#just in case the readmore doesn't work for someone

[mochinomnoms]

In regard to interspecies romance

Humans have a fairly easy time pursuing the other species in Twisted Wonderland, though there are exceptions to that rule.

multi (separate) x reader [wc] - 2,252 [note] - one of the first things i ever wrote, though i never posted cause i didnt edit it. thought i would anyways cause its kinda cute. Edited 12/14/23 to add a readmore

Despite their animal like tendencies and courting methods, it's incredibly common to see human-beastmen couples and families. Perhaps it's due to how similar their behaviors are to their animal counterparts, but humans are fond of how beastmen flirt and display affection. Beastmen are offended by the comparison, but it's hard to deny how similar, and cute, they are to the common wolf, hyena, or lion.

Wolf and other canine beastmen enjoy being close to their mates. They like to be physically affectionate, almost playful with their partners. They'll nuzzle into the crook of their neck—no matter how much bigger they are compared to their human—lean against them when they walk, and will happily be by their beloved's sided at all times. Furthermore, they primarily show their effectiveness as partners by being great providers, regardless of gender, and showing off how tight-knit their packs are. After all, family is very important to them, and they'll expect to have one, no matter how big or small, with their partner in the future.

If you catch Ruggie trying to slyly and smoothly place a hand on the small of you back when moving through crowds, no you don't. If a person notices Jack momentarily grabbing (gingerly, mind you) your sides as he slips behind you to reach the potion ingredient on the shelf above you, don't mention how his touch lingers ever so slightly. Maybe take it with a grain of salt when Jack tries to invite you to visit his family over break, as friends, of course. And when Ruggie brags to you about how well he watched over the neighborhood kids growing up, how he'd make for a great family man, it's all hypothetical.

Feline beastmen are more reserved in their affections in public, especially compared to canines, and even more so for lion beastmen. It's more common for them to show affection in more subtle manners, such as buying their partner's food and drinks without being asked, going out of their way to help them when they're struggling at school or work, and are able to spend hours just in their general vicinity. As long as their beloved is around, they're happy. In private, though, expect to have their entire body draped over them, weight and all, shoved into their personal space to the point that it becomes a foreign concept. Leona embodies this to his entire core, too prideful to perform PDA, but just prideful enough that he knows he can take up all your time and space with no consequence. Unless that consequence is your love and affection, which he supposes he could suffer through if you hear him purring, don't point it out.

All lion beastmen hold their pride close to their heart (no matter how much a certain prince would deny it) and their partner is no exception. Their pride is an intrinsically developed social network made of an extended, but closed family network. It requires all new partners to be carefully and slowly introduced to the rest of the pride, more so in Leona's case due to the royal family being traditionally made up of Sunset Savana nobility. You won't be the first non-beastmen, but are the first foreigner in a very long time to be introduced. Don't worry, though, Leona is nothing if not patient, and his family are just happy to know that he's found someone.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, are human-fae relations. Uncommon, though not for a lack of trying on humans' parts, due to most of the fairfolk residing in the isolated Briar Valley. The complicated history between the two species, ancient to humans but still relatively fresh for fae, doesn't help either. There's also the unfortunate consequence of humankind's rather short lifespans compared to the average 1,000-year lifespan of the fae. Unless the fae is in their final hundred or so years, they'll almost always outlive their partner without magical interference.

It's not impossible though, and as younger fairfolk leave the valley to explore the world, more marriages have resulted in half-fae children, both human and beastmen. As partners, fae are devoted to the health and safety of their loved ones. Increasing tenfold into nearly coddling territory with non-fae. Compared to them, their humans and beastmen are awfully fragile and naive, and require their protection. This can cause animosity between them, however, and only fae that are willing to learn and change their old ways result in happy, long-lived marriages.

They're also generally known to have lengthy courting methods: not dating, that implies something casual, no they court. Once they've established interest in you, their end goal is marriage, no ifs, ands, or buts. Fairfolk are generous with gifting during courtship: all gifts are about an equal-exchange and your acceptance of their gifts is a reciprocation of their feelings. At the end of the courtship, you can expect a small feast to be displayed at a ceremony held between their and your family. This is an especially important ceremony when courting humans and beastmen: fairy food can often cause lasting damages to those that consume it without permission. By offering their food to you and your kin, they are welcoming you into their world and telling you that they will never intentionally bestow harm to you or your kin. If you choose to accept the food, then you agree to do the same til the end of your days.

Lilia is a strange case, having already lived a long life and being well traveled, a gleeful participant in the strange customs and traditions of humans and beastmen. He'd much rather participate in other's dating and courtship rituals than his own people's. It's fascinating how fleeting the process can be, yet it can result in everlasting devotion. Don't mistake his flexible nature for disinterest, however. He's still a fae, and if you start finding silly little knickknacks of his on their desk, you can expect to never be rid of him.

The Draconia family-line is steadfast in their traditions, even if Lilia raised the latest prince. So don't expect anything other than the previously explained rituals from Malleus, even if you're not aware of them. Taking gems, jewelry, and clothing made of the finest material you'll ever lay hands from his hoard means little to him if it means you'll accept the gift (and him). Even if you aren't aware of how courtship works, the moment you pick up the black ring with the big oval emerald and Briar Valley crest, you're practically engaged in his eyes.

The courtship is long, even for Malleus who was one step away at every turn to skip over the entire thing in favor of just eloping. All for the person who decided that the great and terrifying Malleus Draconia was actually just a simple Mr. Hornton, a friend, companion who just wanted someone to stay by his side. If it means calling you his spouse, his fellow ruler, and the only love of his life even a moment sooner, then he'd be willing to throw tradition and ritual out of the very tall tower window just to do so.

Many years later, when you reminiscing how the two of you first met, and how long it took you to notice his feelings, you'll offhandedly mention the random gifts you found at your doorstep. How you wish you knew who was leaving those precious stones and golden amulets with no indication on who the admirer was. Upon further questioning, you'll tell him that you didn't even know you were being courted until two months into the ritual. It'll then click in Malleus's mind how utterly lucky he was that the two of you even got together in the first place.

It may be surprising, but human-mer relations have been extraordinarily rare. Only a handful of them have popped up since the times of the Sea Princess, who left her home for a human prince. In fact, you could probably count them on one hand! Perhaps this is due to the difficulties of having a romance between land dwellers and undersea folk; after all, it's much easier for humans, fae, and beastmen to interact when they all live on land. Merfolk can come up to the surface, and have been doing moreso in the last century, but having a relationship with someone who quite literally could not breathe in the same air/water as you is near impossible. At least, not without significant effort on one or the other's part.

Nearly all the human-mer romances that have occurred in history resulted in either one or the other abandoning their home to turn into a human/mer and live the rest of their days with their love in their new world. Certainly a romantic notion to be sure, but it most definitely require their love to be truly eternal. Or else you might run the risk of resentment brewing between the two. With a slowly growing need to easy access transformation potions and spells for business and diplomatic reasons, such romance is not far from reach, at least for those with money to spare. The next issue though would be the significant difference between land dweller and undersea folk's courting methods.

Perhaps it can be contributed to the more...feral nature of merfolk. Most of them still retain more animalistic features and behaviors than the average beastman. The twins are no exception to this. Even if you were to remove their claws, mucus covered skin, and 6-ft tail, you're still left with eyes suited for a deep-sea predator, nose that can smell the tiniest drop of blood in a pool, and rows of razor sharp teeth begging to bite down on your neck. The deep-sea is not only cold, but quite ruthless. So, it'll probably come as no surprise that moray eels will prove themselves as suitable partners by fighting either their competitors or you. If they can prove that they can hold their own, protect you from the horrors of the deep, then they have the right to go for your heart. That's not to say softer sentiments don't exist, and while similar the twins are still two separate people with different tastes. These tastes show during courting, though mers have a more casual date-like ritual.

Like fae, merfolk court via gifts, particularly handmade or ones they found themselves, and Floyd is awfully fond if gifting you the strangest things. A tooth that was knocked out from the student who shoved you a little too hard, a rock you tripped over in P.E., or a sand dollar he found on a trip to the beach were a few of the many items he gave you. Jade is similar, though he's more fond of making his own gifts. A necklace made of seashells found at the beach you had your first date in, a terrarium he made from plants that remind him of you, but your favorite was the small garden he started tending to on your kitchen windowsill. Breakfast was particularly delicious when made with his fresh mushrooms. Expect soon after the gifts lots of physical affection, public and private.

Don't be mistaken, they'll still bully you. But each of Floyd's bone-crushing hugs will be accompanied by a soft headbump from his forehead to yours. Jade's teasing, mean remarks will follow with a swift, sweet peck to your knuckles. They'll grab your notebook and hold it above their head until you agree to give them a kiss or punch them in the stomach, both are acceptable responses. Be a little mean back, they like the idea of a sweet and cute little human that can throw a punch. Your their sweet little human, and you make life in the deep exciting. Just don't ask about their flushed face every time they see you yawn, they aren't quite ready to explain that one yet.

Azul intensely studied a variety of topics before coming to land, even briefly glossing over dating, romance, and marriage before deciding he wouldn't need it anytime soon. He regretted that soon after meeting you, though he made do with what he knew. And what he knew as food. A combination of octo-mer courtship and being the son of a cook, Azul will discreetly court you by personally cooking and feeding you your favorite meals. It's the result of the dangers of ancient octo-mers eating their spouses after mating. Afterall you can't eat more if your already full. While not something they have to worry about now, it's an old ritual still used today, Azul has hear the way to a person's heart is their stomach and can wholeheartedly agree.

What's surprised you the most was what followed after, especially for someone as physically reserved as Azul: octo-mers are extremely clingy and affectionate. He doesn't have the heart to do anything more than handholding and chaste kisses to your cheeks in public, but he yearns to wrap all 8 tentacles and two arms around you so tightly that your gasping for a breath that he steals with his lips. He won't mention it, but he can taste the salt from your skin and the pulse from your wrists with his suckers. Take it from someone who grew up with a refined palate, he thinks your taste is equivalent to ambrosia from the gods, though that might be the lovesickness speaking.

i have a hard time writing savanaclaw for some reason, but imma working on it now! also tagging for all the guys is stressful idk what i should enter, like fullname or just first name idk man!! pls reblog and comment! lmk what you time, xoxo

[zarvasace]

Ugh tumblr is not cooperating with my readmores and art. Oh well we can do it this way. AU masterpost

Say hello to Shackle and Nothing, dark Wind and dark Time :D more art and long descriptions beneath the cut!

Shackle

Shackle is dark Wind. 

To me, one of Wind’s core themes is freedom. He goes wherever he wants on his boat (and has fun), he frees a couple girls from the Helmaroc King, and when I think of him, I think of wild blue skies and an endless horizon. He loves life and is one of the most determined heroes. 

Shackle, on the other hand, is a bit of a control freak. He doesn't mind not being in charge all the time (he does mind, but he doesn't like to be challenged, and knows that he'd lose any fight for the top place, so he pretends to not care) but he does mind when things don't go his way. If someone or something is annoying him or not listening to him, he will readily use one of the many chains he carries to threaten or restrain. He likes being in control of others, and he likes when people are afraid of him. He keeps fairies nearby, not so much in case of healing, but because he can shake their bottles and listen to them chime in fear. 

Shackle is a rather skilled manipulator, and one of the few Darks that look pretty much human, so he's often the one to head excursions into town (Prince is more of a charismatic diplomat, but his powers don't work on whole crowds at a time.) Because of his strength and chains, he's often the one to be on Dire duty, something he doesn’t mind much. Shackle is also very fond of money and luxury. He’ll pinch rupees on anything that doesn't have to do with him, like someone else’s supplies, but he's happy to splurge on himself. 

He doesn't have any mystical powers, but he does have enchanted chains that grow and shrink according to his needs. He eats food like any mortal. He's as young as Wind is but is more often successful at bluffing his way into bars and the like. He “jokes” often about earning a couple rupees from selling one of the others—usually Lost or Madness, or Nothing if he's being annoying (a normal occurrence.) Shackle’s ambition is to break free of the others and start a true pirate empire, and the way he wants to do that is by starting a slave trade. That way he can indulge his loves of intimidation and money at the same time. 

In terms of design: Shackle is pale to Wind’s tan, a bit beefy to Wind’s young lankiness. He wears red instead of blue, leaning into the pirate aesthetic with sashes and belts and leather and eyeliner. He got a chain tattoo because he thought it was cool. He fears losing everything he has, and some of what he doesn't have. 

The only thing that Shackle and Wind would agree on is that Aryll must be protected and lavished with gifts at every opportunity (even though Shackle hasn’t technically met her, yet.) He'd treat her like a princess—as long as she agreed with him about what a princess should be. He isn't a very good listener. 

Nothing

Nothing is dark Time. He appears as a petulant child: sharp and angular and half-dead. He takes all of Time’s gremlin tendencies and turns them into cruel pranks and mean-spirited insults. Time is a leader, and Nothing intentionally holds the group back if he can get away with it. Nothing is resentful: he remembers fighting Time, though he, like Agony, is different now—he can think more clearly and has a  purpose beyond just being something's  guardian. 

Nothing gets along best with Madness. He hates being given orders and actively goes the other way unless it was his idea. The group at large only barely puts up with him, but they keep him around for a good reason: he's kind of a genius. He knows dungeons, traps, and gimmicks like nobody’s business. He won't ever give advice on one of Depth’s plans if asked, but they've figured out that if they give Nothing an opening to dunk on someone and hurt one of the Heroes, he'll jump into it and put that genius to work. He's excellent at predicting what the heroes might do, which makes everything just that much more sinister. 

On occasion, Nothing will fall into fugues. During these periods, he appears as an older teenager instead of a child, and he's virtually unresponsive. He'll move if prodded. He’ll fight—and fight very well—if told to, but he won't speak, the embodiment of his name. Pretty much everyone finds the contrast rather creepy. These periods don't last long, and soon enough, Nothing is back to his bratty younger self. 

Most of all, Nothing wants everything Time has, but if given the option, he wouldn't take Time’s place. He innocently wishes he could be a hero, but he knows he can't be, so he's going to go as far the other direction as possible. He wants to build his own life. But the people around him wouldn't ever let that happen, so Nothing is bitter and lashes out, without any reason not to. 

Nothing is designed very much after the Dark Link in Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple, with a few significant tweaks. He is based on young Link instead of the older one, and he is also covered in signs of decay. There are faint red and purple lines like veins on his skin, like corpses that began to decompose underwater, and his tunic and hat show signs of the same. When he appears as a teenager, the decay is even worse. His sword is patterned after the Master Sword, but is just a normal, nonmagical thing. 

Nothing is the Hero of Nothing, a sad admittance of his own emptiness and a jab at Time’s forgotten timelines. He wouldn't even know how to seize the opportunity to be a hero of something if it showed up in front of him.

[broodparasitism]

Everything I've Learned About Querying from Talking to Agents (And Traditionally Published Authors)

Disclaimer: I'm UK based, as was everyone I spoke to. I didn't include any country specific advice, just what I think is applicable regardless of where you live, put it might be useful to know this is from a UK lens.

As part of my course I was able to go to a lot of talks with literary agents (a mixture of literary, genre and nonfiction) and I picked up a lot of useful information - a lot of it not quite so bleak as I feared! - and thought it might be helpful to compile it for anyone looking to query agents in the future, so, here goes, under the readmore:

Querying

Remember that agents want to find and publish new authors. They're not at odds with/out to get aspiring authors. They want to work with us. This is someone you're working with, so don't pick an agent you won't get along with.

Manuscripts should be queried when they are as close to finished you are able to manage. There are a few agents that are open to incomplete manuscripts, yes, but many more that flat-out refuse unfinished work. Manuscripts generally go through about ~15 rounds of edits before landing an agent.

Send query letters in batches - around five or six at a time. There is no limit to how many agents you can contact, but you can't contact more than one agent from the same agency, so make sure you've selected the most suitable one from each.

In most cases you can't submit the same manuscript to the same agent twice - so having it be as finished as possible is all the more vital.

Some of them will take a long time to respond. Some never respond at all. If it's been three months of nothing, it's safe to assume that's a rejection.

One agent said she took on about two new authors a year, which likely isn't true for them all but is probably a reasonable average. For all of them, the amount of queries they get can be in the three digits a week. I can't emphasis enough just how many they get. I take a lot of authors to mean that means it's a 0.001% chance and despair, but that assumes each manuscript has an equal chance, and they don't. Correct spelling and grammar, writing in a genre that appeals to the agent, quality sample chapters and respecting the submission guidelines (more on this later) improve the odds by a significiant amount.

One agent said he rejected about half of his submissions from the first page due to spelling and grammar mistakes and cliches, for perspective.

You'll need to pitch your book. If your book cannot be pitched in three sentences, that's a sign it has too much going on and you'll need to do some pruning.

Please don't panic if you cannot come up with an accurate pitch for your book on the fly - you're not supposed to be able to do that. A pitch takes many edits and drafts just like a manuscript.

Send your first three chapters and a synopsis (this should be a page, or two pages double spaced. It should not include every single plot point though, again, if major things end up not there at all, question if they're necessary for the manuscript).

Three chapters is the standard - as in, if the agent web page doesn't specify how many, that's what to opt for. If they say anything else, for the love of God listen. If there was a single piece of advice that the agents emphasised above all else, it was to just follow each submission requirement to a T.

There needs to be a strong hook in these chapters. If your manuscript is a bit of a slow burn, that's fine, but you can cheat a bit with a 'prologue' that's actually a very hook-y scene from later on.

Read the agent's bio page throughly and make a note of what they like, who they represent, and what they're looking for, and highlight this in the query letter.

Your query letter has to say a little about you. It doesn't have to be really personal information (but say if you're under 40, because that's rare for authors and they like that), and keep it professional but not stiff, they say. If you have any writing credentials, such as awards won or creative writing degrees, include them, as with any real life experiences that pertains to the content of your book. But no one will be rejected on the basis of not having had an interesting enough life.

Apparently one of the biggest mistakes for debut authors tend to be too many filler scenes.

In terms of looking for comparative titles, think about where you want your book to 'sit'. Often literally - go into bookstores and visualise where on the displays you could see it. It's really helpful if you can identify a specific marketing niche. Though you want to choose comparisons that sell well, but going for really obvious choices looks lazy. A TV or film comparison is fine - as long as it genuinely can be compared.

Do not call yourself the next Donna Tartt. Or JK Rowling. They are sick of this.

Don't trust agents who request exclusive submission.

Or any with a fee. Agents take a percentage of your advance/royalties - you never pay them directly.

In terms of trends (crowd booing), there's been a boom in uplifting, optimistic fiction, but more recently dark fiction has been rising in popularity and looks to have its moment. Fantasy and Gothic are both huge right now. Publishers also love what's called upmarket/book club fiction - books that toe the line between genre and literary.

But publishers aren't clairvoyant and writing to trends is a futile effort, so don't let them shape what you want to write. Some writing advice I got that I loved was to not even THINK about marketability until draft three or four.

If any agent requests your full manuscript - this is crucial - email every other agent you're waiting to hear back from and let them know. This will take your manuscript from the slush pile to the top, and you are more likely to get more offers of representation.

The agent that flatters you the most isn't necessarily the best. Be sure to ask them what their plan for the book is, and what publishers they're planning to send it to - you want them to have a precise vision. It might be that their vision misses the mark on what kind of book you wanted to write, and if so, they aren't the right agent for you.

Research like hell! A good place to start is finding out who represents authors you love (the acknowledgements pages are really helpful here). if you can, getting access to The Writer's and Artist's Yearbook is very helpful, as is The Bookseller, the lattr for checking up on specific agents. (I was warned the website search engine is awful, so google "[name] the Bookseller" to see what they've sold. That said, only the huge deals get reported, so it's not indicative of everyone they take on.

I also want to add Juliet Mushen's article on what makes a good query. I owe a lot to it, and I feel like it's a useful template!

Once Agented

Agents send a manuscript to about 18-25 publishers, typically. Most books will end up having more than one publisher interested.

It can be hard to move genres after publishing a debut novel, especially for book two, not only because it means it takes longer for you to establish yourself, but the agent that may be perfect for dealing with manuscripts for book one might not have the skills for book two.

Ask the agency/publisher about their translation rights, their rights to the US market, and film and TV rights. Ask also what time of year the book is going to come out, if being published.

It's less the book agents are interested in than it is you as an author. You will be asked what you're going to write next, so have an answer. Just an answer - you don't need another manuscript ready to go. One author said she flat-out made up a book idea on the spot, and she got away with it - just have an answer. (This is also useful to put on the query letter.)

Caveat that this is, of course, not a foolproof guide to getting a book deal, nor is it in any way unconditional endorsement of how the industry works - I just thought it would be useful to know.

[misscammiedawn]

In re-reading Umineko for our latest ramble I've come to really appreciate the care and love Ryukishi put into the topic of complicated grief.

Consider this an end-coda of the two big essays (other one here) and a way of tying their themes together.

This is a short one, I promise, but I'll put it under readmore for spoilers sake.

Basically I want to talk about imagination, processing and the stories we tell ourselves to cope.

When we look at the game boards of each chapter as being authored works in universe we get a lot of information about the authors of the works.

Chapters 1 and 2 are Beatrice/Yasu, penning these elaborate revenge fantasies that haven't happened yet as both a twisted love letter to Battler, who stoked her passion for murder mysteries, and a way of coping with her pain and loss. No matter how boisterous and sinister Beatrice imagines herself to be, we do see in Chapter 7 that when she is given the family gold she is quite shy and meek and reserved and remains that way when the family discover her about to enact her revenge plot.

Beatrice as an alter/part of Sayu's dissociative system is a coping mechanism but in the end she was not capable of those acts in reality. She was able to take her scheming further because of the power she had from the gold and control over the island and its servants but when faced with the act of killing she was just a traumatized kid, unable to commit cruelty. She was as capable of murder as Maria's evil witch persona would be.

The writing was just a fantasy. A projection of her desire to retaliate.

It's also kind of brilliant as only she and Genji know that Shannon/Kanon are treated as two separate individuals by everyone on the island and have 2 separate master keys to compensate. An element of the mystery that could only be known by the mastermind.

Chapters 3-6 are written by an amnesiac Battler. The "forgeries" only began after the messages containing the first two chapters had been discovered and the news started speaking about the Rokkenjima tragedy. This likely triggers "Tohya", the name Battler had taken on, and causes the traumatic events of the island to replay in his head over and over. Every attempt to write it was an attempt to make sense of the scattered remnants hidden behind his own dissociative barriers.

He kept scratching at the itches and trying to make sense of it in a way that was, frankly, exploitative. Especially when he wrote about an unrelated person who died in the typhoon the game takes place in and placed her on the island as The Worst Girl Imaginable.

Sometimes "Umineko is about how shitty true crime as a genre is" can be the correct take.

But in this case he, like Ange, is trying to make sense of the past and turn the events over and over again. We wrote about this concept extensively in our (Dawn's) Ange essay.

The point is, where Beatrice was writing fantasies of the future to cope, Battler-Tohya (via Ikuko) was writing unclear recollections to unearth the traumatic memories that he couldn't quite reach. Inconsistencies like this are typical in recovering traumatic memories.

We experience it in our own life, when we date a memory by the sporting event that was happening about that time but the inciting incident of the memories was tied in the birth of someone who is older than that. When one tries to turn over facts, emotions and painful memories decades in the future it all gets mixed up and doesn't quite match reality. The Ange post has more to say on that.

Eva's journal may well have been written by Eva to hurt Ange. We do not know how much of it is true but when Kyrie monologues about how she intends to abandon her daughter and never loved her as anything more than a solvent to keep her marriage together, you can feel Eva's pen on the page, taunting the child who survived instead of her George.

Which brings us the final chapter and the theme of the game and why I wanted to write this little end-cap.

From our other essay:

Chapter 8 represents the idea of writing your own past with love and with kindness.

If Beatrice's mysteries in Chapter 1-2 are a wounded person enacting a revenge fantasy about the future, why not write a healing fantasy about the past?

Turning over the events over and over will not change the present and can serve to retraumatize a person by allowing the events of the past to intrude on the present.

The start of Chapter 8 even describes the 1998 Ange as such:

Stuck in trauma time, Ange is unable to grow beyond the tragedy of her entire family dying at once. Battler has all the answers and so he writes a version of the story that is pointedly impossible.

The previous chapter featuring Beatrice II's funeral was based on a "miracle fragment" where Lion had not been raised as Shannon. This was revealed to be the fantasies of Yasu after discovering their identity as Lion. An impossible version of the world that was a "what-if" fantasy.

Chapter 8 tells a similar story but it's not a "what if" in the sense that it would require a different world to function. It is the idea baked into Ange's power as the Witch of Resurrections. With imagination and with love it is possible to simply keep lost loved ones alive by writing about them. To process pain by writing a kinder reality because it is not changing the world to believe the best in people, it is simply choosing, as Maria put it, to not accept current misfortune and to choose to live in happiness.

Umineko says we have the choice to paint our outlook on the world.

Hence why Ange abandons her fortune and goes on to write stories about Sakotarou, keeping Maria and her imagination alive and delighting children.

All the way back when we first read Umineko we said that it was Anime House of Leaves.

Turns out both books have the same outcome from different angles.

“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.”

And acceptance is the only road to healing. We have to close the catbox.

Fantasy and imagination can be an escape, but they can also be a prison that locks a person in their worst experiences. If you truly can't let go. Maybe you can spin the chess board and write yourself a happy ending.

[1o1percentmilk]

i forgot to post!! i got my name changed (transgender) the other day!! explanation of the process below the readmore but all in all it was pretty easy. The hard part is actually changing all of my identification documents, which is the cause of my headache right now!!

So: legal name change. I'm in Washington State in the U.S., adult, I've been out and on HRT (testosterone) for about 3.5 years now. My voice doesn't exactly match my name, and I kept running into silly issues where people from health insurance would call me and get confused because of the name, so I thought it was about time to correct that issue.

The form (a petition and a court order) was available online. I opted for a sealed name change, which is when the record saying "there's been a change" is sealed from the public's knowledge. There are more stringent requirements for this from the unsealed name change, which doesn't have that protection. TBH, it's also a good option, I just opted for the sealed one because for Washington State, one of the qualifying criteria for a sealed name change is "relation to gender expression and/or identity," which was perfect for me!

The sealed form and the unsealed form are both generally available online. For the sealed name change, it's filed through superior court which is above district court, and superior court seems to be the same throughout all counties in the state (at least the form is). For the unsealed form, this is dependent on the district court, such as King County District Court, but the forms should be available somewhere on their website.

[ID: a photo of a seal animal.]

Anyways, I printed out the form and filled out both the petition and the order. They tell you what to put down, so it is not very difficult.

After that, I took the form, and the filing fee (it was $240 for JUST a filing fee - for the unsealed case, you pay an auditing fee of ~$250, but no filing fee), to the county clerk, to open the case. The filing part involves the petition. The court part involves the court order.

(Also, there is a waiver for the filing fee, in case you cannot pay for it, but I didn't want to deal with providing proof that I couldn't pay it and I had enough money on hand.)

I was able to close the case in the same day. Sealed cases are done through Ex Parte court (it's pronounces Ecks ParTAY which I thought was funny), which was open first-come, first-serve, during their work hours. I didn't even see the judge, I just signed in on a clipboard, someone took my order to a back room, and when I got it back, it was approved and signed by the judge! That pretty much meant it was my new legal name!

One last step - I took the signed order back to the county clerk to purchase certified copies of the order. These are needed to change ID documents like Social Security, Driver's License, Passport, etc. If you are doing a sealed order, it is recommended you purchase extra copies, because if you need them later on, you need to prove your identity to get them. I got like 8 (realizing now that's kind of overkill) and left the courthouse.

That's about it! I put as much detail as I was comfortable with in the case that reading about the experience in full helps someone else - personally, looking at the form and the instructions on my district's website did not really help until I got there, and got a little lost talking to the county help desk and such. Here's a quick reminder that this was for Washington State - processes for different areas are definitely different and I'm really lucky to live in a state where transgender people are recognized and protected legally. If you have any questions, DM or drop an ask in my ask box!

[majorasnightmare]

I think you've kind of talked about it before but what would it have taken for Dirge to not fall down the path he has in canon? What would have "saved" him (for lack of a better term)?

What would his foster parents had done if they lived? Would they have tried to help him through The Urge or sent him off to someone else who was more equiped to deal with it? Is there a scenario where Dirge's parents still die and he somehow doesn't end up in the temple? Where would he go otherwise?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS A GOODUN

its gonna be a LONG one too so. readmore HA

all it would take for dirge to not go down the path he ended up on is a change of circumstance. hes extremely social, so his immediate circle determines a LOT of what he considers acceptable, and what he mimics behaviorally. hes hand crafted out of bhaals gore, so his first moments being distinct from bhaal himself are wandering baldurs gate, naked alone and covered in viscera. his default mental defense mechanism is social mimicry, because he isnt a person, hes a murderous cuckoo trying to assimilate into the nest. hes essentially building a brand new OS for himself out of linux while everyone around him got windows 7 just for booting up. change what he has access to and the end person looks totally different, even using the same building blocks

so dirge is adopted by a lolth sworn drow couple who fled menzoberranzan (i havent pinned down why) and ended up living in baldurs gate as lower income refugees. (two bedroom cottage. relative squalor. poor part of the city)

the two of them had been having trouble properly acclimating to life in the city before they encountered dirge, freshly created out of bhaals gore and set to wander the alleys of baldurs gate. theyre no strangers to the Gates darker side, and a blood stained naked tiefling toddler wandering the bad side of town in the middle of the night leads one to draw some conclusions. having already been thinking about starting a family, they take dirge in and raise him as their own.

dirge is adored by his parents. hes a sweet child, affectionate and shy and curious, and raising him is exactly the push their lives needed to move forward. notably they are both still Evil aligned. their reasons for fleeing the underdark were specific and individual, rather than systemic or moral. while i doubt they still worship Lolth, its not like theyre opposed to the murders Lolth so often asks her followere to commit.

the urge awakens young in dirge, and its first manifestation is to drag his child body out of bed, to grab a knife, and stab both of his sleeping parents in the throat.

this situation isnt particularly hard to avoid, and dirge is successfully isolated almost entirely due to the element of surprise. all it would take is his mom working late, or opting to trance instead, and hearing him pad into the room with a weapon. hes not even 8 when this happens, so is very easily overpowered by even his slighter built mother, even with the Urge unnaturally strengthening his tiny body. itd be a long, upsetting night, and thered be wounds to treat in the morning, but at the end of it dirge would come to and immediately start bawling, overwhelmingly guilty at having attacked them.

theyd take it in stride. they wouldnt know exactly what was wrong with dirge, but theyd very quickly figure out it was something happening TO him and not something he knowingly or willingly engaged in. hailing from menzoberranzan, theyd be familiar with all the ways the will of a god can influence the day to day lives of mortals, but wouldnt know enough about surface gods to have any suspects. but theyd simply adjust their lives around this new complication. only one parent sleeps at a time, and they use trance. the other one stays awake and keeps an eye on dirge in case of nighttime episodes. theyd adjust their work schedules around it so that he was never left alone and unguarded. if dirge has another nighttime Urge episode, he just ends up restrained until it passes and no one sleeps that night. after a few years of this, bhaal starts sending assassins from the temple to reclaim his heir. but if anyones prepared for visitations in the night by politically motivated assassins, its two people who grew up in Backstab City

so dirge here grows up loved, and valued, and protected, and most importantly with a support system whos priorities are about controlling and managing his Urge, not overcoming or repressing it. hes still surrounded by death and blood, the difference here is that his autonomy is preserved and encouraged. his parents wont let him be subsumed into the will of a defiant god, but they dont shy away from confronting the realities of what he is. dirge will always be driven to kill, but whats important is killing pragmatically, safely, in a way that doesnt risk the family's stability. dirge still ends up Evil, but its a quieter and more restrained evil, one that simply understands the nature of what he is (even if he doesnt know the exact circumstances) and refuses to deny it. there is no death cult nihilism or a burning need to prove himself through atonement and worthiness trials, and while hes ambitious still, its an ambitiousness that is focused more on whats feasibly within reach more than grand overarching goals. dirge here keeps his nature as a bhaalspawn tightly under wraps, because its less relevant for other people to know, and is loathe to leave his comfort zone of his family, as theyre the only ones proven to reliably handle his compulsions in a way that minimizes risk.

the alternate scenario, one where dirge kills his parents but manages to NOT become the absolute making serial killer we know and love, actually focuses more on his siblings!

so some context and setup. dirge is the last of four spawn, all crafted in the same manner. bhaal carved away chunks of his body to craft spawn to carry out his will upon the material plane, each found unworthy and unfit in some fashion. the first of these is zherimon, a tiefling paladin driven by pride. zherimon inherited rule of the temple from sarevok, who retires to the tribunal and focuses all his effort on the training of unholy assassins and deathbringers. however, zherimon feels that a being made from the flesh of a god is meant for so much more than lowly service, and has been seeking a way to leave the temple for some time. after zherimon was deemed unfit, owing to his pride making him uncooperative and ambitious, bhaal tried again. the second attempt was the drow paladin ornaryn, driven by a sense of duty. ornaryn came into his paladin oath after leaving menzoberanzan, and swore an oath of vengeance against all who would prey upon the innocent and weak. morally opposed to the acts bhaal would call him to commit, ornaryn is utterly against the actions of the temple, but is drawn there nonetheless. unfit to take zherimons place as head of the temple, the two are utterly opposed to each other on every level. ornaryn considers zherimon to have the potential to become one of the greatest threats to peace on faerun, and zherimon finds the drow irritating and aggravating for his constant efforts to foil his attempts to leave the temple and realize his ambitions. ornaryn stays within the temple of bhaal to maintain a watchful presence on zherimon, and to try and diminish and undermine the cult however he can. his actions to drive the cult to ruin benefit zherimon (who only makes token efforts of appeasement to bhaal) and thus his death has not been ordered... yet. Deeming Ornaryn a total failure, Bhaal instead uses the Urge to force uncontrollable acts of slaughter on Ornaryn, typically by forcing him to choose between two victims that would break his oath. Ornaryn uses the Cult to limit these incidents as best he can, and satiate his Urges with the blood of villains.

The third attempt, after Zherimon and Ornaryns back and forth made it obvious neither would make a point of slaughtering the other (both unwilling to bring Bhaal satisfaction on this matter), was a goliath barbarian, Haflidi. Haflidis Urge typically manifested as an all consuming rage that would not be quenched by aught less than a sea of blood, and the awakening of his Urge resulted in the deaths of every last person within his village, all before he had even become a man proper. However, while Hafldi was neither driven by ambitious pride, or regretful duty, he still proved himself utterly unworthy. Halfidi was completely unable to be motivated by anything beyond his self interest, and attempts to force him would instead result in him proving his divine heritage by digging his heels in and refusing to do anything at all. Lazy and slothful, Haflidi made his way to the temple solely because it would support his occasional need for blood, and near immediately proved that another heir would be needed.

That last spawn was Dirge. Coming on the heels of 3 failures, Dirge was crafted with the intent of forcing him into the role of Chosen, regardless of how much he would need to be broken for it. His Urges awoke earlier than any other, killing his parents, and driving him into the waiting arms of the temple, guided by a dedicated butler in the form of Sceleritas. When Dirge usually arrives at the temple, he then spends the next several years isolated within the temple, groomed and indoctrinated for the role of cult leader and chosen, alongside Orin. But the night he arrives is what provides the oppurtunity for events to turn out differently.

Orin has already slain her mother, and been used as Bhaal's Mouthpiece for the killing. While still young, Sarevok intends for her to replace Zherimon. Dirge arrives as the so called Purest Essence of Bhaal, and provides a second option. Zherimon, through Dirge and Orin, sees a means of escaping the Temple at long last. If one of them ascends as Leader, Bhaal's vindictive gaze would at long last stray to focus on them, instead of him, and he would finally have enough freedom to begin enacting his schemes without fear of divine sabotage. Ornaryn sees Dirge enter the temple, and understands EXACTLY what Zherimon is going to do. Predicting this, both Zherimon and Bhaal have forced Ornaryn into a new quandry: Follow the call of the Urge to slay the foes of Bhaal across the continent, or stay and be driven by it to try and kill two children and be slain in the attempt. Ornaryn typically forces himself to go that night, reasoning that if he manages to finish this dark deed with enough haste, he can return and free Orin and Dirge both, that Zherimon would kill him in his Urge maddened state if he remained, and he would be no help to them if he died. But Ornaryn was not intended to return, and he is kept from the temple for many many long years. When he does manage to return, Dirge has ascended into Zherimons position as leader, and has been utterly subsumed by his role as The Dark Urge. Zherimon instead forces Ornaryn and Haflidi both into supporting roles for Dirge's rule of the temple, and then retreats from power to continue pulling away from Bhaal entirely.

However. When Ornaryn instead chooses not to leave in the night, but stay.

Ornaryn waits, waits until the sun slips below the horizon, and the temple begins to empty out. All that remains are those who live within the temple itself, the bhaalspawn and the twisted and wicked too zealous to integrate into society even as a mask, so monstrous are they in their faith. The Urge will be sated tonight. But not by innocent blood.

Ornaryn kills every last zealot in the temple proper. Zherimon is sleeping within his chambers, and Sarevok resides within the tribunal. Ornaryns spear looses rivers of blood, and the temple runs red with it. When the deed is done, Ornaryn hurries to wake Haflidi and tells him they are leaving the temple, before rushing to grab Dirge and Orin, who were sharing a room to ease Dirge's first night in the temple. Sceleritas is slain before he gets the chance to wake them, and Ornaryn gathers the sleepy confused children into his arms to make a hasty escape.

Awoken by the commotion, Zherimon emerges from his room to a scene of carnage. Instantly understanding whats happening, he immediately rushes out to confront Ornaryn from stealing away his chance at escape. Zherimon catches up as they're making their way out of the Undercity, and Ornaryn shoves the children into Haflidis arms and tells him to run, run fast, and to never slow for anything. Confused and disoriented by the rushes series of events, Haflidi complies and sprints holding onto Dirge and Orin. Haflidi runs out of the undercity, out of the sewers, and into the Lower City, where he breaks into an abandoned house to try and wait for Ornaryns return. Hes there for hours, as his younger siblings fully awaken and begin to fuss and cry at having been dragged away for the temple, Orin throwing tantrums at being so far from her grandfather and Dirge utterly miserable at all the events of the day. Haflidi is on the brink of a rage, when Ornaryn returns stumbling, missing an arm and one of his eyes. Having managed to fight Zherimon to a standstill, he starts trying to recover and make a new plan of action to ensure their safety.

The events of the night have been tumultuous, and most importantly, loud. The conflict between the two eldest divine spawn was an arduous drawn out affair, and the battle has all the makings of a brewing incident. Attempting to get a handle on the situation before it escalates, Jaheira investigates the commotion, and follows the blood trail to a house in the Lower City containing not one, not two, but four Bhaalspawn, one of whom is the source of the gore and clumsily attempting to point a spear in her direction to protect the other three.

The end result of that chain of events, is that the four of them end up integrated into Jaheira's household close to the Upper City, to both provide the children with a chance for a better life, and to maintain vigilance over the movements of Bhaal's Cult, now severely weakened. Dirge grows up with a large family, but is constantly plagued by the Urge, as Bhaal is unwilling to surrender his goals for the youngest of his hand sculpted spawn. Dirge ends up something of a shut in, because of it, viewing himself as a constant potential danger to his family, and unreliable because of it. Jaheira tries to help satiate his Urges with hunting, but animal deaths barely satisfy it at all.

Hes mostly an introverted weirdo, who adores and loves his family but rarely leaves his room, or the shed outside where he practices his hobbies. The hunting may not help the Urges, but its fantastic for leatherworking and taxidermy, and Dirge supplies Orin with whatever materials she asks for as she pursues her art. Whole skinned raccoons, preserved deer heads, skeletons cleaned and then conjoined unnaturally. Orin maintains her independence and ambition, now supported by a whole adopted family, but spends a good chunk of her time worrying about her reclusive listless brother who doesn't seem to desire much beyond isolating himself. Despite having multiple siblings in his life, Dirge stays closest with Orin, the two of them as close as twins (Orin also maintains her habit of shapeshifting into him semi regularly).

Dirge here is closer to True Neutral, rather than his usual Neutral Evil, too anxious of himself and his nature to meaningfully commit to anything, but too supported and loved to develop his usual callousness towards life. Dirge mostly wishes to avoid causing pain for his family, and doesnt trust that he wont risk their lives and wellbeings in some manner. Hes nervous, antisocial, deeply loyal and affectionate, and very eccentric with his hobbies and passions. Different circumstances tend to emphasize different aspects of canon!Dirge and this one really highlights the ways hes just kind of. Odd. even without the murder

sorry this took SOOO long but hopefully the two for one au special makes up for it!!

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Steris Harms from Mistborn Era 2 the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Steris-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a greyscale illustration of Steris on the left, taken from the 'The Bands of Mourning' novel. On the right there are text boxes which read,

"She has lists for everything. Every possibility, every outcome, she has a list for it. Evacuating the city? She has 15 different ways it could be done. City under a tsunami threat? She's got procedures. Needs to take her husband's place in a senate meeting? Don't worry, she's got a list of every senator and good talking points to impress them specifically. She loves taxes, treats them like a puzzle. She doesn't understand how to talk to people. No one ever gave her the sex talk and she doesn't understand what's expected of her in that department. She threatened to throw up on the table of a war meeting to get people to stop yelling and listen to what she had to say. (She keeps medicine in her purse to do just that if she needs to) She DID use that medicine to get her and her fiance out of a party so he could go chase bad guys. Her 'tism captivates her fiance so much he is so fascinated with her. I love her and my god she's got the 'tism something massive"

"It's canonical!"

"She was intentionally written as autistic. I love her"

"She's canonically autistic as confirmed by the author. As far as some of the textual evidence, she loves, and I mean really loves, lists; she makes so many lists and plans in order to navigate her world, and it means a lot if she's willing to change those plans for someone. She's prepared for everything; for one example, while staying at a hotel/inn, she gave the innkeeper a pamphlet full of all the different disasters that could happen while she and her companions were there and what to do in each case (including 'framed for murder,' which was like a dozen pages in and actually happened); for another example, when getting ready for her first wedding attempt, she tried to determine which of her fiance's enemies would show up, and she got several backups of their equivalent of wedding rings in case anything bad went down. And when she was first arranging her engagement to him, she wrote a many-pages-long contract for it, which included a provision for how they should go about it if either of them took a lover (her father cheated on her mother, so from her experience this was just a logical thing to factor into the plans, but also she'd been rejected by a few suitors in the past so she didn't expect much affection from this one--fortunately, time proved her wrong in this instance. By the end of the series they're quite in love, and enjoy dates like 'working on their house finances' or 'doing amateur metallurgy'). She can easily come off stiff and cold to someone who doesn't understand her well; part of it is the pressure she has, as a noblewoman expected to be competent in high society, to mask a lot, and she generally treats the details of social interaction as something to memorize, eventually explaining to her fiance (once they've known each other a while, and they're thawing out) that she has to prepare her witty quips way ahead of time, lest it all come out wrong." End ID.]

[27thfirefly]

hi. i just read the last chapter of your fic went blind last year and HOLY FUCK it is so good. i get it if you don’t want to like spoil things about your fic but i have many many questions and thoughts so im just gonna write a bunch of them.

the whole thing with like. dirk tapping into ultimate dirk and part of canon and then being shoved out? and then kind of realizing that he is a small part of something very big and wanting to be a bigger part of it, and then getting orange eyes representing a stronger connection to dirk-ness? fascinating. and is daves eyes turning red then symbolic of him becoming closer to dave-ness? and speaking of that- dante??? great character, very interesting. is he like somehow a version of dave? and what was he talking about on the swings? is he also in some sort of a loop? and what was it that dirk did at the end of chapter four? he did something with the sword, right, did he make dante decapitate him and then somehow come back to life?

and hal. and cal! holy shit, i can’t believe it but you kind of made me LIKE cal somehow? in the sense that he can be violent and outrageous and insane and vengeful when dirk can’t and its kind of cathartic.

its interesting to see where things stay the same as in canon and where they dont. like dave has chat logs with rose in 2014 and 2015? but hes only fourteen. so he’s technically both older and younger than he is at the beginning of homestuck. and dirk was like 13 in 1997, which is about when daves meteor should have dropped? but did they come with the meteors at all, in this world? dirk came with lil cal on his meteor in canon, but here he got him when he was 12. but dave still seems to be somewhat in touch with his time powers, and dirk with his heart powers, so some things carried over from the game?

god. this is all so fascinating and good. i will be probably rereading the fic and eating drywall until a new chapter comes out. you are an amazing writer.

wahhh thank you very much! for what it's worth i too have been thinking a lot about went blind last year. glances at the +50k word txt document of story notes and wip chapters. so i do love getting to talk about it even if working on it is very slow at the moment! i will put this under a readmore cos i got carried away but

there's a lot of things i don't want to spoil yet yes... but i think i've laid enough of the groundwork that these things won't feel terribly out of place within the story.

one thing i do feel comfortable in divulging is that any connections to canon are deliberately tenuous... how far can a character diverge from canon while still being understood as fitting the mold for that character? when a character is deliberately obscured, how much does fanon interpretation impact what feels in-character?

when you read fanfiction or fancomics or whatever kind of work about a specific character, your mind creates a superposition of the character as they exist in the original work and the character as they exist in the fanwork. as long as the "shape" of the character in the fanwork doesn't stick out too much from your perception of the canon "shape", you can accept that character--as written by someone else--as the same as in canon. some of the choices i have made are deliberately contradictory to the text of homestuck the webcomic. i have made these choices in order to tell the story i want to tell. even so, the basis for the characters in wbly are understood to be the same as in homestuck, creating an expectation for what these characters will act like, what their baseline is, and how you as a reader approach them. your feelings about cal changing within the context of wbly is an interesting case of this in my mind--the cal within wbly is presumably still close enough to canon that you can call it the same character, but the role of cal is changed enough that your impression of him is changed. that kind of thing is FASCINATING to me.

the reason wbly would not work as an independent work is the same as why the homestuck epilogues do not work without the pre-existing fandom of homestuck: there need to be expectations for these characters and relationships in order for me to challenge those expectations.

another thing i will divulge is that went blind last year is not the full title of the story in my mind--i won't tell the full one, but it does tie into just about every conflict in the story.

thank you again for reading my overly complicated fanfic! hopefully you'll stick around even if it'll take me a lot longer than expected to complete. if not, that's fine too.

also every time i send updates to my friend i get lamentations so you know stuffs going great

[graciouswings]

OKOKOK explain to me pretty please who is cass i am so curious!!!!!

HIII HIII!!!! hes my player character for my friends dnd campaign !!! he's a kalashtar oath of devotion paladin & a prophet of the god of trust, unity, and respect, ozymandias.

THIS GOT SOOO LONG so im putting it under a readmore !!!

he was found 40 years ago by the church (he was roughly in his 20s at this point), very weak and injured. they nursed him back to health and quickly learned he had rather significant amnesia and was also a prophet. he was taught a lot about the church and ozymandias in this time, and has spent the last 40 years working as an echo in the church (basically, there are 3 sections of the ozymandian church. the sepal sect maintains order and ensures everything runs smoothly, the anther sect is the faith section with priests & nuns & etc, and the narcissae sect is the one that deals with divine will. these are the prophets and miracle workers, with echoes being the truest of divine prophets). he trains styles (while knigjts fall under the sepal, styles are instead knights who are taught to utilize divine will and holy magic), and is a very close friend of corasis ameinia (corasis is basically the ozymandian churches pope, appointed by ozymandias himself). shes also um. cass' only friend? in the last 40 years?

cassandrias' memory of his life before being found by the church is very spotty. he had a terrible terrible ex boyfriend (who i cannot name because his identity is secret from other players, so i just call him the pervert. this is in part because one time cass scraped his knee and the pervert LICKED THE BLOOD OFF. LIKE A FREEEEEAAAAAAAK), and his parents were also um. pretty terrible. his father (iasus) was cold and abusive and his mom (ceridwen) was pretty permissive of it. cass is deeeeeeply afraid of his ex and his father, but he doesnt actually. hate them? hes too scared to. there is exactly ONE person cass hates, and they are also one of the only people who care about him. sorryyyy i have to ne vague because of spoilers for other players

cass himself is a complete and utter sweetie pie. when he first started as an echo he was like "oh you can pay me however much you want :)" and ameinia was like NO. NO. NO. PAY HIM A LIVING WAGE HE NEEDS MONEY TO SURVIVE IN THIS FUCKING CITY. he has a little house on the waaaay outskirts of the city (his commute to work is terrible) where he has a nice little garden. its a small house and its very important to cass. every day at 6:30 pm on the dot, cass has the same dinner. tomato basil soup & pesto grilled cheese. he loves soup. its his favorite.

now. heres the catch with cass. he IS genuinely a sweet guy, and he cares a lot about the people around him. but he is also, objectively, not a good person? there's a lot of shady things happening in the royal family, church of lexan (the father of his god & the like. main god), and even in the ozymandian church itself. but because of his endless devotion to trust and respect, cass REFUSES to question authority. he is endlessly, obnoxiously deferential to it. in the case of the king making people go missing, cass is the first to shut down any rumors about it because he finds it disrespectful and unbecoming of ozymandians. it doesn't matter how much evidence there is, or how serious it is: if it's done by someone in authority to him, cass will not question it, nor will he tolerate anyone ELSE questioning it. i'm sure this is fine !!!!!!!!

the campaign hasn't actually STARTED yet, but basically. the other three party members (orion myerdız, moxie squall, and calyx . rosch. roshchoil. roscheil. hold on

ANYWAYS. the other party members (orion myerdız, moxie squall, and calyx roschoill) were all (somehow) made to help the king collect some stolen artifacts. originally, king jame delevis asked ameinia to join them on their quest, which she declined because she has. a whole fucking church to run? so instead she sent cass. he's essentially their chaperone & protector. he literally asked 0 questions about this quest and accepted immediately (much to ameinias dismay because she desperately needs him to have Some self preservation).

ummm what else do i want to share. the ozymandian church is basically a lovechild between judaism and what i think catholicism is probably like. aside from the main continent we're on (leaxondria), the ozymandian faith is actually fairly persecuted? violence isnt like. Commonplace (though they really arent protected against it either), but its moreso a situation of just generally being viewed very poorly & being heavily discpursged from practicimg openly. even within leaxondria, the ozymandian church being an official branch was mostly just to appease them, not put of any real recognition or protection. also, ozymandias has a twin brother (prihektor, god of family, community, and loyalty), and the two are worshipped in tandem so often that at churches for one, there is almost always a place to pay respects to the other.

here are some holy symbols of ozymandias!

and here is my doc that explains a lot of the hierarchy and a couple customs! sorry if anything is contradictory to this post, i havent updated the doc since making it.

finally. the cassandrias stormsight images.

the ref is going to be remade sometime soon, whenever i have the energyyyy.... i made it at a point where i was struggling a lotttt with drawing (still am... i just drew the first thing ive drawn in a MONTH the other day for a campaign im dming), and im not super happy with it. i made his arms and waist way skinnier than i wanted to but i also didnt want to fix it because i was so sick of drawing it 😭

ANYWAYS. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING IM SORRY I TYPED SO MUCH!!!!!!! cass is sooo important to me and this truly doesnt scratch the surface. id loove to explain more but i cant do it here... but if anyone ever wants to know EVERYTHING about cass........ i am so happy to explain in dms or on discord or something. hes my everythingggggg

[shadowfoxsilver]

Pet donation scam explaination

Hi! I have many posts on my other blog that explain what a pet donation scam is but I'll go ahead and write another one over here that also explains it in case anyone wants a reminder about what it is and how it works. I'd suggest sharing this with your friends/followers even if they already know it so they can share it with their friends/followers and so on. I'll put it under a readmore.

tl;dr: A pet donation scam is when someone steals content off another site and spams asks to share their pinned pet post even though their account is only a few days old and has only a few posts. The blog usually disappears within a week but then you have another blog sending asks that has the same exact post but then has different images but their name is the same.

A pet donation scam is a scam that involves someone taking images/stories off a private vet bill aid group and then reposting it to tumblr as their own pet. The account does not explain that the images shown are not theirs; They will pass them off as their own and act as if the pet shown is one that's under their care. However, these accounts do not own anything their posting. Because they have stolen their content off another site.

Pet donation scammers like to reblog a few posts to look legit. Generally, as of recently, they'll share 100+ posts and use the Top Posts badge to look like an active user. However, a quick scroll through all those posts will usually show none of them are tagged and they all came from a trending tag or are trending posts. These accounts also are now sharing posts from accounts they follow in order to look more legitimate but don't let that deceive you. This is just another attempt to appear like their just your average tumblr blogger.

These scammers also will sent out asks that request private answers because they don't want anyone to see they sent the asks out to multiple other accounts. They'll tell you they don't want to be mistook as a bot/spammer even though they just spammed the askbox of people who share mutual aid posts and mutual aid links. If you search their ask in tumblr search, you'd likely see how many got the same thing. This tactic is why it's suggested not to send multiple asks to users to share your own aid post. Because sadly scammers have ruined it for others.

Another thing to keep in mind is that reverse image searching doesn't always work for trying to check the sources of a posts images for these scams. Since these images are stolen off a private facebook group, they won't show up in the public besides reblogs from users who mistook the scammer as a real account. This often may deceive others into assuming the scam account is legit if the images don't come up as being from somewhere else. They don't show up because their stolen off a private group so they are not easily accessible outside of it when searched.

Pet donation scammers also will lie to you to get your money. They will claim they'll pay you back yet if you find out their a scammer and ask for your money back the account will simply block you and move on to someone else. These scammers will never pay you back and they have no intentions of ever returning their money to anyone they stole from. You'll see it's a common phrase in their posts that they'll send you money back for helping them but that day never comes when they remake their blog and once more start their scam back up.

In closing, pet donation scams are unfortunately a common scam on tumblr and it's necessary to try and look up information if you got an ask that seems suspicious and is coming from a blog that's only a few days old and somehow found you if you are not a blog that a brand new account would find unless they saw you in a trending post notes or from a popular fandom tag.

[dogmatik]

Under a readmore, word count 897. Rick got too drunk and freaked poor Morty out.

There's something cold and wet pressed to Ricks forehead. He's only been conscious about a minute, hasn't quite figured out where he is yet, so his eyes remain closed. He takes in his surroundings with his other senses, not sure if he wants anyone who might be in the room with him to know he's awake yet. After some time he determines he's in his own room, can tell by the canvas texture of the cot below him, the smell of booze and alien B.O. He's bundled up in the shitty military surplus blanket he got ages ago, and its dark.

There's breathing to his right, someone sat next to the cot on the floor. he cracks an eye open, the augmentations he keeps tweaking adjusting his sight to the dark immediately (it hurts, human pupils aren't meant to dilate that quickly, he's got a mean case of chronic dry-eye that he hasn't quite figured out how to handle yet.). Morty sits with his arms folded over his knees, head bowed like he's sleeping sitting up. He's breathing to hard to be sleeping though, and there's a string of little sniffles on every other inhale.

"Morty, you seen that morphine? Grandpa's got a killer headache." Rick says. Morty startles, head whipping up immediately at the sound of the old mans voice. Rick regrets talking when he sees the poor kids face, it's red, a little string of snot connects his nose to where it was pressed into his sleeve. "Rick!" he yells, sending a flash of pain bouncing behind Ricks eyes. He throws himself over the old man, the cot creaks like its about to snap. "Jesus M-Morty chill out, I just said I had a fucking, headache." Morty squeezes him, he can feel hot tears soaking into his shirt.

"Ri-ck, I was so scared, and you s-s-said not to tell M-mom but you stopped, you stopped breathing and I couldn't get the-the oxygen to work and I swear I didn't tell but y-yuh-you can't do this to m-me again man I can't-" His voice keeps cracking, chest heaving and words broken up by half-aborted little whines and hiccups. "Morty, Morty calm down, hold on just fucking, t-take a breath alright. Morty just breathe" Rick rubs his back, the kids practically crawled into the cot with him, his little hands clenched so tight in Ricks shirt he's sure the seems are gonna snap. "A-asshole..."

Morty sobs. Rick realizes he doesn't remember a fucking thing from the last 36 hours, which is not ideal when you're a manic super-genius. From the sounds of it he gave himself alcohol poisoning again, considering the barely contained nausea and the way his head pulses with pain along to his heartbeat. It's been a while since he drank enough to make himself sick, it takes a lot. Last time must have been since before he came back. That explains why Morty's so fuckin broken up about it, it's not a pretty sight and the little guys never seen him that bad before.

"Mort, buddy it's okay, just a little alcohol poisoning. Little bit of zerock powder and I'll be good as new." "W-why'd you drink so much?" Morty asks, finally pulling his face away from Rick's chest. He's still breathing hard, but his eyes have dried. He looks genuinely confused, a little crease forming between his eyebrows. Rick gets the inexplicable urge to rub it away, kids too young for wrinkles. God, he's gonna go grey by 30, just like Rick. The thought brings a new wave of nausea crashing over Rick's head, he has to lean off the side of the cot so he doesn't fuckin drown in it. There's a big plastic bowl there, he almost gets all of it in. All that comes out is clear liquid and bright yellow bile, his stomach cramps sharp and he almost knocks Morty clean over with how violently he flinches.

"Rick, why did you drink so much. Did, did something bad h-happen?" Morty asks again, incessant. "'Something bad' what are you talking about?" Morty looks at his hands, he's sitting on his folded up legs right on the edge of the shitty cot, Rick just realized the boys still in the same clothes he last remembers him in. There's blood down the front, it doesn't look like it came from Morty. "Dr. Wong says, uhm. She said that people, they do a lot of like drugs and stuff when they feel bad. Or like, to escape or whatever. Is that what you were doing? R-running away from something?" What the fuck is that lady talking to this thirteen year old about? He should find out where she lives. Encourage some fucking boundaries.

"Jesus wept Morty, Can't a man get blow-out black-out drunk w-without his grandson fucking, psychoanalyzing him. No, I do it cause it's fun Morty. And I don't need to, ugh, to run from anything, I deal with my pr-problems just fine." Morty looks skeptical, little bastard. "Get, get offa my bed, fucking. Change your shirt, look like a vampire victim." Rick shoves at the boy, knocking him off the cot onto the floor. "Ow! Asshole! I-I'm trying to, trying to help you dick!" Morty yells. "Morty I swear to god if you keep being a loud piece of shit I'm gonna down your sisters hamster and blame you for it."

[scummy-writes]

I don't find this fandom welcoming. I posted a few fics and there was barely any interaction. I joined a few discords and was shocked to see the amount of vague-talking about other bloggers. Not a nice place imho

Your main experience with it not being welcoming is barely interaction and bad discord servers?

Hm. This is a very limited amount of information and since this is anon, my opinion is heavily based on trying to guess the most likely reasons why this is your experience. With that said, my opinion is this:

What do you count as barely interaction?

Is it that your post 'only' got five notes? Ten? Twenty? Are your expectations built off of other fandom's notes, or fanfics that are a year old and have gotten the luck of being reblogged and circulated a lot more? The comparison game is a bitch and a half if you're trying to gauge that as how welcoming a fandom is. Because the truth of the matter is, even if you're writing the fanfic equivalent of Shakespeare, if it is not tagged properly, a super long fanfic with no readmore, posted on a holiday, posted on a weekday, etc etc, it can yaknow. Not be Seen a lot. And if you're just posting something you've made with the intentions of just being seen, rather than having fun creating, in a smallerscale fandom like this, unfortunately it will not meet your expectations at times.

I don't know why there is this undercurrent of belief that you have to be actively creating some kind of fancreation to be able to talk to people as well. In complete honesty, I have seen screenshots of the game with some event dialogue or something, five words written on the post, and it have like 100+ notes. Sometimes sharing just your thoughts on dialogue is enough to get conversations going if you got it tagged and etc. These are blogs made for sharing thoughts and interacting with others thoughts, whether those thoughts are fanfics, fanart, fanedits, commentary on the games, theories, ideas, incoherent yelling about your faves, etc etc.

Are you reaching out and talking to people on your own accord? Because I think that also plays a Huge part in being talked back to, and having what you create seen. If you're posting into the tags and it doesn't get seen for whatever reason, and you're not actively talking to others and making friends via communication... how are people supposed to see what you make?

I think people see what they deem 'popular' blogs, who are usually creators who just got very lucky, and expect to be treated like that very fast, and when they don't, they think there is something wrong with them and the fandom, when it's almost always neither imo. I think it can be a build up of frustration that is getting unfairly targeted at yourself at times (in this case, a general 'you' is what I am using here), or outwardly towards strangers because your post isn't being seen in a sea of posts. And then sometimes there is very unfair resentment towards 'popular' bloggers due to this, where it's sometimes seen as their fault for not 'engaging' with everyone when, again...sea of posts. People working 40 hr workweeks. People with a family they're raising. People going to school. Etc etc.

So... is it the fandom being unwelcoming, or is it a weird pressure you're putting on yourself and others for no reason?

In regards to the discord stuff, since I feel that is a bit separate:

Discord servers... hm. The vague talking you reference is also very vague, and I think that depends. Because what is the vague talking? Is it something like "man someone posted a really awful and harmful opinion regarding this mental illness a suitor had" with no name dropping, no link sharing, and someone just a bit bummed someone said something hurtful? Or is it like... "[blogger name] is a piece of shit because they did [unproven thing]".

Those are two extremes, and there could be many more examples that I would see as more '''''acceptable''''' referencing of someone (the poor mental health take example where no one is identified and no one is specifically going apeshit on the blogger, just sad to see something harmful), and then the bullshit of namedropping and being a cunt for no reason. There are layers to this! Context matters a lot and I am left with not a clear thing to comment on.

My advice for discord servers, regardless of the fandom, is this:

Look at the blogs of the people who moderate/own it. Do they meet your personal levels of safety? Or are they actively arguing with other people in the fandom with the intention of just being a dick?

Is the server for all ages or for adults? That usually weeds out some childish behavior. Does the server have rules? Are there rules set in place to essentially be like "hey lets not namedrop people and shittalk them for no good reason"? Are there rules against being a dick? And if there are rules... are there mods to enforce them? Do they listen when notified of the behavior? That matters A Lot.

I think I tried....four? Five? Different discord servers where I kept running into people I did not like, or I thought I got along okay with until they did smth out of the blue that made me go "yikes!".

Sooo... i blocked their tumblr accounts. And talked to other people. Those few folks I blocked did not spell out that they themselves were the entirety of the fandom... because there are hundreds of other folks to talk to, and I found a handful I enjoy and settled in with that. Trial and error of course, but I still found people.

Your experiences are different than mine, but unfortunately I cannot agree that those experiences alone mean that this entire fandom is unwelcoming. I think you had some bad experiences and I'm sorry for that, but I can't nod along and go "yeah this whole fandom is shit." essentially.

[neathbound-fiends]

(for the ask thing you posted some time ago) 1, 15, 43 for Florence, 1, 10, 35 for Elliott, 19, 37 for the Surgeon

Remember when you asked this a million years ago? I'm gonna tuck it under a readmore since it got way longer than I anticipated lol

Elliott: 1. What’s the lie your character says most often? "I'm alright" or "I don't mind", probably 10. What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity? That if you grow rhubarb in the dark (which he is a strong proponent of in the Neath!) you can hear it growing 35. What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made? He would like to argue that lying to children is occasionally a necessary evil, as much as he hates lying and values honesty so highly. Sometimes you simply must pretend that the man selling rubbery lumps nearby is dead, and will not be feeling better in time for dinner, so they must eat your terrible cooking instead, because convincing a seven year old to eat your signature "random ingredients in the skillet, unseasoned" when instead she could have Neathy McDonald's is not an easy feat

Florence: 1. What’s the lie your character says most often? See, this is hard for me to decide on, because for a career liar, she is usually pretty honest in most of the writing I've done for her, and that's part of the game. The fun of telling someone point blank that she doesn't love them, and them still fighting to change her mind. I think, if I had to choose, it would be that she belongs wherever she is. Never stated in so many words, but the need to blend in and not immediately get thrown out of somewhere necessitates that she lie, because "street rat turned whore" is not usually the type of person who gets invited to any nice events where she would be rubbing elbows with the well-heeled 15. What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone? Honestly she's kind of a loser when she's alone. She mostly is just asleep or eating her roommie's food so she doesn't starve like a dog. She saves most of her charm for work, so when she's not needing to convince somebody to open their wallet or their bed to her, or distracting them enough to avail herself of these things anyway, she's just bored and bitchy and tired but not in a way that might be cute 43. What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding? That EVERYTHING is strictly transactional and a power play that she has to win. It's weird and unnerving to realize sometimes that people just...do things for other people out of the kindness of their hearts and not to score points on some invisible scoreboard or to accrue favors or to "win" an interaction

Surgeon: 19. What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding? It depends on why he's been avoiding them. In most cases, I would say he would just be whatever the highest degree of nasty he could be is, relative to the required degree of politeness so that he doesn't slip down the Respectable rungs for it 37. What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell? Who the parent of his child is

[twilightknight17]

@loopingpyre

Putting under a readmore for Tactica spoilers.

Persona 2's characters were, like Maki, all functionally Wild Cards. So you can fudge that a little. But this whole thing around Toshiro is something new, with very little explanation on why his thing works differently from anything in previous games. I know Atlus plays fast and loose with their lore at times (because I've spent years trying to untangle it), but there's usually some connecting thread to how things have worked previously.

Toshiro's persona being basically its own person just seems weird to me, when it would have been more consistent with prior stuff in P5 to have the shadow, and then a separate cognitive entity. Erina didn't need to be his persona for the story to make sense, and the fact that she is seems like a strange choice when I think it just makes things more confusing.

Plus, Erina coming with them was basically a fluke. If she'd stayed in her Kingdom, we'd have some major problems.

Rules that are at least partially consistent doesn't seem like too much to ask. But I'm really into worldbuilding and how things work, so that's just me.

Nanjo's ultimate taking the form of his butler who passed away can make sense. That was someone important to him, who genuinely cared about him and had a huge effect on his life. Cendrillon taking on aspects of Sumire's memory of Kasumi when she fully awakens follows the same thread. So if Toshiro's persona took on aspects of Eri, that's cool! There's a thread there!

But my point is more that versions of Yamaoka and Kasumi weren't walking around the metaverse with them after their awakenings. The personas were not their own people with their own character and desires and goals.

The only time that's really been the case was like... Pharos/Ryoji/Thanatos. But Ryoji's not an aspect of Minato. He was an outside entity.

And mechanically, a Wild Card is just someone who can use multiple personas. So with that in mind, technically the casts of 1 and 2 count, even if the term itself hadn't been invented yet from a Doylist perspective. So I think it's fair to look at things from that angle when considering how all of this cognitive stuff works. But again, I'm a worldbuilding person. I want to draw all those connections.

I noticed that his glove was missing but I don't think they ever talked about his hand being injured??? Unless it was early on and I've forgotten. Like, I see it in the screenshot but I don't think they talked about it. And if the glove is replacing the mask, cool. They haven't actually mentioned that (yet?) either.

And "different world different rules" would be fine if they'd bothered to explain any of the rules! But the kids literally have no idea how any of this has happened.

What is Erina? How does she work? We don't really know.

How do the Kingdoms work? We don't really know.

Why is Toshiro's mental world so much bigger and weirder than anything since Ideal Mikage-cho? We don't know.

How did the kids even end up here? We don't know.

I feel like at the point in the story where I've met the final boss, I should know a little more than that. Or at least be able to extrapolate.

And... I hope I don't come across as upset. I'm not; I like discussing lore stuff! But I gotta admit it was a little off-putting to see a comment starting with, essentially, "Hi, it doesn't work like that," considering how much thought I've put into figuring out how it all works. ^_^;;;

[mountainashfae]

mountain, i am Staring at you with my Malkavian Eyes, please tell me about the Sabbat Malk

Boy howdy do I love my Sabbat Malk. My littlest guy with plot armor. Not allowed to die for reasons that I figured out but the other players didn't put the pieces together for.

So this is Apollo, it is the name he chose for himself after realizing he could see the future and getting a big ego because of it. He's got a ton of Auspex, the Eyes of Chaos discipline power (recently introduced in V5 btw! it's so fun, give it a try) the Oracular Visions merit, and another merit that lets him get dreams about the future. His official derangement/bane is that he suffers from hallucinations, many of which he believes are also visions of the future, but unofficially I like to joke that his insane self-confidence is also a derangement. He's also picked up another one where he mistakes random people for his sire.

He was born back in in the 1940s and was embraced impulsively in the 1960s after accidentally catching his sire on camera. He was a professional photographer and still keeps up the photography even in his unlife.

Going to do similarly as you with Leo by putting the rest under a readmore.

He has a terrible relationship with his sire. Thomas treats him like a cameraman and gave him the nickname "cameraboy". He's expected to always be around to catch Thomas on film. Part of Thomas's derangement of believing that he's in a TV show and everyone else is a paid actor, with the exception of his childe of course. The initial blood bond from his embrace pretty quickly curdled into a deep hatred of his sire.

A few months before the beginning of our Sabbat game, Apollo's visions led him to meet a Lasombra by the name of Garcia Ortiz, whom he is lightly obsessed with getting a photo of and also just wants to bang. Apollo already hates how he is treated for being a Malkavian and hates that people don't take his oracular visions serious. Garcia just has to try a tiny bit to convince him to defect from the Camarilla and join the Sabbat.

He wasn't allowed into his mentor's pack in case of nepotism but he's got a very fun pack regardless. As early as session 1 he was already losing Humanity. They're currently working to get him on a Path of Enlightment so he doesn't become a wight. His biggest complaint with the training is how much he's had to interact with fire. The Sabbat aren't as averse to fire as the average kindred, but Apollo is more averse to fire than the average Camarilla.

His most recent antics in the game is that he was separated from the rest of the pack for a bit for Path Training with his mentor (a very cute Ventrue antitribu), and ended up going on an infiltration mission into a city that had recently been taken over by the Camarilla. It turns out the mostly-empty city is bait to distract the Sabbat's attention from the Camarilla's actual target, and the guy they put in charge of that bait city is Thomas. Apollo is satisfied with letting the guy sit and rot in his false Princehood. Eventually I will diablerize him and also recruit his newest childe because HOW DARE YOU EMBRACE SOMEONE ELSE. HOW DARE YOU BRING SOMEONE ELSE INTO THIS MESS.

For fun here is the rest of his pack in comparison to him <3

[shapa-likes-art]

i got more questions for the supervillain au regarding prinxiety's relationship!

1. What would their love languages be?

2. What was their first kiss like?

3. I read somewhere in the masterlist I think that Roman was at one point a "playboy" due to many partners and trying to find someone? Can you maybe elaborate on that?

4. If this ^ isn't the case anymore, do either of them have past relationship experience?/Any exes?

Yippeee

Standard procedure; Readmore :3.

1. Skye and I actually took a quiz as Roman and Virgil to know long, long time ago!

You can infer which is which and what is what.

This is Roman's

And this is Virgil's

Yippeee

2. I think I've answered this before!

They were just cuddling when Virgil brought up the fact they haven't actually kissed before and roam went "Well then, Do you want to?" and so they kiss and that's their first one :D.

3. Roman wasn't actually a playboy. The media just called him that.

He was just trying to find and keep a partner but due to his intense form of loving (which seemed overbearing) and also the fact that he can't fully trust his partner with his little Phantom secret and he felt like he needs to be "Cardenia's Sweetheart Roman Prince" in front of them.

This is why he and Virgil are the most compatible and perfect for each other:

He doesn't have to act, Virgil knows his identity, and he can be as intense and overbearing as he wants because Virgil is the exact same.

4. I can tell you about Roman's!

(I'm not really sure with Virgil, You'll have to ask skye! They're asleep right now so I can't really ask xem haha.)

For Roman, he has had a lot of partners and a lot of experience! They were supposed to be committed relationships but as you can tell they all never fully worked out.

He has had many different types of partners and he's dated a huge range of types of people.

He identifies as Omnisexual so he has a preference for more masc-leaning people but in general he doesn't care of their gender identity.

With most of his Exes, they broke up amicably so he has no ill intent of feelings with any of them and vice versa.

All of his exes would describe him as: "A great guy and attentive partner but he's sort of overbearing and he seems to keep a lot of secrets. It feels like he's trying too hard to please you."

I'd say he's had around 5-8 exes!

** Bonus tidbit: Both Roman and Virgil are Monogamous.

A few of Roman's relationships fell apart because his partner wanted another and he respectfully had to tell them he was uncomfortable with it and they end up breaking up.