aspects; but those feelings are "hey, this is still a show that is a source of livelihood, you are not hanging out in someone's living room and getting weird about the fact that the CR cast no longer responds to every tweet is dumb" and "you have not been betrayed by the creators because you didn't get the plot you wanted," and "the fact that two actors sit next to each other is not, in fact, a solid basis for shipping." I am equally opposed to the idea of "the actors do not exist, only the characters do," put forward in that attempt to make actual play Netflix-ready. It's fun to watch the CR cast rib Travis for turning bright red for, as people said, pretend kissing his real wife. It's fun to watch the Intrepid Heroes heckle Brennan when he plays a villain. It's fun to hear Aabria and Erika scream at WBN plot developments and for the McElroys or the NADDPod crew to wheeze with laughter and all of these shows but CR are to a degree edited, and all leave that element in, which I think says something really important about what actual play is understood to be!

It does not escape me that the seasons/shows using heavier camera edits have often, in my opinion, sacrificed story quality for a visual style I don't even care for. I do watch prestige television, and one of the more striking cinematographic choices I've seen lately are the extremely long single take shots used on both Succession's final season (Connor's Wedding, 4x03) and The Bear's first season (Review, 1x07). Prestige TV is not doing the glitchy Neverafter stuff. Hell, I liked Sagas of Sundry: Dread and never finished Madness before it went offline and haven't made an effort to seek it out specifically because the black box theater feel of Dread felt fun and new but not too removed from actual play vibes, whereas the higher production values of Madness, ironically, made it feel too artificial and stilted to keep my interest.

Actual play is its own beast, and in trying to appeal to a new audience you're probably going to lose a lot of the one you have. A big part of why I haven't been motivated to check out Kollok is that everything I hear about it, even positive reviews, makes it sound like it's missing the things I like from actual play and doesn't achieve the level of scripted shows. Honestly I think the REAL answer here is that if you want to find a space between a Netflix drama and an Actual Play show, ditch the rules and make stuff like Midst, which is as discussed inspired by ttrpg/actual play spaces, but is broadly plotted out in advance. I think that approach can combine the best of both worlds, whereas I feel as though attempting to be a Netflix show will usually spend so much time trying to hide the fact that there's a table there that it will detract from the actual story.

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

(some stuff about the perception of Simon and sex and horniness)

I've hinted at this (and maybe have even just said it, can't remember) in the past but now I'm just gonna say bluntly it because well, I use this blog to rant, and who gives a shit, this is long enough nobody will pay attention to it anyway. (This rant is brought to you by "anyone can do whatever they want obviously but I can't help but wonder... do people think this is actually in character? why?”)

Canonically, Simon is horny. He shows high libido. Canonically, these things are centered on Baz. "Baz is the only person I have ever wanted," he thinks in the context of thinking about having sex. "Maybe I'm some kind of Baz-sexual," he says, in the context of thinking about sexual attraction ("Maybe I'm only sexually attracted to Baz," he's saying.) And sure, libido is a separate thing from attraction, but good ol' Simon still centers both things on Baz...

I have no idea where the idea Simon would be the type to sleep around comes from, or why that idea is more often associated him than Baz (which I have wondered when considering "people think character is hot and so the people just want to see character fuck" – a tale as old as time, which is something I get, as opposed to "this is in character," which I do not). To be clear: I don't have anything against characters who enjoy a life of slutdom, I think such characters can be very fun to read, ya boy here likes erotica novels, etc. My specific issue is that I don't get where the idea Simon is the type comes from, and when picking up everything he's putting down, it kinda feels like a disservice? Like we're taking someone who challenges expectations, who moved past them because they were limiting and insufficient to help him understand himself, and... confining him to certain expectations, anyway?

This is someone who's not even comfortable wearing pajamas outside of the room he shares with Baz (very telling, that). He's not the type to even go into the bathroom to masturbate (no appeal to it if you don't know what you're into or what type of touch you even tolerate, anyway). He's not someone who will be down to get naked (while fully conscious and willing) in front of someone he doesn't, at the very least, know and trust. His one sexual experience outside of Baz is described as something he didn't actually want to do, as something he felt he had to do because “that's just what happens” when you have been dating someone for a long time.

I know "character is good at sex" is a logical continuation to "I want to see hot character fuck" but the idea that Simon would be good at sex in general, based on what he does... would he, really? I mean, it's perfectly fine if he's not. He has no reason to be! He has never done anything without any sort of guidance. Simon shares "the talk" he had didn't cover the truly important things, and we see him discovering "the point" and appeal of sex (for him) with Baz in real time (as closeness and intimacy). "He's good with his hands" – personally, I don't think knowing how to incapacitate, decapitate, or break someone's neck would translate into "knows how to touch someone in a way that's even remotely pleasurable." I would think those type of touches require a different set of skills, but that's just me. I mean, if you think about it, Baz describes Simon's hands as "being everywhere" as in, Simon wants so much he can't decide how to touch him, but also, he doesn't even know how to touch him. Simon jumps Baz like an animal in heat (literally dry humping him in the library!). Sometimes, Baz can get aroused by Simon in spite of the way Simon touches him (because is Simon). Simon is so rough he's bashing Baz's head against a bookcase at some point, probably without realizing (which makes sense for a fighter who has only ever know how to touch violently) (also, some scenes have made me wonder whether Simon, in his eagerness and without realizing, is grabbing and biting and pushing hard enough that if Baz was a regular human, he probably would just find painful).

I think it makes the most sense that Simon would struggle like this. It makes him relatable! Sex starts to be good between Simon and Baz when they start communicating. Sex is good for Simon when he's pleasing Baz, which is also about Baz and his feelings for him, specifically. I don't know how that turned into "sex is good for him when he's pleasing someone, anyone" – those are very different things! That there are areas in his life where he cared about what others thought and wanted to fulfill expectations doesn't mean that would translate into the sexual area, there are other things that would factor into it. This is someone who never once thinks about his cock unless it's close to or in contact with Baz's person. The entirety of his desire, of sex being good or enjoyable for him, of wanting to please (linked to wanting to take care of/make Baz happy) is all centered on Baz. Simon ties desire and the appeal of sex to intimacy with the person he's in love with. There's nothing fucking casual about Simon when it comes to sex and romance, even before he properly identifies those feelings and who he actually has those feelings for. ("I think I'm going to marry the first person I've ever dated" – you couldn't get any further from "casual" with that shit, even if he didn't really believe it was going to happen because he thought he would die, which is also not casual). "But Simon doesn't think––" he thinks a whole fucking lot, actually! He avoids processing, but everything is already inside of him, waiting for him to have the tools to process it and understand it. It's already on his radar. That doesn't necessarily translate into "enjoying casual sex" either.

And then there's horniness. Being horny doesn't mean one would turn to sex. Simon is insanely horny, but not in general... he's horny for Baz. And even then, horniness didn't always mean he was trying to have sex with him, or that he even knew what he wanted to do with it. By awtwb he's very much jumping Baz in a sexual way when he's horny, but Simon literally tells you "when I was horny for Baz, I used to pick fights with him." Before getting together with Baz (and even when he's with him) trying to blow off steam for Simon meant going to activities that are not at all sexual. Perhaps practicing with his sword until he gets tired. Picking fights, as mentioned. Getting moody and irritable and bitchy. As I said, he's not the type to ever even felt comfortable masturbating (being sexual) before he's thinking about how much he wants to cum on Baz. This is a "going to a late night run" type of person, a "engage in a form of combat to not feel so stressed" type of person, not a "casual sex enjoyer" or "one night stands" type of person. He's way more likely to go out to pick fights with strangers than to try to pick up a stranger for literally anything else.

[purecommemasolitude]

There’ve been criticisms about Darry being too mean or too cruel in the musical, and I get where those people are coming from, but — and speaking as someone who hasn’t seen or listened to it but has listened to the soundtrack and follows the information account like the paper — I think this phenomenon stems from two things

First, on the side of the discussers, a lack of exposure to the musical as an actual piece of material instead of (occasionally very out of context) lines or screenshots. Obviously seeing the musical, even if one lived in New York, would be expensive as all get out, and even audios and boots are pretty hard to find for this show, but there are many details and contexts that change how lines on the page should be interpreted that simply cannot be gleaned through, well, lines on the page. As someone who has dabbled in acting & directing, and has spent time analyzing play texts in depth, delivery and direction can change everything. The entire sentiment of a line can be the opposite of what you’d expect if you took the line at face value, and unless that’s explicit in the stage directions, it can go unrealized if one is merely reading the script (which, as an aside, is exactly why I find analyzing play excerpts tricky — because without a performance or direction, scripts are often so ambiguous and versatile that they could go any way). And honestly, despite also being someone who unfortunately does not benefit from first hand knowledge of the musical, I feel like this is very evident in discussion of Darry in the show. For example, none of his lines in, say, Runs in the Family (Reprise) should be taken at face value, because if you’ve even listened to the song you can tell he’s completely spiralling and hitting a breaking point. This is a state that, historically, causes people to say things they’d never believe in real life. We’re not meant to believe Darry would ever walk out on his brothers, we’re meant to hear him talk about it and understand how deep of a breakdown he is having. As a less obvious example, from what people online have said, Darry spends the last twenty or so minutes of the musical in tears. Again, the things he says here aren’t necessarily the things he believes, or things that he’s expressing coolly or off-handedly because they line up 1:1 with his worldview, they’re things he says when he’s desperate and struggling and has no idea what the correct path is when his brother & responsibility has effectively been comatose since the deaths

Which brings me to my next point!

One of the most known things about the musical, even to people who aren’t very familiar with it, is that it goes more in-depth on Darry’s trials and tribulations, so to speak. He gets one solo at status quo, another (mostly) solo when he gets his breakdown, and a (mostly) duet in his own self-described darkest hour during Pony’s absence. All three of these songs go into detail about what his life is like and how much he’s been struggling, and even songs that aren’t about him emphasize this feature of his more than in the book: his description by Ponyboy in Tulsa ’67 & Great Expectations reminding the audience of his life’s path, his verse in GGAH making it clear that his life is a very different one with arguably more severe burdens compared to the other boys. Other than the three most important characters of the original narrative, he is now undoubtedly the most important and developed character — which makes sense in a musical format, because with the story of The Outsiders it would’ve been pretty much impossible to do a true ensemble cast other than the main three while doing any of them justice, especially if they’d kept Steve as a principle (rip king). But I digress. In my opinion, being clearer on Darry’s hardships actually gives the musical space to show him as saying crueller things, to have him make more mistakes and mess up worse. In the book, we’re clearly meant to sympathize with him by the end, but we only get Ponyboy’s infamously flawed and unreliable narration as the lense through which to view him. As such, if we went too hard into Darry messing up, while 3/4 of the book have Ponyboy going “yeah Darry’s a rock and doesn’t love me or anyone”, he ultimately would’ve come across a lot worse and a lot harder to “redeem” in the eyes of the reader (personally I never disliked him, but I’ve seen enough accounts of people who hated him on their first go at the story to know it is not an uncommon sentiment). He already slaps his brother and argues with him all the time; it would’ve been even more legwork to make him liked if he’d also been saying harsher things and making more mistakes. In the musical, however, we get that objective perspective that’s missing in the book. Ponyboy’s not narrating to us the lyrics of Throwing in the Towel, he’s not even present for the events of Throwing in the Towel! It’s a lot easier to understand and forgive mistakes if one is familiar with the psyche behind those mistakes, and the musical delivers that psyche to us at every turn. Because the audience understands Darry Curtis and how hard it is for him to hold on, the audience also has more understanding and forgiveness for when he’s spiralling. It’s also just a more specific proof of his plight — three songs with first-hand, emotionally explicit lyrics penetrate the uninvested understanding a lot easier than a second-party description of circumstances. Due to its nature and promotion of Darry’s importance, the musical simply gets more freedom to show an arguably more realistic version of him.

Also, I do believe that Darry in the musical is just that much closer to the edge than he is in the book, which is a valid character choice in an inherently emotional and transformative medium such as the musical adaptation 🤷🏻‍♀️

[chronicbeans]

Starting on the Baxter rewrite at the moment. Wanted to share a few things now because it'll probably take a while to actually write the entire thing down in one post just because of the amount of ideas I have.

While "Vaggie" Rebecca's backstory and such is mostly based upon the original idea for her with added context and a new design, Baxter is a bit more loosely based on his og counterpart. As far as I'm aware, Baxter doesn't have much info compared to others besides his death and him being a mad scientist, but either way this version is intended to be very different.

Baxter here serves two purposes within the hotel: Take Alastor's role as a frightening, powerful demon (with an added twist) and do it a bit better, and to challenge Charlie's idea of redeeming all sinners by asking "how far can you go before you cannot be redeemed or don't deserve it?" He's supposed to be a manipulative and reprehensible person through and through, with his experiments during life being highly disturbing as well as being continued during his afterlife. I decided to make him a captain not just to add irony to his death, but to make his actions a bit more horrifying with how he uses his ability to steer a ship.

Baxter is meant to add more variety to the hotel as well as the powers each character has. In my rewrite, each sinner is meant to only have one or two powers. Alastor is the only exception due to a deal with the Von Eldritch Family, but even he is limited. Baxter is supposed to be the first instance of a dangerous "passive" power, meaning it is something constant without his control.

More room variety is also something I mean to add with Baxter, and although it'll only get touched up on a little in his post, the post I intend to make after will be one describing Charlie/Rebecca's and Baxter's rooms in the hotel. Yes, Charlie and Rebecca will share a room, but hints of both their personalities will be in there. The Charlie post will be after the room post, only because I feel like Baxter's rooms will help describe how dangerous his power is by showing just how far the hotel has to go to contain it.

As an added extra note, Alastor is still going to be frightening. However, it's made clear he's trying to hard to do so. Once Baxter shows up, however, the rest of the cast realize that Alastor isn't as frightening compared to him. Why? Because Baxter doesn't have to try to be scary. He never intends to be, actually. He's just acting how he normally does, while Alastor is attempting to scare others.