#make roughly an equal amount of sense!

[itwoodbeprefect]

the great thing about dutch rock band focus is that it never stops being funny to me that their most successful song ever is hocus pocus (by focus)

[paulyenvol6]

All You're Good For

Daemon Targaryen x reader (OS)

You have disobeyed and upset your husband and he intends to punish you for it in a way that brings him great pleasure....

Contains: detailed smut, oral (m receiving), unprotected anal sex, fingering, crying, angst, gagging, spanking, degrading, objectification, dirty talk, mentions of words like slut and whore, dom!Daemon, slutshaming

Wordcount: ~4.89k

Masterlist

Please send me your request, I need inspiration!!

'Fuck, fuck, fuck.', had been the only words inside your head for the past minutes.

You shouldn't have been so naiv and stupid and careless. You desperately bit your lower lip and felt tears burning in your eyes.

Restlessly you walked up and down in your chambers and anxiously awaited your husband's arrival. Your hands were entangled and you unconsciously toyed with your fingers just to do anything. You had to touch something, distract yourself but you couldn't fight the urge to replay this wicked evening over and over again.

It had started pleasantly, a feast in honor of the king's name day with music and dancing and a warm summer night. You had drunk wine and perhaps that had been the cause of this whole mess. It had been a little too much, just the amount to make you tipsy and imprudent with the words leaving your lips.

Because at the height of the night you had found yourself talking with Lord Byvrin Martell and though you hadn't intended to, your conversation could be described as playful. Of course you were convinced that your teasing behaviour was exclusively caused by the alcohol in your blood but Daemon had been furious.

Lord Byvrin had complimented your looks, your clothes, your hair and your eyes and you had thanked him for each word as if you were a young maid looking for a handsome match rather than a happily married woman, that you truthfully were. So you couldn't even act like Daemon was exaggerating because if he had acted this way with some highborn lady you would've been equally furious. The alcohol had simply made you behave in a way that didn't meet your true self and you wanted to slap yourself for it so hard.

After a few minutes of your conversation with Lord Byvrin Daemon had spotted you and only after a moment had sensed what was happening. He had walked over to you with flashing eyes and his teeth grinded and had literally dragged you away from your companion. You had looked at him and slowly started to realize what you had done and once Daemon had opened his mouth you were filled with regret and fear.

"To our chamber. Now.", your husband had hissed and you hadn't dared to disobey him.

And now there you stood, alone and scared, panicky and desperate to see Daemon and explain to him. But he made you wait 30 more minutes and then finally entered your rooms. Though you feared what he would do or say you were just happy to see him and looked at him with big eyes.

But he didn't do you the favor of meeting your gaze and instead just slowly walked to the table in the middle of the room to put the things he had carried with him on its surface. His little dagger that he always took with him and the cloak he had been wearing because of the coldness that slowly had started to creep up.

Only then did he look at you and you twitched at the coldness in his eyes. He really was angry with you.

"Daemon…", you wanted to start just to say anything but he cut you off.

"Shut up. I don't want to listen to anything coming out of your mouth tonight."

Tears welled in your eyes. "Please, let me – " With quick steps your husband approached you and took hold of your chin.

"Have I not made myself clear?", he hissed.

And so you remained quiet as Daemon examined your face. "Oh for fuck's sake… tears? Really?"

To you this seemed like a rethorical question so you didn't reply. Then he shoved you roughly away from him towards the bed and started to walk back and forth in front of you.

"I don't think I have to tell you how much like a cheap little whore you have acted tonight. You, a married woman, have thrown yourself on this cunt. You looked like a filthy slut like this, darling and truthfully I'm embarrassed for you."

You lowered your gaze feeling ashamed at his words but Daemon remained cruel and glared at you.

"None of this. Lift your chin, you will look at me. You'll be looking down to the ground long enough tonight."

You gulped loudly but forced yourself to raise your gaze.

"Good. Now get on the ground."

A second after your husband had said these words you had dropped to your knees. All you cared about now was making him forgive you and you would do anything he asked you to. Pleadingly and with big eyes you looked up to Daemon whose expression was almost disdainful. And then his hand connected with your cheek. It was a soft slap, not hard enough to leave a print but enough to make you twitch. He hummed and then took hold of your chin again.

"You will suck me off now. And you will do so without any complaints or resistance, do you understand me?"

You nodded with a trembling bottom lip because he looked so angry with you and that made you feel scared and desperate. Daemon usually wasn't mad at you. He usually praised you, told you what a perfect girl you were for him. But now he pulled down his pants and wrapped a hand around his already hardened member.

"Open.", he said while watching your face and you followed his command by parting your lips for him. He bit his lip while inserting himself in your warm and wet mouth and hissed sharply once he was fully inside. You didn't do anything and just waited for his command. Pleasing him, that was your only concern right now and you would listen to his every order.

Daemon enjoyed feeling the warmth of your mouth for a moment and then pulled at your chin so you'd open up wider for him. He grinded his teeth looking down at you and then thrusted deep inside of you. His cock met the back of your throat which made you gag and grab his thighs but he didn't care and neither did you complain. His stones were now almost pressed to your face and you felt overwhelmed with his member stuffed into your mouth. You luckily didn't have a very strong gagging reflex but right now even you were on the edge and struggled keeping in him.

Daemon usually went very careful and slow with you when he fucked your mouth but tonight he was so mad at you that he didn't blink an eye seeing you fight. He merely used your mouth as a tool to get off and put your comfort behind. And you most certainly didn't really care either. You knew you would be able to take it if it was for him.

But something did trouble you. You hated that he didn't talk to you. You probably would have preferred for him to degrade and insult you but you didn't even get that. He just had his eyes fixed on you, an angry look on his face and his hand gripped your hair tightly. Now and then he licked over his lip or threw his head back but it seemed like he entirely ignored you.

His hand held you in place while he now increased the pace with which he entered your mouth. You felt him slide past your teeth and over your tongue and tried your best to concentrate on breathing each time that his tip hit your throat. Tears had welled in your eyes again and you couldn't exactly tell whether they came from the physical or the mental pain you felt. All you knew was that you hoped that this would calm your husband.

Now Daemon threw his head back and closed his eyes because he was driven closer to the edge with every thrust. You just felt so incredibly good around his cock and the tightness made him see literal stars. It additionally brought him great pleasure to see you struggle and hear your little coughs and gags. Perhaps it was caused by his fury at you but it filled him with some sort of profane desire and satisfaction.

He wouldn't say that he was a terrible person and he truly did love you, he definitely did. But right now the blood in his veins was boiling and he couldn't get this picture out of his head. You, his wife and the most precious person to him standing so close to this weak cunt of a lord. Throwing your head back while laughing and blushing at his compliments. The way you had bit your lip and had given him this smile that Daemon found only he deserved. You weren't supposed to look at any other person like this and he wanted to make sure that you were intensely reminded of that fact.

Because that could be said about Daemon Targaryen; he was a possessive person. You were his wife, you were his'. And if he could he would let every person in the seven kingdoms know about it. If he could he would kill every person who had ever looked at you a little too long or even just had one wrong thought about you. Daemon wanted to have you and not let any other man even come near you. And now he wanted to both remind you of where you belonged to and punish you.

By now saliva and tears were running down your face and coated your chin and neck. It was messy and filthy and just what Daemon wanted to see right now. His cock relentlessy thrusted into your mouth, desire and lust befuddling his mind so much so that he didn't care about you, crouching on the stoney ground, anymore. He didn't care if you were struggling, if it was too much for you or if he made you gag. Every twitch or squirming was stopped by the hand in your hair and all he wanted was chasing his release.

And he did, his cock bruised your throat until the knot in Daemon's belly tightened and he was sent over the edge. His seed left his cock and shot deep inside of your mouth leaving you coughing and choking. He let go of you at once almost pushing you away from his now flaccid member and you sank down to the ground where you had held yourself up on your knees before. Your hands steadied yourself on the ground now and you let your hair fall in front of your face.

You sniffed a few times not being able to look at Daemon but then you felt him grab a fistful of your hair and he yanked you up to meet his gaze. Though he was still hard in his expression he looked a little calmer and you wondered if he would be easier on you now.

"Bed. Hands and knees.", was all he hissed and you were quick to obey him.

You didn't like the fact that you couldn't see what he was doing so you turned around to watch him over your shoulder. Daemon took his shirt off leaving him completely bare and then walked over to you.

Usually you could always see his eyes shifting when he looked at you and you hated the fact that it wasn't the case tonight. Why did he have to look so cold? Couldn't he allow his eyes to warm up for one second? Just so you knew that he was still your loving husband despite this big mistake of yours.

Of course you understood his anger and you wouldn't even say that he was exaggerating. You knew that Daemon was of heated and jealous nature and didn't like it when someone that wasn't him dared to compliment you or eyed you that way and yet you wished he would forgive you as quickly as possible. You would do whatever it took and really wanted to tell him that but you knew right now was not the time to open your mouth.

You felt exposed and vulnerable under his gaze with your arse up that was only covered by a bit of your gown which had moved so half of your cheeks were bare on display for him. You turned your head again too scared to upset him further and awaited his next move with your head facing the headboard of the bed. You heard him approach you and then a hand was put on your arse. He pulled the fabric up and ruffled it around your waist and then the next thing your heard was a rip which made you twitch.

It immediately earned you a slap on your right cheek which only made you squirm again and you surpressed a little cry. Daemon removed your torn dress from your body and you didn't dare voice a complaint about him destroying the expensive gown. You just stayed silent while the cold air brushed over your naked skin and sent goosebumps down your arms.

His hand landed on your arse once more which made your body jolt forwards and Daemon was quick to pull you back to him. He stroke your skin, a gesture almost too gentle given the circumstances but you allowed yourself to relax a little though all your senses were still sharpened like a blade.

And then your husband finally spoke to you and you were relieved at first but then the content of his words made you widen your eyes.

"You've been very bad. You've disappointed and upset me and I'm gonna punish you for it by fucking your arse."

"What?", you breathed and now couldn't help but turn around to look at him.

Daemon had fucked your other hole once before because the both of you had wanted to try it a few moons ago. The tightness of it had been heavenly to your husband but it had brought you great pain and discomfort and so you hadn't done it again ever since. It had been as if you were torn apart and the stretch and sting had made you tremble and so Daemon hadn't even entered you more than a few thrusts.

You had spoken about it afterwards though and you had suggested that you would want him to do it again when he would 'really want you to feel him intensely with every inch of your body'. So you had basically given him your consent to use it as a punishment when you really disbehaved.

"I will use this tight little hole to get off. You know what it does to my cock."

You glared at him with big eyes.

"Daemon…", you whispered and suddenly his face softened just a little bit.

And yet he was determined when he grabbed the back of your neck and leaned forwards.

"You know that you can get up and leave now. I'm not gonna do anything you don't want. But if you'll allow me to, I'm gonna fuck your arse as a way to remind you of your place. Because I think you forgot it.", he said with grinded teeth.

Of course you wouldn't leave now. As painful you knew this would be, you'd do it. Because yes, you hadn't loved it when he had done it the first time and yet it was you who had suggested to use it as a penalty for you disobediance after all. You would endure it. You would let him use your arse to get off and show him that he meant everything to you and that you would do anything in this world to receive his love, just the way he received yours.

You simply wanted please him and let him know how much he meant to you. So much that you would let him abuse your arse. It wasn't like it was the greatest pain in the world but the first few minutes had been very hard and even once your tight hole had gotten used to his size it was still a little uncomfortable to you and it was far away from giving you any pleasure.

"I want you to do it, Daemon.", you whispered nevertheless and intensely looked in his eyes.

"Good.", he growled and dug his fingers into the flesh of your backside.

"Because I'm merciful I'm gonna prepare you. But then I won't be anymore. I'll take your hole like a toy. Merely to get off. And I won't care how much you'll cry or whine, do you understand me?"

You nodded. "Good. I'll use you until I'm satisfied but if it's truly too much for you, you're gonna say 'red', alright? Only then will I stop."

You nodded again feeling a nervous fluttering in your stomach but you remained determined to take it. You felt Daemon run his hand over your arse again and then he wandered down and slid over your folds. There was already some wetness waiting for him but he knew it wouldn't be enough to make this as little unpleasant to you as possible so his finger traveled further down until it found your little pearl.

Daemon started by rubbing it in slow circles just the way you liked it and pressed into it more forcefully with every minute passing. His left hand was rested on your arse in the meantime, soothingly caressing you while his finger of his right hand made you soaked with arousal. Right now he wasn't even mean or hard with you; this was about making you wet and relaxed for him.

And he definitely achieved his goal as in a matter of minutes your wetness was running down your trembling legs. You let out little sighs and whimpers and clenched your hands in fists while Daemon enclosed your pearl inbetween two of his fingers and rubbed them tightly.

You had your head lowered and tried your best not to fall down on your stomach. Your knees were wombly and threatened to give in so you tightly held on to the sheets. Your husband now used his finger to collect some of your slickness and spread it all over your cunt and especially your arse hole. Now and then his finger came back to your nub in order to keep you calm and then you heard him get closer to you which made you gulp anxiously. You knew that this would hurt and yet not for one second did you doubt your choice.

"Relax.", he hissed and you exhaled deeply. It was hard sometimes to ease up when you nervously expected any kind of pain but you knew that this was the only way that this would be less uncomfortable so you closed your eyes and concentrated on your breathing.

In the meantime Daemon continued his touch on your pearl while circling your arse hole with his other hand and wettening it with your arousal. He even spitted in his own palm and used it as lubricant. Soon he inserted a finger in your hole which made you squeeze your eyes but you forced yourself to breathe and calmed down after some time. He pumped his finger a few times while circling your pearl and then added a second. This one stung a lot more and you twitched and moaned but Daemon soothingly ran his thumb over your skin.

"Shhh. Just relax." You tried to, you really did but your veins were throbbing and sweat was gathering on your forehead. And yet your breathing became more steady over time and soon Daemon sensed that you were ready for a third finger. He coated it with his spit and forced it into your tight hole which made tears well up in your eyes. You hummed quietly and dug your nails into the sheets while your teeth were buried in your buttom lip to surpress a shriek.

And then after more time passing you had adjusted to his three fingers and Daemon thought it was time to fill you with his cock. He removed his hand from your hole which made you whine and took yet another step towards the bed. He ran his tip over your clenched hole and pressed his finger into your pearl.

"Ease up. The more you relax the less it'll hurt."

He was right so you tried your best to relax your anal sphincter and then Daemon finally started to push inside.

The pain instantly brought tears to your eyes and you felt like you were torn apart. Your husband wasn't exactly small when it came to the size of his member and now you really felt every inch of him.

Slowly Daemon worked himself inside of your tight hole while you sniffed and tried to fight the tears relentlessly gathering in the corner of your eyes. It was an uncomfortable sting, an unpleasant ache that only very slowly faded away. And then he was fully inside, your walls pulsating around him and Daemon sighed deeply his cock so wonderfully surrounded by the tightness of your arse.

"Fuck.", he growled and held on to your hips. You hiccuped and whimpered and tried to further relax so you would adjust to his cock.

He actually gave you some time and soothingly caressed your hips and cheeks while letting out little moans. This was a magical experience to him because your walls stimulated him so well, it almost felt as though his cock would get torn off by your arse.

"Seven hells… Yeah that's it.", he hissed and then after yet another few minutes began fucking your hole.

At first he slowly pulled out of you only to thrust back in which made you whimper at the ache but Daemon got faster over time and started to fuck you at a steady pace.

"Oh gods be good.", he whispered. "Stupid little slut. You know that's what you deserve, don't you? Being my little fuck toy and doing nothing but having your holes spread for me and letting me take you the way I want. I hope it will teach you some lessons in how you are to behave."

You nodded quickly and hoped that he would even see the gesture because he might have his head thrown back. His hand came down to your arse and the sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room. You cried out and instinctively jumped but Daemon pulled you back to him at once.

"You'll fucking take what I gave you. Tonight you're nothing but my plaything. You are meant to serve me for my pleasure and I'm only gonna use you to dump my seed in your filthy holes. That body is mine and no one else's. If I ever catch another man looking at you like that cunt tonight I'll have his fucking head on a spike. And you.", he snapped grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking your head back.

"I don't have a problem reminding you of your place once more. As much as I hate to see you struggle, my sweet love, I enjoy fucking that tight arse of yours. If I ever see you acting like a cheap little whore again, I swear to you I'm gladly gonna fuck your disobediance out of you. Am I clear?"

You nodded and though his thrusts didn't bring you real sexual pleasure you felt your cunt clench around nothing at his words. After all you both knew that you loved it when he degraded you like this; you didn't know why, but he only had to call you his dumb slut and you were soaked.

"I won't do it again, Daemon, I swear it to you."

He leaned forwards so his mouth was brushing over your ear. "No you won't. Because you don't like me assaulting this cute arse, do you?"

You shook your head and whimpered. "No."

"So you're gonna behave from now on. If not I'll be happy to give you another taste of what happens when you disobey me. When you're trifling with other men while I'm in the same fucking room. Do you know how you dishonoured me tonight?"

His hand painfully dug into your hips and you knew this would leave marks.

"I'm sorry.", you cried out.

He straightened up again and watched his cock entering your arse over and over again. He parted his mouth and moaned in enjoyment. It wouldn't take him long until he reached his high for the second time tonight and he was ready to fill your little arse with his seed.

"You're a dumb whore only good for having your holes filled. That's all you're good for, little girl. I'll better keep that mouth of yours stuffed with my cock cause I can't bear the words coming out of it. You can be glad that I like your little cunt and those tits of yours so much because otherwise I would've grown tired of you."

You knew better than to truly believe his words because otherwise perhaps you would've started to cry. This was a version of Daemon that you didn't get on a daily basis but it was one that you deeply loved. When he treated you like a common whore. When he degraded you until you really felt like a cheap slut.

"You're a fucking mess, little one and lucky for you it's what I like."

He pumped himself deep inside of you and by now everything was a lot more comfortable to you and you even slightly moved your hips to meet his thrusts. It wasn't like you could ever release from it but you enjoyed it and especially liked to listen to his sounds.

And then he finally released with a deep growl. It truly was one of the most intense highs Daemon had ever experienced and he panted rapidly as he watched you with his foreahead furrowed. He was almost overwhelmed with this feeling and needed a few minutes until he sighed and softly slapped your arse.

"Fucking hells.", he moaned and then slowly pulled out of your arse.

You sobbed, by now truly feeling so messy and dizzy that you didn't have one straight thought and then fell down on your stomach.

Daemon knew that he now had to take care of you; it was inevitable because the way you couldn't even hold yourself up on your hands and knees hinted at how fucked out you were but first he had to come down from his intense high so he deeply exhaled a few more times and then took his breeches from the ground and slipped into them so he was a little more covered.

Then he approached your lying figure and carefully ran his hand over your bare back. Your arse was reddened with where his hand had come down repeatedly and he just hoped that it hadn't been too much for you.

"Turn around, love.", he spoke gently but he only received a whimper in response.

"Y/n. It's alright, let me see you."

Only very slowly did you shift your body until you were lying on your back, twitching when your sore arse met the bed. Your face was covered with traces of tears and remains of his seed and Daemon softly caressed your cheek.

"How are you feeling, sweetling?", he asked trying to sound friendly and letting you know that he wasn't angry with you anymore. But more tears spilled from your eyes.

"I'm sorry.", you cried out and your lower lip was shaking while your face was drawn with desperation. "I-I w-was so b-bad. I shouldn't have s-spoken to h-him in the first p-place. I'm sorry, D-Daemon."

He sighed and took hold of your upper arms to pull you up. He carefully rested your head against his chest and felt your tears soaking his skin.

"Shhhh, love. It's alright.", he whispered and his voice sounding so soft only contributed to your crying. "I'm not mad at you anymore. Everything is fine. You took my punishment so well, I'm proud of you."

You squinted your eyes. "But I'm sorry. I-It was so bad, I-I'm sorry."

"I know.", he purred. "And I know you won't do it again."

You nodded swiftly and looked up to him. "I won't. I s-swear it to you."

He smiled lovingly and his face softened. "You took your punishment so well, little one. And though I was angry at you in the beginning, I'm proud of you now. You did a mistake but I taught you a lesson and I know that you will keep it in mind. You can relax now, darling. I won't hurt you anymore."

You blinked a few times and pressed your face closer to his chest. "I love you, Daemon. Please…. I wanna…"

Though you didn't even know what you wanted to tell him he understood and wrapped his arms more tightly around your back.

"I love you too, sweet girl. It's alright. I'll be with you. Always. Just relax and later we'll clean you up. But right now, you can get some rest."

You closed your eyes, the warmth and softness of his body sending shivers down your spine and you felt your body easing up. It felt so good being held by him after he had been so harsh with you.

He was your Daemon again. Your husband who would never let anyone come near you and who would love and take care of you forever.

[fuzzandfeathers]

So I've been re-watching Seeing Stars lately for art reference and I just wanted to ramble on something (as always). A very fun point of debate in this fandom is when Stolitz started falling for each other and, while I see it happening at multiple different points, Seeing Stars has always been my top choice for where feelings on Blitz's end started becoming more real.

Timing-wise it makes a lot of sense - Ozzie's is what prompts Stolas to rethink his and Blitz's relationship and drop a lot (but not all) of the masks he was keeping up within their arrangement and Seeing Stars is the first time since Ozzie's that they spend an extended amount of time together and creates an opportunity for Stolas to start showing that change. And content-wise there's just so much they say and do that showcases what something real between them could be and shows Blitz that's there's more to Stolas than he expects. I'm lazy so here's a (non-comprehensive) list of stuff I want to point out:

This is likely the first time Blitz has seen Stolas worried about something, legitimately frantic and scared. Moreover, the thing he's worried about is his daughter, which is like a straight shot to the vulnerable parts of Blitz's heart, a surefire way to get him to take Stolas' feelings seriously.

Blitz demonstrated an astounding lack of responsibility with regard to keeping the grimoire safe, but, while Stolas is justifiably upset, at no point does he punish Blitz or threaten their deal over it, which, given Blitz's panic about telling him, Blitz likely was very worried about.

They have to actually work together to resolve the situation, interact on roughly equal footing outside the roles they've established within their relationship. Not to mention, Stolas sincerely needs IMP's help with this. This isn't a situation he can just 'demon prince' his way through (his power is 'limited' and he has no clue how to even find Via). This may be the first time Blitz feels needed by Stolas for something other than sex. (Stolas obviously didn't really need him in Loo Loo Land and while Blitz did save his life in Harvest Moon, he clearly didn't think it was all that significant or he would've told Stolas)

With the roles he was trying to play in the Arrangement mostly dropped, Stolas' interactions with Blitz feel a lot more natural and highlight how well they work together when they aren't hiding behind their bullshit (we get real banter that gives a tantalizing taste of what these two are like as actual partners). Stolas doesn't do any of the playful condescension, naive fumbling attempts at storybook romance, or excessive over-the-top flirting that's defined their interactions up until this point and he's too distracted by finding Via to excessively fawn towards Blitz, so his personality shines through a bit more assertively and they fit a lot better than either of them is likely aware of. There's sass, but it feels lighthearted, the two of them riling each other up just because they can and they want to, and the one instance of flirting is subtle (compared to what Stolas usually does), serves as a show of support, and clearly plays to what Blitz likes.

Stolas being human probably also has an impact; even beyond obviously giving Blitz a new kink, I think seeing Stolas in a form that's much less towering, less powerful, and more expressive starts to push Blitz to pay more attention to who Stolas is (worried father, silly & smart & sassy & sexy man) rather than what he is (Goetic prince).

I wouldn't be surprised if the uniqueness of the situation and the new light he's seeing Stolas in is the reason Blitz shows how panicked he is by the thought of acting on the sitcom in front of Stolas - he probably regretted it after the fact (I've been there), but in that moment he was ok with a small show of vulnerability. Actually, now that I think about it, that moment kind of mirrors Blitz's apology to Stolas in Apology Tour and Blitz talking about Barbie in Sinsmas, where Blitz is actually opening up a bit but, for whatever reason (preoccupied by finding his daughter, drunk off his ass, having the absolute worst day of his life), Stolas just isn't quite in a place where he can properly recognize it for what it is. (another fun example of Stolas 'Look My Way' Goetia not fully looking Blitz's way yet 😂)

tldr: I think Seeing Stars led to Blitz experiencing significant progress on his feelings for Stolas because it created a situation where he realized (whether consciously or not), 'Hey I actually give a shit about this guy and can stand to be around him for more than 5 minutes without it being about sex.'

[loudn-mcyt]

The Kingdom of Fools Hierarchy

Tina suggested that the Kingdom needed a hierarchy with proper ranks, and that got me thinking...so here's my take at the different noble titles of the Kingdom of Fools, as based upon the most common titles in historic (medieval to early modern) Europe!

King Foolish: Obviously, Foolish is the King of the Kingdom. No real surprise here. I would say more, but everyone generally understands the whole idea/deal of a king, so I won't go into much detail.

Duchess Roscumber, Royal Architect of the Realm: When the king was out of commission (dead), Ros was the person put in charge. As much as I love Knight Ros, that suggests that she either held a significant title beforehand or was elevated to title as that happened; either way, it makes sense to me that she would be a duchess, which is the highest noble title below royalty in many systems, and often related to the royal family in some way. Given how feudalism works, it's entirely possible that the others' holdings are within her duchy, hence why she was chosen as the leader in the king's absence.

Marquess Clownpierce, Royal Archmage: A Marquis/marquess is, generally speaking in terms of the size of their holdings, roughly equivalent to an earl or count. However, they were traditionally privileged above counts/earls because their holdings were near borders, meaning they were often charged with defending those borders from attackers. This feels fitting for Clownpierce, whose reputation as a warrior and enchanter serves as a significant deterrent for those that threaten the Kingdom, at least in theory.

Marquess Sneegsnag, Royal Smith: Like Clownpierce, Sneeg fills a similar role for the Kingdom, ensuring that their equipment is strong and serving as another dangerous member to threaten other factions. He also has shown off his prowess as a hunter. Taken together, this suggests to me he should be Clown's equal in rank, as he serves a very similar role within the kingdom.

Count Tangofrags: Our favorite cursed hot dog feels fitting for a Count. He's an important member of the kingdom, but I always have trouble really pinpointing a distinct role for him. However, he is undeniably loyal, and supports his fellow kingdom members wholeheartedly. As a result, I've chosen to place him as a count; counts/earls generally had comparable holdings to Marquesses, though in less tactically important locations. I like the idea that Tango's earldom might be a breadbasket for the kingdom.

Countess Tinakitten: I love Tina with all my heart, but it's still pretty early to say where she will land in the grand scheme of things amongst the kingdom. So, as a new arrival, I've made her a countess; she holds a fair amount of power, but she is less influential than long-standing advisors to the king like Ros, Clown, and Sneeg. Also I would feel bad making her any less important.

Viscount Owen: As the royal jester, Owen would likely have forsaken any title, but I wanted to give him one anyway. Viscounts served as the second in command to an earl or count, which isn't really Owen's role - as the jester, he has the privilege to mock whoever he so chooses, and I like the idea of a lesser nobleman taking advantage of that power to mock the powerful and influential Clownpierce.

Friar Fit: As a member of the clergy, Fit would of course be banned from holding title. However, that doesn't mean he's powerless; quite the opposite, in fact. The church held a very significant amount of power. While, strictly speaking, they were intended to avoid politics, that was very much not the case, and while they were considered subservient to the king, they were able to interact with any other member of the nobility on their own terms.

So, yeah! There's my takes on it. I didn't make anyone a baron, which is another common title below Viscount. It just made sense to me that, interpreting the kingdom into a slightly more historical framework, everyone working closely with the king would be of relatively significant rank - either outright powerful like Duchess Roscumber or Marquesses Clown and Sneeg, or politically influential like Count Tango or Countess Tina. And also Fit is here.

[legacygirlingreen]

My silly little HCs for Sebastian Sallow

Some of these are really random but I’ve just had an abundance of HC lately so I thought I’d share:

✨ I GENUINELY see a world in which Sebastian could be slightly messy in some areas and very orderly in others. I don’t think he’d be messy in EVERY aspect of his life. Sure his hair is messy (this i attribute to it’s natural texture and the fact he’s a teen boy and likely doesn’t care that much about it), that large stack of books near his bed and on his desk are messy and I’m sure his life can at times be pretty chaotic - but I get the vibe he still cares on occasion. He’s always dressed properly for class, no less than Ominis or his other classmates. I’m sure his papers and class notes are very immaculately organized and he’s got a system that on surface level looks chaotic but to him makes sense for his books and other possessions. I also don’t see it possible that he can be a complete slob either given how small the feldcroft house is and having to share it with Anne and Solomon (and Ominis).

✨ I think as a child he definitely had to learn how to self sooth, or find ways to entertain himself. We get hints that his parents were often locking themselves downstairs to research, leaving him and Anne to their devices and he seems very well liked by his professors - so this leads me to think that with the exception of the resitricted section and occasional mischief, he may not be as “high strung” as he’s often made out to be. With the amount of time he spends reading, snacking and just overall finding ways to keep from boredom, I can see a world where afternoons with Sebastian are much more laid back than one would imagine.

Which leads me into some loose ideas I think he’d conceive if he was dating you/MC:

* laying in the grass together on sunny days, reading silently, pointing out cloud shapes or looking for 4 leaf cloves together

* swimming in the sea in summer, sunbathing on the shores, skipping rocks

* baking the muggle way and enjoying homemade pie over candle light and engaging in thought provoking conversations

✨ I don’t think that Sebastian cares too much about his physical appearance as a teenager but I can definitely see it slowly becoming more and more a priority as he ages. Several people have pointed out that there’s a razor in their dorm and if you zoom in you can see he’s got the appearance of hair follicles on the high resolution zoom in screen grabs, so I think by seventh year he’s experimenting with facial hair. Probably sideburns or just a mustache as that would’ve been fashionable for the time, but I can see him letting his sideburns go in his least year at hogwarts. He’d claim it was “more convenient that way” since he “didn’t have to waste as much time shaving his whole face” but in reality he just feels more grown up and mature and he likes it - but likely wouldn’t want to be seen as vain.

✨ Sebastian grew up with a twin sister and is likely quite well versed in female anatomy and issues… he’s more than likely a SAINT when it comes to that time of the month, however I don’t think he’d see it as anything to mention. Likely just know it’s roughly that time again, casually offer more snacks, perhaps offer a simple back rub without saying anything, or other varieties of comfort without acknowledging WHY he’s doing so. If you ever bring it up he’d likely just shrug and say “just tying to be helpful since I know you likely don’t feel well” And leave it at that.

✨ I can see a variety of the love languages being important to him. I do agree he likely responds well to physical touch. You cannot convince me otherwise that he would not adore having someone play with his hair. He turns into a puppy immediately and it’s canon as far as I’m concerned. He also likely knows some mild form of braiding due to Anne so he probably equally enjoys returning the favor in that way. Sebastian gives me more strong touch in private but little to no PDA . Exceptions can be made for timely acceptable actions like a hand on the arm to escort but nothing crazy like necking in halls.

✨ however… private Sebastian could be a mixed bag. Initially I see him slightly nervous. Sebastian seems confident and headstrong in areas he’s familiar but we don’t see him ever feel unprepared. I get the sense he’d be anxious when he’s going in completely blind to new arenas like physical relations with a girl… So early on here May be apprehensive. I agree with the thought he would research all he could and go out of his way to make sure they were comfortable and he prevented pain. But once he’s got a good handle in it… he’s always looking to improve until he’s confident he’s making you feel incredible…

✨ Sebastian finds feminine hands to be so interesting. Despite not liking PDA I can see him constantly grabbing yours, examining them, admiring the softness, pressing kisses to the back of them, and just all around finding them so insanely beautiful despite being so simple.

✨ Sebastian sallow definitely is the type to practice his signature constantly. He gets bored in class I imagine, with as much reading as he does, he’s likely way ahead of his peers. It’s common to see him doodling out new ways of signing his name and he still hasn’t found the way that’s quite him yet but he will eventually…

✨ deep down I think he can be very self conscious. I imagine he’d find certain features less than perfection … such as his wide nose or bushy eyebrows. Dark eyes and dark features are quite common , I can see a world in which he so often feels quite plain. However the right partner coming along and kissing that button nose or playfully stroking his brow while he rests his head in their lap would slowly make him feel better about what he sees in the mirror. Being complimented on his appearance, something I’m sure gets lost in his many talents, would mean the world to him.

✨Sebastian has a sweet tooth and would 100% rock the dad bod when matured . He’s lean now with all the hogwarts cardio, but once he slows down he’s getting thicker. Just look at Solomon and tell me the sallow genes aren’t slightly husky (Also check out @rednite-dork bc she’s got some awesome art depicting a more aged up, dad bod seb and they are mouth watering 🤪)

I have soo many more but here’s some loose HCs , and I’m always down for a part 2💚

[kaylee68]

Part 1: Friendship, Slavery, Servitude.

I’m splitting these into several parts, not because they’re going to be particularly long, but because it’s easier to organise my thoughts this way.

I want to start with the basis of his character and the stuff I say here is going to be the foundation for whatever I say in the future. Of course you’re free to disagree these are just my thoughts and opinions from what we’ve seen in the text and if you have your own I would love to hear them.

Anyway, the first thing I have to address is the English verses the Japanese translation.

From what I understand the English version heavily censors the reality of Jamil’s situation, and while I won’t go too in depth on it because that’s not what I want to talk about, these changes do heavily affect his character and the way some fans view him, so if you haven’t read the Japanese twst translation please do.

There are several fan translations online that give a clearer understanding of the situation and I will be basing all of my analysis on the Japanese version.

Okay now to actually begin.

What I want to start off with is what exactly is Jamil’s position within the Asim family household?

It is extremely muddled in and out of game and it seems to be a point of contention among fans from what I have seen.

The English translation has Jamil commonly referring to himself as an employee, with Kalim’s dad as his boss, while in the Japanese version he exclusively refers to himself as a servant with Kalim and his father being his masters.

Of course not only does the English translation make it extremely unclear what exactly Jamil is, but the characters in game seem equally uncertain.

And by characters I am referring to Kalim who prior and a little bit post book 4, despite being aware of his and Jamil respective positions still exclusively referred to them as friends.

Now this is one relationship term that I will not agree on at least not pre book 4. I really don’t consider him and Jamil to be friends until book 7, as the time between then is mostly spent with Jamil growing to a place where he can actually accept Kalim’s friendship and Kalim coming to understand and recognise the power he holds over Jamil.

Despite this I often see them referred to as childhood friends. However the way I see it is that to have a functioning friendship both partners have to be equal, and not in a power dynamic sense, I don’t think it’s impossible to be friends with your boss or your teacher or something, but coming from a labour perspective both people should be putting roughly the same amount of effort into a relationship otherwise it quickly turns toxic.

From a purely physical standpoint it is undeniable that Jamil is putting in far more effort, he is Kalim’s attendant and we see in multiple story vignettes and events that Kalim has no qualms about using Jamil for physical labour.

However from an emotional standpoint it gets tricky especially when looking at pre and post book 4.

Kalim was very emotionally invested in their relationship he considered Jamil a friend and since they grew up together I imagine that there were some points in his childhood were he ended up going to Jamil for comfort.

And while I’m absolutely certain he would’ve wanted Jamil to come to him and was likely under the impression that he was providing equal emotional support the reality is this is not the case as Jamil says that he was forced to repress any resentment or anger that he held towards Kalim because Kalim was his master.

This means that the friendship that Kalim assumed they had was wildly imbalanced as Jamil was forced to contribute a lot of physical and mental effort to the relationship that wouldn’t and couldn’t be reciprocated.

And again, this is also not to say that Kalim didn’t care about Jamil, or vice versa, because I definitely think there were at least some genuine moments of friendship during their childhood when they were both still too young to understand their respective positions in the hierarchy they were operating under.

However Kalim’s wealth as well as the power dynamic between them meant that having a balanced relationship with Jamil was always impossible, which again in itself is not the issue, it’s the fact that Kalim never acknowledges this (until book 7) that is.

But as far as I’m concerned it is not a friendship when one person is essentially being forced into and actively harmed by the relationship.

Not to mention the fact that Jamil states numerous times that they aren’t friends should be the end of it. Idk I want to specify this because I see so many people acting like Jamil betrayed their friendship but the situation is a lot more complicated than that.

Also referring to them as friends feels like softening the reality of what happened for Kalim’s benefit.

So going forward note that unless we’re discussing post book 7 then I do not consider them friends and will be analysing their relationship with that in mind.

Of course if Jamil isn’t Kalim’s friend then what is he?

Well the discourse I see surrounding this mainly comes down to whether Jamil is considered a slave or a servant.

Although he is never officially stated to be a slave in either version of the game it is still fairly grey territory as the way his servitude is described can definitely be interpreted as something far harsher than a regular employment.

He is not working for the Asims willingly. That much cannot be contested when his entire character revolves around the freedom he wishes to have away from Kalim and his family.

I think the main way to answer this question however is to first consider what makes someone a slave.

Slavery has existed around the world for millennia, however many different cultures had many different practices around how slaves were treated, what could and couldn’t be done to them, what legal rights they did or didn’t have.

I think coming at this issue from a purely westernised view of what slavery is, is obviously wrong, however there is also no way to land on one perfect all encompassing view of what slavery is and whether Jamil does or does not tick those boxes, because things are more complicated than that.

I for one would consider him a servant, however it’s still more nuanced because despite being what I consider a servant he is still not necessarily an employee as most servants are because what he’s doing is still involuntary/forced labour.

I’m sure several people reading this have different opinions and I think it’s important to showcase why someone might be conflicted over this.

I think it’s unfair to completely dismiss anyone who does think that someone who is forced to work against their will a slave.

I mean Jamil being born into his position as we find out at the end of book 4 during his backstory means he had no choice or control over his employment as the Vipers have been working under the Asim family for generations.

It’s also a position he’s been in since he was a child as Kalim often mentions that he and Jamil have been friends from a very young age and while this doesn’t imply slavery directly it does show that when it comes to things like child labour the laws in the scalding sands are a lot more lax compared to our own.

Also the fact that he has no way out of the situation. I mean Jamil makes it very clear that he does not want to work for Kalim at the end of book 4 essentially making what he’s been doing forced labour because he is being threatened/coerced into it.

Jamil mentions that were he to disobey Kalim the consequences would be dire and might put his entire family at risk. He frequently worries about what Kalim’s father might do to him if he were to disobey.

Now those are reasons that point to the relationship being more slavery than servitude, however there are also reasons this may not be the case.

Even small things like him being allowed to take breaks, though it’s unclear how rigid these are as Kalim would often disrupt them which would force Jamil back to work he was still permitted to take them.

And the fact that he was allowed to go to NRC without Kalim.

Regardless of whether he was a slave or a servant the fact that he was able to attend a boarding school across continents, alone while keeping his job is pretty substantial.

I do think it’s worth mentioning that at the time he was given the acceptance letter as well as the few months he attended the school without Kalim there was another member of the Asim family attending the school. I don’t know if this changes anything regarding his attendance but I thought I should at least add it in.

But that along with the fact that he attended school at all seems to show he had some freedom over his life as attending school would’ve taken several hours out of his work once again, which could imply he had a more flexible schedule than we’ve been lead to believe.

I also couldn’t find any source on whether or not the Vipers are paid. Which honestly I think would give us the biggest insight into all of this, but regardless I think it is important to note that across different time periods and cultures all of these points for and against could be applied equally to slaves and servants.

Sometimes slaves were paid and permitted an education, sometimes servants were born into their position and exploited it will always depend on the time period and culture you’re looking at.

I mean again I understand why anyone would consider forced labour to be slavery and I myself am not really sure how to label his position because it feels simultaneously too controlled to be servitude and too lax to be slavery.

I tried looking stuff up and I found the definition for modern day slavery referred to it as: A situation of exploitation in which a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power.

Which I think is an apt description of Jamil’s situation and of course no matter how you look at it he is not willingly working under Kalim and in fact the whole reason for his overblot in book 4 was an attempt to garner his own freedom.

Also (and this is something that I will elaborate on further at some point) some of the tasks he is made to do, make it seem like either being fired is one of the worst things that could happen to him, his family genuinely do not have the power to quit, or his parents really, really suck.

My own personal theory is that the Vipers are indentured servants. I saw a theory floating about that all the overblot boys are somehow related to the great 7, which if true would explain why the Vipers have been serving the Asims for so long since it could be a punishment.

Regardless I hate the fact that some people who consider Jamil a servant somehow act as though this makes his situation any better? I mean I’d say regardless of whether you consider this slavery or servitude it changes very little about his actual situation.

I saw someone on twitter say that Jamil couldn’t possibly be a slave because that would make his relationship with Kalim unsatisfying, which is honestly the most infuriating thing I’ve ever heard, because I think any relationship he has with Kalim is always going to be unsatisfying (at least to me) if he’s still a servant.

But then again it is twitter so I don’t know why I bother listening to people’s opinions.

Anyway all this to say I’ll be referring to him as a servant throughout this analysis, mostly because that’s how he refers to himself.

Anyway it seems I’ve lied, this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be which is a pattern that may or may not continue I have no idea.

Once again if you have anything to elaborate or disagree on then leave it the comments, but please be respectful.

Oh and also my writing style will absolutely be changing from section to section. Sorry in advance.

I’ll see you whenever I finish the next part of this series.

Oh and sorry for any spelling mistakes!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[lokigodofaces]

Okay so in reference to my additions on this post, I have brainstormed some ideas for different Asgardian anatomy with the help of my best friend, a MA that knows way more about anatomy than I do. Plus some others that I came up with later. (Tagging @gloriousburden because I feel obligated to since there are some of your posts linked here as well as @francisbegbieslefttit to let you see the new developments)

Asgardians have 2+ livers. We know from canon that Asgardian alcohol is way stronger than ours. And usually I see this interpreted as Asgard having super special strong alcohol but Asgardians are super special strong so only they can handle it. Which I mean, that isn't wrong. But how about we come up with an idea explaining this via their biology. Thus having multiple livers that helps them process the alcohol better than we can. So if they want to get drunk, they need strong stuff. Unless they drank a ridiculous amount of human alcohol, they would be fine. Also, historically wines and beers have been made without high alcohol concentration. Basically the process behind making alcohol cleans water as well so people so it was safer to have an alcoholic beverage. So what if human's alcohol is basically like that to Asgardians? I'm sure Asgard has purified water by now, but maybe a cultural thing that stuck was the low concentration drinks?

Asgardians have an extra organ/slightly different than our organ used for magic stuff. Okay, so I haven't nailed exactly how it would work. But an organ would explain why Asgardians could use magic and not most humans. Though as I'm typing this I think having an organ existing in humans but different could be interesting because what if that's not unique to Asgardians? What if humans can have magic-allowing organs as well but not the technology to determine that? But people like Stephen and Wanda are biologically different in that sense? I like that idea. But yeah. Biological reason behind why not everyone does magic. But also it's not immediate. Best comparison I have is with singing. Professional singers train their lungs and throat in order to sing as well as they do. And we all should have roughly equal potential to sing at a professional level biologically but must don't have the voice training to get their body to produce sound like that. Same idea with magic organ. If you never practice with it, you might get some little stuff going on but nothing compared to a trained sorcerer, and lots of humans probably never noticed it or were seen as superstitious. But give them some training and bam. Magic. But on Asgard there's the added benefit of knowing this exists so people can actually train for it if they want to. Still not the majority of people (Odin, Frigga, Loki, Thor, Heimdall, and Lorelei are the only ones shown to perform magic) but some.

Mentioned it on another post on menstruation on Asgard. There's potentially some sexist stuff going on with reproductive health like access to birth control. I get the vibe it might be a thing. But idk. But their medicine seems to be so good that they have ways to treat menstrual cramps and other concerns that's accessible. They seem to have medicine good enough to treat things, so why not treat it? Then Asgardians come to Earth and find out that's there's lots of treatment options here. That's good! But wait for it! There's this weird culture in multiple places that it's normal to suffer on a period! It's supposedly normal to struggle to walk or get out of bed! And no one treats it! To which all Asgardians are just confused as to why people are suffering despite treatment existing and being relatively easy to get a hold of in some places. And this has been my PSA that suffering isn't normal during a period. Also there's more listed on that post, but that's the thing that stands out the most to me.

Also there's the appendix thing mentioned in mentioned post. Basically, it's kinda weird that humans have an organ that isn't used but when infected is fatal unless surgically removed. What sort of nightmare anatomy is that?

Also Asgardians having absolutely no idea how fast humans develop. They know the life expectancy is around 80, but not when different stages begin. When does adulthood start? Who knows? But it's the same with humans and Asgardians. When does adulthood start? Who knows? Now imagine an Asgardian having a child with a human. No one knows what gonna happen with this kid.

Also what about puberty? When does it start? What changes are there? We can assume some are the same, like we don't see any little Asgardian children with beards. Along with that, I bet Loki had some weird experiences growing up (puberty and otherwise) due to being Jotun. But he's gaslit by his parents as being "an uncommon but not unusual rate of development" or "an imbalance of hormones" or something like that. Or even being told it was a result of him not doing something right. "Means you're not eating well enough" "you must not have enough physical activity" "magic can mess with your health at this age" "stop eating this" "start drinking this" or whatever else. Then he has to like have some weird diet and work out or whatever until it resolves over time.

Okay Asgardians have got to be allergic to something on Earth. What is it? Also humans allergic to Asgardian stuff. Or wait. What about a human allergic to Asgardians or vice versa?!

I talked about it before, but Asgardians triggering the uncanny valley. Post also talks about Asgardians smelling differently & other subtle differences there could be. I also had another post I can't find rn about the uncanny valley. Basically it questioned why humans evolved to have that and how that might've been a means to determine who was human and who was alien.

Okay what about Asgardians being impressed by some human sports that value traits Asgardians see as inferior? Like I dunno, gymnastics because they're all short but that is helpful in gymnastics or something like that. Not to mention wheelchair basketball and other Paralympic sports. I have a feeling ableism is a problem on Asgard. And also a really strict idea of conventional attractiveness.

These are just some, feel free to add on other ideas. I just think it's unfortunate when fanfiction or even the creators themselves forget that Asgardians aren't just strong humans with a longer life expectancy. They're alien guys. Have fun with that. Do whatever weird thing you want to do. Give them weird organs, extra organs, or even take organs from them. What weird stuff is going on with their biology? Have fun with it!

[woodblxssomcrowned]

Eight gates, Chakra level, Byakugo seal- Brain storming (Just dumping throughts and WIP headcanons)

Shinobi are by default only capable of using around 20% of the total amount of chakra they have in their bodies, and are prevented by the 'Eight Gates' from accessing the additional 80%.

Using up the 20% that you have accessible will make you feel weakened, fatigued, and maybe even drop unconscious, as your body will shut itself down in an attempt at protecting itself and the chakra it stores to keep you alive.

There are exceptions, as moments of stress and desperation may cause the First or even the Second of the Eight Gates to open subconsciously in order to allow for a brief surge of strength and power. A lot of shinobi open the first and maybe even the second gate at some point in their life without even realizing it.

Opening the Eight gates consciously is intentionally difficult, as they are not meant to be opened. A person's body will be created to be capable of physically enduring the 20% of the chakra one can consciously access, but not more than that. Accessing more though forcing the seals of the Eight gates open will cause the body to gradually break apart and eventually die. Many can survive 30% to 40%, even 50%, and for a little bit the act of releasing the gates will numb one's sense of pain, fear and consequential thinking, but will ultimately suffer exhaustion and injuries that may range from minor and treatable, to permanently debilitating. Just as a visualization I will refer to chakra as points.

An average shinobi's total chakra level is around 100p, and their accessible level is 20p.

Ōtsutsuki Clan descendants typically have higher than average chakra levels. The Senju rank between 200-300p, with accessible level being 40-60p.*

The Uchiha clan rank between 150-250p, with accessible being 30-50p, but their chakra is also very potent and tends to be more equivalent to 200-300p or more.* (*Exceptions for higher or lower levels may vary depending on individual and genetics.)

Hashirama's level is way too high, but for visuals and just this post we'll say that his rank is 1500p, with 400p accessible to him. (It is possible that his regenerative abilities allows him to open up the eight gates and tap into even more without harming himself in the process, by simply healing whatever injuries he sustains.)

Kichiro ranks at 500p thanks to being a pseudo jinchuriki, with 100p accessible.

Kaname and Danma both ranks slightly above 300p, with 60p accessible.

It is worth noting that even the ~20p level available for average shinobi, they can still muster quite powerful techniques, but their accessible chakra will simply be depleted faster.

Now onto the Byakugo seal/Strength of a Hundred Seal /Yin-Seal

The Byakugo seal is an advanced sealing and chakra channeling technique that allows the user to store additional chakra at a specific point on their body by gradually directing certain amounts of their accessible 20% and maintaining it there for an extended period of time.

By the time the seal is completed and will manifest visually on ones body, an amount equal to an individuals' accessible 20% of chakra times 100 will be stored within it.

In the WS!AU, this means that once Kaname completed her byakugo seal, she has her roughly 300p total chakra within her body, of which about 60p are accessible for her, along with the additional whopping 6000p worth of chakra stored within the seal.

This technically puts her among the individuals of her clan with the highest levels of chakra, which are her father, her uncle, and her mother (who also has the seal). And to a sensor who is unawares of the seal, she will light up like a Christmas tree and seem far more powerful than she actually is. Only individuals with techniques like the Byakugan will be able to tell that the chakra that radiates off her isn't in fact circulating through the pathways the way it should normally and does for her father and uncle, but is instead concentrated to a single abnormal point on her body. Even sensors of her uncle's caliber can only sense that it is her chakra, and a whole lot of it.

A drawback of this is that she can't suppress the chakra within the seal to try and hide herself from sensors. It will be there no matter what she does unless she completely drains the seal.

This being said, even though Kaname's chakra level is technically higher with the seal, she will still not be able to use it however she wants. Her body is still only built to handle around 60-80p of chakra surging through her at once. If she attempted to release even half of the 6000p stored in the seal she would die instantly. And, unlike the eight gates, the byakugo seal will not instinctively block you from pulling too much chakra from it, and it does nothing to numb the user's sense of pain if they were to force too much chakra through their system. Injuries that a user of the eight gates may be temporarily capable of brushing off would likely incapacitate a byakugo user very quickly.

Because of this, the byakugo seal requires great chakra control not just to create and use efficiently, but also to use safely. Historically, a number of shinobi met a very quick and gruesome end after spending years obtaining the seal, only to get overconfident and pulling too much chakra from it at once.

(Tsunade found a way of bypassing this when she created the "creation rebirth" technique, and it's derived jutsus. She simply heals any injuries her body sustains from the excessive amounts of chakra as they appear with that very same chakra. )

So, even though Kaname can't use techniques as powerful as her father or uncle's, she can in theory make about 100 60p attacks by utilizing the chakra in the seal. And that is still pretty insane.

[loverwithalittledagger]

WIP Sunday snippet #2

ah well, im also working on a second fun one might as well toss up a little bit, nothing outright explict in the snippet but the leadup to a bit more.

For a gunkink promptfill

Mac freezes, glancing from the gun under his chin holding him in place up to the man standing over him looking down and cataloging every reaction as he evaluates the situation. The combination of the sudden danger, proximity, and the flush of embarrassed exposure rushes through him, heat pooling everywhere as his body reacts to this new attention.

"Now, now, MacGyver, you really are full of such exciting surprises. Here I was thinking this would be a very boring flight across the Atlantic. Whatever shall I do with you?" He punctuated the question by tipping MacGyver's head back roughly with the barrel forcing him to look up and allowing Murdoc a better look at all of the emotions running through his enemie's thoughts. Some of the emotions were uninteresting and he dismissed them quickly, fear and panic and discomfort, but there it was, the one he was looking for, MacGyver's tongue slipped out trying to moisten a mouth that had gone dry and he shifted his hips just slightly at the same time almost unconsciously seeking some friction, desire and interest undercutting the fear, perfect.

Mac had to be dreaming now, this whole situation was becoming too intense and too ridiculous in equal amounts. From being dragged at gunpoint onto a private plane to having the same gun pressing right into his windpipe as its owner stared down at him hungrily, so clearly contemplating taking him apart and hopefully only in the sexual sense, he didn't put it past the assassin to find that attractive in the literal sense as well. And since when did he think of Murdoc and 'hopefully thinking about me sexually' in the same sentence and to make it worse when did he start welcoming those thoughts?

The air felt thick and heavy as Mac tried to sort his thoughts out but every time he could feel the ideas racing around his head congeal into any pattern the cool metal on his throat would drag him from any possible conclusion back into the moment and back into the heightened twin feelings of danger and arousal as he stared up at the man that not five minutes ago he would have sworn's only intentions to him involved his heart stopping and his blood on the floor after his usefulness wore off.

Maybe this wasn't going to be such a bad flight after all.

[princehendir]

Before you use the term "found family" STOP.

Despite having a rather broad definition, there's a possibility that's not actually what you mean! "Found family" most often implies that the family dynamic is intentionally and actively chosen, by persons not related by blood, and doesn't exist solely due to marriage or adoption! It also necessitates that the persons involved actually consider themselves to be family, or have a family dynamic, whether they are emotionally intelligent enough to verbally phrase it that way! The TvTropes page actually covers the definition and nuances very well, gives examples of similar but different tropes (Band Of Brothers, Fire-Forged Friends, etc) and is a recommended read!

Other terms to consider that may be more accurate to what you're describing, but aren't in the TvTropes article above:

Ensemble cast

In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time. The term is also used interchangeably to refer to a production (typically film) with a large cast or a cast with several prominent performers.

In contrast to the popular model, which gives precedence to a sole protagonist, an ensemble cast leans more towards a sense of "collectivity and community".

(from Wikipedia)

A great multi-use term that refers more to narrative function than in-universe relationship. Can refer to coworkers, roommates, blood family members, all sort of things, there's no strings! They just have to be given roughly equal screentime and narrative weight. Give it a shot!

Blended Family -or- Stepfamily

A stepfamily is a family where at least one parent has children who are not biologically related to their spouse. Either parent, or both, may have children from previous relationships or marriages. Two known classifications for stepfamilies include "simple" stepfamilies, where only one member of the family's couple has a prior child or children and the couple does not have any children together, and "complex" or "blended" families, where both members of the couple have at least one child from another relationship.

(from wikipedia)

Also: family through marriage! They don't even have to like each other for this one, they have no choice!

Team dynamics

Again, pretty broad, and more than a little vague, but that's what makes it great! They don't have to like or love each other, they don't have to be there voluntarily, they just need to arguably be in some sort of team, and have some sort of dynamic. Possibly even multiple dynamic. It's very versatile!

And many more!

Disclaimer: while this post was admittedly made in a state of some frustration, it is not meant to shame or criticize! The purpose of this post is simply to inform & encourage clarity and the expansion of your vocabulary. It is also meant to discourage the further collapsing of "found family" into a useless umbrella term for when there is more than one guy in a piece of fiction.

Have fun 🖤

[regretsofaghost]

Day 19- My love for you is true, I swear it is, it just will kill you in the end

AO3 link to chapter 19- here Tumblr link to chapter 18- here Tumblr link to chapter 20- here

Link to music notes used in the fic- here

Word Count- 900 words

Edwin walked through the mirror back into the office, fists pressed together roughly. The only reason he had not pressed against the brilliant bruise on his hand was because Charles was right behind him.

“Edwin, slow down. You’re saying the parents are behind the kids’ disappearances?”

A constant tempo, equal amounts of time to breathe in, and out. One, two, three, one, two, three.

“From Elenor’s account, the mother was wearing one of the rings the night before they perished. The father refuses to cooperate and told Elenor not to share vital case details with us! That’s not to mention the other things she mentioned while pretending to pour tea and sip it.”

G-D-C-B- no that was not right, not right at all.

Charles was in front of him, hands covering Edwin’s own.

He must have begun to press the bruise.

Edwin’s head felt ready for the clouds, floating and disoriented.

The potion bottle in his pocket was half empty.

“Win, you have to calm down.” Charles’ lovely brown eyes were looking directly into Edwin’s own, pond-coloured eyes, attention solely on him, and him alone. “Did you have to do some magic for her? You seem, off.”

Oh.

“I-“ Edwin tried to breathe, heart racing, hands shaking in Charles’, his body giving way to an odd shuddering every few seconds. “I had to check, to see if there was a curse on those rings. It took a bit more out of me than I thought it would.”

It was not a lie.

It was not.

“Do you- What do you need?” Charles’ voice was comforting, smooth, steady in the face of Edwin’s frazzled mind and uncooperative body.

“Nothing,” Edwin said, before trying to pull his hands back, only for Charles to tighten his grip. It was a wonderful pressure that bordered on pain as Charles’ fingers accidentally squeezed the bruise on his hand.

“None of that. You always get a little funny when you take that potion. Should I get my Walkman? Or do you just want to be held?” Charles offered, already attempting to pull Edwin towards the couch, towards-towards.

He could not.

“No, we are on a case. We do not have time for this.” Edwin managed to get his hands back, mourning the warmth, pressure, love, that Charles offered. “I will be fine. I need to do some proper research before we make this case any messier than it already is. You should get Crystal and go back to the Albertson’s, see if she can get a reading on the treehouse. I cannot believe we did not have her do that the first time we visited.”

Edwin walked away from Charles, keeping his eyes away to avoid the expressions no doubt passing over his face, the pain, confusion, hurt, as Edwin did his best to hide away again.

He did not deserve it.

Edwin had never deserved Charles.

He faced the walls of tomes older than both he and Charles combined, carefully keeping his hands to the sides of him.

Charles cleared his throat behind him. “What did you see? Or sense. Or whatever it was that the spell did that made you so nervous.”

Edwin reached up and pulled down one of the bestiaries. “It will do me well to try to forget Charles.”

“None of that. You have me properly shaken up now, with how you’ve been-”

D-F-G-A-

F-C-B-F-E

Edwin closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “What did Olivia tell you. It sounded like you had gotten through to her at the very least.”

Charles was silent, a tense silence, one that Edwin refused to take blame for.

They did not have time for this.

Those children needed their help.

“She was muttering mostly. Couldn’t breathe, hadn’t been able to in a while. Said Hugh was trying to take her children from her,” Charles’ voice was soft, angry, but not willing to express it towards Edwin.

“You need to get Crystal to the treehouse.” Edwin repeated. “I will try to find-“

“Edwin- just. Come with, I’m sure it would be beneficial for us all to go investigate those creepy grounds together. I’ll even make sure Crystal doesn’t say anything if you need to hold my arm or need a hug-“

“It would be beneficial, for me, if you left me alone Charles. I will deal with the matter on my own, while you go with Crystal and find out what was stalking the Albertson children.” Edwin said forcefully, near slamming the book in his hands on the table. “That should be both of our top priority. Their deaths matter, no matter how hard the father wants to destroy their memory.”

The air went silent, no breath, no counting.

Edwin Payne would only ever hurt Charles Rowland.

Edwin sat at his desk, and purposefully opened his book, eyes scanning but not reading, not comprehending, his vision swimming as Charles stood silently meters away, both so close and so far away.

“If. If that’s what you need Edwin. I’ll be back before midnight,” Charles finally said, before he turned to leave, Edwin trying his best to not pay attention to if Charles was shaking, if Charles felt the impact of the book the same way Edwin did.

Charles had never deserved his father’s cruelty.

Edwin would only ever hurt Charles.

Edwin only heard the door close before he pulled out the other potion and drank deeply.

[box-dwelling]

OK so as someone who just genuinely loved Dual destinies and is keeping my theis length DD apologia in the drafts at least for now. I genuinely want to know why people don't like it.

I have seen this take from so many AA fans who I completely agree about everything else with. I need to understand why it sounds like we played completely different games.

I will put some I've seen but feel differently about under the cut

Critisms I find unfair:

-it doesn't tie up the loose ends AA4 left hanging. We don't hold any of the other games up to this standard because they all properly finish up the characters arcs. Aa5 cannot be blamed for the problems we want to overlook in AA4. I do also love AA4 but it does leave a lot of dangling plot threads that the others don't and that would be a fucking nightmare to tie up *staring directly at sibling reveal*

- Clay comes out if no where. He's very well established through the game. He just isn't mentioned in AA4 just like Fran isn't mentioned in AA1 and Dahlia isn't mentioned before AA3.

Critism I acknowledge is a reasonable opinion people can have but strongly disagree with

-Spilting the game between the protagonists stops them having proper arcs. Athena is our weird girl for this game. She is our maya. We get to play as her for 1.5 cases. For the majority of the game she's taking up the weird girl screen time and she's honestly still doing that in the ones you play as her. She's just a weird girl who happens to be a lawyer. In the main game Apollo and Phoenix have a roughly equal amount of screen time by chapter. They cut the bloated filler not the arcs (yes I will argue that 5-2 is needed for Apollos arc. Its there to set up his relationship with Athena that us a catalyst later on)

-Phoenix and Apollo are OOC. No. Phoenix is still a cryptic little bitch when you don't play as him and in AA4 he was so very clearly missing being a lawyer. It makes sense. Apollo very clearly in the last case of AA4 regains a lot of his respect for Phoenix. No, he doesn't do this on screen but again that is AA4s fault not dual destinies. That's how he acts the last time we see him so that's how he's acting now.

-The Phantom comes out of nowhere. Plot wise, maybe. But so do a lot of AA villians. Thematically, he's the perfect fit. DD is a game about trust. Very, very explicitly. A spy is someone who can't trust anyone. The phantom is a man who's shut himself off so much from emotions that he no longer recognises why trust is needed. And also has an ability that directly preys on people by making them think hes a trustworthy figure. He's not an incredible villian but he is thematically cohesive.

-almost a part 2 to the last point. The Fulbright reveal comes out of nowhere. First of all 5-2 has some very very choice sprite framing lol. But beyond that it also is a thematically smart choice. We as players are conditioned in AA games to trust the recurring detective. The villain should be someone that we trust. The guy was likeable but also fundamentally always kinda hollow and did in fact pull a shit ton of strings in 5-4 that we all ignored because we trusted him. The clues are there. You're just not ment to pick up on them because of the formula of these games.

-Edgeworth doesn't need to be there. Again game with a theme of trust. He doesn't necessarily need to be there but his dynamic with Phoenix does. They spent 3 fucking games setting up how important it is that those two trust each other and in a game about trust his absence would be felt.

-I don't see this a lot but I did see it a few times. Blackquill is a bad prosecutor. Honestly this is a taste thing and I love him. He is my little bastard man. Also thematically he embodies the two people you aren't supposed to trust in these games, a convict and a prosecutor but is actually a cool guy.

-I've never seen this but I can guess it's happened. Pearl comes out of nowhere. Again theme of trust. Phoenix has just lost the two people he's been relying on to trust the most and needed to be reminded that there were other people he loved and trusted so letter from Maya and visit from Pearl.

-mood matrix. I like the mini game I think it's fun. My brain likes to sit and logically think about what emotions it would make sense for someone to feel in situations.

Criticism I agree with but really don't bother me

-Trucy is side lined. Yeah. I love her to pieces and will never complain about getting more of her but it doesn't make sense for her to not be there plot wise and they clearly just didn't have room for her. I am happy with my Trucy scraps. I would visit her and present every piece of evidence to her to get as much dialogue as I could.

-Klavier is sidelined. Also yeah. But he did genuinely need to be there for 5-3 thematically for that case. (It is literally a showdown between his school of thought and the one he thought phoenix had) but they couldn't make him procecutor because he'd be too much on their side. It had to be someone who at that point seems at least a little morally dubious. I wish there was more but I will also happily take my Klavier scraps.

-the anime cutscenes. I don't love them but I do have a little switch in my brain marked "watching anime" that I can flip and enjoy them for what they are.

-the switch of the voiced sound effects. Yes they are worse but like, I can live with it.

Stuff I don't like and won't defend

-turnabout reclaimed racism and fatphobia (also blatant animal welfare ignorance). I'm not defending it or overlooking it but it's not the only game in this franchise to be problematic.

[carionto]

A Proper Welcoming Party - P2

Part 1

As Big Thrasher's fleet emerges from hyperspace, they are all pleasantly surprised that: a) they all arrived roughly at the same time this time around; b) none of them are crashing into a planet or space station; c) they're not getting shot at immediately.

Glorious success!

Now the raid begins.

Quickly scanning the perimeter, Big Thrasher learns the orbital mining station around Mercury is, for starters, way bigger than they thought based on the intel they had, which was only a few months old. And there were three of them now. Okay, Humans build quite fast. Noted.

There was a number of heavily armed and armored large ships docked at each station, and signs of recent hyperjumps of similar magnitude, but no cargo ships. Weird. Are the Humans somehow transporting the processed materials using individually powered containers? Doesn't seem very efficient.

No matter. Big Thrasher has a fleet of a hundred ships, they can just pillage the stations themselves and load up with precious cargo. In fact, none of the Human ships or structures have shield! What fools, such easy pickings! As he was about to broadcast his demands and threats, he noticed the comms have been pinging for a while now. Oh, they want to surrender already? Good. This is going so much better than planned!

"Unidentified vessels, this is the Heart of Liquid Stone. Your sudden appearance in our space is disrupting scheduled flights. Move out of the indicated transport departure area and identify yourselves, please."

Something's off, but Big Thrasher can't quite put his finger on it. Oh well, they're listening, and they clearly don't know who they're dealing with. So, he shall speak with the full authority bestowed upon him by the raw confidence of someone who doesn't know he's about to learn a very valuable lesson!

A moment of silence after his proclamation. Indications of encrypted communication between the stations and the docked ships, and several scan pings going over his entire fleet. Then, a slightly bemused Human calls back:

"Uhh, you sure about that? From what we can see, you guys don't got enough, well, frankly everything, to do much of anything to Bertha's Bosom over there, let alone this station."

At this, one of the large unshielded military ships undocked from the station with uncanny speed and grace for a vessel it's size. If Big Thrasher was paying attention, he would have noticed that a single turning engine was more powerful than all the main engines on his flagship combined. But he didn't, because he was paying attention to the several massive cannons training their sights on his fleet.

Sure, they're big, and kinda scary, but, but, BUT - his ships have shields and theirs don't! Doesn't matter how big a gun you have, any weapons technology before the invention of shields becomes obsolete. This has proven to be true in every civilization. Energy weapons, now that's the real stuff. Drain the shields, then easily melt through the hull, everyone knows this.

So... why is it that they have all been firing at one spot on the hull of Bertha's Bosom for nearly a full minute now (without retaliation or evasive maneuvers, but they're too busy to notice such details), and it's not even red hot yet? You would need an astronomical amount of reinforced multi-layered plating with the highest grade heat dispensing alloys interwoven throughout the entire vessel to absorb a concentrated laser barrage like that. The sheer mass of such a ludicrous thing would then require stupendously powerful engines. AND to power THOSE would demand literally impossible levels of energy generation. Nothing is making any sense right now.

Then, there was a thud. Even though it's the vacuum of space, Big Thrasher felt it. He did not understand what it was.

He equally did not understand what the shiny particles were where one of his ships used to be. Or why they were streaking in a trajectory directly away from one of Bertha's.. cannons....

Oh.

Uhhh...

huh

Big Thrasher is having a thought (a truly rare occurrence, so let's give him some time)

...

..

.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!!

[swampyfrogqs]

Due to the recent end of secret life I present to you...

A SPREADSHEET!! :D

No but actually I made a spreadsheet to try and figure out how people are placing in the life series so I can make a guesstimate of how they'd place in a regular game, say if the other games were inconsequential, and they had the skills that they have after all the life games.

Ok to start I found out how they placed over every game and put that into a very confusing table (the limited life placing was so annoying :)).

And then I made it easier to tell how they placed with colouring so I could scope roughly how each person plays in every game. Putting it in order of each game would have been too much work, and I think it would be harder to tell anyway.

And then I averaged their places overall, and without third life. Reason for without third life is that it was the first game so their skills weren't at all what they are now, and it was kind of what I'd like to call a warm up. If that makes sense.

Then I averaged those together (a lot of averaging I know :D) and with that created a generalised list of how I think they might place in a game where: they had all their skills from playing the previous games, but also had no memory of previous alliances in the games, or if they had won previous games.

Also I kinda looked at the placing and asked myself who would win in a 1v1. AND I think that gem could easily beat everyone in a 1v1 but she's only been in one game so I put her lower lol.

(oh also, I made last place equal to 20 points because of how the different games have different amounts of players, and figured that would make it more of a fair test)

Sorry for iffy wording throughout this

explaining my thoughts was a tad bit strange :D

[lesbiansanemi]

hi kaz!! i was reading through some of the asks/responses you posted yesterday and i wanted to pick your mind a bit about your answer to one particular question. I think the ask itself was more about what tropes/kinks you like in f/f ships, but I was more interested in a certain portion where you talked about how you don’t post f/f stuff as much as you would like on your blog because it doesn’t get the same kind of attention.

( bear w me but im going to go on a tangent for a second here. i promise it’ll all come together ) last year i set a goal for myself to read 50 books just because i kind of missed how much i used to read when i was younger, and i wanted to see if i could still do it (and i could)! the reason why this is relevant bc i realized that…my taste in books is really different from my taste in fanfiction. im not really a big romance enjoyer, though i do read a lot of it because most of the books in the genres i tend to read include them as a major subplot. most of the romance i read was a roughly equal amount of m/f and f/f. i only read 4 books with m/m romance, which kind of surprised me because…pretty much all the fanfiction i read is m/m?? 

I guess your response just got me thinking about how differently i personally view/interact with ships/shows/etc. that I categorize in my brain as “fandom” content vs “IRL” content. I’m not sure if this distinction makes sense to anyone but me, but it’s basically just the stuff I post about on my blogs or write fanfiction about or make fanart of vs. literally everything else that I enjoy reading/watching. 

I think fandom as a whole is so centered around m/m that it almost feels like an unspoken rule that m/m ships are cooler, better, more popular—you can ship f/f , of course, but doing it is almost like a statement, or it’s a random side-pairing that people throw in there to even things out or something. When it comes to the books/shows I talk about “IRL”, there’s a much greater diversity in the kinds of characters and relationships I enjoy. But within the sphere of fandom, I find that the kind of content I create/post/reblog is much narrower in scope. It’s this subconscious policing that I think I’ve always been aware of, but never really put into words until now. 

I guess my experiences are also heavily colored by the fact that I’m aroace and find pretty much all genders/bodies aesthetically desirable. I generally don’t really have much interest in searching for a particular gender dynamic; if i like everything else about the fic, then i’m pretty happy with whatever’s put in front of me (which, in fandom, is pretty much always m/m). Also, a lot of times that I read a certain fic I’m doing it more bc I care about the individual character/s involved than the ship itself, because, again, I’m a casual romance fan at best, but I understand that within fandom, shipping seems to be the way to examine/analyze/whatever characters and character dynamics. (This reflects in my writing too. Renkaza is the main ship i write for these days, but as much as i love akaza, i'm usually writing my silly lil fics for kyojuro. He's my Guy, he's the Character i'm rotating in my mind always)

All this being said, I understand that it’s probably very different for someone who does have specific preferences that just don’t seem to get the same attention in fandom. This is getting kind of long and nonsensical, but basically, I just wanted to ask if you had anything else to say on the subjects of women in fandom/shipping culture/character discourse or other things like that. 

Anyway, hope you’re having a good day! here’s another frog:  𓆏

Hiiiii Bog!!! And yeah! Ofc! I'll do my best to articulate and answer, sorry if this gets a bit convoluted or complicated, I'm gonna try and keep it streamlined. (Also I'm so sorry, it didn't stay contained, pls do not feel you have to read all of this LMAO)

First! Congrats on reaching your reading goal! I also used to read a lot when I was younger, but I haven't done so in... years atp, and I'm slowly starting to get back into it, so I understand the feeling!

I totally get what you mean by "fandom" vs "IRL" media/content as well. Or at least, I think I've got a kind of similar thing going on. There are so many pieces of media that I genuinely love so much that I just... never talk about on here, because I don't really feel a desire or need to "fandomize" them. Like, since this is mostly an anime blog, using it as an example, out of my top twenty fav animes, there are 8 I have basically never talked about on here, 7 I only post about in passing (as in, happened to stumble across a gifset or something and reblogged it), and only five that I'd say I "participate in fandom" with. And then ofc, there are SO many pieces of media that aren't anime that I genuinely love a lot that I don't/barely post about on here, or interact with the fandom

I have a few theories for why certain pieces of media are "fandomizable" to me, while others I genuinely never feel the urge to do that with them, despite genuinely loving them. One is that I've found I have a very hard time doing fandom if it's a live action piece of media. I wish I could articulate why, I've tried before, but I fear we'd just end up with a confusing mess haha. The literal only one is dw, and even then, I don't read fic for it, barely look at art, mostly just like reading analysis and theories on it.

The point is! I get what you mean haha

But the main reason kinda circles back to what you said about shipping, and how that is generally the way that people engage with fandom, and characters and media in general within fandom spaces. I'm mostly going to engage with the fandom if there are ships I can enjoy within the piece of media, because I know that's going to be what most people are creating fan content about. For all I joke and post about "there's more to media than shipping" ik most fandom ppl are probably like me, and have a lot of media where shipping is barely acknowledged at all, and just come to fandom for that specific aspect of it.

Another is if the media has extremely compelling characters, but is lacking a bit plot wise because I feel the urge to "fix" it and want to explore that either via my own fics or reading other people's. Basically, I'm only going to "do fandom" with a piece of media if there are other avenues of the story I'd like to truly explore because canon either disappointed me, or had other alternate routes that imo are just as interesting (if not more so) than the one we got in canon.

And, obviously, there are lots of pieces of media that don't fit that criteria. So I don't engage with fandom for them. At most I will sometimes write character or relationship study fics for them, but that's about it

So, getting into fandom in regards to femslash, these characters and relationships I want to explore more are generally women and sapphic relationships. Of course, there are a lot of m/m ships I can enjoy in passing, and I might click on a fic for them if it strikes my fancy, but largely, I just don't care enough to create my own fics for most of them, or even necessarily deliberately seek it out. Renkaza is very much an exception for me, and not the rule

Like say, Dungeon Meshi. I love Falin and Marcille. I love their relationship. I love the way they affect the plot and story. I love seeking out fic and art of them. I have little snippets of farcille hidden away in my drive, as well as plans for other fics about them. But then looking at say, Laois, Kabru, and Labru, I just.... don't feel the urge to do that with them. I don't dislike these characters or this ship. They just inspire a very "Okay, cool I guess" reaction in me. And most of my interest in Laois and Kabru is based in very canon analysis of them, without going into headcanon or shipping territory. And that same sentiment seems to carry over to the vast majority of media I engage with.

I think the most glaring example is Genshin Impact. I can so honestly say I don't care about the male characters, with exactly two exceptions. I just don't. I don't think about them, I don't want to read fic about them, I don't ship any of them. If I see it, I say "okay" and then move on. But the female characters... they're pretty much the whole reason I play the game. I want to explore their characters, I think about them often, there are lots of different ships between them I think would be interesting to explore.

And I think there are a couple of reasons I feel this way about female characters and femslash that I'll try to articulate here.

The first is that as a kid, I often got very, very upset that most media only had one token "girl character" whose main personality trait was "being the girl character." I also got upset that pretty much all girl centric media were things like disney princess movies and the like. So as I got older, and learned I could find media where girls and women had many, many more roles, could be genuine main characters in things that weren't girly romances, there could be more than one female character. And those female characters could interact with each other and have deep relationships just like the male characters! So I just got very, very attached them as a teenager, and I think part of that follows me even now

There is also that degree of relatability that I mentioned in the original post. I'm not a girl, but I am sapphic, and am at least 80% of the time read as a woman within my life, and absolutely live as one. That inspires a sort of kinship with female characters that I just don't have with male characters, even ones I deeply relate to for other reasons. The same is true for sapphic romantic relationships. I'm an ace lesbian, some flavor of aro too, but I feel an undeniable type of draw to women that I simply don't with men. So relationships between two women "make more sense" to me in a way. It's easier for me to "see" how and why they would work. For m/m, everything has to be so specific for me to go "ah yes, I get it, I see." With female characters, there's a lot more variation that makes me go "ah yes I see it and get it" because I can apply how I feel to fill in the gaps. And again, I can also get that gratification from them that I just can't with m/m

I also just... have a lot of trauma with men? It is one of those things that I very much acknowledge is a me problem, and is something I am very consciously working on and trying to get over, but it's so much easier for me to get closer with women irl, I always go to women in professional settings if I can have a choice, etc. I am working very hard on being more comfortable around men, esp men I don't know well, but! It is an aspect of me. And I'm sure it probably taints my enjoyment of male characters and male-centric fiction to a certain degree. It's perhaps one of the reasons I just, so much more rarely get genuinely attached to male characters

And finally, and this is starting to lead into fandom's Thing with female characters and femslash in general, but there is a spiteful part of me that wants to love these characters and ships that are often ignored for the same of m/m and sometimes het, esp when the het is a lot more focused on the male character. I see so much potential, so many things to explore in these characters and ships that so many people consistently ignore, and at a certain point, it has to be acknowledged that the common denominator is that they are women. When that is the only connection, it has to be considered that people don't care about them in the same way merely because they're women

Before I got into kny, my ao3 was actually about 50% femslash, 30% gen, 15% qprs, and 5% m/m and m/f. Most of those fics have long since been abandoned for unrelated reasons, but the point is, m/m wasn't a significant part of my fandom contribution until I got into Renkaza. And I stayed a very small ao3 account, before my stats fucking EXPLODED when I started posting Renkaza. Those fics gained traction and attention in ways my femslash simply never did

And it... sucked to see, to put it mildly, haha. It sucked knowing I could pour just as much time and effort into these femslash fics as my m/m, and they would receive fractions of the attention. I don't necessarily write for the engagement, but I won't pretend I don't like it, and it hurts when the things I make are largely ignored, especially for... reasons like that. Here is actually a post I made not too long ago going into the INSANE differences in the stats of my m/m vs femslash fics which I think sums it up pretty well

All my original projects have female main characters, with a sapphic relationship being the main one, even if it's not a romance focused plot (because to be honest, I'm not a huge romance fan, and much prefer when the romance is a background thing to a bigger plot, it's just that it would be nice if those smaller romances happened to be lesbian haha). And like I've mentioned, I make and plan a lot of femslash fandom content. But I just.... don't feel like sharing it when these are the responses I receive. It makes me feel bad, and want to stop making it all together. So I'd rather keep it to myself and just have fun that way, so I never have the opportunity to feel bad about it. I couldn't tell you the amount of Shinomitsu fics and ideas I have just rotting in my drafts, as just one example

I think fandom as a whole is so centered around m/m that it almost feels like an unspoken rule that m/m ships are cooler, better, more popular—you can ship f/f , of course, but doing it is almost like a statement, or it’s a random side-pairing that people throw in there to even things out or something.

I think you're very much onto something with the above statement. To fandom, male characters and m/m are simply the default. That's what you do. You go insane over the male characters and male ships, and we can sprinkle in an f/f pairing in the background, but to do anything more is to alienate yourself. You often end up in pockets of other sapphics because they're the only ones who... care. Which isn't bad. I love my fandom experience mostly consisting of engagement with other sapphics, but again, it does have that edge of sucking because you know this is the case because most other demographics simply do not gaf. When most sapphics are not the same way! So many of us still greatly enjoy male characters and m/m, a lot of them probably even more than me, but it just... doesn't go the opposite direction with femslash.

People may be engaging with more femslash outside of a fandom space due to that inherent default focus on the male characters and m/m like you said, but some might not be. And either way, it still kinda sucks that fandoms just... are more male-centric

It's one of those cases where I think fandom is reflecting an implicit societal bias, but no one wants to acknowledge that because they want to paint fandom as inherently progressive. "We don't hate women, look at all our gay ships! How could we be weird about women?" *proceeds to hate or ignore every female character ever, or come up with fifty billion excuses for why female characters are actually just NEVER interesting* and... it just makes me sigh. I think you see another version of this when it comes to characters of color vs white and light skinned characters, but we won't get into that tangent here

Because, despite what they seem to want to believe, people within fandoms are part of the world and society at large. Those prejudices are going to carry over, and pretending they don't doesn't help anything. There is going to be misogyny, and racism, and transphobia, and transmisogyny, because it exists in the real world. Just because we're playing fictional pretend doesn't mean those things have vanished. And I think being consciously aware of that is the best way to avoid it and do better. Acknowledging you could be doing these things, working not to, and actually listening if someone points it out and not just going straight into denial. I bring up the misogyny most often because that's what I feel most qualified to point out and address, but I ofc think it's equally important to point out the other issues as well, and I try very hard to like. listen if other people do so, esp when they are part of those demographics that suffer from the prejudice

This has gotten rather long winded and serious haha, I didn't really mean to, but when it comes to female characters and femslash within fandoms, esp in comparison to m/m, I feel like it's something that needs to get brought up

There is very much a facet of this where I just genuinely attach more to female characters and get more interested in them, but I also like to focus on them so much to try and combat this issue. Which is why I'm once again posting a lot more femslash rather than just hoarding it all away just for myself. Even if hardly anyone engages with it, it's out there, which makes things a little better

I dunno. I always say I care most about the plot and dynamics of a story. Because, well, I do. If you described me two stories, and one had a plot that sounded interesting and characters I would get attached to, but they were all guys, vs a story about lesbians but the plot just sounds boring to me, I'm going to pick the former.

But... if you give me two stories that both sound equally engaging to me, I'm going to pick the female character centric-one over the male character centric-one in a heartbeat, and I just wish I was able to more often make that choice rather than the other one

Plot, character dynamics, all of that, is fundamentally always going to be the most important part of it all to me. But I can't deny that I attach to female characters so much more intensely as well, which tends to leave me in such an odd position a lot of wanting to engage with female character-centric things, but the actual story of them is just NOT as interesting as something male-centric. So I want to do what I can to help fix that, and I hope others start to think and do the same as well

ANYWAYS!!!! This got so incredibly long and rambly, but I hope this wall of word vomit at least somewhat answered your question?

[slasheru]

game dev/design tips you didn't ask for, at random:

don't start by designing your game around the engine; come up with/refine/design/test your core mechanics INDEPENDENT of an engine and then FIND AN ENGINE that suits your game's purpose! (aka the Reverse Dragon Age Inquisition)

Fun Fact: The devs of Mass Effect said that, roughly, even though there's an equal amount of Paragon/Renegade (aka "good"/"evil") content in ME, 90% of players just chose all the Paragon options every time. Take this shit to heart!! Design choices that go beyond "good" or "bad". Design choices that are interesting and would make an "all good" or "all bad" etc player actually HAVE to choose between more than one option that's VIABLE for the character they're roleplaying! Like, in BG3 terms, no "tiefling village vs goblin camp" choices. I wanna make you choose between keeping Lae'zel and Shadowheart in your party permanently. Don't be afraid to cut off content that players can't all access in one playthrough, but DO hint that the other content is ABLE TO BE ACCESSED if you make different choices!

Don't forget about sound design, especially UI/UX feedback. That shit makes or breaks an environment. Never QA test with your sound off, I can feel my old boss breathing down my neck RIGHT NOW

Organize your production pipeline, no matter how small of a project! I use Trello for producer shit and Jira for my bug list. Familiarizing yourself with how to properly log your own bugs by component and priority is key, especially with more than one team member! (I might actually make a QA megapost sometime ahdjks)

When you do something in the game that you wanna reward your player for (e.g.: selecting a dialogue choice that an NPC approves of! succeeding a skill check! new DM from your crush! you just looted 1 goblin bong! etc), remember to include JUICY FEEDBACK! This is a very unfortunate industry term wherein the JUICY refers to the actual crunchiness of the feedback: A textural response from the player that Feels Good. Like, Candy Crush has the juiciest feedback. Remember: Feedback should include UI/UX/a visual element, sound, be a clear result of a player action, and give a sense of WHAT you just accomplished at the correct SCALE (bigger bang feedback for, like, killing a world boss vs opening a lockpick chest). (You can Pavlov's Dog players into getting hype at repeated sounds by ensuring your feedback retains notes of the same sound or foley, or even just using the same sound fx across different progression points. Like layering in the same chimes with a level-up noise AND when you do something that gets you closer to leveling up, like earning XP)

When designing elements, remember: What does like LOOK like? What does this SOUND like? What does this DO to the world state of the game? What else does this AFFECT? Be cognizant of how stuff can chain affect the tone of the rest of your game!! QA often!!

Achieving a balance between HIDING all the numbers/systems/guts of your game vs having the player be aware of the systems and how they work can be a tightrope to walk! I personally err on the side of Hiding Too Much, but checking in with your testers or players to see if they can "feel" how the game works, or if it makes them get too minmaxy, can be super helpful! Remember to keep your design choices in line with your "x statement" (aka one-sentence directive about what you want YOUR game to be/feel like).

Save a fucking backup zip file of your dev environment RIGHT NOW and put in a separate place from your main PC. Like right the fuck now