#just...not enough for a full story yet aha

[corishadowfang]

19 and/or 32?

(For this)

19. What headcanon do you always include in your stories?

Answered that one here, haha, but for another one: poor Ephemer seems to be doomed to be a lethal chef in everything I write.

32. Which fic would you most like to write a sequel to?

Fallen Stars--though not in a "full-on sequel" sort of way. There's just a lot to explore after the story's over, from how the crew (and Scala) recovers, to how they rescue the Dandelions, to the ripple effects everything that happened had on canon, that it feels like something that'd be fun to explore--but because of HOW MUCH time there is to cover, it would probably work better as a bunch of one-shots or short series.

[nightlyrequiem]

alrighty sooohhh this might be worded oddly since im used to requesting certain writers who use certain words to describe 'y/n', so, like, forgive me if it sounds confusing or like, out-of-place 😭

could u do a Valeria oneshot with reader, her partner, whos also a big, hardened criminal, -- who runs another cartel, -- not a rivaling one, just a different one, which was forced to alliance themselves with Valerias cartel, after her and reader made themselves official

They're both big, mean cartel mamis, who have killed people, without second thought, not even a blink of an eye -- two women, making old men cry and piss themselves on the regular, -- yet, when reader and Val are together, they're just two appreciative softies

Total power couple in public btw. They're both covered in tattoos, wearing expensive clothes, earning more and more respect from more and more people as their empires grow,

when in private? Thats a completely different story. You got the jist, though.

Again, i apologize if this is worded wrongly/strangely, ive adapted my writing style to certain people, and physically cannot write in any other way without feeling weird about it .. aha. Giggle, giggle.

much love, traveling anon, aka, girlscout

-🐾🍪🏕

Don't worry, this was worded very nicely! This was pretty fun to write. I do enjoy some violence. Especially when it's being done by women. One dangerous woman is great, but two? Oh, I'm certainly swooning. This is one of my few works to have two drafts. I hated the first one and scrapped it. Much more pleased with the final product ^-^

Tags/Warnings: Violence, Some Gore

The Snake's Nest

Valeria slams her fist into the side of a man's head. He roughly hits the brick wall of the alley and crumples to the ground, clutching his face. His cheekbone no doubt shattered. You watch impassively as Valeria aggressively grabs ahold of his shirt and hair, hauling him away from the wall. She forces his face into the concrete. You kneel down gracefully.

"Why are you crying?" You ask softly. He did this to himself, yet he dares to cry. Your head tilts. He looks up at you, the whites of his eyes are pink with agitated blood vessels, either from the number of drinks he's had, the crying, or from the beating he's taking.

"Please!" He cries out. Begging for your mercy. Incorrectly assuming that you're the more merciful of the two. That you'll call of your guard dog, unaware that you are far worse. He's lucky that it's Valeria and not you.

You stand back to your full height. The man continues to squirm and incoherently sob out pleas. Valeria lifts one strong leg and brings it down on his head hard. You don't flinch at the violent cracking that occurs. His scream is cut off and distorted. She brings down her foot again and again until he goes silent. You turn your head and make eye contact with his friend. forced to crouch in the corner and watch. His face is haunted by what he's just witnessed. He will be left alone. Forced to pick up his friend's pieces and attempt to put them back together. You look back at the man on the ground with Valeria standing over him like an angel of death. You don't think there's strong enough glue to fix him now.

You take ahold of her soft hand. Brushing your thumb over her bruised knuckles. You two walk out of the alley. Your shadows split and morph together under the yellow streetlights. Valeria owns these streets, but you run them. With your combined forces you exert total control over everything. Eyes and ears are everywhere whispering their secrets to you. You and Valeria are separate but one in the same.

You were carefully nurturing the seedlings of your own cartel when Valeria was taking over hers and striking fear into the heart of Las Almas. She had what you wanted. Power, respect, and fear. You planted a few red herrings in her territory to give her a mystery to solve while you expanded your organization. You did whatever was necessary to succeed. Who it harmed didn't matter to you. You grew and grew. You got big enough that the small red herrings didn't matter to Valeria. She sent her men to sniff around your territory and routes. Not a show of outright aggression but a subtle threat from her to you.

For months you danced around each other. Trespassing but nothing more. There was a fragile peace between the two of you, one you intended to shatter. You quietly built-up strength in preparation to take over Las Almas and eliminate her and her cartel. The DEA was an unpredictable variable though. They began cracking down on the drug market. An infestation of them nested in Las Almas and its surrounding areas. Posing a genuine threat to the both of you. Your plans were put on hold, and you took the initiative to approach her with an offer of allegiance. Tempting her with territory and more firepower.

You two met on a burning Tuesday morning. You were to meet with El Sin Nombre at a local cafe. Instead, at your designated spot sat a woman. It took you five minutes to approach her. At first you were irritated that El Sin Nombre didn't respect you enough to meet you himself, but you swiftly figured out he was a concept and not a person. That she was The Nameless.

You intended to use Valeria as a way to take down the DEA without drawing too much attention to yourself. However, overtime you began to respect her. She was cold and calculating. She wasn't the type to waste her breath with meaningless threats. If you failed to be useful, she didn't waste her time in getting rid of you. Overtime she slowly dug her way through the ice around your heart and wormed her way inside like a little parasite. The sun had risen and finally set on the DEA. There was no reason to cradle the connection between the two cartels any longer but neither you nor Valeria made the first move to cut contact.

Your strictly business relationship flowered into something more. Something personal. The same hands that pulled teeth and put bullets between eyes lovingly traced the edges of her tattoos. Whispered sweet nothings into her ear at night, your legs coiled together like snakes after coitus. No one had ever treated you gently. Never kissed your hand or made you soup when you were sick. Those things were reserved for girls who were soft like velvet. Pure and kind. Not violent women with serpentine tattoos. Who sunk their teeth into the throats of others. Not until Valeria. Who bared her throat to you and bit back.

She clasped heavy gold chains around your neck with as much tenderness that one might do with a daintier piece of jewelry. You slid expensive rings onto her fingers with unspoken promises. 

The night isn't over, and neither is the need for violence. Not that either of you have any issue with that. Normal couples have date nights at the movies. Maybe a nice restaurant. You and Valeria strengthen your bond by inflicting pain and terror on lower life forms. In a warehouse eyes glitter from the shadows. A combination of hers and your own men. Valeria typically takes care of the interrogation and punishment. You have no issue with blood or violence. You take enjoyment it. But the sight of her lips pulled back into a feral snarl, her vicious efficiency, it makes you fall in love with her all over again.

This time however, you take the lead. A tall man, standing at an impressive six-foot-four stares you down in the centre of the room. He was a friend, once upon a time. Your second hand. The only person apart from Valeria you genuine cared about. The only other person you'd be willing to set yourself aside for. You were heartbroken to find out he was taking bribes from a smaller gang and trading your secrets for money. This is personal.

He's doing his best to seem unafraid, but you can see the fear in his eyes. Smell it in the acrid stench of his sweat.

"I'm not going to grovel for your forgiveness." He grumbles.

"I wasn't going to give you the chance to." You reply calmly. He's expecting more words. Maybe a monologue about how angry or hurt you are. You stare at him for a long time, letting the tension build. Higher and higher and higher. Until too many stagnant minutes have passed and with them his moment of understanding. Only then do you act. 

Quick as a scorpion's strike you stick him like a pig in the gut. he hisses in pain and tries to grab you but you're too quick for him. You kick out his knee and dart behind him, ripping your blade from his stomach. He howls like a dog while you hold him by the throat with your bicep. You place the tip of your knife in the squishy bit just under his ribs, in the middle of his abdomen. You struggle to keep the placement as he writhes but you get it right and push in, feeling muscle and skin tear under the steel. His screams echo back at him mockingly as you drag the knife down, tearing him open.

He slumps to the ground in a pool of his own blood. One last pained whine leaving his throat. You stare up at everyone watching. A public lesson. Though you can see that they're more entertained by the show then worried.

Back home you carefully strip out of your blood-soaked clothes. Setting them down in the laundry hamper. You crawl into bed and watch Valeria do the same. Admiring the smooth tan expanse of her back. Of the muscles shifting under her skin. You want to trace the ridges of her spine. She joins you under the covers and rests her face into the crook of your neck. Breathing in your scent. 

[rolameny]

i played through nine sols a second time and now i am going to talk about it. full spoilers!!

this is one of those works that tells you a lot of things about its world from the jump, only without giving you the context to interpret those statements. it makes a second visit so rewarding. going back through and knowing exactly what each monument means / the things yi is talking around.... really really good.

heng is fantastic on a replay. the first time around till you get the final message i thought yi was haunted. i also thought the ji reveal would be that he was heng and not an adult man

"neither of us made a mistake. we both made different choices" says yi, a man who has made so very many mistakes

game so good it makes you go "man i should learn more about taoism so i can better understand its themes"

it's wild how much this game draws on hollow knight and yet stands on its own as a totally different thing. like, mechanically, the jades are charms. the charged attack is a great slash. the full movement kit is monarch wings and mothwing cloak. the geo/artifacts economy. and you're a little guy who can't quite manage to die fighting your way through a series of bosses and some brightly hued corruption to sacrifice yourself at the end. it's just straightforwardly true that RCG pulled a great deal from HK, and it was enough to make me go aha!!! in recognition many times, but it's completely its own thing. own gameplay feel, own world, own story.

own protag: i love the silent protag in hollow knight but yi is such a lovable bitch [affectionate/derogatory]. guy who sucks so bad. guy it took over five hundred years to internalize a single social-emotional lesson.

it's so fascinating watching him react to the different sols. who does he get angry with. who does he make an offer of mercy to. because kuafu is so much the guy who is there i forgot yi also considered lady e the other reasonable person on the council, right up till he namedrops her when yelling at eigong.

the anger and spite to treat goumang as he did!! and even in the true ending you see neither he nor kuafu thought about her. there are some gaps of consideration in the true ending that i think of as "well we don't have time for that but you get it" -- any other potential apemen on new kunlun (peach blossom village is the 95th livestock pen. girl where are the others), the like 300-odd of 100k solarians left remaining in cryosleep who might like to at least live a little on earth before dying. imo the narrative is just skimming over them, we reach the emotional point of it with the people we know (kuafu and the gang). and it would be a whole narrative diversion to grab her. but the true ending makes sure to show us that goumang is still down there, rather than skimming over her fate. even when he grows a little yi still sucks so much dude [affectionate]. and kuafu's passivity coming to the fore here as well!

kuafu is so compelling because he is The Nice Guy but he is absolutely not necessarily The Kind Guy as well. he was just chill with the whole council plan and didn't do anything except be kind of bummed when yi died. (iirc he does just think yi's head did that. could have thought that one through a little more.) at the ending he pushes back against the idea of saving the apemen!

lady ethereal my beloved elizabeth holmes as a lynx furry. there's a fight that made me nod sagely and go Ah, Nightmare King Grimm. here's a place where i felt a little dissonance -- the full screen huge face digital flashing between normal/happy and manic evil laughter is a horror classic but it didn't quite hit it for lady e imo. huge face crying or snarling would have worked better i think, which i say even though i get the manic laughter through panic beat. idk. i love that in her bossfight she is presenting herself as the villain she thinks she is -- she gets out her heaving-est pushup bra for this one. sorry about it, girl. maybe next time if you know you're consigning a hundred thousand people to slow madness within their cryochambers maybe speak up about it.

speaking of people who learned no lessons. ji like okay well i've seen a lot of horror and so i elect to do nothing about it except contribute my cells to possibly the worst cause on earth. i will continue to wander this grotto for five hundred years while it gets worse. 👍 i'm having meaningful discussions about the tao with your man in the tentacle hole and i am not sorry, ji.

i understand the anglo readability argument for transliterating li er as lear but i, the anglophone in the room, did have to look at the fanwiki to understand that we were not dipping into shakespeare for a single guy. 😔

kanghui is such a fantastic element of this game. you get just enough about him to add to the horror of what eigong was doing, and what the jies are doing, and what the fuck is up with penglai to begin with. his inclusion makes ji make more sense to me as well. it's not that ji is a once in a millennium impossibility. it's that penglai is so so so weird. ji and yi pull up little chairs in front of kanghui's torture contraption for immortality group therapy.

like that one post says. CHIYOU best character CHIYOU

the siscon stuff in this game is so funny. [looking at the fengs] gang what's wrong with you [looking at yi and heng] gang what's wrong with you. congrats to the other characters on not having siblings and therefore having slightly more normal psychosexual hangups such as "getting off to body modification and torture."

RCG funding for one million years please 🙏🙏🙏 i know they said it took them five years to make this one but even with that timeline it's crazy that they went from narrative horror game to a genuinely best-in-class feeling Sekirollow Knight. they are so good at this shit.

okay. i have exorcised my thoughts and feelings about this game. playing a twenty-hour game twice in like 2-3 weeks is normal right.

[tobiasdrake]

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 19 - Mad Dash for the Kitchen Asuras

Here we are on Day 4. Still awaiting word that will probably never come.

Are we ready to explore the probability that we've been abandoned to fend for ourselves yet?

Also, Hiruko talks about Alexa exactly the same way my family talks about our cat.

Yeah, that's my thinking too.

Also, Miss Amemiya. Very polite of you, Ima. Darumi deserves the respect.

Ooh, good catch. If Alexa isn't here then he can't get pissy about who eats what. Though I would still have some reservations by the possibility of an enforcement mechanism of some kind. We don't know what the rules are, so eating things other than dry bread might make you explode or something if you aren't using the Infuser.

We don't know what the rules are. There is a non-zero chance that all of the food in the real world is somehow lethal to anyone who hasn't Blood Cocooned themselves and the dry bread is actually for all-a y'all's safety.

Only one way to find out. I guess Now and Then have volunteered to be our guinea pigs. If you guys explode, while try to jab your corpses with Infusers and see if that's good enough for the Revive-o-Matic.

Gaku, you work for slave wages to support a family. How is something so basic as "A rule only exists so long as it can be enforced" lost on you? Have you never had to shoplift to get by?

Now and Then have definitely had to shoplift to get by. I did not miss the part where they're orphans or some shit.

But I also would have expected better of you, Gaku. Shame on you. Go outside and steal from the pharmacy until you learn.

There you go. That's better. You know, if you're this much of a stickler for obedience to authority, I bet you aren't working a union job, huh? That might be part of your problem. You're letting the capitalists take advantage of you. If you ever see your home again, you should considering unionizing.

And stealing from corporations where needed. Learn from the orphans, Gaku. They know how to get by in this cruel, cruel world. Unless they explode.

I'd at least give Now and Then like an hour to see if something happens to them. But if y'all want to dive in now then be my guests. Since we now have the full team eating, we all get to share in whatever fate may or may not await.

To be fair, that was a staged event for shock and intimidation. I don't think Monokuma could actually summon the Spears of Gungnir wherever he wanted. He just wanted Class 78 to think he could.

Now, AI Monokuma and the Exisals, THOSE were another story.

OH WOW I FORGOT YOU WERE HERE

Full team -1 eating, I guess.

Not joining the others in making a mad dash for the kitchen Asuras?

...I kinda think that's the point, Hiruko. He gave us the tools we need to defend the school and then removed himself to a place where we can't keep pressuring him for information.

We definitely aren't going to find him, but if it makes you feel better, sure.

In any case, while they're searching the school, I have one other tutorial I need to learn about.

I mean, I'm also going to be hanging out with peeps too. Sorry, Hiruko, but I refuse to only use my time productively.

VR Training simulations are practice battles for grinding XP. Yeah, that makes sense. Much bigger and more complicated than the little battles I ran into while exploring, too.

Darumi's MVP mugshot is fantastic. 10/10.

I don't know how the level system works but it could hypothetically also be good for bringing underleveled characters up to speed. That's a problem you run into sometimes in other TRPG franchises like Fire Emblem.

Aha, here we go. This is the level-up system and--

I FUCKING KNEW IT

That WAS what the Lv.4 and MAX at the end of her two skill names meant! Hiruko's fucking near-maxed out on two separate skills while the rest of us are level 1.

She has played this game before.

Alright, while y'all look around for something we aren't going to find, I'm gonna go find out what Darumi's crying about.

Well, shit. That is a crisis. In fact, it's a bigger crisis than Sirei's vanishing because we actually have a >0% chance of success searching for it.

Why would that matter, Takumi? Even if something is cheap, it still sucks to lose it. Especially if it's something you need to use regularly. Gonna flick your nose if you think like a capitalist again.

Relatable. Sometimes you just need to let it out.

Some people's problems can't be swept under the rug by running up and declaring, "I'm your Daddy now!" Take your anti-crying propaganda somewhere else, Takumi.

[notmxverick]

HSR OC info: Zyta Lisowski

Zyta Lisowski - 5* Occupation: Double-dealing artifact hunter, thief, relic agent. Faction: Belobog, Wildfire, Masked Fools, Penacony Birthday & Age: April 10th (25-30) Height: Around 157 cm (Topaz's model, idk how tall she exactly is)

»【Alignments】«

Element: Imaginary Path: Elation/Nihility (still can't decide) Lore Path: Elation

»【Game mechanics】«

Tags: Buff, Debuff, FUA, Break Role: Amplifier

Description: Zyta empowers follow-up attacks (FUA) for herself and her allies. Her kit revolves around boosting FUA damage, improving shield-breaking efficiency, and adding random elemental versatility with her Aftertaste ability. She excels in team compositions that capitalize on frequent follow-up attacks and strategic shield-breaking.

»【Story line】«

(yes the shortest summary I can write)

Veleska Zyta was born on this Polish based planet called *Veleska* (self made planet). It was pretty much a pieceful planet. She lived with her parents Radoslaw Lisowski and Lidia Lisowski on a farm, since the planet was full with rich agriculture. Both of her parents used to be members of the Masked Fools. Her dad, Radoslaw, was a well known smith, amongst the people in their town, especially Masked Fools. He used to forge little trinkets for Zyta and organized together with her mom treasure hunts around their farm.

At the time, their homeplanet was protected by the IPC in exchange for the planet's crops and stuff. Veleska already had some problems before the beginning of Zyta's life. It had only one last layer of atmosphere and it was soon gonna rip which will lead to massive radiation and billions of dying people. Zyta was around 10 years old when that happened and her parents were just rich enough to buy one ticket for her to leave the planet on time. The IPC had left their planet with all of their crops right after announcing that there is nothing they could've done to prevent the massive solar flare from ripping the last layer. Since then Zyta developed major hate towards the IPC's. The way they just left her people to suffer made her blood boil.

Penacony Zyta was an orphan and a street thief after she left Veleska. She didn't want to go to an orphanage and the whole city was something completely new and loud to her since she was a farm girl. In her free time she went to local funfairs with stolen coins. It was her only entertainment at the time and it became her hobby to play those games.

She met Mr. Reca near a funfair once and went to pickpocket him. Reca caught her and wanted to pay her back for what she did but instead her memories started flashing through his mind about her loss, cuz like memetic entities can probably do that shit so..... He decided to take her in instead. Since then she started living with him. Reca sent her to school which was not fun for her at all. She had problems making friends, didn't want to study. That soon changed as she got more confident. She was a bold yet quiet child, she eventually started obeying him, learn manners and see him as her new dad.

Travelling era Zyta was old enough (around her early 20s) to start travelling on her own. She loved to study more about history of planets and ancient relics. She visited planets like Kalevala, Salsotto, Amphoreus, etc. On one of Epsilon's planets, she found Aha's mallet (a giant hammer) and Zyta was extremely drawn to it, claiming that the hammer called out to her.

IPC era Zyta's hate for the IPC didn't subside one bit throughout her years (she was in her mid 20s or sum) and she decided to apply there for a job. She worked there as a waitress at first, doing sneaky malicious activity, until Aventurine caught her red handed and made her his ally since they both shared hate for the IPC (they became partners-in-crime and lovers). He upgraded her into an Artifact Recovery Specialist, giving her more acces to places for authorized workers. Bit by bit, Aventurine and Zyta started to cause little sabotages to the IPC. While he was keeping it small, Zyta started to get more bold in her plans and actions, wanting to destroy the IPC as quickly as possible and for good. This lead to them into fights. Originally, Aventurine wanted to make her one of the Stonehearts, but her hate was too big so she refused to get more into whole corporation and prefered to stay loyal to her Masked Fools.

One day, she decided to take matters into her own hands, end the IPC's monopolization, which would also lead to Aventurine's downfall. However Aventurine stopped her on time due to his massive luck, saving his own ass while she gets thrown into jail. He caused her a massive debt, loss of all of her belongings and life in prison. Zyta was destroyed and despised Aventurine so much for it. Meanwhile, Aventurine started feeling so bad for her and decided to hire specialists and professionals to remove all of the articles outside of Penacony's internet and professionals to help her escape prison. He is basically the one that sent her to Jarilo-VI, where the place wasn't really influenced by the IPC so much, and couldn't easily find her. He wanted to give her a chance to start her life over without him.

Jarilo-VI She arrived there completely broken with little money. She had no choice but to start farming money by stealing from rich people at the Overworld. She met Captain Gepard on her first week, fell head over heals and tried hard to impress him, despite his stoic demeanor. She created a double life within her: a legal relic agent to the captain, but a relic hunter and thief in reality. They hit it off ig and started dating without him knowing how much lies she is putting into their relationship. Meanwhile she met Sampo, who kept interfering with her plans, including her heists. At some point, she decided to work together with him (becoming partners-in-crime again) just so she gets some good amount of money. Overtime they had become very close, until she revealed to him that she was dating Gepard. Zyta noticed that he was getting more distant at that point.

Meanwhile, Gepard started noticing some odd behaviour in Zyta and slowly got suspicious of her. He usually just brushed off that feeling because he was blinded by her love. Gepard soon realized that she has lied about everything and what person she actually really was. He also found out about her past with the IPC by going through the Penacony's internet. A bunch of things happened, he caught her and sent her to prison. Zyta became once again broken and lost.

Despite Sampo acting all distant and stuff, he heard about the news and felt the urge to save her. Not only because it would worsen their business plans, but also because he started to realize that he genuinely cared for her. He pretended to be a Silvermane Guard for days to try and help her escape prison. He confessed his feelings soon after that. This gave her hope and started enjoying time with him as true parnters and Masked Fools.

(This all happened before the in game trailblaze missions started. I still need to plan what roles she has during those trailblaze missions.)

»【Trivia】«

- Zyta's weapon is a giant hammer that is known as Aha's Mallet. It is believed that the hammer was crafted by the Aeon of Elation itself. - Zyta will get a boss form called *The Laughing Conductor* when Aha decides to finally make her one of its emanators. - Zyta's full name is *Zyta Roza Lisowski*. *Roza* is the name she used when she worked as an IPC worker. Roses are her favorite flower too. - Zyta has a sensitive stomach when it comes to travelling. Her nightmares about the loss of her homeplanet and parents keep reminding her as she travels throughout the galaxy. - Zyta loves foxes and cats. - Zyta's biggest insecurity is being flat-chested. Uses extra push-ups to feel more confident in her looks. - Zyta has her own special mask, but that is unfortunately still at Aventurine's place. - Zyta has picked up some smithing skills from her father when she was little. This came later in handy with her relic work.

»【Voice claims】«

- EN: Cristina Vee (voice of Yayoi Kusakabe, High rise invasion) - JP: Sekine Akira (voice of Thelema, HI3)

»【Love Interests】«

- Zympo: Sampo x Zyta (current lover) - Avenyta: Aventurine x Zyta (former lover) - Zypard: Gepard x Zyta (former lover)

I might change some things in the future but this is what I have for now. I hope y'all enjoyed this <3

[artheresy]

I have not forgotten the draft regarding "How I would write Clouds Leave No Trace", it still lingers its still there

Im still thinking about how my least favorite parts are Yanqing's characterization, The way the world around Jingliu treats her like she's normal when clearly she's not, The way there's such an effort into putting Yingxing and Dan Feng on the same level of guilt for every single thing that it makes Blade's desire for revenge feel nonsensical and out of no where when he has good reason for it, The way that they don't do more to play up the HCQ's dynamic especially in the normal areas thus making caring about their tragedy a struggle if you haven't done all the "prerequisite reading" (even tho the quest should make the players care more and want to read instead of requiring the opposite), The way that they literally mention Bailu and Blade crossed paths but never show us that scene DESPITE all of the importance placed upon Baiheng and Yingxing's friendship, Did I mention My Massive Problems with my boy Yanqing's characterization in this quest versus what we see of how he's affected both before and after it?

Oh and of course, to mention Jing Yuan not really feeling like he has as much significance being in this quest despite being apart of the HCQ and Jingliu's disciple because yet again, they especially don't do enough to develop on screen (but also not enough in the readable text too) his connections to the rest of the HCQ (which in general if you ask me, makes it a lot harder to be that sad at the moments they clearly want us to feel sad for him over the HCQ)

I could go on and on about the problems of Hyv not fully giving the audience a reason to care for the HCQ's tragedy by the way they are barely shown on screen, shoving it all in readables and character stories and relic lore. Even their legends get barely any screen time to build up to when we hear about the fall out.

Also again, not kidding about Jingliu and the world's perception around her. She is described solely in the beginning as bringing a chill to the room, but she's clearly very intimidating, if you ask me she seems very clearly unstable as well and yet when they waltz around in a populated area with no attention getting drawn to them or suspicion or anything. I also call Massive Bullshit on Bailu being like "Wow but she seems so normal and kind, there's nothing about her at all that could make me think she's marastruck 😲!!" When if you ask me, that whole scene could have been used in a much more meaningful way to make a connection between Bailu and her resemblance to Baiheng Specifically in a way I will further elaborate on in my full post about it BUT YEAH Jingliu deserved so much better with this quest, so so much better

And even just small details get me like Jingliu leaving first from Scalegorge Waterscale, then Jing Yuan, Yanqing and Ren leaving? Like if you ask me, let Jingliu leave with Jing Yuan and Yanqing like they're escorting her (idc about any "She was already turning herself in!" There are a number of reasons to be cautious, not solely of her, and keep her in their view) and then talk to and have Ren leave last.

I am still thinking about it, that post still haunts me daily, I have grown to like the quest but my problems with it are so strong and so clear that it's like AHA I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT

[literalite]

literally just me talking about edit stuff because im in a mood

these r what i would call like my base level of ingame edits (i dont reallyyyyyy count my cas screenshots as edits unless i spend an actual amount of time actually working on them rather than my usual blur+chromatic aberration+sharpen combo) theres usually very little? or like no actual basis in the characters "canon" or lore like its just done to make them look nice. right. or like its fun lighting practise for me really. theyre usually pretty simple in execution like in the two examples there its just plain yellow background for sunny and the neon cross for vin so i have to put a little extra oomf into it because the backgrounds are like not super detailed so theres less of an "interest" factor from that so the sims themselves have to look REALLY good to make up for it. the ones i end up happy with though usually look really dynamic so it balances out

so these are more sort of abstract edits to me bc they have a basis in the oc lore or themes or whatever and most of my ocs have at least one or two visual markers (in the examples lucari or even just ari specifically gets a fair amount of celestial/sky imagery, i handled the colours here a bit sloppily but its meant to be blue and purple which are ari and luca's text colours, heiya's emphasis being on her muscles and scars and the clouded solar eclipse, redacted gets a lot of water/reflective surfaces/birds/rainbow flares?? and also lightning but that isnt being used in this specific one and sunny gets a fair amount of fire/smoke stuff as well as emphasis on primary colours like his more blue toned edits r usually in his darker stages of his life while warmer yellows means more positive stuff, red usually is just for uhhh violence oriented stuff) and like none of these are Actually happening. right. redacted isnt actually ever in that position with that era of hair in the water with the birds and sunny was set on fire at 13 not as an adult and they certainly never had a portrait of his family like that. but its symbolic, it means Something even if you as the viewer doesnt know it yet 😅 or ever aha

OKAY LOL I PRESSED POST BY ACCIDENT LOL but these are my full lore edits or something likr theyre totally rooted in the background of the ocs. like these are scenes from their lives for real. obviously i fiddle with lighting angle composition a tinyyyy bit to make for a more pleasing or dynamic image at the end but if my ocs all got dedicated like. movies or shows these would be ripped straight from the scene. i take creative liberties with some stuff but in essence these could be story posts (like the 3rd example with idris/redacted is literally in the story itself in one of the posts) the difference is usually amount of images in the post and orientation of said image/s. to me an edit stops being an edit when it has more than likeeeeee 4 images and then i will usually keep that bulk all in landscape or maybe one as portrait for emphasis. edits will be 4 or less and mostly in portrait because i want the less images to take up more room on the dash. the backgrounds for these will usually be way more complex like ill build a mini set or use existing sets for each one. i just think that ingame edits have a lot more capability than you might think (u dont have to go into blender for every little thing promise 🙌🏼) its just like. u can do a lot with this game i swearrrrrr just treat it like an art medium. im serious

ALSO the song almost always is sooo relevant to the edit i swear its not enough to sound good. i have to be unwell about it as well and it has to make sense with what im showing u

ok thats my random unrequested ted talk for the day im going to go home now bye thank u for reading if u did that 😁

[bitegore]

🍄♻️🤔

🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “_ + =__”

okay for the sake of my fucking sanity i am NOT going to presume I get any real wiggle room here. or i will do another 400 line proof. because it is fun but oh my god it takes so long.

((Felyx + Taran)(Rex + Haven + Taran) + fake dating)^spite = fireworks

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP(s)

not sure it qualifies as a "wip" because I haven't actually decided to pull it out of the graveyard of abandoned-works out-of-progress yet - call it a wip-aspirational or something lol - but the more I poke at Haven and Taran's actual story the more fun I have thinking about siccing Rex on the two of them. In like 2020 or 2021, so, a good while ago at this point and at a time I'd describe myself as "rusty" I started working on whatever the worst version of a meetcute is (ending in the equation above) lol. If I recall correctly my endgame then was that the three of them would fall into a stable orbit. I think that's kind of silly now. They're not that kind of people.

other scrapped idea, same story: Rex and Taran were meant to get along. That's not happening. It's a lot funnier if Rex and Haven (both deeply, deeply difficult people to get along with who hate accommodating for other people) can find a way to coexist pleasantly but Taran, resident NormalGuy who is extremely accustomed to unpleasant asshole bullshit, genuinely cannot get over Rex's various fuckeries beyond, like, the civility of "I recognize that you are living in my house now because the other person who lives here really likes you, and I don't want to have a screaming match in my own fucking kitchen." I tend to make Rex tolerable to speak to when I write him on his own because it's narratively difficult to use a protagonist who will just spit anything handed to him in someone else's face, but in this particular setup he is actively attempting to get Taran's genuine actual hatred on purpose because he's under the impression that's the goal and he's having fun with it also, so it lets me just make him a huge cunt asshole too which is more fun than having him show any scraps of humanity anyway :D

ok let me come up with something you have actual interest in lol

The Rex & Casey conversation fic I was working on ran into an unrecoverable roadblock (I decided the premise needed work) and has to be restarted in a different place with a slightly different version of Casey (tragic!), so one of the things I had to scrap to keep it rolling is Rex commenting on the color of the sky. It's really sad for me because I always think it's funny when you have a guy In a hell dimension like "damn... this place is weird.... the sky isn't bright red, it's eerie". But I can't justify The Story bringing Rex into The Real World as a Plot Element now that I know more about how it works, so I

......

Aha. Well. Actually. I can't justify Alan using The Story to bring Rex into The Real World, because I know how he works. Might have fixed my opinion on my own premise.

We'll see, I'll sleep on it. It needs to cook longer anyway. I also realized (aw2 spoilers) (for serious) (skip this paragraph now if you havent at least finished the first run of the game) if it happens in The Story In The Real World it's got to be situated between Saga's first time going through the loop with Alan and the Final Draft, but I still haven't found enough time to watch t full playthrough of Final Draft, so I'm sure when I hit Zane's part in there and then endgame I'll know a bit more about the direction I want to take.

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet

Anything like that I have, either it's so busy being a concept I cannot write it yet, or I've started it just to make sure I won't forget it XD so it's hard to come up with. And most of the concepts are less "this is the kind of story I want to write", so much as "this is the kind of effect I want it to have". You know. I want to write something ~mind-bending~ or I want to ~do talking animals but cool~ or whatever.

A lot of words to say I'm drawing a huge blank on this question.

I think - and this is something I keep approaching with different stories but not leaning into, because, frankly, I'm the first line of concept-check for myself, and i get bored - I'd really like to try a story that works as one extended record-scratch. You start at the very end, in a scene that means basically nothing to anyone, and then in the events of reading the entire rest of the story you get more and more context until the very end of the book is the exact same scene as the first part, like, down to the description, and then it just loops infinitely. Something you could read spiral-binding style so it doesn't really have a "start" or an "end", just points between chapters with cardboard so you can close it anywhere, if it's a physical book. you know, some experimental shit.

Unfortunately I find time loops boring as hell to write. This would be ONE loop, so it'd maybe be better, but I'm still kind of burnt on being willing to touch another timeloop from how badly I did not enjoy the one I wrote for an exchange like two full calendar years ago. And also I do have other things to be doing.

That's also not a story! That's a plot structure! I might as well say I want to write The Hero's Journey for all it really tells you 😂 at my heart I'm a parodist, I'm going to need to see someone do it wrong and decide to do a better job than they did to really get a fire lit for an actual narrative here. I do love me some themes of insurmountable stupid bullshit you put yourself into on purpose because you decided you could surmount it and then discovered you couldn't, and some futile attempts at some stupid shit for retroactively-really-dumb reasons that weren't worth it, so it'll have that. as seasoning. because what is a permanent stable timeloop but one person committing suicide over and over? I'm only really able to approach the properly frozen-in-sequence ones as either Hand Of God (boring) or Sunk Cost Fallacy On Steroids (fun! interesting! miserable in a slightly unusual way!) so...

....well, it's going to have to keep simmering, because I like what I've got in the broth, but there's no meat in there yet, only spices. It would make a terrible meal right now. But it answers the question, I think.

[loderlied]

i am so sorry for the amount i am about to send you. general 5, 8, and 9. story specific 1, 5, 10, and 11? you dont have to answer all of them lmao

zeke’s story will never be at full potential without the durge stuff and you didn’t ask for any durge related ones so i will just pretend that he’s still the most specialest bhaalbabe ever just as a companion lol. i’m gonna excuse this self-indulgence by reminding myself that i heard that default durge was supposed to be a companion early in development? anyways.

5. Are there any instances where your Tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player character actions?

surprisingly it would be pretty hard to get rid of him once you invited him to travel along with you. i wrote a little fic about this scenario a while ago and he’s just a massive self-centered dick when you recruit him but he’s also so insanely confused. not even mentioning the memory loss, he’s a sheltered, paranoid, stressed to hell and back guy who’s being exposed to a new environment and he’s clinging to anything that makes his confusion a little easier—zeke doesn’t know a life without being led by someone, so even if he thinks your leadership is lofty he’ll probably stick around for a while at least, even if you don’t exactly want him around, like a cockroach infestation.

8. What do they say when the Player Character asks them to stay in camp?  How about when the Player Character asks them to come adventuring again?

“Pah, y-you think you and your sorry excuse for a brain up there would survive for A SECOND without my expertise? S-Suit yourself. “ *looks away from player pouting*

“Aha, aha, look who’s here again! Knew you’d crawl back to me. Yes, I suppose I could consider coming with you… Just say the words ‘You were right, Zeke.’ and my mastermind is at your side again. He-Hey! Wait! Don’t leave! For fucks sake, I’m right behind you…”

9. Does your Tav have any escalating conflicts with one of the other companions, like Lae’zel and Shadowheart’s knife-fight?

oh god of course. it’s zeke hello. first off we have karlach.

act 1: i think after you’ve traveled with them both for a bit and have beaten the “paladins”/she has revealed her backstory, you get a scene in which you approach zeke like usual but see that his eye is completely blue and bruised, and if you press him he says “that brute devil attacked him for merely trying to have a conversation with her. his fault really, for assuming that she’d be good at anything but mindlessly bashing people’s heads in” (wild statement to make with 6 cha lol) if you then question karlach about it you find out that he was actually incessantly pestering her with questions about her past, completely disregarding her trauma or or discomfort. (this is because his like brain like. tingling? at the gortash mention but he doesn’t know that yet so neither does the player)

act 2/3: so, i haven’t used karlach beyond act 1 yet because i attacked the grove with zeke, so i can’t include anything about her personal quest, but i think they’d sort of. hesitantly grow together over act 2, only for that to get shattered on the big reveal tm at the coronation. there’s so much that can be said about this and i’m already rambling like crazy so i’m gonna summarize: karlach gets super duper fucking pissed, but also is probably smart enough to notice how gortash hurt zeke, not how he hurt her but not any less cruel, when zeke’s mental health starts to deteriorate after reuniting with him. so you can keep them in the party for a while longer together—until zeke straight up tries to murder karlach for being a threat to gortash in a weird panic attack induced mania. he will not have anyone steal his kill. you can either kill him then, let him kill karlach, or knock him out and send him away, but you cannot keep him in your party if you don’t kill karlach.

uugh yikes. shart time!

these bitches are also fighting tm. zeke in the early days essentially sees her as a rubik’s cube to solve, a way to distract himself from his own memory loss by seeking recognition in hers. so while his pestering of her is out of genuine interest, it’s certainly not any less annoying.

zeke also has a complicated relationship with shar. he can get behind the “shadows” aspect, loves those as a stalker, but he has the chronic need to solve mysteries, uncover secrets, know everything, so sharrans are obviously not to keen on him lmao

1. How does your Tav advise the player character when it comes to the Dream Visitor?

zeke is incredibly distrusting of. well. anything really, so he will advise you to be wary, but he is also smart enough to realize that what they’re saying about them being the only reason they’re protected from the absolute is most likely true, so he tells you to keep them around for as long as they’re useful.

5. How do they react to the Player Character taking their first tadpole power?

asks you how it feels to be one step closer to squid town, then dismissively waves his hand and probably makes a comment how it’ll be fine: there’s not much up there to burrow into anyway. if your approval with him is high he’ll still say that line but sound notably different—louder, more venom, stuttering a lot more, trying to overcompensate for his clear worry for you.

10. How do they react if the PC licks the dead spider in the Gauntlet of Shar?

wants a bite! zeke is a full body investigator, meaning that he’s not above licking and sniffing everything that seems even mildly intriguing to him lol

11. What do they say if the PC tries to force them to go up on stage with Dribbles the Clown?

you don’t get approval or disapproval, when you first prompt him to go he remarks something along the lines of “of course you’d pick me! not like the audience would cheer for any of the other losers in our party” but when you actually force him he’s really nervous lol “o-obviously every good comedian re-rehearses their jokes before! wh-what? no i can improvise, it’s just- well- i’d be at an obvious disadvantage…” and so on lmao

[boobiestarplanet]

a few grammar mistakes i see a lot online (especially in fanfic)

disclaimers:

i’m not an expert, so it’s possible some info is wrong

i might oversimplify certain things to get the point across

rules are meant to be broken! whether you follow all of these or not is up to you. i just think it’s important to be aware of certain rules so that when you do break them, it’s deliberate and actually adds something to the writing (i.e. a run-on sentence to convey a character’s chaotic thoughts, etc.)

this is not meant to be a formal guide of any sort. i wrote it off the top of my head and lots of it is written in a silly tone (very silly at times)

okay let's go

tense

to put it simply, tense refers to the time in which your writing takes place: past, present, or future. unless you’re changing tense intentionally for a flashback scene or something, keep it consistent! here’s an example of a paragraph with inconsistent tense:

Character A sighs. “Are you serious?” they asked. “There’s no way someone would just forget what tense they’re writing in.” They shake their head disapprovingly and continued their rant. “Besides, that barely counts as a grammar issue!” Character A yells.

see how the verbs don’t match? the green words are written in the present tense, and the red ones are written in the past tense. you can choose whatever tense fits your story best, but keep it consistent! i’ll go with present. here’s the fixed version:

Character A sighs. ���Are you serious?” they ask. “There’s no way someone would just forget what tense they’re writing in.” They shake their head disapprovingly and continue their rant. “Besides, that barely counts as a grammar issue!” Character A yells.

comma splices

to know what a comma splice is, you need to know the difference between independent and dependent clauses. the terms are pretty self-explanatory: an independent clause can stand on its own as a full sentence, while a dependent clause can’t. a comma splice occurs when you link two independent clauses with a comma. here’s an example of a paragraph with several comma splices:

Character B walked in, they sat on the couch next to Character A. They realized that it was really hot in the room, they decided to open a window. They assumed their friend hadn’t even noticed the heat, Character A was always like that.

oh boy! three comma splices! how can we fix this? i’m glad you asked! there are three ways to fix a comma splice:

split it into two separate sentences

add a coordinating conjunction (don’t worry if you don’t know what this is, we’ll get into it in a second. (oh, huh? was that a comma splice right there? yep! a great example of how these rules don’t have to be followed in casual writing!))

replace the comma with a semicolon

okay. i think it’s time for a quick mini-lesson.

conjunctions

you might know them from the schoolhouse rock song, but what the heck actually is a conjunction? simple! it’s a word that joins clauses. coordinating conjunctions join two independent clauses, so those are the focus here. there are seven coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. okay! back to the main lesson!

comma splices, cont.

let’s fix that example paragraph using the methods listed.

Character B walked in. They sat on the couch next to Character A. They realized that it was really hot in the room, so they decided to open a window. They assumed their friend hadn’t even noticed the heat; Character A was always like that.

aha! now you know why they were color-coded! i bet you were wondering, weren’t you? well now you know!

possessive adjectives and contractions

a possessive adjective is an adjective that denotes possession (duh) and a contraction is when you combine two words with an apostrophe to shorten it. sounds simple enough, right? well what if i told you there’s a good chance you don’t know the difference as well as you thought?

your vs. you’re

let’s start with the one people always talk about: your and you’re. your is a second person possessive pronoun, while you’re is a contraction of the words you and are. here are both of them used correctly in a sentence:

You look like you’re really enjoying your meal!

notice how the sentence would still be correct if i replaced you’re with you are? an easy way to remember the difference is that with the contraction, the apostrophe replaces the missing letter(s).

their vs. they’re

we’re excluding the third triplet, there. sorry there. there, there. anyway, it’s the same as the last one. their is possessive, and they’re is a contraction of they and are. here’s them in a sentence:

Their artwork looks really great; it’s clear they’re a skilled artist.

callback time! notice how i avoided a comma splice by using a semicolon instead of a comma? of course you noticed. you’re so smart. i’m so proud of you. i love you. anyway! you can tell my example sentence is correct because i can replace they’re with they are and it would still make sense, but i couldn’t do the same for their.

whose vs who’s

this one might be tricky, but just apply the same logic as before! remember that the apostrophe connects the words in a conjunction. therefore whose is possessive and who’s is a contraction of who and is. example sentence time:

I don’t know whose textbook that is, but it must be someone who’s really smart.

you get the pattern: i could replace who’s with who is and it would still make sense. okay, are you ready for the next one? the final boss? let’s go. its vs it’s.

its vs it’s

twenty minutes ago, this one might have left you scratching your head, but now you have the tools to conquer it! i bet you can tell which is which! remember the apostrophe! drumroll, please… that’s right! its is possessive, and it’s is a contraction of it and is. coming up with these example sentences is harder than it looks, you might need to give me a second… okay, i think i’ve got it. huh? what’s that? you noticed a comma splice? good for you! you’re improving so fast! now, are you ready for the example sentence? here goes:

It’s hard to think of example sentences; its difficulty can’t be understated.

i know, i know. that one was kind of pathetic. i even had to pull out the old semicolon again. whatever, can you at least appreciate the effort? thanks. remember the apostrophe thing. i’ll see you in the next section.

punctuating dialogue split between two paragraphs

what? that’s such a specific title. okay, uh… fuck it, let’s start with an example this time. this one will have a mistake and you have to catch it. i’m bringing back characters a and b. i kind of miss them.

“Character B! It’s so nice to see you again!” Character A exclaimed. They leaned back in their chair and crossed their legs casually. “Hey, did I ever tell you about how I met Character C?” Character B gasped. “No! I’ve been wondering for a while; do tell!” “Okay, okay,” Character A giggled. “So, I was chatting with my friend, Character D—you know Character D, right?” Character B nodded. “Right, so I was chatting with Character D, and they were like, ‘I have this friend I think you’d like,’ and I was like, ‘Really? Who?’ and they were like ‘I should totally set you two up on a blind date,’ and I was, like, freaking out. Obviously I said yes.” “So then Character C and I met up at this coffee shop, and we just immediately hit it off! I’d never clicked with someone so perfectly before. It was amazing.”

whoa! new characters jumpscare! anyway, did you catch the mistake? did i throw you off with the dialogue within character a’s story? the issue was actually at the end of paragraph three! since the speaker is the same in both paragraphs, those quotation marks at the end are actually unnecessary! it makes it confusing and hard to tell who’s talking. here’s the correct version:

“Character B! It’s so nice to see you again!” Character A exclaimed. They leaned back in their chair and crossed their legs casually. “Hey, did I ever tell you about how I met Character C?” Character B gasped. “No! I’ve been wondering for a while; do tell!” “Okay, okay,” Character A giggled. “So, I was chatting with my friend, Character D—you know Character D, right?” Character B nodded. “Right, so I was chatting with Character D, and they were like, ‘I have this friend I think you’d like,’ and I was like, ‘Really? Who?’ and they were like ‘I should totally set you two up on a blind date,’ and I was, like, freaking out. Obviously I said yes. “So then Character C and I met up at this coffee shop, and we just immediately hit it off! I’d never clicked with someone so perfectly before. It was amazing.”

note how i kept the quotation marks at the beginning of the following paragraph. it might look weird, but i promise it’s correct! you know, this section reminds me of an even simpler mistake i could talk about. are you ready for the next section?

please for the love of god make a new paragraph when the speaker changes

a very professional title, i know. but it gets the point across! please for the love of god make a new paragraph when the speaker changes. i’m begging you. here’s an example of what not to do:

“Hey, is that Character D?” Character A asked. “Woah, I think it is! Hi, Character D! It’s been a while!” Character C said. “Hi! It’s good to see you—” “Wait. Sorry to interrupt, Character D, but do you notice something?” Character B said. “It’s like…” Character A widens their eyes and speaks. “It’s like all this dialogue is in one paragraph…”

that was physically painful to write. do you notice how hard it is to keep track of the speaker? even i don’t know who was speaking half the time, and i wrote it! i guess i have to fix it now. damn. here goes, i guess:

“Hey, is that Character D?” Character A asked. “Woah, I think it is! Hi, Character D! It’s been a while!” Character C said. “Hi! It’s good to see you—” “Wait. Sorry to interrupt, Character D, but do you notice something?” Character B said. “It’s like…” Character A widens their eyes and speaks. “It’s like all this dialogue is in one paragraph…”

there! now you can easily tell who’s speaking. it might look like a lot of paragraphs, but i promise it’s better than the alternative.

hyphens and em dashes

sorry if there are any en dash fans out there but i don’t really care enough to mention them. sorry. anyway! what the heck is a hyphen and what the heck is an em dash? they’re these: - and —. a hyphen is used in phrases like vise-versa, hand-me-down, and trick-or-treating. an em dash is entirely different. it can be used to emphasize a nonrestrictive clause (you don’t really need to know what that means; it’s easier to show with examples than explanations) or to indicate an interruption or change in sentence structure. if that doesn’t make sense, that’s okay. here are some examples:

This sentence uses— Huh? Sorry. I got distracted. This sentence uses em dashes—those long, horizontal lines—to emphasize a phrase. It draws more attention to what’s inside the dashes than, say, parentheses—though parentheses are also a lovely form of punctuation.

can you tell i love em dashes? i love em dashes. i think i have the energy for one more section. oh wait oh fuck this one is a doozy—

gender

wait. huh. why would i write about that. rewrite that title.

grammatical gender

ohhh okay. this one i get. so! we don’t really have grammatical gender in english, so— wait. that could be more clear. rewrite that title.

grammatical gender of loanwords

okay! much better! couldn’t you have just said that the first time? geez. anyway, let’s use words from french as an example. why? parce que je peux le faire. tais-toi. if i want to talk about someone’s husband-to-be, i’d use the word fiancé. however, if i want to talk about someone’s bride-to-be, i’d use the feminine word fiancée. if i want to talk about a man with light hair, i’d use the word blond. however, if i want to talk about a woman with light hair, i’d use the feminine word blonde. if the gender is unknown or nonbinary, people tend to default to the masculine form, but it depends on the person. compared to the other things mentioned here, this one isn’t really that important, and you can totally ignore it if you want. if i make another post like this, i might end that one with a contentious point too, just for fun. i’d like to probably talk about split infinitives ;)

[drafty-castle]

I’ve taken up knitting and crocheting and sewing and spinning (wool, not bike) to try to cut down on my phone addiction. My hands need something to do or else I start skin picking and reaching for the phone. By brain needs something to occupy it, so I put on a podcast or audiobook (not the tv, because I need to be able to watch my hands currently), which I figure is similar enough to the stories told around the bonfire/hearth back in the day to count as historically adequate.

Am I good at any of these hobbies? Not really. Not yet. I’m still new and - at least for knitting - have mostly been using the same skein of yarn to make as long as scarf as possible before screwing up and taking it apart and starting over. I’m mostly just practicing the hand motions over and over (and over and over) to set the muscle memory. The one thing I’ve sewn so far I ended up having to completely take apart multiple times as I sewed in arms inside out or gussets upside down.

But that’s not the point. Repetition, practice, is what makes someone good at something and I’ll eventually get there. But the reason this works for me where other “distraction” techniques have not is that I can see a daily skill increase and/or my time spent ends with a tangible object created by my own hand. Something I can touch and see and point to and go “Aha! I made that!”

And the nice thing about fiber crafts is it can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be. Starting off, you don’t need more than the basics - a sewing needle, thread, and cloth for sewing; a pair of knitting needles and yarn for knitting; a crochet hook and yarn for crocheting; a drop spindle and wool for spinning (you can actually make one out of a #2 pencil, a rubber band, and an old CD). None of this is expensive to start off with. Most can be found at a thrift/second hand store - though probably not the drop spindle.

I’ve literally practiced knitting with a pair of chopsticks and some parachord because that’s what I had on hand while sitting in my car outside the ER. I sat in the viewing room at the funeral home after my mom died hemming the skirt I planned to wear at the funeral the next day just so I had something to do with my hands and focus on that wasn’t my phone, a little bag of notions at my feet. I used a pre-cut square of quilting cotton to make a heating bag full of rice for my migraines.

My point is, if you’re taking baby steps on breaking up with your phone, starting a new walking habit may be too much and not provide anything tangible to show for it. If you’re completely burnt out and doom scrolling is your response to the stresses of the world, fober crafts might be a better coping mechanism. With practice it relies on mostly muscle memory, you don’t have to be up on your feet after a full days work, and you can feel the pride of achievement when creating something with your own hands - something missing in much of our society.

Other options if you do want to move about: gardening, walking, adopting a stretch of your neighborhood and picking up trash/litter, cooking, singing, bird watching.

I wish it was easier to talk about mobile phone addiction without sounding like a boomer

[whitewarrior02]

White's After-Gaming Archive - Entry #1: I Don't Know What I'm Doing

To be fair, who does?

Greetings, my name is White and, as the entry title implies, this was a spur of the moment decision to record some of my thoughts after one of my numerous gaming sessions. I'll try not to make them boring.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Currently Playing: Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Palworld

So first I should premise this with: I am sick, and whatever I am sick with has been kicking my butt something fierce. As such, most of what I've been doing has just been some busywork in most games. Dailies and the like. HOWEVER, I do have some thoughts of substance.

Genshin-wise, I am doing some clownshoes nonsense that is neither efficient nor practical, but it is something I am doing nonetheless. See, I only started playing in May of last year. [God, I have to start referring to 2024 as last year, ugh.] As such, I am behind on. Many A Thing. One of which is character story quests. So, in my catching up I noticed that completing one stage of the quest grants full Daily Commission progress. "Aha!" I thought to myself. "Surely, then, if I just slowly chip away at character stories I can avoid having to do the busywork dailies!" But honestly, it would probably just be faster to just. Do the dailies.

Ah well.

Four remain anywho; Chiori [ugh], Arlecchino, Sigewinne and Emilie. I'm... not in a rush to start Chiori's, she rubs me the wrong way.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apart from that, Zenless! The cooler younger sibling of the Gensh. Dailies here are quick, though there's arguably more to focus on than Genshin. My current struggle is the ffffffffffffffffffFRIGGIN' DISKS THAT WON'T DROP. [Though I suspect this is a common occurrence in Hoyo games]

Lemme explain. See, much like Genshin you need to do combat challenges to get items to boost a character's stats and make them viable at a high level. In Genshin it's artifacts, in Zenless it's Drive Disks. ISSUE: each challenge has two sets that can drop and the drops are randomized for each completion. I recently got Miyabi, great character, currently underpowered, need Woodpecker Electro disks [Critical Hit Rate]. Woodpecker Electro also drops with... I think it was Soul Rock? Either way, Defense based disk set, useless to me since I have One [1] Defense character and wow I just noticed the brackets in Tumblr's text editor are misaligned that makes me mad.

Look at this crap.

Anyways, I have gotten a total of 6 Woodpeckers over the course of 4 days. Challenge completion grants you 6 drops per run. Everything else is Soul Rock and I'm gonna bite the deployment board at Scott Outpost in half.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lastly, Palworld- y'know this has honestly just kind of become a weekly report instead of like, a one session afterthought. I'll try and be brief.

Uuuuhhh, yeah, Palworld. Base #1 is doing good, pretty much self-autonomous now. Made sure to put everyone on low-work mode so they aren't stressed out and overworked. Base #2 reeeally needs some Pals at it but I haven't even finished creating the new main building yet. It looks cool though! Gonna build my way into the sky and get ...smited? Smotten? Hold on what's the past tense of smite.

...that... I mean it's Merriam-Webster but that still sounds wrong. Smited it is. You can't stop me Merriam and/or Webster. Anyways I'm gonna get Kadingr'd like I'm Finé at the end of Symphogear. The wild pals around Base #2 seem to want it bad enough, it could happen.

Aaaaand that's 'bout it. Entry #1 complete. Sorry for rambling, but I warned you it'd be my thoughts. This train of thought is specialized on off-roading and by anything it WILL go off-roading whenever available. You can't stop it. We go at full-speed BABEYYYYY

Still don't know what I'm doing, White

[tobiasdrake]

We have our missions. Let's make the most of it.

And by that I mean Story Time.

Garl will persuade Malkomud to help us. Zale will bottle Zephyr. Serai will rematch the Hydralion, but this time it's personal. And I get to singlehandedly slay the terrifying lava monster that the council's so afraid of. We're good to--

Wait, what about Resh'an?

Technically, you're not. Attacking Strife was the only part that Fleshy knew about and retaliated for, but you aren't technically allowed to even be here at all. We've been full-scale cheating since the moment you opened the door for us.

That's not a complaint. I'm down for more cheating. I love cheating when the recipient is an asshole. Just saying.

Oh, that is super-cheating. There's putting a hand on the scale, and then there's throwing out the scale and leaving a sticky note that reads "Measures fine to me" in its place.

Starting with Team Zale. I am not here, but I'm with them in spirit. We've seen this type of crystal structure in the Moorlands before but never quite figured out how to crack it. Looks like Zale's going to have to solve that problem, because that's clearly Zephyr right there.

Unfortunately for everyone who is not my team (scientifically proven to be the best team), they're going to have to deal with the Garl problem we had back on Wraith Island. I took Yoyo's Eye with me, so I get to see HP totals and weak points, but y'all just have to deal.

Flying through jetstreams looks extremely fun and I'm jealous. However, we have more important business to attend to because it's Story Time by proxy.

Those are the guys who came up with the elemental ritual that Garl's now cooking up. They've been mentioned a couple times now; The Sleeper's fable lamented their absence for this exact reason, and Yoyo's got one of her prophecy books about them.

So the Ovates created the golems. But the golems know Resh'an as their master. Is he an Ovate? Did he create the Ovates and was involved enough in their society that their workings know and revere him? There's a piece of my understanding still missing here.

The early days of travel golems must have been wild. How many lives do you think were sacrificed on the altar of slight miscalculations or errors in the trajectory alignment?

Oh, Khukharr is uniquely self-aware. That's good to know. Probably because his task isn't just about playing catch with people's lives. He also has to hold up an island for some reason.

What would happen if was submerged in the floodwaters? It has that barrier.... Would the barrier have kept the water out, allowing the Acolytes to use the place for cultivating Strife but leaving us no avenue to interrupt them?

Or would it have flooded completely, destroying Clockwork Castle and everyone inside of it, and forcing the Acolytes to choose a different location for Strife's cultivation? One where we would not have access to Cael's Eclipse Cannon, and thus would be slaughtered by Strife immediately?

Aha, and that's where Resh'an comes in.

"It needs to be sentient but I can't figure out how to make that happen. I guess someone will solve it eventually. Next project: Colossal sky people who have to somehow navigate an itty-bitty living space. It will be hilarious."

A task they now perform. Implication that the Council is lateral to TIA/Fleshy and all the Solstice stuff. Eclipse magic is super strong for reasons nobody quite knows yet but that TIA eagerly capitalizes on. TIA and Fleshy are multiversal immortals waging conflict across the myriad realities TIA broke up. And the Council are supreme terrestrial authorities. None of these are beholden to any of the others; They simply are.

Still need answers on what the flood's about. It's been mentioned repeatedly but. Like. Why was there a flood? What happened to cause the sea level to rise, and why could it not be avoided or prevented by any means despite extensive future sight?

I imagine every timeline probably has something to that effect.

That closes out the question of how the Ovates and TIA relate to each other. They don't; TIA just happens to have Khukharr's allegiance because he took the project on as a contract assignment.

Though the fact that they were carrying out visions from a dream feels eerily similar to how Mooncradle was constructed, so I don't think it was by coincidence that the Great Eagle just happened to come by and finish Khukharr for them.

Okay but from a historical perspective, I think we can safely assume that it did.

I mean. Khukharr's been dead for 150 years but he's still standing, is the point. His corpse is still supporting Mesa Island long after his passing. So I think we can call that a resounding success. 12/10 Vastly Exceeds Expectations.

Given how hard it was to persuade him to let us onto Mesa Island, we can also conclude that his stubbornness warrants the title as well.

This fable is about Khukharr but, really, it's about the Ovate statues as a whole. A nice lump summary of the throwers, Khkuharr, and the Cloud Giants.

Though it leaves me wondering if the Cloud Giants are AI. The myth said they had trouble creating sentience but also that they made the Cloud Giants, who seem to be sentient. Unless they aren't sentient....

Fuck, are we doing all this to earn the approval of ChatGPT?

[jupiter-esque]

Hiii can i request "kind of kisses howl gives"? I think it would be so cute 😖😖

Notes: Omg yes this is sooo cute ♡(ӦｖӦ｡)

Also so sorry this took so long I've been s bit burned out but I'm back now and hopefully I'll be posting tmrw (╥﹏╥)

Well, it all depends on the situation and placement really.

(ㆁωㆁ)

Howl is definitely an affectionate partner and he won't shy away from kissing you.

(｡･ω･｡)

Obviously he'll keep it to a modest level when in public, a press to the side of your head or cheek.

But he'll usually prefer to just keep an arm around you instead.

Any initiated touch is enough for him when your out.

He'll even gravitate a bit towards you just to make sure you're physically next to him.

It's reassuring.

/ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\

But when your in the comfort of your home it's a whole other story.

This man loves to kiss you.

As he should.

(⌐■-■)

And you'll just be standing there after every kiss like :-O

'aha you kissed me' :D

Doesn't matter where or how he'll kiss you, he'll still make it special in some way.

( ╹▽╹ )

He'll wake you up in the morning with a kiss to your head and a whisper.

By then your too drowsy to even process the affection and he finds that so adorable, your hair mussed and eyes bleary.

( ꈍᴗ��)

He can't help but press another short but deep kiss to your warm puffed up lips.

That's if you don't manage to escape him with an excuse for bad morning breath

Although sometimes your not so quick and you'll get caught with his arms wrapping around your waist to pull your back to his chest.

"Where are you going." (-_-)

"um.." (• ▽ •;)

He'll find any excuse to kiss you.

And most of the time his goal is to leave you a bit dazed and a bit breathless.

Smooth Howl. Smooth.

(~￣³￣)~

He likes to lightly smooth over your hair or neck when he kisses you.

Pressing his lips to your head or shoulders is a common occurrence.

It's kind of a habit now really. He does it unconsciously if your around.

He's passing by you in the kitchen space? You'll feel light momentary pressure on your shoulder.

You're about to settle to sleep? He'll quickly kiss the corner of your lip.

You're sitting beside him on the worn couch while he looks through a spell book ? He'll grab your hand and kiss the inside of your palm.

Honestly, there's times where he's kissed you just to shut you up.

I'm talking 'grab you by the back of your neck and push you closer to kiss you' kind of shut up

There won't even be an argument and he'll just kiss you like that.

Why?

Because he can.

Also he loves watching u squirm.

Bastard.

ಠωಠ

Howl's kisses range from deep and loving to just simple reassurance.

He kisses with meaning, and he doesn't need to full on 'suck-your-face-off' kind of kiss to express it.

He's a gentleman. There shall be no face sucking. ʕಠ_ಠʔ

But in all seriousness.

It kind of comes to him, like he's able to push feeling into even the shortest and fleeting of kisses.

He's the embodiment of consuming warmth and his kisses will show just that.

But there's just moments where he doesn't mean it.

He truly doesn't.

Moments where you just have to look so happy, so alive.

｡◕‿◕｡

You could be babbling about the most peculiar of your findings yet. But he can't here a single word.

The words are going in one ear and straight out the other.

It doesn't matter that he's not focused, what matters is that You've got this spark in your eyes and your hands are moving animatedly while you rush to speak, words are tumbling and you just seem so happy to talk to him, to share a piece of that little world up in your head with him.

Then 'boop'

You stop talking.

He's pecked you on the nose.

Your eyes go wide and Howl thinks that's just the perfect explanation to why he should kiss you again.

Properly this time.

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

[flaming-thing]

Part one out of how many? They're not even at the tree yet lmao

Yes hello just to clarify, that first line was a joke. I'm not sure how obvious it comes across over text lol

He dosent even have the 'getting chased by a giant leech' either. And how is andromeda still going then? She also got dumped into an icy lake! Do i just put that down to no heavy egg + is an adult + trained assassin?

Callisto and ram: using their full-sized, have-killed-people-before weapons against tiny arachnids for 28 and 20 years, respectively

It was whem ram flattened his ears because of the spiders, I was like 'aHA yes I love it when people give non-humans non-human characteristics'. I love that your doing it, it males the story feel so much more real (well. Not real but you get my meaning)

Ok yes I agree that is very fair. But YOU KNOW WHAT I NEVER EVEN THOUGT OF THE FACT SHE WOULDN'T THINK ANYONE WOULD COME SAVE HER OH MY GODS THIS POOR CHILD SOMEONE HUG HER

The only thing these two have ever agreed upon, in their however many years they've known each other, is that spiders are evil

Honestly at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they admitted to it in front of corvus just because they know that they can easily kill him if need be. But thank you for the comedy callisto, I appreciate it

Rayla is evil lmao. Everyone here is evil. Apart from callum and maybe corvus they've done nothing wrong

Ezran if you weren't a small innocent child, I mightve been inclined to call you a little shit

Rip the mummy 😔 but that's completely fair tho, I mean I was a very odd child and loved that scene for some reason, but I can definitely see how it's unsettling

Callisto: 'holy shit holy shit help there's a spider oh god I'm gonna die'. Callisto 10 minutes later: 'pft haha what a loser me from 10 minutes ago was, can you imagine?'

Especially corvus. I mean, andromedas probably somewhat used to it, because if all the illusions in the moonsshadow forest, so even if she thought they were real she's got some experience with scary monsters. Corvus though? Poor guy got shoved into this woth absolutely no warning. No past experiences. He went in blind and he's doing amazing

Damn raylas turn to be used as a meat shield ig

Rams pretending that he wasn't scared, and everyone goes along with it

'As long as it's safe to do so' ram and callispt would disagree with the 'safe' part there. But yes i agree

They know it. The other elves know it. I'm pretty sure the humans know it. Everyone knows

And i love her for it

Damn that is sad :(

Pft my previous point about them being able to kill corvus stands here as well. But damn poor corvus, being forgotten by everyone

I'm still not sure what that phrase has done. It's changed something but I'm not sure what. Or if that's a good or bad change

Ellis has enough energy for the entire planet and then some

Who's gonna be having an external crisis? Very curious

I cannot for the life of me remember what it's from, but I'm pretry sure there's a scene from a show where someone is talking about their position and they keep understating it, and there's another guy sat right behind them saying 'expert' everytime they said they were only average at something? Andromeda is that other guy here

It's that one thing with 'why does so and so call you baby girl' 'how about we stop talking now'

If you hadn't put 'they'd make the peak by dawn' as literally the last line I would belive you. But it's the fact it's the last line. And the stuff before. It makes me skeptical

Different Path Taken Ch21 P1 Wonderstorm

I was real tired for a few days and couldn't finish it but here's part 1 of the next chapter. This chapter should finish out the events of Season 1 of the show, once I'm done with it.

“There it is!” Ellis said brightly, pointing up at a twisted tree silhouetted in moonlight on the horizon, far up the slope. “That’s the tree I hid in with my Ava, where the miracle healer found us!  Well, the Guardian.”

“We should be able to make that within the hour.” Runaan estimated.

Privately, Callisto suspected he was overestimating the children’s capabilities.  It hadn’t escaped their notice how heavy little Ezran’s steps were and how the boy’s head hung down as they walked once they had caught up with the scouts.  Besides, they had other obstacles to deal with.

“Spiders.” They muttered like a swear as they used their glaive to cut away some webbing from the path ahead, keeping it at arm’s length.  Should they be using their full length glaive with one hand like this?  No.  Were they doing it anyway to stay away from the damned spiders?  Yes. “Why did it have t’be f- spiders that survived over here?”

Ezran tilted his head at them. “Are you afraid of spiders, Callisto?” He asked curiously. “They’re not so bad.”

“I maintain that anyone with an ounce of sense is at least a little afraid of spiders,” Ram insisted from ahead of them, also scowling at the webs with his ears laid back, and waiting while Rayla rolled her eyes and cut a path for him with her longer swords. 

“Anyone?” Runaan prompted with an amused sort of tone. 

“Yes,” Ram said haughtily. 

“I’m not afraid of spiders, I’m just reasonably cautious of things that can kill me,” Rayla retorted. “Which is what you should be.” She pointed at him with her sword and an unimpressed expression.

Callisto growled with their own ears lying flat. “I actually almost agree with him.  Spiders are a blight upon existence and I for one am terrified.” They cast a halfhearted glare at Skor, who was closest to them, and found him just smiling fondly at them.  Their cheeks heated up under the soft look and they quickly turned back to the path and yelped as they almost ran into a thread, ducking quickly around it instead. 

Corvus was staring at them in confusion. “What kind of spider could make a web this big?” He asked suspiciously, examining some of the webs closely. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Magical spiders,” Runaan replied with no small amount of amusement.

He was taking far too much pleasure in all of their distress, in Callisto’s humble opinion. 

“Did you hear that?” Ram yelped. 

“No, everyone’s too busy talkin’.” Rayla replied spitefully.

“Hush!” Callum shushed her, looking around suspiciously.  Ellis and Ava were even quiet, with the wolf’s ears laid back.  Callisto cursed in their own mind as they pricked their ears up to listen, grip tight on their glaive. 

The rustling of the webs sent a chill up their spine.  It was the spiders.  They knew it was the spiders.  How many were there, to have built a nesting colony this size?

In the distance there was a voice.  Someone moaned as if in pain and Callisto swore under their breath out loud. 

“Did you hear-?” Callum asked, worriedly.

“Yep.  Ignorin’ it.  Keep walkin’.” Rayla ordered, finally sounding a bit tense herself, and marched ahead.  Smart kid.  Those voices weren’t real.  They were never real.  There was no reason for anyone else to be up here.

“But what if someone really needs help?” Ezran protested, tugging at her arm. 

Runaan put a hand over his mouth briefly, his eyes sparkling entirely too much, and Callisto frowned at him.  That was out of character.  In what world was it funny for a small child to be concerned about someone’s life?  Someone needed to explain to Ezran that these voices weren’t . . .

“Ezran, ye have a good heart.” Rayla was telling the boy sincerely, and then her expression and ears both went flat as she added, “It’s super annoyin’.  I guess maybe a couple of us can go check.”

“No.” Callisto snapped. “No one’s leaving the group.  There’s no reason for anyone else t’be up here.  It wasn’t real.  Whatever we heard, it’s not real.  You know that, Rayla - this is a place of power just as much as Moonshadow Forest, we don’t follow the voices.”

Her eyes widened at the reminder and she winced. “Right.  Yeah.”

“There’s always voices in the Forest and few of them are real,” Ram explained for the human children’s benefit, though he had both his daggers in hands and he only spared them a glance while searching the webs for the things they could hear shuffling around them. “If you follow them, they pull you into the darkness, into the wild, and then - well.  Most don’t come back.”

“That’s enough of those stories,” Runaan admonished. “We keep moving.  Do not split up.  If you hear something, check with the rest of us.  If no one else heard it, neither did you.”

They kept walking.  Callisto hugged close to Skor’s path, letting him cover their wounded side.  He did so without complaint, even conceding to pulling out his sword for their comfort though his eyes crinkled with amusement when he did so.  The human children were sticking quite close to Runaan now.  Ram and Rayla were scouting ahead, attached at the hip, and Andromeda and Corvus walked together as well, both seeming hardly bothered by the spiders.  The human looked a bit unsettled by the sheer scale of the webbing, but Andromeda was just wary.

Thus it was that Rayla and Ram were the first to actually confront the spider.  Ram shrieked while Callisto’s eyes were on the children and they flinched, brandishing their glaive up only to see him hiding behind Rayla.  The girl was facing off against one of the largest spiders they’d ever seen and it took every ounce of discipline in their body not to recoil from it as well.  How could something that size have survived in Katolis of all places?  Most every magical creature in Katolis was stunted and small compared to their Xadian counterparts, without-

Wait.  The spider chittered and postured but it wasn’t outright attacking even as they all scattered for cover.  Callisto wasn’t immune to the panic, darting behind some rocks with Skor as soon as the others moved, their heart pounding in their chest as their nerves warred between not wanting to take their eyes off it and wanting to get away. 

How could something that large have survived here?

A brief glance around revealed nothing but desolation under the webbing.  There was nothing for it to feed on but the magic of the Nexus, and while that was necessary, it wouldn’t be enough to support a physical creature.  Spiders still needed to eat.  One this size would have a corresponding appetite, too, it would be willing to feed on things as large as drakes in Xadia.  What even lived on this side of the breach that was big enough for them?

Unless - 

Runaan had been amused.

He’d mentioned a training exercise.

Callisto glanced at Skor suspiciously.  He raised his brows at their expression at first, and then a slow smile spread across his mouth as he nodded slightly. 

They peeked around the rock at the spider, which hadn’t moved, and was still blocking their direct path up the slope, chittering aggressively. 

A glance over at the rock behind which Runaan was hiding, nearly standing straight behind the stone in order to give the gaggle of children around him room to cower, revealed that Ezran didn’t look afraid either.  Neither did Callum or Ellis.  If anything, Ezran looked a bit delighted, and was giggling about something.

The Guardian of the Nexus used illusions to keep humans afraid of the slopes.  This creature wasn’t behaving like a normal spider.  There was nothing around that it could eat. 

“It’s not fucking real, is it?” They hissed to Skor.

His smile broke into a fond grin and he shook his head.

“What are we going to do?” Ram’s voice had gone up several octaves and when they managed to find him, he was cowering behind a tree and Rayla this time, wide-eyed and nearly panicking. 

Runaan at least had the decency to look a bit concerned at that, but Callisto didn’t want to gamble on his mercy when he’d apparently decided they all needed a lesson in being observant and aware of their surroundings.  They all should have realized that a place like the Moon Nexus would be rife with illusions just like their forest was, especially with the Guardian shaping those illusions into reasons to keep the humans away. 

“It’s not real.” They called irritably. “It’s an illusion.  The Guardian’s using it to scare the humans back down the mountain.  Why else would a creature this big be wandering around here where there’s nothing to eat?”

Andromeda groaned deep in her chest and audibly facepalmed. “Oh, we should have realized.”

“What about the creature down the -” Ram broke off and growled, glowering at Runaan. “That other creature that we passed before, that was dead - that wasn’t real either, was it?”

“No,” Runaan admitted, smiling gently at them. “It wasn’t.  I was a bit disappointed you all didn’t realize that.  There isn’t enough food around for a creature that size, either.”

There really wasn’t enough food around for anything to be confined to the mountain, except perhaps some birds.  Callisto groaned and rubbed their own face. “You’re a cruel, cruel teacher sometimes, Runaan.”

“You did figure it out eventually,” Runaan replied placidly. “And no one was going to get hurt.  My apologies to you both, though, I didn’t realize the next creature we would encounter would be a spider, or I might have had second thoughts.  I know the two of you are -” there was that damned smile again - “uncomfortable with the creatures.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ram gingerly lowered himself from the tree with a distrustful glower at the illusion spider, which appeared to be stuck in their path, making the same few chitters on repeat. 

Callisto scowled at Runaan too. “Absolutely bloody terrified,” They corrected, and flinched momentarily when they felt something on their shoulder before realizing it was Skor’s hand.  Before he could remove it they tucked their glaive into the crook of their arm and grasped his hand to hold it there, looking over at him gratefully.  While he’d clearly known as well, he had at least been there to comfort them through their fear. “Thank you.” They murmured softly to him.

Skor smiled much more softly than Runaan, and nodded, giving their shoulder a squeeze.  He brushed his hand down their arm.  It wasn’t quite a proper scent mark but it was as close as they generally got these days, and they took comfort in his assurance.

“Don’t worry, Ram,” Rayla was teasing him, smirking broadly. “I’ll still protect ye from the big scary illusion spider.”

Ram wrinkled his nose at her but he did, in fact, keep her and Callum between himself and the spider as they moved past it.  Callisto couldn’t help the way their heart beat faster and the terrified quiver in their ears as they had to walk towards the creature, and then walk away with their back to it while it kept making those noises.  It helped that Skor walked right at their heel and kept his hand on their shoulder or arm, something to remind them he was there to help.

“There should be nothing on these slopes worth fearing, anymore,” Runaan said with a note of regret as they left the spider behind. “The only thing we left worth protecting was the Nexus, and the Guardian’s illusions have been all that’s necessary to protect it for centuries now.”

“Centuries?” Corvus asked, frowning curiously.

“Magic is a muscle or a skill like any other, for an elf,” Runaan said, with a bit more chill in his words than when he spoke to Callum about the topic. “Those who exercise it more gain a greater well of it within themselves.  Over time, a creature of magic may become more magic than flesh - and the flesh ceases to age.  The Guardian of the Nexus has held her post for over three centuries.”

“So . . . how old are you?” Ellis asked. “You can do magic too!  We saw you!  When your hand glowed around that other thing, it did it did!”

He had fucking known all the way back there, the bastard.  Callisto huffed, but tilted their head, curious how he would respond with all the humans present.  It really wouldn’t tell them much, they supposed, so there was no real reason to keep it a secret, but it also was the sort of personal information that assassins usually wouldn’t speak about outside of the forest.  

Runaan seemed to be having a similar internal debate before just sighing. “I’m thirty-five.  I don’t have nearly the magical stores that an Archmage like the Guardian has - I just know a thing or two about illusions.”

“A thing or two,” Andromeda echoed almost mockingly. “Not as though you’re the best in the Assassins’ Guild with illusions or anything.”

Rayla scoffed. “It’s true though, he’s pretty weak as a mage compared to - uh.  Compared to his husband.”

Callisto barked a laugh at her casual roast of her guardian, as Runaan scoffed in disbelief. “That’s enough of that,” Runaan said loftily. “We’re starting to get into the sort of information we don’t share outside the Forest.”

“Sure,” Rayla teased. “That’s why ye want me t’ stop.”

Callisto chuckled and focused on the path ahead, once more secure in the knowledge that the creatures they were hearing were nothing more than illusion.  Perhaps Runaan was right, in that case.  His estimation of how long it would take them to reach the rim made a lot more sense now.  They’d make the peak before dawn. 

[scramblecat]

okay scramble’s gonna get a lil unhinged with this one. But I already wrote it out for a server and all I gotta do is copy and paste SO:

About the Narrator and his Fears

[Putting it under a cut because it is. REALLY long as in like 700+ words long]

The Narrator is usually really good at keeping his composure when it comes to negative emotions, I feel like. He expresses happiness and excitement often enough, but the only times he cries (as in, voice audibly breaking) are the Zending and the Real Person ending.

So he’s shown to be distraught before. But panic? Full-on panic? There’s also only two instances where this happens, and that’s in the Skip Button Ending, and interestingly, the second time you go to the expo.

Now, the skip button ending is completely understandable. He’s being faced with the idea of being completely and utterly isolated for the foreseeable future, over and over and over again, getting longer and longer each time. Anyone would be afraid if they were in that position. At its surface, it’s a completely rational fear from the get-go.

But the expo? It’s… odd. He goes into the achievement room prepared to pop off with his whole ‘it doesn’t work YET’ thing, and then it does.

In the expo, it’s different. It’s not a high stakes situation, not by any means. But when the achievement machine works against all of the Narrator’s expectations, he panics. But not just in like an ‘ah uhm this is definitely what I meant to happen aha!’ way.

It takes him a moment to realize, but he verbalizes his train of thought, so we know exactly when he does.

The machine didn’t work before —> the Narrator didn’t do anything to it to fix it (implying that he didn’t have any sort of solution for it yet) —> it’s fixed anyways and he doesn’t know how —> someone else might have that knowledge —> there’s someone else here.

And that is the moment where he starts to panic. He sounds almost faint when he talks next, and he has to verbally tell himself to keep his composure— something we’ve never, ever heard him do before.

His breathing gets audibly strangled as he tries to finish his whole pitch, telling Stanley that everything is working as intended to cover up the anxiety he’s feeling. But he stumbles through it, and he finishes it with telling himself to breathe, to regulate the panic.

He straight up has like. A whole anxiety attack in front of us. It’s so UNLIKE him to be that afraid, and that REALLY makes it a moment that stands out.

There IS something that links the Skip Button and the Achievement Machine together— and that is CONTROL. Or, rather, lack thereof.

In the Skip Button Ending, yes, he’s scared of being alone. He makes many discoveries about his thought processes and how he works in that solitude, and realizes that talking isn’t his main purpose— it’s telling a story. Telling a story TO someone. He doesn’t feel like he has a purpose otherwise. And that’s the big root of the isolation part.

But otherwise? He spends the first few skips desperately looking for a way out. He panics when he can’t touch the room around him, when he realizes he’s trapped, and that he can’t do anything about it. He’s lost his control.

And it’s the same thing with the achievement machine. He THINKS he has complete control over the Parable and its contents. He really does. And then, something— or someone— fixes the machine for him. And all at once, his perception of what he can control comes absolutely crashing down on him. In that moment, he’s having a LOT of huge realizations:

He doesn’t have the control he thinks he does

He doesn’t know how much control he actually HAS, and it could be NONE

He and Stanley are not alone in the Parable, and are being watched

Whatever being is watching them has more power than he does, and could very well strip all of his control away from him

These realizations— that last one especially— are fucking terrifying to him!

The Narrator is obsessive about maintaining control over the events that transpire in HIS PARABLE, and the only times he shows negative emotions are when he cannot control a situation. It most often presents itself in annoyance at the very least, or a complete breakdown at its worst. And it’s all because he needs that control. He’s fearful of the idea that he can’t control a situation, because it makes him feel helpless and weak. He’s USED to having control, and when it’s taken away from him, he has no idea what to do.

He’s desperately trying to keep up this facade of ‘this is all fine and working as intended’ in front of Stanley after Stanley gets the achievement, even though it’s clear that he’s barely holding it together. His entire perception of his own control has collapsed in on itself, and has given in to one of his worst fears. And he’s really, really shaken up by it.

The Narrator’s greatest fear has been shown to be a lack of control. It’s quickly followed by the fear of isolation, obviously, but the fear of helplessness/weakness is present all through the games.

And THAT, folks, is why the Narrator freaks out in one (1) ending that nobody ever talks about!