#oh no this one is perfect I fear

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[territorial-utopia]

Huzzah! It's birthday time! I'm slowly accumulating more and more things I like (latest additions this vest I made and a travel typewriter! Still need to fix the latter one though)

Sure has been a year.

[faaun]

last night i got home kind of tipsy and very much in tears and my mother told me the force you exert to keep someone in your life is proportional to the force with which they will leave your life. if you have to fight tooth and claw to keep them, their leaving will be just as hard, just as harsh, and just as definite.

[flufflecat]

this is the most beautiful creature on earth and I will kill someone if it asks me to

[quinns-art-box]

and an extremely late thing i did for saimatsu week day 7!! tiny little comic the prompt was birthday :] absolutely adore the hc that kaede's bad at cooking but she is trying so hard and that's always good enough. plus they can just do it together <3

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

In another universe Christine and Erik skipped town and they live happily together raising Gustave...

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[astralhope]

Another thing in Zexal manga ending that broke my heart (among many other things) is the fact that Astral wasn't going to tell Yuma and the others that he would sacrifice himself after gathering all the Numbers.

He wanted them to come back to Earth before completing his mission so that they would never know. He would have disappeared from their life with a simple goodbye, he would have become just a memory for them.

They would never know what had happened to him, Yuma would never know about his sacrifice to stop E'Rah completely.

He wanted them to only be happy about their victory, to return to a normal life.

He didn't want Yuma to be sad because of him, because of what he must do.

But Yuma knew what Astral was hiding from them, and he wasn't going to accept that. How could he? After all those battles, how could he let Astral sacrifice himself? All those discourses about hope and the future, and then Astral would seal himself for all eternity, alone, without letting any of them know what his real fate was.

No, Yuma wouldn't accept that, even if that meant fighting against Astral, even if he had to fight against all the Numbers with Utopia as his only hope. He was ready to do anything to keep Astral from sacrifice himself.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i don't trust people who dislike gertrude robinson. objectively cool as fuck character. i also don't trust people who make her a grandmother figure in fanfiction but that's another conversation entirely

[ayyponine]

not to be a milennial but harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban really is that bitch....

[daincrediblegg]

Yes, Ben Daniels is coming to The Rings of Power as Círdan the Shipwright <3

Not gonna lie if it’s one thing that might tempt me into watching this show finally it’d be him…

[rollercoasterwords]

Please indulge me, I’m very visual… all the while you’ve been writing ATWMD, are there any actors or musicians you’re thinking of that best represent how you’d imagine the characters to look like?

no i’m sorry i am not a fancast person 🤧 i don’t picture celebs etc when i’m writing i just imagine guys in my head…but there are some lovely artists who have made art for wfrau if u want to get a visual that way! @lyr-caelum @theinvisiblemuseum and @queerfeardear have all made art which i’ve embedded in the fic & u can also scroll thru my #fic art tag to find it there!

[gonzodangerfeels]

Me: no really if you missed even one birth control pill you better double check you aren't pregnant.

[itspileofgoodthings]

all the lyrics across Taylor’s past 5 albums about how she hopes she doesn’t lose him (hopes he doesn’t leave, hopes it never ends) only to arrive at her saying “you’re losing me.”

[bravest]

thinking about the way that lingering after her leap of faith , kneeling with her hand outstretched for mono , was more of a reflexive impulse than a conscious choice . dimly six had recognised that she needed to catch her friend and help him , the way she had countless times before this . he'd jumped , and her hand had curled tightly around his . starved fingers snug and secure around his .

her heart was pounding so hard , it seemed to be physically hurting her chest . there was a dull ache burning there anyway - one that was burning more powerfully with every passing second . six's breaths were leaving her in short , sharp pants as she kneeled at the edge of this tremendous drop , gazing at the ground , unable to meet mono's gaze for a tremulous minute .

her music box . her recollection is hazy , the memories are not entirely clear . but she remembers the way mono brought down the hammer on it so brutally . the way it's comforting tune warbled brokenly , and finally stopped short altogether as the metal buckled under his weapon's impact .

every strike against it had wracked her with agony . unbeknownst to her , it had broken a beautiful spell ... a gentle trance that had finally pulled her out of this wretched world and allowed her to know comfort again , however false it might have been .

it could have been so perfect . he could have stayed with her . she wanted him to hear the gentle chimes too . there's another memory of moving closer to him when he arrived , joy surging through her at the familiar call of his voice . a recollection of showing him her treasured silver trinket , trusting him . they could have been safe there . they could have been happy . why did he ruin it ?

how could he smash it to pieces even as she had screamed for him to stop it !

her grasp had inadvertently loosened and her expression had contorted with hatred as she stewed on all that had unfolded . the little cry that mono let out shook her from the miserable flashback , and she musters the will to meet his eye at long last .

he has the audacity to look hopeful , beneath his anxiety . then - to look progressively confused . like he doesn't know what he did to her . blood boiling , eyes frenzied , a lump in her throat rapidly forming , she'd let her gaze bore into him .

his voice sounds faraway as he scrapes out a shaky plea . his fingernails are cutting stark red crescents into her hand as he desperately clutches her . it hurts . he hurts .

he's always been the one that hurts . there's no more bag to hide behind , and ... he looks just like ... !

revulsion . hate . terror . betrayal . heartbreak . the movement had to be swift and decisive - a girl hell bent on surviving this , on putting as much distance between herself and this boy as possible . she wrenched her hand free from his grip , shook him off . let him plummet .

then she rose to her feet , ignoring his deafening scream .

six dusted herself off , took a shaky breath as she turned on her heel . and she left him to his fate . didn't so much as glance back . hot , angry , miserable tears pricked at her eyes . she blinked them away .

[batsplat]

if you could change the outcome of any 3 motogp races (the outcome of the championship doesn’t change regardless tho) which ones would you chose?

one of those asks that immediately made me forget every single race I've watched in my life. it's a tough one, especially with the championship thing... I'm gonna add another criterion here and say nothing to do related to injury/death

so... I came up with one quite quickly, then got stuck, then came up with a second and got even more stuck. I'm quite reluctant to change any 'plot-relevant races' in the context of specific careers and rivalries, plus I'm ideologically opposed to stealing any win off a non-alien and giving it to an alien. which then kinda left me?? well. stuck. I don't like these picks but well maybe I'll come up with something better at some point

assen 2018: I simply could not come up with a third race so I'll just throw this one in. dovi + valentino really really should have gotten onto the podium in this race, those were extremely podium-worthy performances, it was such a deeply silly incident between the pair of them that took them out of podium contention. also it's still seen as a classic race and... I don't even begrudge the two beneficiaries for their podium, it's just one where the three best riders that day didn't end up on the podium and I would change that!! I don't even really care that much but also look I had a spot to fill. would've enjoyed the rancid podium vibes, it's what a race of that quality deserved

sepang 2018: just deeply annoying? like, I think it was a super impressive performance, the consistent lap times trick from a 78 year old was very neat, it was cute when jorge did unprompted valentino prop for metronome solidarity reasons, it's one of literally two premier class races where valentino crashed out of the lead so I don't even hold it against him. but... well, that one might have been building to a battle between marc and valentino, and it would've been fun to see that! not least because of location + relationship vibes in 2018. I'd change the result in preventing the crash, don't really care who wins after that point - hey, they can crash each other out if they want. I Just Wanted To See It

styria 2020: bit of a niche one but I remember being pissed off by this so I'm going with it - this should have been mir's win without the bloody red flag. now I'm very sorry that maverick was just having an abysmal time in austria, peace and love to him, I'd probably never step foot in the country again after the eight days he had in that country.... but still, his bike attempting to murder him did ruin what really should've been joan's first win. I'm very defensive of mir's win stats and I was supporting the title bid with zero wins agenda once that looked plausible, but now that he's just gotten stuck on one win for quite a few years... well, again, I do think it's kinda iconic but I'd also let him have two. and back then he wasn't even really looking like a title contender and was still going for his FIRST win.... I was feeling very sorry for him so. there