#kinda just combined 3 suggestions into 1 ^^''

[ammi-delta-document]

Okay but what if:

Gerson probably likely won't come back

But a dual Buster like Attack will

Because Ralsei learned how to do a Magic attack and it's the ultimate sign of him and Susie growing and learning from each other :3

Further more I suggest the following combinations:

Nightmare Buster: involving the whole fun Gang how ever that May be possible. It's called Nightmare Buster because they do be bustin those nightmares (it doesn't Sound badass enough though yet)

Sleepify: A Ralsei and Noelle combination of Pacify and Sleep mist because 1. They finally interacted and became Friends, and 2. They also got a stronger, combined Attack

Ice Buster???: Idunno Icemagic seems kinda tabu, which is why I think it's less likely. But what if??

Dual heal of course

Triple Heal (with Noelle)

The thing is though, I'm not sure in what way Noelle will be relevant later, since she is important, but I am biased and would rather have it if she didn't replaced anyone in the Party, but simply just joined somehow, but who knows if you haven't actually can use more than 3 people in Battle.

I want the Power of friendship attacks though please (⁠๑⁠´⁠•⁠.̫⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠`⁠๑⁠)

[triona-tribblescore]

for the eepy suggestions, maybe one of the brothers comforting the other after a long day? :]

This is entirely self projection im sorry

Love the HC of leo working in Hueso's, but its tiring sometimes you know? :') luckily his bros can help restore a lil bit of that energy again <3

[tarotchariotpickyourcard]

Who’s crushing on you? PAC reading

Ahh, l'amour.

Can't live with it, can't live without it. Some affection is wanted, and some of it definitely isn't. Stay away from me.

But you? Oh how i adore you. So I made this reading.

Please choose from left to right, 1 - 2 or 3.

GROUP 1

Oh my gosh this is so sad and adorable. First I’ll try and identify them. Queen of summer is queen of cups. So they could be cancer, pisces, or scorpio. It could even be their moon sign. If this person is not a girl/feminine, it might be that they are simply a very sensitive and soft person. The appearance of the queen is a light tan and lighter hair. This particular deck describes her as a trusted friend. Perhaps this is someone you’ve been friends with.

Unrequited love and separation.. There could be a few possibilities with this. 

Suggestion 1. They could have already confessed to you or attempted, and was rejected or assumed as much.

Suggestion 2. You simply haven’t noticed them in that way, or not yet. It’s someone you haven’t considered.

Suggestion 3. They’ve been rejected by someone in the past and now they’re negative or pessimistic about a chance with you.

Separation can mean you also haven’t seen each other for a while, or they have broken up with someone recently.

Unfortunately if you’ve broken up with someone not too long ago this is probably the fact showing they are still into you.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve comforted this person, as what they like about you is ‘listening’.

They like that you give a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and you genuinely care about what other people have to say. Paired with the queen of summer, it’s clear that they love how sympathetic, and kind you can be. They’re probably a sensitive soul drawn to a compassionate person.

Listening says 

“I activate my receptive side, and become an engaged, intuitive, professional grade listener. Super charged listening gives me the ability to not only hear the words others are saying, but also to perceive the emotions hiding between their words. Armed with this knowledge, I’ll be in a great position to give them exactly what they need.

Traits of queen of summer: loving, comforting, emotional, intuitive. Tenderhearted, charitable. A family oriented person. Can be too giving.

Some extra thoughts: They could think you’re just nice to everyone, and you wouldn’t hold a special place for a particular person right now. If this is a friend with a crush, they might be avoiding you. If you’ve rejected someone recently, it might be a bit embarrassing that you were so nice to them, instead of just being cold, somehow.

This seems like a really cute thing anyway, maybe they’re sick of people thinking they’re cute haha.

Hope it makes sense!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

GROUP 2

Oh my, these are some intense cards for a crush reading. Hahahaha. Boi/gurl whaaaatttt.

We’ve got the tower, the moon - has this person totally pretended not to like you? And you had a suspicion??? Since high priestess is there. They are keeping this under lock and key i swear. Dayuuumm. This is kinda fun.

There’s no court cards to go with to identify, so let’s see what I can take from this. High priestess is a more quiet or secretive person, but the tower can suggest that they suddenly seem to come out with something, or all of a sudden they’ve achieved something out of nowhere. From this combination I’m getting scorpio. Mars energy. Possibly aries. The moon can be cancer. Could have moon in aries. Four of summer omg they are playing it cool! Haha. Because you play it cool, I think too. Lots of water just like pile one.

I really think you’ve had suspicion, or called this person out even as a joke, or something that they like you. So i feel like you probably know who this person is.

With all this water they might be the creative type, the moon has a musical instrument (string)

What they like about you?:

Boundaries + independence 

You don’t need no mans. They like how cool and collected you are, they like that you don’t get hung up on people, or that you seem to have the upper hand. You seem cool to this person, just doing your own thing, having your own interests. It looks like they enjoy vying for things that aren’t easy to obtain lol. If you also are interested in this person, watch out for their ego if this is the case. People who tend to want what they can’t seem to have because they want to prove only to themselves. I really think they like that you’re not chasing after them too.

Boundaries says: “I claim my right to set healthy boundaries and I allow others to do the same. Sometimes personal space is taken, and sometimes it’s given. And sometimes, if you’re on a subway it’s completely disregarded and shamelessly invaded. I guess it depends on the day.”

Independence: “ I embrace total independence and I see how empowering that is. Even when I’m in a relationship, I can still be independent by meeting my own needs and creating my own happiness. When I do that, I’m the fullest version of myself and i have much more me to give without needing pieces of me in return.”

This person really acts like they have no interest in you, They don’t want to let on, it’s kinda cute. In these cards there are all these people but alone, you or them must highly value independence and enjoy being single. 

Characteristics from the cards to suggest who it is might be the following:

Someone with a bit of a temper

Appears one way but is another once you get to know them

Creative

Might be seen as a player (used to having people go after them, not the other way around)

Good posture

In a team or work/study setting, they can take the lead and are assertive

Don’t like to be made fun of (who does but i mean, can’t seem to engage in banter)

Hope this makes sense.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

GROUP 3

Ok group 3, run from this person lol. I joke.

Hanged man, deception, codependency and compassion.

I feel like they just like you for the wrong reasons or that you might enable them if they were to go to you for things. I don’t mean knowingly enable, i mean that you’re compassionate to the point you might not be straightforward enough for this person to grow.

If you’ve got an ex, they’re still not over you.

Hanged man might mean they’ve got pisces/neptune influence. Codependency there really might suggest a codependent habit, such as addiction or returning to the same person. Traits that they might have… They might have an alternate way of viewing things that are very interesting. The patient type. The type of person that has been taught a lesson or two in life. Things might have been harder for them than the average person. They could be a very unique person, alternative, or style themselves differently than others around them.

Physically they might like to wear reds, blues, and cream colours. I’m seeing they might have been in a love triangle in the past. This is looking like it’s been a long term crush. They’ve had it for a while more compared to the other groups. Hanged man can suggest being religious or spiritual. The person in the card has a short hair cut, or a buzz cut. Naturally curly hair stands out.

With deception it could literally be that they’re deceiving you into thinking they don’t think that way about you. They might be wearing a mask over how they really feel. Paired with hanged man it might be that they’re willing to wait for the right opportunity or chance. They secretly are very attached to you. They have very strong feelings for you, more on the side of longing. They feel grateful to you for something. They want to do the right thing for you, maybe that’s why they’re not shooting their shot right now.  It’s looking like some heavy stuff is going on for one of you at least, so it’s not the right time to be thinking about this, however, the feelings are strong and they’re not going to just fade away easily. If you don’t reciprocate, it would mean they would have to be apart from you or try to replace their attention.

What they like about you?:

You make this person feel like they could be accepted for who they are (i mean, that’s nice but i’m asking what they like about you. Selfish much?)

I got the sentence ‘took the high road’

Compassion” I choose compassion over criticism. Walking a mile in other peoples shoes reminds me they might be going through something tougher than I think. Like their shoes are too tight. Or they’re the kind of shoes that are too casual to be dressy and too dressy to be casual. I have no idea what they’re dealing with privately, so I’ll cut them some slack and be thankful for the shoes i’ve been dealt.

I’ll be interested to know if this makes sense or if you know who this could be. Do let me know!

[rainofdauwuand0w0]

Alright that’s it, silent magi, I'm thanking you for this because a repost of yours finally made me fully put this into form

So lets snap our fingers, play an old piano for the entrance music, and get a lil…kooky

“The Manor Family” au where after dealing with her and her “madness”, the elliotts send tessa and unintentionally her “dumpster drones” off to some….extended family

Aka Addams family x Murder Drones AU because I am gonna give tessa a happy life and my head has been trying to hold on to this idea for a long while since the finale of MD

Ep 1 “Meet the relatives”: Okay so her plans to defend her drones ended with her being sent off to…somewhere? Something about an uncle fester but more importantly something about a gomez and morticia addams. She was sad as she was sent off without h-….N, V, J, CYN?! Wh-how are you guys here?! (Giggle, I made. Suggestion. So we would not be. Discarded. Says cyn) okay…well that’ll make moving in feel and be easier…time to meet the family. (Introductions ensue!)

Ep 2 “The differences are staggering”: Tessa….tessa doesn’t know how to feel about this weird family…but her heart knows that it feels much safer, after some encouragement from gomez and morticia, she shows how much she knows about drones in distinct detail, and the reactions are lovely (the grave robbing for hair gets a chuckle from the duo). Solver is just…kinda taking a back seat for now, watching and gathering data about this WILDLY different family unit it has been presented

Ep 3 “stab a knife into the wood’s heart, and make your mark”: using the fortune they have, they modify the house and make a necro-technician lab/bedroom for the new member of the family, J smiles, bringing her great joy to see as tessa is allowed to express her interests. Which Morticia catches a glimpse of and while J at first goes to deny it, morticia encourages her to go for it, no one is holding you back, be ravenous darling! J was not used to the higher ups approving of this kind of behavior but she wasn’t gonna not take the chance, she was given approval by a higher up!

Ep 4 “get used to your coffin-mates”: tessa gets up to alot of shenanigans with her crew and Wednesday and pugsly, cyn is given some help with her head and motor issues for her body….the designs of course are very addams but are actually skillfully designed for allowing her more movement, which makes both solver and cyn happy. Morticia brings in a spare body and cyn asks about it, and morticia simply says “darling sharing a body with another is a hamper on the systems, while possession can be a exhilarating experience, its taxing on both of you from over doing it”. Solver does not know how to feel about this weird yet genuine family but it can’t lie, the motherly figure was probably right….maybe it can hold off its…original plan for…just a bit longer. It was gonna ask how she figured them out…though the possession line gave a few hints

Ep 5 “Solvera, Solvera, unbound by terra”: Solvera(Solver), with her own body now, not only goes this episode chatting and talking with the manor crew, but also exploring the very haunted mansion and meeting all the family of the addams, strap in Solvera, you are about to get a butt load of information and data about this family, and you get to be in the hot seat! (Solvera's looks in this au, I like the idea it was a combined effort of the adams and tessa herself, cus while I do imagine that at first the manor crew was still in their outfits upon arrival, once everyone realized it was gonna be chill, tessa started using names for her dears, sticking with nathanial, Cyndia, Valeria, and for j, Jewellia, for she is precious like one, gomez was so proud of the wordplay, anyhow, Solvera is in a outfit wednesday made for her, and her hair is from grandma geiger, it's wild, messy, and if not for being an eldritch being in a drone body, the static energy in the hair would have short circuited the body)

Ep 6 "you may have pluto, as a treat": Solvera, not being able to really, understand the weird but genuine niceness and familial love, attempts to do it's plan, going fully eldritch but in this haunted manor...adams family shenanigans ensue instead. To curb her hunger,Uncle Fester says she should eat pluto, it's got a good bite to it. (this confuses only the manor crew), after her snack, she slowly changes back to her drone form, though still having some eldritchness to her, centipede bottom half and legs and such, though on a smaller scale meant to fit in the house, she thanks uncle fester for the suggestion. tessa grapples with the fact of...whatever just happened, but kinda just shrugs once she comes to terms with it.

Ep 7 "A Gala worth a darn": The Addams throw a party to celebrate both tessa and co being here for a while, and for solvera's surprise removal of pluto. tessa gets to meet more of the weird and fun family of the addams in this cus of this, same with friends of the family and such, tessa smiles and OH BOY Jewellia!? uh oh, morticia and gomez has been showing her some techniques of dancing, and morticia made her a new outfit *pulls out THE MASK voice* sssssssssssssssmoking!

Ep 8 "Out with the cryptic, in with the crypt!": James and Louisa Elliott try their hand at checking out tessa, thinking(nay, worse, Fully believing) that tessa will have been put off by all of the families weirdness...when the house itself tells them to get out, they are frightened but undeterred, the rest of the family get their time with messing with the elliott's, until they finally arrive to tessa's room....who is fully committing to the necro-tech bit at the moment they found her, causing louisa to faint for a moment, james catching her, and tessa, within the walls of a house that supports her, looks at the duo and goes "didn't ya hear the house? surprised you two made it this far in". further addams insanity ensues is they try desperately to rein back tessa in with their usual threats....but with less weight because this isn't their manor. (they will be comically humilated by the antics of addams family madness, and be probably yeeted out of the house in a less then presentable state)

Ep 9 "Jumpstart the clockwork": Morticia and Gomez, get a letter in their mail, a challenge of a legal hearing to deal with the whole thing of custody of tessa, fester once more comes from somewhere and just kinda looks it over, even sniffing it like a bloodhound occasionally, noting the smell of "overexpensive perfume" and "angry scoffs". a legal battle hmm, they know just who to call for this sort of thing, cousin it, old friend, have they a case of the ages for you! Meanwhile pugsley, tessa and her drone family, and wednesday get up to more antics, solvera..recording innocently? wonder what that could be for.

Ep 10 "Legally dead in the water": Probably the longest episode of the season so far, as the case gets dubbed Addam's Vs Elliott's, making headlines and as such, becomes very very very visible to the outside jewellia helps and stays by tessa's side while Nathanial, Cyndia and Valeria have some antics with Pugsley and wednesday. of course, Elliott's brought the best lawyers they could afford, Addams brought Cousin It, and despite there being such troubles of understanding here and there, he makes sure his words are heard correctly by using a speech to text machine, Elliott's lawyers try to use this to their advantage. of course things go over as the legal battle, but eventually, a key person is brought in, Solvera. Louisa knows those Yellow eyes anywhere, and her eyes widen in knowing juicy horror. Solvera hooks herself to a video projector, and by the robo-gods, with pugsley and wednesday sneaking a view into the room by opening the door to not have it make a sound to watch it, while Nathanial, Valeria, and Cyndia sit on a nearby bench, for they would rather not, Jewellia having to take deep breaths as she watches the scenes unfold that she'd rather not remember so perfectly, tessa doing the same, they hold themselves closer. Then it shows the life in the addams house, weirder? oh most definitely. But Happier? big resounding yes. It ends with not only Addams getting legal custody of tessa, but due to the resounding evidence against the elliott's, they have to pay LARGE sums of cash, enough that makes an actual dent in their lives.

Ep 11 "Vivi interdum peiores sunt quam mortui.": A few days have gone by and the legal battle is in the past now, but james and louisa send their own solution to this problem....unfortunately for the people who get hired, this is the addams they are dealing with, wednesday gets to try out her experiments, pugsley gets to enjoying his explosives and such, and the rest of the addams family of course have their fun as well...only one managed to enter tessa's room....before they get nommed by Solvera like a barnacle from half-life nomming on random food that walked into their tounge's range.

Ep 12 "Effugere carnem. Facti una cum metallum": Tessa manages to create a safe mind transfer with the help of solvera as well, who's eating some leftover's of the hired hitmen, having been turned into a satisfying stew for the eldritch gal by morticia herself, with satisfying seasonings. tessa helps herself to escape the flesh, wednesday watches with wicked delight. Jewellia is ready to smooch her as soon as the transfer ends, and it is instant. Gomez and Morticia congratulate her on her work!

Ep 13 "A reflection of difference": Solvera and Tessa have a long chat together while the others of the manor crew are helping around the house or having fun, reflecting on how much this affected them, the way it all came together. The two cannot believe it, but here they are. In a weird but loving family.

@logo-comics and @silentmagi I hope you enjoy this one aswell!

[theocrytos]

Huzzah! My most recent DnD oneshot character!

Her name is Nausicaa, they're a tempest cleric of Istus (godess of fate and creator of the Fey realm and fey creatures in our homebrew world) and she's ready to kill her god to potentially save the life of her sickly wife and be able to grow old with her <3

Design detail rambles, fun facts and unused outfit sketches below the cut!

Fun facts/details:

- Their full name is Nausicaa Homonenomenon. No I wasn't able to tell that to my fellow players with a straight face. Yes there is a reason for it! While the face shape of the snakes isn't right, they are western hognoses, the scientific name of which is Heterodon Nasicus. We can thank my dear friend for her surname - she originally suggested 'Heteronomenon' which would have been quite ironic as Nausicaa very much isn't hetero, lol. Nothing against that, but I just thought Homonenomenon sounded even funnier/absurd.

- Her wife's name is Telmachia Aegagrus, named after the "og" Nausicaa's husband, Telemachus, and wild goats (Capra Aegagrus), the latter because she's a satyr. I have yet to draw her. I like to think she always calls Nausicaa nicknames, while Nausicaa mostly just calls her Telma, maybe also "my dear", or "my heart" (in Hungarian these are much more common nicknames for your partner than in English, as far as I know at least).

- She has a medusa piercing.

- The pin on her cloak is the symbol of Istus (in our game), and I have made it irl from cardboard to wear to DnD because I'm the kinda player who likes to dress up.

- She holds a bell in her right hand - simply because that's one of the items she has because of her (custom) background.

- Another item they have because of their background is the ring - a signet ring to be more exact - on her right middle finger. Her other ring is her wedding ring :)

- Not very well visible, but the beads on their belt are the colors of the lesbian pride flag.

- The pattern on their pants is kinda like what I sometimes doodle in class when I don't need to take notes but need to occupy my hand with something.

- Overall her colors are basically sunset colors because in our Feywild these are pretty prominent colors used/worn by the daytime (basically our version of seelie) fey.

Outfits!

I knew I wanted skirts of some sort and overall a lot of flowiness and some layering for this fruity little lady, but it took me a few tries to get something I like. I figured out her head first as you can tell, and none of these really matched that. But as you can see, the final one is kind of a combination of 1 and 3, with the addition of a cloak. 2 had a very greek cleric-y vibe too, don't get me wrong I loved that too! Maybe another time...

[tidescaller]

Hello, this gifset for pscentral event 37 is really pretty ✨

https://www.tumblr.com/tidescaller/779330612766081024/pscentral-event-37-trios-the-girl-the-boy-and?source=share

would you please consider posting a tutorial on how you made the blending multi gifs and colouring in the first gif?

Hi anon, so glad you liked it! I'll try my best to explain as detailed as I can. Just a small note that I'm not an expert, I'm still pretty new to blending edits in general so I'm learning as well as everyone ૮(˶˃ᆺ˂˶)

But before that real quick, and if my tutorial isn't enough, I'll leave you a list of amazing tutorials/guides that help me a lot when it comes to everything gifmaking related, so shoutout to them!

basic blending tutorial

coloring tutorial

blend gifs tips

blending, coloring and text effects guide (video)

another one similar to the previous one

gradient text

text outline

HOW TO: Blend multi - gifs / Dual Gradient coloring

You will need any version of Photoshop (I use CC 2019) and basic knowledge on making gifs.

STEP 1: THE BASE

1.1 - Make sure your canvas is 540px width. Mine is 540x450. Choosing which gifs to blend is kinda tricky and no one can tell you what's perfect. Everything depends of the scenary your show, movie, anime whatever you're working on has; but a tip is to use scenes that have dark areas, since it's easier to blend then. 1.2 - Make your individual gifs: crop, color, sharpen, all that, and make sure all of them are the same amount of frames. 1.3 - Before duplicating your gifs into your empty canvas, convert them all into smart objetcs. This will help to simplify stuff, have a much more organized work space and help you load your preview faster.

STEP 2: BRING YOUR GIFS

Now all you have to do is right click on every gif you made, go Duplicate layer… and sent it on your empty document. I would suggest doing one by one, so you can work better. Duplicating them all at once can be a little bit intimidating and might have you confuse how to combine your gifs. Try imagining what you want your gif to look like and where you want each element to be. As an example, I wanted the key scene when it kinda drops to be falling from the top of my gif and also as a separation of the one in color and the one Sakura is roller-skating.

STEP 3: BLENDING

3.1 - Okay, now that you more or less know what you want your gif to look like you can start by changing the blend mode of your gifs. Photoshop has mutiple options on this and it applies to all types of layers. For blending, one of the two (or more) gifs you are working is going to be on top, that's the one you're gonna have to change its blend mode in order to start this process. Generally, Screen is the one to go to.

3.2 - Some people group (selecting your layers > ctrl/cmd+g or right click > group) all the gifs so they can then change the group's blend mode into Screen but I personally like to do separately cause if I need a gif to fill some of the background I would keep it as Normal.

STEP 4: LAYER MASK

The key gif works perfect with Screen blend as it has a black background, but of course this won't be the case for most gifs you want to put in the main one. For those unwanted pixels we don't need, we use a Layer Mask. 4.1 - In order to do that, select your gif by clicking on them and next click on the layer mask button.

4.2 - Now you'll see a white square next to your gif layer. This will help by reducing the opacity of those things we don't need of your gif. What is white is 100% opacity and what is black 0%. So all you have to do is click on the layer mask, pick the brush tool and paint over what you want to "delete". Pay attention to use a soft brush, and the size of it should be around 200 and 300px. 4.3 - Repeat the process with all the gifs that need it

STEP 5: EXTRA LAYER

Sometimes a gif will look too bright/transparent/softened over the other ones. In order to fix this, you can create a new layer (the button right next to the trash can)

and paint with a black soft brush over the part you need to bring back. I don't know exactly how to explain it properly but I'll try with these before and after images. I'm adjusting the one with Sakura and her card:

STEP 6: COLORING

6.1 - OKAY, now that we have all that sort out and the gif has a proper structure is time to add some color. As I'm going to do a dual gradient after and leave only one of these 5 gifs with color, I'll use a black and white gradient map and add it to every individual one as a clipping mask (right click on the gradient map > create a clipping mask). Like this:

6.2 - Now that we have this I can add my own psd. I started making my own psds for every edit I make and I'm not ready in any way to explain that, but I learn how to do this with this tutorial. With that, my gif now look like this:

STEP 7: DUAL GRADIENT

Finally for this part I recommend making another group (the folder button next to new layer) and add a new layer for the different colors you add. This is all about painting and playing with the blending modes for these layers. There's no right way to do this, you just have to play around and see what works best for you and the scenes you have. You will end up with something like this:

Tips for this step are: 7.1 - Use a soft brush, size it up to 1000px, zoom your gif out and start painting out of the canvas. This will help create that gradient effect we are looking for. 7.2 - Change the layer's opacity/blend mode. This is (again) about playing around with colors. I changed these settings for all my layers that are part of the gradients' group. In order: dual is Screen + 90% opacity, pink Vivid Light + 70%, more pink Lighten + 90%, yellow Hard Light + 70% and final touches Multiply at 100%. I also mixed up the colors, not only staying with certain yellow or pink. 7.3 - The gradient tool works the same way as the brush tool! Just make sure the gradient is any color you're working with + transparent. 7.4 - I also added a layer mask to my gradient's group to erase some of the extra color in Sakura's face. All this will result on this:

And that's pretty much it! For the text part, I was going to add it but the tutorials I linked at the beginning explain it perfectly so shoutout to them. As always, if you have any other doubt, send me an ask and I will answer it as fast as I can! Always happy to help ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

[capybaratrait]

Kick The Bucket Legacy Challenge

I wanted to make a challenge based on death types, kinda inspired by the new Life and Death pack. Some acclarations:

Ghosts can't have children, so you can either have your kids when you are alive, or adopting them, or cheat. It doesn't matter

Careers and aspirations doesn't have to be completed always, mostly because some of the aspirations require to be in a career and well... I don't see ghosts working. You can make money through any mean you want, though

It might be fun to make all your heirs have the Chased by Death trait

It also might be fun to have like a big family mansion and stay on the same lot all legacy, but you can also move around or combine the two. I suggest that because maybe Ravenwood is the best world for some of this generations

Some generations have more goals than others. Generation 9 is, well, embarrasing. Feel free to add extra goals if you're over with them

Generation 1. Death by Fire 🔥

So, yeah, you’re dead. You had just decided to prepare your very first meal in your brand new house... Turns out, clumsiness and a stove don’t really get along. But you are not ready to stop living! You were just aged up to a Young Adult! There’s only one solution: coming back to life. But to do that, you will have to confront the thing that made you die in the first place.

Key Trait: Clumsy

Aspiration: Any

Career: None

Skills: Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Gardening

Start as a Young Adult Ghost that died on a fire, on an empty lot, or on a burned starter home

Make money whatever way you want: just don’t get any job. Ghosts don’t have bank accounts

Max the Cooking and Gourmet Cooking skills; Get to level 5 in the Gardening skill

Make ambrosia to get back to life

Have at least one biological child after you get back to life

Generation 2. Death by Electrocution ⚡

Your parent were always very overprotective of you. For some reason, they were super worried about you getting hurt... But it’s not like you were gonna inherit their bad luck, right? Well, you did. Oh, darn it, you had such a promising life! Although now, dead, you don’t have to fulfill any expectations from anyone. You might have some fun as a ghost, after all.

Key Trait: Overachiever (you can change it upon death)

Aspiration: Computer Whiz

Career: Tech Guru

Skills: Videogaming, Programming

You had an overprotective parent. They were always on top of you: You maxed all your skills as a toddler, always had straight A’s... You were the perfect child.

Max the Videogaming and Programming skills

Start the Tech Guru career, be in it until you die

Die of electrocution as a Young Adult

Become a Trascendent Wraith

You don’t need to have biological children, but you can cheat to do it if you want to (or have them before you die)

Generation 3. Death by Cowplant 🌱

Just when you thought you where gonna end the curse of your family and live a long, happy life, your best friend kills you. Yeah, your best friend... A cowplant. Your best friend is a cowplant. And they killed you. What’s worse is that you can’t imagine a life without your family, specially one without your spouse, your soulmate... But who knows, maybe you two can reunite in another life?

Key Trait: Loves Outdoors

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Career: Gardener

Skills: Gardening

Before you die, marry your soulmate and have at least one kid

Max the Gardening skill

Enter the Gardener career. After you die, continue making money through your garden, even though you’re not in the career

Always have a cowplant (If they die, get another one)

Die as an Adult by a cowplant

Get yourself and your spouse reborn (You will reborn into your heir)

Generation 4. Death by Overexertion 💦

Due to your family history, you always commited yourself to live life to the fullest. Life is short, you know that well. Travel, eat, drink, flirt... You want to do all and abundantly before you kick the bucket. But then, you meet them: your connection is undeniable. It’s like you know them from another life. Suddenly, a simple cozy life is all you want.

Key Trait: Romantic

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Career: Any

Skills: Romance, Charisma

Complete the Serial Romantic aspiration

Reach max level of a career of your choice

Max the Romance and Charisma skills

Reunite with your soulmate from your previous life

Die as an Elder from Overexertion after woohooing with your partner

Generation 5. Death by Metorite ☄️

You were always a curious child. Wanting to check the limits of your family’s curse, you decide to spend as much time as possible as far from Earth as possible. The good part of this is that you meet a hot alien. The bad part is that yes, the curse reaches space.

Key Trait: Geek

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Astronaut

Skills: Rocket Science, Logic

Complete the Nerd Brain aspiration

Become an Astronaut and build your own rocket to go to Sixam

Max the Rocket Science and Logic skills

Fall in love with an alien

Die by a metorite (Bonus points if you do it in Sixam... although I don’t know if that is possible)

Generation 6. Death by Anger 🧨

A hot-headed sim ever since you were a child, all your family knew what the future would bring you. As a perpetually angry ghost, you have decided to make people’s life miserable. Their fear and sorrow makes you really, really happy.

Key Trait: Hot-Headed

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief

Career: Any

Skills: Mischief

Complete the Chief of Mischief aspiration

Max the Mischief skill

Die of Anger

Become an Evil Ghost

Fall in love with a Good Ghost

Generation 7. Death by Drowning 💧

You have been surrounded by ghosts your whole life. You think you have an easier time befriending ghosts than befriending alive sims. As you grow up, your interest in the Netherworld grew with you, so you eventually decide to... embrace your destiny, since it seems like, based on your ancestors history, you were gonna die young anyway.

Key Trait: Macabre

Aspiration: Any

Career: Reaper

Skills: Tanathology

Die of Drowning as soon as you reach Young Adulthood

Reach level 10 of the Reaper career

Max the Thanatology skill

Become bestfriends with the Grim Reaper

Complete the Tarot Cards collection

Generation 8. Death by Laughter 🤡

You grew up in a pretty dark household, but you were always a cheerful sim. Your moody, ghostly family didn't cut your vibe, but you also want to experience a more happy, colorful environment, so you move out of your family home with a big smile on your face to start a new life. That life turns out to be short, though. As a ghost, you now ask to yourself: could it be possible for the media to accept a transparent comedian?

Key Trait: Goofball

Aspiration: Joke Star

Career: Entertainer

Skills: Comedy

Reach level 10 of the Entertainer career — You can work even after your death, it is your dream!

Complete the Joke Star aspiration

Max the Comedy skill

Die of Laughter

Become at least a 3 Star Celebrity

Generation 9. Death by Embarrasment 🫢

A family with a deadly history? A famous ghost comedian as a parent? This is so embarrasing! Anywhere you go, people whisper about you behind your back. "Look, this is the kid of that ghost celebrity. Why are they not dead?" "Look, their family all die in misterious circumstances". Someday, you just can't take it anymore, and you die. Of course. Because that's what your family does.

Key Trait: Paranoid

Aspiration: Any

Career: Any

Skills: Any?

Max at least 4 skills of your choice

Die of Embarrasment

Generation 10. Death by Old Age 🧓

You have accepted your destiny since a very young age. Since ghosts are such an important part of your life and your family, you want to know everything about them. Time passes and you're still alive. You decide to focus on your family and friends and enjoy the extra time fate has given to you. Could it be possible? Could the family curse be over?

Key Trait: Family-Oriented

Aspiration: Ghost Historian

Career: Writer

Skills: Writing, Parenting

Complete the Ghost Historian aspiration

Reach level 10 of the Writer career

Max the Writing and Parenting skills

Bring someone back to life with the Book of Life

Die of Old Age

...

Use the tag #KickTheBucketLegacyChallenge for me to see if you play the challenge! It is not perfect, but I hope it would be fun and different? I also have a Pinterest board (same username, @capybaratrait) with some legacies, some of them mine, you can check that out too for fun ideas to play! In here, i posted the But Daddy I Love Him! Legacy, based on Disney Princesses!

[butterflydm]

restructuring the wheel of time into ten books

So a little while ago, there was a poll about people's favored choice for how many books should have been in WoT -- I voted for 'ten' and this is, I guess, my argument for a ten book series.

Books 1-5, I don’t really have any notes on when it comes to structure. Every book is complete in and of itself. While books 2 & 3 do have something of a repetitive structure, I think that works better in a book series than in a tv series.

The only suggestions that I would have structurally would be minor things like “tweak Rand’s power levels in the early books to keep him more in line with what he does later” (aka what the show is doing, lol) and maybe not having Ishamael present during the Battle of Falme and having that purely against the Seanchan, so that we don’t have super similar climaxes for Rand two books in a row (Rand could get his wound in Tear instead). And those are the sorts of things that I think it might be likely that Jordan would have done if he’d known exactly how long the series would end up being -- ex. he clearly backed down on Rand’s power jump when he realized that the series would be going for longer than he’d originally planned.

One minor plot change that I would do is put Perrin feeling Rand tug at him as the epilogue of TFOH or thereabouts. Just a little hint of Perrin in there, showing that he'll have a bigger role in the next book.

Book 6, though... I have some thoughts there.

Lord of Chaos/A Crown of Swords: this is the first book where the beginning really takes some time getting off the ground -- there are several Salidar chapters that could have been combined. This is really the first place in the books where characters hang around doing nothing (we're told more than once in Elayne & Nynaeve's PoV that they're barely being taught anything and that being there feels pointless), waiting for it to be time to actually Do Some Plot (the big Healing of severing) and it's just the beginning of a bad trend.

The other structural change that I would suggest is not doing the weird feint with Mat's character where he starts off doing a "Rand's general" storyline and then creakily transitions over to Salidar instead. Since Mat isn't actually going to Illian, he doesn't need to be marching south. He could just still be in Cairhien/Caemlyn and have Rand take him to Salidar from there. As it is, we end up spending several chapters on a storyline that gets abruptly terminated part of the way through the book so that Mat can do a completely different storyline instead and that really pads out the pages unnecessarily (this was a really bad trend that happened with Mat's character in particular more than once in the books; his storylines would just stop in their tracks and get shifted to something else entirely and never go back to his original storyline; ex. we literally never find out why/what the murdered caravan of Tuatha'an had to do with anything, because Mat never bothers to tell Rand their message because he spends the entire rest of the book series doing completely unrelated things and only ever sees Rand again for a brief conversation that is dominated by everyone catering to his slaver wife -- we never get payoff for the vast majority of Mat's storylines, even the minor threads). It really does feel like Jordan started writing the book, then went "oh shit, Mat needs to meet & marry the DotNM" and just abruptly changed Mat's story to yeet him to Ebou Dar without actually rewriting the earlier bits in the book.

Outside of that, the main change I would suggest being made in these books is improving Min’s characterization and Min and Rand’s relationship by NOT having Min change herself for Rand. Let Rand fall in love with Min as she is, not the dolled-up version of Min that she invents for Rand’s benefit (there are other characterization tweaks I would recommend as well, but Min is kinda the biggest issue imo).

The main ‘story arc’ for Rand that's set up in LoC is ‘defeating Sammael’ and it should take place over the course of a single book, not two separate books. Parts of ACoS would be saved for the next book but the Illian climax should happen in the same book that the story starts. I would title this book “A Crown of Swords” so that the focus is on Rand’s story, not the Forsakens' (and part of the oddness here is definitely due to Jordan changing his mind about doing the Taim-Demandred combo, so he sets up something that ends up going nowhere).

Inciting incidents:

Egwene is summoned to Salidar leading to Rand sending Mat there as well

Min arrives in Caemlyn, leading to The Box Incident

Turning point:

After the Box incident, Perrin and Rand stage a fight so that Perrin can go find Masema

Egwene sends Elayne, Nynaeve, Mat & co to Ebou Dar to look for the Bowl of the Winds and they actually take advantage of Mat being ta’veren right away instead of waiting around for a month (all the delays in Mat's various storylines had a knock-on effect in delaying everyone else's storylines, imo -- the Slog happens because everyone is waiting on Mat, whether they know it or not)

Climax:

Rand defeats Sammael

The attack of the Seanchan on Ebou Dar begins

A Crown of Swords/The Path of Daggers/Winter’s Heart: The Path of Daggers only needs some of trimming imo. Once that trimming is done, I think Elayne’s section of the prologue of WH could slid into it fairly neatly as a bit of an ‘upbeat’ epilogue, which would be a contrast to the darkness of Rand’s ending in the previous book and his defeat here when he tries to repel the Seanchan from Ebou Dar.

Also have Mat interact with Tuon throughout this book, essentially like he did in WH (Mat's interactions with Tuon in WH make sense with his previous characterization; it's in CoT & KoD when Jordan had him completely reverse on his moral outlook on slavery so that he would be willing to make out with a slaver - genuinely, how Mat goes from sympathizing with slaves in WH to sympathizing with slavers in CoT remains one of the most baffling writing choices that I've ever run across; especially with how limp and one-sided it made everything about Mat & Tuon feel in those books for me, because Jordan drained all the potential interesting conflict out of the pairing so that he could focus on Mat navel-gazing about his self-inflicted prophecy woes, making him just Min 2.0. *sigh*). This book I would choose to be named “The Path of Daggers” out of the available options.

Inciting incidents:

Elayne & Nynaeve use the Bowl of the Winds as Ebou Dar is invaded by the Seanchan and Mat gets left behind during the escape

Perrin & co find Masema, etc.

Egwene uses the rule of law to take control of the Salidar Aes Sedai

Turning point:

Mat first meets Tuon -- maybe give Mat & Tylin’s first meeting to Mat & Tuon instead, where he accidentally greets her using the Old Tongue, thus sparking her interest (cut out Mat & Tylin’s ‘relationship’ entirely, it was zero percent needed and is needed even less if Tuon arrives in the first wave of the attack, as I'm suggesting here)

Rand learns about the invasion by the Seanchan and goes campaigning

Egwene & the Aes Sedai jump to Tar Valon and begin their siege (since they no longer need to kill time to let Mat's plotline happen)

Climax:

Rand fails to defeat the Seanchan & gets attacked in the Sun Palace but kills the attackers here instead of us needing the Far Madding detour (which just felt like a less emotionally-impactful version of The Box to me and Jordan giving in to his desire to write a travelogue)

Faile learns Masema is dealing with the Seanchan and kills him, cutting off that entire path of slog by not getting kidnapped (we really only need one kidnapped wife imo)

Mat escapes Ebou Dar, kidnapping Tuon along the way (there's our allotted Kidnapped Wife)

Egwene is captured by the White Tower Aes Sedai when the rebels block off the harbors to Tar Valon

Winter’s Heart/Crossroads of Twilight/Knife of Dreams: All three of these books would have greatly benefited from being massively cut down to a single volume. This one also has a touch of TGS in it, mostly because Egwene had a lot more story left after KoD than pretty much any other character except maybe Mat.

Specific items to change or cut:

Cut out Far Madding entirely (Rand killed the attackers in Cairhien). Since Tuon arrived with the initial Seanchan invasion fleet in Ebou Dar, Nynaeve can be honest with Rand about Mat being left behind but Rand can see (in his color swirl vision) that Mat is no longer in Ebou Dar and has already escaped, filling that plot hole (the list of contrivances to keep Rand from knowing what happened to Mat frustrated and annoyed me so much when I was reading books WH-KoD).

Have the love confessions and Rand sleeping with Elayne, but don’t do the bonding yet. Have Rand leave Min behind in Caemlyn when he takes Nynaeve off to do the cleansing, so she can (emotionally) bond with Elayne & Aviendha. Since Min was just at ground zero for a terrible attack that was focused on Rand (which should, to Rand, prove his fears about being a danger to the people he loves to be correct!), it really is so bizarre that he keeps backpacking her around to dangerous place (Far Madding) after dangerous place (the Cleansing) after dangerous place (parlay with the Seanchan) and mostly shows that Jordan a) just had no more plot beats for Min until she played pregnancy test for Tuon in the epilogue and b) primarily saw Min as Rand’s Hero Reward rather than a character in her own right. But the whole affair mostly just undermined Rand’s character journey for me (he's so isolated! ...except for his live-in girlfriend).

Don’t do the Shaido plotline at all (have the Shaido scatter back to the Waste post-Dumai’s Wells); instead this should be where Perrin starts his wolf boot camp, so that he actually has a more appropriate amount of time for training before the Last Battle (and his emotional storyline would be a conflict with Faile over her killing Masema). I guess you can do the Whitecloaks storyline here.

Have Mat be the one to make a treaty with the Seanchan, and have Semirhage order the ‘airfleet’ against the White Tower instead of Tuon doing it. Instead of Mat accidentally giving himself away for nothing, have the Mat-Tuon marriage as part of the deal to seal the treaty, since Mat has figured out that she believes that he needs to be her husband, per prophecy, so he uses that to actually get concessions out of her. Because we aren’t trying to convince the readers that Mat is the sort of person who is capable of falling in love with a slaver in the space of a single month, we don’t need to spend two whole books wandering the Altaran countryside doing random shit and instead can get to the politics of it all. Let Mat actually continue to be smart and empathetic in this section of the storyline, rather than lopping off those parts of him and turning him into a zombie bootlicker yes-man. You can still layer in elements of Mat seeing potential in Tuon to be more than just a slaver, just don't have him toss his entire brain & morals away in order to kiss her ass.

Out of the available titles here, I think “Knife of Dreams” is the best one.

Inciting incidents:

Egwene undermines Elaida from within the Tower

Perrin starts Wolf Boot Camp

Rand & Nynaeve cleanse saidin

Turning Point:

Rand faces off against Semirhage and captures her

Egwene finds out from Verin about the extent of the Black Ajah in the White Tower

Aviendha leaves to go to Rhuidean to become a WO

Mat finds out that sul'dam (and thus Tuon) can channel and actually uses it as a negotiation tactic against her, please let this man use his brain during literally any of his conversations with Tuon, I am begging you. The way he reacts in the books to finding out that Tuon is a sul'dam and then that Tuon can channel is SO FUCKING BIZARRE. He just Does Not Care about slavery at all in CoT & KoD and is all Me Me Me about all of the Tuon revelations. In the previous books, Mat claims to be selfish even while constantly doing heroic/selfless things, but in CoT & KoD, he really does just come across as a genuine selfish bastard, someone who only thinks about himself and who doesn't give a shit about anyone else.

Climax:

Tuon and Mat agree on the terms of their marriage alliance and Say The Words

Elayne defeats her fellow claimants to the throne; maybe Min helps root out that Darkfriend captain in her guards, which would lend weight to her being able to do the same later for Tuon and also make it so that Min is at least as helpful to Team Light as she was to the Seanchan

The Seanchan (sent by Semirhage before she went to face Rand) attack the White Tower.

The Gathering Storm/Towers of Midnight: ToM has never made any sense as a title, so I would call this combined book “The Gathering Storm”. This section is more about putting things in a somewhat different order than they happened in the books, with a few tweaks.

Inciting Incidents:

Egwene defeats the Seanchan at the White Tower

Semirhage is freed by Elza and captures Rand, and (stealing @markantonys's excellent suggestion) Nynaeve is the one targeted when Semirhage forces Rand to her will, making Rand push Nynaeve away 'for her protection'

Rand and Egwene have a tense encounter that makes her doubt his sanity.

Turning point:

After taking the test to become full Aes Sedai, Nynaeve gets Lan's bond from Myrelle and then, since Myrelle was literally right outside the Black Tower at the time, Nynaeve and Logain deal with the Black Tower

Egwene deals with the assassins in the Tower (Gawyn subplot)

Perrin deals with the dreamspike and kills Slayer | Egwene deals with Mesaana

Aviendha returns from Rhuidean and reunites with Elayne & Min

Climax:

Rand attacks his father, leading to the moment on Dragonmount

post-epiphany, Rand actually goes to check in on his friends and loved ones, thus making his epiphany have an impact on the storyline -- he Travels to where Mat is and is the one who helps Mat get from Point A (Altara) to Point B (Caemlyn) and letting them actually have a real reunion, delivering Aludra to Elayne, where she is ready to make weapons. In Caemlyn, he talks to Elayne, Aviendha, & Min, leading into the bonding moment.

Mat saves Moiraine from the Tower of Ghenjei.

(epilogue) Tuon arrives back in Ebou Dar and takes control of the Seanchan forces, letting everyone know that there is now a treaty with the Westlands. Her going back with a treaty already tentatively in place would actually make the triumphant tone that the books try to take her with her return make a lot more sense than... readers apparently supposed to be happy??? that one slaver is taking over from another slaver, even though Tuon is just as willing to do awful shit to our protagonists as Suroth was, so it feels like a distinction without a difference to me. Technically, is Tuon marginally better than Suroth? Eh, maybe, but not by much.

A Memory of Light: Most of my changes here either follow from earlier ones (we already have a treaty with the Seanchan, so Mat can just go to Merrilor to start General’ing right away), but apart from that:

Let the Emond’s Field Five (plus Elayne) have a group reunion! (easier to do in this version where Mat's storyline isn't all about sucking up to Tuon, I admit)

Let Perrin and Mat be at Rand’s funeral! (genuinely so bizarre that Sanderson didn't do a one-sentence fix of this tbh; that would have been the easiest thing in the world to fix. One sentence is all you would have needed.)

Let Moiraine be the person who realizes that Rand is still alive, not Cadsuane.

The battle itself could have been cut down somewhat in order to leave more room for character interactions (we probably don't need three separate sword duels for Demandred; kinda excessive). This is a goodbye to people some of us spent over a decade loving; we should be given proper goodbyes to them.

I also feel like there's no need to have everyone and their brother know that Rand is in a relationship with three women? And it felt pointless to have people know that Rand is the father of Elayne's kids too. Have Rand tell his dad (and then have Tam actually act like he has that knowledge during his scenes with Elayne; it is genuinely bizarre how formal Tam and Elayne's interactions were in AMoL; she knows that he's Rand's dad! That's the grandfather of her kids!) but there's no need for a continent-wide memo about Rand's love life. I know this was likely all because of the epilogue where the whole world knows about ~the three~ grieving widows but this is all about a theoretical world of only ten books total, so some tweaking of the epilogue is happening regardless.

Inciting incidents:

Moiraine arrives (with Mat) to help heal the rift between Egwene and Rand

Darkfriends attack Caemlyn through the Ways

Climax:

Rand vs The Dark One

Everyone else vs the Shadow’s forces

So, that would leave us with ten books total (plus the New Spring prequel):

The Eye of the World: the journey begins

The Great Hunt: more important plot elements are introduced, like the Seanchan; Rand begins to learn leadership

The Dragon Reborn: Rand accepts being the Dragon Reborn & takes on a full-time leadership role; Mat now has his luck & Perrin has met Faile

The Shadow Rising: Perrin takes on a leadership role when he leads the defense of the Two Rivers

The Fires of Heaven: Mat takes on a leadership role during the Battle of Cairhien, creating the Band of the Red Hand

A Crown of Swords: Egwene takes on a leadership role by becoming Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai

The Path of Daggers: Elayne takes on a leadership role by putting in her claim to become Queen of Andor

Knife of Dreams: Rand & Nynaeve reverse the Dark One’s counterstroke and then Rand tries and fails to make an alliance with the Seanchan (fake!Tuon); Perrin goes to wolf boot camp; Mat makes a treaty with the Seanchan via marriage alliance to the DotNM; Elayne gets all ten Houses she needs to secure the throne; Egwene has all-but won over the White Tower as well.

The Gathering Storm: we all prepare for the Last Battle; Rand has his epiphany, in whatever form it takes; Mat saves Moiraine; Perrin defeats Slayer; Egwene and Elayne prepare their respective areas for TLB.

A Memory of Light: the journey ends (for this age)

I feel like this gives us a more consistent build-up to the ending, with each piece building upon the ones before, and not taking an excessive amount of time with subplots in the endgame. Each character also has a more consistent progression as well.

Rand

tEotW: worries about being a male channeler

TGH: told he is the Dragon Reborn but assumes the White Tower wants to use him as a false Dragon

TDR: goes on a journey to prove whether or not he’s TDR and proves that he is; taking control of Tear

TSR: becomes the Car’a’carn

TFoH: takes control of Cairhien

ACoS: takes control of Illian

TPoD: has his first major failure when he is unable to repel the Seanchan from Ebou Dar

KoD: succeeds in cleansing saidin but fails to make peace with the Seanchan

TGS: has rock-bottom moment and then his epiphany; he learns he doesn’t have to do it All On His Own

AMoL: re-seals TDO

Egwene

tEotW: sets off an adventure

TGH: experiences great trauma at the hands of the Seanchan

TDR: Black Ajah Hunter

TSR: Goes to the Aiel Waste to begin her training

TFoH: One of her mentors (Moiraine) dies

ACoS: is called to take on a leadership position

TPoD: takes control of the rebel Aes Sedai

KoD: besieges Tar Valon and is captured

TGS: become Amrylin of a united White Tower

AMoL: leads in the Last Battle and becomes an inspirational figure

Perrin

tEotW: discovers that he’s a wolfbrother

TGH: is first placed in a leadership position when Rand disappears

TDR: meets Faile

TSR: defends the Two Rivers (Slayer introduced)

TFoH: feels the tug of ta’veren and leaves the Two Rivers again

ACoS: saves Rand

TPoD: finds Masema; Faile kills Masema

KoD: Wolf Boot Camp

TGS: deals with Slayer in the Wolf Dream

AMoL: leads the wolves at the Last Battle (instead of it being Elyas)

Nynaeve

tEotW: sets out to protect the four kiddos

TGH: adopts Elayne as a fifth kiddo

TDR: Black Ajah Hunter

TSR: Tanchico & the SAD bracelets; Egeanin

TFoH: defeating Rahvin & capturing Moghedien

ACoS: Salidar & Ebou Dar

TPoD: using the Bowl of the Winds

KoD: cleansing saidin

TGS: the Black Tower plotline

AMoL: with Rand at the climax of TLB; being the Ultimate Protector

Mat

tEotW: finds the dagger

TGH: blows the Horn of Valere

TDR: discovers his luck

TSR: Rhuidean & prophecy

TFoH: the Battle of Cairhien & the Band of the Red Hand

ACoS: Salidar & Seanchan invasion in Ebou Dar

TPoD: meets & kidnaps the Daughter of the Nine Moons

KoD: forms a marriage alliance with the Daughter of the Nine Moons

TGS: saving Moiraine

AMoL: General of the forces of Light at the Last Battle

Elayne

tEotW: meets Rand, heads off to Tar Valon

TGH: gets a found family in Egwene, Nynaeve, & Min

TDR: Black Ajah Hunter (meets Aviendha)

TSR: Tanchico & the SAD bracelets; Egeanin

TFoH: bonding Birgitte; Circus storyline

ACoS: Salidar & Ebou Dar

TPoD: using the Bowl of the Winds & heading to Andor

KoD: becoming Queen (plot climax)

TGS: bonds Rand (emotional climax)

AMoL: powerful leader during the Last Battle

[cupcakegirll72]

Okay so update, the rice ice cream really wasn’t that good I was not a fan but the dumplings turned out awesome

Okay so for the dough I just used standard bakers flour, salt, and water, because I was steaming my dumplings when I added the water to the salt and flour it was near boiling water to cook the flour a little, I used a cup of flour eyeballed the salt, you don’t need a lot of salt, and I added water until there were clumps of water/flour mix plus a little dry flour then I kneaded it into a fully combined ball of dough, it should feel kinda firm like really firm, like any more flour and it would just be a ball of dry, then I wrapped it in plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes on the counter

For the insides I used 1lb of ground chicken, eyeballed the cabbage but I used a good bit of chopped cabbage, green onions, a little more than 1 tbsp of soy sauce, salt, pepper, you’re supposed to use oyster sauce but I didn’t have that so I just used fish sauce, like 2-3 tbsps of sesame oil, minced garlic, and 5 tbsps water, the recipe I used also said to add ginger but I don’t have any rn😞

To fold I strongly suggest dampening the edges🥲

And lastly to cook i just put them in a pan, let it heat, then added some oil and a little water to let it steam and covered it with a lid, then once it was done steaming (I had to add water multiple times cause evaporation) i uncovered it and let the water boil out then added a little more oil and fried them😸

[cherlawa-panna]

Barney Barton META: Leaving the circus

◀ The previous post: Barney's childhood

▶The next post: Barney's "death"

I originally wanted to combine this post with Barney's life after leaving the circus, but I figured I’d probably run out of space for pics. So, I’m making two separate posts.

If you know anything about Barney, his agenda vary depending on the author, he changes a lot from comic to comic and yada yada (you know the deal). However, when it comes to him leaving the circus, it seems like the authors were working with the same general idea... kinda. This post will delve into that.

I’ll divide it into two parts: first, I’ll discuss the reasons why Barney left the circus, and second, why he left Clint (because, of course, no meta about Barney can exist without a section dedicated solely to Clint lmao).

As always, dedicated to @carcrash429, @hawkzeyes and a special dedication for @all-of-de-crack-ships (because thanks to them I got inspiration to write again <3)

TW: Mentions of child abuse, pedophilia [on unnamed teenage girl who was forced to take suggestive pictures; possible sex trafficking] and violence(?) [Jacques tried to kill Clint SO-]

1. Why did Barney leave the circus?

Before delving into the reasons, we first need to explore how his leaving was portrayed, in order to get the full picture.

Thankfully, there are not too many differences between runs, since everywhere, it's portrayed the same way: he left after Jacques tried to kill Clint.

Hawkeye 1983 doesn't mention much about Barney outside of these panels—Clint only talks about how he and his brother ran away to the circus, then about the accident and how Barn disappeared because "he had enough of a carny life". Other than that, not much is mentioned. This flashback is only supposed to show Clint's past in a nutshell, and it's clear that they didn't care about the reason why Barney left. They simply had to get rid of him from the circus to fit the storyline shown in Avenger 1969 (Barney was a member of the mob, so he had to leave the circus at some point), and that's it.

Then he's forgotten for six years, until Solo Avengers (1989), which gives him lines to speak and finally some depth to his decision to leave. Probably because they realized that the reason presented in 1983 wasn't enough and they needed more trauma for Clint. Unfortunately, this portrayal only raises more confusion.

Let's focus on this part:

"He was willing to split the receipts with you -- and you turned him down? We could have been on easy street... But you muffed it!"

So yeah, Barney didn't leave because he suddenly decided he didn't give a shit about the circus life. Oh no, no, now he left because Clint didn't agree to make a deal with Jacques about splitting the money. Which is an absurd reason to leave by the way, but since we were given such a stupid reason, we unfortunately have to deal with it.

The reader might think that Barney comes off as a huge asshole for focusing on money when his brother was almost killed. And, yeah, Barney is an asshole, but the situation is not as simple as it appears at first glance.

Being "on easy street" means living a comfortable life, free of worries—especially financial ones. It can also mean having financial independence and that you don’t have to struggle day-to-day just to make ends meet. If it was only about money, Barney would have phrased it differently, probably something like "we could be rich" or "we could make a fortune." But here, it’s clear he’s focused on having an easier life.

From this we can conclude that Barney did not see their life in the circus as a good or sustainable one—he wanted something more. It’s likely that he saw the money as an easy way out, a quick ticket to escape. Considering how easily Barney made the decision to leave, it’s clear that he had been contemplating this for some time. To delve deeper into this, we need to jump ahead a few years to the 2015 comic All-New Hawkeye.

From here, we learn that in their early years at the circus, Barney at first didn't want to leave. In fact, he was angry when Clint suggests going back to the orphanage after discovering the crimes happening at the circus.

"Go where Clint!? There is nowhere else!? "I don't know. I just-- I don't like it here anymore. Maybe we can just go back. "(...) This place is our home now, Clint."

If you've read my post about Barney's childhood, you may remember that their family and then the orphanage (and the foster home that was mentioned out of nowhere in All New Hawkeye) didn't treat them well. Their lives had full of violence, and the circus had promised them a respite—a place free from further abuse.

Despite being fully aware of the illegal and immoral activities taking place at the carnival, Barney decided that staying was the best option for both of them at this moment. Unlike returning to the orphanage as Clint wanted—where they would undoubtedly face an endless cycle of violence and remain trapped in the system—staying at the carnival at least offered some semblance of security.

Up until Clint almost getting killed by Jacques, they hadn't experienced any form of violence here (well, aside from Jacques and Trickshot's messed up behaviour while training Clint, but they'd never hit him [unless I forgot something]). Which was a huge improvement in their lives, which is also sad.

Beyond the thefts and the rough treatment that Clint got from his mentors, the circus did more immoral things. All-New Hawkeye presented us an unnamed teenager girl, who was implied to have been sexually abused —and she was only slightly older than Barney and Clint.

Based on the contents of the box—sexually suggestive photos and a camera—it can be inferred that Jacques was filming explicit material involving her for selling. This strongly suggests that she was a victim of sex trafficking.

Although we don’t know if other girls here suffered the same fate, it’s hard to not think that if Barney or Clint weren’t boys, they might have faced a similar thing.

It’s known that Carson required non-performing members to pay their "takes" no matter how— the big boss was even quite insistent that Clint should find other means of earning money than being a trick shooter.

Since the girl appears to have been in this situation since she was around Clint and Barney's age, I can’t help but think that if Clint had been a girl, Carson might’ve tried to force him to join her. But, of course, we’ll never know for sure—this is just my theory.

What’s also implied here is that Clint and Barney probably didn’t have any of their own money (and if they had, it was probably not much), as they probably had to give everything to Carson. This could explain why Barney was so frustrated with Clint after the incident. They were essentially trapped in the circus because they didn’t have enough money to leave.

Returning to Barney—despite wanting to stay here back then, we also know that he did not intend to bind his life with this place forever. Clint in Hawkeye (2003) mentions that Barney, since they joined the circus, tried to persuade him to return to education to have more options for the future.

Barney clearly took his education seriously, which we can see in his SAT score. I don't know a lot about SAT, but based on what I found on internet, 1350 is above average.

Working in the circus is tiring; often, members have to work from dawn till night. The fact that Barney was able to study and get a high score while working means that he had to be very determined to get his diploma. Thanks to this, we can conclude that he was also determined to leave.

Another small detail worth mentioning about Barney's reluctance to the circus is that, already in 1989 comic, we see hints that he was already aware of how Jacques was using Clint and didn't treat him well.

True, in that moment, Barney was definitely more focused on mocking Clint than genuinely worrying about him, especially with that grin on his face lol. But, honestly, it’s nothing new—Barney has always been an asshole, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise.

Clint ignored Barney’s warnings about his mentor, too caught up in the excitement of finally having a male figure show interest in him (hello, Daddy Issues). As a result, he ignored his brother’s advice. Which wasn't the first or the last time he did.

In Hawkeye: Blindspot, we got another flashback of Clint’s accident—naturally, with events portrayed differently than in previous comics. And don’t worry, this won’t be the last time the story changes.

In this version, Barney doesn’t yell at Clint when he finds him but instead does so later at the hospital.

Here you can see that Barney that Jacques had been "ripped off" and that the money was rightfully his. Given that we’ve already established the brothers had little to no financial resources of their own, it seems like Barney is projecting some of his frustration about their money situation onto Jacques.

Despite his negative feelings toward Jacques in earlier comics, it’s clear there’s some lingering gratitude—after all, Jacques gave them a place to stay and didn’t abuse them like their father did (he had a very low bar, I guess). This might explain his statement: “After all he done for you!?”. That said, Barney’s words are messed up when you remember Jacques had just tried to kill Clint. Perhaps his words were made in the heat of the moment, since he's known for his anger issues. It’s worth noting that this flashback is from Hawkeye: Blindspot, the comic that introduced us to Barney as Trickshot. Sooo he wasn't exactly portrayed as the more sympathetic and less asshole older brother we saw in Hawkeye 2003.

Ultimately, Barney blames Clint entirely for what happened and yelled at him for not taking the money. After that, as in all other versions of the story, Barney leaves.

(We’ll delve into Barney’s last exchange in the second panel later.)

So, so far we have this picture: Barney and Clint escape from the orphanage/foster home and end up at the circus. They stay because it’s the safest option and offers a chance for a stable life, despite the crime and visible abuse of other members. However, Barney recognized that this life wasn’t ideal and that they deserve something better. He viewed the circus as a temporary solution, a means to survive for a while. That’s why, regardless of what might have happened— even if the incident with Jacques never occurred— it’s clear that Barney would have eventually left. However, it’s likely he stayed longer than he would want to because he was holding onto the hope that he could convince Clint to leave with him. But when Clint refused and "ruined" their chance at a better life (by rejecting the money), Barney decided to leave.

Finally, we can explore the real reason why Barney chose that moment to leave.

As I mentioned earlier, Clint’s accident was a major catalyst for Barney’s sudden decision. However, it’s only in Hawkeye (2003) that we get a bigger perspective on what happened.

Here’s where things get interesting: in this version, Barney doesn’t mention the money at all, and he’s not upset that Clint turned it down. Why the change? Well, we know that the earlier depictions of this incident came from Clint’s story to readers, while here, we get it as memories. Could it be that Barney's anger for money was just a lie, Clint's way to avoid explaining the real reasons behind his brother's leaving? Well, no. My theory is that the authors decided to remove the money thing because it conflicted with the "good older brother" image they wanted to create.

Everyone can interpret this differently and create their own version of canon. Personally, I like to imagine that Hawkeye (2003) portrays the true details of the accident, though perhaps Barney did mention that he should have taken the money. However, I don’t think it was as harsh as Clint remembers it. In both 2003 and 1983 [the first panel on the post if you already forgot], Barney was entirely focused on his brother, with money becoming a factor in 1986 and Blindspot. Clint almost died and was likely not thinking clearly. Hearing something so hurtful from his own brother after being so betrayed by his mentor probably had a lasting impact and made him remember it differently. But in 2003, Clint reflects more positively on Barney, influenced by his grief after Barney's 'death,' which might explain why the mention of money is absent.

By the way, an interesting detail is that Barney never refers to the circus as "family." Clint, Jacques, and the rest of the circus, at some point or another, all called it their family. But Barney? He never did. To him, it was simply a means to an end—something that paid off for both of them, but not something he ever considered a real family.

But let's go back to what ultimately drove Barney to leave for good. Take a good look at this exchange:

"You don't rat on your family, Barney. "No matter what?" "No matter what"

Barney had previously ignored everything going on in the circus. Carson's abuse of the employees? Not his concern. Thefts? Whatever. Clint's mentors treating him poorly? Well, their father was worse.

But this time? Clint had nearly died, and the circus was more concerned about protecting Jacques.

That was the breaking point.

"I'm leaving. I mean, this carnival thing is going nowhere for us - for me... I want a fresh start"

Remember the word "us"—it'll become important in the next part.

He realized he couldn't stay any longer. If he didn't leave now, he never will. So, of course, he chose to join the army— the quickest way to escape. Let’s also not forget that the military offers great benefits, including college tuition, and Barney had shown a desire to continue his education (you'll see it in another panel because the limit of pics wouldn't let me put it here too).

We already know the reasons behind Barney's decision. Now, the next question remains: why did he leave without Clint?

2. Why did Barney abandon Clint?

At first glance, it seems selfish and senseless for Barney to leave Clint behind, especially when it was Clint who almost died. So, why did Barney run away and leave him in such abusive place?

To understand it, we need to revisit the information we've gathered in the previous part.

Throughout Hawkeye (2003), Barney repeatedly told Clint that the circus shouldn't be his only option, that there were countless other possibilities for him. As mentioned earlier, Barney did want to leave, but he hoped to take Clint with him.

Personally, I believe this is one of the key reasons why he didn’t want his brother to get involved in the circus thefts

Yes, Barney did steal for the circus in the past, but he eventually stopped, likely because he found other ways to pay Carson, probably by taking on harder jobs. However, Clint's situation was different. If he started stealing, the chances of him ever getting out of it would be slim. He wouldn't be able to replace the money from thefts with anything else, as he'd already earned his keep as a performer too.

Did Clint agree with Barney’s view? As seen in earlier panels, no. He dismissed his brother's words, either rejecting them outright or protesting that he had no other choice—that staying in the circus was his only option because he felt he couldn't do anything else.

And finally, we reach the most crucial scene, which is the last piece of puzzle: the conversation between the brothers about Barney’s departure.

The first thing we notice is that, although Barney had planned his leave, he still tried to persuade Clint to come with him. However, Clint remained adamant in his decision.

And before I give you everything on a silver tray, we must get back to a certain thing. Do you remember the previous panel, where I asked you to remember:

"I'm leaving. I mean, this carnival thing is going nowhere for us - for me... I want a fresh start"

Let’s focus on the words “for us”.

He mentions them together first, and only then does he mention himself.

It may seem insignificant, but hear me out. I get the impression that Barney’s plan all along involved Clint coming with him. He didn’t anticipate that Clint might refuse, but he used subtle manipulation to try and get Clint to join him. He knew that his brother would likely resist if he were pressured directly or forced to leave. That’s why Barney framed it in a way that made him think it would be his decision to join, rather than Barney’s idea all along.

We can see it in:

"You can come with me" – This implies you can join me, but you don’t have to. It gives Clint the illusion of a choice, though in reality, he doesn’t really have one (which I’ll explain shortly).

"You'd pass on an opportunity like that?" – Clint hates feeling undermined and has a big ego. This line is meant to provoke him, making him feel that not seizing this opportunity would mean he's losing out. It subtly challenges him: Is this really all you’re willing to settle for?

"My bus leaves at nine AM" – He’s not talking about the bus in general; he’s talking about his bus. It’s still about making Clint understand that Barney is leaving for himself, not pressuring Clint to come along. If he decides to join, it’s because he chooses to, not because Barney is telling him to.

Before becoming Trickshot, Barney was portrayed as someone skilled at handling, smooth-talking, and manipulating people (I go into more detail about this in my post on his childhood). Given this, I firmly believe he was attempting manipulation here. But why did he think this would be the most effective way to force Clint? We need to look at their childhood memories:

Barney used the same method of manipulation when escaping from the orphanage, at least in Solo Avengers (1989).

"Barney finally had his fill — and decided to run away from the orphanage. I didn't want to go -- but he was my only family -- so I couldn't let him leave alone!"

Barney wanted to run away, and Clint saw joining him as the only logical choice—because, to him, Barney was his only option. The comics often show that he ALWAYS wanted to follow his brother. Even in All-New Hawkeye, when Clint wanted to leave but Barney didn’t, he chose not to go. He didn’t want to be alone.

"Where I go, Clint goes."

Given how Barney always looked after his brother (as I mentioned in my previous post), I highly doubt he planned to run away and leave Clint behind. When he left, he must have known Clint would follow. I know, I know—Hawkeye: Blindspot shows him convincing Clint, but comics often shift canon, and if we took everything as canon, we’d end up with conflicting stories. Besides, Barney didn't give him too much of choice here too.

"Now stop whining and just follow"

Let’s get back on track. Given all of this, it’s clear that Barney must have expected his brother to follow him. And, of course, he was right—but he didn’t realize it. By the time Clint arrived, the bus had already left.

We don’t know exactly what Barney was thinking, but to me, he seems resigned, maybe sad—like he's hurt by the fact that he had to leave Clint behind.

Now, we need to ask, why did he make that choice? Why didn’t he try to talk Clint into coming with him? It's simple. When he took care of his brother in the past, Clint was still a minor. By the time this story takes place, Clint was either an adult or close to it. Given that Barney was asking him to join the army with him, he was likely at least 17—unless Barney planned to forge documents (I remember seeing somewhere that Clint was probably 19, but I can't find it now).

Barney no longer had the obligation to care for his brother, especially since Clint was now making his own conscious decisions. And besides, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want your help.

If he didn’t want to join, Barn wouldn’t force him—Clint is capable of making his own decisions. Maybe this situation made Barney realize that his little brother was no longer a little kid who needed looking after.

In the earlier flashback from Hawkeye: Blindspot that I referenced, Barney wasn’t just angry at Clint for not taking the money—he was also upset because it was clear his brother wanted to stay. By refusing the money, Clint in his eyes was essentially choosing to remain in the circus instead of leaving for a chance at a better life.

In Hawkeye (2003), we don’t see the same kind of anger from Barney. Instead, there’s a sense of sadness and disappointment that Clint didn’t follow him. Maybe after Clint was discharged from the hospital, Barney had calmed down. That’s when he attempted to use subtle manipulation to make Clint to leave with him. However, when that effort failed, Barney made the decision to leave on his own.

Maybe he hoped his brother would eventually realize that staying here was a bad idea and leave on his own — and he was right, but not with leaving part. He probably didn't expect for Clint to think that he didn't had any other choice.

Another reason that I can see why Barney wanted to leave by his own was to find himself. I don’t see this as abandoning Clint, but rather as a moment when Barney finally wanted to do something for himself—for once, just for himself. In every early childhood memory Clint had, Barney was more of a guardian/parent than a brother and we know that he often felt overshadowed by Clint.

3. The summary

Kids, don't join the circus, even if your older brother said so.

Barney found himself in a complicated situation as a child—forced to care for his brother when he could barely take care of himself. He took Clint out of the orphanage, recognizing that it wasn’t the best place for them, but in doing so, he accidently put them in another abusive situation. Still, it was better than living on the streets or being in another violent household.

I believe that being separated was the best thing that ever happened to them. If Clint had followed Barney, he likely would never have joined the Avengers or found his true self. Similarly, Barney would never have discovered who he was outside of being an older brother. Admittedly, he didn’t want to leave his brother alone, but what choice did he have?

Putting this post together was tough, as Barney's character changed so much from comic to comic based on the type of trauma the authors wanted to give Clint lmao. But since Barn was caring during his childhood, I chose to follow that path in my interpretation. As always, I’m open to discussion, and remember, these are just my thoughts lol.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

The Chapter 4 Essay Part 2: Gonta Gokuhara

A metapost on my thoughts on Kokichi’s overall motivations and Gonta’s actions during ch4. Split into two parts. You can find Kokichi's half here: (LINK)

This section is admittedly a little bit shorter than Kokichi’s, but that’s just because Gonta’s motivations are a lot more clear than Kokichi’s. That being said, I’m also worried that since I am so obsessed with Gonta I might forget something important that supports my point because to me its kinda self-evident. So if anything seems like it’s missing or doesn’t make sense, please let me know!

In my opinion, nothing Kokichi did to Gonta was personal, in both positive and negative ways. He didn’t target Gonta because he hated him in particular, but he also didn’t team up with him because they were already friends. Gonta was just an easy target for him to take advantage of, both for stopping Miu from killing him And in progressing his plan to stop the killing game. Gonta’s actions in chapter 4 are a combination of genuine manipulation by Kokichi using what made him an easy target, and motivation caused by Gonta’s desperation and preexisting insecurities that had been growing since the start of the killing game.

Throughout v3, the one thing that Gonta wants more than anything else is to protect his friends from the killing game. It’s pretty clear that he trusts his physical strength more than any other part of himself. The literal First thing Gonta says in a group setting with everyone else is this:

(prologue)

He doesn’t even know anyone yet! But he’s already prepared to physically defend them from the exisals! He also tries to stop Kaede’s execution along with Kaito and Tenko:

(post trial, chapter 1) (And- wait- is Gonta missing his bug box in this cg? Oh my god….)

Gonta is shown to be most confident when doing things that involve his physical strength. There’s less hesitation and uncertainty in his actions, unlike what you can often see in him during class trials or group discussions.

Gonta is also more than willing to give up his life for his friends, even as early as chapter 2.

(post trial, chapter 2) (he’s the first one to make this suggestion)

Outside of physical defense against active threats, Gonta really just wants to help his friends in any way he can. Here’s a couple examples:

(post-trial, chapter 1) (daily life, chapter 2) (daily life, chapter 3) (investigation, chapter 3)

On the other hand, Gonta has really bad self esteem issues. It’s telling enough that one of Gonta’s common floatlines is literally “Gonta idiot…” When he’s not casually calling himself dumb he’s apologizing for it. For this (and honestly, many other parts of Gonta’s character that I’m pointing out here) I really recommend just paying close attention to Gonta on a replay of the game. I could literally sit here for a week finding and listing all the times Gonta calls himself stupid, but it feels pretty self-evident considering how much he does it. Here’s just one example:

(investigation, chapter 1)

It’s the combination of his deep desire to be helpful and protect the people around him, and the repeated deaths of his classmates, that really start to wear on him as the game progresses. I think this mixes with his already present self worth issues to form a pretty nasty complex; Gonta explicitly blames himself for almost every single victim’s death in the game. Let’s walk through the chapters for a moment here:

Ryoma: “Gonta coulda saved him… No, Gonta shoulda saved him…! // When piranhas attack Ryoma… If Gonta had dived into tank… / Then… Gonta coulda help Ryoma. But Gonta got scared. Too scared to do anything. / Sorry! Gonta really sorry!”

In chapter 3, Gonta joins Angie’s student council out of his desire to protect everyone. This is made clear in how, before pulling him in, Angie compliments Gonta and calls him smart. She then says this:

(daily life, chapter 3)

This time, organized as a part of the student council and with Angie’s god on his side, Gonta hopes that he can finally be useful and successfully protect someone.

Angie: “Maybe Angie got attacked while she sleep in her room, and get brought there? / If so… Gonta coulda saved her! If only Gonta saw! / But Gonta was sleeping… Sorry, Angie… Gonta no could save you!”

…To quote my favourite V3 lets play (shortonegaming) on this moment: “He made up a version [of Angie’s death] so that he could blame himself.”

Tenko: “T-Tenko…! Gonta so sorry… Gonta no could protect you!” and then a little later “It’s all Gonta’s fault…! Gonta fail to protect friends again!” and AGAIN later “Gonta so ashamed…! Why Gonta no could protect friends!?”

That’s two deaths in a row that Gonta (at least believes) he was right next door to and failed to stop. You can see from how he says this repeatedly, with lots of dialogue from other characters in between, the sheer amount that this is impacting him.

Miu: “But… why this happen…!? Why… Miu killed!? / Gonta not understand… Gonta not understand anything… /…But Gonta frustrated and sad! Gonta no could protect Miu! // Gonta so sorry! Gonta sorry he no could protect Miu!” Even with Miu’s death, to which he’s waking up disoriented and confused, he blames himself for failing to stop it.

(Sidenote: Looking at all these reactions back to back makes Gonta’s disorientation after waking up from the virtual world SO much more visible. I left the beginning out of the quote I took, but when you first talk to him during ch4’s investigation, he doesn’t say anything for a few moments. This is very unlike his immediate, intense reactions in the earlier chapters. When he does start speaking it feels kind of disjointed, uncharacteristically calm, and confused before he starts riling himself up blaming himself for Miu’s death. I never really noticed it before looking into this. It’s kind of disturbing)

The only reason I personally think he doesn’t react this way about Rantaro immediately is due to being in shock that someone died to begin with. That doesn’t stop him from saying this not long after:

(investigation, chapter 1)

This complex- made of the desire to protect everyone, self loathing, and feelings of uselessness at being unable to help investigating due to being “stupid” and failing to protect anyone physically, the only thing he thinks he’s good at, every. single. time- only gets worse with each chapter. And in Chapter 4, Gonta finally reaches his breaking point.

At the beginning of Chapter 4, you can talk to Gonta as Shuichi is leaving to meet up with Kaito and Maki to train. He tries to stop Shuichi, worried about a murder potentially taking place at night (again), but Shuichi reassures him that he’ll stick by his friends and that he can’t break his promise to meet up with them. Gonta responds like this:

(daily life, chapter 4)

Which leads to him saying he’s made up his mind, and has a plan. Which is, of course, to try and take down Monokuma physically, even if it costs him his life. He initially drops the suggestion after Miu starts talking about the virtual world, but the day after, it’s still bothering him.

(daily life, chapter 4)

Almost every free time event you have with Gonta this chapter (except for like, one, where he talks about the “tiny bugs” he can barely see), Gonta is trying to think of ways to help.

(free time, chapter 4) His last possible free time event before Miu takes everyone into the virtual world has this dialogue, which is just so sad to me.

(free time, chapter 4)

“Helping everyone” and not being “useless” are almost the only two things Gonta talks about this chapter. It’s this mindset and motivation that made Gonta an easy target for Kokichi to take advantage of. He’s in a bad place mentally, and nothing he does seems to help anybody. Not to mention, with the student council gone, he’s suddenly just kind of… alone. There’s no one there (other than potentially Shuichi, during free time) to keep him steady.

And yeah, I am definitely not including Kokichi here. A strong reason I don’t think Gonta chose to go along with Kokichi out of friendship was because of this interaction early Chapter 4:

(daily life, chapter 4)

Gonta’s trust in Kokichi was broken because of the events of the insect meet and greet. The insect meet and greet’s implications for Kokichi and Gonta’s relationship are a bit strange, but since it’s not super relevant to chapter 4, I’m not gonna get into it. The point is, regardless of the nature of their relationship in chapter 2, it’s clear that Gonta doesn’t consider Kokichi a very trustworthy person in chapter 4. It’s likely that he doesn’t consider him a close friend either. I hesitate to say that Gonta didn’t consider him a friend at all, because he’s Gonta and he wants to have faith in everyone, but at the very least he was trying to be wary around him.

This explicit distrust in Kokichi might make it seem strange that Gonta went along with Kokichi at all in the virtual world. But in reality, Kokichi was very aware of Gonta’s distrust in him, and used it to his advantage in setting up his plot.

(daily life, chapter 4) (I skipped some dialogue in this exchange, but it hits the main points)

Kaito inadvertently eggs Gonta on here, but Kokichi literally drops the idea at Gonta’s feet. Gonta isn’t going with Kokichi to help him look, he’s going to make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble. And as Kokichi said, he knew Gonta would offer to do something like this if given the chance.

Kokichi uses Gonta’s distrust in him again when they encounter the flashback light holding the secret of the outside world together. Gonta’s immediate instinct was to go find everyone else, but Kokichi yells for him to wait, and then this happens:

(post trial, chapter 4)

He KNOWS Gonta doesn’t trust him, and with that distrust, he can make him doubt anything he says. I’ve already talked about how Gonta is ready to give up his life for everyone else, especially this chapter, so suggesting that he check if the light is a trap set up by Kokichi is guaranteed to make Gonta pause.

But it doesn’t stop there. Kokichi pushes harder:

(post trial, chapter 4)

Gonta thinks for a moment, but this is what made him choose to come back and look at the flashback light himself. Here, Kokichi uses the thing that has been haunting Gonta more than anything else all killing game, especially this chapter. He knows Gonta has tried and failed to protect people, he knows how upset it makes him. What better way would there be to convince him to do whatever he wants than to offer a way for him to finally be “useful” to everyone after failing them again and again?

Anything after this point and before Miu’s body discovery is purely headcanon, so I won’t get into my thoughts on that. But I think this moment shows that Gonta was under a lot more control that people often think. I don’t mean to say that Kokichi is entirely blameless, or that Gonta wasn’t manipulated at all. But AlterEgo!Gonta says himself, “No, [we] not tricked,” because he wasn’t. He made the choice to see the secret of the outside world on his own, and made every choice after that to continue with their plan. There was no trickery involved. It was Kokichi’s carefully chosen words that dug right into his insecurities, doubts, and hopes that directly influenced him into making the choice that he did.

You also have to keep in mind how absolutely unstable Gonta must’ve been at this point. He was already nearing a breaking point with his feelings of powerlessness before going into the virtual world, but then he got hit with the secret of the outside world. AlterEgo!Gonta openly admits that it made him feel suicidal. (“Cuz, when Gonta remember the secret of the outside world, Gonta think… /…it would be easier… to die.”) With the outside world and the killing game both inescapable hells, Gonta just couldn’t imagine any way out. And then Kokichi suggests the mercy kill plan. In his state of mind, Gonta truly believed that this could be the way to finally “save” everyone.

Of course, Kokichi had only just recently seen the secret of the outside world too. Even though he must have known it wasn’t true, he had no idea the extent to which it was a lie versus the truth. He probably wasn’t in a very good mental state either. But still, just like he would do again in chapter 5 to everyone else, Kokichi used the despair caused by the secret of the outside world to get Gonta to go along with his plan.

This is what I believe was the driving force behind Gonta’s half of the Kokichi and Gonta dynamic in chapter 4. Gonta’s self loathing, which was present before the killing game began, compounded with his desire to be useful and protect everyone else from the threats of the killing game. As more people died, Gonta became more and more desperate to do literally anything to help everyone else. Kokichi used these things about Gonta to push him to do what he wanted him to.

…To close off, there’s this moment right before Gonta and Kokichi leave to kill Miu that’s really stuck with me.

(daily life, chapter 4) (Read left to right, top to bottom)

It’s not common for the other characters to defend Gonta’s intelligence. But Kaito, unknowingly, says just the right thing to Gonta at just the wrong time. Knowing that Gonta was about to set things in motion to mercy kill everyone for this exact reason… I wonder if Kaito remembered this moment. Maybe it was just another reason he got so defensive over him during trial 4. I just wish he had said something like this to him sooner.

If you got all the way here and read all this… first of all. THANK YOU! Oh my god. I’ve been working on this essay for several days now between studying for my finals. It feels really great to have it all written out after literal years of loving V3 and loving this chapter. Please, please, please let me know your thoughts! Even if you disagree with me! Chapter 4 is so special to me and I love talking about it!! o/

(Screenshots taken on youtube from justonegamr, Bittersweet Gamers, ShortOneGaming, ProZD Plays Games, and my own copy of v3 on IOS. Thank you @/ishimaruhourglass for helping me find some of these!)

[dandysworldconfessionbooth]

more yapping about my friends' dandy's world AU- the Cosmo equivalent there, Starburst, has 3 canonical relatives, obviously our Ginger equivalent(named Coco), but also our Cocoa equivalent, BonBon, and my favorite variant of Shelly, Stalagmite! Stalagmite and Starburst are half-siblings (Starburst has dinosaur features, and that's why), and honestly, I love that! I kinda helped with Stalagmite by giving suggestions on how they were related, and I just really was excited for them to add a Shelly equivalent that's a main(originally they were using starburst after we changed who would be the sans combined with Shelly before that to be combined with Connie, but eventually they agreed to actually get a Shelly that's more obviously her... because you have to be looking to see Starburst's dinosaur features beyond his tail).

-caramel Cosmo anon

I ADOREEEEEEE THISSSSS OH EM GEE!!! WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I LUV THIS,, I NEED MORE ASAP (sorry all I could think abt while reading this is how stalagmite sounds like stalactite, and I used to be a IHNMAIMS fan so all I could think abt is Ted stabbing the other 4 wit a stalactite in the ice caverns..)

-Ponyboy [<<< Gorrister from IHNMAIMS #1 HATER] (this is so off topic im sorrw nwhidwcnjiwdcmioefcjuiwduyh)

[donascozylivingroom]

HOW TO SHIFT PARALLEL REALITIES.

This is if u struggle to understand the concept.

I'm an old lady of 30 yo and I found out about shifting parallel realities when I was 22 so I've had quite some time to simmer on it and even some success with its application.

We are definitely in the era of shifting parallel realities, finally, now.

People talk about it much more, so I decided to make a logical written explanation of it.

For those of you that struggle with affirmations and mental diet, meditation is definitely important. it's a way of knowing urself and ur mind better.

The ability to silence ur mind at will or focus it on a "mantra" comes with a lot of mindfulness - observing ur mind and what it does w/o judgement.

To be smart and get to the age of 30, you start accumulating a lot of knowledge and kinda have a mental toolkit for a lot of things. So me posting this sh@# is from tried and tested things, not just my musings of the day.

ok so parallel realities.

i learned this from Bentinho Massaro in 2015, i don't really follow the guy anymore or would suggest u do it necessarily, i just wanna give him credit.

So he explained basically that when u get to tomorrow, u will be in the present moment, even though in ur mind it was the future. And yesterday you were in the present moment, too, although u call it past. One second ago and one second after are still in their own present moment. so there is no time, there is only the One present moment.

So basically because the Universe is infinite, all possibilities already exist.

In this reality, you can make choices, u could go to the grocery store today or stay home and play video games. You have free will. You could basically start those things you know would help you achieve your dreams, or not. It is a choice. Every second of the day you have choices. You could speak now or not speak.

But all these choices are parallel realities that already exist.

i believe the universe still creates by combining things/realities that were not combined before based on us, and our free will choices, so being infinite and mathematical it keeps on creating through us, free will agents of consciousness/gods.

Anyways, he explained parallel realities like this: imagine u are watching a movie on ur laptop/device. You could stop it at 1:06, print the picture, and then stop it again at 1:07, print that image too, and send one pic to China and one to Austria. Same way you could print pictures hours apart and place the screenshots one after another.

That's kinda how parallel realities work, u could "print" ur desired reality and bring it to ur next nanosecond.

Just moving ur hand up and down, u are going through thousands, possibly tens of thousands of parallel realities.

What brings your desire closer is focus on it, so affirming and visualizing for example are tools.

But just know, ur desire is one nanosecond close!

I personally first shifted when i affirmed that whatever I visualize becomes my reality in 3 seconds. And it was incredible, I shifted from my mom's studio apartment to a beautiful penthouse in NYC! But I shifted back really fast because I got scared.

I shifted a few times more, but this one was the most incredible!

Anyways be careful with this if you can't control ur mind to not visualize scary things or affirm bad things, but yea you could counteract that with a really good self concept that whatever negativity u affirm or visualize doesn t manifest.

Basically you shift all the time, getting ur desire in time is still shifting, shifting is always the case, we are always shifting through parallel realities. But be careful out there peeps!

[kohyuuu]

new ocs ! started: february 3rd, 2025 finished: february 6th, 2025

im feeling really fucking sick rn and i think i have the flu so here is the kinda long awaited introductions to my three new ocs x

was going to add at least 1-2 more hcs for scarlett but im experiencing brain fog rn

anyway enjoy !

as always, androgynous reader <3

——————————

(more undercut !)

elias dunstan rivera 🐢🎧🇵🇭 (inspired by rise donatello !!!!!!)

- he’s a philippine forest turtle

- he’s in 2 honors classes and is in ap psychology which he absolutely hates and loves

- has adhd! (inattentive type) you have to comfort him because his meds don’t work sometimes/take a while to kick in

- has an x-men hyperfixation !! (ares suggestion!)

- quiet. he’s a shy fella. will talk his head off to you over tv shows, movies and fandoms tho !!

- owns grey sony headphones (weirdly specific ik HELP) that he wears on his head or around his neck

- loves hugs (especially from you <333), just make sure to ask him first incase he’s overstimulated. he’s very indifferent to touch but doesn’t mind it when he isn’t overwhelmed

- doesn’t have a lot of friends, except for you and a few other people

- if you two are dating, he would feel insecure given how shy he is, and he feels like he wouldn’t be a good boyfriend but you reassure him he is and always will be ❤️

- kinda hates walking in the hallways at school bc it’s really loud and it overwhelms him sometimes 😕

- he is of filipino descent!!

- some people tell him he kinda looks like rottmnt’s donatello and he’s like “who??” and then they show a pic of him and he’s like “ohhh… yea we do kinda look alike ngl” HELP ME

——————————

finley singh 🐯🤼🇮🇳

- he is a bengal tiger!!

- has average grades in his classes at school (do NOT ask him about math please x)

- for an apex predator, his name doesn’t sound that threatening

- like when you think of the name finley, you wouldn’t think of a literal tiger that looks like he would beat you up in the parking lot…. 😞

- he’s on your school’s wrestling team !! he’ll jump people for you if they’re being mean to you dw x (AND ITS ON SIGHT 😛)

- finley is of indian descent :33

- he’s a soft spoken person but sometimes his voice comes out high and awkwardly loud whenever he speaks

- plays fortnite and fall guys

- owns the hatsune miku skin on fortnite and is a freaking god on fall guys

- if you two are dating, i feel like he’d be an amazing boyfriend but also a really annoying one

- he would try to find you the second he gets out of the locker room so he can walk home with you/however you get home if you’re still at school

- finley’s also the type to give big bear hugs whether you’re a close friend or his s/o, he’ll back off if you’re uncomfy ofc !!

- he chuffs when you guys hug btw and its loud af and he might pounce on you so be careful LMFAO

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scarlett avery ellis 🌹🤠🇺🇸

- human!! she is black <3

- she also has adhd (combined-type) and is hyperfixated on american/cowboy/cowgirl aesthetic and music!! ❤️

- her grades in school are also average, but you and her have study dates together if you two are dating <3

- has a big american flag in her room!! she also has a corkboard with everything american/cowbody related on it in the style of an early 2000s rom-com where the character plans out something on their corkboard or smth?? (idk if y’all are getting my reference but i hope yk LMAO)

- randomly sings the intro song from american dad when she’s around you and/or some friends LMFAOO

- is best friends with elias!! you and him met thanks to her <3

- if you two are dating, i feel like scarlett would be a loving girlfriend, you guys would just do everything together (depending on your comfort). she has moments where she’s overstimulated or overwhelmed bc of something, so you’re always there for her xx <3

- she’s really big on slime rancher (first and second game), like every time you would come over to her place to hang out the first thing you see her doing when you go into her room she’s playing slime rancher on her pc 😞

- plays a lot of pj sekai. the group she chose was wonderland showtime!! (the group i chose once 😛)

- owns rdr2 on steam !!!!!! (she has over 55+ hours on it)

2/17/25 edit: SPECIAL THANKS TO MY GOOD FRIEND @ares-shithole-writing-blog !!1!1!1! he helped me come up with a few of the facts for these lovely characters xxxx

[yersina]

a linguist plays chants of sennaar (pt 4)

[pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3] [x] [pt 5]

we're getting close to the end, guys!!

disclaimer: can't promise that i'll have any insights that a layperson wouldn't have, this is kinda just me thinking through the grammar of the language out loud haha.

this post covers the fourth language and will contain spoilers! it also assumes that you know what the symbols mean already.

additional note: i went and added alt text to my previous posts in this series! sorry for not having them before :)

numbers!!!!!!!!

before i get into anything else, i think i might as well start with numbers, which are the most unique part of this language and really leans into the portrayal of this society as mathematical and scientific lol. like the arabic numeral system, this number system is base 10, which we can see from the ruler. whether it’s base 10 or not isn’t super relevant to the gameplay or the language, i think?? except that it mimics the arabic numeral system, so it’s familiar to us. i am not a mathematician or logician or what-have-you, so i wouldn’t know—my expertise does not lie in this area lol

we only have evidence in the game for numbers with up to 4 digits (one on each side and end of the center line) so we don't know how the alchemists would've represented really big numbers. however, the placement of the four numerical digits around the central line suggests to me that this language might have a system that counts by four digit placements, rather than three. (to clarify: in western cultures, we often count and represent numbers in groups of three: thousand (1,000), million (1,000,000), and so on, with a new word for each set of three digit places. in many east asian languages, large numbers are represented in groups of four instead (examples that came to mind were chinese, japanese, and korean, but that’s just what i’m personally familiar with; there certainly might be others). in chinese, we have 万 (10,000) and 亿 (100,000,000), single words instead of “ten thousand” and “hundred million”. the word for million is “hundred-ten thousand” (百万).) since this language naturally seems to represent numbers in groups of four, that's my suspicion. unfortunately, the addition-only calculator in lab 2 only goes up to 9999, so we don't know what happens at five digits; my best guess is that the center line changes (maybe becomes two lines instead of just one, since one line also represents 0?), but obv there's no guarantee.

moving on from numbers, this language is relatively consistent when it comes to visual representation of linguistic categories: verbs have an open circle, locations have the sideways u/semi-circle deal, and people have a triangle-plus-line element to them. interestingly, “fear” once again is more of a noun than a verb in this language in terms of appearance. at this point, i’m inclined to think that this a quirk of the developers, rather than the language; even though fear is often used as a verb in the language itself, its appearance denotes that it’s primarily a noun, which may indicate that the game developers also thought of it as a noun first and verb second.

other interesting combinations of elements/radicals in the language include “mine”, which combines the radical for location and the triangular feature of scientific elements/materials (i.e, “the location where you can find materials”). the word for “seek/want” and “laboratory” share a radical, which suggests that that radical means something like “answer” or “curiosity” or something like that. another fun thing i noted is that the word for “alchemist” shares a similar shape to “i/me”, which might be indicative of a thought like “i am an alchemist”, and that those two concepts are linked, culturally or historically. i also think it’s interesting that “fire” and “fear” visually look more similar to each other than the other nouns—again, could possibly indicate something about how the alchemists conceptualize them? they obviously live in an environment where they encountered monsters that were scared of fire, and they in turn were scared of the monsters—i wouldn’t be surprised if it were the case that these were connected in that way.

i’ve been trying to figure out if this language has a particular pattern when it comes to representing words with an open circle vs dot, but so far i can’t find anything. might just be random/artistic choice!

this language once again returns to the pattern of being SVO, with plural suffixes rather than prefixes like the warrior language. in fact, i would say that grammatically, especially in terms of sentence structure, the warriors and the alchemists seem to be the most similar. no verb-initial languages in this game i’m afraid, haha.

one more language to go!!

[plazmafields]

Some thoughts about Kerry:

Spoilers ahead, needless to say.

1)

I saw a video comparing the two versions if Chippin' In (Kerry's vs. Johnny's) where someone in the comments suggested the reason Kerry leaned more mainstream rock is because he only wanted to make music for money. I completely disagree with this and here's why:

User Friendly was the last song Kerry put out before deciding he wasn't going to perform live/tour anymore and went into a deep depression. Looking up the lyrics, you can see he was becoming very distressed with the lack of control he had over his career, and the things he says in the song sound like a cry for help that wasn't received by listeners the way he had hoped. We never hear his version of the song, and I believe that is intentional. Vapid, loud, chaotic, almost over-stimulating laser-pop is such a huge juxtaposition to the lyrics, and yet it's the only version we get to hear. Clearly User Friendly meant a lot to him or I don't think he would have reacted the way he did; combined with the cover being done by a pop group groomed by the music industry to sell as many albums as possible, it all went against Kerry's original intent with the song. Then there's the story of how he wrote Bleed the Beat: he was working his ass off for people he couldn't stand and that song was his outlet during that time. He'd play until his fingers bled just to get his frustrations out. Music is his medium for release, just like it was for Johnny.

In Johnny's version of Chippin' In, the phrase "chipping in" has two meanings: getting your first implants, and, the same as our universe, helping out. Johnny's song uses both meanings interchangeably during the choruses, the verse before it dictating which definition is being used. Johnny's arm is (from what I can tell looking at the design) military issue. The song is both about the corpo military forcing him to get an implant, and also about believing he was doing the right thing when he joined by "helping out" the armed forces. Since, in this universe, militaries are owned and/or sponsored by corporations, Johnny views corporate jobs and military service to be the same level of morally wrong (The Ballad of Buck Ravers attests to this).

In terms of how the two songs compare, obviously Kerry's version of Chippin' In is meant to have more wide appeal. Not only are the lyrics more tame, mostly just talking about the implants themselves and only having one verse that even mentions anything "political", but I believe Kerry understood that the best way to get his music to the most listeners was to go for a more mainstream sound and universally relatable lyrics, so he toned it down. Everyone hates corpos, sure, but not everyone wants to bomb Araska HQ. This is probably a stretch, but we can see from the flashbacks that Kerry didn't have any implants during his time in Samurai, so maybe Johnny was like super opposed to implants after having one forced upon him, and Kerry's version of the song is kind of saying "hey if you want implants get implants, they make you look cool don't feel bad about it."

2)

I do support the idea that Kerry should have been bisexual like in the source material. I absolutely get that bi erasure is a big problem, ESPECIALLY with male characters. However, I respect that in the game you can only romance him with a masc V; I'm not going to mod him to he bi, I'm not gonna ship him with women. I see it the same way I see Cullen from DAI: he is canonically bisexual, just not attracted to my male Inquisitor (in Kerry's case, fem V). Maybe Kerry had such a traumatic divorce from his ex-wife that women just kinda scare him right now. We can see high heels and bras and blush littering his house, so we can assume that at the very least women are still getting naked for some reason or another at his parties. Maybe he prefers men romantically, or maybe he's just not ready to date women again, and we as players should respect that just like we would a real person.

3)

Kerry was 100% going to kill himself when you show up to his house. There are shards advertising robotic security systems in numerous places around his house (meaning he fired his human body guards), shards with negative reviews of his last album, there is only one camera and it is by the front gate (none inside the house), he gave his cleaner and cook "the day off" that very day, you see in emails that his ex-wife is giving him the option of all or nothing with custody (you take the kids or you don't get to see them), and he isn't enjoying making music anymore, his one passion in life. He had a gun with him in the bathroom, and I believe by the way his speech slurs and he makes the impulsive decision to get Samurai back together, that he is drunk for that entire scene and has a drinking problem. It is my opinion that the reason he doesn't reveal any of that to V is because he knows Johnny will hear it and judge him, call him weak, or make insensitive jokes like he does to V when he gives you the quest. The only time we see Kerry be somewhat vulnerable is 1. Over text when talking about the crazed fan, since he probably thinks Johnny can't see those (I believe he can) and 2. In the epilogue when Johnny has been removed from V's head (Kerry says he doesn't want to lose V, and during the credits he tells V he just wants their lives to be less hectic so they can spend more time together).

4)

It took me a couple playthroughs to warm up to Kerry, Panam is probably still my favorite romance, but I think Kerry might be the best romance option for a Skreetkid V. He perfectly embodies the plights of Night City at every income bracket: no matter where you are on the food chain, if you're not at the top, you're getting fucked over. He clearly likes living in comfort while still embracing his rebellious side from his youth. But now, he has the cushion of money and status to save him if things go tits up (when you get a wanted level in Westbrook district, close to North Oak, the officer on the police scanner says "I swear, if its Eurodyne again" suggesting that he is very reckless but hardly ever faces real consequences). Maybe he stays in his gilded cage because he fears facing real hardship on his own, without friends, without a support group, without Johnny. He has a strong sense of pride, though, and would never admit to needing Johnny, even if they were best friends. The way Kerry wants to show Johnny a riff he's been working on after the concert, only to be disappointed when V takes over again, I think it really shows that as much as they disagreed, their friendship held the band together.

5)

I don't remember if Johnny hints at it or I saw someone suggest this on here, but the idea that Kerry only "dates" V because Johnny is in his head is ridiculous to me. The first time he called you to deal with the Us Cracks tour gear, he wanted Johnny. Every time after that, he wanted V. He definitely realizes which of the two is helping him; he can tell them apart. The Johnny that Kerry remembers wouldn't have done a selfless thing in his life, lest risking his pride and reputation as Night City's biggest fuckboy. Whether you really schmooze him up or tell him he's going overboard, Kerry appreciates that you helped him. And I think after the concert, when he hands V his gun, Kerry's body language suggests that he wasn't planning to give the gun to Johnny, he thought about it because V was back in control. V helped get the band back together, V helped decide if Denny or Henry should play the gig, V was the one who brought Johnny to Kerry's house. Johnny won't take over to do it himself despite probably being able to. I only wish you didn't meet him so late in the main story, so that his story could have more time and space to breathe.