#no better way to worldbuild than by having to answer questions about it

[fidgetspringer-art]

Every lineart lover's dream

[copperpipes]

I spec bio'ed Ultraman from Ultraman:Rising for fun (part 1)

the actual file I've written (and still writing) is now far over 2k words, so I desided to break it down to a series of posts so that it would be easier to digest, but if you don't want to wait for me to get them one by one out you can just go and read that long ass file yourself/lh

I understand that the film wasn't meant to be looked into on this level, at the end of the day this is just fan speculative biology, not an official theory, nor is it law, if you find a scientific inaccuracy i'll gladly hear you out in the comments to this post. but essentially what i'm doing here is having fun in my own silly little way :]

I've done some research into ultra physiology and some things didn't make sense to me, partially because there are more than one iteration all with their own worldbuilding, but I'll do my best to try and piece them all together without losing the source material too much.

[updated ultra Kenji design]

(The rest under cut) vvv

fact no.1

ultras are aliens and before they were ultras they were humans (or humanoids, or human-like, i'd like to believe so and i will do you one better).

not going to spoil much but something happened, and they were forced to build this thing called the ultra-spark to keep their civilization going, and the ultra-spark turned them all into giants, ultras.

fact no.2

the weapons ultraman uses (those buzzsaws thingies, shields, beams and glowing fists) are made out of something called spacium energy, positive running through the right side of ultraman’s body and negative running through the left, with the spacium beam appearing when he connects those energies by crossing his arms.

fact no.3

Ultraman himself is made of spacium energy and its presence is vital for him to exist. the ultra-spark is what gave and gives the ultra species spacium energy, ultras can also produce it on their own using other types of energy (solar energy on earth for example) but are not as efficient as the source material, hence why on earth ultraman’s energy runs out quicker then it would for example in space where energy is more abundant.

What is spacium wasn't completely clear to me, what I understood was that Ultraman has it (I think it was his skin that was made out of spacium?) and uses it to convert solar energy into spacium energy. 

I think spacium is meant to be an original element. and from what a mutual kindly told me (thank you @bazookaboi!!) its atomic number is 133. very very unstable in natural environments and extremely radioactive, so with all due respect allow me to ignore that entirely and let it remain a mystery for everyone’s sake.

fact no.4

ultras as a culture have a very strong sense of justice and moral code. (and I guess very emotionally intelligent? empathetic? but i'm not sure about this part ;-;)

Now let us finally start with the Ultra spec bio:

i'll start from the less obvious half for my own sake, you may skip this part if you're here just for Kenji’s human part (which i won't blame you for the designers cooked with this one) but just so you know there would be parts you won't be able to understand.

general ultra spec bio: physiology and body structure (my favorite part):

Do ultras breathe? was my first question and my answer would be, i don't think so.

down to the cellular level cells use oxygen in order to generate chemical energy that comes in the form of ATP, out of glucose and oxygen with ATP and CO2 as the outcome. (The difference between animal and plant cells is how they get their glucose.)

Now ultras don't seem to eat, and why would they? and breathing is not necessary since they already get the energy they need from spacium converting outside energy into spacium energy, on the outside there’s the spacium, and on the inside there’s the spacium energy just running around. it can be let out in certain areas of the body, but essentially this energy is all held together by the ultra’s skin (also probably why ultras have no openings on their body, so there wouldn't be a leakage of their life soup).

An ultra's internal structure is unknown, or at least I haven't been able to find anything on the matter, but in the movie both Kenji and his dad get injured, which means that there is something to be damaged.

i really like how the film handles injury actually, it shows explicitly the consequences of a serious injury and how it can sometimes be a life changing thing. It has a blatant effect long or short term and I need someone to analyze it more in depth. I know someone will eventually.

part 1

All the people who wanted this, i call thee.

next, part 2

@wtf-a-psychoanalysis @fantasma-espacial @spuuks-s @theviewer @whimsicalloser @m1lf-hunter-69

[artbyblastweave]

Is it weird that, the more posts you make about how being a genre fiction protagonist would suck and ruin your life (posts I love and think are great), the more I want to go full "No, suck eggs, Alan Moore, being a superhero is cool and good, actually?" I can't tell if it's mindless contraiantism or an actual point.

I think it's an understandable impulse, because there are absolutely strains of very-online genre-fic and cape-fic critique that, if taken super seriously as a blueprint for how fiction ought to be written, would basically amount to the Wertham Scare with a social justice gloss, and we don't need a second one of those. If a person bins the entire superhero genre as "irredeemably fascist" or anything similar, for example, I start paying extremely close attention to the implicit back half of that proclamation, the part where they lay out what part of that condemnation they consider actionable. The censorious should be made to eat their own black markers. You can do whatever you want forever.

On the other hand, you really can't get around what happens to a lot of escapist genre-fic- cape-fic in particular- if you apply any kind of scrutiny or big-boy grown up emotional or moral logic to it whatsoever. It wasn't built to survive that level of scrutiny, it wasn't built to still see publication 80 years after the fact- and indeed, stuff in that space that isn't seeing active mass-market success, John Carter and the like, that tends to get judged basically as harshly as I think it deserves. There really isn't any way around the fact that we're all playing Frankenstein with the innards of mass-market children's stories. And moreover I feel like there's an offputting mealy-mouthedness to a lot of the contemporary big-two output that notices the cracks in the foundation and tries to have their cake and eat it too, having capes that beat bad guys up but in a markedly progressive way. A certain level of pessimism and cynicism is often the only believable way to get those wires to connect if you're trying to make your spandex crowd interface with real-world cynicism. (Superman is ironically one of the Big-two properties that I think most consistently threads this needle. Batman has a harder time due to the billionaire thing. The X-Men are turbofucked and have been for a while.)

Astro City is one of the capethings that I think hits the best balance on all of this, and nonetheless one of the worldbuilding beats that does a lot of the heavy lifting on believability for me is that the Nixon Admin executed the setting's Captain American analogue on trumped-up charges as a show of force and as a distraction from Watergate. Because he would! He would do that! "What about Nixon" is a fantastic litmus test for this kind of thing IMO- even if the answer is that he was the head of a cult that built a mutant-powered flying saucer to take over the world with, that's still better than dodging the question entirely, or having Superman suck off Reagan like Byrne did.

[coraniaid]

It's true that the Buffy writers' answers to the closely related questions "is there a meaningful distinction between a vampire and the human being who was sired to create them?" and "when you get down to it, are vampires basically people?" clearly undergo something of a shift in the second half of the show.

This is a transformation that starts with Buffy's reluctance to stake Willow's vampire alter ego in Season 3's Doppelgangland and continues at pace with the gang's collective reaction to finding out that Harmony has "become" a vampire in Season 4. It's a process that continues as long as Harmony remains a recurring character on the show, until, by mid-Season 5, Buffy (and Buffy) has essentially undergone a complete switch in its view of vampirism. The later seasons handling of vampires are very hard to square with the speeches made by Buffy in Lie To Me ("you die, and a demon sets up a shop in your old house [...] but it's not you") or Giles to Xander [about the late and largely unlamented Jesse] in The Harvest ("you're not looking at your friend: you're looking at the thing that killed him"). Whether this is a change for the better or not is a matter for debate, but that it is a real change that happens is pretty hard to dispute.

It's also true that the writers are obviously increasingly reluctant to show their show's protagonist, the titular vampire slayer, actually going around killing vampires. At least any vampires who've had a chance to establish some sort of personality. How many of the dozen or so named, recurring vampire characters does Buffy actually kill over the course of the show? Not very many.

I make it two in Season 1 (if you're generous and count Luke as a recurring character), one in Season 2 (if you're similarly generous and count Buffy sending Angel to hell for almost three whole episodes as killing him) and ... that's it, right? Somebody other than Buffy kills Darla [=Angel], and Colin the Anointed One [=Spike], and Dalton [=the Judge], and Mr Trick [=Faith], and vamp!Willow [=wishverse!Oz, twice] and Sunday's only-named-in-the script henchvamp Tom [=the Initiative], and Sandy [=Riley], and Spike[=... well, Spike, ultimately, I guess]. Nobody ever kills Drusilla or Lyle Gorch or Harmony, all of whom make multiple appearances on the show and (un)live to the end of the series. And Angel and Spike (and even Darla, eventually and temporarily) all come back after apparently being killed.

Buffy might have a sacred calling to slay vampires, but the show is very uncomfortable about her killing non-human characters who've had a chance to establish themselves as people. Perhaps that's why the show stops having vampiric Big Bads completely after Season 2, and why Season 7 tries to introduce a whole new category of personality-free, definitely-not-people monsters to replace its existing vampires. (Perhaps not entirely succesfully, if we're being diplomatic.)

It's certainly true that the show does not have a consistent take to offer on vampire lore. Like everything supernatural in Buffy, vampires are essentially walking metaphors: and the things that they exist to represent and comment on change and evolve throughout the show's run. Buffy's worldbuilding is not very deep or rigorous.

But what's not true at all, and what I wish people would stop claiming, is the idea that Angel's awkward "well, actually..." when Buffy assures Willow in Doppelgangland that "a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was" represents some sort of big departure from the show's established or implied lore up to that point. It does not. At all.

In fact, it's Buffy's claim that is at odds with everything that the show has been saying up this point. A vampire's personality has always, always been something that the show wants us to believe is informed by the personality of the person who died to create them, This goes all the way back to Season 1.

In Angel, Giles does tell Buffy flat out that "a vampire isn't a person at all", but he also says that a vampire may have "the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over". In the part of her speech from Lie To Me that I elided earlier, Buffy admits that if you're turned the resulting vampire "walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life" [and the clear implication here is that the vampire walks and talks like the original person did, otherwise what is this supposed to be saying?].

If the show's original position was that a vampire's personality had nothing to do with who they were in life, why would Giles have felt the need to tell Buffy (in Season 1's Never Kill A Boy On The First Date) that Andrew Borba had been on the run for a suspected double murder the night he died and rose as a vampire? Why would he have told her in Season 2's Bad Eggs that the Gorch brothers "massacred a village" before they were vampires? Why would he warn her in Season 3's Helpess that Zachary Kralik was a "criminally insane" serial killer even before being sired as a vampire? If the show -- or even just Giles himself -- really did have the position that a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person they were before death, as Buffy claims in Doppelgangland (and some fans apparently believe), how would any of this make sense?

If we weren't supposed to think vampires inherited at least some part of their personality from their host then why, in The Harvest, would vampire!Jesse still be obsessed with pursuing Cordelia Chase? Why would Drusilla still be driven mad as a vampire as a result of the pyschological tortures that Angel inflicted on "her" when she was a mortal? In Halloween, why would Buffy be trying to find out more about the sort of person Angel was as a human? Why would Willow and Xander still be together in the world of The Wish?

The idea that a vampire inherits the personality of the person whose body they take over [or who they were before "becoming" a vampire, in the later seasons' parlance] isn't any kind of retcon. It's one of the few consistent takes on vampires the show had from beginning to end. Continuity of self; moral standing as a person; capacity for self-reflection and personal growth, whether or not vampires can breathe ... these are the things about vampires the show changes its stance on. But a vampire's personality was always informed by who they were in life, right from the very first pair of episodes.

(Spike and Drusilla being capable of at least some kind of romantic love and mutual jealousy in Season 2 is also not a retcon, incidentally. We saw that with Darla and Angel in Season 1 as well. And even the Master clearly felt emotions and had some sort of affection for his favorites among the vampires that worked for him. Spike and Dru do represent a significant -- and welcome! --change in the tone of the show, but they aren't somehow a walking refutation of what Giles has been telling Buffy (and through her, us) about vampires for the past year.)

I mean, I don't really have a big point to work to here, it's just that I keep seeing takes on my dash about how this particular scene represents a big change in the show's lore about vampires. And that .. just isn't true?

[yaekiss]

okay. the will wood song as vampire childe. a reverse of that oh so beloved fic based off a lil ask of mine.

the way he loves your pure, unadulterated humanity as you breathe down his neck when you’re on top of him. you’d have him squeeze his scarred thighs together if they weren’t pinned open from your pounding into his pretty and greedy hole.

he begs for your attention either way. his bratty words as he tries to set you off, wanting to drain you of your blood to have you even a part of his body. he begs and begs, taking in every careful breath of yours between his own moans of pure bliss and his sucking of your blood. the way he looks on with dazed eyes as your own roll back when you tell him to detach… but no　♡︎　he’s not doing that.

vampire childe who is just your silly little parasite! despite his expensive tastes, he likes it when you drag him to some seedy club’s bathroom and take him in the stall where anyone can hear him. his tab’s forgotten as he makes up for pissing you off from letting others ogle at him, such lecherous monsters he’s much better than, at least, that’s what he says as he’s holding onto the dirty mirror, seeing the possessiveness in your gaze as you surely leave bruises on his hips and ass.

IHDSWJHD I can't believe I wrote so much for Bloodied Fangs... something about exploring the different dynamics of vamps I guess idk what came over me. I think your asks just do something to the writing part of my brain. Hmm. Rambling under the cut again, I think I'm losing it

On a side note, if anyone reading this would like a full fic based on a prompt/request you might have, do check out my ongoing event!!

ANYWAYS! sorry I have worldbuilding(?) brainworms I have to get out first b4 everything else as usual sigh. I think a vamp!Childe is bloodthirsty in ever sense of the word. If we're going by the more popular vampire tropes, he might enjoy the boost to his abilities (i.e. heightened senses, supernatural strength) although I am curious to see how it would affect the use of his delusion and his Foul Legacy state.

Would additional vampiric features manifest themselves in the Foul Legacy state? Sharpened fangs, torn and roughed up bat-like wings?? Would mixing the powers from the delusion and vampirism produce any backlash? If the delusion draws from the user's life force, what would happen to a vampire who's immortal? One can only speculate.

Perhaps it's the genuine concern combined with natural curiosity in your expression when you pose these questions to him that continues to draw him closer and closer to you. How sweet of you to worry over him, he swears he can almost feel his now non-functioning heart skip a beat when your warm hand cups his face. He drinks in your warmth, constantly clinging to your side like some leech.

Which is why he loves it when he managed to rile you up, the contrast you show him is addicting. He knows what he's doing when he licks at the salt rim of his glass, shooting you a coy look as he consciously ignores the way the other patrons of the club are eyeing him. He knows he's won when you're dragging him off to the bathroom, a possessive glint in your eyes. Meanwhile, Childe is beaming when some customers whistle at the spectacle.

You sure that those outside can definitely hear his moans over the trashy upbeat music the club is blasting on the speakers but the man before you doesn't seem to care at all. His fangs sinking into your skin, the familiar taste of your blood settling on his tongue. The flavour is intoxicating, heady, rich. Infinitely better than whatever that drink he ordered just now was, how could it even compare?

He feels you yanking at his hair, trying to drag him off you and saying something along the lines of, "C'mon detach already, haven't you had enough?" The answer could not be more clear to him, how could such a small taste of you ever be enough?

If he drains you of everything, doesn't that mean your entirety will be a part of him for all eternity?

Bonus!! can't really figure out how to link it to everything I wrote above but I think he'd really like it if he could drink your blood while you're fucking him. Something about lapping away at your neck/wherever he chose to bite, acutely aware of your heartrate speeding up when he clenches down on you, your blood laced with the sharp sweet taste of bliss and arousal. He could simply drown in it all.

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

If you'd like to request a full fic of your own, do consider checking out my event post!

[genericpuff]

I wanted ask about the family trees in Rekindled, if you'd ever put out a post on how everything is lined up. Who is who's parent, like is Eris a child of Zeus and Hera or Nyx and Erebus.

So in Rekindled, the gods aren't created through 'traditional' means like mortals are. While they definitely have relations with one another and some have been born from sexual interactions, it's the fusion of their powers and the elements assigned to them that creates new gods rather than, y'know, the mortal way of making babies. Thus they don't share any DNA that would make them blood-related, however they do share some similarities in how their powers manifest depending on who created their predecessors!

That said, here's the 'family tree' in Rekindled, with some info on how they were created!

(*note that not every god / goddess / etc. who will make an appearance in Rekindled is on this family tree, I'm just trying to avoid spoilers as best I can while also providing info; on the flipside, not everyone included on here will necessarily play a role or even appear in the story - including Hyperion and Theia - they're just listed for the sake of clarity and worldbuilding)

As for Eris, I'm not actually planning on including her much in Rekindled as her role in LO is already reduced to that of a McGuffin to explain Persephone's wrath. She absolutely deserves to have her story told but I feel like it would be better saved for something adjacent to or involving the Trojan War / The Illiad rather than forcing her into Rekindled where she already doesn't have anything to do with the rewriting of the Act of Wrath.

That said, in the spirit of answering your question, with how we've done it in Rekindled, she can technically be 'both' a creation a Nyx / Erebus and Zeus / Hera - given a physical form by the union of Zeus and Hera, but with traits passed down to her through their lineage that connects all the way back to the primordial beings. But a more sensible answer is that I'm honestly sticking with the Zeus / Hera version, as Rekindled is still retelling Homer's The Hymn to Demeter and so I try to use as much of Homer's source material as possible while taking elements from other poets as needed. There's loads of sources to choose from so I work with the ones that connect best to tell a coherent story, with a predominant amount of sources coming from Homer, Hesiod, and the Orphic hymns.

Hope that helps! Enjoy the totally-not-confusing family tree chart LMAO

[suzukiblu]

this is a question that is not meant to come off as judgemental, and if it does i apologise and you don’t have to answer

for you, or anyone out there in the world if they see this,

What is the appeal of (the?) Omegaverse?

Ive never quite gotten it? And it might be the big bold orange, blue and white letters spelling out aroace, or being european, younger than most people who are knowledgeable about that particular genre of content (still 18+) and while I did get on the internet at 11, I didn’t start reading fanfic until 14-15

this is a long and rambly ask so I just want to clarify, this is a genuine question I would like an answer to, no matter how short and sweet, or long and convoluted it may be

It's all good, I don't mind getting questions! And, like, I've written a LOT of omegaverse, so it's a thoroughly relevant question to this blog, haha.

. . . and this definitely wound up long and convoluted. So like, yeah, we are SO gonna need a read-more here, friend. 😅

Obviously everyone's gonna have their own reasons for liking the genre, but as another (much older, I'm assuming) aroace, for me the appeal is the opportunity to use the tag "Fantasy Gender Roles". Like, there's other stuff there, def, but "Fantasy Gender Roles" is my favorite part. Omegaverse is a game where the rules are made-up and the points don't matter, and you can interpret and re-interpret the involved sexes and genders however the heck you wanna, and in fact are ENCOURAGED to. I also really like certain tropes that are common to the genre, like pack dynamics and breeding kink and having babies and feral behavior and courting/courting rituals, I just really enjoy playing with and reading about all of those.

Also, the worldbuilding. I get to do ✨GENDER-BASED WORLDBUILDING✨.

And obvi, like, some people are just into omegaverse for the kink/porn factor, which is totally fair, but personally I am here for ✨GENDER-BASED WORLDBUILDING✨. And then also the kink/porn. Generally speaking a recurring comment I've gotten from a lot of readers is "I literally hate omegaverse but I love yours", so a lot of my stuff is allegedly a decent jumping-on point for the genre if you're looking for that. Like, I'm not the only person who writes omegaverse the way I do, obviously, just I'm a pretty accessible one who's written a LOT of it.

( and in the event you DO want any jumping-on omegaverse recs from my stuff, I'mma just pop a few of them from various fandoms here. no DC-related ones 'cuz I don't have any of those currently on AO3, only scattered in my WIP tags, but hopefully something helpful will be in here. )

original fic

to the victor go the spoils - human omega OMC/dragon [ GENDER NOT FOUND ] OMC; 16.7k; explicit Fantasy AU. This one includes porn but honestly the heart of it is just one of those fairy tales where the protagonist is somehow both incredibly genre-savvy in their story and yet still a total fucking idiot about other people's feelings, and especially considering it's original fic, it is honestly one of the most popular things I've ever posted, hah.

The dragon arrived early in the morning, and by noon the entire village was in a panic in the town hall. No one in the village knew anything about dragons, aside from what they’d heard in fairy tales and stories, and the plans for dealing with it were about that level of sophisticated.

“We’re not sacrificing a virgin to the dragon,” Viktor said in exasperation.

“Well what would YOU do?!” the mayor demanded.

“I’m going to go talk to it,” Viktor said reasonably, and got up from his seat and went to do just that.

.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

does the pain feel better when I'm around? - beta!Sokka/omega!Zuko, beta!Sokka/beta!Suki, past alpha!Mai/omega!Zuko, polyamory; 3k; teen Societal dynamics-focused fic. Zuko goes into heat at the Western Air Temple immediately after the Boiling Rock happens and goes off to den down alone and stay out of everyone's way without realizing that the local betas are gonna lose their ever-lovin' MINDS about that.

“Cool,” he says. “You realize we’ve been looking for you for, like, two HOURS, right?”

“Why?” Zuko asks, sounding confused, which is kind of sad.

“Because the world is full of people who wanna kill you and you didn’t bother telling anyone where you were going?” Sokka says. “Obviously?”

“Oh.” Zuko falls silent. Sokka glances moonwards in supplication. Yue save him from dumb, dumb firebenders.

every act of communication is a miracle of translation - alpha!Mai/omega!Zuko; 5.7k; teen Post-series fic where Mai and Zuko are about to spend their first cycle together and they're both really awkward about working out how it should go. Not actually a sequel to "does the pain feel better when I'm around?", but you could definitely draw a relationship between 'em.

They leave the office, Mai pretending that all her senses aren’t full of Zuko’s warm, spicy scent, and he keeps looking worried. She wonders if it’s THIS he’s worried about, now that she’s thinking about it. They agreed they’d share their next cycles together, but again, they haven’t really talked about it.

They can talk about it now, Mai thinks.

Unfortunately, that means now they actually have to talk about it.

.

Overwatch

even if I do I don't, even if I could I won't - omega!Genji/beta!the-character-who-was-at-the-time-I-wrote-this-fic-known-as-McCree; 5.1k; explicit Blackwatch-era fic where Genji did not fill out his heat partner designation forms and "Fuck or Suffer Unspecified Health Consequences" is gonna make that a problem. Worldbuilding, assisted negotiation, a touch of workplace-influenced pack dynamics, and porn.

“Yeah, you’re hilarious, kid,” Gabe says. “Get back to work. And Shimada, call your heat partner and we’ll see you next week.”

Shimada’s shoulders tense. Gabe . . . pauses.

“Shimada,” he says slowly. “PLEASE tell me you have a heat partner on base.”

“I have a heat partner on base,” Shimada lies. Gabe and Jesse both stare at him, then Gabe calls up his file, takes one look at it, and starts cursing.

don't, don't, don't let's start (I've got a weak heart) - alpha!Genji/omega!the-character-who-was-at-the-time-I-wrote-this-fic-known-as-McCree; 17.3k; explicit Blackwatch-era fic about Genji and the character formerly known as McCree dealing with their complicated feelings about each other and also the cybernetics and trauma and physical disabilities that are fucking up their sex life, including ED.

“You busy?” he asks. Genji stares at him in bemusement, which is fair. Genji’s only ever busy when they’re on a mission or he’s in the middle of an upgrade. “Dumb question. My heat’s coming on, wanna do me a favor?”

“What favor?” Genji asks, still looking mystified. Jesse tries not to laugh at him.

“The obvious one,” he says meaningfully, tipping his hat back and raising his eyebrows at him. Genji looks no less mystified for a moment, then startles. “THERE we go."

.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

come hang (let's go out with a bang) - omega!Darcy Lewis/omega!Johnny Storm; 5k; teen Darcy almost dies again, tries to figure out which omega buys the courting gifts in an omega/omega relationship, and has her first date with a super-hot superhero.

“Was there traffic?” Jane asks.

“I have a date with Johnny Storm,” Darcy says.

“What?” Jane says.

“Oh, and I almost died again,” Darcy says, pulling out Jane’s papers for her. “But that’s kind of secondary.”

“WHAT?!”

pack up, don't stray (oh say say say) - alpha!Natasha + polyamory; 3.4k; teen Natasha collects a harem pack and Captain America is fucking difficult about it.

Natasha is an alpha on a mission, and that mission is simple and clear.

I said you're holding back, she said shut up and dance with me - alpha!Peggy/omega!Steve/omega!Bucky; 10.3k; mature Alternate timeline where Steve and Bucky don't "die" and they all run away from the States to get married and start a family. Illegal adoption and biokids and lowkey pack dynamics involving figuring out how to fold pups into their lives, oh my!! And also, they all get to dance.

“One alpha mating two omegas? Really, Steve?” Peggy asks, mouth quirking wryly. “What WOULD the newsreels say?”

“We’ll go to France,” Steve says. “No one will care in France.”

“I do love France,” she muses.

oh don't you dare hold back, just keep your eyes on me - alpha!Darcy/omega!Bucky, polyamory; 187.4k; explicit MY MAGNUM OPUS, MY WHITE WHALE, THE LITERAL REASON OMEGAVERSE TOOK OVER HALF MY BLOG FOR HALF MY STINT IN MCU FANDOM. I wanted a goddamn female alpha and I wanted that female alpha to be Darcy Lewis, and Bucky was my fave blorbo at the time so the inevitable happened. The inevitable happened for three and a half years and 187,430 words, to be more precise.

Darcy is thirty feet out of Stark-cum-Avengers Tower when she starts craving cinnamon rolls--the sticky-sweet iced-up old-fashioned kind, yummy and messy and dripping gooshy icing all over your mouth and hands and down your yuuuup, yup, that is a super, super fertile omega that she is smelling, holy SHIT is it ever.

“Jesus Christ,” she groans in frustration, then follows her alpha instincts (and, more easily and importantly, her NOSE) to go track them down. They’re in the middle of New York City; middle of the day or not, not checking on somebody who smells like THAT is, like, the ultimate dick move.

.

OKAY SELF THAT'S ENOUGH LINKS, WE MOVE ON NOW, haha.

I will also say, if you're interested in, like, gender-exploratory AU concepts, apiary genders might be more your thing and more easily accessible for you? It's a MUCH newer thing than omegaverse and really only has a few fics around, some of which are linked in the "inspired by" of that AO3 primer linked above, but the concept is a bit more strongly "hive"-based than a lot of omegaverse is "pack"-based, and also there's no physical differences from baseline. I've got a WIP or two going about apiary myself, actually, but I haven't gotten too far into them yet, alas. The only one I've posted anything from is this one Superbat one.

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

Do Neuromorphs feel some kinda way about Stochastic Parrots? Is it like humans seeing monkeys? Humans seeing chatbots? Humans seeing other, disabled humans? Or is it not particularly notable, given their prevalence, just another kind of guy that exists in this world? As a human living in boring, robot-hijinksless world, I imagine it would be kind of upsetting to see something superficially resembling you, well-spoken and seemingly of your intelligence, but with nothing behind the eyes. You also mentioned that these categories of brain-type aren’t strictly indicative of consciousness, which makes it weirder. Does a Stochastic Parrot with some consciousness remain incapable of emotion? Does a Neuromorph that isn’t fully conscious feel emotions? This worldbuilding rules and I keep thinking about it at work.

Thank you! Yes yes! All of the above, really. Because they're just people. Culturally, human-like robots have a sort of... tug-and-pull relationship with less human-like robots. Plenty of solidarity, alienation, trying to appeal to humans by overacting their own humanity, trying to reject aspects of their own humanity to show solidarity with less-passably human robots. These are basically all the pressing questions of this setting. There's so many varying degrees of weird prejudice and assumptions made on all sides when it comes to human-like bots and non-human-like ones. How people judge you based on the behavior you exhibit, the in-groups that form or fail to form depending on how well you perform the idea of "personhood", etc etc.

Could some neuromorphs exhibit human-like behavior but with the potential emotional consciousness of like, a roach? If a S.Parrot actually comprehends and problem-solves better than a human and, without any training data work out deep philosophical concepts, but is emotionless, is there some strange kind of consciousness going on still? The wonderfully irritating thing is that these can't be answered unless You Are The Thing Itself. I don't know what it's like to be several GPUs stacked on top of each other, so I cannot answer that question without projecting my own experience as a Meat Computer.

The only thing I can actually answer is how People, by whatever definition counts, will reject, accept, understand, or fail to understand, The Other. Whether that's by a robot judging a neurodivergent human who cannot exhibit stereotypically human-like traits, two different types of humans of different cultures judging each other, two different robots judging each other, or even People who should be of the exact same in-group alienating each other due to ignorance, beliefs, lack of beliefs, or other fine differences. That's basically what this worldbuilding is all about. Asking what counts as a person isn't as fruitful as observing what motivates people to come up with their own answers, how willing they are to compromise those answers if their interests align or fail to align with The Other, and what cruelty or kindness they're willing to dish out at something that's considered acceptable to hate or understand.

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Exposition And Info Into The Story

This specific post is for @loverboyxbutch who has asked for multiple things with multiple caveats so we have to absolutely get this perfectly answered!

Question One: Exposition And Letters

The quote: I was wondering if you had any advice about telling part of a narrative through things like letters or diary entries?

There are two different ways to incorperate diary entries and letters. It all depends on your formatting

You could have the person's letter be an actual quoted segment of the letter so the reader could physically read it or you could have the basic information be relayed to the reader by the characters.

Neither way isn't better than the other but they do have different pros and cons.

The benefits of quotes is the fact that it allows the reader to see the original writer's personality to come through in their writing. The con is the fact that this quoting can quickly get out of hand and the information is kinda under the emotion.

The benefits of characters relaying the information is the fact that this cuts down on flowing emotion. All the information is laid out there! The negative is the fact that this information lacks emotion and personality.

Objectively speaking, expositio is best gathered through story since it's more natural without having to do an infodump!

Question Two: Balancing Emotion With Info

Quote: "I’m not too sure how to balance the realism and emotion with the information that needs to be displayed."

Remember, realism in stories is less "factually accurate" and more "consistent within itself".

In this case, realism in information is "would this character say this" and "how would this character say this"?

Audiences hate "infodumps" because it feels like the character's personality has turned off and now a college professor is speaking.

So it's definitely important you maintain a character's unique voice and personality when reporting on information. However this can lead to some unreliable narrating.

Ultimately, a character's emotion trumps all else. If a character doesn't have a personality that would reveal all this information in an objective way then they will hide stuff or tell the information in a way that validates their own perspective.

However, in the case a character is willing to reveal information without trying to impress their ideology and beliefs onto your character you need to keep in mind what a character could reasonably know and care about.

Two characters could know the same information but prioritize others. For example, D might focus on the damn bread prices rising again while C is focused on the official's death.

Question 3: What Context The Reader Needs

Quote: "I struggle to imagine how much context the reader would want or need."

This is definitely the hardest thing to answer since this is a highly case by case basis but I will try.

The best universal measurement for what a reader needs to know is how much a character needs to know.

Your characters have information that the readers don't have and the readers have information that the characters don't have but readers don't want to know everything.

Readers need a little confusion and curiousity so they will keep reading and investigating.

The key is to get enough information out there that readers will be emotionally incentived to chase after the rest.

For Worldbuilding, unless this information directly impacts the characters then unfortunately readers just wont care about all the little details.

For future events, forshadowing and outlines are your best friend. You can also use an unconventional story formatting by having "flashbacks" be imbedded into the story as their own individual chapters.

For characters, you can use the "show, don't tell" method. Characters who aren't actively trying to deceive others will lay their personality on their clothing, their face, their room, their friends, and the way they speak.

I hope this was informative @loverboyxbutch . I genuinely appreciate your constant support and I wanted this to be an amazing post for such an amazing mutual :)

[linabirb]

how to write characters, voice dramas and mvs for your ocgram! (kind of? sort of? i'm not an expert?)

do you want to make an ocgram? do you have no idea where to start? maybe you don't know how to come up with characters for your ocgram? voice dramas are way too hard to write? how the hell are you even supposed to write mvs??

well hello there! i hope this guide can help you with doing just that!

as someone who has an ocgram (@linagram hi) and is currently trying to get everything prepared for season 3, i also was struggling. a lot. i'm kinda getting better at organizing everything now, but still, all the work you need or supposed to do for ocgram can be overwhelming, especially if you don't really have much prepared at the moment and you're just getting started.

before we proceed, if you're able to make art, edits or any other visuals for your ocgram, i recommend checking out this guide by @tsuwmya, it has a lot of useful info, references and resources. if you can't do any of that, that's fine too! you having fun with creating is more important and if you don't have the ability to create visuals, that's perfectly understandable. this guide is more about the writing part anyway, haha.

let's get started!

(warning for some spoilers for the milgram novels (at least the first one) just in case!)

this guide will be separated into parts so that it's easier to understand and you can find the part that you think is the most difficult one for you.

worldbuilding.

before we start working on characters and voice dramas, let's say you're just starting out. you want to make an ocgram, but you don't even know where to begin!

now, this is probably going to sound a little scary, but what i recommend doing before writing characters, vds and mvs is some worldbuilding. no, no, i'm not telling you to figure out everything about your ocgram lore (but if you want to, feel free to do so! i actually think it's gonna help you a lot in the future), but try to answer these questions first.

"when does your ocgram take place?"

it can be as specific as a certain date or it can be as vague as "some time before/after canongram". canongram lore doesn't really give us much info to work with so you can go wild. but figuring out even something as simple as whether your ocgram takes place before canongram or after can actually help you a lot!

"is your ocgram closer to canongram or novelgram?"

the music project and the novels' settings have their differences and both settings have their strengths. you don't have to write mvs for the novels-like ocgram, though you will still have to write the memory scenes. also, for a novel-like ocgram your characters are expected to be named after some sort of adjective that could describe their personality or be a reference to their crime/backstory (example: "nervous", "gentle", "two-side"), but their names are still supposed to be revealed closer to the end. meanwhile canongram uses the voice dramas, timeline convos and mvs (and apparently earbuds voicelines) to tell you more about the characters. figuring out the "format" of your ocgram like that can help you a lot too.

now, you have figured out these details. great! if you're feeling like writing more about how your ocgram works, let's think about these parts more.

is your ocgram just like the milgram project you've chosen as a "base"? maybe it even has the same jackalope? is the guard still named "es"? maybe there's more than one guard and more or less than ten (or five in case of novelgram, if i remember correctly) prisoners? does the prison still look exactly the same? maybe something has changed over the months or years? all of this depends on your own preferences and what you decide to do with the story. you can make your ocgram as different from canongram or as similar as you like.

again, we don't know much about canongram at the moment, so don't be afraid of coming up with the whole backstory for the prison.

when you feel like your world is ready, it's time to fill it with characters!

characters.

oh boy, the fun begins. i'm not your mom, so you can do anything you want with your ocs, but if you don't have any character concepts in mind and you don't know what to do, here are some tips!

(we're going with the canongram formula here, but you can adjust it as needed)

as you probably already know, the canongram prisoner pairs have some sort of theme. both haruka and yuno's crimes have something to do with children. both fuuta and muu's crimes have something to do with bullying. you see what i mean. figuring out themes for your prisoners could be a nice start if you don't really have any characters in mind. pick themes that sound interesting to you and that you would like to explore more.

let's go with the theme of "luck" for example. how can two (or one, or three, or any number, really) prisoners share the same theme? how can you show that? maybe one of them is really lucky and the other one is extremely unlucky?

okay, but here's the fun part. how can you apply this theme to murder? maybe one of them was able to successfully get away with murder, meanwhile the other one accidentally killed someone because of their bad luck? and this way you can come up with really cool characters even if you didn't have any ideas in mind before that!

okay, so the milgram's whole thing is that all characters are morally gray in some way. and the character's moral "grayness" is a spectrum. for example, it can go from "eh, they shouldn't be here, honestly" white to "okay this one is kinda fucked up" gray to "JAIL. NOW. OH WAIT YOU ALREADY ARE THERE" black. but again, even the sweetest and kindest characters should have their questionable moments and even the scariest and most dangerous ones should have moments that make you feel sorry for them.

let's take some canongram prisoners as an example. we have haruka. an adorable squishy blorbo, everyone's skrunkly, the guy who everybody kins. don't you feel sorry for him? don't you want to give him a hug? oh, he kills animals, by the way. he also killed a young girl. just so you know.

now, we have muu. a spoiled teenage girl who always get the things she wants and is proud of it. a girl who literally said she's okay with haruka killing himself for her. literally has a song called "it's not my fault". cries every time a minor inconvenience happens and whenever someone suggests something to her, she just goes "i don't wanna..". her father is a landlord. except she also got bullied by her own friends, doesn't understand how real friendships and human connections work, still brings haruka food and checks up on him when nobody else does and it's heavily implied she actually does feel guilty for killing rei. yeah.

my own personal formula goes like this: i come up with a character. i write some things about them and then i take a look at their crime and personality and if i feel like they're a bit too sympathetic, i add a little bit of spice so that it isn't so easy to forgive them.

let's take my oc aimi for example!

she's such a cutie, isn't she? she's also a victim of bullying too.. oh, also she has the biggest number of victims out of all my prisoners. she also seems to be very obsessed with the concept of friendship and if you refuse to be her friend, she will not take it well. she will most likely try to kill all other prisoners in season 3 or at least hurt them in some way because she doesn't see them as friends anymore. she's been voted innocent twice. she has way too much power in her hands at the moment.

okay! now, let's take my oc kei!

a pretty guy! seems like the flirty type. oh, by the way, he takes photos of people being tortured and that's how he makes money (not counting his job as. well. a normal photographer). "oh, well, maybe he didn't have a choice-" he did. he literally does it because he wants to. he likes it. he enjoys it more than his boss. he likes seeing people in pain and believes that hurting someone means showing you love them. he physically and emotionally abused his own little brother for years and the poor guy still can't walk and move properly because of it. he has five victims.

but for some reason, he also has these huge scars on his back. he also was shown crying in his second mv. he was shown as someone helpless and someone who ended up in a very dangerous situation because of his victims. so.. is he the real victim here? or is he just trying to look more pitiful?

i think you're already starting to understand what i mean. of course, you have all the freedom to do anything you want with your characters. make them as dangerous or as cute as you like. but if you want them to have this "milgram vibe", i suggest you try to find "balance" between their traits that make them look forgivable and the ones that make them look unforgivable!

we can't forget about the guards though! does your guard have all their memories intact? do they remember their name, their past, etc? maybe they're just like the canon es and they don't remember anything at all? do they have their own jackalope or maybe they do their job without a fluffy little bunny around? what is their role here? are they more of a "self-insert"/"audience surrogate" or are they their own character with a backstory and everything? maybe they're an active type who has very deep relationship dynamics with the prisoners and talks to them a lot even when they're not interrogating them? or maybe they're just a creacher? maybe they just do their job and don't really talk to them? they're just standing there.. menacingly.. all of this is up to you to decide!

of course, the relationship dynamics between the characters are very important! first of all, look at your overall cast, when you're done with them. what kind of relationship do you imagine them having? maybe you see them as a found family? maybe all of them are friends? maybe all of them are kissing passionately in the moonlight? maybe all of them hate each other? maybe they even don't care about each other at all! again, it's all your choice and it depends on what kind of characters you're working with.

if you're stuck and you're not sure where to begin, i think a good start would be taking a look at your prisoner pairs and try to figure out the dynamic between the prisoners from each pair. what are their parallels like? how similar are they? how different? do they like each other because of their similarities/differences or they hate each other because of them?

okay, so when you're done with characters, a much scarier part appears.

plot.

so, what do you write first? is it the voice dramas? maybe mvs?

i think it really depends on a person and what you personally find most comfortable, but from my own experience i actually would advise you to work on the vds and mvs first before writing and posting a character's profile.

you see, it's possible that while you're in the process of writing the voice drama, you will notice that the character's personality is much different from what you had written in their profile and originally had in mind for them. of course, it doesn't mean that it will definitely happen to you, but this happened to a lot of my ocs, haha.

so that this doesn't happen but you also have an idea of how your character is supposed to act, try writing down or simply making a mental note about your oc's main personality traits. maybe they're the most extroverted one? maybe they get tired easily? maybe they flirt with everyone they meet? keep those traits in mind, but also give yourself the freedom to explore their character and make them more deep in the process. maybe while you write the most extroverted prisoner's voice drama, you will realize that they actually don't like other prisoners that much or while you write the sleepy prisoner's voice drama, you will get an idea about them not wanting to face their reality and use sleeping as a method of escapism.

if it helps, i personally work on my ocgram in this order: voice dramas > music videos > character profiles, but of course, you can adjust it to your preference.

i think it should be obvious that you should work on the characters' crimes and backstories before you actually start writing the voice dramas and posting stuff about them. sure, you can make it up as you go, if you're confident enough, but i strongly recommend you have a plan or at least a concept of what your character's crime is supposed to be. it will make everything much easier for you!

about backstories: you don't have to, i don't know, come up with names for every single member of your character's family, but i recommend thinking about your oc's backstory outside of their crime. what was their childhood like? what about their teenage years? do they have any friends? what's their relationship with their family like? all these details can help you understand your character's motives, personality, crime and other stuff. also it's simply fun!

so, let's start with the voice dramas.

voice dramas.

(i've also answered a vd-related question here!)

voice dramas can be very hard to write, so let's think about what makes them hard for you first.

maybe you just don't have any ideas? maybe you don't know what the characters are supposed to talk about?

what personally helps me when i start writing the voice dramas is asking myself this question:

"why are these guys even here?"

probably sounds weird, but if you think about it, it actually makes everything a little easier to understand.

why is the guard here? most likely to interrogate the prisoner.

why is the prisoner here? most likely to answer the guard's questions.

okay, we're getting somewhere.

now, how would your guard interrogate the prisoner? of course, it really depends on your guard's personality. maybe they would try to make the prisoner feel more comfortable? or would they rather threaten them and scare them?

now, let's add the prisoner's personality to this equation. what is your prisoner like? how would they react to the guard's questions? what do they think about the guard? are they scared of them? maybe they want to be friends with them? what do they think about milgram in general?

let's put these personalities in one room now and give them a moment. how will they interact? what will they think about each other?

if you're not sure what your guard is supposed to ask about, you can always use the canon voice dramas for reference, but my personal method is simply thinking about what my guard is most concerned about or interested in. and yes, this goes for the guards who don't care about anything too!

maybe your guard wants to make sure the prisoners are doing okay? in this case, they'd probably want to ask about how they're feeling first. or maybe your guard is more focused on the prisoner's crime. then they'd probably start asking about that right away.

okay, your guard has asked a question! how will the prisoner answer?

depending on your prisoner's crime, personality and backstory, they may be okay with revealing some things, but would never want to talk about something else. maybe they're okay with talking about their murder method, their victim and all, but they will never tell you what their motive is. if you're only getting started with the first season, try to reveal something they're okay with first! then you can talk about the other things in later seasons.

what helps me a lot is separating my prisoners' crimes into parts and sort of.. figuring out which parts should be revealed very early and which ones should be saved for later.

for example, maybe we can reveal the prisoner's murder weapon and method in the first season, their victim's identity in the second one and their motive in the third one.

what also helps me with writing the voice dramas is simply "visualizing" everything and imagining how it would go in a visual novel, anime, actual voice drama, etc. also remember that since it's a voice drama, you're kinda supposed to tell everything through sounds and, well, voices! so for example, if you want to tell the reader that the prisoner is nervous, maybe you can make the guard say "you look nervous" or simply make the prisoner say "i'm kinda nervous".

music videos.

mvs are something everyone does a bit differently. maybe you can actually draw/animate your prisoners' mvs. maybe you can write song lyrics for them. maybe you can simply write their mvs' descriptions. it all depends on your skills and what you're working with. so here i will simply talk about how to come up with an idea for a music video.

firstly, what are you supposed to reveal in your prisoner's mv? is it their murder method? is it their victim's identity? maybe something else? keep that in mind so that it's easier for you to drop hints to that thing.

now, what can we do for the visual part? is there anything you associate with the prisoner? a certain theme, aesthetic, etc? even simple objects can help, think about how many canongram prisoners have an object as their "theme": yuno has balloons, muu has an hourglass, kazui has an apple, etc. now, try to think how you can reveal something about the prisoner through this theme. for example, in yuno's case, balloons are a reference to her pregnancy. milgram loves symbolism, so take advantage of that, haha.

what also helps me a lot is simply listening to music that i associate with that prisoner and kinda coming up with music videos in the process. watching actual music videos can also help when you're looking for inspiration.

also, don't forget that everyone's music videos literally come from their brains. what does your prisoner think about their crime? what do they remember about it? how do they feel about it? do they feel guilty? do they feel like they've done nothing wrong? do they wish to forget it? do they see it as their biggest achievement? it can also help with writing song lyrics, if you're doing that.

if you're writing a mv description and you're not drawing/animating a music video, i would advise you to try to describe as many things as possible, as long as it's important. yes, we all love noticing small details while rewatching the milgram mvs, we all love the tiny things that are important for understanding the character's crime, but sadly, if we can't see it, how else are we supposed to know about it? so yeah, if the color of the curtains is important in your story, you should describe it too.

anddddd i think that's all for now! this is mostly done for people who haven't gotten to the second/third seasons of their ocgrams yet, so stuff like the prisoners' reactions to their verdicts, their punishments, etc, is not here. but you can ask me about it (and if you have any other questions, you can also ask me)!

hopefully this helps someone <3

[dejasquietplace]

i see something frequently on r/worldbuilding (stay with me here) that just baffles me. there’s a lot of talk about religions and building them within your world, and i like scrolling these particular ones for own nefarious interests. here’s the thing that gets me, and i’ve seen it multiple times now:

which of your world’s religions is Correct? which of your world’s religions are Real and which are Fake and Lies??

what a bizarre way to think about religion, even as your world’s author looking down from a bird’s eye view. i theorize it may come partly from the d&d school of thinking about gods; what would religion look like within a world in which the god you worship can actually be interacted with, a back and forth conversation? the fact that you can do that makes it ‘real,’ doesn’t it? your god is a real thing that gives you real magic powers, and that makes it better than religions without that tangible reality.

it has that r/atheist tang to it; this religion is valid because it has proof i consider valid. it is Correct, which makes the people who believe it smarter. unlike those other religions, whose followers are worse and/or stupid for believing the factually Incorrect thing.

religion is such an enormous monster of culture and tradition and rites and rituals and language and etc etc etc that to ask which is “right” feels totally reductive, even in a fantasy world. none of it is right. it’s all right. you don’t HAVE to think of your setting as something needing such objective truths. the answer to the question doesn’t actually matter, and oftentimes, is better left unsaid.

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi FAQ

Before you send an ask consider checking this FAQ! I'm trying to compile some of the most common questions I see in my notes and inbox. Feel free to send me an ask anyway if you find anything confusing!

But first just some things about asks... I read all of them and feel kinda bad when I don't respond but I can't really respond to everything so:

Most likely will respond:

Requests for sources/images

Requests for links to other posts

Questions about the story or characters

Questions about my opinion on canon content/speculation based on canon

Most likely won't respond: (I'm more likely to respond the first two on my personal sideblog)

Headcanons/Shipping

Jokes

Discourse/Rants

Questions that are worded in a "leading" way to stir up drama.

You can also ask for compilation requests but I might take a while to answer those!

FAQ under the cut (there's spoilers)

FAQ

First of all just a disclaimer that I don't actually know everything I try to put sources on the posts but if you see anything wrong here please let me know!

Q: Where is this extra/information from?

A: Dungeon Meshi has several worldbuilding details and extra comics in different publications. You can check this post with the places where the extras/information sources

If you wanna know the source for a specific extra don't be afraid to ask!

Q: Have you ever posted about [subject]

A: I haven't posted about everything related to dungeon meshi but please check my pinned post! I have a list of tags there, if you don't find specifically what you were looking try to search for it on my blog, I do my best to tag stuff so it can be found. If you still have trouble just send me an ask and I can link you the tag!

Q: How old is Thistle?

A: Who knows! Most likely he's under 80 (16 in tallmen years) my best guess is that he's 14.

Q: Is there a Post Canon Updated Melini Map?

A: Not really (Spoilers)

Q: Isn't Izutsumi a cat that was transformed into a human?

A: That's not a very accurate description, Izutsumi is a beastkin who was created using ancient magic by fusing the soul of a 6 year old child with the soul of a cat monster known as a greater cat. She's not "A cat that was turned into a human" nor a "human that was turned into a cat" as my understanding goes she was both and now she's still both, spoilers but the plot twist of the Lycion extra is that she can never be fully human again (there's more monster than human so she can't transform between the forms like Lycion)

I made a few posts about it

Q: Are fairies made of Jizz? How do females make them? How come Mithrun's doesn't look like him? Can other races make them?

A: Yes. They probably borrow some. Another person feeds it blood. Probably? For better answers please check the fairy tag LOL

Q: Are there monsters outside dungeons?

A: All points to yes, dungeons just seem to have a higher density of mana which allows more monsters to survive in a higher population.

Q: Is resurrection possibly in any dungeons or only in The Island?

A: According to the adventurer's bibles most man-made dungeons have the revival magic active. Here's a post all about resurrection and healing magic:

Q: Why did Fleki get brain damage when her Familiar got destroyed and Marcille didn't?

A: Probably has something to do with the complexity of the familiar and the strength of the connection, lots of people sent some theories pleas check the familiars tag if you wanna read up.

Q: What does the tattoos mean? What do Magic Tattoos do? Only beastmen have tattoos?

A: Those are Magic Tattoos, they work as a supplement for magic, I assume similar to magic circles or magic runes they use in other places in the anime, they aren't necessarily only for beastmen

Q: How does Magic/The Winged Lion/Dungeons work? (and related questions)

A: I made a post about dungeons you might wanna check, haven't done specific posts for the greater demon/winged lion but you can check the tags for some theories/other asks!

Q: What happened to [character] after the end?

A: The adventurer's bible has a blurb about what everyone got into in the post canon, I don't have a post compiling it all but you can check the post canon tag some of it is there.

Q: Can you help me with [resource for cosplay/art/oc]

A: I'd love to! I have a tag for art reference, cosplay reference and oc reference but if you still need help send an ask!

I'll add more things later if I see more common questions

Mini FAQ about the person running this blog (cause I get a couple of questions sometimes)

Q: Whats your pronouns? Are you brazilian? What do I call you?

A: There's a tiny about me section at the end of my pinned post I'd rather you use she/her or he/him, but they/them is fine, I'm very brazilian and you can call me whatever, Cyan is just a suggestion. You can also check this side blog, it's me

Q: What do you think about [headcanon]/[ship]

A: Updating this answer: I am still afraid of discourse so I don't wanna answer those here but if you wanna know about it feel free to ask on my personal blog I mentioned before! (I feel less anxious there cause it's smaller, only the strong ones survive me changing fandoms every 10 seconds)

Q: Could you tag [thing]

A: Yes! Please tell me if you'd like me to tag something, both cws or just something you think would be useful to search for. I'm very unaware of what can be upsetting ngl so I often forget to tag 'obvious' triggers, I'm also forgetful and have trouble expressing myself, so feel free to tell me if I said something weird but be nice pwease

[thelaurenshippen]

Hey congrats on getting the book out there! I hope someone picks it up, because queer outlaw slowburn sounds like exactly what I want more of in this world

So here is a PILE OF QUESTIONS, pick your favorites or none at all.

Is there a random bit that you think is hilarious and want to show people because you're actually kind of proud of your joke?

Who's your favorite side character?

Hell, who are your main characters? Can you describe them in a sentence, as what kind of dog they'd be, and hill they'd die on in a modern AU where they're a redditor for some reason?

Is there something about your worldbuilding you really want to tell people about?

thank you thank you thank you!!! I personally totally agree that we need more queer outlaw slowburn in our lives and I'm more than happy to provide.

thank you so much for these questions!! I love them all and I'm going to answer all of them :)

this is such an interesting question because this book, in general, is not very funny. it's very much a dramatic pine-y angst-fest (with a HEA, don't worry) but the characters themselves have senses of humor and there's one exchange early on that I think is a good example of the particular way in which Tex is a little shit (yes he was cheating and yes, he almost immediately gets punched in the mouth for it)

oh this is easy--Etta is absolutely my favorite side character. she's twenty-six and already totally washed up--a former vaudeville performer who's stuck in Desperate Hollow and drinks too much. she's still kind of hung up on her old girlfriend and I have a whole sequel mapped out about her and said old girlfriend coming to her for help after being robbed. Etta acts really tough and spends most of her time harassing Sawyer like a little sister, but she's a total softie deep down.

oh gosh, how to describe these characters succinctly. in a meme way, I think of them as Tex "I'm sorry my love language is acts of service and all I know how to do is kill" Bullock and Sawyer "I wish the blood in my mouth was yours" Watson.

Tex is a total construct of a man (he chose his own name) but at some point the construct became real--he's killed a lot of people, left a trail of lovers in his wake, and still has a huge bounty on his head. he's known as the unholy terror of the west but literally all he wants to do is talk about novels and also be Sawyer's guard dog. orphaned at 8 years old, his biggest fear is being left.

Sawyer is exactly who he is at all times and no one can do anything to change that. despite being part of a notorious gang, he's got a very strong moral compass and the kind of confidence you want to follow. but his biggest fear is being given grave responsibility and fucking it up, which is part of why he has no idea what to do with Tex's devotion. he doesn't want Tex to be his guard dog, he wants the two of them to just be safe and happy but he's also thinks he's deeply undeserving of happiness.

Tex would get on reddit and argue with people about how they're interpreting literature. Sawyer would stay as far away from the internet as possible, but would be standing over Tex's shoulder and telling him how better to write his arguments

oh gosh, world building is such an interesting question in this particular instance because it's not historically accurate, but the setting is meant to feel historically placed. so a lot of my world building was ripped from reality. that said, one of the things that's very true to life in that time is that neither Sawyer nor Tex would have had very much. so what they choose to keep and carry with them, what they have to repair, what they spend their money on...it's all building the world. they also have a shared symbol they use for "blind post offices" (aka, spots where people would leave things to get later or to communicate secretly) and that symbol comes up in lots of good and painful ways

[aimportantdragoncollector]

I got an email about an ask about if werewolfverse had been inspired at all by My Hero Academia. To nh009 if you're reading this: your ask never appeared in my inbox, which means you've been shadowbanned by tumblr.

To answer the question, no, I have been working on worldbuilding for the werewolfverse since before I even read My Hero Academia. My original ideas are older than my entry to that fandom. I started doing some My Hero Academia fanfic while trying to get my book published. (Shameless plug, A Holy Maiden's Guide to Getting Kidnapped is coming out in June and the amazon link is at https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Maidens-Guide-Getting-Kidnapped/dp/1039482465). I've been writing yanderes since way before then. In fact, I got into My Hero Academia fanfic through the yandere tag before I was even following the manga.

My love for twisted platonic yandere sibling relationships dates back to when I first read the webcomic Save Me. I got interested in My Hero Academia because of the Yoichi & All for One and the Dad for One fanfic. Then I started reading the manga just to better understand the fanfiction.

The Yandere Apartment Network series definitely has some tropes I used in my earlier fanfic. I took inspiration for the setting from my fanfic Is This Love? But I've actually loved those tropes since before My Hero Academia even started publishing. So rather than My Hero Academia inspiring me to write those tropes, it's more like my love of those tropes inspired me to write Dad for One fanfiction.

And I will continue to write those beloved tropes in the future wherever my journey takes me!

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

20 Questions (for fanfic writers)

Thank you for the tags, @cindle-writes and @izharmilgram! I'm procrastinating on other responsibilities, so let's have some fun~

Tagging @i-dream-of-libraries, @chaos-bear, @floatingdandelionseeds, @pitzer, @riverxsong-ao3, @tommarvoloriddlesdiary, @thefangirlibrarian, @hikarimeroperiddle and @blackseatwenty (no pressure, only if you want to! ♡♡♡) and anyone else who wants to talk about their fics -- consider this your tag! ♡

how many works do you have on ao3? 47

what's your total ao3 word count? 226,795

what fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter, Yuri!!! On Ice

top five fics by kudos: A long, hard road; Gone bananas; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; unfailingly ingenious at having a good time (surprised the cat!Harry fics are so high tbh) Edit: I can't read... (:‚‹」∠) Top five fics by kudos are as follows: Gone bananas; A long, hard road; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; and Coriander (not a big change, but it does explain why the cat!Harry sequel was so high...)

do you respond to comments? uhh... occasionally. Social anxiety kicks my ass and so I put my energy into writing fic instead. I love every single comment I get and reread them any time I need a pick-me-up, but I am a bad author who doesn't reply...

what is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending? hmm... probably pyrrhic victory, but Capsized is also a contender

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? considering I write mostly fluff and crack, this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer... I'm gonna go with either if you like it, then... or thrown into the nest. Or maybe don't blame the stork? (Some lovely reader out there is shouting at their screen, "Flaky, you goof, it's obviously ____!!" and they're correct.)

do you get hate on fics? Nope, not really! Some readers express that they wish I'd done certain things differently, and a couple have said I ended a fic badly, but I don't think I've received anything I'd consider hateful.

do you write smut? uhhhh... sometimes. When it's the best way to tell the story I have in my head, then I'll write smut. But it's still a bit uncomfortable to do. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it?

craziest crossover? I'm not sure I've actually written anything that could really be considered a crossover, but A real voyage of discovery is kind of a mash-up of Harry Potter characters in a Star Trek-y world? And it has alien!mort, and I think he's nifty.

have you ever had a fic stolen? A couple of my fics have appeared on Wattpad without my permission, but other than that, no.

have you ever had a fic translated? Yep, a few! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

have you ever co-written a fic before? Not yet -- I don't really know how it'd work, and I'm afraid to try (¬_¬") Intensely private about my writing before it's ready to post unless you're Jenny. But! I'm counting the Telephone and the Corpse (coming soon) because they're collaborative (in a way) and have been such a major part of my fandom experience!

all-time favorite ship? tomarrymort~ (honourable mentions to sefikura, madohomu, and viktuuri)

what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Fingers crossed I'm not breaking anyone's heart with this, but probably Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. I have some more written for it, but it's been a while since I've returned to it and other projects interest me more. I have every intention of finishing my WIPs, but... there are only so many hours in a day and my energy is, sadly, finite (´•︵•`)

what are your writing strengths? whimsical finger guns! Poignant fluff? Emotions. silliness, and dialogue, probably.

what are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding, continuous narratives (as opposed to short scenes without much context), plot-heavy narratives, description, writing the main characters in true opposition to each other, fleshing ideas out rather than keeping it (overly) brief... I'm sure I'll think of a bunch of other things as soon as I post this.

thoughts on dialogue in another language? I'd like to! I speak French reasonably well, and I'm lucky enough to have some fandom friends who speak other languages, so I'm sure I could beg their assistance.

favorite fic you've written? Hhhhhhh, why must I choose? I'll go with naïve melody, because it still gives me the warm fuzzies. I'm just so proud of the tone, and I really like how that Voldemort comes across.

[eastern-lights]

Ok so we all know how amazing Baldur's Gate 3 is. I could talk for hours about everything it did perfectly.

But rn, I want to talk about what I think Dragon Age Inquisition did better. And this is not to judge which game is better overall, but what still makes DAI so special to me despite its flaws.

1. Voiced protagonist

Yeah, starting off controversial. I know some people prefer silent protagonists, but I just find myself wishing we could have a fully voiced Tav, even at the cost of fewer dialogue options. I'm sorry, but Tav's silent indifferent face just always breaks the immersion for me, especially when contrasted with the award-worthy acting and animation of the characters they're speaking with. In DAI (and DA2, although to a lesser degree) your character could be heavily customized, but they were always an actual person who fit in with the rest of the universe and flowed seamlessly with the story.

2. Mystery and dread.

BG3 is full of heavy, scary, traumatizing stuff hidden all over the place (or in plain sight). But it can always be explained in some way. There are dreadful things in Faerûn, but we always know what they are (mostly due to most of them having to have precisely given stats as the result of being based on DnD). We know what happens after death and what we can do to bring people back from it. The closest you get to truly dread-inducing mystery in BG3 is "Do Illithids have souls" and "where do illithids come from" and (at least in Act 1) "who is the Absolute".

In Dragon Age, the whole world is made of existential dread. What happens when you die? Dunno. Is God real? No idea and if He does, He hates you. What is the Blight? Are all darkspawn capable of independent thought? What is lyrium singing about? What happened to the titans? What happens when all of the Old Gods die? And this is just the Big Questions. There's a myriad of small things, small mysteries you encounter that just have no answers. Stuff that reminds me of those creepy Goldshire children forming a pentagram in World of Warcraft. While having an explanation for everything makes for deeper worldbuilding, a world full of mysteries without answers makes for a much scarier and, in some ways, exciting experience.

3. Group dynamic and party banter

I enjoyed the party banter in BG3. Hell, it had some of the funniest lines in game. But it didn't do enough to make the group dynamic feel any less Tav/Durge-centric. You hear the companions exchange banter, but you never get beyond stuff like "Karlach and Shadowheart both enjoy wine" and "Gale enjoys Lae'zel telling him about the Astral plane". The protagonist forms amazingly written relationships with each of the companions, but they never seem to have such a bond with one another. The closest we come to what I'd like to see is Karlach and Wyll's friendship, but even that's kind of shallow, I feel. The companions do comment on the others' personal quest, but it's always one sentence reaction, before going right back to being mostly indifferent. DA2 had the same issue, if to a greater extent (srsly, the companions had the same attitude about one another over the span of 10 years)

The banter in DAI was superb. It told a story. It had arcs. You could watch in real time as Solas and Dorian became friends over their shared magical nerd-dom. You could even take part in it, such as when telling Blackwall to stfu about jousting for a moment, or telling Sera that what you and Solas do in private is none of her business. You could see Dorian and Bull fall in love. You could watch Varric slowly chip away at Solas' worldview until he arguably came closer to changing his plans than Lavellan ever did. The relationships grow over the course of the story and by the time of Solas' betrayal, you're not just sad because he betrayed you, you're sad because he betrayed Varric, Dorian, Bull, Cassandra and everyone else. Because you saw how they cared about him, each in their own way.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than Varric's "Chuckles, what have you done?"

In BG3, the relationships are mostly left to your imagination, which has its perks, but still, the group dynamic feels more like a wheel with Tav at the centre rather than a web.

4. Having limits on the romance options

Let me start by stating what I am not saying: I am not saying that bi and pan people shouldn't be represented. Far from it. But I don't think making the whole group pan is the way to go about it. I can't help but feeling it is, in a way, pandering to players, making every single companion interested in them as long as they have a sufficiently high approval.

Making some companions explicitly bi, pan, gay or straight made for a more real experience. Getting rejected by Sera on the grounds of "We have a lot in common - we both like women" felt disappointing, yes, but also real. This also allowed the writers to make the characters' sexual/romantic preferences a part of their, well, character. We got Dorian's personal quest, which I think is great. Limiting Solas' options to just Lavellan allowed the writers to make it about him realizing that his people are not mere shadows. It allowed them to write the Vallaslin scene. None of this could have been done if he were romanceable to all races.

When you have diversity in romantic attraction among the companions, suddenly the pan and bi characters (in Bull and Josie respectively) feel like their orientation is part of who they are, rather than a game mechanic to prevent players from missing out on content.