#it's my smallest blog but has my most popular posts just because it's got a community of people who relate and reblog and spread it

[whatisgoingoninmyhead]

I loveeeee having an aroace blog, I love seeing all the little aspec flag icons in the notes, I love knowing people relate, I love seeing additions and experiences in the tags, I love having a community!

this is me saying you are all awesome!

[thecreaturecodex]

Creature Codex 2022 Survey Results!

So the turnout for the survey was great! 136 responses on the Google form, but a few people sending asks. I’m not going to post all of it, but I would like to go over some highlights.

Also, to reassure folks: this was not intended as a lead in to major changes on the Codex. I’m still going to be writing monsters for PF1e, and the basic format isn’t going to change. But I wanted to see what folks were interested in.

I was honestly surprised by this result--I was under the impression that the art was a bigger draw to when and why people liked or reblogged my entries. But it’s the smallest result! Flavor text and background info are about evenly matched.

A lot of people had write ins for what RPGs they had played, and what they were currently playing. This was by design; I wanted to focus my options on D&D and Pathfinder variations, because there’s hundreds of different RPGs out there, and this is a Pathfinder 1e blog. There was a huge diversity of games represented, including some I’ve never heard of (Genesys, Lancer), games I didn’t know people still played (Mongoose Traveler, AD&D 2e and D&D 4e), and some games I had forgotten existed (Maid RPG). Notably, the most common game still being played was Pathfinder 1e, with 58 of 133 responses confirming. Followed by D&D 5e, with 56/133. I know there’s a certain amount of self-selection here because this is a Pathfinder 1e blog, but I was pleasantly surprised to see PF1e still so popular.

Unsurprised to see a majority of my voting followers do at least some GMing. And welcome, my 10% of non-playing followers! Glad you’re enjoying yourselves.

I got a number of write-ins for themes people wanted to see me cover. More people voted on what they liked than what they didn’t, and even for things that got a decent number of Do Not Want (Hackmaster and Starfinder were the top two there), there were more people who voted for them. I’ve recently done Hackmaster and Starfinder blocks, so I’m happy to leave them alone for a while.

Now, let’s look at creature types:

You guys like them weird! Aberrations are the clear winner here at 60%, but outsiders (52%) and magical beasts (43%) are no slouches either.

Not a good day to be an ooze or a vermin, it seems. Those types do have some limitations based on the PF1e rules set, so that makes a certain amount of sense. And tells me that an ooze or vermin theme block would not be a big hit. Which is useful information!

Again, useful information. I haven’t posted any playable races in a while, but have a prospect or two in mind. 

The overwhelming enjoyment of historical context is why I reblogged that tarasque folk art post. If you’re looking for book reviews, I’ve been posting those to my “main” blog that has far fewer followers, @demiurge1138. 

This post is probably long enough, but I do want to respond to some of the individual comments. In the interests of not completely destroying your dashboards, I’m gonna put my thoughts under the cut.

All of the comments I got were very nice! Thank you all so much!

Some to respond to:

i literally adore Creature Codex and i think you are perfect, i enjoy any content you feel like sharing and also i would kill a man to be able have a chance to play a tabletop rpg with you. :)

That's very flattering! And slightly intimidating!

Ran the spiral centurion for my party a couple of weeks back; it was well received, and they almost-but-not-quite figured they could just shove the thing over. There's a good chance they'll run into a blue slime next session.

I love this blog! It's very helpful. Right now, my players are interacting with Howler Wasps. They haven't gotten to the nest yet, but one player skinned one and made an outfit out of it. This weekend, they traded that outfit for future "favors". None of that would have happened without you.

I love your stuff! You've turned me on to a bunch of golarion lore, like mahadatari (technically starfinder but hush), the daemons, and qlippoth! I don't engage with your stuff as much as I should (in the social media sense), but I adore the blog in general. I'll fully out myself and say I'm monsterceiling! I actually took some of your advice to make a mahadatari build for Iron gods. She was a magus kasatha, but she died at the end of book one and came back as a duskwalker. I rebuilt her as a phantom blade/brawler with the (minor spoilers) juju zombie kasatha under torch as her phantom. She's currently spreading the gospel of Talavet across numeria!

I love hearing stories about how people are using my monsters at the table! I’d be happy to get those anytime.

I personally find Pathfinder too complicated; I enjoy CreatureCodex as a way to better understand the game without playing it and to see monsters from folklore I've not heard of before (and see new interpretations of ones I have!)

I enjoy all of your work with the Creature Codex, and it makes me want to try the Pathfinder system. I love the care and attention to detail that goes into each entry!

I’m glad I can help make the Pathfinder system somewhat more navigable. 

 I'm tempted to do something like the creature codex, but for Starfinder conversions. Any advice?

Develop a schedule. It doesn’t have to be near daily like my blog (for your sanity, it probably shouldn't be), but having a plan in mind for when to post definitely helps me manage workload. If you’re using tumblr, make use of the queue function; it’s one of the most helpful features of the site. And manage your expectations about engagement. Obviously, engagement helps me feel motivated and makes me feel good, but it takes a long time to get going, and the current culture of the internet makes it less common than it was even ~5 years ago (like when I started). 

I am curious to know why you write "mind-influencing effect" instead of "mind-affecting effect". Just a pet peeve of mine. I really like your work and I want to thank you for it.

It’s a 3.5ism. I feel like “mind-affecting effect” is a clunky bit of English. There’s some other formatting quirks I do that differ from Paizo’s official stat format; I put the Perception score alphabetically among the Senses instead of separating it out from darkvision, low light, etc. And I put Defensive Abilities in their own line instead of mixing them with DR, Immune, Resist and SR. 

Keep up the good work! I enjoy your blog immensely. End of the World week, in particular, was a favorite series of mine.

Thanks, but that wasn’t me. That was @monstersdownthepath​ who did End of the World Week. I have converted a bunch of those monsters, though. Check the “elder evils” tag. 

I do not play pathfinder myself, but have you considered creating a tag for Slaad Lords, Asura Rana, Empyreal Lords, etc (I think the term for them is demigods)? A player who wants to make a cleric of one of your monsters would have an easier time looking through the database if you marked which pages would be relevant for that.

That is an excellent idea. I haven’t gone back through my old posts and added “demigod” as a tag, but I will do so in the Not Too Distant Future. Thanks!

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

Ateez: Their Little Sister Is A Popular Idol

Kim Hongjoong:

Hongjoong and you debuted roughly around the same time, and fans lived for your sibling interactions because they were just outright hilarious. You would always end up yelling at each other or having cute little banters.

One day, you were both invited on a special sibling episode of Weekly Idol with other idols, such as Jessica and Krystal, Izone's Chaeyeon and Itzy's Chaeryeong, Oneus' Xion and Onewe's Dongmyeong and Ex Boyfriend's Youngmin and Kwangmin. It was filled with competitions and Hongjoong and you just seemed to struggle to work together. It was especially hilarious when you two played the 'Shout In Silence' game.

"Knock Out!!" You shouted once you saw the word, which was coincidentally your debut song.

"Huh?!" Hongjoong couldn't really understood what your lips formed.

"Knock Out!" You repeated, louder this time.

"Blocked cow?!" He asked, unsure of his answer.

"Stop messing around Kim Hongjoong! Think! My debut song! Knock Out!" You were getting desperate.

"Wait what!" Hongjoong asked.

"My debut song!!!"

But Hongjoong stayed silent, his brain trying to think.

"Didn't you watch it?! Knock Out!!!" You hollered even louder.

"Jumped Out?!" He tried answering.

"Kim Hongjoong I will knock you out if you don't get it!!! Knock Out! Knock Out! Ugh! Stupid!" Your voice was hurting at this point.

"Hey!!! I understood 'stupid'!!! I'm older than you!" He warned you.

Yeah, you had the entire set laughing.

Park Seonghwa:

As your older brother, Seonghwa was extremely protective of you growing up and that didn't change even after you debuted. In fact, his desire to protect you intensified. You often complained about it, hating how he was always fussing over you, reminding you to eat healthy and annoying you at times.

Seonghwa lived for it though. His members were even surprised by how soft he turned for you only. And of course fans thought you two were so adorable. Atinys often liked to tease him about it, often asking him about what he'd do when you started dating. That always seemed to annoy him.

"She's not allowed to date until I'm dead." Was his response every time.

Being Seonghwa's sister, of course you were beautiful, and a lot of idols had their eyes set on dating you. But of course, Seonghwa was always there to cockblock them. Even on tv, he had no chill when telling them to back off.

"Seonghwa have you heard the news?" The tv host asked.

"What news?" He asked.

"Well, with your sister acting in the new web drama, there's rumors going around that she's dating her co-star."

Seonghwa's eye twitched at that, and the other members started laughing.

"I don't think he likes that idea." Yunho chuckled.

"Any words about the situation or to her co-star?" The host asked.

Seonghwa looked to the camera for a few seconds before holding his microphone up.

"Over my dead body." He responded causing the members to go into chaotic mode over his response.

Jeong Yunho:

Yunho was the most supportive brother and he often said he was your biggest fan. Any chance he got, he'd promote you and your group, and was always dancing around to your songs. He'd even post dance covers of them, just to show his support. Every interaction you had, whether at music shows, ISAC or variety shows, he was your personal cheerleader.

He was also extremely clingy towards you, often hugging you, tangling his long limbs over your tiny body.

"Let go Yunho! You're squishing me!" You often told him.

"No! Let me love you!" Your protests would only encourage him to squish you even tighter.

Of course, the dancing genes ran strong in your family. Fans often praised your dancing abilities and were often wondering if you two would ever collaborate together to come up with a choreography. That's exactly what they asked Yunho one day when he was reacting to your comeback music video.

"Wow! As usual, Y/N slays the dance. She's getting better than she already was."

He looked at his phone, reading the fan's comments and landed on a particular question everyone was wondering.

"Would we ever create a dance together? Hmmm."

He thought about it for a moment.

"Honestly, I'd love to do it. What do you say baby sis? Wanna help your Oppa create a choreography? Just us two?"

He snickered when he thought about what you'd say when you saw his VLive.

"She's probably going to say no, tell me I'm annoying and to get lost. She has such a temper........"

He paused before smirking.

"You know what they say. Tiny creatures are more feisty cause their tiny bodies can't hold a lot of rage."

"She's going to kill you when she finds out you said that." Yeosang said from behind the camera.

"Probably. She hates being called tiny." Yunho agreed.

Kang Yeosang:

Although Yeosang was super proud of you for debuting, he kept the fact you two were siblings a secret for a long time and honestly you liked it that way too. You were both introverts and preferred to lay low.

Fans of your groups often compared you two, saying how similar you looked, how you were both the savage ones of your groups, even your little habits and love for chicken was extremely similar. Of course, both of you saw their posts and videos comparing you two, and you both cringed when some thought you'd be cute together. That's when you two stepped in and clarified you were siblings. Now it was fan's turn to be shook at the revelation.

And that became the topic when your groups were invited on a variety show. At one point, Ateez was complaining how Yeosang roasts them so much that they're scared of him and can't ever say anything back. You burst out laughing at that.

"He may be my older brother, but I'm not scared of his sharp tongue." You bravely admitted.

That's when the hosts suggested you expose something about your brother, like he did to his members on Weekly Idol. All of Ateez were super excited about the suggestion.

"Try your best. I'm not scared." Yeosang said confidently, but you knew deep down he was nervous about what you would say.

You couldn't help the smirk on your face as you thought about how to embarrass him.

"So my Oppa here, in front of cameras and with his members, likes to be cold and aloof, hating aegyo and skinship......not wanting Seonghwa or Wooyoung to baby him.......but it's a lie."

Everyone gasped at that.

"Cause at home, our parents are always babying him and he basks in their affection. He's always doing aegyo for them too. Atinys don't be fooled. Kang Yeosang is a literal baby."

Everyone started laughing at that, San and Wooyoung standing up and exclaiming that he was such liar and fake.

For once, Yeosang was so flustered at getting exposed, by none other than his little sister. He was speechless.

"Finally! The great Kang Yeosang had a taste of his own medicine!" Mingi exclaimed, having been Yeosang's constant victim.

No one had the power to make Yeosang scared like you did.

Choi San:

Your number 1 hype man, your caring brother, your part time manager, your personal photographer, and your cuddle bug, there's nothing Choi San wouldn't turn himself into for you. Would legit run a fan blog dedicated to you if he could. Is always praising you and saying the sweetest things about you.

Tries to get you to show off more of your skills and talents. You're shy and somewhat quiet, so people tend to look more at the other members, that's why San is always promoting you and encouraging you to not be afraid to show your true colors.

If you two are in public together, he's always holding your hand or holding you close. Yeah, definitely wants pics of you two to circulate the internet. Spoils you to no end. And he enjoys having you spend time with the other members. They adore you as well.

"Isn't she the cutest? The most adorable thing you've ever seen?" He gives you endless aegyo constantly.

"Did you just call me a thing?" You raised an eyebrow at him.

But you can't stay mad at him, not with that sad pout.

That being said, sometimes you do feel embarrassing by him. You're more reserved and somewhat conservative and so used to seeing cute San, that whenever he turns into demon San you're covering your face or screaming loudly.

"Aaahhh! What the heck San!!! What was that? Oh my god!" You screeched one day when you were reacting to one of his fancams.

"What happened to my older brother?! The one that carries Shiber around everywhere?! What have you done to him?!"

You grabbed your bottle of water dramatically and pretended to throw some at the screen.

"Be gone unclean spirit! Off with you!"

That's the one thing you two have in common: you're both super dramatic and so extra over the smallest of things.

Song Mingi:

He's the older one? Really? That's what everyone was thinking when you confirmed you were siblings. It's not that you looked older or him younger, no. It was your personality. You were extremely mature for your age and were often captured taking care of Mingi or scolding him. Naturally, people thought you were the older one.

Mingi honestly didn't mind. He often joked that he was indeed the baby and you were the older one. Every time you got asked why you babied him, it was the same thing.

"Have you seen him? He'd be dead if it wasn't for me. I'm the reason he's alive."

Mingi actually didn't mind you saying those things.

"That's how she shows her love. She knows she enjoys my company."

It was extremely hilarious for fans to see you guys spend time together. You two once did a VLive collaboration and it became a trending topic for days because it was extremely chaotic and funny.

"Mingi! I told you to flip the eggs!" You shouted at him.

"I tried! But it was stuck!" He tried to excuse himself.

"You're just a scaredy cat! Afraid of getting burnt!" You told him as you turned off the stove.

You immediately grabbed a kitchen towel and started fanning it over the smoke that accumulated in the kitchen.

"God! Mingi I know for a fact you have brain cells.....so fucking use them!"

Mingi gasped at your words.

"Y/N! There's a camera!" He reminded you.

You went wide eyed and panicked. Mingi began laughing at your reaction.

"Oh my god! You cussed live in front of fans!"

Mingi was cracking up so hard at what happened. You were so embarrassed by your mistake. You banged your head on the counter.

"Kill me now." You groaned.

Mingi came up behind you and hugged you.

"Hey don't worry little sis. At least now they know not to mess with you."

Finally, Mingi showed that he was indeed your older brother who was always there to comfort you when you needed it.

Jung Wooyoung:

"You're Ateez' Wooyoung's younger sibling right? What's he like as your brother?"

You often got asked that question and it was always accompanied by you sighing.

"Honestly.....he's a pain. I love him, but he's too much."

Yes Wooyoung loved you as well, but he was super annoying and his past time was teasing you to no end. Even if you threatened to smack him, which you did, or threatened to tell your parents, he'd still keep going.

"And here we see our tiny main vocalist getting ready, and like most females, she's going to take an hour on just her hair then spend 45 minutes on foundation, then-"

"Moooom! Wooyoung is narrating my life again!" You interrupted his narration.

"Snitch! Don't you know that snitches get stitches?" Wooyoung exclaimed, pushing the camera he was holding closer to your face.

"Bitches get stitches too.....Bitch!" You glared at him.

"Oooh! You! I should upload this to the internet and let all your fans know their sweet honey vocalist cusses like a sailor." Wooyoung threatened you.

"Do it no balls! Just remember who taught me those words in the first place." You smirked at him.

"......Shit! Why'd you have to inherit my blackmail skills?" Wooyoung said as he finally stopped recording.

Wooyoung was always reacting to your content though, often making fun of you, but he wasn't mean all the time. He often complimented you on your singing abilities. He was always saying you had the voice of an angel. And if there was something he was extremely vocal about was about any hate comments you got. He was quick and eager to call haters out.

"Dying dolphin? Who you calling dying dolphin? Have you even heard a dolphin dying? This is what it sounds like."

Suddenly Wooyoung began screeching at the top of his lungs, startling the member in the next room.

"What the hell are you doing on your VLive Jung Wooyoung?!" Seonghwa called out.

"I'm showing some bastards the difference between a dying dolphin and an angel singing so they can stop saying bullshit!"

Choi Jongho:

Jongho hates people acting cute, doesn't react to his Hyungs doing aegyo, and is never soft with anyone.....except you, his little sister. It was extremely surprising, even for the members of Ateez. You were the complete opposite of Jongho: you were tiny, cute, adorable, full of aegyo and were not afraid to show it off any chance you got. Loona's Chuu and Lovelyz' Kei had nothing on you in cuteness.

It never failed to amaze people how he smiled that bright gummy smile he had every time you did aegyo for him. The first time you did it was during an episode of Idol Room. It was a game of trying to get Jongho to smile, laugh, react to anything and all of the Ateez members failed. Then you came up with your pigtails and bright smile.

"Oppa! Why so angry? Can't you smile for me?"

The whole room burst into screaming and groaning when Jongho immediately smiled for you and patted your head.

"What the heck!" "That's impossible! He hates aegyo!" "This is rigged! That's sibling privilege!" "What the hell did I embarrass myself for?!"

Anytime anyone mentioned you, he'd immediately light up. He was so soft for you.

"Isn't my sister the cutest?"

Don't push him though. He's also very overprotective of you. Anytime he sees an idol staring at you too much, he flexes his muscles. Anytime the members said you looked cute or pretty, he'd warn them he'd split them like apples if they got too close.

Jongho nearly had a heart attack when he was watching your group's comeback with the other members. And it was because your group suddenly changed your cute concept for a more mature and sexy concept. He was flipping tables, literally.

"What did they do to my little sister?! What happened to her space buns and oversized sweaters?! Why is she wearing that short skirt?! Why are you guys staring?! Stop looking at the screen!!"

The others were cracking up at him as he tried to cover the screen with his body.

Gifs not mine, credit goes to their respective owners.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 123

It feels really good to be back writing and posting, I’m going to be super honest.  Thank you again, to everyone who reads and leaves notes on these chapters. You keep me going and encourage me more than you will ever know.

This was originally going to be one chapter, but it went really really long and I didn’t have the heart to leave parts out.  Even splitting it in half, each half is longer than most of the chapters so far.  But I couldn’t help showing how far the Ark has come from simply “figuring out how to exist”!  In my defense, @baelpenrose egged me on, too.  Blame him. :P

Shout out to @zommbiebro, @charlylimph-blog, @books-and-cartoons, all the other contributors for characters in this chapter. INCLUDING @werewolf2578 for Michael Smith, who finally makes his debut here. Finally.

As Maverick and I entered the gymnasium - now larger and more finished than it had been when Arthur and Jokul’s showdown happened several years back - the atmosphere was filled with excitement. Three Terran years previous, collapsible bleachers had been constructed shortly after sporting and skill exhibitions had regained popularity on-par with Pre-End times, and today was one such occasion. Every seat was packed, and Miys was working overtime in multiple bodies, strategically positioned to keep the air filtered. Else-chicks swarmed on the floor, eagerly consuming anything that had been spilled or dropped.

Today, Jokul and Arthur were once again on the floor, in full view of the crowd. Instead of a bloody one-on-one, no holds barred fight, however, they were two of twenty participants in a weapons exhibition.  Between them, Charly bounced on the balls of her feet, scanning the audience - a smile here and there when a container of neon popcorn caught her eye, but a huge grin along with extra bouncing and an enthusiastic wave when she saw our small group.  She elbowed Arthur, who was deep in conversation with Tyche and Coffey on his other side.  All three turned to wave.

“Where’s Conor?” Maverick asked, searching the floor carefully.

I shrugged. “He may be on his way, or in another room, stretching. You know he isn’t a huge fan of crowds this large.”

With a huff, he blew a lock of hair out of his face. “I know it’s his first one of these things, but he’ll be fine. He’s gotten really good. Even Charly and Tyche said so.”

Evania Josue took the floor and gestured for silence, indicating that the exhibition was starting. “Thank you, everyone who could be here in person, and everyone watching from other areas of the Ark, and welcome to our second Von-annual ranged weapons exhibition.  As with last time, combustion weapons will not be used in any of our events, for safety reasons.  We will continue with our order from the previous event, and begin with axe-throwing.”

Cheers erupted, and Tyche, Coffey, and Arthur took their seats on the sidelines. Charly, Jokul, and three other less-familiar faces waved to us as they were introduced, before drawing lots for the order they would go in.  One of the people I didn’t recognize went first, and made a pretty good showing - all six axes hit their targets, regularly striking midway to the bullseye from a distance I could barely hit the floor from.  Charly was second, and Maverick clenched my arm tight enough to make me wince - she was the smallest competitor in this event, but the entire crowd went deathly silent as she lined up the first target.

Thunk. Bullseye, and buried deep.

Thunk. Just left of center.

Thunk. Another bullseye.

Three more axes led to one more bullseye and two just to the right of center. The crowd exploded into cheers, only going quiet as the next person stepped forward.  It was another solid execution, but not quite in the same level of skill that Charly had demonstrated.

Jokul was last, and as soon as he stepped forward, you could hear a pin drop. No one even dared breathe, lest they missed out on what they hoped they were about to witness.  Sure enough, Jokul stood three feet to the left of the first table holding an axe, and started walking at a calm pace. Without breaking stride, he would grab an axe and suddenly it would appear in the center of the target. No windup, no careful lining up of his throws, just ten paces, six axes, and six bullseyes.

Screaming erupted from the entire gymnasium, to the point that Miys was covering their sensory organs. Charly was red in her face from cheering, and I honestly could not blame her - it was one of the most impressive things I had seen, and never ceased to amaze me.  Even Arthur was nodding in approval and applauding.

The cheering died down to a murmur of discussion as the athletes took their bows and the equipment was removed. Charly and Jokul both took seats on the sidelines, while the other three left the floor entirely, indicating they had no other events.  The next event was slung projectiles, which neither Maverick nor I was remotely interested in.

He leaned closely so he wouldn’t distract anyone. “So, I’ve been wondering this for a while now… Those axes are pretty heavy, right?”

I nodded.  I had tried throwing them, but they were close to two pounds in Terran gravity - worse in Von-standard, and obviously front-heavy.

“So, to throw them that fast, Jokul has to have a lot of arm strength, right?”

Another nod.

“How did Charly get up after he punched her?”

I sighed. I’d wondered where he was going with this. “First, he pulled the punch. Second, it was an awkward hit because he was aiming for me. Third, with two cracked ribs and a whole lot of ‘Charly’ involved.”

“So necromancy,” Maverick nodded seriously.

“I can neither confirm nor deny, except that she popped up like he hit her with a pillow.” I shook his knee as something caught my eye. “There! There he is!”

Conor was finally visible, crouched and in discussion with Tyche.  From the way he was running his hand through his hair, he was clearly nervous.  She just shook her finger at him with a serious expression, and whatever she said made him laugh and shake his head.  Probably a death threat, I figured.

He was just in time, as the next exhibition was knife-throwing.  I don’t know if Evan was rigging the lots, but once again the most anticipated participant - this time Tyche - was last. Instead, someone I recognized as Michael Smith was first.  Standing from beside Grandma Kim, he gave an emphatic command to the chocolate labradoodle at his feet and took center stage.

The knife throwing event was ten knives, one target, and timed as well as scored by where the knives landed.  I knew from previous events that Michael preferred throwing knives with a hilt, which made the balance off center.  Nonetheless, all his hits were dead-center and solid, even if he telegraphed his throws a bit much for my liking.

Next was Arthur, who made a show of his one-upmanship by finishing faster and with less obvious movement.  He patted Conor on the shoulder and said something to reassure him as Conor stood for his turn.

The crowd started murmuring as Conor turned toward his target, back on full display.  Rather than pulling his knives from his hip, or picking them up from a table, Conor had found it easier for him to actually keep them slung across his shoulders and drew them like arrows.  I had never seen anything like it, but Coffey had suggested it soon after Conor decided to follow mine and Tyche’s footsteps.  And while his display wasn’t the fastest, or the most accurate, he drew some fascinated chatter from the crowd when switched hands after the fifth knife, with no change in speed or precision.

When he finished, there was enthusiastic applause but none louder than our family. Coffey’s voice boomed out, even louder than mine, to congratulate him before they traded places. Once again, there was hushed chatter as Coffey drew over his shoulder, this time trading off hands with every single knife, and breathless applause when he finished with a tighter cluster than Conor had. He smiled, but his eyes were all for Charly, who was next.

The crowd hardly had time to focus before she started letting blades loose. As fast as she could grab one, it was flying behind the last one, covering the bullseye by the time she was done.  With a flourish, she took a bow that left us all laughing and cheering.  She danced over to the sidelines, sweeping one more bow for Tyche to take the floor.

As soon as Tyche stood, the air crackled with excitement. In the same way that everyone watched the axe-throwing to see Jokul, all eyes were on my sister for this event. As though she was utterly oblivious to this fact, she strode to her marker.  She was still mid-stride when she brushed her hair out of her face and let the first knife fly from the same hand.

Bullseye.

Brushing off her legs saw two more knives, one after the other, hitting their marks. Then a dagger from her left hip, a tactical knife from one boot, and on and on. Each blade came from a different spot, no two the same size or shape. All hit their marks, and all without a single indication of exertion.  The only indication that she finished was when she dropped her hands and tilted her head, studying the tight pattern on the target.  My datapad indicated that she had matched Arthur’s time and close strikes.

When she turned to sit back down, everyone’s brains caught up and the expected cheers deafened us again.  As soon as she reached her seat, Arthur and Charly stood by some unspoken agreement and made ridiculous sweeping bows to her, only encouraging the audience to cheer harder.

Evania stepped forward again, to let everyone know that there would be a twenty minute intercession. The next events needed more intensive preparation, which allowed friends and family to take some time to talk with the participants. Sure enough, the second I was in earshot, I could hear Tyche complaining.

“I got much tighter patterns than that in practice,” she moaned.

Conor, head resting on both hands, shook his head in disbelief. “If you think you were bad, I feel I’m hopeless.”

That had the exact reaction everyone saw coming, as she whirled around in righteous fury. “Conor MacMaoilir-Reid-Okima, I have been throwing any knife I could get my grubby paws on since I was four. You started three years ago. I taught you, Sophia taught you, Coffey taught you. Your throwing has an exceptional pedigree and if I hear you talk about giving up, I’ll… I’ll…”

“Let me use you for target practice,” Arthur intoned, half-joking.

“No!” she insisted. “I’ll let Simon use you for target practice!”

“I’d be safe as houses, if he was aiming for me. Poor guy couldn’t hit the floor with a knife if he dropped it.”

“She never said with knives,” I added wickedly, causing his head to snap up and his face to pale.

“Sophie. Please, that’s cruel.”

I waved him off. “Oh, as if he would ever actually aim for you.  If Simon had to hunt for his food, he’d be a vegetarian, I swear.”

Rolling his eyes, Maverick stepped into the fray. “Conor, you did really well. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t. And it’s not like this is a competition, you were literally invited to just show off what you can do.”

“I still don’t know why… Coff over there clearly did better.”

A dazzling smile flashed as Coffey turned from his conversation with Charly. “Ah, but we are the only two who use that technique! Showing it off here means others may be interested in learning later.”

Hair flew as Charly nodded. “And besides, I could never get the hang of pulling a knife like that. My brain says ‘arrow’, and it’s just confusing.”

I was nodding in agreement and gesturing for Maverick to take Arthur’s seat, when something wet nudged my ankle.

“Sparkles. Heel.”

I turned to see Michael Smith and Grandma Kim had joined us. Unable to resist, I knelt to pet the dogs that accompanied them. “GK, Lyric II is looking more and more like her mom every day.” A muzzle streaked with white fur poked my hand. “Hey there, girl,” I whispered, blinking hard. Lyric was already ten when we were all brought to the Ark, and Hujylsogox medicine could only do so much for dogs.  Permission had been given for her to have one pup, to be trained as both a service and a protection animal, in preparation.

Michael’s animal looked to him for permission before joining in the ear scratches I was dishing out. He was one of the very few certified service animal trainers on the Ark, so when Lyric II was born, so was Sparkles, with the intention that they grow up and train as a working team. Michael’s past was extremely blank and sketchy, but something about him reminded me of both Arthur and Xiomara.  The fact that both of them respected him made me both at ease and suspicious at the same time.

I pushed that out of my mind and focused on the pile of fur before me, begging for belly rubs. “What events are left?”

“The security animal events have been added to this one, to allow time for the other participants to rest more, and then archery, spear/javelin, and thrown projectiles.”

I shook my head at ‘thrown projectiles’, but Charly was the one to speak. “I can’t believe we made a sport out of rock throwing.” When mouths started to open to correct her, she held up both hands and glared. “I mean ‘we’ like ‘people’, not ‘we’ like ‘the Ark’. I am well aware that humans have been killing things by throwing rocks forever. Don’t shoot me.”

“That’s a different exhibition,” Maverick pointed out, eliciting a groan from several people. “What!? It is!”

“I think she would beg to differ.” Tyche pointed to Charly, who looked like she was about to explode.

“Oh, right. Archery - “

“You are IN that event, how could you forget!?” she finally erupted, more out of confusion than anything resembling anger.

“I learned firearms first?” he begged.

Charly grunted and scrunched her face. “Fine. I can accept that as a semi-reasonable excuse.”

I shook my head at their antics.  Despite years of watching the two goof around, it was always adorable to watch men twice her size cower from the feisty ball of energy.

She was still teasing him. “I still think you owe me an apology.”

“Charly, I’m sorry,” he sighed with no real sincerity behind it.

“Mmmm, not good enough.” She tapped her chin with her finger and took out an eye-scorchingly yellow candy bar - which, by now I knew was just chocolate and caramel, but was still cringeworthy to watch. “I think…. You should make me dumplings.”

“Those take forever,” he whined, kneeling and clasping his hands. “You always want them from scratch.”

“They taste better from scratch,” she pointed out around a bite of her snack.

Tyche nodded. “They really do.”

And there it was. He was defeated, as our entire family stared at him in anticipation. With a heavy air, he hung his head. “Fine,” came the mumbled reply. “What kind?”

Quiet cheers sounded, along with fist bumps and in one case money exchanging hands. “Chicken and veg, pork and veg, and seafood,” Charly cackled.

I was pretty sure I was the only one who could hear Maverick mutter “I just got so played…”

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[red-the-dragon-writes]

Today's post is not on the usual "writer blog fare" side. Instead I am going to introduce you to several fun facts about various animals on our planet and then talk about worldbuilding.

1. Lampreys are a kind of "living fossil"- a not-really-so-scientific term for a creature that has lived unchanged for a very long time, so long that we have fossils of them looking the same way they do now. They don't have proper jaws, just a circular sucking mouth with teeth set into it and a tongue designed to strip flesh off of what it touches. They're finless fish, look quite a bit like eels, and have this really alien, uncanny vibe to them.

[id: a long, slender bluish-silver lamprey sitting among rocks. It has a long snout, an eye, and then six small perforations in its side arranged at an even interval sitting behind the eye. The environment it is sitting in is very yellow and green in comparison. end id]

[id: an image of a lamprey from below. The snout ends in a round, flat mouth which is studded with teeth in four concentric circles. The teeth are smallest near the outer edge and largest in the middle, and look like very sharp round points. In the center of this ring is another, smaller circle, where the pointed, tooth-like tongue can be seen, as well as a hole for the lamprey to actually ingest food with. Its eye is visible, as are some of the perforations on its side. This one is a more mottled gray than the first one was, and less shiny. end id]

Sea lampreys, which are the kind i've sort of not really kinda researched, are a major pest in the Great Lakes, where they regularly attack fish. They can get up to two feet in length. Despite this, they are not particularly dangerous towards humans.

2. Horseshoe crabs are also "living fossils." They've been around and virtually unchanged for millions of years. They're not true crabs, and are more closely related to chelicerata species, like spiders and scorpions (and many more). There are a lot of cool features of horseshoe crabs, but one of their most extremely cool, to me, is their blood.

I'm not going to post any images of what I consider to be animal cruelty, so you'll have to take me at my word here, but this is a bottle of horseshoe crab blood. If you're sensitive to images of animal cruelty, I don't recommend looking for proof, but if you aren't, there are plenty of images of the blood coming out of the creature for you to verify this with.

E[id: a bottle of slightly frothy, opaque blue liquid. It is sitting in a row with several other bottles of the same material. end id]

I am a sucker for blue blood, I just think it's neat, so that's all I'd need as an excuse to slam some horseshoe-crab-inspired nonsense in my exceptionally gory and fucked up wips, and if you've been reading along with WiB you may have noticed that blue blood does come into play at some point! But that's not all that's neat about horseshoe crab blood. Unfortunately for the horseshoe crabs, but fortunately for us, their blood is literally the only source of an important compound used for detecting the presence of dangerous bacteria in certain pharmaceutical drugs. (Fortunately, there are replacements that will hopefully become more popular in coming years.)

Now that we've gone over all that, onto the worldbuilding!

I worldbuild by Rule of Cool. Let's just get that out of the way. Every so often people will ask me how my worlds get so expansive (not WiB, WiB i made up on the fly by cribbing from fanfic and like... BBC Merlin. Assume very little of this holds true for WiB) and the answer is largely that I take every interest I have ever had in anything and smash it all together and throw it at my wip to see what sticks. and then I just... like... reasonably attempt to figure out what the natural conclusions will be.

So: we have lampreys. We have blue-blooded ancient sea creatures with spectacularly important and valueable blood. We are writing this into a story that takes place on land, somehow.

- The first option, and the one I'm going to talk about most because I did it, is just to rule-of-cool it into a character. (Or a place, or an item, or whatever, but largely I do rule-of-cool on living creatures and think harder about the world around them.) If you've been keeping up with WiB, you may have noticed that (spoilers) Zero Point is some kind of fucked up magician with a lamprey mouth in their hand who shapeshifts and bleeds blue. This is where I got those inspirations from (along with, like, some other stuff. I promise there are no lamprey assassins, but- continuing in the trend of stealing from sea creatures- the bobbin worm is a spectacularly beautiful, spectacularly deadly creature if you're within its weight range. which is like, goldfish size, but. And cuttlefish are known to disguise themselves as other animals, and can change sexes if the male:female ratio where they are isn't ideal.)

So you can take the elements you like, and just kind of slam them together haphazardly, which is what I did with Zero Point. The trick to this kind of worldbuilding is just to avoid looking too closely at it. The magical assassin has a fucked up mouth in their hand? Yeah, okay, that seems kind of fucked up and creepy. What do they do at all times? They hide it under a glove. So the protags Just Straight Up Never Ask. And voila; it never gets explained, and it never has to.

Same with the blue blood. It shows up, it functions as a plot device because only Zero Point has blue blood; it is never explained or even delved into with much detail. And if it were, it would fall apart instantly, because the justification is literally just "i thought it was neat. No, no one else is like that. I don't even know why they are. i just felt like it"

- The second option is to consider the effects of the things that you're working with, and then work off of that.

Let's take Zero Point again. Strip them of their context (weird assassin with magical powers) and just like, consider the fact that this is a creature with blood that regularly retails for over $10,000 USD, is intelligent as fuck, shapeshifts, has a mouth in their hand that may or may not be their actual mouth, and can exist on land so long as they have suitable access to water. What does that mean for our setting? Surely they're not the only person like that; so you have a whole species of people who are sort of but not really amphibious, shapeshift, and maybe have magical powers, who knows. They can't shapeshift their fucked up lamprey mouths, maybe. That seems like a reasonable limit. So their blood is highly valuable- what does that mean for their relations with other people, or their culture? What kind of foods do they eat? How do they create a sense of culture as shapeshifters; is there even a way that they represent themselves in art? How do they interact with the world? Do they have a "true form" or not? Every one of these questions will spawn new questions. If you answer all of them you'll lose your mind, but if you answer at least ten you'll spawn a much more background-heavy world that can help to shape your story much more effectively than trying to just craft a narrative will. Sometimes it works very well for a story. Sometimes it gets you lost in the weeds.

- The third option is to reference something else, and build off that. Again, let's use Zero Point as the example.

In the original story that the WiB ensemble is from, Closerverse, which may have some mentions on this blog but honestly I have no idea, there is a city that I've done quite a bit of worldbuilding on. This city is called Hudson, and one of the major important features of it is that it is partially underground. (This is a reference to the DFZ of Rachel Aaron's Heartstrikers series). Hudson is intentionally run to be the worst, most unpleasant city in the world, and one of its features are its wildly intelligent, dangerous forms of aquatic life. The lowest level of this city is partially submerged, and all of these creatures plague the people who live down there.

Closerverse was also set during a period of early industrialization, and Hudson heavily referenced US history, especially 1900s-1920s labor history. Tenements, pollution, zero protections for workers, et cetera. Hudson is a nasty, miserable place, and everyone who lives there can feel the jaws closing in on them.

Anyway, in Closerverse you got these fucked up massive eel-like creatures (lampreys, but with extra features) that due to some rather significant meddling wound up growing legs and then got really massive and started eating people. They have blue blood, glow in the dark, and make fairly decent eating as long as they aren't eating you. And they're intelligent. Given the whole "mutual eating each other" thing, the eels and the people of Hudson have some pretty major animosity going on.

Most of Zero Point's stuff is really just me referencing the Hudson Eels, because I fucking love those. They're some of my favorite worldbuilding elements ever. But given that no one else in WiB has ever seen a Hudson Eel, let alone seen their blood get dry on things, or whatever, everything about Zero Point is wildly out of context. And that almost makes it better, because the whole deal with them is that they're mysterious and weird, and having them be a mysterious and weird reference to something no one but I know about most likely is like, fun and neat.

There are, of course, other modes of worldbuilding as well, but I typically aim to stick to the first two as much as possible. The cooler you make something, the more possible questions it raises; the more questions something raises, the deeper your world gets.

Although, a word of advice: sometimes animals just do things. Sometimes bodies just have features. Who would invent fingernails? But having them is mighty convenient, isn't it? For that matter, who would come up with a deeply logical and reasoned explanation for eyebrows- but not having those would be very strange, to us. You can get away with doing a lot by just having that be how it is, and not having the characters comment on it.

Also, the more "shaped" a thing should be, the more you'll want to take the second approach. For house design, something intentionally built, you'll want to know why it was built, and what purpose is this and that room, and why is it painted such and such colors. But if you're talking about adding a second moon, like... fuck dude, who needs to know why there's a second moon? Maybe if you have sailors you have to know what it'll do to your oceans, but that's the kind of thing you can kind of just say exists and move on. You'll figure it out; it gets pretty intuitive.

Anyway, happy worldbuilding!

[feigeroman]

Thomas Headcanons: Thomas

For anyone who’s wondering about the seemingly random order in which I’m sharing my headcanons and OCs, the reason is this: I have a folder full of Word documents about all 110 engines (80 steam, 30 diesel) in my NWR roster, and basically what I’ve done is sort them out by file size, from largest to smallest. Obviously I’ve written more about some than about others, so this introduces a mostly random element to how I share them here.

Thomas is in fact the LBSCR's original 106, built in September 1915, but immediately requisitioned by the War Department to aid in the construction of the NWR. When this was completed, it's likely that Thomas should have been sent back to Brighton. However, it was soon discovered that in his absence, the LBSCR had already built a replacement 106 - presumably they thought Thomas would be in such a state when they got him back, that they'd effectively be building a new engine anyway!

As in canon, Thomas ended up staying on Sodor permanently after the War, partly for the above reason, but mostly because his crew had settled down and married local girls. Their names were Annie and Clarabel, and both happened to get on well with Thomas. So when Thomas took charge of the Ffarquhar branch in 1925, he wanted to give names to his new coaches, and simply picked those of his crew’s wives.

This was actually one of the first headcanons I ever shared on this blog. See that post here.

As with Percy’s facade of simple-mindedness, the reasons for Thomas’ own personality changes may run deeper than most people think. I think it’s worth exploring the rough chronology of such changes, and seeing if we can figure out some in-universe reasoning for them:

First of all, Thomas arrived keen to please, a little cheeky, but ultimately determined to work hard. To be fair to him, he had been thrown in the deep end as soon as he’d arrived: Having to help build the NWR during a period of war, and then having to help run it during a period of uncertainty. With that sort of trial by fire, you can hardly blame him for not knowing how to give anything less than 100%. And when he teases the other engines, it’s almost always because he can’t conceive of anyone else giving less than their all.

Thomas’ first notable change comes after he takes charge of the Ffarquhar branch. Obviously gaining his own line gives him a slightly inflated sense of self-importance, but it also gives him something to channel all that I Must Give 110% Or Else The Entire Railway Will Collapse energy.

This is later followed by what @mean-scarlet-deceiver​ delightfully calls Thomas’ Mid-Life Crisis. With the pressures of war, the uncertainty of Nationalization, and the encroaching threat of bus competition, Thomas all but cracks at this point. Starting with his snowplough tantrum in 1947, and coming to a head with his breakfast incident in 1960, this is Thomas at his most childish and arrogant so far.

Incidentally, check out MSD’s post on this subject. They’re much better at this sort of psychoanalysis than I am.

Following the breakfast incident, Thomas mostly calms down and gets his shit together. It’s probably at this point that he realizes how high he’s let his own standards become, and that if he keeps trying to meet them, he’s never going to be satisfied. He still remains an arrogant little sod, but he’s finally learning to cut loose and enjoy himself.

Starting in the early 70s (i.e. from around S5 onwards), Thomas’ various past personalities all gradually find a balance they can all work with, as he starts becoming more relaxed, open-minded, call it what you will. Basically happy medium between his RWS/early-TVS personality, and the kids’ TV role model protagonist he became in later series.

Thomas is established to be pretty famous in-universe, both in the RWS and the TVS. He enjoys the fame, of course, but he can’t help but feel confused at how it’s endured for so long. Sure, it made sense with the books, as steam was still a regular feature on BR at the time. But the television series came out in an age of HSTs, Inter-City, and anonymous diesel engines - and yet it was massively popular! Most kids watching had likely never seen a steam engine before, so why did they latch onto it? Fortunately, Thomas doesn’t let this paradox worry him - he’s just glad that even in the modern age, steam still has a place in people’s hearts.

Apart from Annie & Clarabel, Thomas also has his very own brake van - an ex-Southern Pillbox by the name of Beverley. A fairly quiet and easygoing type, she has no great desire to explore the world beyond the confines of the railway. Like most brake vans, Beverley is also sensible and conscientious, and if trouble ever befalls Thomas and his trucks - as it often does - you can be sure that she'll be on hand to sort things out or suggest solutions to problems.

[kaypeace21]

i was the anonymous person lol here i am. Yes i was hoping you were talking about them because they annoy me too. They took one post where i said mike isn’t the same around el than he is will and that will makes mike a better person and they took that as me shitting on el??? when i just didn’t and attacked my other friend who worded a tweet wrong even after i explained to them what she meant. Anyways me and the local firaffes love your theories, keep going!

Glad we could clear that up :). Aw, thanks. Also is that a typo- or can someone explain to me what a ‘Firaffe’ is? XD

Wait byler shippers said that? or Milevens?That seems strange cause most byler shippers know that Will brings out the best in Mike ( I even mentioned in a post,  that’s why Mike calls Will his “cleric” despite Will identifying as a wizard. It’s because clerics help paladins abide by their moral compass in d&d). And anyone being objective (and knowing what a healthy romantic relationship looks likes) noticed they both brought out the worst in one another (and stifled eachother’s character growth/development). And caused both to be neglectful to their friends and families. And contrary to popular belief, most byler shippers - like El  (generally more than mileven shippers like Will). Most of us dislike mileven cause we see it’s toxic and also understand El hasn’t had proper socialization and because of this doesn’t truly understand the nuances of platonic, familial, and romantic love (or even the distinctions between crushes, physical attraction, or romantic love) . 

And that she should try to find her autonomy and learn about herself , interact with more kids her own age, and figure out how the real world works before jumping Into a relationship with the first kid  she’s ever met ( who she ‘fell in love with’ after 4 days). I’ve talked more in depth about this here, here and here.

Honestly... @willthecleric mentioned to me how some milevens (impersonated byler shippers)and started a byler group on insta or twitter. and got real bylers to join just to try and convert them to ship mileven. So now I wonder if some of these toxic bylers are just milevens trying to makes us look bad? I mean, statistically speaking there has to be some toxic byler shippers (and some bylers who dislike me). I’ve interacted with them on here. But maybe some milevens are up to their bs again? -_-

Regardless, some people don’t care about the truth or your actual intentions. They’ll twist your words (like they did to me , you, and your friend) to stir up a controversy and pretend you were implying xy and z. So they can act like a galant hero. When they’re usually just bullies trying to get an ego trip (and are not as ‘woke’ as they claim they are).  They’ll even say offensive stuff, but get mad if you point it out (despite trying to police everyone around them). like  2 of these guys (who ship byler) that got pissed about people using the adjective “queer” and  attacked a byler shipper for the obviously non-malicious (tougue and cheek joke) about byler sitting in the fruit isle but hypocritically had no qualms (as guys) using the word  “dyke”.  Seriously? Just have consistency , please . You can’t be calling everyone else out for being slightly problematic when you do stuff like that 😆. And don’t even get me started about some of the abelist/triggering stuff a handful of byler-shippers said about r*pe/csa survivors (on their blogs or to me as anons).

If I were you I’d just block those bullies of yours. You’d be much happier if you just ignored them. Cause they don’t appear to want to have an actual constructive dialogue and come to an understanding with you (or your friends). You’ll be much happier not acknowledging their antics.

[starthieve]

Tagged by : @regalentempire thank you nelly !  Tagging : i’m actually gonna tag some people this time , @shurima-demigod , @fxlgurkinesis , @pantheon-god-of-war , @targonian , @yuhl ,  @januite​  , @moonaspect​  , @sunszenith​ to name a few ovo . 

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. 

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO / MAYBE ?

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO / MAYBE ? 

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. 

How strictly do you follow canon?  — what’s a canon

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  A celestial who has traveled far & wide throughout Runeterra healing those who have sought her help & leading the fallen or those lost in their destiny . She can also see the fates of others too so there’s that. 

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  She a sad goat ngl , lots of angst & can be a bit melodramatic at times.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  Soraka’s always held a special place in my heart for the longest time. I’ve written her before but it didn’t go the way I wanted it to . Though now I got a better idea of what I want out of her as a muse so here I am lmao . On top of that , I wanted to just write a muse that wouldn’t claw out someone’s sense of living in 2 seconds yk ? 

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  The idea of having a character be immortal & a celestial is honestly the smallest bit of fuel that I’ve found very fun to play around with . Of course that’s not the only thing that keeps me going with Soraka , since I really just love how deep of a character she can be , & I’m notorious for seeing how far I can take my characterizations :v

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES . . .?  / NO. ( I . . . think ? ngl idk how people think I rp Soraka , so I’m a little unsure on that end ) 

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO. ( Honestly my blog is like 90% headcanons at this point . All of them straying from fanon Soraka I feel lmao ) 

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO. ( I very much do , just haven’t gotten around to it on Soraka yet ) 

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO. ( Personally , yes. but ahaha )

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO. ( I like to think it’s one of my better points , of course there’s always gonna be room to improve , but I think I got Soraka’s voice / tone down ) 

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. ( Yes & no ? I’m 50/50 , but I’ll put no because I tend to be on the more neutral end of things & I like hearing different stuff from different perspectives ) 

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  — Always , always , always . No matter what blog / fanfics I’ve written , I will always be open to constructive criticism to what I write . I know I like to twist a lot of canon & make stuff my own , & I’m also notorious for posting long worldbuilding posts. I know not everyone agrees with that so ye. Gimme that sweet , sweet constructive criticism . 

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  — Oh I love them , it helps me flesh out the character 10x more & helps me develop them so much more. 

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Eh if they disagree with my headcanon then they disagree with it , I’ve no qualms with that. To each their own , yeah ? Not everyone is going to like my headcanons about a character & that’s fine ; I don’t hate the portrayal others have either because everyone really has different visions of a muse & that’s fine lmao 

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  I’d honestly just tell them to unfollow if they really dislike it , as said before to each their own & that’s ok yk ? But I’d rather not have someone feel angry / upset everytime I literally post anything about the character , so honestly my only answer there is unfollowing .

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  — Then . . . don’t follow a roleplaying blog for that character ? I dunno I’d prolly just go on with my day & ignore it lol. I don’t understand why people actively go following a roleplay blog for a character they dislike , only to hate on it. 

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  Oh please do. I’m horrible at catching my grammatical mistakes when I’m writing at 2-3 am as if my usual writing hours , please never feel bad about calling me out on it .

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   — Yeah I think I’m honestly p chill . My rules are fairly lax & my general goal is for people to just feel comfortable around / on this blog , I just take 10 years to replly & I sob over my ships alot ahaha

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

[randomarcanatingz]

the arcana characters as youtubers

nadia

always has her hair and makeup impeccably done for her videos and when she meets fans,,,no one has ever seen her look like less than an 11/10

makes videos on fashion trends and fashion history (think a less experimental safiya nygaard), ones where she gives advice to viewers who send in questions, and unboxing/review videos for beauty items and clothes

people always comment calling her “queen” which she thinks is sort of cute and “mom” which just confuses her (“for the last time--i appreciate all the kind words but i DO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN”) 

has never been demonetized once and doesn’t plan on it

whenever her videos are sponsored, she manages to sneak the sponsorship in smoothly, in a clever way

goes to vidcon but typically is too busy to stay the whole weekend 

wrote a book on self care and how to be independent and successful that became one of the best-selling youtuber books ever 

 isn’t a huge fan of collabs on her own channel, but appears occasionally on portia’s or asra’s 

does a yearly giveaway of high end jewelry and makeup for her subscribers, and holds a charity donation event for her birthday (like colleen ballinger’s childhood cancer one)   

seems to avoid scandals effortlessly, but actually works hard to stay out of drama 

asra

has absolutely no theme to his channel and just rolls with whatever video idea he can think of at the time

some examples include an instructional tarot reading video, a docuseries on the stigma against reptiles (featuring faust in every episode), a collab with nadia where they just drink tea and talk about current events, and him playing the weirdest children’s games he can find online

LOVES meeting fans and spends the whole weekend at vidcon, has like 7 meet and greets, and appears in every panel that will let him participate

his videos are low on editing and mostly just edited for length, but any special effects he does add in are not subtle at all (aka random sparkles and dramatic jump cuts) 

has been dubbed a “cinnamon roll” by his fans but he isn’t afraid to call out other creators if they say something problematic

 is very expressive and there are many reaction images and videos of him all over instagram and twitter

doesn’t usually make travel blogs but he does travel a lot, so most of his videos don’t have the same background

 all his merch is tye-dye and the best seller is a mug with a faust-shaped handle 

 follows a bunch of fan accounts for him on instagram

 tons of fans ship him with julian and while he’s not super into it, he finds the shitty instagram edits hilarious 

julian

the KING of clickbait titles but his fans don’t mind that much because it just parallels his dramatic personality 

“Staying in a Haunted Hotel???” (it’s not haunted, he just heard the people in the room beside him talking at midnight and thought it was ghosts), “I Solved the Jon-Benet Ramsey Case” (he didn’t, it’s just him discussing theories on it), “Proof the Government is Plotting Against Us” (no solid proof, just off the wall conspiracies that he explains confidently)

makes videos of him exploring supposedly haunted places, ones where he discusses unsolved crime cases and what he thinks really happened, and conspiracy theory videos

very active in the comments section; likes every nice comment he sees and replies to them with a winky face

 also very active on twitter and instagram, especially past midnight, and replies to tweets and dms from fans

sometimes collabs with asra for conspiracy videos which immediately leads to 20 fanmade compilations titled “julian annoying asra for 5 minutes straight”

is always sponsored by the weirdest, most random companies that have no relation to the kind of videos he makes at all

does 6 hour live streams where all he does is look at cursed images on reddit 

is determined to not let any of his subscriber’s discover that his birth name is ilya 

random haters have tried to cancel him multiple times but it Never Works he is literally immune to being cancelled 

portia

vlog QUEEN !!! her videos are mostly vlogs of her daily life, with a few scripted videos scattered here and there, usually involving pepi

contrary to her brother, her titles are very blunt and true to the content and are in all lowercase (“a day in my life”, “getting frustrated in my garden”, “buying my cat clothes online”)

 she tries to make her videos appeal to everyone, but 90% of her demographic is still teenage wannabe aesthetic vsco girls

 has never done a proper collab, but her vlogs always end up featuring nadia, julian, and some of the palace guards 

has a popular merch line that sells unique items like flower seeds, pet food bowls, and baking tools 

her favorite thing is seeing her fans’ reactions when she picks up one much taller and heavier than her for a picture at vidcon

fans all agree that she has bde 

sometimes makes so-called “family vlogs” where she hangs out with julian and mazelinka and calls them “the maz squad”

for april fool’s day, she posted a fake giveaway announcement video where she claimed she was giving pepi away to a fan

her twitter is mostly retweets of fanart and sweet messages from fans (and pictures of pepi, obviously)

muriel 

has the smallest subscriber count of the group but it's surprisingly high for someone who never wanted to be popular in the first place

his videos are very niche and are usually on topics like how to survive in the wilderness and how to raise chickens

many of his subscribers think his quiet personality and unique videos are all an act or persona and muriel does not understand why

he's only ever been to one (1) fan event/meet and greet and it was when he tagged along with asra to vidcon

despite his protests, asra always plugs muriel’s videos on his twitter, so they share many subscribers 

he doesn't really have any haters because those who actually watch his videos think he's super sweet and those who don't are too scared of his huge stature 

didn't want to include inanna in his videos initially, but caved after fans saw her in the background of one and demanded she make an appearance more often

fans (and asra) keep insisting he change his username to “the mountain man” but he heartily refuses 

does his own editing but also isn't great with technology so sometimes his videos are strangely edited and include parts he meant to edit out (but it's kinda endearing)

has never sold merch, never plans to, and ignores any requests to do so

lucio

listen i'm not comparing him to the paul brothers but you know …..

makes prank videos, makeup tutorials (but it's the same look just varied SLIGHTLY every time), and vlogs where he not so subtly flexes how rich he is

his merch is supposedly “the highest quality and extremely stylish” but that just means the prices are sky high and the quality is not that great 

goes to every convention he can and holds random meet ups because he craves attention 

isn't mean to his fans because he couldn't bear seeing his sub count go down, but will absolutely TEAR his haters to shreds and get their channel taken down somehow 

gets demonetized all the time and complains about it (as if he needs more money)

people are either a huge fan or they HATE him there is no in between

uses clickbait just as much as julian but people are less forgiving about it 

none of the other people in the gang really want to collab with him but julian did once, got tricked into eating a beetle, and refused to do it ever again 

king of scandals, tweets random controversial stuff and then deletes it

[morethanaprincess-a]

6, 7 & 22

Mun’s Asks: RP Edition

I’m going to answer 22 first as it’ll be the longest. Also, a disclaimer:

The question asks for five blogs I recommend to my followers. While I tried to choose five muns based on a variety of criteria, I want it to be clear that if I’m writing with you and you are not listed here, it doesn’t mean I don’t recommend you. Honestly, I could probably answer this question plenty more times with new blogs each time. The better answer to this question is to comb through my blog and see who I’m writing with, as I recommend them if we’re writing or have written threads together.

However, I tried to choose blogs/muns that really do inspire me, contribute great work and/or rph to the community, and aren’t only Danganronpa blogs. Additionally, I tried to choose blogs who have posted IC content in the past two weeks.

22. If you could recommend at least five blogs to your followers, who would they be?

Okay, here we go! Five blogs and/or muns that you should be following:

@the-taboo-king - Literally no surprise if you’ve been following me for awhile. I will always be a fan of blogs that put so much thought, time, and effort into taking a canon character and truly developing that character into their own. There’s an excellent balance between main/canon verses, AUs, aesthetics, and crack over here and if you need some writing inspiration? Just read any of their threads. Literally, any of them. Each one of my Sonia and Gundham threads pushes me to be a better writer, to develop my Sonia further from ‘safe’ canon tropes and I’m always grateful for that. These threads are just a joy to write and I’d say that if you have a Danganronpa character or verse and you’re not writing with this Gundham, you’re severely missing out.

I liked Sondam before I joined the DR RPC. Now? It’s probably my favorite DR ship for Sonia. 

@gungambled / @thawedfrost / @spiritusvendid - Because these are all the same mun, they’re all listed here. All of Kitty’s blogs deserve to be in the spotlight! Admittedly, I’m currently only writing with her Celestia at this time (Sonia and Celestia - future BFFs in the making!), but she gives each one of her muses such a unique voice and insight. Her dialogue is excellent and you really get the sense of who each one of her muses is, whether you’re familiar with the source material or not. Kitty’s also so fun to talk to OOC (possibly because we have some of the same hobbies and enjoy making crack plots about our muses)! It’s a treat when she shares mun photos, as she’s a fantastic makeup artist and cosplayer (And I always support fellow cosplayers and roleplayers, two big time-consuming hobbies!). 

@spurnedadulthood - I talk about Livi a lot over here. There’s good reason for that: Livi’s Kensuke Hibiki comes from a game and anime that aren’t too popular over here on tumblr, but with a ton of verses available, Kensuke can come pester your muse almost anywhere. And while his personality takes some getting used to (he’s. a. GREMLIN.), Livi writes him with such sincerity and devotion to his source material that, for the most part, you just have to laugh and shake your head with every response. Also? I’d never heard of the Caligula franchise before writing with Livi. It took about three RP turns for me to fire up Crunchyroll and watch the entire anime to better understand Kensuke and the Caligula verse (I’m not the greatest at those types of games, so the anime was much easier for me to digest!). It’s very rare that I’m inspired to seek out a muse’s source material if I’m unfamiliar with them, but I can attribute that to Livi’s characterizations and writing skills. I’m pretty sure Livi has more than one blog, too? An OC, I think? Anyway, if Livi’s writing a muse, follow that blog.

@trinitytalents - I admit, I am a bit picky when it comes to OC blogs. However, I really like what 7th has done with the variety of Danganronpa OCs that make up the killing game Project Trinity. With a variety of muses to choose from, 7th has made sure each one has a distinct personality, history, talent, and more, and all of them will fit right in with your Danganronpa muse or verse! I’m a bit partial to Satomi and Atsuko myself, but there’s an Ultimate Stylist Sonia needs to meet. In short, 7th brings their original creations to life so well with respect to the franchise that has inspired them and is just a fantastic example of a multi-muse OC blog. I just wish there was more art of all of the Project Trinity students!

@sadisticbloodlxst - For those who are familiar with the Diabolik Lovers franchise, you’ll know that a lot of the subjects in the games and shows are not for the faint of heart. However, this blog handles all of them with such eloquence while writing for every member of the Sakamaki and Mukami families! That’s a lot of muses with a lot of different personalities, histories, and perhaps most importantly in DL, reasons why they’re just not very nice vampires. Each character is so distinct, with writing full of emotion even when the muse themselves is determined to stay stone-faced. They’re taking a small break right now, but when they return, it’s a blog you should be reaching out to if you’re a fan of Diabolik Lovers (or dark plots, angst, nsfw, etc) at all, even just to read the various threads going on with plenty of other muses. Yes, I’m nosy and enjoy reading what all of their muses are up to! I can’t wait to keep developing Sonia’s storyline with Ruki and eventually, maybe, having her meet more of the cast.

6. What are your thoughts on the current roleplay trends on here right now?

I’m not sure what counts as a current roleplay trend, so to speak, but I’ll give this a shot:

- Google doc rules are a good thing, especially to access on mobile. I should do one myself. A lot of times I’ll get followed and I’ve only got my phone or tablet to check out a blog, and a google docs linked in mobile helps me decide much more quickly if I want to follow someone.

- Blogs and promos that focus so much on aesthetics that you cannot read the posts on their blog or you cannot find the rules/muses/info easily on the theme irk me. I’m much less likely to have the patience to move my cursor around your blog trying to find the smallest possible icon to hover over for ‘rules’ than if you have a sidebar icon that just says, plainly, ‘rules.’  My reasoning of following a blog always comes down to: do our rules/values/interests match and can I work with this mun’s writing? No matter how pretty the blog is, if I can’t work with your IC content, I’m probably not going to follow.

- Patience with replies needs to be understood more by the RPC in general. Just because memes and threads are posted doesn’t mean every mun can get to them quickly. It���s fine to ask someone after a week or so (Vacation and other hiatus reasons aside), but before that? Patience. Interact with more muns, post promos, drabble, create moodboards or song lists, or even find more muses to write. Don’t worry, people will eventually respond.

- I wish group blog promos and indie blog promos had different tags. Even in the fandom-specific promo tags. It’s irritating to try and get a promo in the appropriate tags only to have it buried by group blog promos, often mass-spammed with content that isn’t even promo content.

7. What is the one trend you miss the most that’s no longer popular or seen as much as it was before?

I’m not sure if it was just not a trend or just not as further developed, but I miss the RP days of Livejournal and Greatestjournal. A lot less weird formatting and focus on coordinating blog icons in every post. I think for OCs, icons definitely help. But for canon characters that, presumably, the person you’re writing with is familiar with, it’s tiresome to add. Especially if you’re on the tumblr app.

In general, I just miss more of the focus being on writing: developing skills, brainstorming, etc, instead of aesthetics. Whether it’s the blog style or mass-sharing aesthetic posts, I just wish it was more evenly distributed with written IC content in some places.

[honeymoonjin]

pasta la vista

In which you, a food critic, wonders how the hell Kim Seokjin manages to stay in business considering how horrendous his food seems to be. 2.3k words.

A/N: I’ve been holding off on writing a Jin one-shot for a while, because he’s my bias and I really wanted to get it right, but this is probably my favorite one-shot so far. Tell me what you think! 

Everybody loved a failure. Your scathing reviews on abysmal meals and grimy plates got far better traffic than anything positive you had to say about exciting flavor combinations and wonderful service.

At one point in time, you had selfishly decided to chase that coin, and thus your blog changed to The Idiot Sandwiches of Seoul (who could toss up a good Gordon Ramsey reference?) and your mission became to seek out the worst restaurants in the city.

Recently, you had been going to one restaurant multiple times, and you were getting a little concerned that Pasta la Vista was still in business.

The owner, a Mister Kim Seokjin, was a complete conundrum to you. You had been to his restaurant when it opened in 2015, and a couple times in the following years, and only had a few critiques, but it seemed that although his yelp reviews were still as immaculate as ever, the food quality and overall dining experience had taken a complete nosedive only a few months after your blog changed over.

You weren’t complaining, since your reviews of his place were some of the most popular on your site, prompting you to create a sub-series titled ‘What Is He Even Doing Back There?’ which focused entirely on reviewing every item on his constantly-changing menu.

That was another thing; he treated almost every dish on the menu like it was the daily special, re-printing menus every other week, far more than could be economically advisable.

Today you were back in the brightly decorated restaurant to try out his new-fangled three-course meal. You had gotten an anonymous comment on your most recent blog post from an account called ‘worldwidehandsome6969’ saying that it was the worst thing they had ever tasted. Likely an exaggeration, as the nature of your blog attracted a lot of whiners and complainers, but if it would pay your rent for another month, then so be it.

The building itself was in a rather wealthy part of town, but more so the hipster side than the old-money areas. The walls were covered in bright patterns and the chairs and tables were glossy white plastic.

The kitchen was quite visible from the main dining area; in fact, he had designed it so that instead of a solid wall, it was glass from the bench-height up. If you picked the right seat, one against the wall but near the center of the room lengthways, you could get a good look of the head chef himself, basically bouncing off the walls as he checked on all the other cooks, threw spices into pots like that old meme, wiggled happily as steaks sizzled on the grill.

One thing you always made sure to include in your reviews was just how happy he was. You could admire that, and you wanted your readers to not write him off as some oblivious rich kid throwing money at the Titanic. It was clear this business of his was somehow in the black, judging by how busy it was every time you came, so good on him for living his dream.

Still, you didn’t understand how content all the other customers seemed to be. After putting your order in for the three-course meal, it was only ten or so minutes before a dish came out.

It was a classic gazpacho with some crusty sliced bread on the side, but what gave you pause was the wobbly smiley face drawn in piles of chili powder on the surface of the cold soup. “Are you serious,” you whisper under your breath, chancing a look up at the kitchen.

You lock eyes with Kim Seokjin, who is beaming over at your table, but looks back down at the fish he’s seasoning when you catch him staring.

Even after he looks away, he has an odd smile on his face. You sigh and pick up your soup spoon. If there was one thing you did always love about coming here, it was how he managed to surprise you every time.

The surface tension of the soup holds enough to keep the powder on top right until the point that you go to delicately scoop off the chili powder. The moment the edge of the spoon breaks through, the powder around it goes sinking into the red depths of the gazpacho. You curse under your breath, giving up and just stirring it in as best you can.

If he wanted to give his customers a cardiac arrest’s worth of chili powder as decoration, he could deal with the feedback you’d give on his childish antics.

The cold soup was hot with spice and, as you expected, you barely got three mouthfuls down. You couldn’t taste a single thing around the burning of your tongue, but you had the feeling that the soup itself actually wasn’t that bad. It was a shame.

A waitress asked you how you wanted your steak cooked, to which you of course said medium rare, but when your mostly-full bowl of soup was taken away and the main brought out, there wasn’t a hint of pink left.

It was closer to concrete than it was a fine cut of sirloin, and he had again presented you with the smiley face motif, this time actually cut into the meat with a knife of some sort, clearly after he had done all but cremating it, and you flipped it over gingerly with your fork and knife only to see the same on the other side.

The vegetables accompanying the meat were, like most things you ate here, an absolute atrocity. There was some broccoli and cauliflower split into the smallest of flowers, so that they littered the bottom of your plate and fell through the tines of your fork when you went to scoop them up.

Worst of all was the entire carrot that was lain parallel to the meat, so large that it hung over the rim of the plate. Confused out of your mind, you stare dumbfoundedly into the kitchen, seeking out the man that thought this was an acceptable meal.

He was bent over the industrial oven, one hand holding onto the handle for support, the other clutching at his stomach. He had tears coming from his eyes, actual tears, and when a waiter pushed through the double doors and into the restaurant, for a second or two you heard the squeaky peals of his hysteric laughter, before they were cut off again as the doors swung shut.

A couple of guests heard the abrupt noise and glanced around the restaurant, but you were too busy watching the chef laugh so hard his tall hat fell off his head.

What the fuck was going on?

You ate enough of the steak and the odd selection of vegetables to form a solid basis for your review, then hailed a waitress to take your plate away.

Your stomach growled as you waited, but you dreaded the arrival of the dessert. Kim Seokjin had calmed himself down enough to go back to reading over tickets and calling out orders, and you hoped to god that it was tolerable enough that you could actually eat it.

The wait took a little longer than normal, so you slipped out your phone to begin typing away in your notes app, ready to capture your thoughts in the heat of the moment.

“He can be called a chef just about as much as you can call a man driving off a cliff a pilot. It would seem he was completely apathetical to the culinary profession, were it not for the complete joy I could see on his face when he saw I had received the dishes. I continue to be confounded by the total contrast between my experience and what others have-”

“The dark chocolate and raspberry cheesecake, ma’am. Please enjoy.”

You stuff your phone back into your pocket and do a double take at the dessert. It’s nothing like you expected, and while you haven’t tasted it yet, you suspect that will surprise you, too.

A velvety-looking slice of cheesecake is what greets you. You can see just by looking at the texture of the cut that it’s so light that it would probably just melt in your mouth, and a small ramekin of vanilla ice-cream sits as a perfect little scoop beside it. What gives you the most pause, however, is the vibrant raspberry coulis that’s been poured out in a little love heart on the side of the plate.

You hurriedly take your cake fork and slice off the inner corner of the cheesecake, feeling the satisfying clink as it breaks through the biscuit base. The second the creamy goodness touches your tongue, you’re a goner. The bitterness of the dark chocolate mixes in beautifully with the tart yet sweet raspberry sauce marbled through it, and the golden crumb provides some texture to break up the smoothness. It’s perfect.

For the third time that night, you find yourself searching for a glimpse of the head chef in his kitchen

Was he just great at desserts? Surely not, or he would’ve simply transformed into a bakery or patisserie. Besides, you recalled last time you came and tried the lemon meringue pie, and how it had arrived with actual sour lemon juice drizzled on top, and a large heap of whipped cream underneath the pie, so that by the time it reached you, the pastry had gone soggy.

No, you decided, there was most certainly something afoot here. You had no idea what you were going to write now, but you desperately needed answers.

It was winter in Seoul, and your nose had just about frozen off by the time Kim Seokjin finally waltzed out the front doors.

You pushed yourself off the pillar you were leaning on and rushed over to him, grabbing the front of his jacket to make him stop in his tracks.

He lets out a startled yelp, opening his mouth wide to scream, but calms down when he recognizes you. “Oh, it’s you?”

“Yeah,” you grumble, “it’s me. What the hell was that?”

He avoids your beseeching gaze. “The three-course menu. I hope you enjoyed it.”

You huff and shake him back and forth a little. “I’m serious! Two and a half years of atrocious food, and then one beautiful dessert. What the hell was that?”

He squeezes his eyes shut once and blushes. “You thought it was beautiful?”

“Argh, that’s not the point! You’re driving me insane! How is it that you have a full house every night, perfect reviews, and yet I get served an entire carrot on a plate, huh?”

He snickers.

“You think it’s funny? Is your business just a joke to you?”

He composes himself a little, letting his warm hands clasp your frozen ones gently, peeling them away from his thick jacket. “No, it’s not that,” he admits, “it’s just that when you started only reviewing bad restaurants, you stopped coming here.”

You let him remove your grasp on him but note that he doesn’t let go of your hands, leaving them to dangle between the two of you. Your breath is visible in the cold, and your soft speaking still seems loud in the heavy quiet. “Sorry, what?”

He shrugs breezily, but the bouncy energy you saw in the kitchen has vanished. “I knew you would only come to my restaurant and review it was if you thought the food was bad.”

You feel a fire die inside you as the truth dawns on you. “You just wanted free advertising. All publicity is good publicity, I guess.”

“No!” His outburst is punctuated by him giving your hands a squeeze, and he blinks down at where you’re joined like he’d forgotten. He drops his hold and brings a hand up to ruffle his hair nervously. “I just…I like having you around. I didn’t know how to talk to you.”

“The love-heart,” you ponder out loud, and he nods meaningfully. “This was you flirting?”

He winces. “God, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”

“It is stupid,” you concur, “normally when a guy wants to impress a girl, he shows off how good his cooking is, not how much chili powder he can fit on top of a bowl of gazpacho.”

He perks up after hearing your joking tone. With a cheeky grin, he nudges your shoulder playfully. “Hey, you, it’s not my fault it took you over two years to finally realize. Who seriously puts an entire carrot on somebody’s plate?”

You can’t help but laugh at his antics. He joins in, and you feel a strange kind of warmth inside you when you get a full version of the sneak-peek you heard earlier in the restaurant. He laughs with his whole body, throwing his head back and shaking his shoulders up and down with the force of it. You calm down before he does and watch him curiously. “You are an enigma, Kim Seokjin.”

He quiets down too, but still carries a self-satisfied grin on his face. “Ah, Kim Seokjin, incredible chef, talented comedian, and worldwide handsome guy.”

The smile is wiped off his face when he realizes what he said. You narrow your eyes at him. “Wait. Are you worldwidehandsomeguy6969?”

He shrugs sheepishly.

“Have you no shame?” you chide, but you can’t smother the beam on your face that hasn’t left since he told you the truth. “You have two and a half years of bad food to make up for, mister. You better start tomorrow night.”

He holds out his arm, jangling his car keys. “Why not start now?”

[artificialqueens]

How To Motivate, Encourage, and Inspire Writers - A Masterpost

Hey guys! I am reposting this guide because it got mysteriously deleted. This version includes some new additions and advice for readers.

This is meant to be a guide to help people give valuable, inspiring feedback, as well as how to send in prompts and requests that are more likely to be used. Remember that these are simply suggestions designed to help YOU as a reader get more of what you want. <3

Please let me know if you have anything to add, as this post was a collaborative effort and it can only get better with more input.  

*

What Readers Can Do

1. Like and reblog the stories you enjoy. Fanfic authors don’t get paid. Their only “currency” is notes and feedback. Seeing the notes climb, as silly as it may seem, is a huge motivator to write more. If you are shy about using your main blog for this, you can always create a sideblog and reblog the fic you like there. Authors will notice this and it’s also a great record when you want to go back to fic that you enjoy!

2. Positive feedback! A simple “I love this” or “I can’t wait for more” is great if that’s all you have to say, as well as general writer appreciation, but even better...

3. Comment with specifics. What did you like about the story or writing style? You can talk about the plot itself, characterization, dialogue, the writer’s voice or sense of humor, how the story made you feel, what you’d like to see more of...anything, even the smallest detail, that made you enjoy reading it. Nothing is more motivating for a writer than knowing that their hard work is appreciated.

Some examples of great comments with places to fill in the blanks with specifics. Feel free to use all or part of these as templates when you want to send a comment but you’re not sure where to begin:

[Author Name] - your last fic was so [complimentary adjective]! You really [description of something they did well]. Can’t wait for your next [story/chapter].

[Author Name] - I love [Title] so much! I especially love [part you enjoyed].

I hope we get more of [Title] from [Author Name]. It is [complimentary adjective].

Just read [Title] and [exclamation]! I am [emotion or state of mind].

I really loved [Title] by [Author Name]! My favorite part was probably [specific impactful theme or moment in fic], because it really made me feel [emotional response].

I am [emotion or state of mind] over [Title] by [Author Name]. It was so [descriptive adjective] when [describe moment in story].

Some more examples of really great, detailed, inspiring comments.

4. Start an actual dialogue with an author. As mentioned above, reblogging with comments (even just in the tags) is great. You can also send asks directly to their blogs, DM them, or send additional asks when they respond. Authors may have questions for you, and being able to interact can easily spark something or help them find direction where they were stuck. You can find a list of authors’ sideblogs here if you want to send messages directly to them.

5. Direct requests and prompts to specific writers who you enjoy. Start with why you like them and then explain your idea or request. By doing that, they will start off knowing that they are appreciated, making them way more likely to get excited by your suggestion. Try to phrase things in an open-ended and positive way. “I’d love to see how you would handle [prompt situation/pairing/suggestion]” or “here’s an idea, I think you could do something really cool with it.” The more detailed and supportive your prompt is, the more likely it is that someone will get excited and inspired by it. If your request is for “more” of something that exists, include a reason why you like that story, author, etc. If your request is for something different, talk about something else you liked and why.

Examples of how to send in requests and prompts to specific writers, or include a compliment:

[Author Name(s)] is/are awesome and I would love for them to write more [ship or thing you love].

I would give anything for more [ship or request], especially if it’s similar to [Title(s)], they are my favorite!

I love [Author Name]’s style so much, and I’d be so happy if they wrote [ship/thing you want from them].

I wonder how [Author Name] or [Author Name] would handle [idea]? I would love to read that!

[Title] by [Author Name] is so [positive adjective]! It makes me really want them to try [idea] because I bet they would [motivating phrase like “kill it!”].

[Author Name] - have you ever considered writing [prompt]? [Motivating sentence like “I would die for that!”] 

I really love [ship], especially [story title(s)/author name(s)]. I would love to see one where [prompt].

6. Creating artwork, edits, moodboards, or anything inspired by a story you like. This is like, the PINNACLE for most writers. Knowing that someone connected to something you wrote enough to take time out of their day to create something inspired by your story. It’s like drugs. ART IS DRUGS PASS IT ON.

7. If you are a writer, comment on other writers’ stories! You know more than anyone how hard they worked, so please show your fellow authors some love.

Demotivators

1. Anything that sounds aggressive or demanding. You catch more flies with honey.

2. Complaining about the lack of a certain ship, ESPECIALLY if ANYTHING featuring that ship has been posted in the last month of so. Writers are reading these comments, especially if they have posted recently. Can you imagine how demoralizing it is to post a story and then 3 days later, read a comment bemoaning how there’s NOTHING from that ship, that ship is dead, etc? Like this, written about one of the most popular, enduring ships in the fandom with some of the most prolific, talented writers here:

Don’t be that anon. ^

3. Begging and whining, especially for something extremely vague - this sounds way less cute than you think, and reading something like “I will die if I don’t get more [ship]” is more annoying than inspiring. Especially if, as stated above, the thing you are dying over already exists.

4. Giving nothing at all. Most of the writers expect to at least see their work is noticed. If there are no responses at all, they can’t provide you with anything new. And worst case scenario, they lose the motivation to finish it because they think no one is interested.

Notes From Some Writers (and Readers!)

“I’m famously horrendously bad at abandoning fics but about 95% of my will to continue to keep writing is because I know other people are reading and interested that I keep writing, and I’m sure that’s how a lot of other writers operate too. We’re all fuelled by positive reinforcement, so please tell us! Oh, and btw, commenting just to get mad at lack of updates is not encouragement and is actually super irritating and stressful. Just so ya know.” - Edith

“Having an artist come to you and say ‘Hey, I was inspired by your story’ is FANTASTIC. And also encouraging because someone has taken time to create something and say ‘hey, I really liked the thing you made’. It becomes a cycle.” - Kitschy

“Take a look anywhere, on AQ or ao3 or any other platforms. You’ll see (on ao3), probably at most, 10:1 ratio for hits to kudos, alone. There are even less comments. On AQ, probably a 10:1 ratio for likes to reblogs, and the most popular fics only have a little over 100 notes period. Now, consider that it can take a writer months to be happy with a fic they submit. This takes countless hours. Fiction writers, in real life, get money for their work. We get nothing. Nothing, that is, except whatever appreciation you can give us. If we put work and our hearts and souls into something and get nothing, we question our talent, our abilities, our devotion. We refresh the pages where our works are posted constantly, hoping for some feedback, some appreciation, and most readers only read the fiction and give no feedback or appreciation whatsoever.

“All you, as a reader, have to do to make us happy is take 1 to fifteen minutes out of your day to leave a comment, send an ask, send a message to a sideblog. Leave commentary in the tags if you reblog. Any reaction at all. It is all we get for the work we put in.” - Miss Bianca

“My 2 cents I guess is just to get into a habit of acknowledging works that you like. Even for me I'll read stuff and really enjoy it but forget to comment or like it so I'm gonna work on it and I’d like everyone else do it as well. Once people get in the habit of commenting and liking it becomes second nature and with that kind of positive environment it allows writers to grow.” - MissChimKi

“Going back in time, my first work was posted two years ago, and the last comment I got was a huge thank you for writing such a good story and the emotions of that reader, it’s the kind of tiny little things that give me fuel to keep writing.” - Saiphl

“I once wrote 5000 words in a day simply because someone told me that they were reading my smut in church. So, extreme enthusiasm is awesome, but don’t feel like you have to exaggerate and say ‘this is the best thing I ever read.’ A simple ‘I am going to hell...I was in a church service reading Exposed chapter 9’ is more than enough!” - Veronica

“Something that motivates me as a writer is when readers pick out parts of my fic to say why they enjoyed them. Advice for readers would be to never think you’re complimenting too much! I’ve seen some readers cut their asks short because they don’t want to gush too much. As writers we love praise and attention, we’re like Tinkerbell really!” - Vixen

What It Can Feel Like To a Writer to Read the Asks (Inspired by @artificialeevee )

[larriefails]

This new BPH2 post, she really can’t let go of 1D or the past, can she?

The amount of drivel...

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Harry was portrayed as a lothario BEFORE July 2011? By whom? Doing what? He didn’t date anyone until C*roline (sorry, I make one exception for censoring names and that’s for child groomers) in like, November 2011, there were jokes about him liking Madison, the girl from WMYB but that wouldn’t be until August anyway. Articles about various 1D members dating or hooking up with fans were run of the mill, but that was for all of them. Cher Lloyd got linked to literally every member except Louis, and that’s because he had a girlfriend. Harry was seen as flirty and fans joked around about his unfortunate pussygate moment, but clearly, he brought that on himself, and it was after X Factor anyway

The only possible “Harry is a lothario” push she could be talking about is that jokey video where Harry is seen as having overlapping dates with all the girls at boot camp, but it’s obviously tongue in cheek, it finishes with Harry going on a date with Wagner, a 50 something year old Portuguese (?) man. And this was BEFORE the band was put together. Why would Liam, or anyone, have to be seen as a lothario anyway? Confused

Louis and Hannah’s relationship wasn’t “spotlighted” they were just dating... so she was there... and they talked about it on the show I think once, maybe twice. None of the other boys had significant others at the beginning. When Zayn started dating one of the girls from Belle Amie (a girl group that was competing there as well), it was actually spotlighted, same when he dated Rebecca Ferguson

She says “switching 1Direction to One Direction” to seem knowledgeable, it’s hilarious. One Direction’s twitter account was created on October 29th 2010 and it was already stylized “OneDirection,” this is just a “the more you know” bullet point she learned that she decided to throw in there to get more credibility. Anyone that’s been a fan for long already knew this, it was stated as a fact in one of their books, but don’t ask me which one now cuz it’s been 7 years. Anyways, what an important marketing decision, Kati, it surely affected a lot of the outcome of the band that would be known as “1D” by 90% of its fanbase anyway

“But there was no larger strategy until July 2011″

NO SHIT SHERLOCK. U wanna know why? Because they didn’t have music out until August... you really are some fresh brand of stupid, huh. Who would waste money in marketing campaigns months and months before having any music to sell? All of them were heavily involved in social media anyway, and with strategic performances here and there, some interviews, a very well received book, signing days, and several other nuggets, they managed to build a stronger fanbase and a lot of anticipation by the time they released WMYB. There was definitely marketing, but, no, of course there wasn’t an overarching marketing campaign for a band with no music for six months.. Just like there isn’t, idk, a hot air balloon business for cheetahs..

And that’s how she starts.. everything after that is drivel and more and more drivel. Very little of it makes any sort of sense or is backed up by any facts other than her wanting things to be that way

Such as this entire paragraph which has me in fucking stitches

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Listen, I’m sure more older people became fans as the band became more popular, and I’m sure there are some men sprinkled in between, but PROFOUND DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT? Except Harry and Zayn, who have cultivated an older skewing demographic, the core fan base is STILL 13-18 year old girls. And even Harry and Zayn have large percentages of their fan base in that age group still. She really thinks the tumblr side of fandom is in any way indicative of the larger fandom, it’s fascinating to read someone that’s supposed to be old and wise, who’s a mother and a wife, be so blatantly wrong and so delusional. Not even in the tumblr side of fandom now are the fans mostly older with established careers. That’s just the big Larries, and big Larries are what? 1 in 2,000 One Direction blogs? (and I doubt at least 50% of their “well established careers” are real, but I’m not into doxxing people so I’ll take their word for it)

I almost lost my mind when she called tumblr tinhat wank “objective debate and evidence-based discussion.” OBJECTIVE! O B J E C T I V E? bulletprooflarry, the person that left tumblr for a month when Harry announced his solo career because she had been saying for ages he’d never go solo and couldn’t handle being so OBJECTIVELY wrong, is talking about OBJECTIVE DISCUSSION???? Kati you wouldn’t know what actual objective discussion is if it slapped you repeatedly with something smelly while yelling “I am objective discussion” as a plane writes in the sky “objective discussion is slapping you in the face” and some sirens wailed in the distance

Not even gonna go there with “evidence-based” .. I’m sure ur tag “all the reasons ever needed” filled with cropped and edited gifs of 17 yo Harry and 19 yo Louis looking at each other for 0.03 seconds in slow mo would hold in court very well

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H I L A R I O U S. Never seen before! Novel!!!! Only happening because of “this new smarter fandom with professional experience”! No other tinhat fandom doubts the protagonists of their conspiracy theory handle their social media! That’s just the new smarter fandom filled with professional men and women in 1D. Crisscolfer, Kaylor, Supernatural, Camren, you name it. Any CT mined fandom where social media is used, believes the exact same bullshit, Kati. U R NOT SPECIAL. You’re not smarter. The Larrie fandom didn’t “wise up” it tinhatted up. If you left your conspiracy bubble for three seconds and waltzed into literally any other corner of the entertainment world, you’d see that

After this, she drivels on and on about “pics or it didn’t happen” and shit like that. None of it is special to this fandom, Kati. None of it. What you’re describing is tinhatting. It has nothing to do with “this new smarter fandom.” Unless of course you believe in every other celeb conspiracy theory out there and how all the CT fandoms have also, coincidentally, become “smarter”

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This is equal parts self centered, arrogant, delusional, and wrong. 1D’s team did a ton of things to get new fans and it succeeded largely at it. 1D was one of the largest bands in terms of fanbase in the world. It got away with selling millions upon millions of records and selling out stadiums without getting huge songs. To this day a vast majority of the general public only knows 2 or 3 One Direction songs (WMYB, SOML, some will know Drag Me Down). I think it was too big for the teams it had, for sure, but that’s just logic speaking for itself. What other clients the caliber of 1D did Simon Jones, Modest, or Syco have? The only big fish in the game was Columbia. And at times it definitely showed in a lot of things. But to say that they were playing catch up for five years and had no plan whatsoever, is simply disingenuous. And so self aggrandizing.. Recognizing that they had their failures? Cool. Sitting oatur computer at home and pretending that u kknow better how to handle it? Demented

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You know when you read something that’s so wrong that you don’t even know where to start? Yeah..

You were lied about the band getting back together. One by one they have admitted to it, even if not in so many words. First Zayn said he didn’t even like being in 1D ever. Then Harry refused to ever confirm the band would get back together. You had Niall, Liam, and Louis preaching 18 months/2 years, but that soon changed. Niall got tired of being asked a few months into his promo in 2017, said “idk, man, idk! someday!” and asked not to be asked again. Liam lasted a little longer, but he literally said “ask the others, idk, man, idk!” a few months back. The only one standing is Louis, and I firmly believe it’s simply because he hasn’t done as much promo as Niall and Liam, who must’ve reached the point of exhaustion. His defeated “idk, man, idk” is happenning soon. I can feel it in my bones

There’s no leadership in 1DHQ because there is no 1DHQ because there is no 1D. The band is broken up. Gone. Donezo. There’s no one to steer one topic to the next

It’s not the “lack of leadership” which lead the fans to create “microfandoms.” It’s the fact that every member has gone solo..... that created microfandoms. You’re over 40, Kati, please, for the love of God, stop hanging onto a boyband that’s been dead for four years. This is so pathetic to read. Fans less than half your age cried about their lost band for a few days and got over it. You’re still throwing hissy fits on tumblr and talking about it as if it wasn’t deceased

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Just... no

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Louis DOES NOT have the most hardcore fans inside of 1D. He has the most LARRIES. His fanbase is almost entirely conformed by conspiracy theorists, that’s why it seems so hardcore to you. This is not a positive. As a fan of Louis, I can assure you it is not. This doesn’t translate well into literally anything. Y’all are a nuisance and ruin everything. You’re not fans of Louis, you don’t even LIKE HIM. You despise everything about him and everything he is. Everything he does. All the things that have shaped him. You call everything he says a lie and mock his desperate attempts for you to LISTEN TO HIM. That’s the exact opposite of a hardcore fanbase, you shithead. That’s as fickle as it gets, it can (and does) get lost any second. The smallest of his moves can set y’all off and wipe thousands of you from his ranks. Because none of you like even a little of who he really is. Y’all are gonna leave him sooner or later. It’s just a matter of when, not if. Hardcore my fucking ass

What has Harry done to make older white men think he’s cool? Paint his nails? Wear glitter and flowery suits? Sing about men? Proclaim at every chance he gets that he LOVES his mostly female/young audience? That he thinks they’re amazing and how much he appreciates them? What is it that appeals older white men? All the rainbows in everything he does? The only thing “older white men” might like about Harry is his music and its inspiration, that’s where it starts and where it ends, but everything he’s done and said since he’s gone solo is prone to prejudice them against him. He hasn’t lifted a finger to appeal to them. His team didn’t even push his songs on Adult/Contemporary radios (Niall’s did, but I don’t see you talking about that). Yeah, Hall Of Fame will expose him to that audience as well, but you know who else did Hall Of Fame? Miley Cyrus. Was she trying to appeal to older white men? Was that Jannelle Monae’s goal while inducing Janet Jackson? He’s co chairing the MET Gala in a couple of weeks. How’s that for a white older male audience? Being a Gucci model under Alessandro Michele must’ve helped a lot, I’m sure 🙄

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“If One Direction was going to come back” NO. Next question

[starberry-cupcake]

Hey, you’re entitled to do whatever you’d like with your fic, but I would like to say that a rude comment shouldn’t take away from the work you put into writing something. I would also like to remind you that most people in the les mis fandom are accepting of all interpretations of character because everyone sees them in a unique way (I’m sorry you’ve come across someone who isn’t used to this). I wouldn’t want one person to ruin a rather kind fandom for you, but I understand what you’re saying.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support ♥ you’re very kind. 

I’m going to answer this on read more because it’s a long story, my sad pathetic life in the les mis fandom, I was weary of sharing it but, at this point in my life, I think I’ve grown enough to handle it. So, I’ll give it a go. Of course, this is just my personal experience and doesn’t mean everyone agrees, I’m sure most people have a great fandom experience in it and I just didn’t handle anything well.

I’ve been in the fandom for a while, but I think I came into the online tumblr part of it in a rather complicated time, because my experience wasn’t all that good. 

I didn’t have one singular awful experience but I never felt a part of the fandom because there were a lot of groups in which I didn’t quite fit in and never felt very welcomed in general. 

When I started doing the summaries, I didn’t expect them to have positive feedback because of this, I never felt like I was enough for the fandom, if that makes sense. I thought that maybe, since time had passed, the lines were more blurred and the fandom was more chill and that’s why I was able to have such positive conversations with people without animosity. 

To me, it was always a scary fandom to be around, there are a lot of amazing people in it, a lot of great people, a lot of super smart people, but there was also always a lot of...elitism? I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I felt like I was never enough to access the fandom. Like I was always doing something wrong, that I would never know enough and that no matter what I did I was going to be eventually called out for something I did wrong (there was an overlap of peak tumblr social justice movement and online call out culture and peak les mis fandom on tumblr post 2012 movie that made it all more intense). 

I wrote a lot of Les Mis fic, most of which I’ve deleted because I didn’t like it, some of which is still the most personally important stuff I’ve written, regardless of how good or bad it is. There’s probably 2 fics I won’t delete ever, even if I end up disliking the writing, because of what they mean to me personally. 

But the Les Mis fandom is the only one of all the fandoms I’ve written for that I always felt I wasn’t good enough to even try. I got to a point in which I felt very discouraged with this overall sense of never being enough in any part of fandom and pretty much gave up on writing for it altogether. It’s the only fandom I ever chose to stop writing for because I felt I couldn’t live up to the demands of the fandom and I was afraid of the consequences of messing up. 

There are three big layers of issues for me in this, I’ll try to explain myself as best as I can. 

First (and this is true for every fandom, but in this one I felt it the most strongly at the time I was active in it), there was the fact that there were groups of fandom famous people who had accessibility that was difficult to obtain. Recommendation blogs sharing your work, artists drawing for your fics, other fandom famous authors recommending your stuff, that kind of things make fics more visible. I’ve never been the kind of person to promote my stuff too much because I don’t have the confidence for it, but networking in fandom is a part of the job if you want your stuff to be seen, for some folk being in the midst of fame comes easily and others work for it, but the truth is that community helps you have more feedback. 

I was never anywhere close to the fandom famous circles, my fics were recommended like maybe 3 times at best, and I am pretty much incompetent for social interactions, but I was also a bit scared of the whole group. 

I remember at one time there was a teenager who was called out for tracing art and it became a witch hunt to the point that someone made a blog specifically to call this teenager out on tracing and the kid closed their blog after all the aggression (I understand tracing is a problem but this kid was super young and being bullied like that was scary). I remember blogs posting humiliating bingo cards of fic tropes for certain ships and calling out writers for using them. I saw people coming at a friend’s comment section for the smallest things about a certain character’s interpretation. These things made me weary and I felt like trying to access that part of the fandom wasn’t going to be good for my emotional and mental stability. 

It wasn’t that fandom famous people were mean or cruel or unfair, not at all, there was a certain sense of...intensity in everything that happened. Some people found themselves in the circle and didn’t understand the power they had when they called out one person or recommended another. Fanon interpretations or ships became super accepted because some of these folks used them, to the point that your fic or art was invisible if you didn’t have that ship or interpretation in it, to the point that people started thinking some things were brick canon because of tropes born out of these folks. It wasn’t that they were intentionally moving that side of the fandom around but that things were so intense that fandom came and went in the direction these people did, even unintentionally. 

(And I say “part of the fandom” because, at that time, I felt the fandom was fragmented in the historical brick side, the modern au tumblr side, the musical side, and those who were a blend.)

The next issue I had was with what I mentioned of the overlay of tumblr’s social justice peak and the Les Mis modern au fandom peak, which is in part coincidental and in part, I assume, something that comes with the Les Mis territory, with it being a socially and politically compromised piece of work. 

People became incredibly aggressive towards how representation and diversity had to be handled on the Les Mis characterizations. I witnessed people calling others racist for the sole fact of writing Enjolras as a white person. There was a popular discourse about how those who didn’t identify in a certain way should be forbidden to write the characters in that way. There were people calling others toxic and abusive for shipping a certain ship and not another. It got really intense. 

This was around 2013, maybe early 2014, to give you an idea. It made me super weary of fucking up. Every time I added something that I felt could be seen under the social justice microscope, I apologized profusely before and after and begged people to call me out if something was wrong. I never felt, in any other fandom, that I was actually being a horrible person just for potentially making a mistake in characterization. I realized later that this was a very bad thing for my OCD and my obsessive episodes, which had become too strong in 2014, and it prompted a lot of ramifications I won’t talk about but yes, the mixture of Les Mis fandom and tumblr aggression was not good. 

The third and final thing that held me back, which holds me back for all my fics, is language. I’m not an English speaker. I don’t live nor have I ever traveled anywhere where English is spoken regularly. I write in Spanish. However, all my fics are in English because it’s the bridge language for fandom. That’s the language that has the most hosting platforms, the most fandom interaction, the most feedback, where all the online fandom movement is held. It’s my choice to use English for my fic, and it’s my responsibility if I fuck up, but I feel like from the get go I’m at a disadvantage when I feel I can’t quite give the same meaning to words as I would in my language. I always feel that my English writing is sub par in comparison to my native language. But I choose to sacrifice that in order to have more fandom interaction and meet more people. 

All in all, I think this comment hit me hard because with these summaries I felt I was finally having a good relationship with the fandom. That what I said was finally valid, whether right or wrong. That maybe the problems I had were caused by my inability to handle things at the time and by how intense tumblr in general was then and that things now could be different. And in the midst of that, I get this comment and all of this came rushing back to me. This feeling of not being good enough this fandom has always given me. 

That fic in particular is a super short very irrelevant ficlet I wrote for one Halloween almost 4 years ago I think now, a vampire and werewolf au. It isn’t meaningful or important, but I had a universe in my mind I wanted to somewhat explore. I don’t mind deleting it and keeping it as a personal copy just for me, it’s not one of my best works nor is it relevant to the fandom. But the aggression of the comment brought back this whole experience and reminded me why I had stepped out in the first place. 

Anyway, thanks so much for your nice message and your encouragement, it’s nice to see there are good people, accepting people around ♥ sorry for this long answer, but maybe it gives more context for my reaction that may seem very extreme without it. 

[violetosprey]

BTD My thoughts on Strade

I covered my thoughts long ago on all of the “Till Death Do Us Part” game characters, but I never really took the time to talk about my thoughts about the main series “Boyfriend to Death” characters.  I have actually talked about many of these characters through various different posts.  But otherwise, there haven’t been that many posts dedicated specifically to certain BTD characters.

These posts will mostly be about my own opinions and views (a rough analysis more than anything).  I may end up focusing on multiple aspects of the character, or just one particular one if I think it defines them best (we’ll see).  For those that have read some of my other posts, there likely WILL be some thoughts I’ve stated before that I’ll simply be re-iterating here.  But there may also be some new stuff in here if it happens to come to mind, or because I’ve simply not had the time before to go over such a topic.

It will take a while to get through all 8, so please have some patience and just check back later if it looks like I don’t have a post up yet for a character you’re really interested in.  I will also be talking through these under the assumption that you’ve played/read all the routes (so I might mention but not go into explicit detail on a scene).

*major spoilers below for BOTH BTD and BTD2*

 Fun Fact:  Strade was the first character I’d ever seen related to the BTD series.  A picture of him online is actually what got me interested in the games.  That’s how I learned about them.  Also, I still think Strade’s scar near his mouth makes him look like he has a toothpick in his mouth (until he makes certain expressions).

If you asked me who I thought was the most popular character in the original BTD game, my guess would be Strade.  I don’t know exactly why, but I feel like Strade is the most common “face” of BTD (though maybe that’s just because he’s how I found the game myself).  Strade I think does embody that sense of horror these dating simulator parodies bring.  He’s one of the main reasons I consider the original BTD game that focuses on a character’s ability to be straight up evil (while the BTD2 characters had more depth). His pure sadistic nature might also be why he’s so popular.

First off, it’s perfectly fine if you want to head canon Strade with a slightly…nicer disposition. I know a lot of people enjoy doing this (especially with his relationship between either OC’s or Ren). They’re fictional characters, and people should be able to have a little fun with expanding on other possibilities (for stories, or just for kicks).  However, people who’ve read my other posts may have noticed that I prefer to stick as closely to the game canon (and what the creators confirm themselves) as possible.  And the canon truth about Strade is…he’s an absolute MONSTER.  Despite being one of the few human characters in the BTD series (excluding TDDUP), he has proved to be one of most evil and remorseless characters.  What’s more, we aren’t really given a back story as to why Strade is the way he is.  From what Gato’s implied though…it’s almost as if he’s just always been this way.  He has no deep rooted anger or anxiety issues from past trauma that we know of (and he appears way too confident).  He’s not doing it out of hatred (on the contrary, he likes people).  He’s just doing it for fun because he enjoys it.  Hell, he’s made it his CAREER through the snuff films.

People have asked Gato various things about how nice Strade can be.  In the game he DOES have a rather friendly demeanor to him.  And he’ll offer you food, call you “buddy.”  But I think the creator makes it pretty clear that while Strade holds no actual ill-will towards his victims, he IMMENSELY enjoys torturing them.  I think Gato has even once said something along the lines of “nothing Strade does is consensual.”  Meaning, he goes out of his way to make sure that no matter what, his victims are in distress.  Even if they manage to get comfortable around him, he’ll find a way to make them fear again. I talked about once how each of the BTD and TDDUP characters respond to “initiative,” and both the game and the creator make it clear that Strade has a preference for people that are more shy or introverted.  People that are less likely to open up or be assertive with him.  It also means it’s more likely that the person will be submissive and afraid of him I’m guess.  I think Gato had said that Strade decided to keep Ren because Ren was very submissive and willing to do whatever Strade said.

Speaking of Ren, I don’t think I’ve taken the time to really talk too much about the kind of “affection and love” Strade can show.  I think Gato once described the relationship between Strade and Ren was most similar to…roommates?  And Strade (when not tormenting Ren) would buy him games he wanted (so a weird snuff film rich sugar daddy?).  We do see that Ren’s not in the best shape though when he comes down into the basement. I have no clue how frequently Strade tortures Ren, but it’s definitely enough to keep Ren in a very nervous state. When you attack Ren, Strade gets furious.  But he doesn’t call Ren by his name, instead saying “You touched my fox,” I believe.  So Strade probably never considered Ren a lover or friend of any kind.  More like a pet.  Why Strade would be nice to his “pet” could be a psychological play here where offering even the smallest bits of kindness between his sadistic activities causes Ren to become more obedient and closer to Strade (a carrot stick method if you will).  

When a person is going through a horrible experience (like being kidnapped by a serial killer), the mind has the ability to do whatever it takes to help relieve stress from the victim and keep the will to live.  What probably happened here is Ren started to cherish the “kinder” moments of Strade so much that eventually he saw them as having some kind of “bond.”  It’s highly likely that Ren developed a form of stockholm syndrome.  We actually see the proof of this in BTD2.  Ren talks about how he KNOWS Strade was a horrible person, and we was afraid of him.  But at the same time, Ren thought they had something special.  In fact depending, on the level of affection and choices, I think Ren can even get really ticked off at you if you call him out saying that what he and Strade had wasn’t real.  If people were confused as to why Ren wanted you and him to kill Lawrence together, this is probably because Ren had developed this warped idea in his head that sadistic activities (and even murder) were part of a more intimate experience.  A quicker and more efficient way to form a stronger “bond” between the two of you.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? I’m pretty sure…Strade says something very similar to the MC in his basement back in BTD.  That the moment you’re sharing together is very exciting and very “intimate.”  This is probably the same kind of stuff he told Ren that caused Ren’s mind to slowly become warped.  It could just be Strade messing with people’s heads on purpose to get them to do what he wants.  However, I did occur to me that it’s entirely possible…that Strade fully believes that the act of causing harm to others, and hearing their screams, is an extreme form of intimacy.  Like it’s not just a tactic for him to torment people with, he actually gets off on the things he does because it’s his form of “love.” Before anyone who reads the other stuff on my blog calls me out, no I don’t think Strade is a yandere.  He’s far more yangire (I can’t quite be sure either if he’s really “loving the person or just the experience).  

Now this is just a theory, but it might also help to explain the bleeding heart ending.  Strade gets SO excited, that he forces himself on you and proceeds to strangle you to death while he’s doing so.  I’m sure several people thought this was a little strange.  Since I’m not a serial killer or murderer of any kind, of course this stumped me for a while as to how Strade ends up “loving you to death.”  I think now it’s possible that he ends up liking the MC (or interaction) so much, you could even say “loving” I guess, that he ends up holding nothing back and in a state of ecstasy, ends up snuffing out your life with his bare hands.  In the one survival ending, you need a full red (regular) heart to get your own shock collar.  This puts you at the same status as Ren (a “pet”).  But if you REALLY want Strade to “love” you…it ends up with your death.  I think this says a lot about just how deranged and sadistic Strade is.  It’s no wonder Gato has never painted him in a sympathetic light.

The last little bit I wanted to say about Strade, which I think it another reason people like about him, is the expressions he makes.  Hats off to Gato, Strade’s expressions in the series I personally think are some of the best.  If you don’t believe me, here’s a fun little video showcasing many (not sure if it’s all) of his expressions.  The music makes me laugh, but it makes the video more entertaining I think :P  You get to see him be cheery, sadistic, and angry, and it’s just a blast.

I really do like how simplistically evil Strade is.  He’s never truly meant to be a lover, which is good because the point of these games was to be ironic.  They’re not dating simulators where you win the heart of the bad boy (usually).  They’re survival horror games where you work hard to just get out alive.  But even when you do find that survival ending (and both Strade and Rire only have one each), you may realize to your horror that you don’t truly get to escape the nightmare.  And that’s CERTAINLY a twist to be admired.

[aurorabeatriz]

BATANES: North Batan Tour

Who would not want Batanes in their bucket list? The northernmost province of the country is known to be the hardest and most expensive trip every traveler had to encounter, unless of course if you take advantage of the airlines’ seat sale like I did. This is because of the notion of harsh and unpredictable weather condition, expensive cost of ticket, food and other expenses and and a long distance travel. But every cent you spend in this beautiful place is worth it.

BUT I DID NOT CARE! Batanes is my dream destination that I’ve never dared book an out of the country trip unless I visit this breath taking place. Last year, I promised myself to spend my birthday in Batanes, no matter how expensive the plane ticket is, no matter what the circumstances are, including the three-day work in research and my family’s disapproval of travelling during birthday occasions because birthdays are a family affair.

I’ve been searching for this place since last year. According to bloggers, the best time to visit Batanes is during the so called winter season on December to March. Many said that during summer, the hills are brown and the weather is very hot that you would rather stay in the shade than to visit the places. I would figure out that tourists cannot sing “the hills are alive.” Luckily, my birthday in on the third week of January. And mind you, the network signal in Batanes is very strong. I got an LTE connection for globe even in Sabtang.

Why Batanes? Why not! With its unspoiled postcard perfect hills, picturesque beaches, mouth-watering Ivatan foods and delicacies, traditions and rich historical and cultural treasures, it is definitely a dream destination for photographers and travelers. Or maybe because as a double major in Political Science-History, it fascinates me to visit a place with rich historical and cultural background. Batanes is the country’s smallest province in terms of population (home to 17,000 Ivatans) and land area. It is dubbed as the Land of the Winds and Paradise of the North. Three of the islands are inhabited namely Batan where the capital of the province, Basco, is located, Sabtang and Itbayat.

I endured a very exhausting connecting flight from Iloilo to Batanes because of the cold Amihan wind affecting the whole country (I’m not used to cold) and the delay in the runway. But I am still grateful for the experience.

As the plane descended in Basco airport at ten in the morning, tourists and travellers were welcomed by the majestic view of Mount Iraya, an active volcano that erupted in the 1400s. We also had a glimpse of the well-known stone structure of the airport’s departure and arrival area. I also enjoyed the free airport service of Marfel Lodge.

I stayed in the most recommended accommodation in Batanes, the Marfel Lodge’s main building. I was greeted by Ate Emy and Ate Kris who tended to me for my five day-four night stay. They are so very friendly and accommodating. The lodge has its own version of the well-known honesty store, an unmanned store where tourists buy the products and leave their payment. What to do in Batanes? Just be honest, pati sa imo feelings J. My room is very clean and comfy too! Everything in the lodge screams of simplicity and cleanliness.

I decided to take a bath after the exhausting trip. The weather is so cold I forgot to use the hot shower. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom because I enjoyed seeing my breath J. Then I slept for an hour then started the North Batan Tour. It was a joiner trip offered by Marfel Lodge and Chanpan Tours where I got to know other tourists. On the first day, we were eight including our tour guide, Kuya Art and his apprentice, Krista. During my last day in Batanes, Krista told me that their afternoon class is spent for fieldwork, which means they get to join tours as part of their curriculum given that Batanes is known to be a tourist destination. We first ate our lunch and Kuya Art gave an orientation about the tour then proceeded to Batanes Provincial Hall to pay for the Batanes Environmental Fee worth P350.00 and Protected Area Entrance Fee worth P50.00.

North Batan Tour (January 25, 2019)

Mount Carmel Church (Tukon Church)

Our first stop in the Mount Carmel Church also known as the Tukon Church, which is under construction during our visit. The church’s walls are made up of boulders, the door is wooden, and the windows are stained glass with images of church’s icons. Inside are the images painted in the altar and the ceilings. At the back of the church is the view of Mount Iraya, on the left side is an ocean and on the right side is the green hills. I spent few minutes appreciating the scenery while waiting for the front church to be vacated by other tourists.

Pag-asa Weather Station

Then we proceeded to the Pag-asa Weather Station of Basco located in a hill, just a few meters away from Tukon Chapel. It was formerly looked like a ball atop a building, however, according to Kuya Art, it was destroyed by a recent typhoon. It also offers a good view of Basco’s landscape and seascape. We had a nice view of the hills and winding road at three in the afternoon.

Dipnaysupuan Japanese Tunnel

This Japanese tunnel was built during World War II by local Ivatans and served as the Japanese military’s hideout. It is located strategically in Tukon hills with a view of Basco’s town proper. We had to do a duck walk to safely exit the tunnel. Above the exit is a hill offering a good view of Mount Iraya, Basco airport runway and the Pacific Ocean.

Fundacion Pacita

Fundacion Pacita is not part of the itinerary, however we tried our luck to visit the place but luck is not in our favour because it was closed for an event. It was decorated mby a well-trimmed and managed garden with a restaurant known as Café Tukon for those who fancy eating Batanes’ popular foods. Then we had a glimpse of the place from afar.

Valugan Boulder Beach

Valugan Beach, locally known as Chanpan (according to its marker where Chanpan Tours derived its name), “is a sacred fishing port of the fishermen, most especially those from Barangay San Joaquin.” The boulders “are said to be evidences of geological forces from the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Iraya around 325 BC and two others around 286 AD and 505 AD. This stretch of boulders and gravel, smooth over time by the strong waves of the West Philippine Sea and the Pacific Ocean, is a habitat to a variety of marine crustaceans and molluscs.” It is also a favourite destination of photographers and tourists who want to enjoy the sunrise and the sunset.

Vayang Rolling Hills

Vayang Rolling Hills is one of the most popular attractions in North Batan. It is made up of different hues of green hills, with grazing goats and cows, and chickens and a magnificent view of the sky and ocean. Itbayat can be seen from this place. It also offers a view of the Basco lighthouse.

I was mesmerized by the place that I forgot to take a lot of photos and instead spent time sitting and watching the greenery view and the contrasting afternoon sun light in front of me. Thank God for letting me meet Krista, I had somebody to talk to while admiring the view. There were countless times that I exclaimed “Shet! Ang ganda” the entire tour, most of which when I was in this place. I told her that may be this place is a cure for a depressed person because I felt like my problems vanished like a bubble by just inhaling the fresh air and looking at the beautiful creation in front of me.

Naidi Hills and Basco Lighthouse

This is the last stop of the first day tour in Batanes where we got to spend the sunset as the temperature got colder. The Basco lighthouse can be seen from the airplane’s A window seat as I approached Batanes. It is made of stones or rubbles and the only lighthouse in Batanes where tourists can climb the top and get to see the view of Basco. Not too far from the lighthouse are two renovated structures of the World War II ruins that once were old telegraph facilities of the Americans. The far end is the dark structure, evident from the ruins of the bombing.

The Basco lighthouse is also the favourite destinations of photographers who love to do astrophotography. Kuya Art even invited me to a photoshoot for my birthday (see my South Batan Tour blog post). Thank you Kuya Art!

After the spectacular glimpse of Batanes North Batan Tour, I dined with Patricia, also one of those who availed the Chanpan tour, in the Pension Ivatan, a restaurant offering a reasonable price for a sumptuous meal. We tried the uved/uvud balls popularly known in Batanes and it did not disappoint. It was a tasty treat for us.

I was so excited for the next day tour that I slept early (plus factor the no rest-tour agad). We had to wake up early the next day for the Sabtang tour. ###